And yes, having _sex_ is only a swipe away for women. But having decent sex that you enjoy and is another matter altogether. And that's before thinking about safety.
If I was looking for reasons why fewer women seem to be into porn, I'd say it's because the vast majority of porn is explicitly made to cater to male desires.
For many of these "porn addiction" cases, there's more going on than just "he is addicted to porn and now he won't have sex with me". Communication is a two-way street and women are a little eager to play the 'passive princess who can do no wrong' without realizing most of society is training men to avoid making assumptions.
Not to go into too much detail, but I've had to seriously recalibrate my "respect women" upbringing to make my wife happy. And I'm not even talking sub/dom stuff or outright rape-fantasy things like I've heard tell of from my (somewhat shell-shocked) unattached and actively-dating friends.
Sex is weird.
But it's really hard to hear all day long from every source how terrible men are, and how we need to be gentler creatures.
And then a shocking percentage of women actually do seem to want you to be that animal they decry as soon as you get into the bedroom.
I've seen tons of "the media" contradicting your point, but I guess if you said "some people say this, others don't", your point wouldn't be as compelling
Whenever someone pretends that modern mass media is not overwhelmingly in favor of the current zeitgeist, it seems to me that person is either arguing in bad faith, or is startlingly naive. Finding one minute counterexample of a publication that no one has ever heard of does not imply an overall balanced media landscape. It would be as strange as arguing that western 'the media' doesn't support Ukraine over Russia; just absurdly incorrect to a cursory inspection.
yes, literally dozens, like fox, OANN, breitbart (I will happily continue to follow suit if you want to as well)
> Whenever someone pretends that modern mass media is not overwhelmingly in favor of the current zeitgeist
modern mass media is a product of the people, who determine the zeitgeist, so it is pretty unsurprising that the attitudes of media overall reflect the attitudes of people overall
similarly, we would obviously expect to see less content advocating extreme views that society largely rejects like "all abortion should be illegal", compared to content conforming with social norms
but let's get off this tangent and back on topic: whether you say "the media" or "media", my original response remains true: "media" says plenty to the opposite of what you claim it says, and you're simply cherry picking observations that fit your own narrative around "media" itself
but I guess "media says this sometimes, and sometimes the opposite" doesn't make for as compelling of a narrative
That's not to mention the onus of taking charge is still put onto men, while men are actively punished for making a mistake, and women tend to get off without social repercussions despite continuing to play passive. We're already seeing the cracks forming.
Do you expect any of this getting better if porn vanished overnight? If anything, it would get much worse.
When a porn addiction is developed before you hit your teens it's hard to blame a dysfunctional sex life on externalities.
What has changed is the availability of porn introducing an extremely low cost alternative to sex, reducing the impetus for making the effort to find a partner (relative to previous times). Maybe even reducing the impetus to putting in the effort to seduce an existing partner!
Of course, it is not uniform across all men of course. I suspect those who are able to attract/interact with partners more easily will opt to do that, and those that are not will opt for the easier, lower cost option (even though there may be other long term costs).
That makes intuitive sense, but is far from the reality. Many men, even in otherwise healthy relationships, prefer porn.
Again I really wish more data was collected on this but anecdotally I've seen hundreds on online discussions from both women who are concerned about their partner and declining sex life and from men who want to quit using porn to better service the needs of their partner.
Porn addiction is real, serious, and more common than you may think.
With porn, it is the brain making a cost benefit calculation that putting in the effort for the real thing is not worth the cost relative to cost/benefit ratio of porn.
As in do I make all the effort to get my wife in the mood, or do I open a website and be done with it. Or do I control my diet and exercise, or do I open a website and be done with it.
Brain scans show the pathways for porn addiction are very similar to those found in cocain and amphetamine addicts. Perhaps this is true for you, but don't discredit porn addiction as not a "real addiction" when it's an established fact that it is one on par with substance abuse.
Not according to the American Psychological Association [1]
A brain scans showing a similar response to other pleasure stimula is far from "addiction".
GP has a valid point. Blaming porn for sex issues is an oversimplification of a very complex issue involving deep interpersonal dynamics.
[1] https://www.insider.com/guides/health/mental-health/porn-add...
I didn't blame porn alone, but I said I wouldn't discount it's contribution to the issue as GP did. I agree it's a complex issue.
I said nothing of the outcomes, though I wouldn't be so sure. We don't have any data on the outcomes of porn addiction. I wonder how many young men have committed suicide in large part due to their porn addiction, or how many have lost their jobs. It's certainly a non-zero number.
-I want porn, because I carve intimacy
-I want to smoke, so I can relax or be seen as Y.
-I drink a lot of coffee because I dont have time for Quality Sleep.
The fact that these reasons exist doesn't make the addiction any less of an addiction. It's often a reason why rehab centers try to take a holistic approach and not only tackle the addiction, but the surrounding lifestyle choices that further enable the addiction.
It's not "addiction is a masked emotional needs problem" it's, "addiction is often accompanied by emotional needs problems". Subtly different, but different nonetheless.
Ive experienced the effects of porn addiction, and/or viewing from a young age, from both sides.
I have pretty niche tastes since i started watching in my very early teens, and though i find men very attractive its harder to finish with them.
Ive been with several partners who preferred porn to me. The latest had very, very unrealistic standards. They objectified my body, hard, and I swear their porn use affected their capacity for empathy. They said and did things that made me feel like a replaceable thing, they compared my to porn stars (and found me lacking).
They would collect massive amounts of porn and run off to use it multiple times a day… which wouldve honestly been fine, except for the fact that it did really affect their ability to connect with me. After theyd use porn their mood and empathy / behavior towards me would markedly change for the worse.
I am a fairly attractive, _very_ willing and attentive partner.
These experiences have honestly really damaged my self esteem and willingness to date.
I have also since stopped using porn a) to fix the first line and b) i cannot watch it without being reminded of my experiences with these men and their criticisms of my body.
Do you have data of this phenomenon?
You obviously know the answer to your question since I repeatedly stressed my lack of data and how it was anecdotal.
We don't have any data either supporting or debunking that claim, I only am repeating what I've seen play out hundreds of time in various digital spaces. Some phenomena just haven't been studied in good enough detail to have hard data in either direction. A lack of data for an assertion doesn't disprove that assertion, it just makes it temporarily unprovable.
I'm sure the majority of men in healthy relationship prefer sex with their partner to porn. I'm also sure there are a non-trivial amount who do prefer porn.
I think anecdotally you may be right. But preference is a very hard thing to determine. It's unfair to compare porn to sex the same way it is unfair to compare watching a sport to playing it. One requires very little effort, the other monumental effort comparatively.
Ah yeah, fair enough. My mistake.
>Again I really wish more data was collected on this but anecdotally I've seen hundreds on online discussions from both women who are concerned about their partner and declining sex life and from men who want to quit using porn to better service the needs of their partner.
1: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nsfg/key_statistics/s.htm#sexualact... 2: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nsfg/key_statistics/n.htm#numberlif... 3: https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/sexual-fantasies-our-mispercepti... 4: https://bespokesurgical.com/2021/06/24/sexual-history-by-sta...
Fuck it I’ll lead or be part of a crew to get on a space ship and maybe never come back. Being stuck at a laptop all day is so fucking boring now because work from home means I’d rather not.
I want to be out and about. Not stuck inside ALL day (along with everyone else).
We don't want them here, though, which is why they can't do it. If pre-contact America/Australia had strong passport controls, Europeans wouldn't have been 'venturing out to it', either.
Worst case scenario if I move across the Atlantic is that I don’t go bankrupt because I had a medical emergency. You know what? That doesn’t sound so bad.
My chances of going there are slim though so you're going to have to do it alone.
A one night stand is way way more risky for women in most ways whether with regard to the risk of being assaulted or catching STIs or unplanned pregnancy. On top of that, society heavily views sexually promiscuous women more negatively than the same behaviour in men. All of this means women can't treat no-strings sex as flippantly as men can and you shouldn't discount those risks and costs by saying sex is a swipe away for them. It is very much like if I were to say any man could get laid whenever they want by hiring a sex worker while ignoring the risks and costs involved.
These arguments also seem to ignore that the vast majority of women are not so universally attractive that getting on a dating site immediately results in a plethora of matches that they would want to have sex with (even ignoring my first point). If they lacked any standards and were willing to have sex with anyone yes it would be very easy to find a partner, but thats true for the vast majority of men as well.
The fact is most people, quite reasonably, only want to have sex with people they find attractive in situations where they feel safe, even when its only meant for physical pleasure, and this limiting factor greatly reduces the number of opportunities that are available regardless of the person's gender.
These arguments also don't fit with the real world statistics. In the US men on average have sex sooner than women[1] and have sex with more partners during their lifetime[2][3]. It differs by country and its possible to find studies and demographics where the more promiscuous gender switches, but the numbers never align with an assertion like "women don't like porn cause they can just go have real sex instead".
While its true a larger percentage of men consume porn, its very clear a large number of women do as well. You likely think you haven't met women that enjoy it because of stigma making them unwilling to discuss it openly. The biggest pornographic video site finds more than 1/3rd of their visitors are female[4].
Its also possibly because most discussions you see use a too narrow definition of "pornography". For instance, academic analyses often do not include types of pornography heavily preferred by women. When they do include things such as written erotica and not just images or video they find a majority (60%) of women enjoy porn[5].
And hopefully its clear I'm not trying to attack you personally. One study I came across while digging up the numbers found American men think women on average have 27 and men 21 sexual partners in their lifetime while the real numbers they found were 12 for women and 20 for men[3]. The perception that women have more sex is quite common and shared by a large number of men despite not being true. I simply hope my wasting an hour of my life writing all this up with citations will do a bit to change that.
1: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nsfg/key_statistics/s.htm#sexualact... 2: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nsfg/key_statistics/n.htm#numberlif... 3: https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/sexual-fantasies-our-mispercepti... 4: https://www.pornhub.com/insights/yir-2021 5: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30358432/
I haven't met many women into porn, probably because a one night stand is just a zero effort tinder swipe away, from the comfort of your pijamas in your living room.
As a man, you end up turning to porn or paying for sex, or drinking or doing drugs, to compensate the lack of intimacy in your personal life, as that just leads to depression and lack of any self worth.