Counsellor Ruth Ssenyonyi, of Bank of Uganda, says that : “There is no way it can improve any relationship because it implants images in the mind especially for men who are very visual and their imaginations can become very real. This results into the other party in the relationship being used as a sex object.”
She explains that watching pornography can make anything trigger off the urge to have sex and people are reduced to sex objects ruining any chance of real intimacy. She disagrees with the notion that if your husband/wife enjoys watching pornography, you should watch it with him/her to understand them better.
“It is like saying he drinks, so we should both get drunk. It doesn’t help anyone and people should know pornography is a very addictive habit that can be difficult to break.”
30-year- old Robinah, couldn’t agree more, having been married to a man who loves watching adult movies and viewing magazines for three years. “After six months in marriage, I found his collection of magazines and some dvds. He told me they were for his bachelorhood days, but one night when he thought I had gone to bed, I found him watching one.
He apologised and promised to give them away,” she says.
However, she reveals that he never gave it up five months ago. His addiction made her feel worthless, for it seemed he got more pleasure from the movies. Their sex life was no longer as great, since she was always conscious about his secret source of pleasure and he too always seemed to know that he could pleasure himself.
Doreen Namutebi another young woman agrees that the people watching pornography may start visualising the person in the movie and this would not make the act of sex quite as intimate.
“It creates unrealistic expectations based on what the movie shows and this is why we have men spanking, pulling women’s hair and even using derogatory names that are picked from these movies.” Ms Ssenyonyi warns that pornography leads to sexual violence. “These images corrupt the mind.
People may try to do exactly what they see and when things don’t work out quite as they saw them, they may turn violent. Again it brings us back to the issue of turning the person you are with into a sex object. Pornography is very terrible and shouldn’t be encouraged because it destroys marriage slowly.”
“Since pornography is more common among men than women, it brings a negative attitude towards the women. These women are abused in every derogatory way imaginable,” is the view of Mr Paul Nyende, a psychologist from Makerere University.
“There is soft porn and hard porn, but they are both dangerous in their varying degrees. They can have such a heavy mental impact and in fact most of the serial killers have all had a pornography link or history,” says Mr Nyende.
Most experts agree that pornography in a relationship causes more harm than good and recommends that couples seek adequate sex counseling to boost their relationship rather than take this option.
extracted from full woman article of monitor 2 may 2009
