I have a friend who has quit porn entirely because he has felt addicted to it in the past and the only way he feels he can quit is to quit cold-turkey. I think it’s possible to have an unhealthy relationship to porn and to develop a more healthy relationship to it without quitting entirely; he feels like that’s not possible for him. Do you feel like it’s possible for you to have a healthy relationship to porn at all?
I also wonder if pornography use is something you talk to your friends about at all. It’s something that for many years was almost impossible for me to talk about because I felt so much shame around it. Do you relate to that?
Generally, porn is like booze. Too much can lead to negative consequences, but a little probably won’t hurt.
But there are confounding factors:
Porn isn’t real. It’s cartoons for adults. Building your sexual expectations around it is unrealistic.
Depending on what you watch, it can be pretty degrading. See 1.
It gives the impression that sex is the same as intimacy and love. If you don’t have healthy role models for romantic relationships, this can be a problem. I speak from experience.
OnlyFans &c are built on extracting money from lonely dudes. If someone is already in a bad spot, it can exacerbate their problems.
Some of the people in porn are treated badly, and end up worse of as a result.
In terms of positives: My sex ed classes didn’t admit the existence of the clit or cunnilingus. So porn has had at least a minor positive impact on my sex life (and that of my partners).
You can consume porn and not be addicted. But if you managed to get addicted to porn, it will be incredible hard to return to a non addictive behavior when it comes to porn consumption. Kind of the whole point of being addicted is that you can’t regulate your behavior on your own anymore.
I wouldn’t necessarily agree. Addictive behaviors aren’t usually related to a need for the thing in question, but a replacement for something else.
I definitely did have a porn addiction at one point, maybe still do, but I think it stemmed from a lack of self-respect. I’ve had very few girlfriends and not many more dates in my life so I did feel like I was unattractive and destined to be alone. Porn was kind of a way to get the thing I thought I’d never really have: a sexual relationship. I still had issues even after marriage, even though we were sexually active, because it was just habit at that point. Over time I’ve come to see my wife as the main “cure” for my sexual desires and I usually prefer to think about her or look at naughty pictures of her when I masturbate (she can’t be DTF 24/7, especially while she’s working). I still look at porn from time to time but it feels very artificial when I do and my thoughts usually drift back to her. I did get some advice, not really therapy, over the years and its been very superficial so overall I’d say I kind of dealt with it myself.
I’d still say therapy is a good avenue when you have an addiction, because it usually does destroy relationships and I think deep down we all do crave them, whether romantic or platonic.
I have a friend who has quit porn entirely because he has felt addicted to it in the past and the only way he feels he can quit is to quit cold-turkey. I think it’s possible to have an unhealthy relationship to porn and to develop a more healthy relationship to it without quitting entirely; he feels like that’s not possible for him. Do you feel like it’s possible for you to have a healthy relationship to porn at all?
I also wonder if pornography use is something you talk to your friends about at all. It’s something that for many years was almost impossible for me to talk about because I felt so much shame around it. Do you relate to that?
Generally, porn is like booze. Too much can lead to negative consequences, but a little probably won’t hurt.
But there are confounding factors:
Porn isn’t real. It’s cartoons for adults. Building your sexual expectations around it is unrealistic.
Depending on what you watch, it can be pretty degrading. See 1.
It gives the impression that sex is the same as intimacy and love. If you don’t have healthy role models for romantic relationships, this can be a problem. I speak from experience.
OnlyFans &c are built on extracting money from lonely dudes. If someone is already in a bad spot, it can exacerbate their problems.
Some of the people in porn are treated badly, and end up worse of as a result.
In terms of positives: My sex ed classes didn’t admit the existence of the clit or cunnilingus. So porn has had at least a minor positive impact on my sex life (and that of my partners).
You can consume porn and not be addicted. But if you managed to get addicted to porn, it will be incredible hard to return to a non addictive behavior when it comes to porn consumption. Kind of the whole point of being addicted is that you can’t regulate your behavior on your own anymore.
I wouldn’t necessarily agree. Addictive behaviors aren’t usually related to a need for the thing in question, but a replacement for something else.
I definitely did have a porn addiction at one point, maybe still do, but I think it stemmed from a lack of self-respect. I’ve had very few girlfriends and not many more dates in my life so I did feel like I was unattractive and destined to be alone. Porn was kind of a way to get the thing I thought I’d never really have: a sexual relationship. I still had issues even after marriage, even though we were sexually active, because it was just habit at that point. Over time I’ve come to see my wife as the main “cure” for my sexual desires and I usually prefer to think about her or look at naughty pictures of her when I masturbate (she can’t be DTF 24/7, especially while she’s working). I still look at porn from time to time but it feels very artificial when I do and my thoughts usually drift back to her. I did get some advice, not really therapy, over the years and its been very superficial so overall I’d say I kind of dealt with it myself.
I’d still say therapy is a good avenue when you have an addiction, because it usually does destroy relationships and I think deep down we all do crave them, whether romantic or platonic.