photo courtesy of Cin2 underwear
To detox is to eliminate poisons from our system. Too much “junk sex”, like too much junk food, can also poison our system. From talking to my clients, it seems like there is an awful lot of porn-focused sex going on in the LGBT community.
There’s nothing wrong with porn: it’s erotic, it can be exciting, you can use it to get off or to watch with a partner (or partners) to make your sex life even more interesting. But porn, like junk food, is best consumed judiciously.
Too much junk food and your body is unhappy. Too much junk porn and your mind is unhappy. It may feel good to get off on your favorite porn fantasies on a regular basis, but how does this affect how you interact sexually with REAL people?
For this reason, I have suggested to more than a few of my clients that they consider a Porn Detox. This is a term I made up to describe laying off the porn for a while to see what happens.
What I’ve noticed in my work as a psychotherapist to the San Diego LGBT community is that too much fantasy-based sex often makes real life sex seem lame. Not only that, but since porn sex is so artificial (e.g., the boring parts are edited out so only the best parts are on screen), some of us begin to believe that our sexual experiences with real people pale in comparison with what we see in porn.
Real people are much less predictable than porn: they aren’t always in the mood when you are, they may not know just what to do that makes you feel good, they want you to do things that you may not be into. In short: real people are more work. Porn is easy; real people are not (pun intended).
Real people, however, can offer you much, much more. A lot of men and women in the community tell me that they’re lonely. They long for someone to fall asleep with, wake up with, cuddle with. Only real people can offer you this.
So, how to find your ideal balance of real people sex vs. porn sex? I suggest some experimentation. If you are a habitual porn watcher, stop it for a while and do something else instead. You could get out of the house – on a walk, to a coffee shop – and be around some real people. Experiment.
Often, we masturbate to porn because we’re bored. Or lonely. Porn is often a substitute for a more interesting life. Stop watching so much porn and you might learn something useful about yourself.
Please know that I am not against porn: I too enjoy porn on occasion, and there’s nothing wrong with porn, it’s what we do with it that makes it either a treat or a substitute for a more interesting life.
A little bit of porn is like something amazing from Extraordinary Desserts: you don’t need much to enjoy the effects. If you ate at Extraordinary Desserts every day, it wouldn’t be special for very long: you’d get bored with that too (plus you’d probably gain a few pounds).
On the other hand, if you rarely watch porn, but find your sex life is kind of boring, you might try a little of it. Watch it with your partner or by yourself. It can be an interesting addition to a sex life (with or without a partner) that may have become rather predictable. Watching some porn that isn’t your typical thing, e.g., BDSM, leather, fetishes, could lead to a discussion that could make your sex life more interesting.
If you watch a lot of porn, cut back. Porn, like food, can be a substitute for a less-than-satisfying life. Don’t just watch more porn and feel worse: try watching less porn and replace it with something that makes you feel better about yourself.
Porn detox – like junk food detox – may be a bit unpleasant in the short run, but, in the long run, it could really make your life a whole lot more fulfilling. Why not give it a try? I suggest that you start with a week and see what happens…
