Jana Hocking: Is watching porn ruining your sex life?

There is a huge array of porn available 24/7 online, but there's a real-world catch, says Jana Hocking.

OPINION:

I've been thinking about porn a lot lately. No, not in a saucy way, rather pondering on the way it now affects our sex lives.

Sure, it can be fun to put on with a partner when you're looking to spice things up a bit, but what about when it begins to become more fulfilling than your partner?

This pondering started during a long car trip I recently took to the family farm.

I was listening to Steven Bartlett talk to famous Instagram personal trainer James Smith on his podcast The Diary of a CEO and – as happens when two lads get together – it eventually turned into a discussion about masturbation and porn.

Honestly, it was like they both forgot they were recording and went deep. Fascinating!

They were talking about the way porn can interfere with their sex lives with their partners in real life. Explaining that if they watch it too soon before bedtime, it makes them lose interest in sleeping with their partner.

Similarly, because there is such an array of porn available 24/7 online now, they questioned whether it had made them lose interest in having sex with their partners, knowing that it wouldn't be as good as what they were watching online.

They questioned whether people need real-life sexual partners any more, seeing as they can get their sexual desires sorted from watching porn.

Both confessed to abstaining from watching porn for brief periods to allow their real-life sex lives a chance. Wow. This was a lot to take in.

Having been single for a while now, I can admit that porn has helped me get through some lonely nights. Big supporter of it when filmed in the right supportive environment, obviously.

So, they may have a very good point. I've often wondered why I'm in no rush to race down the aisle. I mean, I'm in absolutely no hurry to have children … at all. So I've never felt the urge to just shack up before that ol' fertility clock runs out of steam – as many blokes in my DMs frustratingly like to remind me constantly about.

Plus I have a fun friendship group that keeps the social aspect of my life fulfilled … but could porn be filling the gap when it comes to sexual fulfilment? Is that what's holding me back?! Huh!

There are now more people single than ever. Data show that singles make up an increasingly large portion of the US adult population. Four in 10 adults between the ages of 25 and 54 are single, up from 29 per cent in 1990, according to a new Pew Research Centre analysis. (The survey defines single as being neither married nor living with a partner.)

To add to this, the Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS) found that one in four Aussies live alone.

I mean, for a single broad like myself, those stats are jolly comforting, but you gotta ask why so many people are single – and could the answer be porn?

We're seeing this brilliant new wave of female sexual empowerment. Women are now openly discussing their favourite sex toys, we're seeing our favourite influencers raving about their latest cheeky online buys, our favourite MAFS contestants are joining OnlyFans.

Controversial opinion: is the need to partner up to get some sexual fulfilment becoming redundant?!

But it's not necessarily a good thing my friends. I was brought up in a time pre-internet (or at least in its early years) when you had to go hunting for your cheeky porn fix.

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Perhaps you would stumble upon an X-rated magazine at the back of your parents' wardrobe or happen to find a saucy VHS while babysitting at your neighbours. You could find yourself waiting months before the opportunity arose to see some grainy VHS nakedness.

Now fast-forward, and teenagers are simply picking up their phones and scanning through an array of sexual preferences. Bondage, lesbian, sensual, rough, the list goes on.

So how is that affecting our love lives in 2022? Well, according to Author of Sex and Porn Addiction – Healing and Recovery, Scott Brassart, it's both creating porn addicts, and sexual dysfunction – yikes! Yes, it would seem Pornhub and its friends have opened a Pandora's box of sexual issues.

The Brown University graduate discovered that "men who spend the vast majority of their sex lives searching for, looking at and enjoying an endless and constantly changing supply of intensely arousing sexual imagery – getting a fresh jolt of adrenaline and dopamine with every new image or video – become conditioned to this unrelenting neurochemical rush.

"Then over time, they find the excitement created by a real-world partner does not measure up. A single real-world partner is just not enough to create or maintain arousal."

Yes, just like Steven and James were discussing on the podcast, it's seriously having an effect on our love lives.

Perhaps it's time to take this on board, mute the porn for a little while and get out in the real world. It can't hurt.