Please, Stop Watching Porn

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

Trauma porn. Pornography that is depicting a situation that in “real” life, would be a traumatic experience for the participants. We say it’s “consensual” because we believe it’s acting. The 19 year old starlet gives her little bio at the beginning, talking about how thrilling and fulfilling the experience is — which we all skip ahead to the start of the action to save ourselves from humanizing her. So we don’t have to think about it. Just hit the pleasure button.

But what happens when we don’t stop hitting the pleasure button? Are we just as mindless as the monkey given an orgasm button who hit it for 16 hours straight, only stopping to sleep? Do we really have no impulse control?

We certainly do. But our base instinctual desire to feel good often takes over.

So we wait until we’re alone, after the long work day, or when our spouses are out of the house, or the kids are asleep, whatever the situation. We wait, and our minds become triggered by perceived “boredom,” and a desire to feel something that deep down makes us feel bad (the same feeling that causes doomscrolling through social media — these are addiction behaviors).

A few things happen when this becomes habitual.

1. The addiction cycle ensues — your body craves the orgasmic high from masturbation and relies on the audio/visual stimulation from porn to be supplied.
2. Your nervous system builds a tolerance — similar to an alcohol tolerance, we become increasingly desensitized to the act (as well as the content) and must work harder to have the same level of pleasure experienced in the beginning stage of the habit.
3. We create a disassociation — we link this act to something done in shame, because innately we know it is the antithesis to intimacy and perpetuation of Voyeurism, objectification, and dehumanization (particularly of women), so we don’t include it in our “day identity.”
4. We are traumatized — porn is trauma.

Trauma to our mind, body, and souls. Trauma to our concept of sex. Trauma to the self-esteem of men and women alike; everyone is trying to look like the star of their own porno, so that during the act of actual sex, they can imagine from the Other perspective of the mind’s Voyeur that they are fulfilling the role of that man or woman that their body has been programmed to believe will ensure climax, and validation. “If my dick looks this big and hard, then I am valuable, because I am ‘sexy’ and that makes me feel good,” or “If my ass looks this way from the invisible camera my mind has fabricated in this corner of the room, then I am valuable because I look ‘sexy’ and that makes me feel valid.” These are actual thoughts shared between my partner and I when we began uncovering the trauma that we had regarding sex.

Why does porn have such a great influence?

My generation’s entire sex education is from pornography. So we watch it, or we don’t have any sexual understanding at all, lose our virginity at 16 to someone who also learned “what sex is” from porn, and we wonder why the younger portion of our society is so focused on hooking up for one-night stands and posting half-nudes on every social media platform they can get a like on?

Porn has created the hook-up culture. We associate our value with our perceived “fuckability.” What??

And the worst part is that we pretend like it’s not happening. We play this game, in society, where we DO NOT DISCUSS, pretend it doesn’t exist, or make jokes about it. We hide our trauma with low-grade humor.

We play this game in our marriages and partnerships, where we wait for our partner to leave for a few hours and reunite with our precious Incognito Tab (Incognito: an assumed or false identity).

We play this game, in ourselves, wondering, “why do I struggle to become as aroused with this person that I love and am attracted to than I do with pornography?” “Why, when I see a woman I don’t know, is my first impression a subconscious assessment of the shape of her body and how physically attractive she is to me per the societal narrative?”

Because we trick ourselves into thinking this is normal, and no one teaches us otherwise. We don’t listen to the voice inside us screaming for something more, screaming for self-love. We deny, deny, deny, and feed, feed, feed. But we are feeding the wrong wolf.

There are two types of people: those who watch porn, and those who don’t. And the general perception of those who don’t are the Bible-beating sticklers who believe that the act of sex for any reason other than reproduction (and male orgasm) is a sin. I’d like to point out that yes, there is often truth in stereotypes, but that is not the whole truth.

I freaking love sex. I have sex with my husband multiple times a week, regardless of our responsibilities, because cultivating intimacy in our relationship includes having sex that is authentic and can be healing. We get weird. We do freaky shit sometimes. And we are both recovering porn addicts.

We feel the trauma. It’s hard to be present, and not look through the Other’s lens. It’s hard to make the sounds that feel natural, rather than imitate the sound bites in my head of the “Oh my God..” and “fuuuuck…” that aren’t even in my own voice. But it is doable.

It is an addiction, a very serious one with impacts on every aspect of our being. And it’s hard to look at ourselves and sit in the reality of it without becoming engulfed with shame, or ego-driven blasphemising rage. But we can do it, we can all listen a little closer to the spirit inside us that is asking us to face this trauma within to put the right energy in the right places. To have more mind-blowing sex that we can be completely present for, and break away from the unhealthy norm. Will you?