Does Porn Kill Intimacy? Why Therapists Should Stop Saying This
This could also be titled: Why I get really pissed off when I hear therapists and practitioners say, “porn kills intimacy”, or other blanket statements.
I could (and have, on many occasions) rant for a whole book’s worth, but for now, let’s explore just one part:
INTIMACY.
Define, “intimacy”, for me.
No, please don’t send me the quote that says,“Intimacy is Into-me-see”.
Define it for me within a sexual context.
What counts as “intimacy” and what counts as “sex”?
Is there a difference? Why? Spell it out for me. Be specific. Does it apply with complete congruence to your life too? If not, explain why.
Are “intimacy” and “sex” mutually exclusive? Why or why not?
Now tell me why your definition of “intimacy”- which I bet has also been handed to you by your therapy training, community, or from tantra- gets to be top of the hierarchy in terms of sex.
“Intimacy” is at the top.
It is supposed to be the Holy Grail of sex, the Nirvana, the place we should all aspire to be.
Anything that is remotely sexual or erotic is lower than this and should be feared at all costs as a slippery slope down to the awful carnal lust.
The thing is, human sexuality doesn’t work like that.
Where does DESIRE come into this? Erotic tension? Passion? Excitement? Thrill?
In the book, “The Erotic Mind”, author Jack Morin talks about how as humans, we have Peak Erotic Experiences.
Memories, dynamics, fantasies, contexts that hit our accelerators.
Do you know yours? Be honest with yourself.
Your ACTUAL ones, not the ones you have tried to make yourself have!
He also proposed an erotic equation:
Attraction + Obstacles = Excitement
In other words, how can you transition Warm Sex (ie sex that feels nice and warm- shall we say, this arbitrary definition of, “intimacy”?) to Hot Sex?
As a sexologist, I can confirm that human sexuality is a wild, wild place, and humans have been into and doing weird and wild sexual things with each other and themselves since we lived in caves.
Sure, some of this is reveals the human shadow- especially when it violates consent, exploits hierarchies, power dynamics, and all the ugliness that is rife with misogyny, racism, and all the other not so great parts of human history.
And yet people have still been horny, still been shagging, still been finding creative ways to love, make love, and get off.
Now more questions:
Where is the line between what counts as “intimate” and not?
How you define what counts as “healthy” and what counts as “unhealthy”?
Now share it with others, is it the same definition?
Is it an exact definition that applies to every single human being, regardless of orientation, life experience, religious beliefs, value systems, culture, or anything else?
If you took heteronormativity out of it?
Would it apply to your parents?
And let’s get really uncomfortable: Does it actually turn YOU on too?
No, it’s impossible.
So with these very vague and unspecified definitions of what does and doesn’t counts as intimacy, do you see where more of your bias has come in when you say that, “porn kills intimacy”?
Yes, you can absolutely develop unsupportive relationship with it– mainly due to loneliness, underlying anxiety, no access to pleasure-focused sex ed, when you confuse what you see in a lot of porn videos (not all, I will add, because we have the epic genre of feminist, queer, and indie porn!) with real life sex, lack of porn literacy, etc.
(Coincidentally, have you ever looked up the statistics of porn usage by country and area? It turns out the more conservative a country or area is, the higher the use of porn. Interesting, isn’t it?)
Links: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2378023120908472
Yes, you can end up using it to manage anxiety or to numb out– just like we use many different things to manage anxiety and to numb out.
Sometimes numbing out is actually ok– we cannot be emotionally processing 24/7!
Yes, it is also vital to learn skills on building emotional connection, to let yourself be seen, to feel emotionally safe with each other. These are not mutually exclusive.
And yes, it means you need to add other things in to support ourselves if you feel that your usage of porn isn’t helping you.
For every relationship or marriage that was supposedly destroyed by porn usage, I’ll bet my entire tea collection it was the tip of the iceberg of a myriad of other issues that were not being addressed.
(For example: Trust issues, underlying anxiety or mental health issues, unhealthy dynamics, avoidance, issues with body image, difficulty expressing emotions, conflicting values, entitlement, emotional labour, unfair distribution of housework and childcare, overworking, financial stress, the list is endless.)
Therapists and practitioners treating their clients who use porn as “addicts”, using pathologizing language and an addiction framework, actually makes it far worse.
Please stop making porn the bogeyman, the religious right wing are already doing a great job of that already.
This post was originally published on https://lucyrowett.com/does-porn-kill-intimacy-why-therapists-should-stop-saying-this/
