{"id":4965,"date":"2021-06-20T16:52:08","date_gmt":"2021-06-20T15:52:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/towncryyers.com\/?p=4965"},"modified":"2021-06-20T16:52:12","modified_gmt":"2021-06-20T15:52:12","slug":"how-couples-can-talk-about-porn-and-why-they-should","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/towncryyers.com\/index.php\/2021\/06\/20\/how-couples-can-talk-about-porn-and-why-they-should\/","title":{"rendered":"How Couples Can Talk About Porn, And Why They Should"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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By Alexandra H. Solomon Ph.D.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Proven strategies for having this important conversation.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This global pandemic leaves no aspect of our lives untouched, and that includes our sex lives. Porn usage during the pandemic has dramatically increased, with Pornhub reporting a sharp increase in traffic. OnlyFans has seen a 75% bump in traffic as well. It\u2019s no wonder I\u2019ve been getting a lot of questions lately about how porn usage impacts sexual partners IRL.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I recently surveyed my 50,000-plus audience on Instagram, asking, \u201cHow is the pandemic affecting your sexual desire?\u201d About 40% reported that they are \u201cfeeling frisky\u201d and about 60% reported an \u201cerotic nosedive.\u201d While this is far from empirical research, what these responses indicate to me is that, when it comes to surviving a global crisis, anything goes. That\u2019s why we need to be curious, not critical, about whatever is happening to your sexuality (or your partner\u2019s) during this time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These spikes in porn usage are likely fueled by many factors:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the pandemic is spiking one partner\u2019s libido and tanking the other\u2019s, the frisky partner may be turning to porn as an attempted solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People who are working from home or newly unemployed have more time on their hands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stress, fear, and uncertainty leave people craving a range of escape routes from the harshness of reality (sales of alcohol and recreational drug sales are up as well).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Single people are likely replacing hookups with masturbation as a sexual outlet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some sex therapists (Kort, 2009) have suggested that the porn issue is thornier for heterosexual couples, so I will opt for heterosexual language in this piece. A typical scenario is a female partner who feels insecure and uneasy about her male partner\u2019s use of porn, but who feels stuck. While she doesn\u2019t want to shame him, she also doesn\u2019t want to sweep her feelings under the rug.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are two entire life stories, his and hers, that shape the texture and tone for how any couple meets this challenge. My goal is to plant some seeds and provide some potential avenues for how to engage in a conversation about porn with your partner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why Is It So Hard to Talk to Your Partner About Porn?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Talking about porn tends to be difficult for two reasons.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Talking about sex in general is a common challenge for couples. Researchers have found that in relationships that were over a decade old, partners understood only about 60 percent of what their partner liked sexually and only around 20 percent of what they didn\u2019t like sexually (Miller & Byers, 2004). Being able to talk with each other about sex is tied to all kinds of good stuff like sexual desire, sexual arousal, lubrication, orgasm, erectile function, and less pain (Mallory, Stanton & Handy, 2019). Talking with a partner about sex grows trust, and building trust makes it easier to talk about sex.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Our larger cultural conversation about porn tends to get stuck in binaries. Individuals sometimes identify themselves as pro-porn or anti-porn. Dialogue gets framed in simplistic ways: porn is bad \/ porn is good; porn oppresses women \/ porn liberates women; porn is addictive \/ porn isn\u2019t addictive; using porn destroys a relationship \/ using porn helps a relationship. So it makes sense that couples get stuck here as well, pointing fingers, blaming, and shaming. When this happens, both partners walk away feeling judged and unheard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How to Talk With Your Partner About Porn<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are four strategies for shifting from criticism to curiosity:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Understand the gendered stories that you each bring into the conversation. Research has found that gender role socialization plays out most narrowly and rigidly when it comes to sex. This means that we get stuck in narrow understandings of who we have permission to be (and who we aren\u2019t allowed to be) sexually. I want to name some themes that men and women might bring into the conversation based on gender role socialization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Women\u2019s stories:<\/strong> I want men to hold onto the awareness that their female partner comes into the conversation as someone who has lived in a culture where evidence of objectification and exploitation of women is everywhere. Even if she is not a survivor of sexual trauma herself, to live as a woman is to live trauma-adjacent. It is painful to feel as if her partner is participating in an activity that fuels the objectification of women and violence against women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be sure, women are consumers of porn as well. She may very well feel both aroused and repulsed by porn, which is why your conversation needs to be able to hold space for nuance and paradox. One of the oldest stories in the book is that sex is a \u201cwifely duty\u201d\u2014something that she provides to him. As much as we\u2019d like to think we have evolved out of this story, its echoes linger. Even as she pushes back against this story, it may fuel her belief that if he\u2019s using porn, it means somehow that she\u2019s not doing her job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having grown up in a culture that sells women the idea that their bodies are problematic and forever needing improvement, she likely brings body image challenges that she did not ask for, but internalized nonetheless. She may fear that his porn use indicates that he is not happy with her body, and his use of porn use may crank up the voice in her head that says she should try harder to improve her body. She may compare the type of sex she has with her partner to porn sex, but if she emulates what\u2019s on the screen, she risks sacrificing her own pleasure. Finally, she may feel left out that her partner has not discussed his fantasies with her (think: Madonna-whore complex).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Men\u2019s stories:<\/strong> I want women to hold onto the awareness that their male partner likely comes into the conversation about porn with very little experience having heartfelt conversations about his sexuality. He has likely felt afraid of being shamed for his sexual desires and that fear is often what underlies her experience of him as defensive and walled off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Further, research has found that boys first view porn around age 13. This conversation may feel threatening because his relationship with porn is likely a longer-standing relationship than the one with his partner. It may be a private space that he has turned to over many years \u2014 for self-soothing, escape, exploration. As therapist Terry Real (2002) says, \u201cMen don\u2019t fear intimacy, they fear subjugation.\u201d He may enter the conversation with an expectation that he will lose something, that she will \u201cmake\u201d him give something up and he will feel diminished. A man may feel apprehensive about sharing aspects of his sexuality with his female partner because of an internalized misogynist split between \u201cpure\u201d women that you marry and \u201cdirty\u201d women in porn, which reflects a sense that aspects of his own sexuality are palatable and other aspects are dangerous or destructive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, if in this relationship he wants more sexual connection than she does, he may turn to porn in an attempt to solve this problem, protecting his partner from his advances and protecting himself from feeling rejected about her declining his advances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Set a collaborative framework. If you come to the conversation with more questions than answers, with a desire to listen to your partner, and with a motivation to understand more deeply the experiences that have shaped their perspective, there is tremendous potential for a conversation about porn to be a gateway to deeper intimacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Start by each of you telling the other the story of your relationship with pornography. Before you start, you must promise yourself and your partner that you will not use what you learn as ammo if\/when you hit another bump in the road. Here are some questions to get you started:<\/p>\n\n\n\n