In May 2016, 60% of all men (ages 15 plus) in Canada used the Internet to watch porn at least once.* The data implies that roughly 9.1 MILLION Canadian men are watching pornography on a monthly basis.
What’s the Problem? Isn’t Porn Watching Normal?
It depends. There is a subset of men who may incorporate pornography as a healthy expression of their sexuality. These men have no real attachment to pornography and very little shame associated with viewing it. However, there is another subset of men (generally larger) who are watching porn compulsively or some may say addictively. For these men, porn has moved from want to need.
This article is written for men struggling with an addiction to pornography.
Why Then Do Men Watch Porn (compulsively)?
Powerlessness.
Men who feel magnetically and compulsively drawn to the repeated viewing of pornography are feeling a deep and excruciating pain of powerlessness. No man wants to be sitting alone in front of a screen potentially for hours masturbating to pornography, yet millions are. The act of watching pornography offers a man a fleeting and pseudo sense of power. To feel this excruciating pain and powerlessness a man need simply try to not watch porn right at the moment they most desire to.
Powerlessness as Shame & Barrier to Intimacy
The pain of powerlessness is so excruciating and intimately connected with how men feel about themselves as individuals and men. The fundamental paradigm and belief these men have of themselves are that they are deeply flawed, inadequate, unworthy, and ultimately unlovable. This shamed-based belief (shame as in ‘I am bad’) of themselves becomes ingrained as real and creates in them a barrier to intimacy. Pornography acts as a barrier to intimacy for men. It is much safer to express one’s sexual energy through porn than it is to risk being vulnerable in an intimate relationship. The alternative is to open themselves to others in a way that is both vulnerable and authentic. Many men choose not to open up in that way because at the core they have terror around what people will actually see if they did.
Porn is the Symptom and Not the Problem
Countless men attempt to stop watching porn however success is often fleeting. It is this way simply because porn is not the problem but rather simply the symptom. Dealing with the symptom (porn) will do little to achieve the desired change in behaviour. Men must invest their energy into coming to terms with why they feel so deeply inadequate, unworthy, unlovable, and ultimately incapable of genuine intimacy. These very difficult feelings have generally been long avoided by men but a man must meet them face on if they want to get better. There is no other way.
Men Need Men
Men often carry their negative shame-based beliefs in isolation and assume that other men do not carry these same pains. As a result, intimacy (i.e. genuine friendship) with other men is something that they avoid. However, a key component to piercing a hole in one’s shame-based beliefs is expressing their vulnerabilities and fears in a supportive environment amongst other men. In that environment the man learns two primary things:
Learning to develop genuine intimacy with other men is foundational to being able to achieve it with women.
Eric Pierni, MA, CSAT, RP opened Men Therapy Toronto in 2016 with the primary intention of fulfilling its mission and vision. Eric is a Registered Psychotherapist with the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario (CRPO) and a Certified Sex Addiction Therapist with the International Institute for Trauma and Addiction Professionals (IITAP).
