Michael Kimmel is a professor of sociology at State University of New York, Stony Brook. He specializes in Gender Studies, focusing on what it means to a male, and a man in America.

His book Guyland address young adult, white male culture. It includes an insightful chapter on how pornography influence the movement from boyhood to manhood.

According to Kimmel the major theme of young, white men in America is avoidance. Guyland is the social space where 20-something males make their boyhood last as long as possible.

“Underneath all the assertions of liberty and ‘healthy fun’, lie the desperation and anxiety, the shame and fear, the loneliness and sadness, that fuels the endless consumption of (pornography).”

Kimmel notes how producers of pornography are insightful in their exploitation of male loneliness, alienation, and fear.

With the internet, pornography is everywhere all the time. The real cost is not financial. It is formative. It changes the viewer.

Users of pornograpy “are missing out on developing the skills – sexual and otherwise — that might help them to sustain relationships with women in the real world because actual sex with an actual woman is about a lot more than what is depicted on the screen. Actual women are far smarter than that, want more from sex, aren’t immediately orgasmic, don’t appreciate being used, have feelings, make demands, and believe themselves to be entitled to at least a modicum of  dignity, respect and care.”

Image: Moodboard Photography