Men Dating Porn Stars On TV Won't Help Them Or The Women They'll Eventually End Up With

Men Dating Porn Stars: Bad For Them, Bad For Women

Men may not understand why a lot of women don't like porn, but for some of us, it's not that we have an issue with the sex part, rather the unreal expectations of a woman that are constantly projected in porn films.

"We don’t want to look like porn stars. More importantly, we don’t want you to want us to look like porn stars. Because WE don’t want to look like porn stars," writes Anna Harte on 21st Century Love Triangle.

So it's with a groan and a forehead slap that we greet the news that porn obsessives are to be given the chance to date sex film stars a Channel 4 programme called Date My Porn Star.

These three men who are frequent users of pornography will be introduced their adult movie idols to see if they are able to distinguish between fantasy and real life. However, a leading sex expert says that is unlikely to happen.

HuffPost UK Lifestyle asked sex therapist Michelle Bassam from Harley Therapy what she thought, as she regularly deals with porn addicts.

She said: "The problem here is that some of them will look at it as just fantasy and some will look at it as if it is real and think they can pull these types of women. I personally feel psychologically, that if these guys go and meet these girls, they will either end up watching more porn as they will feel they have an attachment or they then start to use it as their fantasy during masturbation."

Perhaps the most telling this is that there are no women in the programme, only men. We asked Michelle whether women also get addicted to porn.

"It's as common for women," she says, "but the addiction is for different reasons. Either it's because they want to try and look like that particular porn star or because they feel they could be learning different ideas and techniques so they can carry it on in their sex life. It ends up becoming a sexual tool for them."

Is that a bad thing though? "It can be a good thing but we look at no addiction as a good idea. I have a guy who looks at porn eight hours a day, or people who are masturbating 10 - 12 times a day. You can get into the realms of illness once it upsets your everyday life."

Channel 4 said it wanted to see "if it is possible for them to relate to the stars as fully-formed people or whether their porn obsession has fundamentally altered their perception of the opposite sex".

Ralph Lee, head of factual at Channel 4 said to PA: "The aim of this season is to get a healthy perspective on sex. We live in world where pornography, fantasy and fetish are being considered the norm by many and we want to be very un-British and talk about what really goes on in Britain's bedrooms."

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