Love Ruined My Porn Habit
A porn-loving woman finds that, after falling in love, her libido just isn't that into porn.
We hear about relationships torn apart by internet porn addiction, but where are the support groups for smut-loving women like me, who suddenly and inexplicably get turned off by porn when they fall in love? Before I met my boyfriend, I was visiting youporn.com about a half an hour a day, hunting through dozens of clips to find the one most perfectly calibrated to turn me on.
After I met my boyfriend, my visits to the site dropped off in equal proportion to how much I was getting off with a flesh-and-blood human being.
But my loss of appetite for porn can't simply be chocked up to how great it is to have the real thing: There were days when, beau away, I'd recall the quick jolt of satisfaction that used to await me online. I would go to my computer and put my hand down my pants—only to find that porn, gasp, suddenly did nothing for me. Read: Self Pleasure For Beginners
Even clips that had the golden ratio suddenly looked contrived, grotesque—like apes humping in a zoo. It made no sense.
And it was so unfair! I didn't want to have to rely on my boyfriend as my lone source of arousal. I would tell myself, "Come on! We can't put all of our eggs in this guy's basket!" but still nothing. Love's blindness had also somehow made me blind to the pleasures of porn. Read: Could More Porn Actually Make Us Healthier?
It turns out, however, that there's science behind my stultification. A growing body of research on the biology of love proves just how hardwired we are to fending off attraction to others once we become smitten with someone. Biological anthropologist Dr. Helen Fisher, author of Why Him? Why Her?, explains: "Love evolved to enable you to focus your mating energy on just one person at a time in order to conserve your energy." In other words, love is a shield of chemicals and psychological trickery that helps us stick to our mate, trying to ensure that we make and raise babies with them. "Those people who didn't have an urge to fall in love probably died off," says Fisher.Read: Problems With Intimacy? Retrain Your Brain
But if the continuation of our species has ever faced an enemy it couldn't handle, it would be porn.
According to The Porn Trap author Wendy Maltz, our bodies and brains produce many of the same chemicals when we're watching porn that they produce when we're in love. Chief among them are dopamine, which does the job of focusing us on one person, and oxytocin, which help us form attachments. "I've called pornography cupid's rival because the physiological experience of porn competes with romantic love," says Maltz. "It actually jumps in there and in a very easy way competes with it." If you have an orgasm with porn, oxytocin is released, which can emotionally connect you to what you're watching. "So you can actually kind of fall of love, in a way, with your porn," says Maltz.
Discussion
i have a better one...how about this: how come when a couple first starts dating...the sex and loving making is great...no need for visual aids or anything...sometimes the couple will check out porn sites such as myporndrive.com or whatever just to see if they can perform better than the "actors"...haha...then say after 2yrs go by...whenever you ask for sex there's always an excuse!! what gives? ~tina myporndrive.com
I was definitely madly in love with my ex -- and rather still am, though we've been broken up for some months now. I really can't think that the fact that I started using porn during our relationship was related to a lessening attraction or love for him. I never so much as ogled another man in public; I had eyes for no one else. However, he was my first serious boyfriend, and having enjoyed my first sexual experiences, I certainly didn't want to give them up when we were separated over long breaks from school. I came to my first love and my interest in porn at around the same time, and yet I was the most loyal, devoted, and happy girlfriend around. Perhaps for that reason I found any porn use on his part to be rather icky and funny than horrifying and hurtful -- only real-life girls made me feel threatened. I suspect there's something to this, but that doesn't mean it's a universal experience.
Great article! One question though, unless I missed it....
So when madly 'in love' but the sex life is inadequate, Why do people gravitate to porn/erotica?
I understand before the author found love porn was a stimulant or inducer if you will...and after an unnecessary stimulant but a missed pleasure.
I find, though I enjoy porn and erotica, when not watching my imagination replays previous views but replaces the main male character with my DH. This makes most porn watched a very anticipated enjoyable experience. Then again when DH and I watch together and get turned on by same scene we have a tendency to mimic what turned us on. Talk about your wild dream scapes!
Really enjoyed this passing it forward.
Oh and Symiah...I loooovvveee Hentai as well! Too much fun for the imagination. Goes where no reality can go before! LOL
Just My 2cnts
Bright Blessings,
LyndaW
Lots of interesting stuff here.
I wonder if this explains some of why women are jealous of porn. For one thing, if it really does duplicate the chemicals of falling in love, then is it a rival?
On the other hand, do men get less interested in porn when they're in love? If a woman gets less interested in porn like this woman did, but her boyfriend doesn't, she might wonder what it meant about his feelings for her.
I also thought it was very interesting that people looked away more from attractive photos than unattractive ones when they were thinking about their sweetie. That would imply that they did at least feel the attraction.
