***Watching pornography. What is normal?

During the last 10 years, the sheer volume of pornography available on the internet has grown exponentially, along with how easy it is to access.

Often, Pornography’s promise of easy, commitment free, sexual gratification can be just too hard to resist for many men, when pornographic images, videos, chats and games are so easily found at any time of the day or night.

Many men also see pornography use as harmless fun, and part of being a man.

But, many users of porn are often surprised at how easily porn use can change from an occasional diversion or fantasy to a habitual problem that has the potential to destroy almost every aspect of their real lives.

More and more, porn use is playing a role in relationship breakups and divorce.

Why is this the case?

Because Pornography is about impersonal, unromantic, unemotional, casual sex. It sexually objectifies people.

Many men are often surprised to know that Pornography use is a serious relationship issue, as it has serious effects on the user’s inner life, as well as his interaction with his partner and other family members.

If you are viewing pornography regularly it can interfere with a person’s ability to maintain good self-esteem and have a mutually rewarding sexual intimacy with your partner.

How do Partners feel?

Many men think they can keep their pornography use separate from their relationship, but it is near impossible to be a porn user without it having serious repercussions on your partner and on your relationship.

Unfortunately, rather than creating eroticism in your relationship, porn winds up creating an object that competes with your partner for erotic value.

As a result of watching porn, you can pressure your partner into more impersonal and ritualistic kinds of sex that she may not feel comfortable with. She may feel traumatized if complying with these expectations, or alienated and angry if she says no to these demands.

Alternatively and just as commonly, you may sexually ignore her, as all or most of your sexual attention and energy is being poured into detached and idealized images on the screen.

Additionally, as all orgasms result in the secretion of oxytocin, your orgasms during porn activity lead to bonding with these screen images rather than your partner. This leads to her often sensing an emotional distance and a general feeling of not being close.

Some partners are also ridiculed about their bodies, their appearance or sexual performance, as they often do not look like the impossible images on the screen, and this can seriously affect their self-esteem and reduce their interest in sex and lovemaking.

Because using porn usually involves high levels of secrecy, and dishonesty, she may also subtly feel that not all is as it seems, even if she can’t put her finger on it.

Also, as porn supports denigration rather than cherishing of a partner, there is often little real honouring of your partner as the whole and real woman that she is.

Increasingly over time, she will feel a decline in real sex and intimacy, as you are not available for the kind of intimate lovemaking that she desires.

If and when your porn use is discovered by your partner, she is usually very upset and hurt on a very personal level, as she feels that this has undermined her faith and trust in you and her relationship with you.

Unfortunately most men don’t understand the impact this has on their partner, and want their partner to accept it and not make an issue of it, without realizing the huge relationship problem that they have created.