DEAR STRAIGHT TALK: My younger brother is 19, a healthy college student. We are close friends. He confided in me that he is reluctant to date because of recent problems with arousal. He said this didn’t used to happen to him. Personally, I think it’s from too much porn. I doubt a day goes by since he was 13 that he doesn’t masturbate to it. I told him to lay off it and find a real relationship. What do the college students on your panel suggest? I hope they’re not all porn addicts, too. It’s getting hard to find anyone who doesn’t watch it — and if you question it and you’re a guy, everyone thinks something is wrong with you. — Tyler
Editor’s Note: Most of today’s young men (at least in the U.S.) watch pornography — and masturbate to it — regularly. This doesn’t exactly give me a warm fuzzy feeling about our future. I consider masturbation normal and healthy but I’m biased toward real relationships as opposed to masturbating in front of a video (many of the popular ones showing dark, violent, or unnatural arousal cues). That said, we all have our way that we grew up, and for better or worse, it’s natural to defend one’s own childhood-originated preferences — even when they are unhealthy.
Pornography mostly attracts males, but about 25 percent of free Internet porn is requested from females. (However, regarding porn-for-pay, the number of female-registered computers drops to almost zero.) Sexual cues, especially for males, tend to become imprinted and though the human mind is flexible, these things can be challenging to change. For those who feel alone and unsatisfied, dropping into love and intimacy is the key to healing and/or emotional peace.
I hope that the lessons learned from this generation of children who “fell in when nobody was looking” will help parents become vigilant as computers become smaller and smaller. Keeping the family computer in the living room (a former deterrent) becomes moot as younger and younger children keep one in their pocket because it is also their phone. (And while I recommend porn blockers, they only do so much because you can just Google how to go around them or go to a friend’s house — or, heck, school.)
It really comes down to education and communication. Parents need to step up. Last week I likened it to the conversations about cigarettes. Kids need to be warned off pornography by their parents just like they are warned off cigarettes. As with cigarettes, these conversations need to start young. Children need to be repeatedly encouraged to have real relationships and repeatedly warned against the dangers of having them alone in front of a screen. —Lauren
Comments
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My older brother masturbates to porn and it looks to me like it also keeps him from having a normal relationship with a girl. We share a room and he does it with the door locked so that our mom won’t “catch” him but he does openly in front of me without even covering up. Even though we’re brothers and share a room and have never been shy about being naked in front of each other, this still makes me sick so I do my best not to look. I can’t say that I never masturbate, but I don’t do it to porn and I do it under the covers or in the bathroom with the door locked. I fantasize about attractive girls I know which I think is normal, and I have a girlfriend and other normal relationships with girls. But my brother has never had a girlfriend or shown any interest in having one, and I think that his obsession with porn is one of the reasons. I looked at it a few times when he practically shoved it in my face and I found it sickening and it turned me off rather than on. He says I’d better not tell our mom or I’ll be sorry, and I wouldn’t anyway since I figure it’s his business, but I really don’t think it’s healthy and really wonder how it will affect his future relationships with females.
Bob
