how porn can hurt relationships

How Porn can Hurt Relationships

Mitchell Macauley

In this day and age the Internet is almost in escapable. We have it on our phones, computers, game consoles, cars, and so on. It has become a part of our everyday lives that everyone uses from young children, to the elderly. However, the large amount of good it does for us there is also some bad.

Many researchers show that the use of pornography in marriages has either severely hurt or in some cases ended marriages, however there are some cases when either spouse did not care. Melissa Orlov wrote in her blog article “9 reasons porn hurts”, 9 reasons why porn in fact hurts relationships, and they are as followed:  Porn is not personal, and it breaks the personal relationship with your spouse or significant other. Porn is revolting to many women. Some people view porn as the “perfect” woman or man. Porn is so readily available and easy to access that it is almost impossible to keep someone from it. 1. Those were just some of the reasons that she gave I her article. When two people get married, they make a very strong personal bond, and when a spouse watches porn some can view that as breaking that strong personal bond, and that can be traumatizing for some. Porn can be very discriminating and be very revolting to women because of the things that are done in the videos 1. Many who watch porn see the people they are watching as perfect, and they judge and compare many people to them 1. With the Internet so readily available, and porn being free, it is very easy for some to access porn even if they are not supposed to 1.

In an article titled “How Pornography Impacts marriage and family life”, it is said that through watching porn, people become very self critical o f their sexual performance, or becoming very dissatisfied with their partners sexual performance 2. This can lead to people ending relationships through either becoming very introverted and almost becoming obsessed with porn, or leaving their partner to find the “perfect” match 2. Also, the people who were researched showed an increase desire with the sexual aspect of the relationship, while having a decreased desire for the emotional aspect of a relationship, which especially in a marriage, the emotional aspect is the most important part of the marriage.

Porn can very badly hurt peoples relationships with loved ones, it can cause a distrust, hate, and even cause them to split up, and if they have a family, that can be traumatizing for children. Even though it does not hurt all relationships, and has even helped re-spark some, does not mean that it is not harmful.

1.                    Melissa Orlov, "9 Reasons porn hurts," ADHD and Marriage (blog), january 29, 2013, http://www.adhdmarriage.com/content/9-reasons-porn-hurts.

2.                    Corey, "How Pornography hurts Marriage and Family life," Simple Marriage, http://simplemarriage.net/how-pornography-impacts-marriage-and-family-life/ (accessed March 31, 2014).