Reboot: P is for Porn - a podcast by Dr. Lori Beth Bisbey - A to Z of Sex

Dr Bisbey called in sick, so we republished this

Hi everyone! Welcome to the A to Z of Sex. I’m Dr Lori Beth and I am your host. We are working our way through the erotic alphabet one letter at a time. Just a reminder this podcast deals with adult content, so if you don’t have total privacy, you might want to put on your headphones. Today the letter is P and P is for Porn. Porn is a divisive topic these days. There has been a lot of panic around what young people are accessing on the internet and whether they are getting most of their sex education from porn. There has also been a lot of controversy around the idea of sex and porn ‘addictions’. In some areas pornography has been demonised to the point that there is significant censorship legislation to control what adults can see and possess with very stiff penalties.
Dr. David Ley is a clinical psychologist in practice in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He earned his Bachelor's degree in Philosophy from Ole Miss, and his Master's and Doctoral degrees in clinical psychology from the University of New Mexico. Dr. Ley is licensed in New Mexico and North Carolina, and has provided clinical and consultative services in numerous other states. He is the Executive Director of New Mexico Solutions, a large outpatient mental health and substance abuse program in Albuquerque, NM.
Dr. Ley has been treating sexuality issues throughout his career. He first began treating perpetrators and victims of sexual abuse, but expanded his approach to include the fostering and promotion of healthy sexuality, and awareness of the wide range of normative sexual behaviors. Insatiable Wives is his first book and won a Silver Medal in the Foreword Magazine Book of the Year contest for 2009. Dr. Ley wrote Insatiable Wives following two years of interviews with couples around the country. His controversial second book, The Myth of Sex Addiction was released in March 2012, challenging the concept of sexual addiction and exploring a different model of male sexuality. The Myth of Sex Addiction triggered a firestorm of debate, allowing people to finally challenge the media hype of this pseudo-disorder. His new book Ethical Porn for Dicks, A Man's Guide to Responsible Viewing Pleasure was released to significant expectation and positive reviews in November 2016.)
We started our conversation by speaking about whether there is really such a thing as sex and porn addiction. Dr Ley spoke about the damage that labelling problems around sex and pornography as addiction as it adds to shaming the person. He was clear that when pornography is a problem it is usually a symptom rather than the cause. He spoke of research demonstrating that men who are stressed and depressed are more likely to use pornography long term and that they appear to be using the pornography as a means of managing negative emotions. Women tend to get more support when expressing negative emotions and are not shamed because they have negative emotions so this is seen less in women.
Dr Ley spoke about research demonstrating that long term couples who watch pornography together have better sexual relationships, couples who watch pornography separately but tell each other about it have better relationships and women who watch pornography have better relationships. The only group where pornography is seen to be a problem is when men watch pornography and don’t tell their partners about it and their partners don’t watch and don’t like pornography.
Dr Ley emphasised sexual integrity in a person and his relationships. He spoke of the need for education around sexuality so that people could learn to integrate their needs and desires and then education in communication so that they could learn to communicate with their partners about sexuality and desire. We spoke of the lack of education helping young people to learn to talk about sex with anyone, let alone with partners and the fact that there so many young people are not being taught...

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