Men: porn, relationships and the respectful gaze?

This blog was originally posted by psychotherapist, counsellor and supervisor Duncan E. Stafford on the Therapy-space Cambridge’s website blog.

As part of my wide-ranging work as a therapist, I engage in conversations with men who have issues with pornography and sexual addictions. The work can be short and contained or it can take a considerable period of time but, in whatever way it progresses, the issue of ‘how to look’ and ‘what will be seen’ at some point becomes a central issue for conversation.

Gay and heterosexual men alike have to confront how pornography and sexual addictions have affected their looking-and-seeing process. In my practice, there appears a difference in the way these two groups of men confront their burden. The female form is used differently in art and the media from that of the male body. Male couples are often able to pull together through conversation about what looking-and-seeing means and how it functions for the individual – and the couple. Conversely, heterosexual couples frequently fracture during a simple stroll along a high street or as they sit in a restaurant, where every passing female form becomes an unknowable challenge.
In a free, thoughtful and open society, thankfully it is an impossibility not to have the option of looking at and seeing the human form. But what is it that a respectful, heterosexual male (even one previously challenged by negativities created by porn and sexual addiction) looks at and sees when in the presence of the female form? The question leads men to search not down a single agenda track but to open their horizons, and one of my starters for this process is often with something like a poem. Rick Belden captures something in his poem, looking for the perfect curve.

looking for the perfect curve

my eyes
go where they want to go
and they’re always looking
for the perfect curve.

my mind
knows what it wants to know
and it wants knowledge
of the perfect curve.

what is it about the female form
more perfect
than the quiet moon in the sky
or the gentle bend of a river
or the soft contours of waves
rhythmically caressing a beach.

without it
my life is all
straight lines and right angles
and every sentence ends in a period
never a question mark to be found.

the mere sight of it
lights my heart and lightens my day
it nourishes me
and reconnects me with the pure cosmic joy
of being a man.

perhaps only a fool is driven
by that which he cannot have
I’m an old fool now
getting older all the time
and most of the curves I see these days
are many miles
and many years
out of my reach
but my eyes still go
where they want to go
and my mind still knows
what it wants to know
and I’m still looking
for the perfect curve.*

The first two stanzas often create the acknowledging head nod; the third brings breath in – as comfort is acknowledged; the fourth raises a smile or chuckle; the fifth results in a sigh, and the sixth, in equal measures, clasped hands or a bowed head.
And as we come back to conversation, we look at each other and smile – now, just two men sitting in a room. We perhaps understand in the others’ psyche ‘the perfect curve’ – a heterogeneous proliferation of one man, getting the other.

Men: porn, relationships and the respectful gaze?

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