Steeped in the unrealistic ideals 1970s family television shows, Scott Allen’s expectations of love and intimacy were severely distorted when he saw his first ‘Playboy’ at age 7.
I was not raised with much parental involvement. In fact, by today’s standards, my parents’ involvement could be considered criminal due to the level of abuse, absence, and neglect. But I did have a TV to watch, and that TV taught me all that I knew about bonding with others. However, it didn’t teach me that real relationships are not safe.
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My favorite family sitcoms in the 1970s were The Brady Bunch and The Partridge Family. My idea of a normal life grew into an imaginary place where love and care would always solve the simple challenges of life. But Gilligan’s Island became my fantasy escape, a paradise island with all of the necessities in life, all carved from coconut trees, and the lovely girls—dazzling Ginger and the wholesomely beautiful Mary Ann. I still think of Mary Ann in a special way. She was someone my little boy self trusted and with whom I wanted to be.
One of the more industrious of my childhood friends often dragged treasures out of the trash in the alleyways. One day at school he said that he had found a whole box of Playboys. So, after school that day we sat quietly, flipping through over a 100 Playboy magazines. That was my first exposure to pornography.
Playboy was very crafty at the tease, luring you with images of naive sensuality and sexiness yet never quite revealing the more delicate features of the female form. Nonetheless, I never felt the same. Something deep within my seven-year-old mind had shifted. I felt different, more grown up but not comfortable, more of an edgy, uneasy feeling. I wanted to see more Playboys, that was for sure! On that day I unknowingly began a formidable journey—to know a real woman. I was armed for my quest with nearly completely dysfunctional emotions and a heavy cloak of a TV-induced sense of normalcy.
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Early in my 17th year I became acquainted with the totality of the female form without the obscured poses and unfortunate staples—I lost my virginity. I now felt like a real man without the young man’s mystery gnawing at my psyche. I felt calm, soothed, and certain. Yes, this was a good feeling, one that I intended to feel forever.
As life progressed and girlfriends came into my life with greater ease and went away with less difficulty, I enjoyed the occasional porn mags, then videos and DVDs. Commercial pornography such as Penthouse became much more explicit by the mid 1990s, and by the time internet porn hit the globe, all sense of mystery was gone, and I felt like my sense of morality was slipping away.
I felt instantly rewarded from online porn, like one of those laboratory rats pounding on a button to send a pulse through an electrode into the pleasure center of my brain. The strong, knowing, and manly sensation that I briefly felt when I was 17 had become a seductive mirage toward which I clicked more frequently and for longer visits while alone with my computer. I would never reach that ultimate sensation but only sustain more tolerance for the opiate, of which I would consume longer and nastier doses. I became addicted to this fantasy, addicted to chasing a mirage that always lured me further, as if with the next click I would reach my destiny.
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My love relationships always would become flat from silently critiquing my girlfriends and whenever possible, launching expeditions into solitary escapism. I craved the rush of new opportunity, the fuel to reach my goal, which was locked within my physical memory, trapped in blood and bones.
My body felt what it wanted and needed but could not comprehend that those drives and needs were not within the world in which I lived; they were a fantasy, and I was merely and simply the spectator of an illusion, an endless shopper. I was swept into feeling intimate bonds with total strangers who so often were exposing their sacredness in order to be paid, or even to pay their captors in some cases.
For me to awaken to this conflicting reality felt like Neo, awakening in The Matrix; my relational life was devoid of real connection. What I felt and experienced was simply an artificial reality, perpetuated by a manipulating sales campaign.
I became aware that I was leaving wreckage behind me in failed relationships and finally admitted to myself that it was me who was not present and remained shallow and critical. How could I be committed to one woman when so often I was feeling the fantasy bond of intimacy with 100s or even 1000s of others?
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I’ve been in therapy for several years now, trying to reconcile my senses and regain, or actually build, my connections to real life, uncontrollable and filled with humans who are sometimes not so accepting. I’ve realized that by being hooked on the pleasure button of porn that I was ignoring and bypassing all of the real pleasures in relational and sexual life.
Some of my guy friends, who likely are addicts themselves, say that I’m getting wimpy and sensitive, and I see them becoming less and less in touch with their wives or girlfriends, kids, and businesses. Am I delusional, or am I awakening? Too sensitive, or becoming alive?
I realize that I may have been more prone to addiction due to my unhealthy childhood, but I have become aware that the influence of porn is powerful enough to derail even those who did have healthy and truly normal childhoods, with both parents present and functional in their lives.
As I struggle to see and feel the pure beauty within a real woman-being, I am often haunted by the effects and memory of my porn use, and even still yearn for sweet Mary Ann and the innocent attractions that I felt for her. The qualities she represented to me are here with me today in the real woman that I love, along with so many more qualities, because she is real, and I am not going to click away or change this channel!
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In gratitude to Sherwood Schwartz, the creator of Gilligan’s Island and The Brady Bunch, who died Tuesday, 7/12/11 at the age of 94.
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—Photo dierk schaefer/Flickr, Gilligan’s Island: mycotopia.net
“I’ve realized that by being hooked on the pleasure button of porn that I was ignoring and bypassing all of the real pleasures in relational and sexual life.” It’s all real Scott. Porn IS real. It’s a real thing. It produces real feelings and sensations, the brain really processes it. What does it matter if someone feels bliss holding a real woman or imagining doing so? Why is one inherently superior to the other? Both seem to have ups and downs. People act as if real relationships are so genuine, but they can be just as hollow, at least with… Read more »
One thing I would add to this discussion is that there is nothing inherently wrong with fantasy and fantasizing. As an avid sci-fi and fantasy fan in all kinds of media I would certainly plump for this position. The caveat, I think, is that for it to be healthy you have to be able to maintain the disconnection between your fantasy and reality. If you can leave your imagined worlds at the door when entering real relationships, then it’s fine. Something that occurred to me while writing this post – perhaps people from a background of neglect and abuse are… Read more »
To add another point; yes, porn preys on both boys a girls needs. It preys on the emotions and basic physical needs of all humans. Like the article stated it manipulated you, it also manipulates little girls such as these: News: Role Modeling By Dad Influences Daughters’ Sexual Behavior http://bit.ly/laLSdm I can tell you i was one of these girls….i was ‘offered’ to do porn at the age of 17. Thankfully i had more self respect than that, however, i was very sexually active at a young age and suffered emotional abuse in my home and sexual abuse at the… Read more »
Porn is a fantastic sexual outlet… Thank GOD
Say, how about a nice article on emotional pornography?
That’s the vast industry that sells women the fantasy and false expectations of romance.
In some respects i agree, however, comparing porn and romance is not valid. They are two very seperate things. It’s an old pro porn propoganda argument used by porn addicts so they can indulge in there ‘little pleasure’ is hugely manipulative. I think the romance genre sets highly unrealistic ideals on both men and women, unfulfillable stereotypes for both sexes. BUT, it’s not hateful, it’s generally loving, atleast. The most profitable porn is hateful, degrading, misogynistic porn. Even the stuff that isn’t is full of women/men pretending to ‘love’ what they do, emotionally manipulating you and hooking you to buy… Read more »
*I think it also distorts how we sex sexually liberal women. The western ideal now has become sex for sale. Women servicing men. This effects how we act sexually with our partners and how we see women who want to have an equal, mutually beneficial sex life. The way these women are talked about is disgusting. Porn is successfully entering all of our culture; the words we use, the images we send in various media forms, the messages we give our children. They’re brainwashing us. It’s nothing but toxic to all involved. I feel sorry and very very worried for… Read more »
Don’t forget that we also have a form of pornography in women’s magazines, and in almost all advertising for products, diets, television shows, etc. Look at any magazine rack from afar and it’s filled with slim young maidens showing how sexy they are, alongside muscle men, muscle cars, and a few dozen older white men in suits. It’s ALL a fantasy. You, too, can be thin, rich, young, and popular – forever. Just buy this thing, this concept, vote for this politician, try this new drug. We live in a world FILLED with pornography – which is not just sexual,… Read more »
From personal experience of both mine and previous partners porn use, yes it can affect all areas of real sex and intimacy (not just sex but many aspects of relationships and attitudes). Not only does it effect sex between partners but it distorts your view of sex, male and female bodies, desires, actions, beliefs etc. I have been studying the psychology of porn use and the way it alters the brain, it’s a very complex issue and porn use is highly personal and usually a secret we can hide from ourselves and our partners. I think the porn idustry is… Read more »
Thanks for an honest look at what social inadequacies can underlie a porn addiction and keep perpetuating it…. I’m from the same generation as you and cringe today when I think about what must have gotten downloaded into lots of our young, subconscious minds from watching I Dream of Jeannie every afternoon. The plot: rigid, controlling, not-too-attractive, middle-age man literally finds a stunning blonde woman on an exotic beach whom he rescues and then gets to legally hold her captive, no questions asked. She’s willing to wear only super sexy outfits (even to vacuum his house), and she wiggles, giggles… Read more »
Thank you for this brilliant analysis. I was captured by this program, along with the rest of the TV idiocy of the 50s. All of this programming went right into our young brains, giving us an understanding of the proper role for women and men, the winning attitudes, the rewards and punishments. I, too, had Playboy as a companion as a young man, and used the “paper dolls” liberally. Isn’t that what they were designed for? Someone pointed out that men practiced sexuality with images, masturbating to Playboy and now Internet porn. Women practiced sexuality with romantic fantasies, romance novels,… Read more »
CJ’s comments made me feel sad, and I can empathize being in a similar position in some respects. I just wonder how much of your lack of success meeting a woman and falling in love has to do with your use of pornography rather than the other way around. Is porn and focusing on only visual and physical gratification stopping you from developing the part of your inner self that is attractive to (good) women? I know in my own life porn use in my teens lowered my self-esteem and confidence with women considerably and after I gave it up… Read more »
Some of us don’t have the luxury of sex unless we pay for it so internet porn, at least, gives us something to look at and fantasize about. I’ve had sex once, shortly before I turned 21, with an extremely unattractive and overweight woman just so I could finally get laid. If I could afford hookers, I’d definitely go that route, but I can’t so porn is the only option.
I run a support group for partners of sex addicts and I have found that addiction to porn–or prostitutes, massage parlors, anonymous hook-ups, multiple affairs, etc.–always stems from early childhood deprivation. Many sex addicts get hooked on porn early on as a way of staving off the pain of abuse, neglect, abandonment, or lack of attachment to primary caregivers. Your searingly honest and poignant portrayal of your own childhood supports this picture of the etiology of sex addiction. And I agree that porn is a particularly slippery slope for those inclined towards addiction.
What makes porn addiction? I mean, I’ve been watching lots of internet porn since I was 10 and jerking off at least 3 times a day every day since that time, but it doesn’t interfere with the rest of my life — I don’t have a life — so I’m not sure it can really be considered an addiction. Also, like I said, I can’t actually get laid so it is the only outlet I have. It’s certainly true that I had a childhood of abuse, neglect, abandonment, and more. (add in some disfigurement and debilitating chronic illness for good… Read more »
Have you ever thought that it’s your rabid porn use (from what I’m getting) that’s turning off potential partners, assuming they know, anyway?
No, I don’t, because it never gets to that point, ever. I can’t even get a girl to say yes to a date.
I watch a lot of porn and go to prostitutes. I never kissed a girl till 27. But right now I have absolutely no problem getting women and I am completely honest with the women I get. Not being able to get women has absolutely nothing at all to do with porn use. You want a women. Its easy. Go to where they are (if you don’t know where do some research) and talk to them. Tell them what you want, what you like about them. Chase them. You will easily get them. Usually if you can’ t get a… Read more »
Thank you Scott for the honesty and the nostalgia. I’ve been wanting to stop looking at porn but realized that I couldn’t. Now I’m just trying to cut down and seem to be going the other way with it. It seems the first obstacle for me is admitting that it has me. Hooked on junk. And I agree that this has affected my love life.