Porn addiction separates us from sex, and that feels rubbish
Do you ever feel that watching porn has disconnected you from sex? Maybe getting it on has become a solitary experience; increasingly, it's just you and the internet. If so, you really aren't alone.
When porn becomes a problem habit, real life intimacy with our partners dries up, and what we do in front of the computer comes to represent our entire 'sex life'. But how does this activity fit with our 'real life'? After a solitary orgasm, we usually want to forget the experience and hope we can somehow break out of the habit.
A recent Times Online article reflects on what happens when we divorce our sex lives from the rest of our adult lives:
If we separate sex from the rest of our life and think that somehow bondage gear, lubricant and contraception are things that happen after dark, that are murky and not very acceptable, then we are saying, I think, that there is a part of ourselves that we find murky and unacceptable and we are only giving vent to it in our sex life.
This turns sex into a wholly negative thing, perhaps illicit and exciting sometimes, but generally categorised as bad. Splitting off a part of our personalities like that is dangerous because it means that everything associated with the less presentable part of ourselves gets tied up, automatically, with sex. This can lead to violence against women, porn-addiction and problematic relationships in general.
In many ways, this refers to letting go of shame and awkwardness over the things that we find sexually appealing. It's about learning to accept and enjoy our sexuality, and share this empowerment with our partners. And there's no reason why erotic material can't be a part of a healthy, pro-sex attitude.
Sex life isn’t some dark dirty other thing, it’s just life. If it’s open, intimate and part of communication it will make you feel wonderful. If it’s split off and shady, an effort to purge rather than communicate, it will make you feel rubbish.
A porn habit, on the other hand, certainly makes us feel rubbish. If we've cornered ourselves in the obsessive, solitary pursuit of porn, there's no leeway for acceptance, communication and sharing. It's a pretty clear indicator that something needs to change.
Porn Game Over is Jason's self-help plan for quitting the habit. Click here for a fresh approach to internet pornography addiction...
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8 comments
This is a really interesting
This is a really interesting observation that in porn addiction, every aspect of the "Shadow self" gets tied up in sex. But strangely, by compartmentalizing the Shadow in this way, everything becomes sexualized. It's like any time the porn addict feels bad about him or herself--whether it has to do with work or even non-sexual aspects of a relationship--the immediate response is to look at porn or masturbate or act out sexually in some other way.
I think in many ways, this can go back to the childhood issues we were all discussing on the last post. If bad, shameful feelings are tied up with a sexual event in childhood/early adolescence, then that event can be very powerful in conditioning a person to sexualize any other stressful event--no matter how small--in adulthood. It's as though any type of stress or feeling of low self esteem becomes connected with sex in the mind.
Hello, Whilst I agree with
Hello,
Whilst I agree with a good deal of what has been said in this article. I don't completely agree with everything. OK! each of us is an animal (though we like to try & forget this evolutionary fact) and therefore we have retained our animal nature & this includes our sexual drives & sexual desires. The sexual desires we have are an integral part of who we are & so there is nothing shameful or bad about them. They are completely natural, they are a healthy part of the whole person.
When you live "without the use of porn" at all, you have a sexual relationship with yourself first and foremost. You are in touch with your whole self including being in touch with your sexual self i.e. your unique sexuality what ever form that takes. And the expression of your normal sexuality through loving with another person should at best enrich your life because it is an expression of intimacy and desire for your partner. We are in danger of forgetting what sex is really for, not just reproduction, not just for pleasure but sex at its best is for the strengthening of the bonds of a relationship. Through sex relationships remain alive, are richer and the bonds last longer over time,etc. To me sex should be best the expression of my love for my partner & win me the prize of real intimacy.
Sadly, using porn (as opposed to the erotic which is different) has the potential to split us off from our deeper self, objectification is a result of using porn and often leads to dis-association. Dis-association is actually very unhealthy and has the potential to cause serious mental problems if not resolved. Porn definitely splits us off from connection with our own sexual self. The solitary orgasm using porn usually left me feeling even more empty than before & damaged my self esteem yet further and left me even more depressed & self hating. Using porn is almost guaranteed to reduce the chances of having real intimacy with a real person & actual sex more of a distant possibility in my opinion. Or to put it yet another way if you do want real sex with a real partner its NOT going to happen if your doing porn every day.
Sometimes a person might turn
Sometimes a person might turn to using porn for comfort if they cannot handle some kind of stressful life event, even some kind of conflict at work or dispute at home. Anything that a person cannot handle emotionally might be repressed (pushed away, swallowed down, blocked,etc) by using porn to numb it away. Sadly, this doesn't work because those difficult feelings remain inside us and remain alive too within our psyche. These feelings are put into our shadow bag, these feelings remain trapped but alive inside the shadow bag. Alcohol or drugs can loosen the ties that hold the bag tightly closed & controlled, hence so much violence or anger on a Saturday night after people have had a few drinks.
**Some people (including myself) are especially prone to turning to porn as a means of trying to control extremely difficult feelings or emotions. This has an enormous amount to do with the kind of childhood environment you grew up within and the kind of psychological boundaries (rules & laws) that you learned in that family.
**When you grow up with either No! boundaries or unclear boundaries in your childhood that makes repressing your emotions far more likely and it makes trying to deal with feelings quite scary. When its just NOT safe to feel or show your emotions they must be held in check some how. Porn is therefore a perfect counterfoil for this kind of childhood process i.e. easy repressive comfort again you are not allowing yourself to feel the difficult scary emotions, such as anger or such as acute anxiety,etc. Porn is the perfect pain killer to numb all this.
"Splitting off a part of our
"Splitting off a part of our personalities like that is dangerous because it means that everything associated with the less presentable part of ourselves gets tied up, automatically, with sex."
I'm going to have to mull this one over. It seems that Jason has managed to extract something very profound from a seemingly lightweight newspaper article. I haven't seen porn addiction explained in this way before and it is interesting.
Good comparison to the shadow
Good comparison to the shadow bag Alex. Much food for thought here
Hi Duncan, Quote:
Hi Duncan,
Quote: [“Splitting off a part of our personalities like that is dangerous because it means that everything associated with the less presentable part of ourselves gets tied up, automatically, with sex.”]
ANS:- No!, I think your wrong you cannot make that assumption, not everything then becomes associated with sex. NOT everything that goes into the shadow bag is associated with sex, or sexuality. But a good deal of what the shadow bag contains might be associated with feelings of say shame, or anger, or guilt, or anxiety,etc. I do not agree with you from personal experience, & from professional experience of working with clients therapeutically.
"NOT everything that goes
"NOT everything that goes into the shadow bag is associated with sex, or sexuality. But a good deal of what the shadow bag contains might be associated with feelings of say shame, or anger, or guilt, or anxiety,etc."
Alex, clearly the Shadow self isn't all about sex--and neither are the resulting feelings of shame, anger, guilt and anxiety. But wouldn't you say that those who have issues with porn use the porn/masturbation as a way of "managing" these feelings of shame, anger, guilt, anxiety, etc? Which then leads to more feelings of shame, anger, guilt, and anxiety--which then complicates things when trying to open up the "Shadow Bag" and taking a peek at what's in there?
I think when someone is using porn to deal with "Shadow" feelings, the act of using the porn itself adds to those feelings, making it hard to know exactly where the feeling is stemming from.
Hello again Margaux, YES!
Hello again Margaux,
YES! agree with you very much. OK! here is another way I think of this. You have bad feelings which you cannot deal with so you repress them & shove them into your shadow bag. The very act of shoving those feelings into the bag is bad enough but then the person uses porn to complete that process by numbing out. The action of using the porn could be likened to finally tying the shadow bag closed with a big strong piece of rope. Every time a person uses porn & numbs out the shadow bag grows a little bit bigger, like a balloon expanding as more gas is pumped in to it.
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