Hey .. great thread.

I used to have a porn addiction ... i feel that my use of it was directly related to the condition of my marriage. WHich (at the time) was absolutley horrible .. and the less my EN were met ... and the more i fought with my wife and the higher the stress levels were .. the more i turned to porn for gratification to relief my stress. Afterwards i would feel absolutly horrible for doing it and the result was even more frusteration. Its a HORRIBLE and VICIOUS cycle.

I am prooud to say I am porn free for darn nearly a year now.

Horrible doesn't cover it for me, not like; weak, pathetic, alone, ashamed.

I just wanted my wife, and had no clue what to do.

Ditto!

American culture pushes soft porn.
Victoria's Secret is not a bad store. They make some nice (overpriced ?) products.

However, the Victoria's Secret window displays at the mall are sooooooo sexual
I do not know how the average man reacts to this "in your face" sexual display in a shopping mall.

It's also TV ads. Print ads. etc.
Even hamburger ads can be soft core.

Any brave male care to enlighten me?
How do these visual assaults effect you?

The first thing that pops into my mind when I see a beautiful woman or an image of a woman partially clothed, is I wonder who she is cheating with and cheating on. Then I think of Quantum Mechanics. Or music. Or food. And what in the world am I doing in the mall and how did I get here?

My take on this is that an alcoholic needs to avoid all alcohol, not just switch to something with a lower alcoholic content.

I consider the lingerie ads to be perfectly serviceable porn. In fact, as far as taste goes I consider them preferable to hard-core porn. I never developed an appetite for "bizarre" stuff.

The book Every Man's Battle which I read years ago advocates eliminating the porn habit/addiction by eliminating everything that feeds the addiction: porn, lingerie ads, women in bathing suits that really aren't any different than women in their underwear (sorry, ladies, that's a DJ on my part, but you know, if you dress as porn...), enjoying ogling females that are not your wife. It also advocates replacement habits which we might describe as Extraordinary Precautions, such as the habit of "bouncing your eyes" away as a reflex whenever you see something sexually attractive (other than your wife).

We get almost no advertising in our house. When we find our way onto a mailing list for something like this, we get ourselves off of it quickly.

I do shop for lingerie with Prisca sometimes, including at stores like Victoria's Secret. The first couple of times we did this after we got married, I just about shut down, having to bounce my eyes off of labels assaulting me from every direction. Learned how to go in and ignore a lot of it, and it's pretty minimal exposure since I avoid being exposed practically everywhere else.

I find the use of sex to sell _______ as stupid and offensive. Not because I don't enjoy looking at scantily clad women, but because sex usually has no connection to the product. I'm not going to buy Miller Lite just because their commercials have bimbos catfighting in a fountain. I am more than just a wallet attached to a sex organ but it seems that's how the advertising industry views men.

When I see the VS displays, my first thought is "that would look good on my wife". My second thought is "but she already has a drawer full of stuff she doesn't wear anyway". I do my best to shift my thinking and move on at that point, because continuing down that mental path can lead to a depressive episode. I try to focus on the positive changes my wife has made over the last few years rather than focusing on her past failures. Some days are easier than others.

Like bitbucket, crass attempts to appeal to me using sex insults my intelligence. It's much more likely to turn me off to a product unless it's done in a tasteful fashion. (Seems like an oxymoron, I know, but there are a few instances).

I turn all of my sexual thoughts towards my wife. If I see something that stirs sexual feelings, I immediately associate it with my wife. I've done this from the moment I first committed to her.

I guess I made this a part of my boundary portfolio and it has served me very well.

There was some minor slippage after her infidelity, but I believe I've shored up the boundary once again.

Yeah .. its a struggle in todays society with all the scantly clad ads. I too .. whenever i see that stuff, turn away or think what my wife would look like in that outfit ... and when i see an attractive woman it triggers me to think of my wife.

I get bugged by my male family members and some co-workers for not looking ... and oogling at other women besides my wife.

They say "you can look but not touch!" I say "jesus says .. by even LOOKING at another woman with lust you have commited adultery in your heart!"

I am not perfect though .. and still catch myself looking (like if an attractive woman is walking towards me during my commute to work and I have to keep walking in her direction and she is in my "view") a tad too long on occasion, but then i give my head a shake and think of my wife again. I do not DARE do a head turn. I even feel guilty when that happens and I tell my wife about it.

NiceGuy, I'm a lot happier person for avoiding ads in general. Less public pornographic displays is definitely a nice side benefit, but I advocate it just because it's nicer all around!

I block ads mercilessly in my web browser.
We don't watch broadcast television. We use Netflix with streaming and DVDs, and do quite nicely. I understand this doesn't work for guys who like sports, though... but I hope that'll change at some point.
We don't take a newspaper or anything like that.

Strangely enough I'm still able to find out about products that interest me, movies that interest me, and news that interests me. But I don't feel the constant pressure to buy, buy, BUY! And the only scantily clad woman trying to talk me into anything is my wife.

Yes, that comment really gets on my nerves! I consider it pretty reprehensible on many levels. Doubly so if the man uttering it is married.

There's a sense in which for a man, looking is touching. It still affects your view of your wife. It still probably affects her emotionally, or would if she knew about it, although you can always be like some guys and try to DJ her into believing that she shouldn't feel that way. It's still arousing. It's still a source of fantastic sexual pleasure.

Being a person of faith, of course, resolves the issue easily when you have Jesus explaining all this. Unfortunately many of the men I've heard utter the statement above were Christians.

I've been desensitized to them.

I used to keep a subscription to Maxim magazine. I stopped the subscription when the pictorials increased and the length and quality of articles decreased.

For instance; the first few years I had a subscription, I could expect 2 or 3 articles ranging from 5-10 pages of the magazine.

Some of these were on things like; the war in Afghanistan/Iraq, tactics used by South American drug smugglers (home-made submarines!), an article on "the" criminal/serial killer profiler that most fiction is based off of, and political articles.

I have seen in the past few years that they have increased some other interesting things, like recipes and building plans for smokers, barbeque pits, and home-made beer taps... but in general the quality has fallen, and the length of the actual reading has been outpaced by pictorials/interviews.


The target seems to be the 18-25 single crowd, of which I am neither.


Hmmm... maybe it wasn't the magazine that changed...

This is very interesting.
Thanks guys.

Pep, here's a sample of the kind of erotic imagery I enjoy these days:

http://www.yourcupofcake.com/2011/05/andes-mint-cupcakes.html

Three words (represented by an acronym): DVR.

I enjoy my sports as much as I always did, but never watch a commercial. There are a few newer technologies that I've heartily embraced

All hope is not lost. There's a movement out there where young people are choosing to look for a Proverbs 31 kind of woman v. a Victoria's Secret kind of woman.

Oh, yes! I forgot about DVR!

Used to use that, before streaming video. And if I had to deal with a broadcast signal, I'd probably still want one.

Personally speaking, my wife is both.

Can any men shed light on the after affects of porn? MrNiceGuy said it above he felt awful.

What was it about the experience that made you feel awful? Are men realizing they aren't connecting to their wives?

When a man doesn't connect to his wife how does he feel?

Does he just compartmentalize it or does it cause him to internally turn to stone?