Fighting fatigue, fighting fear, but pushing on. This is an uncertain time in my life. Unemployed, but finally, hopeful. I'm working on my goal of working from home, and doing what I love. What could be better? I am happy to work every hour of the day in the pursuit of a dream... I pray that I find a way to make it work. I am choosing to believe that I can, regardless of secret fears. I will not give up!
Mar 22, 2012
Mar 19, 2012
"Not Tonight, Honey. I'm Logging On."
[draft]
emotional toll.
The more he looks at porn the less he is interested in me.
wounded
emotional distress an individual or a couple experiences has more to do with the person's system of moral and social values than with the actual qualitative and/or quantitative aspects of the viewing
offensive
compulsive
major turnoff
alienating
solitary not shared and spicing up sex
anxious, self-conscious
OBJECTIFIED
occasional, sure why not, but constant daily regular no
i'm not an idiot
he’d peek at it beforehand, much the way certain men rely on Viagra, “and then I’d be like an animal with her, trying to superimpose her with all these images in my head.”
hiding
betrayal
addictive
moderation is the key to preventing conflict in the couple
an impediment to intimacy
It's a shame but Internet porn does rob you of genuine intimacy. It's hard to feel good about sex if your man is just extending his cyber gratification to your body. Maybe the men who are so obsessed should get out of the selfish self-stimulation mode and let their wives feel like they are the queen of their hearts and beds."
emotional or sexual neglect of their mate
Most men look at porn to facilitate masturbation
because sex life isn't satisifying enough
"she might feel that she can't compete with images of women who make no demands but are always sexually available."
The use of porn might indicate some problem in the sexual relationship. It would be an excellent opportunity for the couple to discuss their sexual relationship and whether they are meeting each other's needs".
Express why you feel threatened (ex. your body is no match to the perfect bodies of the actors) and what you fear (ex. that your partner will compare you to the actors and feel less attracted to you as a consequence). Sometimes, simple reassurance will be enough to solve the issue.
Obsession, dependance, addiction, compulsion, loss of self-control
empathy issues; objectification
If you find yourself thinking about porn on a daily basis, abandoning other activities because you can't get porn out of your mind, getting anxious or irritable when you are abstaining, or neglecting your real flesh and blood partner, you might be facing an addiction. If that is the case, get professional help.
feeling abondoned and less important
neglected emotionally and sexually
"When my boyfriend says he wants to look at porn, I feel like less of a woman... mostly because I do not look like those girls, they are much sexier than I am. Sometimes I feel like my partner isn't attracted to my physical looks. Porn deprives me of physical attention from my partner".
yeah so maybe i could and will have that same body, but how pissed will i feel by the time i get it? what was wrong with me before? how fragile is your affection? how lasting will it be? what if a regain it? is that always the underlying assumption/supposed agreement? i get to be loved and am acceptable because i'm on my way to being skinny and if a fail in my subliminal part of the agreement, than the offer of acceptance will be withdrawn as retribution?
"As an accessory to sex, soft porn or any porn for that matter which does not endorse violence against your sexual partner is fine. People are naturally curious and I would much rather my partner explore any curiosity or alternative sexual experience with a media/fantasy outlet or myself than with a real person."
"I think it's great that my partner visits porn sites on the web. It's a release for tension, and I can't be with him 24/7. I had much rather have him masturbating while looking at a picture, a movie, or the Internet than having sex with another person, besides me. We are getting ready to enter into the year 2000. There are a lot of diseases out there. Pornographic materials are the ultimate in safe sex. When used by adults, and adults only, it can be fulfilling and rewarding." Indeed, it is impossible to contract a sexually transmitted disease from a magazine.
Another person suggested that porn can kick-start lovemaking, "a healthy imagination goes a long way towards keeping sensual relationships fresh and rejuvenated -- and the imagination needs fuel from time to time. Porn can do that."
“It’s just something to amuse you when you’re bored,” he says. “It’s just there—like white noise.”
“Dude, all of my friends are so obsessed with Internet porn that they can’t sleep with their girlfriends unless they act like porn stars.”
with porn being as prevalent force as it is in our relationship, "making love" takes a backseat to fucking. fucking. raw. emotionless. fake.
disconnected. objectified.
physically satisfying. emotionally vacant.
What’s most regrettable is that it can really affect relationships with women. I’ve seen some young men lately who can’t get aroused with women but have no problem interacting with the Internet. I think a big danger is that young men who are constantly exposed to these fake, always-willing women start to have unreal expectations from real women, which makes them phobic about relationships.” Also, she surmises that cyberporn may play a role in what she describes as “the truly stunning things women today feel obliged to do sexually with a man—whether it’s something like anal penetration or simply not bothering to please themselves.”
All of which raises a question: How much is Internet porn screwing with the way a generation of young men view women?
Rick has a solution—of sorts. “Thing is, you can find a million girls just like them online,” he says. “And they’re naked, doing whatever you want them to do.” And so he’ll often find himself stumbling home at four in the morning and going online to search out digital copies of the women he’s just seen gyrating on the dance floor. Rick admits his isn’t exactly the healthiest outlook on dating. “I think it’s a substitute for reality,” he says. “What you can’t get through real life, you can get through porn.”
disembodied
detached
substitute carbon copy shells duplicated sounds and motion
Though Rick, who has never had a serious girlfriend, doesn’t consider looking at cyberporn a problematic pastime, he will admit that it has affected his interactions with women—and not just those apparitions at Suite 16. “I think it’s made me more picky,” he says. “These girls on the computer are just so hot. Obviously, you want to get with a girl like that. So you may be at a bar with a girl, and she’s really cool, but she’s not a ‘10,’ you know? She’s cool, she’s cute, but you quickly start to notice flaws.” Meanwhile, the women who manage to come off as relatively flawless are curiously categorized in his mind: “Say I see a girl who’s hot, I’ll think, That girl is like a porn star!” At the same time, he adds, “I’d be worried if I met a girl at a bar and three hours later we were in bed.”
unlike the debased women in mainstream porn who are really just used for the money shot.”
Dan was starting to worry about his porn habit.
“At first, it was kind of a natural thing, and then it got compulsive,” he says. “I’d feel unnatural when I went to bed if I didn’t look at it. Then I said to myself, Okay, I’m gonna go a week without it. But I could only make it three or four days.”
do u worry about your porn usage? are u concerned it may be a habit?
“It was like a drug,” Dan says. “I just started to feel so bad about it. I’d think about how these girls I looked at were being exploited, but then I still couldn’t stop. It was totally screwing with the way I thought I should be seeing women.”
there are more complex factors at work. “It makes sense in a way, because, especially in urban environments, our professional lives are very much go-go-go!, and we put our emotions to the sides,” he explains. “Porn can provide an instant soothing to emotional stress.” Ursula Ofman, the Manhattan-based sex therapist, agrees: “The Internet provides such an easy out that you can manage without any real-life contact for a long time,”
“There’s an anxiety component to it,” he says. “In medical terms, we call it ego dystonic, which basically means that it’s a behavior that goes against your sense of self.”
They have since broken up, and have stopped talking. “He was a lot more innocent when he was younger,” she says. “He was looking for love and companionship. Now he just wants a good lay. I’m sure he’s looking for some huge-breasted, tight-assed bitch.”
i struggle to not fall into that raging apathetic angy abyss... jaded about love and sex... glimmer of hope to dissolve deadly cynacism
poisoning or inspiration
“I think it will be really rare, and hopefully it will happen, that I can meet a guy who will be happy with only me.”
All that matters is my satisfaction. It doesn't matter whose body I'm using, as long as I get it
desenzitation
pissing and shitting on each other
bestiality
electro shock sex
dressing up like a baby - adult infantism
threesomes - orgies
anal sex
sex with household objects
bondage
But the balance between seeking out new sexual stimuli and staying faithful to one partner is a fine one, as we all know - temptation is everywhere, and while the spirit may be strong, the flesh is stronger....and porn provides an answer to this dilemma: lots of new stimuli, some of them very exciting, and lots of arousal. Result? A big orgasm. Relief. Easy. Much easier, perhaps, than wooing a partner, even one in a relationship -
stress - causing a need to love self in fantasy
secretive - what else are u hiding from me?!?!?!?
deceived hurt - be honest upfront about the frequency that your engaging and its importance/role i your sexual life
his experience may be enhanced by the possibility of getting caught - the excitement of risk being a major stimulus
I realize that part of the problem for me is coping with the initial shock of discovery since I was more upset about being deceived than I was about the porn itself. As a result, it is still hard for me to come to terms with.
ll animals, us included, with many biologically based behaviors which have been necessary for the survival of the species. They tend, however, to get a bit distorted in modern human society - so, for example, the natural urge to eat fat when it's available as a security against bad times becomes an uncontrolled binge on twenty cream donuts in a week. And the urge to get out there and find new sexual stimuli (spreading the seed and all that) becomes an impulse - or a compulsion - to browse internet porn. It's no wonder it's so addictive - finding new sexual stimuli in such abundance, combined with human curiosity, means men can get hooked on the whole internet porn thing all too easily.
But guys, the question is - what are you doing to yourself and what are you doing to your partner? I know you're all going to go on using porn, but remember that managing your dick is what makes you human and sets you above your biological ancestry.
"we have never properly resolved what we think about how, why and whether it is degrading to women. We suspect that it might be. We suspect that pornography might be degrading to everybody."
cheapons the value of human life... shallows. makes life less meaningful
control and domination
No doubt (though we'd never have admitted it then) my friends and I were driven to use porn through loneliness: being away from home, we longed for love, closeness, unquestioning acceptance. The women over whom we masturbated - the surrogate mothers, if you like - seemed to be offering this but, of course, they were never going to provide it. The untruths it taught me on top of this disappointment - that women are always available, that sex is about what a man can do to a woman - I am only now, more than two decades on, finally succeeding in unlearning.
cool naughty eveyone is doing it
For most men, the way pornography objectifies sex strikes a visceral emotional chord. Psychotherapists Michael Thompson and Dan Kindlon, in their book Raising Cain: Protecting The Emotional Life Of Boys, suggest that objectification, for boys, starts early. "By adolescence, a boy wakes up most mornings with an erection. This can happen whether he is in a good or bad mood, whether it is a school day or a weekend ... Boys enjoy their own physical gadgetry. But the feeling isn't always, 'Look what I can do!' The feeling is often, 'Look what it can do!' - again, a reflection of the way a boy views his instrument of sexuality as just that: an object. What people might not realise when they justly criticise men for objectifying sex - viewing sex as something you do, rather than part of a relationship - is that the first experience of objectification of sexuality in a boy's life comes from his experience of his own body, having this penis that makes its own demands."
Men, say psychologists, also feel threatened by the "emotional power" they perceive women wielding over them. Unable to feel alive except when in relationships with women, they are at the same time painfully aware that their only salvation from isolation comes in being sexually acceptable to women. This sense of neediness can provoke intense anger that, all too often, finds expression in porn. Unlike real life, the pornographic world is a place in which men find their authority unchallenged and in which women are their willing, even grateful servants. "The illusion is created," as one male writer on pornography puts it, "that women are really in their rightful place and that there is, after all, no real and serious challenge to male authority." Seen in this light, the patently ridiculous pornography scenario of the pretty female flat-hunter (or hitch-hiker, driver with broken-down car, or any number of similar such vulnerable roles) who is happy to let herself be gang-banged by a group of overweight, hairy-shouldered couch potatoes makes perfect psychological sense.
You can easily get too much of it. It's deadening, nullifying, gratuitous, unsatisfying. At one point I was single for three years and I used a lot of porn then. After a while, it made me feel worse. I'd feel disgusted with myself and have a huge purg
ey have used their own children for pornographic purposes." When couples use porn together - a growing trend, if anecdotal evidence is anything to go by - there is, says Welldon, "an illusory sense that they are getting closer together. Then they film themselves having sex and feel outside themselves. This dehumanising aspect is an important part of pornography. It dehumanises the other person, the relationship, and any intimacy."
Even when in a loving sexual relationship, men who have used porn say that, all too often, they see their partner through a kind of "pornographic filter". This effect is summed up eloquently by US sociologist Harry Brod, in Segal's essay Sweet Sorrows, Painful Pleasures: "There have been too many times when I have guiltily resorted to impersonal fantasy because the genuine love I felt for a woman wasn't enough to convert feelings into performance. And in those sorry, secret moments, I have resented deeply my lifelong indoctrination into the aesthetic of the centrefold."
"People who use pornography feel dead inside, and they are trying to avoid being aware of that pain. There is a sense of liberation, which is temporary: that's why pornography is so repetitive - you have to go back again and again."
"encourages transience, experimentation and moving between partners". Morgan goes further: "Pornography does damage," he says, "because it encourages people to make their home in shallow relationships."
his is truly a myth. I have found pornography not only does not liberate men, but on the contrary is a source of bondage. Men masturbate to pornography only to become addicted to the fantasy. There is no liberation for men in pornography. [It] becomes a source of addiction, much like alcohol. There is no temporary relief. It is mood-altering. And reinforcing, ie, 'you want more' because 'you got relief'. It is this reinforcing characteristic that leads men to want the experience they have in pornographic fantasy to happen in real life."
anyway, what do you want to say when you get to the end of your life? That you wish you'd spent more time wanking on the internet? I hardly think so."
dismissed - concern dismissed and explained as prudishness or insecurity - devalued and not taken seriously
life is hard and these things aren't easy... i can get angry/offended but that might not leave much room for his needs/vulnerabilites/sadness.... why is he looking at itin the first place? is he happy about his addiction - does an unquenchable lust make him feel good about himself? safe? in control?
Sexual stimuli can be very powerful,” Childress said. “There’s a strong, imperative ‘must look!’ quality to them, the byproduct of an evolutionary premium on reproduction. And humans are great lookers, by nature.”
once u start the ball rolling its hard to stop
novel seductive euphoric
the people most likely to be sucked into an unhealthy relationship with cybersex have some other underlying psychological problem. They are using the Web to self-medicate negative feelings such as anxiety, stress or depression, he suggests. “This is a quick and easy way to feel better,” Bancroft said. “But it’s a rather transient treatment.”
not doing it out of spite of becuase he doesn't care... he's needy hurt and vulnerable too
“Get it out on the table so it becomes a shared issue and not something that’s hidden away.”
ut does all this sexual imagery in the air mean that sex has been liberated—or is it the case that the relationship between the multi-billion-dollar porn industry, compulsiveness, and sexual appetite has become like the relationship between agribusiness, processed foods, supersize portions, and obesity? If your appetite is stimulated and fed by poor-quality material, it takes more junk to fill you up. People are not closer because of porn but further apart; people are not more turned on in their daily lives but less so.
After all, pornography works in the most basic of ways on the brain: It is Pavlovian. An orgasm is one of the biggest reinforcers imaginable. If you associate orgasm with your wife, a kiss, a scent, a body, that is what, over time, will turn you on; if you open your focus to an endless stream of ever-more-transgressive images of cybersex slaves, that is what it will take to turn you on. The ubiquity of sexual images does not free eros but dilutes it.
some sacredness to it, when it is not on tap all the time.
“Isn’t the tension kind of fun?” I asked. “Doesn’t that also get rid of the mystery?”
“Mystery?” He looked at me blankly. And then, without hesitating, he replied: “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Sex has no mystery.”
It is at attempt to claim the best parts of our common humanity -- love, caring, empathy, solidarity
"you're just too sensitive"
emotional toll.
The more he looks at porn the less he is interested in me.
wounded
emotional distress an individual or a couple experiences has more to do with the person's system of moral and social values than with the actual qualitative and/or quantitative aspects of the viewing
offensive
compulsive
major turnoff
alienating
solitary not shared and spicing up sex
anxious, self-conscious
OBJECTIFIED
occasional, sure why not, but constant daily regular no
i'm not an idiot
he’d peek at it beforehand, much the way certain men rely on Viagra, “and then I’d be like an animal with her, trying to superimpose her with all these images in my head.”
hiding
betrayal
addictive
moderation is the key to preventing conflict in the couple
an impediment to intimacy
It's a shame but Internet porn does rob you of genuine intimacy. It's hard to feel good about sex if your man is just extending his cyber gratification to your body. Maybe the men who are so obsessed should get out of the selfish self-stimulation mode and let their wives feel like they are the queen of their hearts and beds."
emotional or sexual neglect of their mate
Most men look at porn to facilitate masturbation
because sex life isn't satisifying enough
"she might feel that she can't compete with images of women who make no demands but are always sexually available."
The use of porn might indicate some problem in the sexual relationship. It would be an excellent opportunity for the couple to discuss their sexual relationship and whether they are meeting each other's needs".
Express why you feel threatened (ex. your body is no match to the perfect bodies of the actors) and what you fear (ex. that your partner will compare you to the actors and feel less attracted to you as a consequence). Sometimes, simple reassurance will be enough to solve the issue.
Obsession, dependance, addiction, compulsion, loss of self-control
empathy issues; objectification
If you find yourself thinking about porn on a daily basis, abandoning other activities because you can't get porn out of your mind, getting anxious or irritable when you are abstaining, or neglecting your real flesh and blood partner, you might be facing an addiction. If that is the case, get professional help.
feeling abondoned and less important
neglected emotionally and sexually
"When my boyfriend says he wants to look at porn, I feel like less of a woman... mostly because I do not look like those girls, they are much sexier than I am. Sometimes I feel like my partner isn't attracted to my physical looks. Porn deprives me of physical attention from my partner".
yeah so maybe i could and will have that same body, but how pissed will i feel by the time i get it? what was wrong with me before? how fragile is your affection? how lasting will it be? what if a regain it? is that always the underlying assumption/supposed agreement? i get to be loved and am acceptable because i'm on my way to being skinny and if a fail in my subliminal part of the agreement, than the offer of acceptance will be withdrawn as retribution?
"As an accessory to sex, soft porn or any porn for that matter which does not endorse violence against your sexual partner is fine. People are naturally curious and I would much rather my partner explore any curiosity or alternative sexual experience with a media/fantasy outlet or myself than with a real person."
"I think it's great that my partner visits porn sites on the web. It's a release for tension, and I can't be with him 24/7. I had much rather have him masturbating while looking at a picture, a movie, or the Internet than having sex with another person, besides me. We are getting ready to enter into the year 2000. There are a lot of diseases out there. Pornographic materials are the ultimate in safe sex. When used by adults, and adults only, it can be fulfilling and rewarding." Indeed, it is impossible to contract a sexually transmitted disease from a magazine.
Another person suggested that porn can kick-start lovemaking, "a healthy imagination goes a long way towards keeping sensual relationships fresh and rejuvenated -- and the imagination needs fuel from time to time. Porn can do that."
“It’s just something to amuse you when you’re bored,” he says. “It’s just there—like white noise.”
“Dude, all of my friends are so obsessed with Internet porn that they can’t sleep with their girlfriends unless they act like porn stars.”
with porn being as prevalent force as it is in our relationship, "making love" takes a backseat to fucking. fucking. raw. emotionless. fake.
disconnected. objectified.
physically satisfying. emotionally vacant.
What’s most regrettable is that it can really affect relationships with women. I’ve seen some young men lately who can’t get aroused with women but have no problem interacting with the Internet. I think a big danger is that young men who are constantly exposed to these fake, always-willing women start to have unreal expectations from real women, which makes them phobic about relationships.” Also, she surmises that cyberporn may play a role in what she describes as “the truly stunning things women today feel obliged to do sexually with a man—whether it’s something like anal penetration or simply not bothering to please themselves.”
All of which raises a question: How much is Internet porn screwing with the way a generation of young men view women?
Rick has a solution—of sorts. “Thing is, you can find a million girls just like them online,” he says. “And they’re naked, doing whatever you want them to do.” And so he’ll often find himself stumbling home at four in the morning and going online to search out digital copies of the women he’s just seen gyrating on the dance floor. Rick admits his isn’t exactly the healthiest outlook on dating. “I think it’s a substitute for reality,” he says. “What you can’t get through real life, you can get through porn.”
disembodied
detached
substitute carbon copy shells duplicated sounds and motion
Though Rick, who has never had a serious girlfriend, doesn’t consider looking at cyberporn a problematic pastime, he will admit that it has affected his interactions with women—and not just those apparitions at Suite 16. “I think it’s made me more picky,” he says. “These girls on the computer are just so hot. Obviously, you want to get with a girl like that. So you may be at a bar with a girl, and she’s really cool, but she’s not a ‘10,’ you know? She’s cool, she’s cute, but you quickly start to notice flaws.” Meanwhile, the women who manage to come off as relatively flawless are curiously categorized in his mind: “Say I see a girl who’s hot, I’ll think, That girl is like a porn star!” At the same time, he adds, “I’d be worried if I met a girl at a bar and three hours later we were in bed.”
unlike the debased women in mainstream porn who are really just used for the money shot.”
Dan was starting to worry about his porn habit.
“At first, it was kind of a natural thing, and then it got compulsive,” he says. “I’d feel unnatural when I went to bed if I didn’t look at it. Then I said to myself, Okay, I’m gonna go a week without it. But I could only make it three or four days.”
do u worry about your porn usage? are u concerned it may be a habit?
“It was like a drug,” Dan says. “I just started to feel so bad about it. I’d think about how these girls I looked at were being exploited, but then I still couldn’t stop. It was totally screwing with the way I thought I should be seeing women.”
there are more complex factors at work. “It makes sense in a way, because, especially in urban environments, our professional lives are very much go-go-go!, and we put our emotions to the sides,” he explains. “Porn can provide an instant soothing to emotional stress.” Ursula Ofman, the Manhattan-based sex therapist, agrees: “The Internet provides such an easy out that you can manage without any real-life contact for a long time,”
“There’s an anxiety component to it,” he says. “In medical terms, we call it ego dystonic, which basically means that it’s a behavior that goes against your sense of self.”
They have since broken up, and have stopped talking. “He was a lot more innocent when he was younger,” she says. “He was looking for love and companionship. Now he just wants a good lay. I’m sure he’s looking for some huge-breasted, tight-assed bitch.”
i struggle to not fall into that raging apathetic angy abyss... jaded about love and sex... glimmer of hope to dissolve deadly cynacism
poisoning or inspiration
“I think it will be really rare, and hopefully it will happen, that I can meet a guy who will be happy with only me.”
All that matters is my satisfaction. It doesn't matter whose body I'm using, as long as I get it
- Lie #1 - Women are less than human
The women in Playboy magazine are called "bunnies," making them cute little animals or "playmates," making them a toy. Penthouse magazine calls them "pets." Porn often refers to women as animals, playthings, or body parts. Some pornography shows only the body or the genitals and doesn't show the face at all. The idea that women are real human beings with thoughts and emotions is played down. - Lie #2 - Women are a "sport"
Some sports magazines have a "swimsuit" issue. This suggests that women are just some kind of sport. Porn views sex as a game and in a game, you have to "win," "conquer," or "score." Men who buy into this view like to talk about "scoring" with women. They start judging their manhood by how many "conquests" they can make. Each woman I "score" with is another trophy on my shelf, another "notch" in my belt to validate my masculinity. - Lie #3 - Women are property
We've all seen the pictures of the slick car with the sexy girl draped over it. The unspoken message, "Buy one, and you get them both." Hard-core porn carries this even further. It displays women like merchandise in a catalog, exposing them as openly as possible for the customer to look at. It's not surprising that many young men think that if they have spent some money taking a girl out, they have a right to have sex with her. Porn tells us that women can be bought. - Lie #4 - A woman's value depends on the attractiveness of her body
- Lie #5 - Women like rape
"When she says no, she means yes" is a typical porn scenario. Women are shown being raped, fighting and kicking at first, and then starting to like it. Porn teaches men to enjoying hurting and abusing women for entertainment.
desenzitation
pissing and shitting on each other
bestiality
electro shock sex
dressing up like a baby - adult infantism
threesomes - orgies
anal sex
sex with household objects
bondage
But the balance between seeking out new sexual stimuli and staying faithful to one partner is a fine one, as we all know - temptation is everywhere, and while the spirit may be strong, the flesh is stronger....and porn provides an answer to this dilemma: lots of new stimuli, some of them very exciting, and lots of arousal. Result? A big orgasm. Relief. Easy. Much easier, perhaps, than wooing a partner, even one in a relationship -
stress - causing a need to love self in fantasy
secretive - what else are u hiding from me?!?!?!?
deceived hurt - be honest upfront about the frequency that your engaging and its importance/role i your sexual life
his experience may be enhanced by the possibility of getting caught - the excitement of risk being a major stimulus
I realize that part of the problem for me is coping with the initial shock of discovery since I was more upset about being deceived than I was about the porn itself. As a result, it is still hard for me to come to terms with.
ll animals, us included, with many biologically based behaviors which have been necessary for the survival of the species. They tend, however, to get a bit distorted in modern human society - so, for example, the natural urge to eat fat when it's available as a security against bad times becomes an uncontrolled binge on twenty cream donuts in a week. And the urge to get out there and find new sexual stimuli (spreading the seed and all that) becomes an impulse - or a compulsion - to browse internet porn. It's no wonder it's so addictive - finding new sexual stimuli in such abundance, combined with human curiosity, means men can get hooked on the whole internet porn thing all too easily.
But guys, the question is - what are you doing to yourself and what are you doing to your partner? I know you're all going to go on using porn, but remember that managing your dick is what makes you human and sets you above your biological ancestry.
"we have never properly resolved what we think about how, why and whether it is degrading to women. We suspect that it might be. We suspect that pornography might be degrading to everybody."
cheapons the value of human life... shallows. makes life less meaningful
control and domination
No doubt (though we'd never have admitted it then) my friends and I were driven to use porn through loneliness: being away from home, we longed for love, closeness, unquestioning acceptance. The women over whom we masturbated - the surrogate mothers, if you like - seemed to be offering this but, of course, they were never going to provide it. The untruths it taught me on top of this disappointment - that women are always available, that sex is about what a man can do to a woman - I am only now, more than two decades on, finally succeeding in unlearning.
cool naughty eveyone is doing it
For most men, the way pornography objectifies sex strikes a visceral emotional chord. Psychotherapists Michael Thompson and Dan Kindlon, in their book Raising Cain: Protecting The Emotional Life Of Boys, suggest that objectification, for boys, starts early. "By adolescence, a boy wakes up most mornings with an erection. This can happen whether he is in a good or bad mood, whether it is a school day or a weekend ... Boys enjoy their own physical gadgetry. But the feeling isn't always, 'Look what I can do!' The feeling is often, 'Look what it can do!' - again, a reflection of the way a boy views his instrument of sexuality as just that: an object. What people might not realise when they justly criticise men for objectifying sex - viewing sex as something you do, rather than part of a relationship - is that the first experience of objectification of sexuality in a boy's life comes from his experience of his own body, having this penis that makes its own demands."
Men, say psychologists, also feel threatened by the "emotional power" they perceive women wielding over them. Unable to feel alive except when in relationships with women, they are at the same time painfully aware that their only salvation from isolation comes in being sexually acceptable to women. This sense of neediness can provoke intense anger that, all too often, finds expression in porn. Unlike real life, the pornographic world is a place in which men find their authority unchallenged and in which women are their willing, even grateful servants. "The illusion is created," as one male writer on pornography puts it, "that women are really in their rightful place and that there is, after all, no real and serious challenge to male authority." Seen in this light, the patently ridiculous pornography scenario of the pretty female flat-hunter (or hitch-hiker, driver with broken-down car, or any number of similar such vulnerable roles) who is happy to let herself be gang-banged by a group of overweight, hairy-shouldered couch potatoes makes perfect psychological sense.
You can easily get too much of it. It's deadening, nullifying, gratuitous, unsatisfying. At one point I was single for three years and I used a lot of porn then. After a while, it made me feel worse. I'd feel disgusted with myself and have a huge purg
ey have used their own children for pornographic purposes." When couples use porn together - a growing trend, if anecdotal evidence is anything to go by - there is, says Welldon, "an illusory sense that they are getting closer together. Then they film themselves having sex and feel outside themselves. This dehumanising aspect is an important part of pornography. It dehumanises the other person, the relationship, and any intimacy."
Even when in a loving sexual relationship, men who have used porn say that, all too often, they see their partner through a kind of "pornographic filter". This effect is summed up eloquently by US sociologist Harry Brod, in Segal's essay Sweet Sorrows, Painful Pleasures: "There have been too many times when I have guiltily resorted to impersonal fantasy because the genuine love I felt for a woman wasn't enough to convert feelings into performance. And in those sorry, secret moments, I have resented deeply my lifelong indoctrination into the aesthetic of the centrefold."
"People who use pornography feel dead inside, and they are trying to avoid being aware of that pain. There is a sense of liberation, which is temporary: that's why pornography is so repetitive - you have to go back again and again."
"encourages transience, experimentation and moving between partners". Morgan goes further: "Pornography does damage," he says, "because it encourages people to make their home in shallow relationships."
his is truly a myth. I have found pornography not only does not liberate men, but on the contrary is a source of bondage. Men masturbate to pornography only to become addicted to the fantasy. There is no liberation for men in pornography. [It] becomes a source of addiction, much like alcohol. There is no temporary relief. It is mood-altering. And reinforcing, ie, 'you want more' because 'you got relief'. It is this reinforcing characteristic that leads men to want the experience they have in pornographic fantasy to happen in real life."
anyway, what do you want to say when you get to the end of your life? That you wish you'd spent more time wanking on the internet? I hardly think so."
dismissed - concern dismissed and explained as prudishness or insecurity - devalued and not taken seriously
life is hard and these things aren't easy... i can get angry/offended but that might not leave much room for his needs/vulnerabilites/sadness.... why is he looking at itin the first place? is he happy about his addiction - does an unquenchable lust make him feel good about himself? safe? in control?
Sexual stimuli can be very powerful,” Childress said. “There’s a strong, imperative ‘must look!’ quality to them, the byproduct of an evolutionary premium on reproduction. And humans are great lookers, by nature.”
once u start the ball rolling its hard to stop
novel seductive euphoric
the people most likely to be sucked into an unhealthy relationship with cybersex have some other underlying psychological problem. They are using the Web to self-medicate negative feelings such as anxiety, stress or depression, he suggests. “This is a quick and easy way to feel better,” Bancroft said. “But it’s a rather transient treatment.”
not doing it out of spite of becuase he doesn't care... he's needy hurt and vulnerable too
“Get it out on the table so it becomes a shared issue and not something that’s hidden away.”
ut does all this sexual imagery in the air mean that sex has been liberated—or is it the case that the relationship between the multi-billion-dollar porn industry, compulsiveness, and sexual appetite has become like the relationship between agribusiness, processed foods, supersize portions, and obesity? If your appetite is stimulated and fed by poor-quality material, it takes more junk to fill you up. People are not closer because of porn but further apart; people are not more turned on in their daily lives but less so.
After all, pornography works in the most basic of ways on the brain: It is Pavlovian. An orgasm is one of the biggest reinforcers imaginable. If you associate orgasm with your wife, a kiss, a scent, a body, that is what, over time, will turn you on; if you open your focus to an endless stream of ever-more-transgressive images of cybersex slaves, that is what it will take to turn you on. The ubiquity of sexual images does not free eros but dilutes it.
some sacredness to it, when it is not on tap all the time.
“Isn’t the tension kind of fun?” I asked. “Doesn’t that also get rid of the mystery?”
“Mystery?” He looked at me blankly. And then, without hesitating, he replied: “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Sex has no mystery.”
It is at attempt to claim the best parts of our common humanity -- love, caring, empathy, solidarity
"you're just too sensitive"
Things that would be cool to do (online)
Make a food journal
Chart out moods
Graph completed workouts
Keep a daily gratitude journal
Possible App ideas?
Hire a developer?
Chart out moods
Graph completed workouts
Keep a daily gratitude journal
Possible App ideas?
Hire a developer?
alone
Derelict stranger
you've outstayed your welcome
condemned
pathetic pitiful outcast
unwanted pariah
you're not wanted anymore
shipwrecked
orphan
this is not your home
roam away, helpless, weary, worn, useless
depleted loafer vanish
you tramp
wallow alone towards death
you've outstayed your welcome
condemned
pathetic pitiful outcast
unwanted pariah
you're not wanted anymore
shipwrecked
orphan
this is not your home
roam away, helpless, weary, worn, useless
depleted loafer vanish
you tramp
wallow alone towards death
It's 2012 - And Time for a Post
Looking at the sidebar here, there's a certain sense of amazement as I see posts spanning back to 2004. My "blogger buddies" are now a bunch of expired links. I wonder where my old friends are these days and how they're doing? I scan some of my earliest posts and I feel transported to another time. Who was I, who am I now and how have I changed? Today I am 38 and beginning to feel like a real adult. When I began I was 30, lost and completely alone. Since I've lost every journal, every paper, every piece of artwork and photo during the move to New York, I feel like this place is now my greatest, most true personal time-capsule. And although I have great misgivings about what is here, and the risks of continuing - there's a part of me that craves it again.
I've begun creating other blogs, experimenting with social media, affiliate marketing, blogging as a career. I wonder whether I should come back here and continue writing anonymously the seedier more private parts of me. This has always been the most therapeutic, most honest home for me. Wouldn't it be nice to have that extra monetization incentive to continue? Wouldn't it be nice to be "self-employed" doing something I love? The closer I get to making this a reality, the more joyous I feel. Independence and freedom has always been the answer. Truth and connection is my passion.
I will ponder.....
I've begun creating other blogs, experimenting with social media, affiliate marketing, blogging as a career. I wonder whether I should come back here and continue writing anonymously the seedier more private parts of me. This has always been the most therapeutic, most honest home for me. Wouldn't it be nice to have that extra monetization incentive to continue? Wouldn't it be nice to be "self-employed" doing something I love? The closer I get to making this a reality, the more joyous I feel. Independence and freedom has always been the answer. Truth and connection is my passion.
I will ponder.....
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