This article is probably one of the most interesting I’ve read since starting Role/Reboot, and finally addresses – in what feels like a pretty honest fashion – the question of whether porn is having an impact on our sexual and emotional relationships.  But author Davy Rothbart takes the question a step further: He doesn’t simply ask how porn affects the libido of American males in general; he even turns the lens on himself.

His conclusions strike me as pretty convincing.  According to Rothbart: “Porn is not only shaping men’s physical and emotional interest in sex on a very fundamental neurological level, but it’s also having a series of unexpected ripple effects—namely on women.”

As one woman who Rothbart interviews in Boston says to him, “There is no glory in trying to make love to men who only know how to fuck—man after man after man after man raised on porn.”

No article about porn has struck a chord with me as much as this has.  Partially, it’s because the conclusions he draws comport with a lot of anecdotal things I’ve heard from both men and women.  But also, his conclusions seem immensely reasonable, measured.  Rothbart isn’t an alarmist who thinks that men who watch too much porn are all going to become violent misogynists and rapists; but he does suspect that a type of “sexual attention deficit disorder” seems to be plaguing more and more men and that inevitably, that’s going to have a noticeable impact on our relationships.

I think he may be tapping into a phenomenon that’s more common than we think, and almost never discussed. 

Please, please read this.  And let me know what you think.  At Role/Reboot, I’m in the process of organizing forums on the role and presence of pornography in our lives, and I am really curious to hear what you make of this article.  I understand that this is a sensitive topic for some: Feel free to post your comments as “anonymous.”

You can read the full article here.

-Nicole