When Masturbation and Pornographic Addiction Become A Problem (Part 2)

According to psychologist Ana J. Bridges, from University of Arkansas, is that the overconsumption of pornography from teen males, leads to a learning of relationships from the media they consume. Because they are learning the values of the relationship from the pornography they watch, their perception of women and healthy sexual relationships can become very skewed. What Ana Bridges observed was what she calls the “imitation model”, where young men imitate what they see in the pornography they consume, as opposed to social learning which would be done with real human women. Important traits like empathy, sympathy, emotional connection, caring and intimacy, are not learned through the imitation model and do not transfer over when these young teen boys become men.

When young teens, who have only ever received relationship learning in the form of pornography, try to enter or start sexual relationships with real women, they may have problems with stimulation or desire hardcore aspects of pornography. Ultimately this can create the start of an unhealthy relationship, where one partner, not only have trouble being stimulated sexually by the other partner, but the other partner goes beyond their own level of comfort to please them. With a large part of pornographic scenes containing, what Ana calls verbal aggression, young teens in some cases learn that it is fine to talk in borderline sexually abusive ways to their partner without their consent. Ana and her team analyzed 304 scenes and in a staggering 88% of them, physical and or verbal aggression was used and only met with some sort of pushback in around 5% of them. If we take the imitation model as true, teen males only obtaining their knowledge of sexual relations from pornography might believe it is okay to act verbally or physically during the act without consent from both parties. Sex is a complicated, but healthy relationship activity, but if one of the participants doesn’t have boundaries that the other is comfortable with, dysfunctional relationships have a high chance of becoming a reality.

In fact, mainstream pornography reinforces the prevalence of male to female dominance, not only in sexual relationships, but in emotional ones as well. Many times how we act in the bedroom as an extension of the relationship we have with our significant other, so learning our mannerisms in a relationship, from pornography endorse male domination. Pornography that shows verbal and physical aggression has the potential to carry over into the emotional and behavioral parts of a relationship. Ideas like ownership over the women, or disassociation of them past a sexual object, is not only unhealthy for regular monogamous relationships, but even just for sexual relationships. Dominance in a relationship has the dangerous potential of spilling over into parts of a relationship where it shouldn’t be and pornography is a potential reinforcement of this behavior.

Perhaps one of the larger problems of porn addiction and overconsumption amongst teen males is that it completely warps their standards of beauty and what they find, versus what they should find, attractive. It is no surprise that that pornographic actors and actresses represent a level of beauty reflective of what society deems sexually attractive at that point in time. This seems obvious as the goal is to sell as much of the material as possible, but in many cases young teen males view these actresses as what a real women should look like and either set their standards of beauty too high, or to an unrealistic, unattainable level. Rather than lowering their standards at a young age, teens addicted to pornography will usually just continue to overconsume the media and wait for their perfect women. Instead of learning the social skills required to create a healthy and fulfilling relationship at a young age, addicted teen males are avoiding the dating scene all together.

Every male and female do not look like a beautiful pornographic actress, but young men who seek partners that only look like that demographic, will often come up short in finding a mate. This is partially because women in the adult industry are, like many actresses in Hollywood, picked from the most physically beautiful women out there, and also in part due to large amounts of plastic surgery that is undergone in the industry. According to the ASAPS’s statistics on cosmetic surgery, there has been an increase in the amount of Labiaplasties, or surgery that makes the labia look more aesthetically pleasing, for the last 5 years straight. Many, such as Doctor Norman Rowe, a Manhattan plastic surgeon, say might be caused by the perception of the “perfect” vagina that is created in pornography. The unrealistically high beauty standards only further hurts the prospect of healthy human interactive relationships and more than likely leaves the teen lacking stimulation with real women they might have future sexual encounters with, leading to potential impotency. Physical sexual attraction is of course a large part of a relationship, but if your standards of beauty are too high, finding and creation healthy relationships in formative years as a teenager might be hard, which carries over onto adulthood.

So how do we help those that are afflicted with pornographic and masturbation addiction? The hard part is that most young men that are addicted, believe either they aren’t addicted or that the addiction is not as bad as it seems, like most addicts. In Bridges’ survey of 9177 male porn users, 70% of them kept the time they spent secret from their significant other and 68% felt as if their online pornographic use did not interfere with other aspects of their lives. A follow up analysis of these surveyors found that 93% of males had female partners that complained about their porn usage online and that it had affected their relationships. In another study 1/3 of women who were surveyed, were found to be distressed that their male partners used pornographic material at all.

If the users know that they have a problem there are many things that can be done to help their addiction and curb or eliminate the negative effects of pornography on the user. If the user can simply stop “cold turkey”, it is recommended, however with most users it is not that simple. With teenage males, it is possible to cut down their usage through strict monitoring of their website visiting and usage. Also moving their computer into a living or family room makes it harder for the addicted teenager to access sites openly. In extreme situations where they cannot be trusted to use the computer without looking at or trying to access pornographic material, specific websites can be blocked or there are programs which will block access to any site with adult material available.

Pornography and masturbation in regular doses can be and is, usually a healthy activity, however in excess, as shown, can have detrimental effects on the user. Besides direct consequences in sexual relationships, there are consequences that spillover into regular emotional relationships as well. Lovers and significant others should seek to use pornography in small amounts, only as a tool to facilitate better relationships and stimulate a sex life. Young teenage males should use it to explore and discover their sexuality, but within controls, as out of control overconsumption of pornographic media most likely will have detrimental effects on their social life.

-Calaber24p