Porn and Dating: What You Need to Know

20 or more years ago, the only places you could access pornography were in dirty magazines or adult video stores and bookshops. Modern technology, however, makes porn available within seconds, thousands upon thousands of hours of it in all genres. If you want it, you can get it, and you don’t have to slink around through back alleys into dark doorways or sneak your older brother’s dirty mags from under his mattress.

How porn affects dating?

But as natural as sex is, is this easy access to porn helping or hindering men’s and women’s relationships with real people? Studies show that the more porn you watch, the less likely you are to meet potential mates, be able to perform physically during sex or even desire sex with a real person at all. So if you are an avid porn fan, you may be hurting your chances of having normal relationships and sex with real people, which can lead to depression, reclusiveness, and negative physical consequences such as erectile dysfunction and early ejaculation (for men) and an inability to even get physically aroused by flesh-and-blood women or men.

As Nick Notas, author of a blog about dating and confidence, notes, a man satiating his sexual desire by masturbating to porn will be far less driven to get out and meet real women, develop relationships, and learn to engage himself fully in the real world. If his biologically driven need is satisfied with virtual sex, he eventually won’t be interested in a flesh-and-blood partner, which can lead to a sense of guilt, loneliness, and depression. Notas, who is not an anti-porn advocate, advises taking stock of your porn habits and cutting down the amount you watch if you find that it is interfering with dating. Daily porn watching could be hurting your chances to meet and relate to real women who could be partners.

In the end, it’s up to you. Take stock of your situation and decide if your porn habits are preventing you from getting out there and meeting real women or men. Sometimes a little unreleased sexual tension is enough to help you get outside your comfort zone and develop relationships.

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