Males sucked into the Internet porn vortex
… It became a once-a-day habit—one that, these days, Jonathan admits has gotten somewhat out of hand. …He now jokes about the Internet as “the vortex of self-hatred” because of how it can turn mere diversion into a self-destructive act: “I’ll have a ton of papers to grade, but instead I’ll be like, Let’s jerk off to the Internet first. So I go online, but then I despise myself. I look up, and my computer says I’ve been online for 47 minutes and I’m like, What the hell have I been doing?!”
… “I go into the computer lab, right? And I’m looking at it, and there are these girls all around in their little cubicles, and, I don’t know, I want to see if I can reach orgasm right there.” Discreetly, he has managed to succeed in this mission a few times.
“I think part of the thrill is the danger element. It’s like a Portnoy thing,” Jonathan says. It’s an apt allusion, except for one difference: Philip Roth’s chronic masturbator, Alexander Portnoy, was a high-school freshman, not a 33-year-old professor.
…Thanks to the advent of cable modems and DSL connections, it’s now easier than ever to scan lewd material in the privacy of your own home. One minute you’re reading the New York Times, and then two clicks on Google and—oops!—you’re downloading highlights from Jenna Jameson’s oeuvre.
… a 26-year-old businessman friend shocked me by casually remarking, “Dude, all of my friends are so obsessed with Internet porn that they can’t sleep with their girlfriends unless they act like porn stars.”
…“What’s most regrettable is that it can really affect relationships with women. I’ve seen some young men lately who can’t get aroused with women but have no problem interacting with the Internet. I think a big danger is that young men who are constantly exposed to these fake, always-willing women start to have unreal expectations from real women, which makes them phobic about relationships.”….
From Internet Porn - Sex - Relationships - Cover Story - October 20, 2003
