Is watching porn a form of infidelity?
This is not a helpful question. Every time I hear it in session, in fact, I think it’s the wrong question. But women and men keep asking it, so let me answer it here.
The simple answer is, it all depends on how you define infidelity.
We imagine others having more pleasure, self-acceptance, and sexiness than we feel. They rarely feel as good as we imagine.
It’s the same with porn: real sex doesn’t feel as good as porn sex looks. It can’t. How shall we handle this?
It’s fascinating what people blame on porn–such as a husband behaving like a selfish jerk.
You might as well blame food for obesity, or cars for dangerous driving, or kids for bad parenting. Of course, obesity involves food, dangerous driving involves cars, and bad parenting involves kids. But if you want to understand problematic behavior, you have to look past the surface.
Whenever I write or lecture about pornography, some wives and girlfriends eagerly respond with stories that supposedly prove how damaging pornography is. Examples include:~ He tells me I should look or act more like a porn star ~ He leaves porn around the house where the kids can find it ~ He insists on sexual activities with me that I don’t want ~ He won’t have sex with me anymore ~ He watches porn and then hits me ~ He’ll only have sex with me if we look at porn together ~ He ignores me if he doesn’t get enough…
I recently spoke in Vancouver, Canada, at one of the city’s most progressive hospitals. Afterwards, several medical staff came up to thank me.
One doc said, “I’m uncomfortable with so many women shaving or waxing their pubic mounds. It just looks to me like women responding to cultural pressure—mostly men and porn—to look like little girls.” I disagreed, and asked…
According to the new No-Fap movement, there’s an “epidemic” of “urges” to “fap”—to masturbate. To stem this destructive rampage of addiction and self-harm, there are programs all over the web designed to help men stop masturbating.
Guys who take up the No-Fap Challenge for 30, 60, or 90 days sometimes even excludes partner sex for as much as a year. These guys, usually still in their ‘20s, say they’re looking for freedom, self-discipline, and higher self-esteem.
Great goals. Bizarre (and rarely successful) strategy.