“When sex becomes easy to view, love becomes difficult to find.” ~Fight the New Drug
There was once a Dutch biologist named Nikolaas Tinbergen who made a fascinating conclusion through a famous experiment. He created cardboard cutouts of butterflies that were attractive to their mates by color and movement. He decided to paint these cardboard butterflies with more intense coloration than what occurs naturally and study what happened. When male butterflies were introduced to the cardboard females, they did indeed try to mate with the fakes! Even when actual female butterflies were introduced to the same area, the male butterflies ignored them, continuing to prefer the intensely colored, fake cardboard butterflies, even though living, moving real females were close by.
There is something to be learned from the butterflies in this experiment. If you are bombarded with the fake or artificial on a consistent basis, your expectations of reality will change and you will prefer the former. Your brain will literally be altered to prefer something that is not real! Consumers of pornography are like these male butterflies; they can get so focused chasing flashy fantasies that they miss out on the real life and real relationships that are right in front of them.
The idea that porn is a personal decision that does not affect anyone else is simply not supported by the research. Even if porn is not done in secret—if partners are open and honest about their consumption—it can still do real harm to the relationship. This is because porn streamlines artificial and exaggerated sexual experiences and dismisses healthy love and intimacy; it gives the user a dopamine hit and hijacks the reward center of the brain. This causes porn users to disregard the natural instinct for love and connection and replaces it with a screen and exaggerated sex that reality can never duplicate.
Dozens of studies have repeatedly shown that porn consumers tend to have lower relationship satisfaction, lower relationship quality, and decreased sexual satisfaction. Porn consumers tend to experience more negative communication with their partners, feel less dedicated to their relationships, have a more difficult time making adjustments in their relationships, and commit more infidelity. Additionally, consuming porn can lead to compulsive cravings and behaviors–similar to those associated with substance abuse. Research also suggests that porn consumption undermines trust in a relationship and fuels couple conflict. As you can imagine, combining broken trust, poor communication, and decreased relationship satisfaction can lead to the disintegration of any relationship. It is understandable why many porn consumers tend to struggle in their relationships.
The research is resounding—porn is not a harmless pastime.
The truth is that porn can take a heavy toll on all real-life relationships, not just the romantic ones. All of them. How is that possible? Family, friends, acquaintances, loved ones, neighbors! Porn isolates its consumer, it objectifies everyone, and it creates shame within the user. One of the greatest dangers of porn is that it distorts the way a consumer sees people in general, thus causing friends, family members, coworkers, or strangers on the street to be viewed as a sum total of their body parts–discarding their humanity. Essentially, porn tells consumers that all people are objects with the sole purpose of providing sexual satisfaction. This is unhealthy for any and all relationships, romantic or otherwise. To objectify something is to reduce it down to the status of total and complete insignificance and indifference.
If you or someone you love is bound by the chains of pornography, YOU ARE NOT ALONE. There are so many resources available to you and yours today. I, personally, am well-versed in helping my clients heal from pornography addiction; so are countless other therapists if you are not local to Dallas. Seek professional help. Another huge resource is the people who surround you that love, support, and want to help you. Reach out to those individuals and allow them to aid you through your addiction. Remember, humans are wired for connection. Real, meaningful, lasting connection is possible through human relationships–not through fleeting pornography. I assure you that help and healing is possible. Do not let the flashiness of porn distract you from the rich relationships in front of you!
Melissa Cluff is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist based in North Texas, providing face-to-face and telehealth therapy options to clients in Texas.
References:
- ADAMS, R. (2015, MARCH 13). PORN OBJECTIFIES BOTH MEN AND WOMEN — JUST DIFFERENTLY. RETRIEVED FROM HTTPS://WWW.HUFFINGTONPOST.COM/2015/03/13/PORN-WOMEN-STUDY_N_6831402.HTML
- Cluff Counseling: THE LEADING CAUSE OF ADDICTION IS NOT WHAT YOU THINK
- Cluff Counseling: THE MOST FORGOTTEN OF THE HUMAN NEEDS
- Fight the New Drug Website
- Fight the New Drug: 3 Ways Porn Habit Can Hurt Your Friendships
- Fight the New Drug: 50 Heartbreaking Reasons You’ll Be Glad to Be Porn-Free in 2021
- Fight the New Drug: How Porn Can Change the Brain
- Fight the New Drug: How Porn Can Distort Consumers’ Understanding of Healthy Sex
- Fight the New Drug: How Porn Can Harm Consumers’ Sex Lives
- Fight the New Drug: How Porn Can Hurt a Consumer’s Partner
- Fight the New Drug: How Porn Can Negatively Impact Love and Intimacy
- Fight the New Drug: How Porn Can Normalize Sexual Objectification
- Quote Catalog
- TYLKA, T. L. (2015). NO HARM IN LOOKING, RIGHT? MEN’S PORNOGRAPHY CONSUMPTION, BODY IMAGE, AND WELL-BEING. PSYCHOLOGY OF MEN & MASCULINITY, 16(1), 97.
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