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"This way, she would know that when he's not interested in sex, it's because he's stressed or depressed, not because of the porn."
How do you think eating disorders and gambling addiction start, in a vacuum? Even drug addiction is usually from being stressed or depressed. About every asshole behavior can probably be traced back to stressed and depressed.
Introduce more gems like Minchin please.
And if a guy can't stop watching porn, why would he be able to stop himself from sexing up the next available woman? Self control is not unreasonable to expect, it's pretty necessary to function in a society. I don't think porn is by nature bad at all but that doesn't make the inability to stop ok.
And people can get very emotional when the demands of the obsessive thought aren't met (e.g. checking that the stove wasn't left on, touching the wall before entering the kitchen, husband stops viewing porn).
OCD is really difficult (though not impossible) to treat. For family members of someone with OCD, it's also difficult (though not impossible) to live with.
As for RIMM, stop talking to your friend about your sex life and your problem will magically disappear.
And it's also true that with any addiction, it is vital to address the underlying issues causing the addiction and not just the addiction itself, otherwise there is a strong risk of "curing" the addiction and having a new, equally bad manifestation be created that is simply different.
And I also don't see how there's any connection between him being unable to satisfy her and the porn use. If he can't satisfy her, then that's a huge problem, sure. And they should try to fix it. But it'd be a lot more productive to work on why that is happening and how to fix it than to work on the porn use. Also, I would not be surprised if there are a lot of other issues, given that military life (depending a lot on where one is assigned and what happens there) can be massively stressful. A good, full mental health check-up would be a great idea.
#1: Only the woman needs therapy, and she needn't mention porn at all, as the problem has nothing to do with porn. She's got an anxiety disorder and all she needs to do is tell a different therapist (a porn-positive one) that her insecurities are getting the better of her (not being able to go to the beach is a huge red flag). Seandr is right that OCD is hard to treat through therapy alone, but it often responds well to medication like good old Prozac.
Letter #3: I agree with EricaP, but this could be a classic example of the kind of "maintenance sex" that Dan was talking about in the column two weeks ago: the porn does nothing for the lw, but he wants to make his bf happy, so he indulges him (and gets off, too) and it isn't what happens every time. Relax and be happy that you and your bf have good communication skills. And as long as this isn't the only kind of sex they have, there's no problem.
As for letter #2: my heart goes out to these two. The last few years sound like they have been stressful for both of them individually and have done some damage to them as a couple. I don't pretend to know how they can do this, but they need to find their sense of themselves as a couple, as a "we" again. But the porn, in itself, doesn't sound like the issue. I hope they can find their way back.
The magic of the Internet.
I can't deal with these problems now. Just got to Google something.
Food 'addicts' still eat, sex 'addicts' still have sex. Alcohol, heroin, cigarettes are NOT requirements for anyone. I'm alcoholic: drinking alcohol produces unpleasant effects and I cannot modify my intake in any way that makes it worthwhile. So I don't drink. QED.
This is a terrible model for anxiety about competition, long stretches of separation, web-cam cheating etc. etc.
I don't know beans about Dr. Ley or whether he has a clue for people in sexual trouble. But the first couples experience of professional 'help' is frightening.
You know, I could almost see giving up porn for a woman who took it as her personal mission to find creative ways to distract me from it. Or punish me for it.
Now, most alcoholics or other addicts are going to be in denial, so it does have the downside of convincing people that the costs are outweighing the benefits. I think it's pretty clear if your actions are endangering others, such as driving while not sober, that you are in addiction territory, but I do think interventions can be useful to help make people more aware of just how many negative effects a behavior can have. But this definition does allow for psychological addictions, which I think is important. And also does not confuse dependence with addiction, which kinda bugs me when people do that. For example, a type 1 diabetic is dependent on insulin, but it is not an addiction because the benefits of using it pretty clearly outweigh the costs of using it.
I do think, in general, that taking a really good look at the pros and cons of something that someone thinks you may be addicted to is a good idea. But sometimes someone may accuse you of having an addiction when actually they simply have different views or opinions and a desire to run your life. In theory, therapists should be very good at helping with this sort of thing, as an objective observer with nothing to gain or lose, but in reality, therapists are human and can have personal biases that make them less fit for their job. Thus, I think the advice of talking to a sex-positive therapist is often a good idea if sex is involved, to help determine whether the behavior is actually harming the person or is just weird or looked down upon in our culture.
The problem is that practicing therapy is an art, not a science, and it's a very difficult art that most people aren't very good at.
Ms Cute - This is clearly DTTFA - Dump the Toxic Friend Already. The main question I want to ask is how BF feels about LW's blabbing intimate details of their sex life to a friend particularly unlikely to be able to offer logistical assistance - if he even knows. I'm torn between two comparisons here - A Fairly Honourable Defeat, in which Axel is furious when Simon tells one of their happy couple secrets to a female friend who dislikes Axel - and Fag Hag, in which the supposedly supportive Natalie does everything she can to break up any relationship Peter forms.
But I'd concur that porn use isn't the same as cheating. Those therapists should be ignored not only for their one-sided view of the effects of porn on the viewer but because they ignored their patient when she pointed them at her escalating paranoia as the problem.
It's not an analogy; the behaviors described fit what happens when delta fosb is overexpressed in one's reward pathway. It happens with both natural reward and drug addictions as well as the similar behavior and symptoms. It causes dopamine fuckups, as Satan says. And people don't need porn any more than alcohol. Wikipedia goes more in depth about the mechanisms and effects:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_…
"It is estimated that at least 90% of Americans have at least one form of soft addiction in their lives. Nadine Kaslow, professor of psychology and behavioral sciences at Emory University in Atlanta, has commented on the issue, saying that while it is healthy to relieve stress with behaviors like drinking coffee and watching television, when they become habitual they become problematic to one's health and happiness."
So addictions to relatively harmless things aren't uncommon at all but if the effects start to cause big problems you should drop them if you can. If Mr PAR can raise the sexual energy for porn but not for his wife, he should quit. No one should have to tell him this, and I'm sure he won't quit until he decides he wants to quit. ... the problem is that I want it too much! ... I need him to be more adamant about showing me he wants me. PAR, don't stand around with your empty pail getting sore and resentful in the meantime. Open up the relationship or think about getting out of it before you cheat. It sounds like Mr PAR has been this way since first deployment and is not changing anytime soon so you may have a while to consider and try a few other ideas. I guess ask your therapist for some cause Ley doesn't have one besides 'don't worry about the porn'.
@12 Don't you dare, you're perfect. And you'd have to find something else to be punished for. That part could be fun. Cool I made the spank bank too.
And if you're worried about porn actors being mistreated, stick to free, amateur porn. There's no shortage of that on the Web.
@16 Not all porn is exploitative. I agree that porn that was created through coercion or harm is a serious issue. But the solution to that is not to avoid porn, but to find and encourage the use and creation of ethical porn. I have similar feelings toward clothing and chocolate. A lot of it is created through exploitation and mistreatment... especially with chocolate where it's not uncommon for outright slavery to be involved. But I don't think we should blame people for buying clothes and eating chocolate, but we should make it easier to acquire them ethically and harder for non-ethically sourced items to be sold. Honestly, I wish we had a way to screen for products that were created in part through slavery and there wasn't even an option to buy them. It should not be the job of consumers to check for such things, but it should be done for us by a government so we can't accidentally nor deliberately support highly unethical practices.
A bit of play clears the soul.
"What, are you Jealous?".. In his study, when I was growing up. I've often wondered why that print.
Someone made a mention of "food addictions" here. It sounds silly, I know. But anorexia nervosa, for example, is an addiction to a set of behaviours related to food, often shortened to "food addiction" because two words are easier to say than nine. But, despite the abbreviation, it's an addiction to behaviours, not an addiction to food (quite the reverse), and the behaviours can kill: in extreme cases, the anorexic starves themselves to death.
The things I'd consider addictions have very weak, indeed broken, negative feedback loops. Pop (i.e. soda) has a lot more in common with heroin that way than porn does, in my experience.
Porn. Here is this topic again.
.. It's the fucking humidity. Doing me brain in.
Mr Registered - The comparison weakens the strength of the original. The film of Messrs O/R (and they were always a genuine flirtation from the first) would be one of those in which the star-crossed couple would battle for happiness against the insurmountable odds of Mr R's promise to his ill mother not to cross racial lines and Mr O's last OS hookup's biphobic retroactive withdrawal of consent, not to mention the QAF-inspired disaster of their arrangement with Ms Sissou as a surrogate. The OS couples mentioned are both screwball comedy material, though I did recently think the Faustian Dr Sean had potential in another quarter for something a bit more substantial.
Ms Creative - I'd add diamonds to clothing/chocolate.
Have you considered... porn?
Sex is not a requirement either. You might not like celibacy but it won't kill you. I haven't had sex in years. (and yes I realize the irony of ghost making this statement)
Do people think that porn viewing is sex? This seems to be an essential consideration all around.
And while I'm diabolically advocating, if porn is as trivial to LOST as he makes it sound, why *can't* he give it up?
Though of course that's not actually the fiancee's problem, and it would at best not really help (and indeed, he may well have tried it at one point).
And while I'm diabolically advocating, if porn is as trivial to LOST as he makes it sound, why *can't* he give it up?
Though of course that's not actually the fiancee's problem, and it would at best not really help (and he may in fact have tried it at one point).
Not everyone does, but if one member of the couple feels that way about porn and the other doesn't and likes to watch (and fap to it), you've got the ingredients for a bunch of long conversations.
Add insecurity into the mix, and you've got an appointment with a couple's counselor.
If the couple's counselor is sex-negative or anti-porn, you've got the makings of a real monkey wrench thrown into that relationship.
And then you write in to Dan, throw the word "addiction" into the letter somewhere, and the commentariat goes wild. Like chum thrown to sharks . . .
I was going to suggest this when I felt less growly! Getting her own porn addiction is an option, but harder for a straight chick. I'm sure she can do it with a little determination. Or fanfics or erotic novels or chatroom hookups or camming. But the best idea I don't think anyone said is to use LW3's solution, right? I kind of feel awful for her too, it would be nice to be able to stay with her kids' father and have a satisfying sex life at the same time.
I've heard bad stories about giving up porn with strong addictions so I'm not sure anything else could work. I suspect it gets wired in the brain like a kink. And can have worse effects to quit than changing a gorilla grip. I don't see Mr PAR's interest in partnered sex returning, except by opening the relationship. Maybe the lack of restriction will get him interested in real women again, or maybe he'll have some motivation to change if she gets interested in someone else.
How do kinky-vanilla relationships work best again?
@33 I think that porn viewing is sex for some, traumatic for others, and romantic comedy for the next couple.
Right. So people need to sort out their definition of (or the scope of) "porn" before they start making life decisions around it.
Though, to be fair, people change over the course of a lifetime. What bothered (the theoretical, not actual) you at 22 may not be a big deal at 45; what wasn't an issue to you at age 24 may be a deal-breaker-level incompatibility by age 38. Sometimes there's no way to know or predict how we'll change over time, either.
Lots of things change as we age, not only in our attitudes, but our tolerance levels, which may go up or down! And even in our physical responses. I just turned a sort of orgasmic corner at age 51.
So although it is vitally important for couples to work through potentially divisive issues and resolve them, or adapt, or break up before saying things like "'til death do us part," sometimes that simply can't be done. And to hold a 55-year-old to a statement s/he made at age 23, sometimes is absurd.
I hope you break your sex-slump now that you're a free man. It is certainly possible to do without sex, but it's much more fun not to.
Are there really clinics that help people get over porn addictions? I just googled so I guess there are, but I have trouble taking the idea seriously. I suppose I believe porn can be an addiction. (I'm grateful for the discussion of how to define addiction. Good perspective and stuff I hadn't thought of.) But here's my larger point:
You do often run into a situation where a therapist takes a side from the start. There are counselors who specialize in adolescent mental health issues who see it as their mission to explain to troubled kids why their parents are right no matter how abusive those parents are. There are marriage counselors who inexplicably side with the woman or side with the man in ways that go against all logic. Not being in the room with these people, I'm in no position to say what's going on here. On the one hand, I'm inclined to agree with the LW because I have no problem with porn the way he describes it (nothing violent, watches infrequently). On the other hand, 4 therapists might be on to something. (Or not. Four people can all be wrong.)
LOST doesn't mention what their sex life is like outside of the porn.
What about the usual recommendation when he likes porn and she objects? How about LOST just tell his wife that he's given it up and then watch discretely on the side? What about lying? As much as I don't care for that as a solution in a relationship, trying it might help to see if LOST's fiancee really only object to porn or if the business about not wanting him to go the beach is going to become not wanting to let him outside unless everyone he comes into contact with is wearing a burqua.
This will sound Orwellian, but actually the marriage was the slump. The celibacy is the freedom.
Your fiancee is not in good working order. This might not be abuse yet, but it's trending strongly in that direction. Don't get married.
There are some biblically literal types who think that any sexual thought about someone one is not engaged or married to is adultery. There are even those who advocate arranged marriages to get around the problem of young men considering young women’s sexual appeal when deciding whose father to approach for permission to court. If their own fathers do the deciding for them then they just don’t have any sexual thoughts ever and that’s okay because they don’t need to until their wedding day (first kiss at the altar!) and then it’s not a sin any more. (Women don’t have sexual thoughts so that’s okay.)
Other people just feel threatened when their partners look at porn. In theory I don’t have a problem with it but when I see a picture of a pretty lady giving a blowjob on my husband’s monitor I feel jealous and anxious because she’s much prettier than I am and clearly he wishes I looked like her and I don’t. A long time ago, before I started outsourcing, I told him it *feels* adulterous to me when he chooses to look at her instead of me when I’m at home and available for looking at. As far as I know he doesn’t. I haven’t asked and if it he does I’ll get over it. I certainly don’t *think* it’s either sex or adultery.
And then there’s camming. Somewhere in between. If lovers have sex through videochat when they’re separated, why wouldn’t camming be sex? But if it’s just images of a stranger you’ll never meet, isn’t that porn?
There are a great many human pathologies which exist on a spectrum; there are many many behaviors which are adaptive (evolutionarily advantageous) and normal which, in the wrong context and degree become pathological. All the 7 deadly (venal) sins are like this. So are the components of the personality disorders.
Gambling is an almost pitch-perfect example: the imbalances/biases in human risk perception are almost perfectly adjusted for hunter-gatherer life on the great savannahs, but become a tremendous, crippling disadvantage in the casino. Humans outstrip chimpanzees by orders of magnitude simply because one or two rewards in ten attempts (that is, 8-9 failures) is enough for us to keep trying. Chimps give up after a failure or two.
You seem to live in a binary world of false dichotomies - porn|no-porn - which bear no resemblance to the real world we live in. That's the LW's problem too - her husband's tendency to slip into heavy porn use while deployed (while his wife is unavailable at the same time his need for release is greatest) is a completely normal response. Sure, it takes a little while for it to come back down.
Frankly I'm surprised he can get it up at all, with the head-wringer she's jamming him through in addition to the deployed/not-deployed wringer cycle he's been on. Here's a little tip about what's really going on: she's trying to make him responsible for her own insecurities which grown out of her own self-perception, not him.
I don’t feel at all anxious or jealous when he looks at actual pretty ladies when we’re out. When I see someone I think is his type I’ll point her out to him. It’s a shared pleasure and activity. Maybe because he’s not jacking off?
A great many bad parents suffer merely from being a) stupid and/or b) uneducated, and their children suffer as a consequence - does this make them some kind of addicts?
Here's an even juicier one: many parents are desperately poor, and their children are a substantially greater risk than a wealthy, well educated (economically and socially functional) alcoholic's child: does that make the poor parents poverty addicts?
This is facile stupid stuff - if we are going to engage in medical pathologies, the closer we stick to a physiological model the better off we are. The rest is merely an exercise in trying to create an opening for pathologizing the politically unpopular - care for some conversion therapy anyone?
In short: maybe the non-addicted substance users are to be left alone.
Don't fall down into the well of "reading the signs." It's not that she is prettier and therefore he wishes you were prettier and therefore and so on. Porn is just a convenience. It's not deep in meaning. If you catch him at it, offer him the chance to trade up to the real thing. I bet you can pull off the conversion every time.
Absolutely. Feeling something doesn’t make it true!
I ship it/slash/head canon. The ladies keep it on the downlow, but I wouldn't be surprised if the rate of fanfic reading by women is catching up to the rate of porn-watching by men. Castiel, Benedict Cumberbatch...it's been around since Kirk/Spock but now it's basically mainstream, although a highly closeted activity.
Luckily, we're compatible such that he wants sex with me several times a week, which is probably a tad more than I'd want it myself, meaning that I rarely feel deprived if he chooses masturbation over me on a particular evening.
I also wanted to advise RIMM that it's good to allow one's partner some leeway to not be "present" 100% of the time during sex. Many people's orgasms are boosted by fantasy. As long as you get enough sense of his presence, enough of the time, to feel sexually connected, there's nothing wrong with allowing him to vanish into his imagination (through porn or fantasy) some of the time.
If he's allowed to demonstrate his desire by going down on her, or fingering her, or nuzzling her breasts, or using toys on her, rather than by getting hard for her, that may reduce some of his anxiety and make sex more appealing to him again.
Allow a little flexibility for what your partner wants, and hey, they might just allow that for you. Letter #3's friend may be trying to be a good friend, and stick up for him, but she's got it totally wrong.
People get to exist. If their partner can't handle it, their partner gets to walk away and maybe get some better therapy until they're up for interacting with humans.
LW1 - Face her fears with her or give her up as she isn't doing it on her own. Tell her you have a mild porn habit but you'll never stop loving sex with her. Jack off to the thought of her a couple times w/no porn at least once a month, and tell her you'll always do this and think about quitting porn if it gets hard to do. Porn will only help and never hurt your sex life because you take your promise to milk her well more seriously than anything else until kids. And even if those beach hotties wink at you, it doesn't mean that you are going to jump their bones or marry them. If reasonably reassuring her insecurities doesn't work then leave.
LW2 - You can make porn videos together (or alone) for him to watch as you enjoy his hard on sometimes to feel more connected, but EricaP had really awesome ideas. Except I would not mention maintenance sex and focus more on incorporating porn in a way they can both get into.
@48 "addiction" is a political, not objective scientific term
You're wrong. Follow one of my links. The south park one may be more your speed than wikipedia. Or stay ignorant I don't care.
@62 Great another quack doctor. When your spouse asks you to quit drinking because she can't take the problems it causes, I'm sure it's smart to stand up for yourself too.
That's it, I'm done talking about addiction and habits. Unless offered a salary. Patience is my weak suit as creativity is my strong suit. Hitting on Seandr carefully while attempting to appear bold is fun, however...
A skillfully tied flog has many uses. Increasing blood flow with blunt use of course. From the slow drag of weighty braided leather over skin, to the penetration and pony play possibilities, it's a beautiful tool... But I could surrender it for a better way to fill the hole. Do you have a better way dr?
What is this "porn" you speak of? I have conducted an extensive search of the internet and I have yet to discover a singular phenomenon that I would label "porn." There are certainly many images, both still and moving, that have inspired me to touch my willie. But that's more of a category than an instance. It's a concept much too broad to permit sweeping generalizations and blanket dismissals.
In fact, watching porn is more likely to provide a release valve to make cheating actually LESS likely.
I got the impression from the letter that it was her libido that had changed recently, not his.
Sex is dirty. Discuss.
No. That's a HUGE myth. Some men and women who do porn feel exploited, but the vast majority do not. That includes women, most of whom have weighed their options and have voluntarily approached porn companies on their own and applied to work for them.
Yeah, there may be some who wish they could make the same amount of money without taking off their clothes, but they have weighed their options and have decided that for themselves, this is what they choose to do.
Sex trafficking and the porn industry are not synonymous.
Lots of people working at fast food restaurants for minimum wage probably feel stuck and exploited by "the man," but we don't tell people to stop patronizing these places so that their workers lose their jobs. We instead advocate for increasing the minimum wage.
I refer you to Conner Habib's excellent essay on the matter:
http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/what-…
Sex is dirty. Discuss."
Studies reveal that sex is like 95% less dirty if you do it indoors, after vacuuming.
Anyone who cares about worker exploitation is much angrier at people who wear pants and use phones than people who look at porn. Anyone who says they oppose porn because of worker exploitation is full of crap, because if they actually cared about that they'd be too busy yelling at everyone who wears clothes, uses phones, or eats food. Porn is so far down the list among things that exploit workers that it's not even funny.
Pretty good time of yr down under, except for the heat. We getting good rain , though. Filling the tanks.
And how could I not fall in love with Hunter, when his first words to me were, " Talk about a wet Blanket".
That's how they tell the story, and then have to explain that it's not a metaphor.
Can be writing fanfic or can just be cheering for, say, Spock/Uhura like the relationship is a sports team.
I just don't get porn at all. It doesn't worry me, from a distance. I just prefer using my mind to find the pictures.
If my husband watched porn, he kept it discreet.
Not if you're doing it right.
Or vacuuming wrong.
I've read this guide, but it didn't reassure me:
http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/10/how_…
A drunk driver isn't necessarily an addict. They may just be ignorant of the risks, or a selfish asshole who doesn't care about endangering other people. People have a tendency to use any pejorative word they can think of against someone whose behavior they disapprove of. The word addict is particularly misused this way.
There's a difference between addiction and making a mistake, being lazy, or not realizing there are better solutions. Labeling someone an addict is dangerous because it eliminates our respect for their individual autonomy. They can't control themselves, so it's justified for us to exercise control over them.
66: That wouldn't solve the problem of his not being able to go to the beach (which, depnding on where and how they live, could put a serious crimp in their everyday life).
"Am I really into this stuff? And if so what do I do about it?"
If that's the case then couples can asses the importance of the issue/s at hand- ha- and whether they can be accommodated. And in the spirit of GGGness, the other person should be entitled to suggest something of their own in return.
We followed the recommendation of a few weeks ago and had a nice mutual shower first, so there was no need for nervousness on either of our parts. We also watched a bit of porn jointly first. Porn doesn't do anything for me alone, and even with a partner I find a lot of it uninteresting, but after hopping through three or four uninspiring clips we found one that seemed to work for both of us. We watched it together and near the end of that clip, I lay down and we arranged ourselves as described--he found a new clip, and we were off.
I had expected it to be fun for him, and for me by transitivity, but I found I really enjoyed it as well. More evidence that you (almost) never know what you'll like 'til you try (true for me, anyway; obviously vmmy).
@91 again: I just read through that link and I thought it was interesting, but as always, not universally great advice. I sit on his face a fair bit because he really digs it, but it doesn't do nearly as much for me--somehow the angle isn't great from my point of view. I never come that way. So if I resist it's not from "fear of smelling like butt," just that I want a position that works better for me. Although I'm often happy to do that for a minute to get him going, and then switch to whatever I prefer. (And since you asked about the technical aspects, when I sit on his face, I'm almost always kneeling as well. I suspect he could support all my weight anyway, but I like feeling like I'm not suffocating him--at least not more than I want to be.)
There's plenty of research showing that video games can improve cognitive performance.
I love analogies.
The rest, is semantics. I do consider somebody who drives when not sober to be a likely addict. If it happens now and then, then definitely. You can be an addict without being a chronic user. Binge-consuming in a dangerous manner is a way in which addiction can manifest. I also stick with the guideline of if it is causing harm to oneself or others, and driving when not sober does cause harm to both. And the costs do outweigh the benefits. You are welcome to use a different definition of addiction, but I am sticking to the one that I feel makes the most sense and is used by some experts in the field. Admittedly, there are multiple definitions. I just will continue to use the one I feel makes the most sense.
While some definitions are more reality-based than others, I don’t see that arguing an abstract definition in the absence of context is particularly helpful.