To get all the Andrew Tate fanboys out of the room, quitting porn doesn’t mean you will attract more girls, hit the gym more, or have confidence radiating out of your nipples. This is not a male issue, but relax men, you definitely are leading the pack making up 79% of PornHub visits in the United States.

There came a point in my life where I began to feel embarrassed at the idea of watching people have sex.

I would choose a video with a girl I saw attractive only to watch another man have sex with her while I watched. Frankly, I felt like a cuck. If that’s your thing, have a ball, but learning to enjoy it because of a hesitancy to pursue sexual relations with real women was not something I could continue doing. The fantasies I was indulging in were unrealistic, but it was that hyperbolic nature that made it so seductive. 

From the hot takes related to the NoFap, manosphere content to the proud viewers who enjoy the show, let us begin with a guy (me) holding a sign marked, “Let’s Talk Porn.” 

My thought experiment began on the quad asking people three yes/no questions. 

1.Do you watch Porn?

2.Do you find it embarrassing that other people watch it?

3.Would you date someone knowing they watch it?

This was a good starting point for me. Using this small sample size,

I was able to compare the responses to bigger data collections. Standing in such a crowded area, I received a lot of refusals to answer the questions and found women, primarily, were much less likely to stop. The poster may have been off putting along with the time of day and my approach, but the survey did its job as a sensitivity litmus test.

While receiving people’s answers, I started to doubt the truthfulness of the responses. I could hear the beginnings of a no turn into a yes, and it felt like being at a Trump rally trying to find hidden Harris supporters. I was standing in the quad with people zooming by in every direction in earshot of my voice, so respondents were naturally aware of being overheard. The answers to the first question regarding whether they consumed porn with males reporting 28% and females reporting 0% respectively, were complete lies. The funny part was more males reported finding it embarrassing for others to watch it than those who reported using porn. The numbers did not add up. 

It is a touchy subject, and despite sexual satisfaction being a universal need, taking care of your urges on your own is kept under dim light. Obscene, pornographic material has a long history of stirring controversy, raising questions as to how it should be governed. People have fought for the ability to create and distribute X rated content through court rulings such as Miller v. California, (1973) and United States v. Playboy Entertainment Group (2000), which have legitimized 1st amendment protected routes to do so.

From nude brothels to Hustler Magazine, the porn industry has long been established, and currently boasts 100 billion dollars of global revenue per yea You may doubt the moral legitimacy of the industry, but our economy incentivizes the creation of such products and services. The demand for x rated content created a market booming in innovation, bringing us from dirty letters to webcam models.  LifePlan reports $3,075 are spent on pornography every second; porn is as coveted as toilet paper. 

In 2020, we saw a rise in porn consumption that scientists attributed to many things, one being loneliness. During the pandemic, men isolated from sexual contact were left to fend for themselves. With less than a 1% match rate on Tinder, men had to find alternative modes of satisfaction. Only Fans users skyrocketed from 7.5 to 85 million reported users with some creators earning as much as 100,000 per month. 

Currently, OnlyFans has 238.85 million users with 87% of the audience being male. Pornhub’s 2023 analytics provides increasing specificity as to the ages of these males with the average Pornhub visitor being 37-years-old. Deducting from the census bureau’s 2021 report finding the average age of marriage being 30, combined with PornHub’s 71% of usership being males, we can reasonably assume many of these users are married men and use porn to supplement their sexual fantasies.

Is it wrong? Well, it depends on who you ask.

Psychology Today published an article citing a study concerning porn addiction and self perception. The study found viewing yourself as a porn addict predicted lifestyle downfalls while indulging in porn did not. Dr. David J Ley blames the media’s portrayal and attention as creating a label that preys upon users to perceive themselves poorly.

The Addiction Center finds more credence in bringing awareness to porn consumption raising the issue of excessive dopamine release and defensive measures the brain takes against it. 

To put on my fake topic expert YouTube hat, both shaming and over consumption are separate issues with immense complexity. Studies suggest that the responsibility is on us to remain up-to-date on the latest studies and let the experts guide us. If you feel like you have a problem, then seek a solution. If you do not see a problem, I suggest buying your lotion in bulk to save money. 

Porn usage and pornagraphic preferences resemble looking inward versus looking outward. As valuable as it may be to examine why you watch porn, broad fetishes can illuminate societal stigmas and prejudices lurking in the shadows.

The sexual objectification and humiliation of black women has a long history in the United States and still exists today. The mutilation and sexual assault of black bodies are ingrained in the history of this country. Political wars over critical race theory and multiculturalism rage on, while a silent majority maintain their prejudices and attraction toward black women. 

For example, Ghetto Gaggers, one pornographic website with over 300,000 monthly visitors encourages viewers to “join to see white boys conquering angry black women.” This displays a perverted, deviant attraction to the domination and abuse of Black women (I shall leave you the liberty to dig for more information on that).

This is nothing new. White people have long romanticized the abuse of black women as can be seen in the 2005 film, Sally Hemings An American Love Story. I cannot count how many times I have heard “I just don’t find black women attractive” or the phrase, “jungle fever.” These statements, and many more, are the voiced expressions of repressed prejudices, but fortunately for us, porn has got us covered. 

When it comes to race, porn and dating statistics point to a racial hypocrisy. A study examining heterosexual interactions found that black women receive the least interactions from men regardless of race. Despite these findings, PornHub reported Ebony as the most viewed category in the United States. When comparing the gender gap between white and black people regarding interracial marriage, Pew Research found white people, regardless of gender, marry outside their race at similar rates while black women are 50% less likely than black men to marry outside their race. Black women receive the least interactions of all women and are less likely to go outside their race than black men. While PornHub Statistics show black women in one way, online dating interaction points in the other direction. 

If you dare to accredit Ebony’s top ranking to the 13.7% of black Americans, I would direct you to a study showing black men and women consume porn at higher rates than their white counterparts. It would make sense when considering the tendency of people to seek out people within their race; however this rebuttal may fall apart when looking at studies using the implicit association test. 

A 2002 study showed the lack of a pro-black implicit bias from African American to what scientists attributed to social stereotypes. In other words, black Americans have the internalized self hatred learned from social constructs created by their environment regarding their identities. The implicit association test is not full proof, nor has it fared without criticism. It was simply a tool used to gain insight on racial bias. 

The point is, transcend past practices and give black people a chance in your romantic endeavors. 

Connecting all those dots hurts my brain, so allow me to put my fake topic expert hat back on.

Sex as a medium of connection and pleasure can get lost if done for the wrong reasons. Overly fixating on the pleasures of “getting off” can leave you looking like the dog humping the stuffing out of a pillow. Learn to control your desires, and better yet, your mind. The discipline of refraining from self-indulgence is a universal ideal, but in this case, the secrecy included in watching porn can be hidden from others, making denying it even harder. 

There are many principles you may want to consider.  Accept the fact that you are enamored with a fictional character.  It’s cute to believe in Santa as a child. It’s cute to marvel at your first depiction of sex as a middle schooler. With sex education in an abysmal state, seeing a version of sex, despite its hyperbolic display, may be an enlightening step along your journey. 

No matter how fruitful, it is time to learn from the child who realizes no fat man is easing his ballooned rear end down the chimney. You are not Johnny Sins and your girl is not Riley Reid. Like anything, sex is something you get better at the more you do it. Your first few times, you may look like a squirrel having a seizure, and that is okay. 

Mohammad Tantawi is a 23-year-old mass communication senior from Smyrna, TN.