I've been talking with a friend about porn. Actually talked with several friends about porn! The day my divorce was final, several of my girlfriends gave me a party and took me out. They gave me several things but one of the things they gave me was a DVD. I watched it - or some of it. Basically the entire thing as far as I've been able to watch is one girl with sometimes two men and sometimes one. She's either giving them blow jobs or they're both doing her - one from behind, one in front - or she's giving them BOTH blow jobs or some sort of combination of these scenarios. It does nothing for me. I've seen porn before - and I sometimes wonder if I've got a little lesbian in me! If I get anything from it at all, it's usually when two women are doing it. But for the most part - it doesn't do much for me.
Ex however - that's a different story! I don't think I really even know how bad his porn habit was. And while I've been thinking about this, it made me think about all those surgeries to his right arm! Perhaps if he'd broken up with Mrs. Palm and her 5 daughters - he wouldn't have needed the surgeries!
He loves to blame me for never wanting to have sex with him - but there were MANY times would he couldn't because he'd beat off too much that day. Like a damn 14 year old boy. He also got to the point where having sex with a live woman was not enough to get him off. He'd have to either watch porn while we did it or beat off after he'd "done" me. Didn't exactly make me go rushing for more. It was humiliating and depressing. It certainly did NOT make me feel the least bit sexy - and I think it's a pretty fair generalization to say that women have to "feel" sexy to want to have sex.
When did porn start to effect our sex life? When we were younger, the very little porn that we ever saw was a little exciting to us both. But back in the 80's - you really didn't have the kind of stuff that's out there now. But I didn't think it was any big deal - and of course we were younger, thinner and didn't have a kid yet. Ten years later - it was a different story. He'd leave magazines in a drawer that was easily accessible to our daughter. He'd leave them lying around in the bedroom. One time he left a tape in the VCR. It made me furious and I told him to get rid of it. As far as I know, he did at that time - at least he got better about hiding it anyway.
But then we get to the 2000's when you can practically go in Walmart and buy porn. You can get it anytime you want on the computer and they have infomercials selling dildos on cable tv. And coincidentally (?) - our marriage basically started going to shit. Which came first? The shitty sex life or the porn? Which one caused the other one? I don't know - but I know it didn't help.
And I KNOW that after I had my double mastectomy in 2004 - that was pretty much the end of any kind of sex life. We literally went TWO years once without having sex. We pretty much would have it on our anniversary and that was about it - and it was VERY unsatisfactory. It was like a chore. A 43 year old woman who used to have large boobs - now with no boobs - just doesn't fit the fantasy little 15 year old boys have when they're spanking the monkey - and my 44 year old husband was a 15 year old boy.
He would lie and say that the mastectomy didn't matter - but little Willie couldn't lie. Just like any teen-age boy - he needed the boobies. If there's anything that can make me hate him - and sometimes I do - it's thinking about that. About the fact that he told me the night we decided to divorce that he could get it up - but not for me. It still PISSES me off - because it's like he's blaming ME for the demise of our sex life. When I had the surgery, the docs told me I couldn't have reconstruction for 2 years because of the kind of cancer I had. At that time my survival % was 26%. It tended to come back and it tended to come back in the scar and on the chest wall. So they didn't want me to have anything that would delay them seeing it if it came back.
After the 2 years (yay Herceptin, YAY GOD!) I asked him what he thought. Should I get the surgery? I'd had one very close friend and one acquaintance who'd been through reconstruction and they'd both had TERRIBLE experiences. So I was very afraid of doing it at that time. So he tells me that no, I don't need to have it if I don't want to, it doesn't matter to him. Which was BULLSHIT. Maybe he was trying to keep from hurting my feelings - but that was not the time to do it. (The night we decided to divorce - that would have been the time to worry about hurting my feelings) That was the time to be honest and tell me he would like it better if I had it. And I would have done it and I wouldn't have been mad with him about it. But once again this was his way of dealing with.... CONFLICT - oh God - conflict... he couldn't run fast enough from conflict or what he perceived as conflict anyway.
Would that surgery have saved our marriage? No. But at least it would have kept him from hurting me worse than he ever hurt me in 33 years of us being together. Hurt me so bad that I was just totally numb. I guess the good thing about it is that it pretty much killed any remaining traces of love I had, any remaining thoughts about trying to save our marriage. But it also fucked me up big time in how I feel about my looks and my sex appeal. So much so that the reality that Convention man wanted to have sex with me was inconceivable to me.
Ex however - that's a different story! I don't think I really even know how bad his porn habit was. And while I've been thinking about this, it made me think about all those surgeries to his right arm! Perhaps if he'd broken up with Mrs. Palm and her 5 daughters - he wouldn't have needed the surgeries!
He loves to blame me for never wanting to have sex with him - but there were MANY times would he couldn't because he'd beat off too much that day. Like a damn 14 year old boy. He also got to the point where having sex with a live woman was not enough to get him off. He'd have to either watch porn while we did it or beat off after he'd "done" me. Didn't exactly make me go rushing for more. It was humiliating and depressing. It certainly did NOT make me feel the least bit sexy - and I think it's a pretty fair generalization to say that women have to "feel" sexy to want to have sex.
When did porn start to effect our sex life? When we were younger, the very little porn that we ever saw was a little exciting to us both. But back in the 80's - you really didn't have the kind of stuff that's out there now. But I didn't think it was any big deal - and of course we were younger, thinner and didn't have a kid yet. Ten years later - it was a different story. He'd leave magazines in a drawer that was easily accessible to our daughter. He'd leave them lying around in the bedroom. One time he left a tape in the VCR. It made me furious and I told him to get rid of it. As far as I know, he did at that time - at least he got better about hiding it anyway.
But then we get to the 2000's when you can practically go in Walmart and buy porn. You can get it anytime you want on the computer and they have infomercials selling dildos on cable tv. And coincidentally (?) - our marriage basically started going to shit. Which came first? The shitty sex life or the porn? Which one caused the other one? I don't know - but I know it didn't help.
And I KNOW that after I had my double mastectomy in 2004 - that was pretty much the end of any kind of sex life. We literally went TWO years once without having sex. We pretty much would have it on our anniversary and that was about it - and it was VERY unsatisfactory. It was like a chore. A 43 year old woman who used to have large boobs - now with no boobs - just doesn't fit the fantasy little 15 year old boys have when they're spanking the monkey - and my 44 year old husband was a 15 year old boy.
He would lie and say that the mastectomy didn't matter - but little Willie couldn't lie. Just like any teen-age boy - he needed the boobies. If there's anything that can make me hate him - and sometimes I do - it's thinking about that. About the fact that he told me the night we decided to divorce that he could get it up - but not for me. It still PISSES me off - because it's like he's blaming ME for the demise of our sex life. When I had the surgery, the docs told me I couldn't have reconstruction for 2 years because of the kind of cancer I had. At that time my survival % was 26%. It tended to come back and it tended to come back in the scar and on the chest wall. So they didn't want me to have anything that would delay them seeing it if it came back.
After the 2 years (yay Herceptin, YAY GOD!) I asked him what he thought. Should I get the surgery? I'd had one very close friend and one acquaintance who'd been through reconstruction and they'd both had TERRIBLE experiences. So I was very afraid of doing it at that time. So he tells me that no, I don't need to have it if I don't want to, it doesn't matter to him. Which was BULLSHIT. Maybe he was trying to keep from hurting my feelings - but that was not the time to do it. (The night we decided to divorce - that would have been the time to worry about hurting my feelings) That was the time to be honest and tell me he would like it better if I had it. And I would have done it and I wouldn't have been mad with him about it. But once again this was his way of dealing with.... CONFLICT - oh God - conflict... he couldn't run fast enough from conflict or what he perceived as conflict anyway.
Would that surgery have saved our marriage? No. But at least it would have kept him from hurting me worse than he ever hurt me in 33 years of us being together. Hurt me so bad that I was just totally numb. I guess the good thing about it is that it pretty much killed any remaining traces of love I had, any remaining thoughts about trying to save our marriage. But it also fucked me up big time in how I feel about my looks and my sex appeal. So much so that the reality that Convention man wanted to have sex with me was inconceivable to me.
Great piece! No man, if he knew the impact that porn could, and likely will on his spouse would go near that stuff. The fallout is just too toxic.
ReplyDeleteDid, at any time, you feel like you had to compete with the sexual acrobats on the computer screen?
Here is a real problem I think needs consideration. Too many women allow it to start, even initiate (or permit) the viewing of it, through there own curiosity, and to some degree their own stimulation. I'm not blaming the woman who introduces it for the man's addiction. Ultimately, a man is responsible for his own actions, and must be held accountable. However, from the man's perspective there are mixed signals there. And in my case, the addiction had taken hold very soon after my spouse and I had 'shared' some viewing, as a way to 'spice' things up. That sharing was a huge mistake, because it said to me, on a subconcious level, it's OK. She does it too. And once that ball got rolling, there was no stopping it until something shook me to the core. Unfortunately, the damage to my wife had been done, and in ways I never thought imaginable, and in ways that would not be realized for some time to come. That's real poison is that mess.
I don't think women realize the biochemical processes of porn on men. The wiring of the male brain is completely different and thus, makes men more susceptible to becoming addicted. For men, the pleasures centers in the brain that react to porn are the same ones that react to the intoxication of narcotics. That doesn't mean the same nervous sensations are the same, but the brain recognizes the stimulus as euphoric and like a kid in a candy store, it craves more of the same. Women, however, while visually stimulated to a lesser extent, but enough to become aroused by the fantasy portrayed in front of them (woman on woman is a very common prefernce among women, by the way. Has to do with the fantasy aspect.), do not register the images in the brain the same way. Their pleasure sensors that could lead to addiction are connected in much different ways. What generates that euphoric sense is a much different stimulus. That's why women can put the porn down at any time, even never really respond to it initially.
My point in this is that the woman needs to weigh very carefully the risk involved with introducing porn to the bedroom bag of tricks. She will easily be able to put that down if it has any stimulating effect at all. He, however, will react to it differently and you won't necessarily know it. Porn really is a sneaky monster. And it is ruining more marriages than our society would like to admit.
I swear these things should be part of required counseling for young married couples. The agony that is indirectly caused by porn is senseless, and could easiyt be prevented.