A few years ago, one of my friends called me up with a serious complaint.

“My husband is addicted to porn.”

This was in the early days of the Internet and I didn’t know what to tell her. To me, it wasn’t a big problem, but she was from a different country and culture and was really disgusted with her husband’s “addiction”. Since that time, there have been numerous shows and articles dealing with the subject of “porn-addiction” and how harmful the effects of porn are on individuals and couples, most of which I think are crap.  

Today, I read an article/book excerpt in the Times dealing with the issue. The author’s basic premise  was that too much access to porn in the teen-aged years has “killed intimacy in sex”. As an example, the writer interviewed one man, “Jim”, who became so de-sensitized to pornography that he had a hard time with sex in relationships and felt like he was watching himself have sex from outside.

OK, granted, that might happen, but can you really blame the availability of porn for some dude’s problems with intimacy? As far as I understand it, intimacy and men do not always go so easily together (maybe it’s genetic) and this did not suddenly happen with the onslaught of porn.  

How much of a problem is it really? If your husband is spending too much time away from you and your family and your needs are not getting met, it’s definitely a problem and should be seriously discussed.

On the other hand, if you are open-minded, there is a lot of porn out there now that is not as offensive and might be something to enjoy together. This is  likely due to the current era of do it yourself porn, web-sites that allow real people to upload their own porn (as opposed to some Pamela Anderson bimbo making porn in some sleazy production studio in LA), and cheap video cameras. I understand that it’s not for everybody, but having an open mind towards some porn can have the added benefit of enhancing your sex life and helping you realize that as a real-life woman who appears in the flesh, you still have the advantage over someone on the LCD screen.

I’m not in touch with my friend who had the original problem, so I’m not sure if this would help her or not, but if I were concerned about my husband’s porn-viewing, I would definitely make it a point to try and watch some with him.