7 Myths About Porn and Relationships
Lots of things can harm your relationship - porn isn’t one of them
When I met my husband, it was a match made in pervy heaven.
I was a pretty regular porn user. Not a porn junkie by any means - I didn’t actually spend a whole lot of time watching it. But I did turn it on every single chance I got.
I had to be sneaky. Whenever my parents were out of the house, I’d flip to the locked channels they thought I couldn’t unscramble and I’d take in as many dirty scenes as I could.
Then I met Mr. Austin. We really liked each other but we didn’t have a lot of interests in common.
I loved going to parties, but he didn’t even drink. He listened to music I couldn’t get into no matter how often he played them. He loved movies that were so slow I didn’t know how they could keep anyone’s attention.
But at the back of his closet, he had something we could both enjoy. Porn - and lots of it.
I knew guys who owned one or two busted up X-rated VHS tapes. But this guy had stacks of dirty DVDs loaded with hours and hours of hardcore sex.
After dating him for a few months, we had watched most of them together. And I rewatched the better ones on my own while he was at work.
When I moved in with him, his porn collection became our porn collection. We grew it together by ordering even more DVDs, burning pirated porn I downloaded from torrent sites, and stocking up on dirty magazines every time we took a trip to the sex shop.
Twelve years into our marriage, those DVDs are gone. So are the sleazy magazines. But porn is still a big part of our lives. We share subscriptions to our favorite porn sites, we each have our own Pornhub accounts, and he knows how to log into my OnlyFans so we can admire the same girls.
If porn could ruin relationships, ours would be toast by now. But it’s not. We’re still going strong. Better than ever, if anything.
But it you listened to the conventional wisdom about porn, you’d assume that a pair of smut-hungry pervs like us would going through all sorts of trouble. We should be emotionally disconnected, bored and dissatisfied with each other, and having terrible sex that neither of us can fully enjoy.
Except it’s nothing like that. Not even close.
And it’s not because we’re lucky or that we have supernatural levels of emotional intelligence. It’s because porn just isn’t that bad and a lot of the conventional wisdom around it is just plain wrong.
Porn isn’t a harmful substance. It’s not a relationship killer. It doesn’t fuck up your sex life.
It’s just entertaining, fun, and arousing.
What is harmful, though, are all the myths about porn. Those can really mess you up and cause problems in your relationship.
Believing those myths can make you fret and worry about your partner’s porn use. It can make you feel guilty for streaming a porn scene. It can keep you from enjoying all the benefits you could get from openly enjoying porn with your partner.
That’s why I want to clear things up. These are seven major misconceptions about the ways porn can affect your relationship and your sex life - and why you don’t actually have any reason to worry about them.
Porn Will Make Your Partner Lose Interest in You
A lot of women are convinced their partner won’t be able to stay interested in them if he can jerk off to all sorts of women online.
Porn is basically a hot girl pipeline. It’s an endless supply of hotties with big, perky tits. PAWGs with slim waists and huge asses. Cute girls whose doe eyes would make you want to do anything to please them.
How’s he supposed to still get turned on by you and your body when he has access to all that?
Well, he will. If he’s attracted to you, porn isn’t going to change that one bit.
For one thing, there’s nothing special about porn.
I don’t know why people single it out like this, because it’s not the only media that presents you with people who fit the mainstream beauty standards.
I mean, have you seen the women in most of the movies on Netflix? And Instagram is full of professional models and girls who could give those models a run for their money.
Any kind of popular media is going to expose you to those beauty standards. Porn’s no different.
Well, actually, it is different. It’s better. There’s a lot more variety in porn - all kinds of girls with all sorts of body types.
Even better, they’re all sexualized. Every single last one of them.
You don’t just get to see some random chubby girls, ladies with small tits, or MILFs who are well over 40 - you get to see them presented as sexy and desirable. The camera is there to capture them undressing, teasing, and fucking. The whole point is to drool over them, get turned on by their bodies, and get off to all the things they do with them.
You won’t get that on Netflix. And it’s not even allowed on Instagram.
But okay, let’s say we’re sticking to porn with young, thin girls who all have perky tits, eager mouths, and are willing to do anything. It still won’t make a difference. Guys can fantasize about different kinds of women without expecting everyone to look like them.
That’s backed up by a 2019 study that found that watching porn “had no significant effect on sexual desire for one’s partner.” And a 2017 study came to the same conclusion when they studied the effects of viewing “erotic images.”
Those findings don’t surprise me in the least because I’ve been watching porn that’s chock-a-block with big dicks for more than 20 years and it still hasn’t made me a size queen. I’ve also been exposed to lots and lots of guys with thick forearms and abs like mountain ranges, but I still managed to get the hots for my husband.
If He Watches Porn, He Won’t Be Able to Get It Up
If your guy has a difficult time getting stiff or staying hard during sex, you might go looking for advice and explanations online. And depending on where you look, there’s a good chance someone will say he should give up porn.
The theory behind this sounds kind of plausible. Basically, a guy who watches porn will get used to the intense arousal it gives his. It’s so intense, in fact, that being in front of a real-life woman who isn’t taking two dicks in her ass at once just isn’t exciting enough to move blood to his junk.
Not enough excitement, no hard-on. Simple as that.
Except that’s not actually how it works. Multiple studies have looked for a link between porn use and difficulty achieving an erection, and they’ve come up empty-handed.
Which makes perfect sense because porn just isn’t that powerful.
I mean, yeah, it’s really fucking entertaining. That’s why I watch so much of it. But it’s not some psychedelic drug that feels so good it beats a real naked lady - let alone having sex with her.
I don’t care how good the porn is - actual, real-ass people you’re attracted to are always going to be more arousing.
If he can’t get it up for you, there’s a reason the blood isn’t rushing to his dick. But it’s not because porn is somehow more awesome than sex.
Jerking Off to Porn Will Give Him Death Grip
Reddit sex forums are full of guys asking why they can’t blow their load during a blowjob and girls asking why they can’t make their boyfriends come.
And again, you usually only have to go one or two comments deep before someone blames porn.
As confident as those commenters sound, I just can’t buy into that idea.
Don’t get me wrong, death grip is absolutely a real thing. But it’s not caused by porn. It’s caused by masturbating in a particular way - usually with too much pressure.
I’ve given myself death grip in the past. On multiple occasions, actually. And each time, I fucked up my sensitivity for the same reason - changes in my hormones made me so horny that I was masturbating way more often than I normally do.
Porn had nothing to do with it. In fact, I was barely watching any. I tend to watch porn to get myself aroused, but I was already so horny that I didn’t even bother with it.
My husband deals with death grip, too. It’s so severe that’s he’s never been able to come from sex. But again, that’s because of the way he masturbated for years.
He even tried quitting porn for a while to see if it would help. It didn’t. He was still as death gripped as ever.
The only thing that actually improved his sensitivity was changing the way he masturbates - with lots of lube and multiple strokers. He made quite a bit of progress, and he did it all while watching plenty of porn.
Porn Makes Men Terrible in Bed
Not being able to get hard doesn’t actually have to be a problem. You might need to make some adjustments to how you fuck, but you can still have a great sex life even with a soft cock.
Same with death grip. There are ways to accommodate it and have really hot sex.
But one of the most common criticisms of porn isn’t that it causes sexual dysfunction - it’s that it makes guys really bad at fucking.
I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but women have a lot of complaints about the way men fuck, especially when they’re hooking up and having casual sex.
Every woman has stories about guys who are way too rough during sex, rush through the foreplay, try to choke them without permission, push their heads down during a blowjob, or pound their pussies like jackhammering it is the way to her heart.
And as soon as those stories come out, someone blames porn.
Apparently, all these guys would be fine in bed if they weren’t binge-watching gonzo porn and getting all sorts of terrible ideas from it.
Now, I’m not going to pretend that people can’t get some bad ideas from porn. But I don’t think that’s the real problem.
First, I’ve got to say I’m pretty uncomfortable with the way some people criticize porn for showing rough sex. For one thing, not all porn does. Most porn is fairly vanilla. But even when it’s not, there’s nothing wrong with rough porn.
Choking, slapping, and pinning a girl down to fuck her hard isn’t bad sex - it’s a preference. It’s something you love doing when you’ve got a dominant side - and something you very much enjoy receiving if you’re sexually submissive.
It’s fine to enjoy that kind of thing. When people criticize porn for depicting it, that’s just plain kink shaming.
But also, men having weird ideas about how to get women off has nothing to do with porn. It’s kind of the way straight guys have been since there have been straight guys.
A lot of times, they’re just doing what feels natural to them - like thrusting faster when a girl says “don’t stop” or rushing through the foreplay to get their dicks wet. It’s just that the things that feel natural to them don’t always line up with what most women actually enjoy during sex.
Men struggling to get women off or doing some weird shit in bed has nothing to do with porn and has everything to do with misinformation, misunderstandings, and none of us being able to communicate as well as we should when we’re fucking.
And porn can actually help you have way better sex.
Porn is a great way for couples to come up with new things they’d like to experiment with. It can introduce you to some grade-A moves that can make a guy way better in bed, like pussy jobs and edging.
Plus, I can’t overlook the fact that the best sex I’ve had was with the guy who owned stacks and stacks of porn. That might not be a coincidence - I bet he picked up a couple of moves from watching it.
Porn Will Cause You to Have Less Sex
A lot of people talk about sexual arousal like it’s a finite resource. And if your guy watches porn, he’s wasting it on a bunch of women he doesn’t even know.
By the time he’s with you, his sex meter is all the way down to zero. His horny spark is gone and he’d rather play with his phone instead of your pussy.
So, there you are again - unfucked and unhappy. All because of porn.
Except it’s the other way around.
Sexual energy basically feeds off itself. The hornier you get, the hornier you’ll stay. The more time you spend aroused, the more you’ll daydream about sex, have dirty thoughts, and feel the urge to put the moves on your partner.
That’s definitely been the case for me. Porn has never caused me to have less sex. If anything, it’s the reason I have as much sex as I do. Watching porn is one of the most reliable ways I can give my sex drive a boost.
I’ve used it with my husband as foreplay, too. We’ll put on a porn scene and watch it together while getting a bit handsy. It’s a great way to get things going.
If your partner has lost interest in you or in fucking you, there’s a reason for that. It could be anything from stress and hormonal changes to feeling emotionally disconnected or not feeling desired. But it’s extremely unlikely that it has anything to do with porn.
Porn Addiction Is Gonna Fuck Up Your Relationship
Porn addiction sounds really fucking scary.
You start off by innocently going to tube sites to look for something to masturbate to. But the more porn you watch, the more it starts getting its grip on you. You can’t get enough of it, so you start neglecting your partner to sneak off and watch cumshot compilations and gangbang scenes. You totally check out of your relationship because you’d rather check your Pornhub subscriptions page than cuddle with your partner.
Thankfully, it doesn’t actually work like that.
A 2014 review of the literature on porn addiction concluded that it doesn’t even fit the clinical model for addiction.
For one thing, there’s no concrete evidence that porn use functions like other addictions. In clinical addictions, people stop consuming something because they enjoy it. Instead, they do it because they feel compelled to.
Porn isn’t like that. People stream it when they want to be entertained, aroused, or have something to get off to. The rest of the time, they just leave it alone.
Porn users also don’t exhibit the neurological changes that take place when an addiction sets in.
That tracks with my personal experience. I love porn. I watch it pretty often. But I never found it to be any more addictive than watching TV, drinking milkshakes, or doing anything else that’s really enjoyable. If anything, I’m a lot more likely to get sucked in by TikTok than Pornhub.
I’m not worried about Mr. Austin getting addicted to porn, either. He watches it even more often than I do, but he never skips out on work, chores, or being present in our family because of it. I don’t have to settle for no cuddles because he can’t resist beating it to a threesome.
So, if porn isn’t addictive, why do so many people claim they struggle with a porn addiction?
Guilt.
That’s it. Well, guilt and shame.
Porn only feels addictive if you feel guilty for using it. If watching it makes you feel dirty, embarrassed, or ashamed of yourself, you’re going to feel like you fucked up. Jerking off to a porn clip is going to make you feel like you gave in to a temptation you should have resisted.
But without that guilt or shame, using porn doesn’t feel that way at all. Even if you do it daily, it’s just good, clean fun, not an addictive substance.
Watching Porn Is Going to Turn You Into a Massive Pervert
Another critique of porn is that it ruins sex lives by making people sexually depraved.
Basically, the more you watch, the more desensitized you get to vanilla sex.
You start digging deeper. You want it kinkier, nastier, and darker. Before you know it, you’re jerking off to some really fucked up shit.
And it really messes up your relationship because you start wanting to do all those depraved things with your partner too. The plain old regular sex they want just doesn’t cut it anymore. It’s gotta be nasty and degrading or you’re going to lose interest.
But again, that doesn’t actually happen.
If anything, it’s the other way around. People who have certain kinks go looking for porn that caters to those kinks.
If they’re turned on by hardcore masochism, then they’ll eagerly click on masochistic porn when it shows up. Otherwise, they’ll either move on and find something they’re into or click on it out of sheer curiosity and never go looking for more.
And if you’re into vanilla sex at all, it doesn’t actually get boring - in porn or in real life. Studies back this up, too, showing that people who use porn don’t build a tolerance to the softer stuff.
Porn can most definitely help you explore your kinks. It can help you figure out exactly what turns your crank. But it’s not going to magically transform them.
That’s why I’ve seen plenty of deepthroating and gagging in porn but still don’t find it appealing in the least. I’m fine with sweet, playful, soft blowjobs, thank you very much.
I watch porn with dubious consent, can’t get enough of stuck porn, and will probably never let my subscription to Pure Taboo lapse, but it’s not because porn has corrupted me. It’s because I was always turned on by those kinds of things. Dubious consent scenarios popped up in my sexual fantasies long before porn showed them to me.
And if watching porn helped me discover some more extreme kinks, that wouldn’t actually be a bad thing. If I was really aroused by extreme bondage, humiliation, and fisting, they would just be turn-ons like any other. It wouldn’t damage my relationship in the least, even if my husband didn’t want to stuff his hand wrist deep inside me.
Couples with mismatched kinks can have very healthy sex lives. So even if porn gave you some new ones, it wouldn’t be a big deal.
Porn Is Harmless Fun
There are lots of couples who have problems related to porn. But the real issue is never the porn itself.
It’s usually because someone feels ashamed or embarrassed by their porn use. Or their partner feels insecure because of it. Or they have weird, uncomfortable feelings that never get addressed out in the open.
But when you strip all that stuff away, all that’s left is the porn. And porn is just an entertainment product like anything else. It won’t damage anyone’s relationship any more than having a Netflix account or watching the occasional YouTube video would.
And it can have some great benefits.
Watching porn can help you get in touch with your desires. It’s a great way to manage mismatched libidos.
It can help you get aroused. It can inspire you to try something new together.
It can even help you get a better workout.
So, just go ahead and have whatever fun you want - whether it involves porn or not.
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If you liked this article, you should totally check out the Rub Me Down and Get Me Off (Massage Porn, Happy Endings, and Goopy Nuru Gel) episode of my dirty and intimate sex podcast, Pillow Talk With Emma Austin!
