I Gave Up Porn — And Now My Marriage Is Better Than Ever

This whole thing is dubious.

I'm sorry that the author was in a position where his sexual urges and fantasies were made to be a thing of shame and rebuke - but that doesn't speak to a process addiction with sex / masturbation being the vessel.

What it points to is a dysfunctional sexual relationship and an absence of proactivity and communication on the part of both the author and his wife. There is no porn terrorist looming over shoulders, trying to twist men into sexual fiends (and this is a concept that is in all cases almost entirely made a masculine problem - I have yet to hear a woman feel this way about her consumption of pornographic material).

There is no terrible defect in the male psyche that makes him recoil from his relationship and substitute it for pornography, nor is there anything inherent in pornography that twists the mind of men to favor it over real life.

The only thing the author achieved was feeding a myth about male sexuality. In his own person all he has done is take his sexual urges and bury them under a pile of wife-instigated shame and rebuke.

I'm even willing to go as far as to say that the author is a victim of a failure of society and his forebears to adequately prepare him for relationships. He clearly did not enter his relationship with the understanding that it is one part intellectual, one part emotional, and one part sexual. If he had, if he and his wife both understood the nature of those connections and their importance to themselves and each other, they might not be spewing nonsense about porn terrorism.

Lastly, I'm willing to bet my life on the fact that sooner or later the author will return to pornography and masturbation with great enthusiasm. His "eureka" claim isn't fooling anyone.

/r/mentalhealth Thread Link - neulia.com