He follows hot girls on social media

So I have some thoughts on this, but I need to set my point up a bit.

A good relationship is built on two partners that support bringing out the best in each other. A relationship that last brings each partner to a place they could never reach if they were on their own.

A New Mode is a women’s site, we focus on what you can do to bring out his best as a man. Also, since men and women are different and their love is triggered in different ways, we go into the nuances of that.

When it comes to porn, my attitude a decade ago was that porn was no big deal. My general points were that men watch porn and it has nothing to do with the relationship or the women he’s “watching”.

Now, however, I think that porn is a poison on society.

Why?

Because:

– it’s interactive in a way that it didn’t used to be (cam sites being an example of this). So some men when they’re really down bad will form para-social relationships with these performers. Not saying that’s happening here, but it’s a bad end game for any man and no stage on a track towards that is a good track to be on.

– it’s everywhere, it’s free and everything is an on-ramp to it. So the hot girls on Tik Tok or Instagram are the teaser that then lures a guy into a porn bender. And everyone is on these apps every day, throughout the day. So when you consider that men are getting pulled on constantly to start a porn watching session (and we know what comes with that), you can imagine the pressure that men are under when this is in their timeline all day.

– but my biggest issue is testosterone (and a myriad of other brain chemicals, hormones, etc.) I suspect that depression in males is strongly linked to porn consumption. I haven’t studied this issue deeply, but I suspect as much.

I see all sorts of discussions about how men are awful or women are awful.

I’ve never shared either view. I’ve always viewed it as men and women are under tremendous psychological manipulation in today’s world, and both sexes are being taken unknowingly advantage of.

It’s sad. And I think a great relationship is the antidote to the world we live in, where the shared understanding is that it really is them against the modern world.

So I am against a man looking at porn (or on-ramps to porn, aka social media hot girls).

Not because it’s some kind of cheating. (It’s not, to these women the guys are a number on the screen, they have no interest in any interaction. It’s all business and they already have their own boyfriends. These aren’t available women.)

Not because it’s perverted. (It isn’t necessarily. Sure there are some wild things out there, but I suspect the majority of men are lured into porn through the most basic, normal things that attract men. The same biology that makes him attracted to you is what porn exploits to take advantage of him.)

The reason I’m against it is because it takes the man into a worse version of himself: A man with lower testosterone, more prone to depression, weaker, less motivated, less alive.

In a partnership, I look at that with sympathy. Porn isn’t your competitor. Porn is his weakness. Porn is a vampire in his life, draining him of his best life.

Like you said, you’re not his girlfriend so getting into the weeds here is probably not appropriate yet.

What I’m saying at this point is that when a man looks at porn, view that with sympathy, not jealousy (or anger, or fear, or self-consciousness). Look at it more like a man with a heroine addiction (and not only that, but he doesn’t think it’s a big deal).

See, men don’t make the connection between porn-watching and their lower energy, lower motivation, lower testosterone, lower sex-drive, etc.

Men look at porn like it’s outside of their life, almost like a quick pleasurable escape from the rest of his life.

He doesn’t understand that one of the reasons he feels like he wants to escape from his life is because he “watches” porn.

Society isn’t there yet with this discussion, but frankly if the society didn’t have any porn, we would have stronger men. That’s not going to happen though, so the question is how can your relationship take “no porn” as a point of pride?

Well, certainly not by shaming him or shaming men! That’s one of the reasons men want to escape to porn… they feel scorned and shamed by today’s society, and porn will cater to them without criticism.

It needs to be more like a point of pride, the way that working out is a point of pride or doing well in a career is a point of pride.

It needs to be more like noticing how men who don’t watch porn are happier, stronger, more motivated, more fulfilled, etc.

Ultimately, a man has to say “I want to be that man” and see porn (and all its on-ramps) as vampires that drain his best life away.

So there you go. It’s a bit of an unusual take, but I think that perspective gets us to a constructive place on the topic.

It comes down to what will bring out his best. And a man that watches porn isn’t moving him towards his best, it’s robbing him of it.