Understanding your partner's porn addiction, why does he do it?

[admin]

For the Partners...help us draft this important article for new visitors to the site. Currently our Partner article section is severely lacking, and this is an important one. Please reply with your comments and ideas, they may be used verbatim on the site and you will get full credit for your contributions!

[jasmine]

1. He has been brainwashed... by an extensive, multi-faceted, multi-billion dollar corporation with more revenue and more resources than the NFL, NBA and MLB combined (Source: CNN.com). This industry has been pouring a great deal of effort into a marketing campaign that seeks to make pornography more acceptable, more mainstream and yet more anonymous. In other words, they are putting every effort into making your significant other think watching pornography is not only normal, but something he needs.

2. He thinks you're wrong to dispute the untold powers of the pornography industry. You try talking to someone who has been brainwashed, even in something unrelated to pornography. They have been told over and over since they were a child by the media, their friends and even their parents, in one way or another, that something is acceptable. The average age of exposure to pornography is now eleven years old (Source: Inadvertent Exposure to Pornography on the Internet, page 5). Having been brainwashed into thinking this is normal behavior since the tender young age of eleven, it is very difficult to give it up. The "normality" of pornography is nothing short of indoctrination during the formative years of his life. If you tell someone the same thing over enough at this age, not only will he come to believe it, but it will eventually become virtually inseparable from his identity.

3. Peer pressure. His friends, from whom he seeks advice, have talked with him about the issue. His friends, also brainwashed since youth by the same industry and also probably struggling with the same addiction, have told him that it is not his problem but that of his significant other. On an unrelated note, an additional question might be, "Why do they lie about it?" Again, peer pressure, and often following a friend's advice.

[Abbie]

I think he does it because he can't MB without images. Plain and simple reason for starting (for my husband anyway).

I also think it's because once P has a hold, it's difficult for them to go back to 'nothingness'.

[sybil]

Yes, I think you are right Abbie. My PA has also shared that MB is impossible without a visual image. Unfortunately those images are addicting and seem to have the same effect as any drug. I've only been looking into the subject for less than 10 days now and it reminds me more and more of my own struggles with bulimia except for making my mate feel inadaquate i think. Is P really a coping mechanism like food was for me? Maybe??

[brokensoul]

i was on my 30+ day of no p no mb
it was sunday i work 6 days a week sunday morning was a time for my wife a i to shower together
since the day she put the fact that i have a problem to me
we talk about what is going on with my issue but no s#x
i have asked her to join the site
but aside from some kisses and hugs
thats it
i brought this on myself i thoght this
so i was lossing it sunday made it thru the day and got the feeling back at night (she could see i was having issues)
my wife has looked at the issue of mb we talked a litte about should i or should i not
monday when i could home from work i did
i didn't see p in my mind
i missed my time with my wife
Maybe its just me but i feel that if you work to control your problem
you don't need the mind photos of outsiders
you can look inside your self

[brulant]

Maybe its just me but i feel that if you work to control your problem
you don't need the mind photos of outsiders
you can look inside your self

I'm proud of you, brokensoul. The process takes a lot of courage and guts, I know.

I do know that males can mb without p.... its just that the world has made it soooo easy to see the stuff. Its kind of funny but in actuality this kind of availability has only existed for a very short amount of time.

My father and I were visiting a client of his about 10 years ago and the client had a coffee table book of Chicago on his table. I, having lived and gone to college in Chicago, started talking to him about it since it turned out that he had grown up there. We both remember it fondly and enjoyed reminiscing.

One of his stories was actually of a pimply faced teen age boy who spent his time in hotel lobbies and bars with a pack of girly cards that he'd gotten from a sailor. He was talking to everyone trying to drum up capital for a magazine that he wanted to start. There were no pop magazines at the time... nothing with any graphic images. This friend of my fathers didn't give him any money for that magazine, but he said that if he had he would be incredibly, incredibly wealthy today. That magazine did happen and it gave permission for men to call themselves gentlemen, when prior to that p was sold in secret and it was incredibly difficult to find.

The magazine began in 1953, I think it is, but it was the cornerstone and turning point to everything we see today.

That young pimply faced kid was an introvert who didn't have any female friends let alone relationships. Now he's got multiple young girlfriends... but he's still not really connected to anyone. not really.

So!

This industry proceeded incredibly quickly, but many men, let alone young boys, see an iota of what can be seen easily today.

Try thinking of asking your wife of a photo of her smiling, possibly; nothing lewd or graphic, but something that's *real* and honest.

Maybe that can become something that would help restore intimacy on other levels as well?

Don't know, but what the hell.
A reminder of what brought you together to begin with or a connection with someone who cares enough about you to let you know honestly how much you mean to her for her to not only tell you what she's going through, but also to give you the honest to god truth. That's a wonderful woman and someone who's worth thinking about.

Just a thought.
Be well and take care.
Thanks also for sharing with us.

brulant

[Daniel]

On the question of why he does it... As FoolishMind eloquently said "the Mind of a PA"...

jasmin's points are right on from the perspective of inputs. There is certainly a big P machine out there pointed directly at the minds of every man they can get.

So why does he do it? Why did I do it?

1. To get turned on of course. Pure and simple.

The question immediately goes back one more step to:

2. "Why did he want to get turned on [without me]?"

This is where things get complicated.

Autosexual experiences (MB, P, fantasizing about either or both) produce certain physio-chemical responsed in the brain, probably releasing adrenaline and definitely those other "laughter" chemicals (endorphins), can't recall their individual names.

This is the "high" that PAs feel when they are using. This is the rush.

So the answer is "He turned himself on because he knew it would make him feel good".

The killer is PAs can kick the drug on almost anytime, anywhere, in all kinds of circumstances.

I did it in reaction to boredom, stress, anger, frustration, I realize now.

Since being in TTF and reading around, I see other brother PAs citing lots of other circumstances that set them off.

And then it can be none of these various states of mind. It can be a trigger that brings the house down.

Side note: The "trigger", a thing we see even by accident that sets our minds racing down those old paths.
For every PA there's a different set of triggers. But there are certainly common triggers for many. I definitely have mine and for everyone's protection do not care to cite them. I work very hard to stay as far away from the triggers as possible. The triggers' power fades gradually but it takes patience -the old man inside who wants those triggers has to be starved to death.

Back to reacting to my own moods, I also had all kinds of really good (ultimately pathetic) rationalizations. That can be a subject of a different thread.

Thus as I would decide I wanted to be turned on, once things were in progress, I was enjoying a certain natural mind-induced drug rush that went along with the unholy experience(s).

Here is where the craziness begins.

I would have been willing to TRADE EVERYTHING ELSE AWAY in order to enjoy that rush. Goodbye to everything and everybody. Just me and my rush and we're doing fine.

As documentation of this "throw-it-all-away" attitude, listen to "Junkhead", from Alice In Chains' "Dirt" album (1992). Junkhead mentions some of the specifics in horrifying accuracy. Layne Staley (God rest his soul) is singing about heroin addiction but some of the parameters I find in common with PA.

Once the rush is experienced, it's like the age-old question "How much money does it take to make a rich man happy?"

"Just a little more".

In the case of PA, it's an insatiable desire that just will not stop.

Then the Law of Lesser Returns kicks in and I need more and more to get back that rush.

In my case I didn't migrate to "sicker" stuff, just looked around for more and more of what I found exciting.

And if you like to take risks, this adds a whole new element to acting out and working hard to not get caught. Yet another "high".

Sign me as one whos mindset had to be started over from scratch, in order to appreciate what Real Beauty really is!

(Thank you God!).

Daniel

[dave]

Perhaps see my lengthier entry on this topic in General Forum

[Pongostick]

For the Partners...help us draft this important article for new visitors to the site. Currently our Partner article section is severely lacking, and this is an important one. Please reply with your comments and ideas, they may be used verbatim on the site and you will get full credit for your contributions!

I don't appreciate the fact that you use the pronoun he. Women are also addicted to porn and have partners too. That is sexist and demeaning of you to just define the partners forum as help for male partners. It is also narrow minded.

[Abbie]

I don't appreciate the fact that you use the pronoun he. Women are also addicted to porn and have partners too. That is sexist and demeaning of you to just define the partners forum as help for male partners. It is also narrow minded.

Pongostick,

I am very sure that Admin did not intend to be sexist, they are well aware that some women are addicted too as there is a dedicated forum for these women on TTF, and I have never seen any instances of sexism whatsoever on here by anybody.

It is easy to make assumptions on the sex of users and their partners as the majority on here appear to be heterosexual, and some users don't state their sex or sexuality when posting (and in most cases, why would they?), I too am guilty of making assumptions about this but in no way would I hope a user would take it personally.

I'm sorry you found this post offensive, I am sure that the pronoun 'he' was used as the replies are to be used in the section for female partners of male addicts. That's the way I read it anyway.