Quote:
Originally Posted by joesmo888
can anyone on here say they are okay having sex with only one person for more than a few months or a year?
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Sure. I could. I've done it before. There's a different connection I can achieve with one person that I can't with multiple partners. That's what I crave the most. The connection.
But hobbying has been fun, too. It's not something I'm going to do forever, but for right now it gives me exactly what I'm looking for.
Something about that site. The guy who runs it, Gary Wilson, isn't some kind of renowned psychiatrist. I believe he's a high school teacher, or something to that effect.
Also, this isn't scientific evidence. Most of what backs the information on that site is anecdotal. Doesn't make it wrong, but these aren't controlled studies being done.
It also affects everyone in different ways.
One thing that is true is that our brain seeks novelty in terms of its dopamine hit. I think the worst thing about porn for most people is that it's so accessible. I don't mean that its accessibility should be changed or anything, but because it's so accessible, people don't have to put effort into getting physical pleasure from sexual stimulation. They can watch various kinds of porn while jacking off or stroking their clit without having to put any effort into actually making themselves attractive to the other sex.
Frankly, that's true to a lesser degree with the hobby. At least it's real world interaction rather than getting off to pixelated images, but some of the effort to acquire a sexual partner is boiled down to how much money do you have, or for women, how little are you willing to charge to perform a service (all the way down to doing it for free, obviously).
A similar thing occurs with drug use, btw. Especially heroin, whose effects on the brain have often been compared to orgasm. The difference is masturbating to porn is a hell of a lot easier than accessing heroin.
The dangers are different for each gender. For women, the biggest issue is desensitization. Since women get off through pressure, for
somewomen they can desensitize themselves through chronic masturbation to the point where no partner can satisfy them. They simply don't know the right way to touch, or can't put the right amount of pressure in the right place. Also, obviously a woman can masturbate to orgasm without having any concern over a refractory period, so there's not the physical limitations which can exist with men.
Having said that, I strongly feel masturbation is healthy. Particularly for women. Women who infrequently masturbate because they think it's wrong, often have a difficult time with sex, at least in my experience. It takes a lot of work to get them in a place where they trust themselves, their body, and frankly, me as their partner, before they can achieve orgasm. This is particularly true if they've suffered from sexual abuse.
For men, again, it's going to be different for everyone. There is such a thing as "death grip" where men masturbate so much that they desensitize their penis. Also, if they watch enough porn while masturbating they can groove the connections in their brain so much that it becomes the only way they can get off. There are plenty of stories out there of husbands with sexually willing wives who prefer to get off through porn. It's not that their wife is unattractive, necessarily, but she can no longer compete with the connections in the brain the husband has formed over years of porn and masturbation.
The danger is particularly significant for a certain portion of the male population. Children are accessing high speed broadband porn as soon as they can access the internet. They're connecting to sex through pixelated images years before ever having their first kiss. For kids who are ADD or suffer from social anxiety, it's particularly bad. Their brains don't produce dopamine in the same way, or along the same channels, so they're more susceptible to becoming addicted. They get used to masturbating 2 to 3 times per day through watching, but they cannot physically react to a girl in real life any more.
They also start exploring sites involving sex that they'd never be interested in pursuing, simply for the novelty spike. There are plenty of reports of things like HOCD (homosexual obsessive compulsive disorder) or even pedophilia, among young men who don't want to act on these desires, but still find the imagery sexually exciting.
The cool news about all this is neuroplasticity, or the idea that the brain can adapt and change depending on the information fed to it. It's the old programming maxim, Garbage In, Garbage Out.
My favorite layman's book on the subject is The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge. It's a great read. Very inspirational.
The key being, whoever we are, and whatever path we've chosen to get to this point in life, we can always take a different path. Our brains are adaptable to the information we feed it. I think Dr. Doidge gets too enthusiastic at points, but it's still fun --- and valuable, IMO --- to think about.
Well, rambled on there. Thought about deleting this post, but I think I'll go ahead and hit submit.
Thanks for the OP, Charlotte.
