TL;DR: Porn acts similarly to a hard drug. It is highly addictive and detrimental to your brain causing a range of mental and sexual health problems.
Introduction
Like most men growing up in the age of the internet, you were probably exposed to pornography at a very early age. As soon as your young eyes saw that first set of bouncing boobs on screen you were likely hooked.
This is the case for thousands of men across the world. Many people and corporations will try to tell you that pornography usage is something that is normal and even healthy. This is absolutely not the case.
New research has shown that pornography has numerous negative impacts on your health and wellbeing. To make matters worse, it has also been shown to be as addictive as many hard drugs and is easily accessible, for free, at any time, by anyone with an internet connection.
Why Porn Is Bad
The porn business is a big, profitable industry and it functions by keeping you hooked. In 2018, porn was estimated to bring in between $6 and $15 billion in the US alone [1]. If people learned the harms of porn and thus stopped consuming, this would be a huge blow to the industry.
Therefore, it is understandable that the industry would want to do everything in their power to convince you that there is nothing wrong with porn, that is normal, natural and even healthy to consume pornography regularly.
Thankfully, people are slowly but surely starting to wake up to the truth that porn is not something that is healthy to consume. Researchers are beginning to look into the effects of porn usage and the findings are nothing short of horrifying.
Excerpting from Yourbrainonporn.com, the following are findings on porn use backed by published studies [2]:
- 3 major addiction related brain changes occur: sensitization, desensitization, and hypofrontality.
- More porn use correlated with less grey matter in the reward circuit (dorsal striatum).
- Greater porn use correlated with less reward system activation when briefly viewing sexual images.
- More porn use correlated with disrupted neural connections between the reward system and prefrontal cortex.
- Addicts had greater prefrontal activity to sexual cues, but less brain activity to normal stimuli (matches drug addiction).
- Porn use/exposure to porn related to greater delayed discounting (inability to delay gratification). This is a sign of poorer executive functioning.
- 60% of compulsive porn addicted subjects in one study experienced ED or low libido with partners, but not with porn: all stated that internet porn use caused their ED/low libido.
- Enhanced attentional bias comparable to drug users. Indicates sensitization (a product of DeltaFosb).
- Greater wanting & craving for porn, but not greater liking. This aligns with the accepted model of addiction – incentive sensitization.
- Porn addicts have greater preference for sexual novelty yet their brains habituated faster to sexual images. Not pre-existing.
- The younger the porn users the greater the cue-induced reactivity in the reward center.
- Higher EEG (P300) readings when porn users were exposed to porn cues (which occurs in other addictions).
- Less desire for sex with a person correlating with greater cue-reactivity to porn images.
- More porn use correlated with lower LPP amplitude when briefly viewing sexual photos: indicates habituation or desensitization.
- Dysfunctional HPA axis and altered brain stress circuits, which occurs in drug addictions (and greater amygdala volume, which is associate with chronic social stress).
- Epigenetic changes on genes central to the human stress response and closely associated with addiction.
- Higher circulating levels of Tumor Necrosis Factor (TNF) which also occurs in drug abuse and addiction.
- A deficit in temporal cortex gray matter; poorer connectivity between temporal corporate and several other regions.
How to Know If You’re Addicted to Porn
Just like the old adage from Alcoholics Anonymous says, “The first step is admitting you have a problem”. The same can also be said for pornography. Take a hard look at your pornography habits and avoid falling into the trap of saying, “I can quit whenever I want”. We’ve outlined thoroughly in the above section why porn is harmful so if you truly can quit whenever you want, you should do so immediately.
The Addiction Center in their online article [3] provides the following top ten symptoms of porn addiction. If you experience any of these it may be time to accept that you, like so many other men, are in fact addicted to pornography:
1. You Can’t Stop: You find yourself unable to stop viewing pornography, even if you try to do so
2. You Want More: You have strong cravings for porn, even if you’ve recently viewed it
3. You’ve Lost Time: You spend excessive amount of time throughout your day and week watching porn
4. You’ve Lost Interest in Sex: Watching Porn has become more appealing to you than having real sex
5. You’re More Demanding: You expect more and more unrealistic things from your partner in bed
6. You’ve Lost Attraction: You find you are no longer attracted to your wife/girlfriend, even though you were before the start of your addiction
7. You’re in Physical Pain: Excessive time spent viewing porn and masturbating is causing chafing and wrist and back pain
8. You’re Losing Money: You often spend money subscribing to “premium” porn or you donate money to cam girls
9. You’re Distracted: You often think of porn when you’re working on other things
10. You’re Angry: You find yourself getting irritable when you are unable to watch porn for an extended period of time
What To Do If You’re Addicted To Porn
So you’ve gone through the above list honestly and have discovered that, “Oh shit, I actually am addicted to porn”. Acceptance is a big first step to conquering your addiction and getting your health and energy back. So what do you do now? Simple: stop watching porn. Of course, with any addiction that is a lot easier said than done. Luckily there are resources out there that can help with this.
The “NoFap” community is a group of people, existing primarily on Reddit, who are committed to abstaining from pornography and masturbation and encourage others to do so as well. Many users actively and openly track the number of days they have abstained from porn and masturbation and log the various benefits that they have experienced from doing so. Please take a look at our article on NoFap for more information on this community.
A first resort to dealing with porn addiction, quite often promoted by the NoFap community, is to download a porn blocker in your web browser (See some here). These will automatically block all pornographic websites from loading that you may attempt to visit in a moment of weakness. There are many of these extensions available for free online, and a list of a few of them is given in our NoFap article.
If you find yourself with a porn addiction, it is likely that you have formed a habit of viewing and using pornography. Our article on habits provides many great strategies for both breaking old negative habits, as well as forming new positive ones. You can check out our article on building and breaking habits here.
Finally, the most productive and useful way of dealing with porn addiction is through sexual transmutation. In simplest terms, sexual transmutation is taking the energy that you would have wasted on porn usage, and transforming it into a more productive energy. This energy can be used to help you achieve your goals and better yourself. For more information on sexual transmutation please take a look at our article on it here.
Conclusion
Porn usage has been shown to be extremely detrimental to your health and wellbeing, as well as being extremely addictive. Any sort of porn usage should be avoided and if you find yourself addicted to pornography you should take the necessary steps to begin to recover from it.
Click the button below to read the next article in our series on Sex.
References:
[1] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/porn-could-bigger-economic-influence-121524565.html
[2] https://www.yourbrainonporn.com/relevant-research-and-articles-about-the-studies/
[3] https://www.addictioncenter.com/community/signs-of-porn-addiction/
