Photo by Kit Leffler

My boyfriend during freshman year had 100 gigabytes of pornography on his computer. To put this in perspective, most computers don’t even come with 50 gigs of total space, but my ex was able to store 100 gigs of random people screwing. If you had asked what my opinion on watching pornographic material was before this revelation, I would have said that it was a harmless and healthy activity. But since my discovery, an endless number of questions keep going through my head. Is there such a thing as too much porn? Can porn alter your views on sex? Can it influence your views of the opposite sex? Or is pornography absolutely harmless and I’ve been worrying for nothing?

Addiction

In less than one year, Matthew Pool says he not only started watching porn, but also became addicted to it. What started out as something to watch with a group of guys a couple times a month turned into something the Lawrence sophomore had to watch daily to get his fix. It got to the point where porn that used to excite him became dull. The positions, the plots, the orgasms. . .they were all the same. So Pool started increasing the intensity levels of the pornography he watched — from the soft-core porn on HBO to the more hardcore — until he ran out of choices. Pool says pornography became repetitious and boring. But even though the steamy action never changed, he had to keep watching it because it had become his outlet and he needed that release. Pool also avoided relationships during this time. He didn’t need one; porn was his new girlfriend.

This is one of the symptoms of porn addictions, says Lawrence certified sex therapist Dennis Detweiler. If you are watching porn for an orgasm, that’s OK. But if you’re watching it to have an orgasm that you should be having with a partner, thus substituting porn for a relationship, he says you have a problem. The term “porn addiction” has become something used too carelessly in our society, he says. Pornography addiction has nothing to do with how much porn you watch, but rather how you psychologically handle watching it. “Someone could be watching pornography one time a month and be misusing it,” Detweiler says. On the other hand, people could be watching it daily and be perfectly fine.

Couples

Pornography can be fabulous. Not only is it a safe fantasy alternative, but Detweiler says it also can be a fun way for couples to enhance their sex lives. Pornography can be educational because it can broaden people’s conceptual levels of sex and possibly make them more open to sexual activity. Matt, Overland Park senior, who prefers not to give his last name, says pornography can be healthy for couples because it can offer them new ideas along with getting them in the mood. He says he likes to watch porn with his partners as a foreplay device and then turns it off before sex.

While pornography can be good for couples, it’s important that both partners are comfortable with the concept of pornography. “If someone is more conservative, maybe raised in a home where sex is taboo, pornography probably just complicates things,” Matt says. Detweiler says that couples who have clashing views on porn can wind up in a never-ending battle. If your partner thinks pornography is wrong, then your partner will see you as an addict every time you watch it.

An attractive porn star with breast implants helps feed the insecurity many women have about porn, says Laura Wade, co-host of KJHK’s “O!,” a show for women about sex. “Men are watching the film thinking, ‘This is hot, I want to try this in bed,’ and women are thinking, ‘He’s touching himself to her,’” Wade says. She says this problem arises because men and women watch porn differently. “He’s not thinking about how the porn star is so much hotter than his girlfriend,” she says. Wade suggests that couples find a video together to ease the insecurity. This way they can choose a video they are both comfortable with.

Real life

While pornography can broaden the viewer’s sex life, it can often also set up unrealistic ideas about sex. When Mark, >Overland Park senior who also doesn’t want to use his last name, doesn’t just watch porn; he studies it. “I think porn focuses on what appeals to the stereotypical male porn-watcher,” Mark says. “It assumes I want to have anal sex with a large-breasted dumb blonde with long fingernails and high-heeled shoes.” When he downloaded “Best Porn of 2003,” he noticed that all 12 clips at some point featured a couple having anal sex. It’s easy to see how this is unrealistic: If you sampled 12 couples, it’s doubtful that all of them have had anal sex with each other, Mark says.

Viewers often get these unrealistic ideas about how a sexual relationship should be and how an orgasm works, Detweiler says. Watch any porn film and you’ll see the fantasy world porn offers, where women start to have an orgasm after the first five seconds and don’t stop until the man ejaculates on them. Detweiler says a problem with pornography is that people can’t separate fantasy from reality. Mark separates the two worlds by using pornography solely as a masturbation aid. With pornography, “the male is fucking the girl on camera,” Mark says. “They are not making love. They’re not passionate.” Mark’s pornography and his sex life do not intertwine. When Mark has sex, he wants his partner barefoot, smart and small-breasted, but most of all, he wants sex with feelings.

Detweiler says pornography can also make you visually dependent. Fantasy is healthy. But when a person watches too much pornography, he can become dependent on that visual aid because his imagination can’t cut it anymore.

The other gender

Women are sexually objectified daily, and pornography helps to encourage those images, says Ann Cudd, director of women’s studies. “I think that men who engage in pornography are exerting male privilege and women who engage in it are being co-opted into participating in the oppression of women,” Cudd says. This oppression, she says, reduces women’s status as thinkers and people with dignity, rights and feelings.

When Pool stopped watching porn, he says he started seeing changes in himself. He says he started disrespecting women during his addiction, seeing them as sex objects instead of people. Since he stopped watching pornography, Pool says he has noticed his view of women shifting back to how it used to be: seeing them as people first.

Wade, the “O!” co-host, says even though she’s a women’s studies major, she doesn’t see the harm in pornography. She says women are objectified in porn, but men are too, and that’s something that people tend to forget. Everyone in pornography is a sexual creature, she says.

Cold turkey

Pool acknowledges that pornography is one of his weaknesses. He even acknowledges that he has a slip-up once in awhile. His friends still watch pornography, which can sometimes be difficult, but Pool has learned to go into the other room when they’re watching videos. To him, it’s all a matter of adjusting to his new lifestyle.

Detweiler, the sex therapist, says deleting the porn from your computer may not be enough. Addicts use porn to meet their emotional needs, so he recommends therapy or a 12-step program to help them discover what they’re lacking. Pool discovered his need was faith. So he shifted his attention to Christianity. Pool says during his addiction he had a lot of questions that Christianity answered. The needs an addict has can be a variety of things, whether it’s finding a focus on family or a relationship. Detweiler says the stress is on finding a focus that is important to you.

So did I overreact when it came to my ex’s 100 gigs of porn? Maybe a little. While pornography can be healthy for couples and individuals, you have to be comfortable with it. And I wasn’t comfortable with him watching it. Whether he was obsessed with porn is not the point. I learned something about myself. And while I think pornography has its benefits, I believe that porn should come in small doses. As for my ex, it still comes in large ones.

adoyle@kansan.com