Is Porn Affecting the Libido of the American Male?

NY Magazine has an interesting collection of articles in the January edition with the group being titled "Drowning In Porn". Linked below is one dealing with the libido of American men, especially younger men, who inhabit a world awash in porn.


I have posted some key excerpts, but I would suggest that those who wish to participate in any ensuing conversation read the entire article. A second article is linked at the end of this post, and it is also interesting.


He’s Just Not That Into Anyone [nymag.com]
Even, and perhaps especially, when his girlfriend is acting like the women he can’t stop watching online.

...

Why would I, a healthy guy in his thirties, need to fake an orgasm? It was mystifying. I wasn’t on antidepressants, which I’d heard could decrease sensation. I got plenty of exercise. It didn’t seem to matter which woman I was with, or what kind of condom we used, or whether I’d downed one glass of whiskey or ten, or if we listened to Neil Young or Al Green, as I learned through trial and error (mostly error). Over the course of months, I picked a dozen suspects out of the lineup and gradually cleared each one. Except, perhaps, the most obvious.

“Pornography? It’s a new synaptic pathway.” This is what John Mayer said in a candid interview with Playboy. “You wake up in the morning, open a thumbnail page, and it leads to a Pandora’s box of visuals,” he continued. “There have probably been days when I saw 300 vaginas before I got out of bed.” "...

...

“I used to race home to have sex with my wife,” says Perry, a 41-year-old lawyer. “Now I leave work a half-hour early so I can get home before she does and masturbate to porn.” Throughout the course of our conversation, Perry insists that he’s still attracted to his wife of twelve years. Still, he says, she can’t quite measure up to the porn stars he views online. “Not to be mean, but they’re younger, hotter, and wilder in the sack than my wife,” he says. “Me and her, we still ‘do it’ and everything, but instead of every day, it’s maybe once a week. It’s like I’ve got this ‘other woman’ … and the ‘other woman’ is porn.”

...

"Is it possible that porn is causing men to detach from their partners in more profound ways? Though porn research is the subject of much debate and barb-flinging (with religious groups seizing on any study to prove that porn and masturbation are wrong), scientists speculate that a dopamine-oxytocin combo is released in the brain during orgasm, acting as a “biochemical love potion,” as behavioral therapist Andrea Kuszewski calls it. It’s the reason after having sex with someone, you’re probably more inclined to form an emotional attachment. But you don’t have to actually have sex in order to get those neurotransmitters firing. When you watch porn, “you’re bonding with it,” Kuszewski says. “And those chemicals make you want to keep coming back to have that feeling.” Which allows men not only to get off on porn but to potentially develop a neurological attachment to it. They can, in essence, date porn."

...

As a result of the blending of reality and fantasy, some women have chosen to willingly play along by a new set of rules in order to keep their men interested: They’re intentionally impersonating porn stars. Sadie, the real-estate agent, says, “A lot of guys have come to expect P.S.E. [the “Porn-Star Experience”] as a common thing—snatches waxed bald, access to every hole—and plenty of women are more than happy to provide. A few might enjoy it, but for most it’s harrowing. I think there’s a fear that if they can’t make it happen, their boyfriend will retreat online.”

...




The article ends with the author unplugging from porn for a few days, and in the end having an encounter with a woman in which he did not have to fake it. But he points out that he speaks only for himself.

I see in this the continuation of what we might view as mankind's great turning inward. There was a time when the Western world was informed by the great theme of outward discovery. Europe sent men on great voyages of discovery, science drew men into the natural world to categorize and examine nature. Once the world had been explored and mapped, and the continent of north America tamed, it seems as if the western world has now turned in on itself and achievements are measured in improved 'quality of life', life expectancy and greater broadband penetration. This is a world of individual entertainment.

The turning inward continues as we appear to be willing to pull away from women and towards our own interior gratification. After all, the relationship with the self is much less complicated, one doesn't have to impress or act virtuous in order to gain the gratification and bonding that is so desired. Men seem to have a greater propensity for this than do women, but then again, perhaps the vibrator speaks to a different proclivity.

Man's conquest of his own nature first involved corrections of nature, and ultimately substitutes for nature. Now we can offer man a substitute for that critical bond that has held civilization together forever, a substitute for eros.








Another article in the grouping about "Porn and Junior High Culture [nymag.com]" is a longer read but interesting as well.

Perhaps I will post a summary of it in time.

Quote : The turning inward continues as we appear to be willing to pull away from women and towards our own interior gratification.

Men have been devalued in our societies.

Furthermore, the relationship between men and women is in chaos.

This is both the result and part of the destruction of the old mores and relationship structures, which bound our society.

Some posit that we are moving back towards a more animalistic sexuality, in which Alpha Males recieve the attention of the Females. Females are more independent economically, so they are seeking different characteristics in men...not good men and strong providers, but physically attractive men that get them off. Essentially role reversal, between Men and Women.

So alienated and devalued men, turn to alternate sexual avenues. (And likely an increase in homosexuality as well....as that is promoted in shcools as an alternative lifestyle.) Others turn to mail order brides, or seek wives abroad, who are intersted in economic security. Western women, likewise are turning abroad for sexual pleasures, which Third World Men provide while they benefit economically by the relationship.

The Brave New World.

Its likely that Robotics will alienate Men and Women even further as they buy sexy sex androids, to pleasure themselves with.

Quote : Senegal draws tourists with sun, sea and sex [globalpost.com] Female sex tourism in Senegal attracts women who will pay for romance.

One of the reasons for this turning inward, as you say, is that of the ideological failures of European Civilization, they have rejected Christianity in favor of Enlightenment, which produced the Man Made Dystopias of Communism and Nazism, along with 2 dibilitating World Wars.

There really was nothing left in the engine, but to turn inward...to abandon the search for Universal Truth, and to seek to find Individual Truth. The Baby Boomers are called the Me Generation for a reason. We have essentially reached a point of Secular Hedonism as the Zeitgeist.

Can't talk now. 'Batin'.

My sex drive has not been affected by internet porn. I'm in my mid-twenties though, so maybe I'm just insatiable still.

Quote from Doctor_Wu : I see in this the continuation of what we might view as mankind's great turning inward. There was a time when the Western world was informed by the great theme of outward discovery. Europe sent men on great voyages of discovery, science drew men into the natural world to categorize and examine nature. Once the world had been explored and mapped, and the continent of north America tamed, it seems as if the western world has now turned in on itself and achievements are measured in improved 'quality of life', life expectancy and greater broadband penetration. This is a world of individual entertainment.

Wu, I think you're really reaching here.

For one thing, your assertion that the age of discovery and science is over seems unfounded. At any time in history, only a small fraction of humans could have been considered discoverers. Also, there are more scientists today than at any other time in history.

For another, I think it would be dubious to claim that human sexuality today is more flawed in some way than human sexuality was at any one time in the past. Human sexuality has always been in flux. I don't see the widespread availability of porn as being a fundamental change for the better or worse.

Shouldn't the topic be more like this?

Are American women too prudish in a country with high puritanical view, THAT MEN HAS TO RESORT TO PORNOGRAPHY?

Still I blame the way our country is in regards to sex and females and gender roles...

Wait. Now porn decreases interest in sex?

We've come full circle.

Quote from skiman : Can't talk now. Denyin' the holiest tenets of human existence while simultaneously objectifyin' my fella comrades. I mean fellas. I ain't no commy!

Translated for EVO.

Quote from skiman : Can't talk now. 'Batin'.

:-) :-)

Sadly, I use that phrase all too often at work

Porn is indicative of a healthy labido, however, its just misdirected.


Furthermore, the relationship between men and women, that has been disrupted quite a bit....was originally in the 60s and 70s, a case where men were allowed access to women freely, the sexual revolutino and liberation. That liberation still exists, but the women are now choosing Alpha Males as sex toys, and the Beta Males are having to find alternative outlets.

----

Look at Sexual Harrassment Law, in which Alpha Males are still free to harrass away, because their sexual attention is invited. However less desireable males are more often charged with harrassment for the same behavior. The woman is empowered to dominate the sexual scene there at work, by law.

Some people use this forum as an "alternative outlet."

No wonder so many feel violated and complain to the mods.

Quote from skiman : Can't talk now. 'Batin'.

Let's not overlook the fact that he was single...

And IIRC the judge took offense at the fact that he was interrupted while batin.

Quote from EscapeVelo : Look at Sexual Harrassment Law, in which Alpha Males are still free to harrass away, because their sexual attention is invited. However less desireable males are more often charged with harrassment for the same behavior. The woman is empowered to dominate the sexual scene there at work, by law.

is this from experience?