By: Blake Michaels
GAY GUYS
There are certain minds out there in the world that think porn has the potential of replacing love. When we believe that all we need is a hand to squeeze a few spurts of love juice, being single becomes less depressing. The effort of hunting, searching, and cruising for a man is no longer as sought after in today’s digital world. But is that threatening the nature of love?
We’re human beings, and love is one of our most enviable emotions to obtain. We feel better about ourselves knowing there is at least one person who loves us unconditionally. Some of us find it more than once, but for those who have it now, it over exceeds all kinds of pursuits, including lust. That’s how powerful it is.
Porn is convenient. It’s there for us during our dry periods, even our wet periods. In many ways, it teaches us how to have amazing sex and kept us from driving ourselves crazy. Sometimes our fantasies can be so extreme that porn is the only way to let it out – something we might not have been able to do in the real world.
Love and sex live so close together in the human brain it’s hard to think that they can live separately from one another. When we have sex, unless you’ve trained your brain to disassociate itself, it’s difficult to not become emotionally attached. It’s how our brains work. But love in general is something that will never die because we need it to withstand difficult moments in our life. It’s something you can’t get on a computer screen nor is it something you can purchase on a credit card. No amount of porn will stop a human being from realizing that. It can, however, keep a man from actively pursuing it as much as he should. That’s a discussion worth having.
I’ve known plenty of gay men in my life (some have been ex-boyfriends) that have made porn a part of their daily routine. They watch it and, yes, sometimes it can affect their sex life. It sets unrealistic standards that make it difficult for a partner to meet. It also convinces him that he deserves more than what society tells him he can get. He thinks he deserves a porn star as a boyfriend, therefore, everyone else who doesn’t meet the requirements are pushed aside. In other words, it makes sex a higher pursuit than an adequate connection.
Yes, porn can alter our perceptions on things. But so can video games, TV shows, books, and movies. Any form of entertainment that is about a specific topic, whether it’s about love, war, politics, relationships, or food, is going to make us think differently about it every so slightly. It’s called art. Art makes people think. It’s not necessarily supposed to make people emulate it in their daily lives, but rather readjust certain points of views. I might be a huge fan of Batman and start to emulate qualities of his heroic character – that doesn’t mean I’m going to buy the outfit. I might watch porn (a lot), but that doesn’t mean I’m going to totally replace my human need of connection with a computer screen.
Porn isn’t killing love. You know what is, though? Human beings. The longer we paint a brush across our hearts and forget the importance of one-on-one connection, love is only going to exist in romance novels. Porn addiction is a real thing, but so is work addiction, narcissism, selfishness, loneliness, and a lack of compassion – all of which affect our pursuits of love much more than porn does. If you ask me, gay porn is neither good nor bad. It’s kind of like ice cream. You might love it, but it’s never going to replace your need for an actual meal. The idea that porn is killing love is absurd, and, frankly, an easy cop out from self-investigation. If we all look deep inside ourselves, we’ll come to realize that love has always been prevalent in our lives. All we need is a bit of encouragement to search for it.
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