“They say that most of the activity on the web is porn,” he said. “Did you know that?”

“It’s to be expected,” I said.

“How so?”

“Look at all the roads we have. No wonder traffic is congested. The more roads the more people will be encouraged to use them, even if it means taking five hours to go 150 miles.

“It’s the same with porn. There are all these porn sites, all our devices and twenty-four hours of accessibility seven days a week. Since sex is mysterious nobody should be surprised that so many people watch so much porn and are as addicted to it as they are to their cars.

“Internet porn gives people a sense of freedom, just like cars do.”

“And they can watch it in their cars during a traffic jam,” he laughed.

“Maybe that’s why more and more cars have tinted windows,” I said. “You seem to be worried about porn. Tell me.”

“Don”t people have anything better to do?” he asked. “I can see it if you are young and once in a while you and your friends get drunk and watch a porn movie. Or if you are married and once a week you and your wife watch a film and do the weird stuff they did in the movie. But it does worry me that there is an epidemic of it in our country.”

“It worries me too,” I said. “But more because people lack imagination than because they are immoral. The easy access to it makes it natural that a man who can’t get pussy, a guy who lost his job and cannot afford to go out and a married man in an unhappy marriage watch a lot of porn.

“In this age of instant communication nobody seems to know how to communicate. The guy who can’t get laid is not taking advantage of all the free sites there are to teach you how to improve your skill with women. The man with no money at least has an excuse because he cannot afford to go out with a real woman.

“The married guys though, that is what bothers me. It is easier to turn on porn than to talk things over with your wife or to try to make changes to yourself that well get your wife interested in you again.

“It probably never crossed the mind of a married porn addict to say to his wife, Honey. Let’s watch a porn flick to see if we can get our spark back.”

“I don’t know,” he said as he furrowed his brow.

“I don’t know either,” I said. “It might not work. His wife might scream at him. Or she might not have the courage to accept his invitation or to admit that she is part of the problem. But it is a daring, if not a courageous thing for the husband to say. He is making an effort.

“These are lonely times,” I said. “Many people are afraid of taking chances. Porn is safe. There are a lot of categories of sex to choose from. You move from one topic to another feeling you are free, that you have freedom of choice, that you are always high, that all these women you can’t sleep with are yours, especially the sexy ones in their late twenties and thirties.

“It’s exasperating. You know you have a problem but you like the problem. It’s what you live for but you don’t realize you should be sleeping with a real woman and spending hours with a real woman or going on dates with a lot of different real women.”

“You don’t realize you are a coward,” he said.

“You are right on,” I said. “It doesn’t cross peoples minds like the married guy who admitted to his wife I/we have a problem.

“The cowardice you talk about is part of being a contemporary male. Few men want to have kids or get married. Men are unemployed or under-employed. Men feel overwhelmed by the world they feel they have no future in, so it makes a lot of sense that so many men watch porn.

“The desire for sex will never go away. It will be acted upon through masturbation, porn, going to a prostitue, being promiscous or having a woman.

“In some of the porn videos the actress will snicker to her viewers, You’re going to jack off watching me.

“The reason I mention that is because one guy told me that he would watch porn naked for an hour, challenging himself not to slam the ham. He waited until he went to bed that night or did it in the morning.”

“And that’s good?” he said.

“That’s great,” I said. “He doesn’t have a real woman to practice foreplay with but he knows it’s important to have restraint. When he finally has the courage to date he will at least have a sense of drama and what to do with a woman.

“Let me digress a minute. The woman who makes fun of her viewers for jacking off to her video has the contempt for men common in the sex trade.

“A lot of men who go to prostitutes and watch porn look at those women as sluts. But the contempt these males have for sex working women is not as great as the contempt sex workers have for their male viewers and clients: What’s wrong with these turkeys? Can’t they get a real woman? So many of these guys have the money to attract a real women but they don’t have the balls. That’s a great description of us men.

“We don’t have the balls. We aren’t much of anything. We’re little men.

“It’s funny,” I continued, “that as the media tries to destigmatize sex workers and to show that porn actresses and hookers are real people with children and close families, there is no compassion for the lost and lonely men who have no kids or friends and are not close to their families.”

“It’s also funny,” he said, “that all these screwed up men with no kids or friends watch sex movies without love and with no children longed for or in the picture.”

“You’re right,” I said. “The age of porn is the age of no kids. The more porn the fewer kids people have.”

“Or maybe it’s the other way around,” he said.

“That makes more sense. You got me thinking about the amount of rectal intercourse in porn. There was not rectal intercourse in porn when I grew up. People are terrified to have kids and so afraid of love and the future that they revel in having sex with the hole that emits deadness rather than the hole that oozes life. They are metaphorically speaking hammering it home that kids are not important and that having kids is not the purpose of sex.

“The glorification of rectal intercourse was a logical next step in the industry and the logical next step in a nation that does not want to have kids – that is terrified to love. With rectal intercourse you do not look into your partners’ eyes.”

He went silent.

“I want to talk more about the industry and relationships.”

“Ok.”

“It is astounding that there are so many pretty women in porn. Men think how can such a pretty woman be a slut. Well how can such a handsome man be a porn addict? What you look like has nothing to do with your sex drive or hang ups.

“Some of the women in porn got into it as a new challenge. Some of them have great skill in computers or constuction. Some of them have always been hams so porn was a logical next step. Others want to try everything under the sun so they go to the STD-free porn industry rather than be picked up by a hundred strangers.

“And people in porn really enjoy working with some of their colleagues. I don’t think porn addicts make friends with anybody.

“Imagine a psychologist talking to his porn addict client. He would never call him a little man. The psychologist would give his patient a six month challenge. At the end of six months I want you to be going out to dinner twice a month with a gentlman friend. I want you to approach the best looking women at the bar, dance, party even if you are terrified to do it. You still might not get any and you still will probably not have a lot of pride, but at least you will be doing what you are supposed to be doing.”

“But how will he get to the psychologist?” he said.

“If he’s married because of his wife. If he’s single maybe because he realizes it isn’t his immorality but all the time that he wastes watching porn. You’re right. Most single guys won’t see a psychologist to heal their porn addiction.

“But some men’s fear of women is not because of having no money or of having psychological hang-ups. It’s political.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was reading,” I said, “that a lot of young men go to Tijuana to hire hookers because they fear that a woman they date here will accuse them of harassment or a sex crime.”

“And going to hookers in TJ is a good thing?”

“If a man never had a problem approaching women and if he likes to have sex, I think it is. His fear of false accusations is understandable. I’d rather see these guys retain a human connection than give up and watch porn.”

“You are way out there,” he said.

“That may be,” I said. “I am full of wonder and curiosity. We Americans are not full of wonder and curiosity.

“We’ve given up. Porn makes us feel we are alive. But really we are cowardly, unimaginative and dead.”

Copyright © 2025 by David Vaszko