The Time article certainly agrees with you:

The jury is out on porn’s effect on people’s sex lives. Some therapists, including Kerner, recommend watching so-called ethical porn as a way of getting couples to talk or as an arousal technique, but many others say it can be used as a way to avoid both talking and having sex, or that its constant use can drive a wedge between couples. Therapists have to had to adjust. “The biggest change that I’ve seen [since 2000] is women complaining about male use of pornography,” says Klein, who leans pro-porn. “I get that at least once a week.” Johnson, who leans more anti-porn, says the therapists in her practice cite porn use as one of couples’ most prevalent problems.

One theory is that porn has become so easy to get — any smartphone owner with wi-fi and headphones is set — and the video quality so lifelike, that “busy people are retreating from the work it takes to have sex with another person,” says Mark Regnerus, an associate professor of Sociology, at University of Texas and the author of Cheap Sex, The Transformation of Men, Marriage, and Monogamy. “They think, O.K., this is close enough.” Pornhub, one of the popular sites, says its usage spikes between 10pm and 1am, times when people are bedding down next to their loved ones.

Some neuroscientists have argued that for some people, heavy porn consumption can recondition the brain’s arousal circuitry to respond more to the screen than a human. Other experts think that’s just more moral panic. Twenge’s study found that people who watched at least one pornographic movie in the previous year were more likely to have sex than those who didn’t, although she notes that that’s not a very useful data point in the era when Pornhub can boast that every five minutes it transmits more data than the entire contents of the New York Public library.

For my $0.02, I want to simultaneously do a mea culpa and a #notallmen (as egregious as that is.

You said:

Dating apps suck because men act like they are ordering the playmate dujour. “I’ll take her with a side of anal and the money shot for dessert. And can she wear some yoga pants as well?” Maybe it’s the same but different with women’s unrealistic desires for Mr. McDreamy.

I think you’re right that it’s the same but different — this is pretty new for men and in a way, it’s entirely fair that the horror of others’ high standards be shared around.

On the other hand, part of what I was getting at is that “high standards” (read: impossible fantasies that don’t moderate our own fantasies by taking into account others’ real lives) hurt everyone, no matter whose fantasies they are. I think everyone, men and women both, has to relax their standards, or reframe tham away from appearance. Otherwise we’ll all stop making physical connections.

I agree porn (like all representations) plays a part, but we could certainly help things by not naking ourselves into porn (through Insta, Reality TV, and the Apps).

Thanks for reading and commenting!