Shmuley Boteach and Pamela Anderson have co-authored an article about pornography in the Wall Street Journal. It starts by decrying the “devastation of porn addiction” and ends by saying that “porn is for losers.” Boteach is a Rabbi who has spent years telling people that sex should be restricted to committed, loving relationships. He says […]
As delegates land in Cleveland International Airport for the Republican convention next week, they can expect to hear the following announcement: “As our plane descends into Cleveland, passengers are reminded to set their watches back 15 years.” Yes, the proposed Republican Party platform is seriously behind the times. It urges that the legalization of same-gender […]
I don’t think this is a very helpful question. Porn is a compendium of human fantasies about sexuality—and, therefore, about power, pleasure, connection, anger, fear, gender, desire, beauty, comfort, and the exotic, and many other things. Of course, human sexuality involves enormous doses of imagination. That’s part of what gives it so much impact in […]
Rule 34: If it exists, or you can imagine it, there is porn of it. No exceptions. Rule 34 summarizes everything about sexuality. It says that human sexual fantasy is limitless. It says that anything can be eroticized, can be arousing, can be life-affirming. It reminds us that any ideas we have about what’s normal sex are about us, not about sex. I’m always telling patients “don’t blame sex for your ideas about sex.” Rule 34 reminds us exactly what pornography is: a library of human eroticism. Pornography is a celebration of how humans can stretch their erotic imagination—sometimes in ways…
One of the objections that some women have to their partners watching porn is “I can’t compete with the women in those videos.” The idea that a woman has to compete with the women or activities in porn films is an unfortunate misunderstanding. Now some women feel they have to compete with mainstream celebrities like Scarlett Johansson and Beyoncé (and before that, with Marilyn Monroe and Sharon Stone, and before that, with Cleopatra). That’s a fool’s errand that no one should attempt. These are professional; do not attempt to do their job in your home. If you’re smart enough to…
Why does anyone look at porn? For tens of millions of American men and women, there’s only one answer: To get more sexually excited. The goal of getting excited, of course, is to enhance the process by which people eventually get not-excited—also called satisfaction. Lather, rinse, repeat three times per week for 75 years. How someone feels about that—deliberately doing something to get more aroused—is an excellent predictor of how they will feel about pornography. For those suspicious of sexual arousal, porn is bad. For those who think that tinkering with our own arousal is selfish or creepy, porn is…