News from Tammy Nelson

Ask "The Man"

A New Monthly Column

brought to you this week by

"Robert"

"What do ordinary men really think about love and sex?"

Robert, our guest columnist, is not a therapist, or a licensed relationship professional. He is an ordinary man, answering the questions that therapists and every day people ask everyday. This month he answers the question,

Pornography - Is it Cheating?

by Robert Lowe

I like Porn. It was going to be evident at some point in this column anyway, so I might as well just come right out and say it up front. Maybe, this admission won't be good for my career, my on-line presence, or my brand, but I am willing to take a risk or two for the privilege of writing these columns to help support the important work of Tammy Nelson. For the record, I do not tolerate, advocate, or endorse any pornography that was produced with children or produced using individuals that were coerced in any way. While some may think that pornography is exploitative, and it some cases it may be, I am sometimes left to wonder who is being exploited more egregiously, the actor/actress or the viewer. But that is a topic for my musings at another time.

Pornography is just another of the many ways we seek to escape the realities of life. Just like the summer action movies we flock to that gives us a temporary scare or thrill as we get thrown into a larger than life world that is enhanced by a soundtrack that deliberately invokes great emotion, even a run in the mill porn movie will deliver much of the same, but probably with a much cheesier soundtrack.

The difference here is that porn excites and titillates us and helps us to experience generalized feelings of sexuality and excitement. But just like the summer action flick, the porn movie is typically a bloated and overdone fantasy and most well adjusted men already understand this quite clearly. Porn can be an effective tool to heighten the sexual experiences between partners, but it is never, ever, never a substitute for actual contact with a living, breathing, sweating, and highly aroused partner.

Consuming pornography is really very similar to watching the typical smash 'em up/shoot 'em up movie or even watching football or some other full contact sport. It allows men to temporarily experience their alter ego; the place within men that wants to dominate and control their surroundings to suit their needs or drive to victory through an extremely visual experience. Since men are generally visually dominated beings by nature, porn fits in very nicely with our natural tendencies. But most of us reasonable men know that it isn't real and does not present a reasonable depiction of how women should be treated or what sex should be like in a relationship any more than the shoot 'em up/smash 'em shows how to enact your revenge for a trivial encroachment........

TO READ THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE AND TAKE ROBERTS TEST "Do You Have A Problem With Porn?" GO TO:
http://www.tammynelson.org/blog/

To respond to Robert send emails with subject line "TO ROBERT" to [email protected]