How porn rewires your brain, hijacks your libido, and threatens your sex life (and just might improve it, too)
I was 15 years old when I discovered
my father's porn habit. It was after midnight, a school night; The blue-green
glow of his computer monitor spilled from the crack beneath his door.
I let myself in, assuming he was
working, and instead found him feverishly masturbating to the images on the
screen. It's a moment as ingrained in my mind as I imagine the porn is in his:
He was perched, naked, in his green swivel chair, which he had covered with one
of my mom's best bath towels. He looked angry.
Shortly afterward, my mom filed for
divorce, and I branded pornography as my father's—or perhaps all men's—evil
vice. I couldn't understand his desire for the naked pretzel women, contorting
into yogalike poses on his computer screen. Or why his porn habit—which, my
mother later told me, spanned my parents' entire 20-year marriage—seemed to be
worth more to him than his family.
I've seen my father only a handful
of times since he left. And I've watched hard-core porn just once, in a dorm
room. But years later, a scene from the film I watched with friends—a woman bent
over, her pointy breasts swinging like pendulums—surfaced in my dreams. It
reignited the fear I first felt after the encounter with my father: Does porn
somehow invade the deepest recesses of men's minds? Of women's? And if so, does
every man carry a mental cache of unerasable erotic images. (Is erotica making
you sad? Discover the surprising link between
depression and porn.)
As an adult, this anxiety has
carried over into my relationships; even a Victoria's Secret catalog seems
threatening, like a gateway drug to cruder desires. I know intellectually that
porn addiction is actually quite rare. That most men can look at it and still
lust after living, breathing, imperfect women. Yet I still have a nagging fear
that the naked images will displace me.
For years, I lumped all men who
looked at porn into one perverse Pandora's box—younger, equally warped versions
of my father. But then I became a sex researcher and writer.
(Psychologists could have a field day with that career path, I'm sure.) I've
spent hundreds of hours sifting through studies in an effort to find out what
motivates men, what penetrates their brains. And the more I've learned, the
more my earlier view seemed oversimplified.
Part of my job is to equip men with
the knowledge they need to improve their sex lives. Yet my understanding of
pornography—a part of most men's sexual repertoires, I know—was shaped entirely
by my personal, traumatic experience. Then I realized how remiss, even
irresponsible, this was.
So I turned to science for answers.
And as I dropped references to this story among my guy friends, they were
fascinated—and worried. Turns out, I'm not the only one who wonders what life
in the age of porn is doing to us.
From what I know now, based on my
interviews with nearly a dozen experts and from studying a stack of studies
about 8 inches high, I'll never look at pornography the same way again. And I
can make an educated guess: You won't want to, either.
Many psychologists believe that men
have evolved to pursue lusty, busty women who are willing to engage in casual sex. According to Paul
Wright, Ph.D., an assistant professor at Indiana University who researches the
social aspects of sex, that may be because a woman's appearance can give more
clues to her reproductive potential than a man's can. However, Emory University
research suggests that men and women are similarly interested in visual sexual
stimuli, but what they find sexually interesting definitely divides along
gender lines. "Men prefer novelty, while women are more interested in
stable dynamics," says study author Heather Rupp, Ph.D., now a research
fellow at the Kinsey Institute.Pornography solves a primal problem for men: It
offers easy access to commitment-free sex with multiple partners. Throughout
human evolution, a man's reproductive success increased if he inseminated as
many women as possible—ideally those who were young and beautiful, since both
qualities signaled fertility and health. Women's success, on the other hand,
would have been enhanced by selecting men with both resources and an interest
in parenting, says Wright. "Men still have instinctual preferences today
because those preferences served a reproductive purpose for their ancestors,"
he says. "Men's modern environment has changed dramatically, but their
evolved sexual preferences have not."
For privacy reasons, certain
identifying characteristics of people in this story—including the author's
name—have been changed.
A man's physical response to
porn—faster heart rate, increased bloodflow, erection—is preceded by a deeper
neurological process, which scientists have attempted to capture through brain
scans. The results have varied widely. "There are so many moving parts in
this equation," says William Struthers, Ph.D., a biopsychologist and the
author of Wired for Intimacy. "How old is the man? Is he involved in a
sexual relationship? Is he regularly masturbating? People think sex is always
the same. It's not. You look at food very differently when you're hungry
compared with when you've just finished a meal."
Even so, a few broad themes have
consistently emerged. First is the cognitive component—visual processing,
attention, and reward. "Pornographic images seem to activate a man's
visual system in a manner that goes beyond just looking at trees or even
people," says Struthers. "It's almost like a high-definition signal
compared with a standard signal." Once this signal—Tori Black in the nude,
say—hits the male antenna, the mesolimbic (reward) system kicks in, producing a
rush of feel-good dopamine.
This can reinforce the behavior much
in the same way that drugs like cocaine would—which is perhaps the most widely
exploited argument against porn. "Guys freak out when they think porn
might be 'rewiring' their brains," says Struthers. "The reality is,
our brains are regularly being 'rewired'—we wouldn't learn anything
otherwise." Perhaps more troublesome is what occurs after that pleasurable
surge: the activation of brain regions tied to motivation, which drives men to
seek sexual release.
At this point, "several brain
regions, called the higher cortical component, have to decide, 'What's the best
way to deal with this?'" says Struthers. "The problem is, these
cortical systems can shut off—that is, they may receive less blood as the
visual and arousal systems become more active. Essentially the decision-making
system is turning itself over to the experience; it's almost like the men are
hypnotized. This is the classic male stereotype: When men think with what's
below, they don't make good decisions." Or, the decisions are made for
them. (You don't have to watch porn to find the best moves in the bedroom.
Check out our Sex Position Playbook.)
Scientists have linked the
motivating power of porn to the "mirror neuron system," a part of the
brain that compels us to simulate action we see other humans perform. In a 2008
study in the journal NeuroImage, for example, men who watched erotic videos
experienced mirror neuron activation and reported a desire to replicate the sex
acts they saw. The stronger their mirror neuron response, the harder their
erections tended to be. (This parroting effect may be more pronounced in
response to videos, which have more action cues than photographs do.)
"When you're viewing something sexual, the mirror neuron system enables
you to vicariously experience it," says Struthers. However, simply
watching isn't sufficient to elicit an orgasm. This is why the need to
masturbate or to seek an actual sex partner becomes so overpowering that men
can't resist it.
Man's neurological response to porn
is especially strong because the content suits men's sexual interests much more
than it suits women's, according to Rupp. The erotic depictions imitate the
casual sex men crave, but without the threat of disease or unwanted pregnancy.
This makes it incredibly titillating—and it's made even more so by the
cornucopia of content available on the Internet.The Playboy centerfold era is
over. In an Indiana University study, men said they were most aroused by
hard-core, lesbian, female-only, amateur, and "barely legal"
pornography. (Men view these genres about twice as often as women do.)
"With hard-core pornography, you're able to become aroused more quickly
and intensely," says Ana Bridges, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at the
University of Arkansas. "When there is more action, more intensity of
emotion—it doesn't necessarily have to be a positive emotion; it can just be
intensity—then arousal increases."
Marital therapist Jill Manning,
Ph.D., author of What's the Big Deal about Pornography?, adds, "Internet
pornography is especially stimulating to the brain because you have the feeling
of being engaged directly."
Recent research suggests that this
flood of visual stimulation may amplify men's evolved drive for casual sex. In
a recent study, for example, Wright found that men who use porn are more likely
to have multiple partners and extramarital sex. "Is it just that people
who like casual sex gravitate to pornography? I didn't find that to be the case
in a follow-up study," says Wright. "Viewing pornography was
associated with increases in casual sex, but the reverse wasn't true—casual sex
didn't predict pornography use." (Find out what else sex does to your
brain—including How Your Nose Triggers an Erection.)
Wright's findings are in line with
what psychologists call "sexual script theory," the widely studied
notion that what we watch becomes our definition and even our expectation of
normal sex. Think of it as an internal rehearsal: "People look at other
people as behavioral models, gaining an idea of how a specific sexual encounter
is supposed to go—'that is what I need to do to experience that kind of
pleasure,'" says Elizabeth Morgan, Ph.D., an assistant professor of
psychology at Boise State University. "We don't typically watch other
people in the bedroom, so it's often through sexually explicit media that these
scripts are presented to us."
The natural reaction, says Bridges,
is to assume immunity—that the depictions in porn may influence other people's
desires but not your own. "People consistently say, 'It's not going to
affect me,' about a number of things, including political persuasion and
advertising," says Bridges. "But we're being impacted all the time by
what we consume with our eyes and ears and brains. There's no question."
Or as Struthers puts it,
"Denial is the first line of defense. Because so many men have viewed so
much porn, the fear about how it has affected them is too overwhelming. So they
deny the issue." But it doesn't go away.
And in fact, researchers may have a
tendency to focus too much on the harm done. Bryant Paul, Ph.D., a
telecommunications professor at Indiana University who studies sexual messages
in the media, says "there is definitely a bias in media-effects research
toward studying the potential negative effects of things rather than the positive
ones. Porn is almost always portrayed in a negative light."
Whatever the negative bias in the
research may be, porn is inarguably designed with its primary audience in
mind—it consists of visual cues that will most effectively capture men's
attention. "The camera angles minimize the visual information about who
the guy is. Porn tends to be shots of the penis, with the woman seen in more
totality," says Bridges. It's intended to make men feel as if they're
actually having sex, not just watching it.
Cue the mirror neurons.
A 2007 Emory University study shows
that men tend to imagine acting on the female star, removing the male actor
from the equation. Women, by contrast, imagine that they're the female actor.
"The man is probably thinking, 'She's hot. I want to screw her.' But the
woman is probably thinking, 'I feel sexy,'" says Rupp, who conducted the
study. (Get the best advice on sex and relationships sent right to your inbox
with the Girl Next Door newsletter.)
Similarly, in a 2011 Princeton
University study, men were asked to pair verbs with images of nearly naked
women. They tended to choose first-person statements, like "I grab"
or "I control." "When looking at the bikini-clad women, these
men were thinking, 'I am acting on this person,' rather than, 'She is
acting,'" says study author Susan Fiske, Ph.D., director of Princeton
University's intergroup relations and social neurosciences lab.Because men tend
to focus on performing sex acts rather than being the recipient of them, they
may be more likely to replicate in real life what they see in porn. That's not
to say that every man who looks at porn fantasizes about slapping women or
ejaculating on them, which are two common behaviors seen in top-selling adult
videos, according to a recent University of Arkansas study. Personal preference
plays a role: If you're repulsed by, say, double penetration, then pornographic
images that depict it won't magically rewire your brain and compel you to
reenact it. It's when you're neutral toward or mildly interested in a
particular sex act that porn has more potential to shape your desires, says
Wright.
Sexual experience also factors in.
"If you're seeing this but have a long history of relationships and have
other role models for sexuality, it's probably not going to have the same
impact as if this were your first glimpse into the world of sex," says
Bridges. That glimpse is becoming more revealing than ever: In a 1985 study, 92
percent of men had looked at Playboy by age 15; in a 2008 study, 74 percent had
seen Internet porn—usually featuring genitalia, intercourse, and often group
sex—by age 15.
The younger a guy is when he starts
surfing porn sites, Bridges notes, the greater the potential influence on his
sexual expectations. Case in point: In a recent study of college students in
the Journal of Sex Research, men who watched porn once a week expressed a
greater desire for partners who talked dirty, dominated them, used sex toys,
had shaved pubic areas, and participated in threesomes than men who watched it
less frequently. "Basically, they were interested in partners who engaged
in the same behaviors they saw women in pornography engage in," says
Morgan, who conducted the study.
This isn't inherently bad. Nearly a
quarter of men and women say pornography has helped them experiment more in
bed, and just over 20 percent say porn has made them more comfortable voicing
their desires, according to recent research in the Archives of Sexual Behavior.
"If you're looking at pornography for sexual learning—to give your
significant other a more pleasurable oral sex experience, for example—you may
be less likely to become compulsive than someone who views it because he is
depressed and lonely," says Wright.
In fact, in a study published in the
journal Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, men who used Internet porn for
sexual education experienced an increase in real-life sexual activity with a
partner. But those who sought it to cope with stress reported an increase in
relationship problems. The drive behind ordinary usage of pornography is mostly
just normal sexual motivation. But someone who is struggling with addiction not
only has that normal sex drive but also has another powerful motivation. He may
be trying to recover from something, such as events in his life that have left
him feeling degraded, and when he uses pornography he creates a fantasy in
which he overcomes that degradation. "So this person has two really strong
motivations going—a pretty potent sexual cocktail—and a whole lot more reason
to use the porn," says Ray Bergner, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at
Illinois State University. "So the potential for becoming hooked is
greater."
A recent University of Arkansas
study found that a third of men use porn to ease boredom or stress; a fifth
turn to it when they're lonely. The same study also linked sexual media use to
depression in men but not women. "Women with even mild levels of depression
start to lose interest in sex quickly," explains Bridges. "But for
men, depression has to reach severe levels before their sexual drive goes
down."
When men have secondary motives,
porn becomes more than just a source of positive reinforcement (sexual
pleasure, that is). For these men, often called "at-risk users," it's
also a way to escape unpleasant feelings, such as loneliness or stress.
"They're using porn to cope," says Bridges. "That tends to be
associated with more problematic use."
Problematic isn't necessarily
compulsive—it simply implies that using porn has led to some undesired outcome.
In a Utah State University study, for example, more than half of male users
said looking at porn led to problematic outcomes—social, spiritual, psychological,
or relational. These negative effects weren't linked to viewing time—the men
who watched porn frequently were just as likely to report problems as those who
watched it less often.The distinction between casual and problematic use may
have less to do with frequency and more with masturbation. "The big kicker
that people leave out of the equation is the ejaculatory response," says
Struthers. "This is what really stores the memory. When you have an
orgasm, there's a release of oxytocin, the bonding hormone, presumably to bind
you to your partner. If you're viewing pornography, your partner is the screen
in front of you."
As Manning explains, "When all
those hormones are released, you're conditioning the brain to bond and attach
to those images." This pleasurable surge, combined with "perceived
enhancement" of real-world sex, can overshadow—even mask—any negative
effects of porn, driving men to keep viewing it, she says.
This raises important questions: How
does porn impact sex with the woman you share (or hope to share) a bed with?
And when does "perceived" relationship enhancement become actual? For
some couples, it could be never: The intimacy-boosting effect of porn may be
confined to couples who are already synchronized in their sexual tastes, say
researchers at the University of California.
In other words, if both partners
aren't equally open to porn, the enhancing effect can become negative—less a
hot threesome, more an unwelcome third party. One Norwegian study, for example,
found that when only one partner used porn, couples often reported sexual
dysfunction, including low arousal. Partners who both used porn reported fewer
sexual problems. If she's into it, it's a party. If not, it's a potential
problem. (Maybe a threesome isn't her style. Try these five other strategies to Make Her Fantasies Come True.)
We were supposed to be having
vacation sex. You know, the kind of uninhibited hotel-room romp that can turn
even the tamest women into wild animals. But we couldn't even make it past
foreplay. As we lay in the bed, sandy and sunburned, my then boyfriend
described the precise and unusual—to me, anyway—ways he wanted to be touched.
This was not an erotic conversation; his manner was calculated, his directions
nonnegotiable.
My mind was racing. Had I done
something wrong? Had every other guy led me astray?
Then I remembered a guy my friend
dated in college. He had been insistent about ejaculating on her chest.
"That's what they do in porn, so that's what he wants," she'd bluntly
explained. Was my boyfriend accustomed to sex in one specific way—the way he
touched himself when he masturbated?
Or, worse, the way he saw it in
porn?
So I just blurted it out: "Do
you look at pornography?"
He paused, apparently taken aback,
and then turned to face me. "Yeah, I mean, sometimes."
My expression must have alarmed him
because he quickly added, "Only, like, 40 percent of the times I
masturbate, though."
I hoped he couldn't tell I was
crying.
My reaction embarrassed me at the
time, but I've since learned it wasn't atypical among my female peers. In the
2011 Archives of Sexual Behavior study, 36 percent of women said they equate
porn use with cheating, compared with just 7 percent of men. Over 40 percent of
women admitted to worrying that their partner's porn use is a sign of sexual
dissatisfaction. Only 10 percent of men said the same.
"Women are often distressed by
men's porn use because they feel it's personal, that he must not think she's
good enough," Bridges says. "But it's almost never personal."
It may not be personal, but it can
still have a personal impact. Sexual media use is consistently linked to lower
relationship satisfaction in men. The unrealistic depictions in porn may alter
men's sexual expectations (it's that same sexual-script theory, causing trouble
again), so their frustration mounts, says Morgan.I was worried about satisfying
my boyfriend, yes. But the force of my reaction stemmed from the same old
underlying fear: that every man who used porn would end up like my father-more
aroused by his laptop and a bottle of lotion than by his wife. So I decided to
talk to my mom, hoping that if I learned more about my parents' relationship,
my anxiety about men and porn might dissipate.
And it did, to some degree, as I
realized that my father was an extreme case—part of the minority of men for
whom porn had become like a drug he used to fill an empty place in his life.
"He would stay up most of the night in his office," my mother
recalls. "At the time, you had to pay for Internet according to the time
you used. Our bills were huge." I distinctly remember the Christmas he
installed dial-up as the "family gift." Ironic, given the effect it
had.
"I think he relied on porn for
so long that he had no desire for real sex," my mother says. "We
didn't even have sex on the first night of our honeymoon. Later, if we did have
intercourse, it was very rough and impersonal. Afterward he'd say, 'There you
go. Is that what you wanted?'"
My father apparently used porn to
avoid intimacy—consistent with research suggesting that compulsive users may
fear closeness. He belonged to the subset of men who use porn in lieu of
intimacy—a problem that extends beyond the sexual realm, says Struthers. "In
our culture, we have a narrow understanding of intimacy as sexual intercourse.
But it's bigger than that. It's really about people connecting with one
another—you need your father to tell you you're a good son, your brother to
tell you he loves you, your daughters to look up to you."
When the connection is missing or
incomplete, intimacy—sexual or otherwise—becomes something to be avoided. In my
father's case it rings true: His quest for his own father's approval was a
consistent theme in the arguments between my mother and father, and his brother
committed suicide when I was 10. In this context, at least, his aversion to
closeness makes a little more sense.
The more typical response, though,
is to use porn as a surrogate for real intimacy, says Struthers. The logic: If
you can't find a partner to perform the act yourself, watch somebody who can.
In fact, a 2011 British study found that men who view porn may crave intimacy
and closeness more than nonusers do, suggesting that porn isn't just an escape
from connection but could also be part of the search for it.
"People think porn is about
sex. It's not; it's about intimacy," says Struthers. "The guy who
can't find a girlfriend and starts looking at porn is searching for intimacy.
He hasn't found it. He's found the erotic payoff of orgasm. It's a counterfeit
form of intimacy."
Struthers clarifies that arousal is
an essential part of sexual intimacy—but only if it's coupled with some form of
interpersonal connection. "Sexual intimacy has two components: One is sensual;
the other is contextual," Struthers says. For a man, intimacy begins with
sex—he's attracted to a woman's body, say, so he pursues her. For women, the
entry point to intimacy is contextual: "Who is this guy? What's the nature
of this relationship?" As a couple's bond strengthens, their definition of
intimacy becomes more parallel: The man comes to value context ("I want
her because she's my girlfriend"), and the woman increasingly emphasizes
eroticism. "It's when the two are enmeshed that you have a deep, sexually
intimate relationship," says Struthers.
On a 7 a.m. flight to California, I
was watching soft-core porn: a French war movie with more intense sex than
battle scenes. But anyone glancing over my shoulder may have thought I was
prepping for vacation in the country's porn capital. I glanced around,
embarrassed. Fortunately, the woman next to me—a plump mom in a tracksuit—was
too engrossed in her e-reader to notice the couple jackrabbiting across my
laptop screen. I turned back to my filthy French subtitles, relieved.
Four hours later, I noticed that the
woman's purposeful expression still hadn't changed. I stole a glance at her
Nook; the words "nipple" and "satin" leaped off the screen.
She was reading Fifty Shades Darker—mommy porn. As I sat there, awkwardly
observing her read about rock-hard nipples, I couldn't help but wonder: Why was
it acceptable for a woman to read erotica in seat 23B, while my watching porn
in 23C—especially if I'd had a penis—was taboo?
The distinction isn't so much anatomy
(although popping a boner on a plane certainly won't help the male cause) as it
is psychology. Unlike men, women use porn primarily as a way to express,
explore, or reclaim their sexuality; it's a tool to mentally connect with their
sexual selves or partners, says Rupp. "Porn is serving a different purpose
in women than men. Women tend to use it in an adventurous way or for the
relational component."
One British website found that 68
percent of people who searched for "Fifty Shades" looked for lingerie
sales afterward. (Clearly they'd be showing that sexy lace off for somebody.)
According to an Associated Press article, nearly 150 members of babycenter.com,
an online community for moms and moms-to-be, credited their pregnancies to the
saucy series.I've experienced the hype firsthand: For months, my Facebook news
feed has been littered with female friends' rabid reviews of Fifty Shades of
Grey. A male colleague recently vented to me that bondage had apparently
become an acceptable theme for cocktail party chatter among his wife's friends.
Why? Because Fifty Shades has
been marketed as erotica, not pornography. "When women use explicit
materials, they choose erotica. When men and women look at materials together,
they tend to look at erotica," says Bridges. "But when men look at
materials alone, they look at pornography."
The definition of
"erotica"—a term coined to separate the sensual from the smutty—is a
bit hazy, especially considering the prominence of bondage and domination in
Fifty Shades—some of the very things pornography is vilified for. The standard
once widely used to distinguish erotica—"nonviolent, nondegrading,
consensual sex"—from pornography is defunct. Now, say Australian researchers,
the distinction is intimacy. Pornography downplays interpersonal connection,
but erotica depends on it.
"Mommy porn" appeals to
women's evolved desire for relationships—they need a partner who will stick
around for child rearing; but the staples of hard-core porn, such as threesomes
and casual sex, conflict with the female drive to land a committed partner.
This may partly explain the Fifty Shades phenomenon. The book features S&M,
sure, but it's still driven by a committed relationship—the centerpiece of female
arousal. According to Rupp, women often focus on the context, so they actually
like it more when they understand the dynamic of the relationship—it improves
over time.
This underscores what may be one of
the primary differences in the male-female experience with sexual media, one
that has more to do with motivation and less with content.
"Women tend to use it as an
extra tool for connecting with their romantic partners," says Morgan.
Erotica isn't women's go-to way of increasing physical arousal—that's more
likely accomplished by fantasizing, says Rupp.
Women's physical arousal and mental
arousal are two separate entities, explains Rupp, and they're not always in
sync. In other words, women can be mentally but not physically aroused, or vice
versa. "For men, the two are more closely linked," she says.
This may be because men's arousal
reliably ends with orgasm, which is often not the case for women. Not
surprisingly, then, men masturbate to porn more often than women do. A recent
study in the Archives of Sexual Behavior found that men's self-pleasuring is
accompanied by porn nearly half the time, as opposed to 9 percent of the time
for women.
Viewing or reading erotica does
influence women, but it affects a different part of the intimacy equation than
pornography does for men. Men who view porn may experience a shift in their
sexual expectations; women who use erotica may experience a shift in their
relationship expectations. "Women who consume more erotic fiction tend to
have unrealistic expectations of their partners," says Bridges. "They
want to have these fantastic, passionate relationships."Beyond that, she
says, "erotica tends to be positive. It can expand a couple's sexual
repertoire and increase communication about what they like and don't
like." The obvious explanation is their partner's positive perception of
it—men typically interpret women's sexual media use as an effort to liven up
their lovemaking, says Bridges. It's not just wishful thinking. According to
the University of Arkansas study, women's primary reason for using sexual media
is to enhance partnered sex; in fact, this may be the critical distinction
between erotica and porn. "Material which could be viewed as pornographic
when used alone would acquire a different meaning when viewed in company,"
say Australian researchers, who authored the paper linking intimacy and
erotica.
Context, they argue, is more
important than content. In the University of Arkansas study, for example, both
men and women who reported using sexual media as part of love-making had higher
relationship satisfaction than those who used it solo. University of Denver
researchers recently found that couples who exclusively viewed pornography
together were more sexually satisfied and dedicated to each other than those
who viewed it separately. These results, however, "do not suggest a
benefit of viewing sexually explicit media together," the scientists
note—they only imply that mutual use won't detract from your relationship
quality.
What will? A lack of communication.
"Open communication with your partner and yourself is the most effective
way to keep porn use healthy. It plays the biggest role," says Rupp.
"She has a right to her limits
about her partner's use. It's okay for her to say, 'This is my limit. I'm okay
with this, but not that,'" says Bridges. "But so does he. He has a
right to say that's reasonable or not."
The key is "thinking that
sexuality is always relational, even if you're single," says sex therapist
Michael Metz, Ph.D., author of Enduring Desire. That means taking the focus off
performance. "We live in a sexually perfectionistic culture—erections are
expected to be automatic, performance perfect," says Metz. This view,
largely perpetuated by pornography, isolates one aspect of sex—the acts—and
makes it the definition of great sex.
That's incredibly limiting—and
unrealistic.
Have porn sex if you want. In fact,
according to Metz's book, it's okay and even advisable to incorporate erotic
scenarios, such as watching erotic videos together, using sex toys, or role playing,
into your repertoire. But you should also "open up sex so it's not so
narrow," he said. "Any mood should be right for sex. Have angst sex.
Party sex. Bad-mood sex. Your erection may not always be great, but there's
connection."
That, says Struthers, is the
definition of intimacy. "It's looking at someone and saying, 'You are
good,' and having someone look at you and saying, 'You are good.'"
Men have told me I'm beautiful or
that my body is arousing, which, of course, makes me feel sexy. But being told
I'm enough—physically, emotionally, and sexually—is my ultimate desire. I think
that's the desire of every woman, or perhaps of every person: to satisfy and
feel satisfied, to be accepted and adored. That's something only the person
next to you in bed can fulfill.
source: Men's Health
