Self Love
In an interview in this month’s Playboy, John Mayer says he can’t keep his hands off himself. Giving new meaning to narcissism, Mayer says he prefers an intimate night in with his computer to a night out with a real live woman.
Even when he’s with a real woman, Mayer confesses he is just using her as a masturbatory aid while porn images and stories run through his head. To Mayer, women are only a means to an end: his own, self-assisted, big bang.
Here’s an extract:
MAYER: …pornography? It’s a new synaptic pathway. You wake up in the morning, open a thumbnail page, and it leads to a Pandora’s box of visuals. There have probably been days when I saw 300 [naked girls] before I got out of bed.
PLAYBOY: What’s your point about porn and relationships?
MAYER: Internet pornography has absolutely changed my generation’s expectations. How could you be constantly synthesizing an orgasm based on dozens of shots? You’re looking for the one photo out of 100 you swear is going to be the one you finish to, and you still don’t finish. Twenty seconds ago you thought that photo was the hottest thing you ever saw, but you throw it back and continue your shot hunt and continue to make yourself late for work. How does that (porn) not affect the psychology of having a relationship with somebody? It’s got to.
PLAYBOY: You seem very fond of pornography.
MAYER: When I watch porn, if it’s not hot enough, I’ll make up backstories in my mind. My biggest dream is to write pornography.
PLAYBOY: Masturbation for you is as good as sex?
MAYER: Absolutely, because during sex, I’m just going to run a filmstrip. I’m still masturbating. That’s what you do when you’re 30, 31, 32. This is my problem now: Rather than meet somebody new, I would rather go home and replay the amazing experiences I’ve already had.
PLAYBOY: You’d rather jerk off to an ex-girlfriend than meet someone new?
MAYER: Yeah. What that explains is that I’m more comfortable in my imagination than I am in actual human discovery. The best days of my life are when I’ve dreamed about a sexual encounter with someone I’ve already been with. When that happens, I cannot lay off myself.
It wasn’t only his sexism, Mayer revealed. His penis was “white supremacist”, like “David Duke” because it didn’t get up for black women, he said. He did find some black women hot, but that’s because the ones who turned him on were more like blonde white women.
Mayer’s ode to self-love shows how pornography has influenced his attitudes to 
women. Impatient with women in the flesh, he has turned to the image of a woman for his habitual computer sex. Porn is shaping the thinking of younger boys as well.
Boys who watch porn are more likely to think sexual harassment is acceptable and less likely to form successful relationships when they’re older, according to Australian researcher Michael Flood. Flood’s latest research, while reported overseas, has had little mention in Australia’s mainstream media.
The report, ‘Harms of Pornography Exposure Among Children and Young People’, also found that boys who see porn are more inclined to believe there is nothing wrong with pinning down or sexually harassing a girl. “Exposure to pornography helps to sustain young people’s adherence to sexist and unhealthy notions of sex and relationships”, says Flood.
In the UK last week, porn’s troubling influence on boys was given significant attention in a Daily Mail piece, ‘Teenage boys watching hours of internet pornography a week treating girlfriends like sex objects’.
Girls spoke about taking chaperones (‘3rd wheels’) with them on dates to try to rein in the sexually aggressive behaviour of boys. Boys called them bitches and demanded they act like porn stars.
But not all men want to act like that.
Oliver, from Queensland, just wrote to me about porn’s effect on him:
“I have struggled with pornography for a long time and I hate it. I hate what it does to my mind and my perception of women. I hate how it can consume my thoughts. I hate the fact that I constantly fight to keep my mind free from it and I will have to fight for the rest of my life. I also hate the fact that it is almost impossible for a young man to grow up without having this perversion shoved in his face…We have a very screwed up view of masculinity and what a ‘real’ man looks like…”
Mayer might think the only risk to himself is Repetitive Strain Injury. But he is risking real relationships with real women in the real world, because he is entirely oriented toward seeing them as his personal ejaculatory helpers.
Unlike images, real women touch, and speak back. Real women are complex and messy and difficult. That’s why loving a woman, like loving a man, is a communion rather than looking in a mirror.
Mayer’s ode to narcissism also means he has forfeited the pleasures of love. Any woman with a brain or a heart would run a mile from the singer with the calloused hands.
Mayer’s public act of pornography product placement contributes to the dominant cultural script that girls and women -whether computer-generated or real – are merely in the world as pleasure centres for men, that they are to be targeted for porn-inspired acts, and that they have no place or existence outside these roles.
Published online on 
March 19th, 2010 at 10:23 am
This is so sad. Loved his music.
March 19th, 2010 at 5:33 pm
I believe the lie that pornography is harmless is one of the biggest battles facing the current generation. I have three small sons and it grieves me greatly that I can’t even drive down the road without being bombarded with semi-pornographic images on billboards, let alone turn on the TV. And don’t get me started on the young girls that drive around with Playboy stickers on their cars or Playboy bunnies on their carseat covers. The lie has been bought by young men and women alike. It makes me so sad 🙁
March 20th, 2010 at 8:33 pm
I read this online at the Drum, and thought it very insightful. I shouldn’t be, but I am astounded by the number of negative comments there. I tried to come to terms with my emotional response to those, and I realised that I grieve for a world where pornography is seen as a positive good, where sexuality has been so trivialised that every man and his dog thinks nothing of chatting idly about their masturbatory habits, and where freedom of expression is allowed only for those who follow the correct line. Thanks for this article.
March 21st, 2010 at 8:53 am
Isn’t funny how Melinda quotes Michael Flood’s research, yet in the article “‘Net Nanny’ Advocate Does Back Flip” by Rachel Maher as published on the Newmatilda.com website on 5 June 2009, Flood seems to make contradictory statements;
“It’s well-documented that children and young people, who are exposed to sexual content, in advertising and other mainstream media and in porn, develop more liberal attitudes. They are more likely to think that other people are having sex. They are more likely to think that pre-marital and non-marital sex is OK, they are more likely to think that homosexuality is OK (I think that’s a good thing) and so on.”
And this quite surprised me;
“We say that 16 and 17 year olds can have consenting sex, why can’t they look at pictures of other people having consenting sex?”.
But of course instead of crying out to ban stuff Flood says; “we said that adults should continue to have access to porn, in X-rated videos and DVDs and we wanted to transfer the system of classification to the net [so that] materials … would pass the Office of Film and Literature classifications standards — so not violence, not child porn”.
And most importantly he says this; “We argued for porn education. We said that we should be going into schools and teaching children how to respond more critically to the material that they see online whether deliberately or accidentally, so that they become more critical media consumers”. Hooray! Some well thought out ideas at last!
Also, who the hell is John Mayer? I have no idea who this guy is.
March 21st, 2010 at 10:36 am
John Mayer epitomises the aim of the porn industry – to make their stuff mainstream and accessable to all.
He embodies the horror that is the porn addict who justifies his addiction to the endth degree but, the scary thing is, if he was referencing drug or alcohol addiction and justifying it away, there would be international outcry~
March 21st, 2010 at 10:49 am
Cath, you are joking aren’t you? Do you really think there would be an “international outcry” if we replaced the word “drugs” with “porn”? While it’s not something I endorse at all, you do realise drugs and rock and roll have been linked together since the 1960’s? Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Keith Richards, Joe Cocker, Keith Moon etc. No one would really give a crap.
Oh the “horror that is the porn addict”! All that masturbation! My god, someone save us! Still I would prefer a porn addict living next to me than a drug addict on ice or heroin. At least they wouldn’t be off their head and being violent and trying steal my TV to pay for their next hit.
March 29th, 2010 at 11:19 pm
John Mayer’s comments about prefering to be with his ‘virtual’ women is something I have recently personally experienced. (Matthew W, the problem is that porn addiction, just like drug & alcohol addiction is that other people are hurt and damaged by the porn addict. It is not a case of the porn addict just hurting themselves.)
I had recently been seeing a guy for just over a month. He had spoken of seriously pursuing a relationship with me, and said things like I was an ‘amazing woman’ and ‘beautiful person on the inside’. I had however noted that on some occasions his actions did not match his words in that I would not hear from him and he did not bother to ask how I had been etc.
I discovered that this was because he had decided that sitting in his room wanking over internet porn every night was much better than bothering with me. Until he wanted to use me for cuddles or care or just plain ‘ego trip’, I guess.
I was very hurt after trusting this guy and believing what he said. However, the fact that I trusted him with my physical and emotional self has left me shattered especially when he did not deny my body DISGUSTED him because I did not look like the internet (surgically enhanced and airbrushed) females he spent every night with.
I am an attractive (I never lack for male attention when I venture out, and I don’t dress provocatively – not that it matters) woman with curves in the right places. I am not perfect of course. But nor was he; he was not good looking and was overweight. However I accepted this because I am an intelligent and realistic person who has depth and love.
Obviously he is an addict. And as addicts do, they lie and hurt people to get what they want and don’t consider how someone else might be effected. So Matthew W, while you think a porn addiction is ‘harmless’, I can tell you it is not. I am still trying to recover from being not good enough ‘to compete’ with some porn fantasy image, but also to be found ‘disgusting’ even though he had sex with me. But obviously John Mayer has answered that question for me as this guy was just imaging I was some porn tart. Just a hole to stick it.
And he was the one talking about a relationship! I even gave him an opportunity to speak up when I voiced some of my needs that weren’t being met. He chose to continue his deceit and use of me. I ended it a day later afer my ‘discovery’. He was neither ashamed or abashed by his behaviour and exploitation of me.
I have learnt some valuable lessons from this harmful experience. Part of which has lead me to this website. However the hurt, pain and humiliation remain for the most part. And my opinion of men has been completely tainted. Only time will help that.
I believe though that the article on John Mayer only provides permission and acceptance for what is an ‘addiction’ – an unhealthy deviation from balanced development and view of the world – and ‘normalises’ behaviour that damages society in such an insidious manner.
April 2nd, 2010 at 8:29 am
Oh I see firefly, it’s better to blame his “porn addiction” for his appalling behaviour rather than to accept he was an arsehole. Shifting the blame huh? It wasn’t him to blame for his bad behaviour, it was the porn! Give me a break.
First I never ever said that addictions were harmless. I’m still extremely sceptical that “porn addiction” exists. I’ll yet again state that we have had 50 or more years of commercial pornography in the western world, yet only in the last 5 or so we’ve only heard about addictions. And wouldn’t you know the ones making noise about it are the Christian right and other conservatives. Gee, I wonder why I’m so sceptical.
What amuses me so much about the John Mayer story is that if Mayer what out having sex with a groupie every night, like most pop and rock stars, you lot would chastise him. Really, who cares if Mayer plays with himself? Again I go back to Michael Flood, whom Melinda loves to quote so much; “It’s well-documented that children and young people, who are exposed to sexual content, in advertising and other mainstream media and in porn, develop more liberal attitudes. They are more likely to think that other people are having sex. They are more likely to think that pre-marital and non-marital sex is OK, they are more likely to think that homosexuality is OK (I think that’s a good thing) and so on” and more importantly he said “We argued for porn education. We said that we should be going into schools and teaching children how to respond more critically to the material that they see online whether deliberately or accidentally, so that they become more critical media consumers”.
So yet again education is the key rather than the tired moral outrage, treating the public in a really condescending and paternalistic manner by banning whatever you find clashes with your own morals. Everyone can make their own choices in life. No one is forcing anyone to do anything. The greater majority of people have their own free will and don’t use fiction and fantasy as a guide for life.
April 21st, 2010 at 3:51 pm
Matthew – you are not making any sense. No one has brought up banning pornography. Yet you accuse them of this. No one is criticizing porn based on principals of “the Christian right or other conservatives”. Yet you tar them with this brush. Ever heard of a straw-man argument? Might want to look that one up.
You say that Michael Flood contradicts himself. Mmm, only if his findings must be simplified down to “porn=bad” or “porn=good”. Its possible it has some positive effects, though increasing boys’ likelihood of sexually harassing girls is a pretty big negative, and I would think that positives such as a healthy, non-shame based view of sex and lack of prejudice against homosexuals would not require exposure to porn.
Porn is a business which exploits its performers and its audience for profit, just like the illicit drug industry but legal. Producers really doesn’t care if an actor or actress gets an STD, gets humiliated, addicted to drugs, loses all prospects for financial security after they are used up and their brief career is over. Research the industry and there are many, many sad stories. It is also clear that the material available has become much more extreme, degrading and violent since the dawn of the modern industry in the 1970s. In fact, it seems it reaches new extremes every year, because it has to to maintain its ability to shock and thus excite customers. Sexual addiction (or “compulsion” if you prefer) is very real, in fact research has shown that the brain’s response to orgasm is very similar to its response to cocaine or heroin – the same neurotransmitters (chiefly dopamine) and the same parts of the brain are active, though orgasm is not as intense it is the biggest high you can get without narcotics. That is why the porn industry draws multi-billion dollar profits (which it did not two decades ago).
I don’t support the war on drugs – I think harm reduction would be achieved if drugs were legalized and an emphasis was made on treating people rather than locking them up. Similarly, I don’t agree with banning pornography. Like Michael Flood, I think people need to be educated on how to deal with this stuff because it will be out there and it can be dangerous.
April 29th, 2010 at 5:01 am
“Cath, you are joking aren’t you? Do you really think there would be an “international outcry” if we replaced the word “drugs” with “porn”? While it’s not something I endorse at all, you do realise drugs and rock and roll have been linked together since the 1960’s? Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Keith Richards, Joe Cocker, Keith Moon etc. No one would really give a crap.
Oh the “horror that is the porn addict”! All that masturbation! My god, someone save us! Still I would prefer a porn addict living next to me than a drug addict on ice or heroin. At least they wouldn’t be off their head and being violent and trying steal my TV to pay for their next hit”
In response to this…John Mayer is clearly a Narcissist. Porn, drugs, alcohol etc., all go hand in hand with this personality disorder along with lack of empathy and conscience. It is not the porn that makes it awful, that is just one of the symptoms of being a Narcissist. If you want to get to the bottom of what a lot of porn addicts are, look up Narcissistic Personality Disorder.