COMMENTS: While the study’s title emphasizes a fairly universal finding (men don’t chat about jerking off to porn), the important findings are (many more excerpts below the abstract) :
Pornography began eroding their sense of autonomy when men experienced a loss of control over their use, which underpinned the core aspect of their problematic use. Over time, the men perceived that pornography had resulted in having unrealistic expectations when it came to sex and sexuality, the way they viewed women, and led to diminished sexual function.
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Abstract
Psychology of Men & Masculinities (2019).
Sniewski, Luke,Farvid, Pani
Psychology of Men & Masculinities, Jul 18 , 2019, N
The rapid rise in the availability of pornography has given the world instant access to a vast and diverse supply of pornographic material. Although it is possible for both genders to experience a problematic relationship with pornography, the large majority of online pornography consumers who identify as addicted to pornography are heterosexual men. This article aims to examine the experiences of adult heterosexual men with problematic pornography use in New Zealand. A total of 15 heterosexual men were recruited via advertising, social media outreach, and word of mouth to take part in interviews about their self-perceived problematic pornography consumption habits. A data-driven inductive thematic analysis was conducted to explore the different ways men talked about their problematic pornography use. The primary reason men kept their viewing hidden from the world was because of the accompanying experiences of guilt and shame that would inevitably follow most—if not all—viewing sessions or attempts at opening up about their use. Pornography began eroding their sense of autonomy when men experienced a loss of control over their use, which underpinned the core aspect of their problematic use. Over time, the men perceived that pornography had resulted in having unrealistic expectations when it came to sex and sexuality, the way they viewed women, and led to diminished sexual function. Further work is needed in using strategies that could offer alternatives to problematic pornographic use or interventions that help the individual learn how to productively respond to the affective triggers of discomfort that trigger use.
FROM THE FULL PAPER
Excerpts discussing porn-induced sexual dysfunctions
Regardless of the outlet, when men broke the silence about their pornography use and were met with a lack of acceptance, this scenario serve to reinforce hidden use. Some men talked about seeking professional help to address their problematic pornography use. Such attempts at help-seeking had not been productive for the men, and at times even exacerbated feelings of shame. Michael, a university student who used pornography primarily as a coping mechanism for study-related stress, was having issues with erectile dysfunction during sexual encounters with women and sought help from his General Practitioner Doctor (GP):
Michael: When I went to the doctor at 19 [. . .], he prescribed Viagra and said [my issue] was just performance anxiety. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn’t. It was personal research and reading that showed me the issue was porn [. . .] If I go to the doctor as a young kid and he prescribes me the blue pill, then I feel like no one is really talking about it. He should be asking about my porn use, not giving me Viagra. (23, Middle-Eastern, Student)
As a result of his experience, Michael never went back to that GP and started doing his own research online. He eventually found an article discussing a man approximately his age describing a similar type of sexual dysfunction, which caused him to consider pornography as a potential contributor. After making a concerted effort to lower his pornography use, his erectile dysfunction issues began to improve. He reported that even though his total frequency of masturbation did not reduce, he only watched pornography for about half of those instances. By halving the amount of times he combined masturbation with pornography, Michael said he was able to significantly improve his erectile function during sexual encounters with women.
Phillip, like Michael, sought help for another sexual issue related to his pornography use. In his case, the problem was a noticeably reduced sex drive. When he approached his GP about his issue and its links to his pornography use, the GP reportedly had nothing to offer and instead referred him to a male fertility specialist:
Phillip: I went to a GP and he referred me to specialist who I didn’t believe was particularly helpful. They didn’t really offer me a solution and weren’t really taking me seriously. I ended up paying him for six weeks of testosterone shots, and it was $100 a shot, and it really didn’t do anything. That was their way to treat my sexual dysfunction. I just do not feel the dialogue or situation was adequate. (29, Asian, Student)
Interviewer: [To clarify a previous point you mentioned, is this the experience] that prevented you from seeking help thereafter?
Phillip: Yup.
The GPs and specialists sought by the participants seemed to offer only biomedical solutions, an approach that has been criticized within literature (Tiefer, 1996). Hence, the service and treatment these men were able to receive from their GPs was not only deemed inadequate, but also alienated them from further accessing professional help. Although biomedical responses seem to be the most popular answer for doctors (Potts, Grace, Gavey, & Vares, 2004), a more holistic and client-centered approach is needed, as the issues highlighted by men are likely psychological and possibly created by pornography use.
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Lastly, men reported the impacts pornography had had on their sexual function, something that has only recently been examined within the literature. For example, Park and colleagues (2016) found that Internet pornography viewing might be associated with erectile dysfunction, decreased sexual satisfaction, and diminished sexual libido. Participants in our study reported similar sexual dysfunctions, which they attributed to pornography use. Daniel reflected on his past relationships in which he was not able to get and keep an erection. He associated his erectile dysfunction with his girlfriends’ bodies not comparing to what he had become attracted to when watching pornography:
Daniel: My previous two girlfriends, I stopped finding them arousing in a way that wouldn’t have happened to someone who was not watching porn. I had seen so many naked female bodies, that I knew the particular things that I liked and you just start forming a very clear ideal about what you want in a woman, and real women aren’t like that. And my girlfriends didn’t have perfect bodies and I think that’s fine, but I think that got in the way of finding them arousing. And that caused problems in the relationships. There are times I couldn’t sexually perform because I was not aroused. (27, Pasifika, Student)
Losing Control
All participants reported that their pornography use was outside of their conscious control. All had difficulties curbing, reducing, or ceasing their pornography use when they attempted to reduce or abstain from viewing. David shook his head and smirked as he reflected on his difficulty in abstaining from pornography:
David: It’s this funny thing because my brain will start with some- thing like “you should look at porn,” and then my brain will think that “oh, I shouldn’t do that,” but then I’ll go and look at it anyway. (29, Pa¯keha¯, Professional)
David describes an intrapsychic conflict, where he is psychologically pulled in different directions when it comes to his pornography use. For David, and many of the other participants, the temptation to consume pornography consistently won out in this internal “tug of war.”
One participant talked about the strong visceral experiences he felt when he became aroused. His temptation and craving to use pornography were so overwhelming that he could not focus on anything else until the urge had been satisfied:
Michael: When I’m aroused, I have to masturbate. I literally have no control over it. It controls my decisions. When I’m aroused, I’m not rational. When I get aroused, I start browsing. And it’s a trap I fall into pretty much every time. When I’m aroused I do not give a shit! (23, Middle-Eastern, Student)
The men described almost an internal splitting that occurred for them. This was between a “rational self” that does not want to watch pornography, and the “aroused self” that has no control over pornography use. This “arousal imperative” created a linear narrative and sexual script when it came to the men’s SPPPU. Once the men were aroused, they reported needing masturbatory orgasmic release almost at any cost.
Furthermore, the participants’ behavioral patterning in relation to pornography represents a violation of their autonomy and self- control (Deci & Ryan, 2008). Autonomy, or control over one’s desires and actions, is considered a fundamental psychological need in the contemporary context (Brown, Ryan, & Creswell, 2007). Indeed, literature has shown that the greater the perception of self-control and self-functioning experienced by an individual, the greater the likelihood of perceived happiness (Ramezani & Gholtash, 2015). The participants discussed their perceived lack of control—and thus hindered autonomy—in three different ways.
First, men discussed their lack of willpower and subsequent feelings of psychological “weakness” in relation to their viewing. Albert and Frank reported that their lack of control was a consequence of feeling psychologically weak. David, Paul, and Brent valued their ability to have a sense of mastery over other life domains (e.g., work, goals, social relations), yet when it came to pornography, they felt powerless to control their consumption. This was highly distressing for these men. For example,
Wallace: It feels really weird saying it out loud, but I’d want to stop being controlled when it came to sexual urges. Having to masturbate in certain situations, or like going to the bathroom to have a shower. I’d prefer it not to have that control over me. I just start to feel aroused and I think “I guess I have to do it now.” (29, Pa¯keha¯, Teacher)
Though not directly communicated by the men, this perceived lack of agency with regards to their pornography use likely represents a fundamental violation of traditional masculine identity. The notions of control and self-mastery are often attributable as masculine traits within the west (Canham, 2009). Hence, men’s lack of control over their pornography use was distressing, as it not only indicated a lack of personal autonomy, but also violated some of the fundamentals of contemporary manhood. Here, an interesting contradiction is evident. Although watching pornography is considered a masculinized activity—and a means by which some men can “do” masculinity correctly (Antevska & Gavey, 2015)— compulsive pornography use was experienced in negative terms, as disempowerment and a violation of their masculine identity.
Participants also experienced an undermining of their autonomy and identified a lack of agency when their viewing became an automatic habit. Here, their pornography use had evolved into a compulsion that needed to run its course once the thought of pornography entered their mind or when they became aroused. For these men, the pleasure and sexual stimulation once associated with watching pornographic content had faded, and was replaced with a habituated response pattern. For example,
David: I used to enjoy porn a lot more, where now I feel it’s just become just a thing I do, somewhat of a routine that I do not particularly enjoy as much, but I know I need to do it in order to complete the routine. Something I need to follow. I know the out- come, but it doesn’t give me the same buzz it used to. There’s more of a dissatisfaction and disgust that seeps through the entire experience because it seems I cannot escape the process. But since there’s finality to it, a specific end, then I just ride through the porn routine until the end and then continue on with my day. (29, Pa¯keha¯, Professional)
David’s experience highlights the troubling nature of this habituated pornographic consumption pattern. Not being able to escape the process is linked to a strong affective reaction (i.e., dissatisfaction or disgust), and is positioned as particularly distressing for David. When men cannot escape a process and feel a loss in their sense of control, their well-being can suffer (Canham, 2009). Frank, like David, had lost much of the pleasure and stimulation initially associated with pornography use, and described a scenario of pleasureless compulsion:
Frank: It’s this compulsive thing. I feel compelled to do it. It feels like I’m not even thinking about it [. . .] It’s habitual. I do not know how to describe it [. . .] Sometimes when I’m trying really hard to orgasm it feels empty. I feel nothing physically. And then when I finish I wonder why I even did that in the first place [. . .] because it’s not even pleasureful. (27, Asian, Student)
Frank’s situation seems to encapsulate the problematic nature and experience for men with SPPPU. As opposed to pornography being a choice motivated by sexual stimulation—as it once was—it had evolved into a compulsive and automatic habit, devoid of pleasure. The subsequent experiences of guilt, shame, and disempowerment were the consequence of the men not being able to stop or control their use despite the desire to do so.
Lastly, men reported that their viewing made them feel like a less motivated, engaged, and energized version of themselves. For example, after watching pornography, Michael would feel completely drained of energy. Any motivation to study or engage in a productive activity waned after watching pornography and masturbating. He described his ability to reengage with life as lack of “crispness,” a self-reported quality Michael described as “being present, clear, focused, and attentive”:
Michael: After I masturbate, I feel depleted. No motivation. I do not feel crisp. I do not want to do anything, just feeling low and depleted. People are talking to you but you cannot really answer. And the more I masturbate, the less crisp I feel. I do not think masturbation makes me the best version of myself. (23, Middle-Eastern, Student)
The lack of crispness, as Michael describes it, sounds comparable with the feelings of emptiness reported by Frank. Michael, how- ever, discussed how his pornography use impacted other domains in his life. He reported that watching pornography was expending energy that would have otherwise been expended on sleep, studying, or engaging in social situations with friends. Similarly, Paul, experienced a lack of energy after viewing, but felt his post-pornography fatigue prevented him from progressing in his career and having children with his wife. He lamented that while his peers progressed in their careers jumps, had children, and increased their income, he was stuck:
Paul: I could earn something and be at a better place in life, I’m just sort of stuck in a place of doing nothing, thinking, worrying. I think I do not have a family because potentially because of my masturbating. (39, Pa¯keha¯, Professional)
Paul—and indeed many of the men in the study—seemed to identify pornography as the primary roadblock preventing them from becoming better and more productive versions of themselves.
Pornography as a Sexual Influencer
The participants talked about how pornography influenced the various aspects of their sexuality and sexual experiences. Michael discussed how pornography had influenced his sexual behaviors, specifically about the acts he would attempt to recreate with women that he had watched in pornography. He openly discussed the sexual acts he regularly engaged in, and questioned how natural these acts were:
Michael: I sometimes cum on a girl’s face, which serves no biological purpose, but I got it from porn. Why not the elbow? Why not the knee? There’s a level of disrespect to it. Even though the girl consents, it’s still disrespectful. (23, Middle-Eastern, Student)
This desire to orgasm in this specific way was produced as a result of watching pornography, as, to Michael, it was pornography that made the face a sexy and acceptable place to ejaculate. Michael relays an interesting conundrum when it comes to pornography- inspired sexual acts, consent, and sexual congruency. For Michael, ejaculating on a woman’s face during sex feels disrespectful, yet it’s a practice he engages in. His feelings that it is not quite right for him, as a sex act, are not alleviated by a sexual partner’s consent. Here, Michael is able to relay a very complex relationship with pornography, and its impact on his sex life.
Additionally, Michael’s situation also aligns with cognitive scripts theory, which posits that the media can play a significant role in providing a heuristic model that outlines acceptable (or unacceptable) behavior, as well as what the outcomes of a particular course of action should be (Wright, 2011). In these instances, pornography provides a heuristic sexual script from which men that consume pornography can model their sexual behavior (Sun, Bridges, Johnson, & Ezzell, 2016). Mainstream pornography has amalgamated around a substantively homogenous script, which can create significant detrimental consequences for the sexual experiences of men who watch pornography, including requesting particular pornography sex acts of a partner, deliberately conjuring images of pornographic content to maintain arousal, having concerns over sexual performance and body image, and a diminished sense of pleasure and enjoyment derived from sexually intimate behavior with a partner (Sun et al., 2016). The data provided by the participants seem to align with literature, with pornography impacting sexual expectations, sexual preferences, and sexual objectification of women.
Pornography creates narrow and unrealistic expectations of sex (Antevska & Gavey, 2015). After years of watching pornography, some of the men began to get uninterested in everyday sex because it did not measure up to the expectations set by pornography:
Frank: I feel like real sex isn’t as good because the expectations are too high. The stuff I would expect her to do in bed. Porn is an unrealistic portrayal of a regular sex life. When I got used to unreal- istic images, you expect your real sex life to match the intensity and pleasure of porn. But that doesn’t happen, and when it doesn’t happen, I get a little disappointed. (27, Asian, Student)
George: I think the expectations I have about how whizz, bang, wonderful things should be during sex are not the same in real life [. . .] And it’s harder for me when what I get used is something that’s not real, and staged. Porn sets up unrealistic expectations for sex. (51, Pa¯keha¯, Mentor)
Frank and George highlight an aspect of pornography that is referred to as “Pornotopia,” a fantasy world where an endless supply of “lusty, gorgeous, and always orgasmic women” are readily available for male viewing (Salmon, 2012). For these men, pornography created a sexual fantasy world that could not be met in “reality.” The awareness of such an impact of pornography, however, did not affect consumption. Instead, some men began looking for women that more closely matched their pornographic preferences or who allow the men to recreate what they see in pornography. When these expectations were not met, some of the men were disappointed and became less sexually aroused:
Albert: Because I’ve seen so many images and videos of women I find attractive, I find it difficult to be with women that do not match the quality of the women I watch in videos or see in images. My partners do not match up to the behaviors that I watch in the videos [. . .] When you watch porn very often, I’ve noticed that women are always dressed very sexy, in sexy high heels and lingerie, and when I do not get that in bed I get less aroused. (37, Pa¯keha¯, Student)
Albert started noticing how his pornography viewing began influencing what he found attractive in women. He disclosed later in the interview that he subsequently started expecting—and request- ing—these preferences from his partners. When women did not match the unrealistic aesthetic he had watched in pornographic content, his sexual desire for his partner would diminish. For Albert and other participants, regular women simply did not match up to the women created by “Pornotopia.” Pornography influenced these men’s sexual preferences, which often led to disappointment with real sex, preference for pornography over sex with real women, or looking for women that more closely resembled— both physically and in terms of sexual behaviors—the pornography ideal.
Participants also discussed how their sexual preferences evolved as a result of their pornography use. This could involve an “escalation” in pornographic preferences:
David: At first it was one person getting progressively naked, then it progressed to couples having sex, and from quite early on, I started narrowing down to heterosexual anal sex. This all happened within a couple years of starting my porn viewing [. . .] From there, my viewing got more and more extreme. I found that the more believable expressions were those of pain and discomfort, and the videos I viewed started to get more and more violent. Such as, videos that are made to look like rape. What I was going for was the homemade stuff, amateur style. It looked believable, like a rape was actually happening. (29, Pa¯keha¯, Professional)
Literature has suggested that compulsive and/or problematic pornography users often experience a phenomenon where their pornography use escalates and takes the form of greater time spent viewing or seeking out new genres that induce shock, surprise, or even violation of expectations (Wéry & Billieux, 2016). Consistent with literature, David attributed his niche pornographic preferences to pornography. Indeed, the escalation from nudity to realistic looking rape was the primary reason David perceived his use to be problematic. Like David, Daniel also noticed that what he found sexually arousing had evolved after years of watching pornography. Daniel discussed his extensive exposure to porno- graphic scenes, specifically of penises penetrating vaginas, and subsequently becoming sexually stimulated by the sight of a penis:
Daniel: When you watch enough porn, you begin getting aroused by the sights of penises as well, since they’re on the screen so much. Then a penis becomes a conditioned and automatic source of stimulation and arousal. For me it’s fascinating just how localized my attraction is to the penis, and nothing else of a man. So like I said, I derive nothing from men, other than the penis. If you copy and paste it onto a woman, then that’s excellent. (27, Pasifika, Student)
Over time, as their pornographic preferences evolved, both men sought to explore their preferences in real life. David reenacted some of his pornographic preferences with his partner, specifically anal sex. David reported feeling very relieved when his partner was accepting of sexual desires, which is certainly not always the case in such instances. David did not, however, disclose his preference for rape pornography with his partner. Daniel, like David, also reenacted his pornographic preferences and experimented by engaging in sexual acts with a transgender woman. According to literature pertaining to pornographic content and real-life sexual experiences, however, the cases of both David and Daniel do not necessarily represent the norm. Although there is a link between less conventional practices, a significant proportion of individuals have no interest in reenacting the pornography acts— especially the unconventional acts—they enjoy viewing (Martyniuk, Okolski, & Dekker, 2019).
Lastly, men reported the impacts pornography had had on their sexual function, something that has only recently been examined within the literature. For example, Park and colleagues (2016) found that Internet pornography viewing might be associated with erectile dysfunction, decreased sexual satisfaction, and diminished sexual libido. Participants in our study reported similar sexual dysfunctions, which they attributed to pornography use. Daniel reflected on his past relationships in which he was not able to get and keep an erection. He associated his erectile dysfunction with his girlfriends’ bodies not comparing to what he had become attracted to when watching pornography:
Daniel: My previous two girlfriends, I stopped finding them arousing in a way that wouldn’t have happened to someone who was not watching porn. I had seen so many naked female bodies, that I knew the particular things that I liked and you just start forming a very clear ideal about what you want in a woman, and real women aren’t like that. And my girlfriends didn’t have perfect bodies and I think that’s fine, but I think that got in the way of finding them arousing. And that caused problems in the relationships. There are times I couldn’t sexually perform because I was not aroused. (27, Pasifika, Student)
The experiences of these men speak to the level of sexual objectification that can occur for some men as a result of watching pornography. Sex and arousal become things that are stimulated by— or connected to— certain looks, bodies, clothes, or acts rather than a person’s personality or the intimate connection between two people. Problematic pornography consumption seems to be creating a model of sex that is disconnected, highly visual, and largely based on objectification. Sex becomes a purely mechanical act triggered by visual stimuli, as opposed to a mutual exploration or expression of intimacy.
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