Question: Everyone says watching porn together will lower inhibitions and you will have better sex. But all that happens is that I come very quickly and I don’t feel satisfaction, I feel a little sick.
Answer: Unfortunately people give advice – especially on sex – without a proper understanding of the facts.
Watching porn will always make you come very quickly. It is an automatic trigger in the brain. Looking at sexually explicit images releases a very strong dose of dopamine and oxytocin (happy hormone and ‘desire’ hormone). But they are released in a sharp burst which means that desire flares up very quickly and dies down equally fast. And because it fades so quickly the body doesn’t have time to adjust to the lack of it or replace it with anything else. This void is what causes that feeling of ‘sick’ or ‘low’.
When therapists advice you to ‘watch porn’ together there is a process behind it. It is recommended for specific occasions – for instance if a person has not had sex in a long time ideally the first orgasm (for both men and women) should be quick and not completely satisfying. This quick orgasm releases some of the pent up fluids – if unreleased sexual fluids build for too long it can be extremely drying for the woman and very painful for the man. The body needs to readjust to sexual energy and long foreplay can aggravate things.
Also, for the average couple, watching porn does not really help in dropping inhibitions. The kama sutra says that if the sex is very intense and very uninhibited, in the immediate aftermath people feel embarrassed or disorientated. It recommends that both partners should take a few minutes out to wash and freshen up in separate bathrooms and be by themselves and once they are dressed and have collected themselves they should come back together again. They will have forgotten about their embarrassments by then and will be ready to settle down for a longer a period of for more gentle cuddles.
Watching porn clicks off your inhibitor switch but since orgasm is so quick all of it is reversed equally quickly and without the necessary time to get used to it.
If you have the luxury of watching TV together, naked and in the privacy of your bedroom put it to better use.
Watch a different type of programme, something that you would watch during a normal day. Lie naked next to each other and just relax into the closeness. Holding your partner, gently feeling each other, talking softly, laughing together at what you are watching is an amazing start to intimacy. Take time out between kisses and caresses to go back to watching TV and talking. Don’t be in a rush – see if you can last out the whole length of the programme. The build up is slow and the results can extremely satisfying.
There is a fallacy that ‘comfort’ is the exact opposite to ‘passion’, that familiarity is boring and the unfamiliar some kind of hidden erotic treasure.
Nonsense!
Don’t dismiss the Comfort Factor. The 60 second hump in a lift or in the bathroom – another fallacy that the ‘fear of being discovered’ adds to the arousal – might look very exciting on film but in practice it is close to impossible. The anatomy is made in such a way, the placement of the genitals is such that having sex standing up in a lift requires serious amounts of acrobatics. Both of you have to be uber fit with extraordinary upper body strength to pull it off. And the only thing it achieves is a panic stricken ejaculation.
Trust me there is much to be said for comfortable and private surroundings and the ability to take it at your own pace.
That’s not to say that watching porn doesn’t work for everyone. There are couples who thrive on it. But for most people porn is not the answer to long, comfortable, intimate sex.
If you are aware enough to see that is not working for you then the sensible thing is to do is to stop.
Or if you feel you want to keep trying – you’ve heard other success stories and are keen to make it work for you then try a few adjustments.
Try watching lighter porn rather than hard core stuff.
Watch it at a time when you will not be able to follow it up with sex.
Let it be your 60 second hump in the lift or your ‘fear of being found out’.
Fast forward the film to the point you like and play it while you are actually having sex – rather than during foreplay. This will increase your intensity at the time but you will have reached arousal in a more organic way which will lead to a happier orgasm.
Listen to it as audio in the background rather than watching the video
Disclaimer: If you would like advice from Seema Anand on Sexually Speaking, send us a brief question to info.seema.anand@gmail.com (No attachments please. Attachments will not be looked at). Each week, Seema will choose one problem to answer, which will be published online. She regrets she will not be able to enter into any personal correspondence.
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