Probably because the people they end up dating expect them to act like porn stars all the time. I view that as a fantasy/reality issue rather than one intrinsic to porn, but I expect you’ll disagree.

I personally feel that people fight letting go of porn because they don’t realize the reality is there is something that is far more satisfying and fulfilling - true connection with another through our sensuality.

The argument that porn is healthy is out there for me. If it is healthy then why do porn stars claim to have the least satisfying sexual relationships? Many of them report having to dissociate during sex scenes in order to make it through it. The women claim to experience pain and often get their insides torn up. When people bring up Jenna - this is laughable. All that money has not brought her a bit of happiness. Read her book and you will hear her horror stories. 90% of all prostitutes, strippers and porn stars ADMIT to being sexually abused prior to getting into the industry. Not all women that are sexually abused get in the sex industry but the majority that are in have been abused. Most are addicted to drugs and alcohol if not to start with, eventually just to get through their job. I challenge people (men especially) to read how these women truly feel about what is done to them in these videos. It is so easy to dismiss these women as “whores”, “sluts” and less than human but their not and most have very painful histories prior to and during their time in the sex industry.

Last but not least……since when did it become healthy and acceptable to make sexual activity a spectator sport? Are we so uncreative and disconnected from our own sensual selves that we need to watch someone engaging in sex in order to access our own? Pretty sad.

It’s important, I think, for couples to be able to talk openly and honestly about what sex means to them. They need to ask and answer the question “What does sex mean to you?”, as well as the questions I pose above. Please understand, that my belief that every marriage/long-term relationship “needs” an erotic component isn’t a recommendation of regular intercourse. Taking some time away from conventional intercourse to explore other ways of being sexual, or even to explore non-sexual ways of feeling close and intimate, can be very good - not as a cure for low desire, but as an equally valid way of establishing and nurturing a bond.

i’m a little confused by this, in light of your previous writing about how you think regular sex is a crucial component of any healthy marriage. (that post generated a very interesting comment thread, btw!) how does the idea dovetail with the assertion that sex is a vital part of a marriage? i don’t ask snarkily - i’m really wondering if/how that works.

I was pleased, however, to be lumped in in the comments section with Robert Jensen and John Stoltenberg. That was pretty darned cool.

http://sexinthepublicsquare.org/bookreview/getting-off

Oh, what an amazing sentence! Yes, yes we do.

I have always seen sexuality as an instrument of intimacy, a means to a greater end, and not as something worth pursuing on its own merits. That’s why I practice abstinence. Not necessarily until marriage (truth be told, I’ve lost most of my respect for marriage as an institution), but certainly until I find myself in a relationship where sex can be a tool for greater intimacy. And unlike sex-based relationships, intimacy-based relationships are relationships that you have to build. You can’t just go out and pick them up as if they were pleasurable commodities.

What scares me, to be honest, is not that people get off on porn and fantasy. That, in and of itself, isn’t something that concerns me very much–I think the porn industry is exploitative but most industries ultimately are and, as brownfemipower so eloquently put it, “there’s more than one way to get fucked.” What concerns me more is that the 21st-century Western ideal of what a relationship is has been built around porn and fantasy, and the shallow, mechanical relationships that result from that dynamic are destroying our culture, and that young women (and young men, for that matter) are literally killing themselves over it. We’ve had the sexual revolution; now we need a love revolution. And I don’t see one on the horizon.