This past week I was asked the same question numerous times: Why do men watch porn? As a therapist it makes sense that I’d be asked this question. It’d be strange if I was a Walmart greeter… although, that’d be hilarious for lunchroom conversations: (greeter) “People keep asking me why men watch porn? Apparently, my spiffy vest makes me look like a sex expert.” Whenever people want to know why someone does something, I always go to my exercise:
- Action
- Intention
On the surface is the action you want to know and beneath that is the intention or reason why that action is done. The intention is never as straightforward as we want to think, and why I will brainstorm a list of as many options as I can think of to cause that action. For instance, to answer the question of “Why do men watch porn?” with one client I came up with the following possible intention list. After writing a list like this, I would ask the person who did the action what are the top 3-5 reasons why they think they did it. The unfortunate truth is we can’t know one hundred percent why; we can only make our best guesses. This is obviously influenced by what we want to believe are the reasons, but at least this gives us a better chance of guessing the real reasons since we’re filtering through a large list. This exercise is great when the person you’re talking to says, “I don’t know,” when asked why they did something.
Possible reasons someone watches porn:
- Bored
- Curious
- A chance to be in a fantasy world
- A chance to see stuff the person wouldn’t do in real life
- A chance to see people naked the person wouldn’t be able to see in real life
- A chance to pretend you’re attractive and that a woman wants you
- A chance to pretend you can satisfy a woman sexually
- Research
- Revenge (e.g. after a fight)
- The person is horny
- The person is lonely
- The person has trained themselves to do it
- It’s a habit/routine (e.g. before bed or in the shower)
- It’s become an addiction
- To see a particular hot person
- To see a variety of hot people
- The person gets to live vicariously through the actor
- The person thinks it’s sexy
- The person prefers their hand to actual sex
- It’s there and available
- Actual sex is too much work
- The person is scared of their partner
- The person is not attracted to their partner
- Watching porn is normal and something guys do
- It’s simply about the visual stimulation
- To check to see if their hormones still work
- Help to complete the job their partner started, but couldn’t finish
- To get the engines revving in order to be with their partner (i.e. it’s like Viagra without the pill)
- There’s a sense of power because they’re in control of what they watch
- There’s a sense of power over the woman they see
- The person feels emotionally dead inside and this helps them feel something
- It’s a way to hide from reality
- It’s a way to procrastinate
- The person is simply scared of sex and/or human touch
- The person doesn’t feel worthy of actual sex
- There’s a high in watching porn
- There’s a thrill with the risk of getting caught
- It seems risqué or dangerous
- It’s simply a weak moment
- There’s a fear of rejection from their partner
- There’s a fear of failure
- There’s a fear of being too unattractive whether the person is too fat or too small
- Seeing something started the launch sequence
- The person can’t delay satisfaction while the partner is away or too tired or sick
- The person got caught in the moment
- To help finish in order to be less sexually aggressive with someone later
- To clear their head
- To be disrespectful to women or put them in their “place”
The best part about this list is it helps women see that out of the vast possible reasons, there are only two that directly relate to them. When a woman finds out her man watches porn, the odds are she blames herself in some way whether she’s not pretty enough, good enough, or into sex enough. Fortunately, this exercise helps point out that when a guy is watching porn it’s typically about him and his issues, and not his partner. This is what happens in most relationship situations; it’s them and not you like discussed in last week’s post. Why is someone yelling? It’s likely because of something going on for them like they’re hungry, tired, and/or defending themselves in some way.
This exercise is also helpful because it’s hard enough to get a guy to stop watching porn without knowing the intentions behind it. For instance, a guy watching porn as revenge is a very different reason than he’s afraid of rejection. The motivation will affect how it should be addressed.
This week, may you consider why people do things without assuming it’s your fault.
Rev. Chad David, ChadDavid.ca, Learning to love dumb people