Heterosexual men watching gay porn – what’s that all about?
What’s the link between early childhood experiences and sexual fantasy or compulsion in adulthood?
Such questions make for plenty of debate on this site, so I can thoroughly recommend ‘Straight Men, Gay Porn’ and Other Brain Map Mysteries – a recent article by Marnia Robinson. Here’s an excerpt:
Heavy porn users sometimes notice that as tolerance builds for their earlier tastes, they move in new directions in their search for intense arousal. Instead of seeking porn that accords with their former brain maps, many seek out what shocks them—perhaps because “forbidden” and “fear-producing,” when combined with sexual arousal, offer a bigger brain chemical kick… at least for a time. Each shift wires the new tastes into the brain.
… some users’ porn choices, such as spanking or domination scenarios, may be related to subconscious, that is, implicit, childhood memories of which they are unaware. Once activated by the “right” porn, and reinforced with orgasm, such scenarios can more swiftly become compulsions.
Completely unanticipated sexual tastes can arise.
I’m a big fan of Marnia Robinson and Gary Wilson’s research and writing, and can highly recommend their website www.reuniting.info
Hi, when I first saw this site I was amazed that all the things he was doing and all the things I had been feeling, were almost exactly what everyone else was saying. I wrote to you almost 2 years ago. I can truly say nothing has changed, except that I understand that porn addiction is real and I know what damage it can cause to the addicted and to the SO.
I have tried everything in the book and some things out of the book. Although my understanding of what an addiction is is clear and I do try my hardest not to be degrading or insulting just because I’m hurt and angry. I have said things I’m not proud of. The whole time dealing with this I have kept in mind that trying to talk to him and give him the respect he deserves is very important. I do realize that is part of the problem, he doesn’t respect himself and he does have low self-esteem. That doesn’t always make it not hurt or make me feel any better about myself.
I feel like I need to try to describe who he is before I ask the questions. He is 44, he has been married twice, once when he was very young, it only lasted a couple of years, and from some of the things I’ve heard from family, porn was an issue. He got married again about 6 years ago, they were only married for about 18 months and I know for certain porn is what broke them up. I read her dear john letter.
Of course, I didn’t know any of this before I became involved with him, I found out a little at a time. I was 50 when we met, I had been married for 20 years and raised 3 children. My marriage ended because my ex was verbally and emotionally abusive. I’m sure that played a role in why I would get involved with J. I’m not certain how but it just makes sense. That is one of the reasons it is important for me to get the whole picture, because at this point I can’t see us staying together much longer.
Unfortunately, I hurt my back in May 09 and I’m getting ready to go in for back surgery. I don’t have a lot of options at this time. I need to figure this out for me so I don’t make the same mistake again. Right now it just makes sense, for both of us, for me to stay but only for convenience. Which makes me very sad, because I do really care about him. I also think that he cares about me, as much as he can right now.
When we met I was feeling pretty good about myself, I had been single for a while, and I felt like I was ready for a serious relationship. But whatever self-esteem I had built up is long gone and its getting worse. I didn’t know anything about porn addiction, I think I had heard it on TV once or twice. At that time my exact thoughts were, “that’s a lame excuse for cheating on your partner”. That’s how ignorant about the subject I was. So when I started to figure things out, like how much time he was spending on it and how little time he was spending with me, and the little or no sex thing really threw me. read more…
It’s no surprise that a high proportion of addicts are also clinically depressed. It’s a chicken and egg question: are depressed people more prone to addiction, or does their addiction cause depression?
A recent Leeds University study leaves this question open, but confirms the link between excessive internet use and increased likelihood of depression. To quote Dr Catriona Morrisson:
What is clear is that, for a small subset of people, excessive use of the internet could be a warning signal for depressive tendencies.
Commenting in the Guardian today, John Crace asks:
How long do you think a normal person could spend surfing the net before starting to feel really depressed? The Leeds researchers identified social networking, porn and gambling sites as the natural habitat of depressed addicts. No surprise there. Talking online to people you don’t really know, sweaty silicon faking orgasm, and losing money you can’t afford to lose. All in perpetuity. What’s not to get depressed about?
And he has an novel take on the motivation/depression balance:
More interesting research might have been to identify which sites make you depressed the quickest. Could 10 minutes of Facebook or porn make you feel quite happy? It’s minute 11 and thereafter you have to watch out for.
I’d say that high levels of anticipation and inner-wrangling contribute to porn addiction, in addition to the number of minutes spent absorbing it. Even people who spend 20 minutes a day surfing porn can feel hooked and emotionally drained.
Also, it is interesting to note that of the 1,319 people surveyed in the Leeds University research, only 18 – 1.4% – were classified as internet addicts.
The Guardian comment can be read here, and the Leeds University research abstract is available here.
I’m very much at a loss, and this blog seems to have thoughtful people participating, so… maybe some of you have some insight? Please?
My husband and I were married only two months ago, but have been together for more than four years. We have a two-year-old daughter. Let me say upfront that my husband is an incredible person, someone I really respect and am very thankful for in general.
However. Bit of a porn/sex problem. Majorly. Majorly.
The backstory is that my husband comes from a quite disturbed family. His dad was a complete narcissist nut, a compulsive womanizer, whose sexual issues apparently dominated family life in an ugly way: The whole family, including three kids, knew all about his affairs when they were growing up, and knew about the devastating effect it had on the mother, etc. My husband was a total social hermit and a virgin until he was 29 (and, mind you, he’s not just a very accomplished and charming man, he’s as handsome as Paul Newman or something, seriously) and never had any sort of romantic relationship until that age. My husband’s older sister has had a history of avoiding intimacy and lives with a much older man in a sexless marriage. So. Okay. Over the years, there has been much speculation in the family about whether or not the Bad Dad molested the sister or not. The consensus was “Not,” because she can’t remember anything like that.
I’m quite adventurous sexually, and over the past few years have tried to encourage my husband to open up about his sexual interests and desires — generally to little avail. I’ve gotten him to watch porn with me a few times, but he didn’t seem into it. I’ve gotten books, toys, gone to adult stores, etc etc. But my husband always seemed kind of turned off by all this, and — at least until super turned on by tons of physical stimulation — remained quite inhibited. He would never admit to having any desires or predilections at all… beyond thinking it might be nice to have sex out doors. (Which, of course, I was very glad to do!) He claimed to be just super-vanilla-y. So while when we do have sex, it’s sometimes been fantastic, more often, we have a real “disconnect” between us in bed. I knew there was real passion in there, inside him, but I couldn’t seem to access it. It was like he was distant sexually.
So, I’ve known for a long time that he enjoys porn on the internet. And I’ve always said it was fine and dandy with me. I’ve tried many many times to get him to tell me what he was into when he watched porn, but I never got much answer beyond “I like real people really enjoying themselves.”
Which brings us to Saturday night. I had to go to a volunteer thing Saturday night, and my husband was alone all evening. When I came home, he was watching the computer with the lights off in his office, and I knew he was watching porn videos.
So, Sunday? Sunday I went on his computer and looked into the history, to see what kinda porn it was. read more…
My partner is nice, non-abusive and a great provider – so does that make his porn addiction OK?
My partner has a problem with hard core porn. He has been addicted since a young boy. He is very nice, non abusive and a great provider, so does that make it ok?
We have talked about it and made some headway a few years ago when we met, however here we are almost 3 years and now he has a Crackberry and viewing daily while at work.
There is such tension and now I know why, he is viewing it every moment he can while away from home. He makes excuses as to why we are not intimate, but all they are is excuses. I go along with it in hope he will work it out. Though lying about it makes it hard. One day he was at work and I found out he had been viewing porn all day. Well he met his deadline but not like he usually does.
He mostly views asian transsexuals, so of course I wonder if he is gay. Of course I do not know what he is viewing now and it doesn’t matter because he is not doing anything to make it better.
We are not married though commited to one another and I just don’t know how to address this in an adult manner anymore. He does not see how it is affecting our relationship and I do not know what to do. I have tried being quiet about it, bring up the subject and he just gives an answer to shut me up for the moment.
Help.
Thank you M for sharing your situation here.
The recognition that he’s been addicted since he was a young boy is an important one. There will have been reasons for this and I have some empathy for him. But above all, it proves that his habit is not a reaction to you or your relationship. He has always used the ritual of watching porn to manage his emotions at some level.
I would suggest that he fails to see the real impact on your relationship because he no longer views your relationship as you do. After three years of balancing the relationship with his daily habit through lies and excuses, he feels as if his habit has won. It has become a big game for him.
Sadly, this is a very common scenario. His habit has turned you into a companionship partner. He values you as a provider of security, maybe even a mother figure in his naughty little boy routine. But all the time, his obsession with porn is getting its own way. His habit has removed all the foundations of an intimate, loving relationship.
I am making no criticism of you for going along with it all this time. Many partners find themselves doing exactly the same, living in hope that something will change. But all the time that you do, you’ll continue getting the same.
For him, a wake up call is long overdue. Maybe this will happen when he faces the sack from work, or the embarrassment of disciplinary proceedings. Perhaps realising that you have no desire to be his convenience partner any longer will make some impact.
You can’t make him stop playing this game, but you can break out of it yourself. Try to make it clear to him that this is exactly how you see the situation and you’ve had enough. At the same time, I would suggest that you give serious thought to how you could move on from him. It’s horrible and heartbreaking, but this outcome would be preferable to three more years of quietly putting up.
I really hope this helps.
My story sounds very familiar to so many of the stories I have read here… I have been in a wonderful relationship with my now husband for about 3 years, married for 6 months. While dating, he swept me off my feet with his honesty and (what I had thought) same morals as myself. He was always a bit touchy about me using his computer when I was at his place, but I just figured that was his one sensitive point which I just let go since he didn’t have any others.
We had a whirlwind year, last year- I became pregnant after a few months of us being engaged, we married, left our jobs and made a major move across the country. He actually moved first and I followed him a couple months later after we were married.
Here’s where it starts to get juicy… When I moved into our house, which at the time I was pregnant, I noticed something just wasn’t right with our relationship. It was easy to make excuses for it – new jobs, new location, just married, getting closer to our child being born. I confronted him, completely convinced he was cheating on me. I went crazy trying to find evidence on his phone, but I couldn’t come up with anything concrete. One day, I went onto his precious computer and found quite the surprise. The history was full of porn sites and even one escort site. I was heartbroken, but I didn’t confront him because I just didn’t want to believe it. His computer has become my daily obsession as I have fumbled around (I’m not a genius at computers) and found a lot of porn on his computer. I have found files that pre date our relationship, but the hardest ones that I have found are the ones during our relationship right up to today.
As if finding the porn files aren’t hard enough, I found files of videos of girls whom he pays on a video chat site to perform acts of masturbation and play into his fetish of licking their own breasts. These videos date from when we first started dating to pretty recently. I completely view this behavior as cheating. Had I known about him paying girls $2.99 a minute for about 10 minutes I would not have married him.
Even though, the porn dates to when we were dating and engaged I didn’t notice the same behaviors from him as I do now – the desire to be alone for long stretches of time and lack of affection.
Here’s the real kicker!!! As far as I know, he doesn’t know that I know about any of this. He doesn’t seem to know that I know how to date and time his web browser history to know that he spent an entire night looking up porn sites when he was supposedly “working” on his paperwork. He also doesn’t seem to know that I know that he has subscribed to at least 4 websites which completely sucks because we are so strapped for cash that we are behind in our rent.
I have asked him straight out if he looks at porn and his answer is always no. He lies so much that I’m not sure if he knows the truth any more. I had really hoped that the birth of our child and the fact that he recently got a steady job would make his porn watching decrease but it hasn’t. At this moment, he is locked in his home office under the preface that he is working… but I know he’s not. He exploded at me earlier this evening about me knocking on his door and that is usually a clear indicator that he’s going to watch porn all night long. I know that he will not come to bed tonight or be intimate with me for a few more days. I call these nights “porn-a-palooza”. read more…
I am curious to write you because one angle of my problem is different from what I read here. I’m an artist, and I have an acute visual imagination. Since boyhood this imagination has been busy with detailed and specific fantasies that, as an attractive man of twenty-seven, I am sometimes able to fulfil. That sounds like an enviable beginning. To my loss, though, to the loss of many useful hours, I found porn before I found sex.
I am not suggesting that porn ruined my sex life. When I’m very happily taken, my habit shrinks to nil. But if (as now) I’m sleeping alone and out of work and money and thinking of someone far away, porn is a relief. It’s not the only relief (I did call myself an artist) but it’s the most immediately compelling.
It’s the most immediately compelling in low moments, when it doesn’t make sense to take a long walk because I just did that, and I’m too worried about the job search or the person I miss to let my hands work. When I’m facing the blank wall of my thoughts, porn is a way to set the room on fire.
But I told you that something is different about my case, and this is it: Porn relieves my tension, but that’s not why I have needed it. Porn relieves my lust, but that’s not why I’ve kept going back. Porn gives concrete images to abstract fantasies. I look at it to tell myself, There are real people somewhere who want to do this.
For some male fantasies I would not be able to claim that. So much mainstream porn is obviously a chore to the people involved and too often might be worse—the evidence of human trafficking and slavery. But people don’t have to be captured or paid for what turns me on.
For instance, I’m fond of dominatrix behavior. Between youtube and flickr, that’s exceedingly simple to find. If you even just think of how many old movies have some dominatrix scene— then imagine, on top of those hundreds, all the party videos, old commercials, candid shots, and self-portraits that are added all the time— it’s maddening. And if I’m alone and I don’t look at them then it feels like repression. read more…
