Porn. Even when I hate it I can't seem to stop watching it. There are times when it's all in good fun, but there are also times when I feel like an addict. But one thing I've noticed, it's something people don't like to talk about much, not even transguys.

Since I relocated to the DC area, I haven't been to a support group yet, but while I was in NYC I went fairly regularly. And even in those groups, folks talked around sex, and porn was only mentioned in passing. Yet I know I'm not the only one who found themselves watching hours of pornography once I went on T. It was only a year ago when I ran into a fellow transguy at a coffee shop in the Village:

HIM: Hey, man, how ya doin?
ME: Good, you?
HIM: Fine. So you started, eh? Your face looks good.  Me too, like two months ago. How's it feel?
ME: Pretty good. Everything's really smooth. Well, except for the fact I can't stop watching porn, but other than that—
HIM: Oh, man, you too?! I thought it was just me. My girlfriend came home and asked me what I did all day, and I didn't know what to tell her.

People always want to know if my sex drive has gone up since I started the T, but it's more complicated than that for me. Even my partner – the love of my life – simplifies it when it's not simple. It's changed, definitely, but it's not like I want to have sex with everything that moves. I don't look at random men or women on the street and think about having sex with them. But I do think about masturbating almost all the time. And porn is way for me to get turned on fast, jerk off, and get back to all the things I really need to be doing. When it comes to masturbating, there are times when porn serves me well. For instance, last night I couldn't fall asleep, and after tossing and turning for an hour, I slipped out of the bedroom and popped some porn into the DVD player. Fifteen minutes later I was done and in twenty-five minutes I was asleep. But then again, there are times when I'll get back from the gym and want to get to the fourteen things on my to-do list, and instead I will spend an hour and a half watching internet porn before finally jerking off and getting in the shower.

It kills me. I smoked cigarettes for about five years before quitting, and I know what it feels like when I'm having a social cigarette, and when I can't think about anything else, can't do anything else, can't move forward an inch until I've had my fix. Masturbating feels like that sometimes, and the porn addiction is woven into it. Sure I used to masturbate before I started T, practically every day in fact, just before bed. But it never felt like a compulsion until I started the shots.

Does my sex life with my partner factor into it? Probably. Have other things changed about what kind of sex I want and how I want it? Definitely. But the porn thing has become its own beast that I need to tame. And on top of watching it so often now, I've changed the kind of porn I watch. Before T, I watched gay male porn and some straight porn if the power dynamics weren't too offensive. Now I'll watch almost anything, and I just pray that the acting isn't atrocious. I'm drawn to "voyeur" and "reality" and "homemade" porn, and preferably porn where the women aren't so obviously faking it for the camera. So much porn does hinge on unequal power dynamics, though, and I often feel contaminated afterwards. I try to look for erotic movies that my partner and I can watch together, but they're few and far between, and we don't get Skinamax (Cinemax). I'll even watch "mature" or "gonzo" porn in the hopes of finding something that works, that gets me there.

Since I began T, almost two years ago, my porn addiction has lessened somewhat. When I first started T, I couldn't walk by an adult video store without walking inside and popping a couple of dollars into a booth in the back. I felt horrible. I felt controlled by it. Finally, I lowered my dose of T from 1 mL to 0.5 mL every other week. It's better, but it's not gone.

I tell you, I now have sympathy for teenage boys. Not that hormonal urges are any sort of license to bully women or even other men, it's not. But it's not an easy urge to suppress. At least as a 31 year old adult, I have some concept of what's going on with my body. I can talk about it, write about it, research it, consult my doctor about it. Who's a teenage boy going to talk to? We don't yet have a culture that allows for open communication about sex – as it is, transguys barely talk about it with each other. And unlike most teenage boys, I've found my life partner – the intense desire to get hard and get off numerous times a day doesn't excite me, it frightens me.

One last thing about porn: It has damaged my fantasy life. I used to be able to conjure fantasies in my head and masturbate to those. Now I'm so impatient, I use the visuals from the last porn flick I saw, or I plop down in front of my computer and just watch something. I think there is something to be gained from trying to get back in the habit of creating a fantasy that I want, that I like, that is my version of exciting and titillating. I think porn deprives us of our imaginations.

So no, I'm not anti-pornography. Not at all. But when I used to smoke, I could tell the difference between that certain cigarette – maybe after a meal, or with a beer – that felt satisfying, and all the others that left me with ashes in my mouth. I want to be in control of when I watch porn porn and when I don't.

Deen
www.adoorbell.blogspot.com

Upcoming Editorial  from Deen: Transmasculine