Of course, I realize I can’t convince a porn user who wants to continue that he should stop. My intention is to reach those who either are totally frustrated that they can’t stop or are willing to consider that they could have a much more fulfilling relationship if they learned new, healthy ways of getting pleasure and producing good feelings.

Most people have sex where first there is foreplay to get turned on and then intercourse to have an orgasm, and then they are done. Sounds empty and boring to me.

A better way is to spend time, minutes or hours enjoying each other in a sensual way and sometimes it may lead to intercourse and sometimes to orgasm but the intention is to connect emotionally and physically. There is nothing more enjoyable, not even the best orgasm, hours of giving and receiving pleasure with someone you love.

The best way to do this is to learn bonding behaviors. This means finding meaningful, pleasurable, enjoyable ways to connect with your partner.

More on this in next post!

47.78 percent of families said pornography is a problem in their home
Focus on the Family Poll, 1 October, 2003.

83 percent of 86 surveyed married people do not see electronic “dates” as cheating

75 percent of prime time television in the 1999-2000 season included sexual content

51% of pastors admit that looking at internet pornography is their biggest temptation. (Christianity Today, December 2002)

Generates approximately $1 billion annually with growth projections to $5-7 billion over the next 5 years

Americans spend $10 billion per year on pornography

Approximately 40 million people in the United States are sexually involved with the Internet

2.5 billion emails per day are pornographic

25 percent of all search engine requests are pornography related

Sex is the number 1 topic searched on the Internet

Internet porn a guy thing?  No, 34 percent of churchgoing women said they have intentionally visited porn websites online
In 2004, there were 372 million pornographic Web pages, 2.5 billion emails (8% of total emails), 100 thousand Web sites offering illegal child pornography, and 72 million annual worldwide visitors to pornographic websites

70% of 18 to 24 year old men visit pornographic sites in a typical month. 66% of men in their 20s and 30s also report being regular users of pornography.

Twenty percent of men and 13% of women admitted to accessing pornography at work

21 percent of teens say they have looked at something on the Internet that they wouldn’t want their parents to know

This is from: http://www.frontrangecounselingcenter.com/blog/?p=165

Here are some of the harmful consequences:

1. Porn often leads to more harmful sexually addictive behavior; e.g., compulsive masturbation, fantasy, promiscuity, exhibitionism, soliciting prostitutes, pedophilia, and rape. The user tends to gravitate toward the type of porn most being observed.

2. Porn by its very nature isolates an individual-making him more intent on satisfying selfish needs even at the expense of his marriage, family, financial stability, and career.

3. Porn stimulates a very powerful sexual desire followed by sexual release, most often through masturbation. Unfortunately, the release provides only momentary satisfaction, then an escalation of the behavior is required in an attempt to maintain a high level of sexual arousal.

4. Porn has the ability to control the user where he cannot stop. The fantasies occur more frequently as the addiction progresses.

Of the two pleasure centers in the brain, one is high impact, thrilling pleasure stimulated by pornography, erotic fantasies, or new sexual encounters. The other is a steady, less intense pleasure realized by walking on a beach, making love with a long term partner, helping a child with homework, experiencing deep feelings (painful or pleasant) and sharing them in a significant relationship.

A man doesn’t have to act out in dramatic ways to create harm in his life. Satisfaction can be achieved in small ways and still be detrimental. A beginner gets tastes of the high impact pleasure and slowly starts to integrate fantasies, images, and desires into everyday thoughts and behaviors. Even if he does not graduate to more involvement, this infiltration will still have a negative impact.

Supermodel Christy Brinkley’s family was destroyed by pornography. She and her husband, Peter Cook, had viewed porn together and considered it harmless. Then she discovered he had been masturbating via a web cam over the internet and had an affair with his 18 year old secretary whom he had groomed for sex since she was 15. She then pursued a public divorce trial to openly display his shameful behavior. In the settlement she was awarded full custody of the children. These severe consequences are just one example of what can happen to people.

People who stimulate the high impact pleasure center too often rarely get enough satisfaction. Porn can generate this type of pleasure with little effort. Once a man is hooked, he will have an extremely difficult time transitioning to healthy, more stable pleasure.

In my psychotherapy practice, couples enter therapy where the man has been caught using porn or acting out sexually. His wife is shocked, dismayed, and extremely angry about the betrayal. More often than not, they both believe it is about willpower and if he could only stay away from the computer, the prostitutes, or the porn, everything would be okay. They fail to realize that the sexual behavior is the symptom not the problem.

This is not like a substance addiction where a user can avoid a drink, a pusher or a drug. This compulsive behavior is lethal, since a man cannot simply avoid erotic thoughts. Especially in our culture, provocative images are everywhere. The underlying problem is that he is addicted to high intensity pleasure and does not know how to experience pleasure from everyday, ordinary life situations; such as, spending quality time with his family or having intimate talks and sharing with his wife. Frequently, neither partner knows how to enjoy these simple pleasures, therefore, it is not just the man who needs therapy. The marriage needs an overhaul where both have to address emotional issues.

I inform the couple, “this unfortunate, painful event can be used to open your eyes and turn your marriage around…you can end up with a wonderful marriage, one you never knew was possible. Yes, your husband betrayed you and he is responsible to repair the damage done to you…and his behavior is indicative of a person who is unhappy, bored, anxious, even depressed in his marriage. He did not know what to do to address his unhappiness. If he is so unhappy that he is willing to endanger his marriage, then more than likely you also are in an unsatisfying marriage….at some point you both will look back on this and the porn will no longer be an issue…in fact you will even be grateful that he got caught.”

The couple needs to learn to replace the depression, loneliness, anxiety and the high intensity pleasure with the everyday pleasures of delight and wonder for their marriage and their family life.

With the clinical evidence rapidly mounting against pornography use, the question remains: how can couples explore intimacy and their sexuality with suffering the negative effects of pornography?

And we pay a stiff price for this attempt at caring for ourselves. That we will end up with depression, anxiety, panic, distress, and a body that is continually in fight-or-flight. When what we really need is to be in fight-or-flight when necessary, when the situation calls for this approach and then to be able to return to calm and quiet so the body and mind can relax. If we don’t get this then we need drugs, alcohol, TV, computers, eating compulsively, etc.

How can we be in the body so our bodies can relax? See next posting.

Christopher is a therapist in Shoreline/Seattle, Wa. counseling couples, marriage, for depression, anxiety, panic attacks, compulsive behaviors, sex addiction, and pornography (porn) addiction.