The Set and Setting of Porn

A startling number of men have told me how seasons of porn use have been the darkest times of their lives. They felt like evil monsters and rapists for what often seems to me moderate levels of porn consumption. They describe feelings of shame, depression, and fear, and they hate how it ramps up their sexuality.

In the online “Reboot” community – a vast movement of men abstaining from porn and masturbation – the mood is similarly dark. Men regularly share suicidal feelings, describe themselves as perverts and failures when they “relapse”, and blame their various woes, like erectile dysfunction and struggles to find real-world sex partners, on porn use. (I’m not linking to these communities because, frankly, they are a bit scary and are known to retaliate against criticism.)

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The chasm between my experience and theirs is so huge it is almost baffling to me. I’ve watched a lot of porn and never experienced any erectile dysfunction or demotivation to have sex with real-world partners. It hasn’t “pornified” my brain. It hasn’t raised my hedonic threshold, pushing me to weirder and more extreme forms of stimulation. I very rarely experience any depression or shame about porn use. The only negative impact it’s had on my life is disrupting my sleep (because all screen time, be it OnlyFans or Wordle, disrupts my sleep), and when I occasionally stumble across porn that makes me deeply sad, like hard drug use or violence.

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Straight men often have worries about objectifying women, and this complex is carried into their porn consumption. Being gay, I’ve never encountered the fear of exploiting female sexuality, or a fear of objectification in general. All the guys in the porn I watch are fun, happy, and affectionate. The objectification and delight in being objectified go both ways in equal measure between gay men. Porn has helped me understand that objectification is not necessarily dehumanization, but a healthy part of sexuality that should be integrated rather than repressed.

Porn has been an invaluable relationship aid in my long-term partnership. Both my partner and I watch porn separately, and it is a healthy part of our (childless) household. Watching porn together – and using it as a catalyst to explore our desires and fantasies – has only deepened our relationship. Porn, for both of us, doesn’t take place in fearful isolation. It is nurtured in a loving, accepting space with a secure attachment.

Gay porn has also helped me accept myself as a gay man, demonstrating to me that gay people can have fun, shameless sex. I believe that porn has made me a more tolerant person, too – it has helped me understand that different people have different kinks and interests, even if those kinks and interests aren’t for me.

What accounts for the vast gulf between myself and the other men who are driven to despair by their porn use? I’m not a psychologist or sexologist, and this is just speculation, but I think at least part of the answer can be found in another controversial subject: psychedelics.

Set and Setting

Set and setting are what make psychedelics a nightmare for some, a party drug for others, and a religious entheogen for mystics. “Set” refers to one’s mindset while using the drug, and “setting” is the physical and social context in which the drugs are used. What we believe about psychedelics, and the mental state we use them in, is what determines the experience. As Michael Pollan writes in his book How to Change Your Mind, “Compared with other drugs, psychedelics seldom affect people the same way twice, because they tend to magnify whatever’s already going on both inside and outside one’s head.”

I’m not really a drug user. I don’t even drink alcohol. But I’m captivated by the research into psychedelics because I think they give us a window into the human condition.

I believe that one’s private experience with porn, which is too often assumed to be universal, is similarly dependent on set and setting. Certainly, the content of the porn matters. Some types of porn are innately dangerous or immoral. But I can’t help but notice that the people who don’t experience any negative effects from their porn use don’t believe that there are negative effects from porn use. Conversely, the guys who do experience negative outcomes believe that porn has negative outcomes. It’s hard not to conclude that beliefs about porn are shaping our experience of it.

Perusing the Reboot communities, I notice a few trends that make for a dark set and setting for porn:

1. Social isolation and loneliness. Many of these men are isolated and living with profound depression, anxiety, and sexual frustration.
2. Religious beliefs that conflict with porn use. Many of these men report feeling deep shame and fear over their porn use because they believe it is not God’s best for their lives.
3. Pseudoscientific beliefs that porn innately wrecks their motivation, their ability to attract mates, re-wires their brains, and gives them erectile dysfunction.
4. Belief that the porn industry is fundamentally evil and corrupt, predicated on the abuse of women and sex trafficking.

This creates an incredibly toxic set and setting for porn use. No wonder these guys are so fucked up. It’s the equivalent of believing that psychedelics are a literal portal to hell, and then deciding you’ll watch The Texas Chainsaw Massacre on 5 grams of mushrooms. 

As Dr. David Ley writes in his excellent book Ethical Porn for Dicks,

If you think pornography is damaging to females, gross, addictive, or damaging to your sexuality, or if you view masturbation itself as something that is inherently unhealthy and dangerous, you will almost certainly experience negative effects and problems from pornography if you choose to watch it. The problem isn’t necessarily the porn, nor is it even your moral or sexual attitudes. The problem lies in the conflict between these two things.

Such set and setting for porn contrasts dramatically with my own. Porn, for me, does not take place in loneliness and fear. It is shared with the person I love most in this world. I believe that there is a lot of bad, immoral porn, but I also believe that there is healthy, consensual porn. I don’t believe it is altering my brain or making me a deviant. I don’t believe it is innately sex trafficking or abuse. The upshot of all this is that I don’t experience all porn as a dark or destructive force in my life.

I also can’t help but see broader parallels between porn and psychedelics:

In the ’60s, a moral panic over psychedelics swept the country, resulting in their criminalization. Psychedelics grant one a titanic experience of the divine outside the accepted venues of church and dogma. This terrifies religious powers who insist that theirs is the only way to spiritual truth.

Porn, too, has been declared a public health emergency in multiple US states. It is allegedly the cause of social dysfunction, degeneracy, and weakness. And, like psychedelics, porn is a powerful force, granting people sexual imagination and experience outside the accepted venues. This horrifies religious cultures that believe sexuality is only moral in the confines of a monogamous, heterosexual relationship.

None of this is to say that there are no dangers with porn, or that people can’t have legitimate, life-altering struggles with it. I do think it’s worth worrying about children having access to porn. In the same way I wouldn’t want a child to take a tab of LSD, I wouldn’t want a child watching hardcore pornography. A truly negative outcome is when young people believe porn is real sex. It isn’t.

Another legitimate concern is rape and coercion in porn. But this doesn’t suggest that all porn is inherently coercive, no more than Shelley Duvall’s abuse on the set of The Shining means that all horror movies are fundamentally abusive, or that unethical working conditions in farming mean that the food industry ought to be abolished.

It is wrong to say that I am “pro-porn” or “anti-porn”. It’s too big, too ubiquitous, and too complex to categorize as simply good or bad. It contains the best and worst of humanity. It is how we use it – and make it – that counts.

Psychedelics are now being embraced as a powerful tool that must be respected, understood, and handled with care. I believe that porn is similar. I also believe that it is possible and necessary for adults to use porn in a compassionate, responsible, and ethical way. Porn isn’t going away. Society has no choice but to use porn, so we must learn to use it with care. Both psychedelics and porn require wisdom and skill to navigate ethically.

This will involve a great deal of thought about set and setting – our beliefs, attitudes, social contexts, and mental states. It means contemplating sex, porn, and masturbation in the cold light of day. Our culture is a long way from such self-reflection because of the shame and stigma attached to sex. Porn can be a gateway to hell or a tool for enlightenment. The choice is ours.

But that’s just me. What do you think? Please share your thoughts in the comments below, and I might feature them in an upcoming post. Subscribe if you haven’t already, share this post with friends to rise on the leaderboard, and join the cult … I mean Discord server.