What Porn Teaches Us About Men

A lot of gents seem to really like it, but we don’t always think about the reasons why. Here’s what porn teaches us about men.

Mature written content warning.

It seems porn probably has never been more mainstream than it is today. Once a back corner wink wink nudge nudge sort of topic, we see its impact daily in a number of areas. Streaming services and big TV productions now feature high levels of sexual content that would have once been considered hardcore porn. Between 1998 and 2005, one study showed an increase of 14% in shows having sexual content, and you just have to hit the Netflix, Stan, HBO or Hulu button on your device of choice to see the percentage now over a decade later. We also see a percentage of sex therapists and relationship advice encourage its use in “enhancing” a couple’s sex life.

Porn itself has grown to a $6-15 billion industry (estimates vary widely). In 2018, one major porn site reported that 207,000 videos were viewed and 64000 active users were present… every single minute. That’s a lot of porn. Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year indeed for the porn industry, with the highest amount of content consumed around December 25.

And I definitely acknowledge that men aren’t the only consumers of porn – 1 in 3 women now regularly consume erotic content (at least once a week). In truth, this article could be entitled “what porn teaches us about people”, because the lessons have overlap for everyone. However, as men are still the top consumers by a long margin, I thought it would be worth looking at why.

Rather than just achieving a surface level understanding of porn as “it makes you feel good”, I think it’s worth having a look at exactly where it gets its power and international appeal from. Here’s what porn teaches us about men.

Availability

A few years ago, one brave (or is that crazy?) husband published a spreadsheet online which proved the disparate frequency he and his wife were intimate. The spreadsheet listed every night an attempt at intimacy was made followed by the reason why it didn’t take place. The analysis of one psychologist I read who analysed this one noted that he could have used porn instead because porn never has a headache, never complains, is always in the mood and will never turn you down.

Perhaps we too quickly disgard what availability means to a man. John and Helen Burns said of men on their Canadian TV program, Relate, that they don’t just want a willing woman, they want a wanting woman. Obviously this doesn’t just affect the partnered but also the single men out there, who often feel like they don’t have any other outlet or opportunity. And porn is a window into someone who apparently always wants you.

Even the old mythologies speak to this end. The sirens would sing their seductive song without any clothes on and the sailors would be so enticed at their openness and apparent willingness they would shipwreck themselves and the others in their care just for the promise of desire. Even though you knew the sound could lead to your death, it was worth it for the seemingly available beauties. Today you also see men shipwreck their marriages and families for the allure of someone seemingly more available.

John Gottman of The Gottman Institute used the analogy of porcupine sex (look it up) to show that men can’t have sex while her quills are up (although he also charged men with doing their part to help with that).

The more men I talk to, the more I am convinced how deeply availability appeals to the heart of who they are. When I ask men of any relationship status hooked on porn, “What do you think you’re looking for?”, someone who they perceive as available and open to them is at the top of the list. The Shullamite woman of the Song of Songs seems to have understood this about her man well and echoes this sentiment, telling the winds to “blow through her garden” and carry her fragrances to entice her man to be close.

The core seduction technique of any woman good at it and indeed any pornographic material employs is that of availability.

Celebration

I wonder if you’ve noticed that men never really seem to grow up. I know I know, ground breaking stuff. But we carry a lot of the same traits we have as young children into adulthood. One of the cornerstones of little boys (and all people really) is the desire to be celebrated. “Mum, look at me!”. “Dad, look what I can do!”. “Look at the achievement I accomplished!”.

A study of men’s motivation for being successful in their career revealed that celebration and accomplishment is one of the driving factors in men wanting to do well in their field. If you look throughout the history of the earth, it is littered with men building statues and holding parades in their own honour. Even if a man doesn’t have the gold of Nebuchadnezzar, the mass appeal of Josef Stalin, or the need for forced adulation like the various kings and emperors of the earth, his heart still cries out for some form of it.

And for many men, sex is the avenue for celebration which speaks the loudest to our hearts. As various psychologists and neural studies demonstrate, the mirror neurons in our minds go off and feel just as celebrated as the lucky guy in the video as we feel just as celebrated as he does. Fight the New Drug reports that 78% of videos are centred around male pleasure compared to 18.3% featuring female pleasure. She wants him, she needs him, she’s so encouraging of him to enjoy himself. It really is a powerful thing that is taking place.

Porn teaches us about men that in a world where many men feel uncelebrated, unseen, or unable to convey their deep need, they yearn for it in whatever form it may take.

Control

Uh oh. Control. Men like to be in control. Whether its in their marriages, their families, their careers or even their sporting team, we all want some semblance of power over what is and isn’t happening in our lives.

Sex therapist David Schnarch writes that people who are unable to control themselves try to control others. And porn is massively empowering to a man who needs to feel in control. By its very nature, the type, the number, the frequency, the fetish – all of it within his button press, at his beck and call.

I’ve seen a lot of men break down and cry over the years, revealing their heart of hearts on a number of issues. And 100% of the time, a man who feels out of control with regards to the availability of comfort or the presence of celebration in his life is one reaching out for something he actually can control. His wife or the single girls may be saying no, but he can flip a switch and gain access to something he has ownership over. He may feel like he doesn’t matter, but a woman in a distant country acting out a scene with a needle-induced erection can make him feel like he’s worthwhile.

A bandaid solution on deeper unmet needs

Throughout all of these, you may have noticed something else that porn teaches us about men, and that’s we’re more willing to accept cheap substitutes than we are to confront the real issues.

Pornography maintains a strangle hold on people’s minds and hearts when we use it as a replacement for dealing with the real issues around availability, celebration, and control. In all of these fronts, porn is like taking a bandaid and putting it on a gushing open wound. It makes you feel like you’re doing something productive about it but it’s not really addressing the issue in your life.

Moreover, pornography introduces more issues than it feels like it fixes – not being able to get aroused by a real woman (or PIED), diminished sexual satisfaction, and even altering and shaping our sexual preferences rather than merely reflecting them.

With regards to availability, perhaps a man would rather have sex with a screen than he would work out why girls keep saying no to him romantically, or why his wife doesn’t want to be intimate with him. In John Gottman’s writings on the pursuer-distancer dynamic, the pursuer needs to learn to accept a mechanism for handling smaller rejections. Additionally, if there’s a larger and more longstanding issue in a relationship prohibiting sexual availability, you coping with your screen instead of talking about it is probably doing more harm than good.

With regards to celebration, it’s worth asking yourself this – is there anyone in my life who celebrates me? As FTND’s research has shown, the addictive behaviour of porn is reinforcing to yourself that you’re not worth it #PornKillsLove. However, you might be blinding yourself to the love that is in your life. I’ve found that even when men open their eyes to see the non-sexual love in their life, that the appeal of pornography is significantly lessened.

With regards to control, take a more purposeful look at this area of your life. What are you good at? What are you called to do? Rather than allowing porn to fuel an imbalanced sense of needing to be in control that often leads men to stupid and destructive behaviour, instead take control of what you’re supposed to, and in the words of the Serenity Prayer, to accept the things you can’t. I wrote recently on this one in Why Men Need Purpose, Direction, and Income.

I hope if you’re a man reading this who’s been hooked by digital sexual content that you pay real attention to what porn teaches us about men. In learning what buttons in our hearts and lives it’s pushing and appealing to, we can more look more fully at how to address these in a healthy and constructive way.

And if you love a man, I’m hoping these three things show you what he’s actually looking for. If you’re looking to love a man in the way he needs it, be available, do all you can to make him feel celebrated, and let him lead in some areas of your relationship – not like a tyrant, but give him space and opportunity to be the man you want him to be. This applies outside of the bedroom but also certainly within it.

And as I mentioned towards the start, this is definitely really what porn teaches us about people. It just goes to show you that for both men and women, we’re often looking for the same thing.

What are your thoughts on porn? What do you think porn teaches us about men?

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