Nonetheless, at 22, he was a veteran. He'd been spending free time immersed in pornography for a decade.
He came in for help because of how it was going with his girlfriend, Mika. "I like her a lot. We're talking about being together long-term. That's why it bugs me that having sex with her is so bland."
"When I look at porn, it's toned bodies and smooth skin. The real thing is warm, and that's nice, but then it's like..." Brandon held his fist over his open mouth and sighed a fake yawn.
Later in the session, Brandon disclosed something he sometimes does to bring more spark and spice into their lovemaking: "I start to imagine that we're making a porno flick. The cameras are all around and capturing everything. I'll envision what it would look like to watch us onscreen. That sometimes helps me feel more turned on."
I have to admit, that session had me scratching my head for days.
It made me think back to my own first exposure to pornography. Evan Crandall flashing that picture of a nude woman all around Boulton Elementary School's East playground. I'm sure Evan's sharing planted some seeds of anticipation. But I'm confident none of us thought, "Maybe if I keep looking at stuff like that I'll prefer it to the real thing someday. Can't wait for that to happen."
Preferring the virtual to the real boggles the minds of most people my generation and older, but it's getting more commonplace all the time. I see it in my office. Others have noted the pattern and made interesting observations. Naomi Wolf's article in New York Magazine describes how porn crowds real women out of men's sex lives--and how younger women are becoming pornified to try to compete. Marnia Robinson's new article on the Good Men Project describes the way porn interferes with our monogamy instinct and leads to marital dissatisfaction and disaffection.
The bottom line: If you love sex, you may find porn compelling. But if you love a real person, too--or want to in the future--then porn's not such a great idea.
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