“Doctor, please counsel my wife,” pleaded the middle-aged man. “To get into a better mood I asked my wife to watch blue films with me. Initially she was reluctant. I forced her. Now she can't do without it. She wanted to enact the lesbian themes in real life — that of two women lesbians having sex. She does not want to sleep with me anymore but only with other women,” lamented the distressed husband. This is one of the effects, though rare, of watching pornography.
Is porn a new phenomenon? Do women watch porn? Porn is not new; representations of sexual acts have existed through the centuries and across cultures. The Kamasutra, the temples of Khajuraho, Konark, and Mondhera in India, in Athens the Phallic Statues of Priapus on street corners, Greek plates depicting sexual intercourse point to the prevalence of the depiction of sexual acts in art. Technology was merely changed the form from sculpting to photography to video and now in digital form. Creation, storage and accessibility has changed.
The internet and smart phone revolution had made it easy to access porn, which has become much more pervasive than before. The revenue from pornography industries is more than that of top technology companies Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Ebay, Yahoo, Apple, Netflix and Earth link coimbined. Today we cannot shut ourselves to the World Wide Web The availability of pornography on the computer has changed the way millennial women view sex. It is guesstimated that 42 per cent of internet users visit porn sites. Breakdown of male/female visitors is 72 per cent/28 per cent pornographic movies and pictures were originally made for the titillation of men, but with the media revolution, it is accessible to a female audience too. Women producers and directors are producing porn to cater to women’s tastes. Research reveals that one in three women watch porn every week, and spend more time watching porn: American women on an average spend about 11 minutes per session. Women watch porn by themselves: Your relationship to por
n is mostly about you — your sexuality unencumbered by a partner. Women like plots — a sort of play. Women aren’t into stuff they can’t pull off in their bedroom.
Extended exposure to pornography can have a far reaching effects
It dehumanises the other person, the relationship, and any intimacy. It fulfils the desire for control over women and encourages transience, experimentation and moving between partners. It also encourages people to make their home in shallow relationships.
Is an addictive substance Long term exposure may desensitise and rob the fun of sexual intercourse. Repeated acts without a story plot become monotonous and boring. People may lose interest in sex. Exposure to porn may stoke dormant sexual interests and make them crave for fulfilment. Watching porn once in a while, for titillation, may not be harmful. In fact, it adds to the thrill of stimulation. But becoming dependent on it for stimulation is harmful. It leads to compulsive behaviour and requires treatment. Research by Dr Zillmann and Bryant on prolonged consumption of nonviolent pornography, of their subjects, after many weeks exposure, reported less satisfaction with their partner’s sexual performance, affection, and appearance. Pornography is fantasy in the place of reality. In a nutshell, human beings cannot get nourishment from porn but only from real relationships.
