Porn addiction is a real issue in modern day dating and it can lead to the destruction of a relationship. Part of a healthy relationship is CHOOSING each other mentally, emotionally and physically. If someone is perpetually turning to other women on a screen vs. the woman they are with in real life, they are rejecting that connection and rejecting that person, thereby destroying their relationship (and possibly a woman’s self-esteem as she faces that rejection and feelings of unworthiness not being desirable to her partner).

I never understood the damage a porn addiction can do until my narc ex revealed he had a porn addiction that he was supposedly cured of, which I later discovered was a big, fat lie. Yes, it is an addiction when you can’t stop using it and it dominates your life as a regular “hobby”. Watching porn SHOULD NOT BE how you spend your time on this earth, and is not a real hobby. Porn addiction is a problem when it replaces your partner and is preferred over having a partner. Man was not born to sit behind a screen and stare at images of other humans vs. experiencing love, touch and a relationship in real life. Man was put here to seek out human connection and love (all of which requires effort vs. lazy detachment sitting behind a screen using only ones’ thumbs).

What does Porn Addiction look like?…constantly searching the internet for sex videos without being able to control yourself. Preferring sex videos over your partner. Rejecting your partner with excuses to not have sex, then getting off to porn instead. Feeling dissatisfied with sex within a real relationship and preferring sex videos. Not being able to get off unless porn is included. Spending time watching porn as a main hobby. Watching porn vs. helping around the home or being with your kids. Using intimate sites like onlyfans- interacting with women getting them to do things as if they are your personal escort. Hiding your porn usage and feeling it has taken over your time and life. Watching porn to avoid giving and sharing love with your partner because that requires effort. Comparing your partner to porn and acting like porn is real life.

I don’t feel like going up against the porn world and fighting for a man’s attention and crumbs he may offer. In small doses, sure, it can be fun, but regular use creates a level of dissatisfaction in real life. Think of it like the overabundance of choices causing stress with too many options, which gives you the feeling you made the wrong choice and another option was better. Think of it like the brain tricking you with a fear of missing out by bombarding you with images of other people doing things you aren’t doing and supposedly “missing out” on. Think of like a chemical addiction in your brain to novelty and stimulation, which will never be satisfied, much like a substance abuse addict repeatedly seeks out another hit or drink again and again.

Addiction and dependence on porn creates unhappiness and disconnection with a woman in real life. No woman wants to feel undesired like she has to compete with porn for a man’s love, attention and sex. A man will never be happy with who he has in real life when comparing her and real life to a fantasy world paired with an endless stream of porn videos. He will remain emotionally disconnected because ultimately fake online “girlfriends” block that intimacy and bonding with a real partner. A screen can’t and shouldn’t replace a real human, love, loyalty, support and touch.

Porn to me is like living life standing on the outside of a window looking in and never truly experiencing real love and connection. It is like looking at a food show watching people eat, but never being able to eat yourself then wonder why you are disappointed. Sure, you can get some great ideas, but never doing anything yourself as you watch others cook, eat and enjoy the food would lead to dissatisfaction and poor quality of life.

If you think of animals in the wild, they have to work and often fight for a mate! They sure as heck aren’t sitting around unhappy in a fantasy land watching other animals have sex while they just give up trying. Having a bottomless pit of streaming videos (seeing things that in our pre internet days most would NEVER see with zero effort on their part), has stripped away from the thrill of going after a woman, the excitement of getting her interest, the challenge of seeing her naked and building a connection with her. Too many are replacing their efforts to seek out love with seeking out whatever they can possibly find on the internet, feeling perpetually unfulfilled, but not sure why.

If a man prefers online prostitutes/sex workers over a woman in real life, then why should we have to keep doing a song and dance to get their attention, and feeling shitty about ourselves as our bodies age and boobs change….it has led us down a path of crippling body image and self esteem issues. Surgery has become so normalized as empowering “do what makes you happy” messaging, but I ask women would you be getting all of this surgery if we were not trying to make ourselves feel better about how men view us?…Would we be doing it if we were not compared to millions of porn videos on the internet making us feel “less than” and not good enough. Would you be going to have your body cut open to put in potentially cancer causing objects if we lived in communities of just women without porn on every man’s cell phone….yes, it is great to build your confidence however you can in this world, but it is not empowering to have to change how you were born in order to feel okay in our society.

While some may say its empowering to make sex videos, I find it to be the opposite. I find it disempowering because we are making ourselves subjects for the male gaze treating them as if they are the prize by seeking out their attention. It places our value solely on the physical aspects of us and our youth vs. what we contribute with our minds. I don’t want to be their entertainment as an object here to please them unless they plan on putting in equal effort to please me back. I also want to be appreciated and valued for my mind, effort, skills and character with my clothes on. To be sexual as a woman can occur with your clothes on and by us saying -NO, I don’t need your approval or your attention with my naked body by having sex in front of the world.

If roles were reversed, I can only imagine how shitty a man would feel if a woman said no to having sex with him and preferred looking at big dicks on a screen vs. be with him. Can you imagine the outrage he would feel?! Imagine a woman using a man to clean, cook, work, tend to the to the home, and raise the kids while she turned to porn to satisfy her sexual desires. We need to stop behaving as if we are here to grovel and serve men through our sexuality over fear of him leaving us or cheating on us. We need to accept our worth as we were born without the insanity of having to reconstruct ourselves into cartoon images to feel desirable to a man.

I never felt intense unworthiness and undesirability until I was with a man with a porn addition. Not only did he reject me physically and emotionally because of it, he made a point to compare me to these women constantly commenting on all my “flaws” that he saw. After I breastfed our son he called me offensive and horrible things like “African titties” and laughed in my face about how they changed. He commented on every body hair (women don’t have body hair there in videos I see online)…He reconnected with his ex stripper girlfriend and revealed pictures of her giant fake breasts I couldn’t possibly measure up to. He spent his time at home away from our son and I while he was on the computer looking at porn (and later dating sites). He watched porn with our son in the room. He went to strip clubs. If I initiated sex he called me a “sex freak” or yelled at me, hit me away shouting “get the fuck off of me”. If I was too busy (like in the middle of feeding our hungry son, cooking, doing laundry), he would become enraged I didn’t neglect our child and do what he wanted when he wanted. He would use sex as a tool to hurt me by withholding all physical touch and rejecting me for months on end. He was fine though because he had his porn.

If a man can’t connect with a woman in real life and prefers porn over a real human doing sexual things with him, then that will destroy the chance of a healthy relationship.