Brain On Porn

Introduction

Porn often induces a wide range of sexual and psychological problems (discussed below).

How do you know if your problems are porn-related, or something else-related?

Go see a doctor.

Masturbate to porn

Masturbate without porn, and without thinking about it.

If 1 and 2 are fine but you struggle with 3, then your problem is likely porn-related.

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Chapter 1: What Are We Dealing With?

In 2006, fast Internet connection enabled the development of Internet tube porn sites. Porn became widely available.

The brain had never had access to such big sexual stimulation. The orgasm obtained at the end of masturbating to porn encouraged the brain to reiterate the experience later on, which creates addictions.

In 2009-2010, some Reddit users began to notice how they were having some ED (erectile dysfunction) and had lost attraction to girls.

They figured that watching porn had changed the architecture of their brains so that “normal girls” did no longer turn them on.

In 2010, the website yourbrainonporn.com saw the light, and it became very popular very quickly. Men had finally a place to discuss symptoms of porn addiction.

The more addicted people were to porn, the more f*cked up their lives were – up to the point of contemplating suicide.

Most people that quit porn experienced incredible feelings of positivity and well-being after having done so (spoilers: it has taken them quite a while).

Here are the type of improvements that people that quit porn usually feel:

1.No more social anxiety

2. More energy

3. Clearer, sharper mind

4. They looked better

5. Desire to interact with women

Here are some side effects of porn addiction:

Feeling like losing control: Because all you do is porn, you also procrastinate, and nothing in your life is moving forward.

Inability to orgasm during sex

Unreliable erection during sex encounter

Premature ejaculation: it’s unclear for now how this happens. One solution is that the body was trained to ejaculate very early through porn consumption.

Alarming porn tastes: as the brain gets used to the porn, it requires ever more violent porn to get off

Loss of attraction to real partners

Effects on libido: too much porn can prevent you from falling in love.

Social anxiety and self-esteem: when you stop porn, you want to connect and talk to others.

1. Inability to focus

2. Depression

3. Low energy, discouragement

4. Isolation

5. Erectile dysfunction

The following signs often mean there is porn addiction.

1. Porn is no longer exciting
2. Porn is more exciting than sex
3. Sensitivity of penis decreased
4. Porn fantasy is necessary to maintain an erection

Chapter 2: Wanting Run Amok

The Coolidge Effect describes how sexual novelty stimulates male brains. If a male rat meets a receptive female rat, they will copulate until the male rat has had enough.

She wants more, he doesn’t. But give him another female rat and he’ll be extremely motivated to copulate with that one, until he’s had enough and needs another one, etc.

We’re not rats, but we’re not so far from rats either.

The need for novelty is powered by dopamine. Dopamine compels you to search for something that feels good, but it doesn’t actually reward you to get it (actually, this is old science, have a look here for new science).

Dopamine makes you crave novelty because it is released every time you do new stuff. When you always do the same stuff, there is no more dopamine released, so you no longer crave the activity.

You become bored and desensitized.

Internet porn, unfortunately, is unlimited (1). As a result, it’s constantly satisfying the brain.

This leads the addict to open several tabs on his browser and watch several films at once (to get novelty).

This is because porn is a supranormal stimulus. Supernormal stimuli are stimuli that give you 100X the stimuli you’d receive in nature. Also, porn is much easier to access than sex (2) (it’s free), and there is a lot of variety (3).

These three reasons (1, 2, 3) make porn particularly addictive.

Finally: there is no limit to porn consumption. With food, there is a moment when your stomach is full. When porn, it never stops.

1. Overstimulation

When your brain is overstimulated, it protects itself by naturally decreasing the strength of the reward, which leads to frustration on your end and compels you to find trashier, more extreme porn.

2. Education

Another negative side effect of porn is sex education through porn. Teens, which have never had sex, learn subconsciously that women enjoy rough sex while women learn they have to submit entirely to the guy and do painful things during sex.

And since the brain is turned on when watching porn, it associates being turned on with the things shown on screen, which leads teens to further try to replicate what they have seen in porn.

3. Behavior

The way you consume porn also has an impact on your behavior. The mere act of getting aroused by watching something will train you to become a voyeur.

The mere act of clicking and searching will also be needed to get off.

4. Addiction

Addiction, finally, is another side effect. Sexual stimuli hijack the brain the same way cocaine and heroin do. Except that in the case of sex, the addictive nature of it was a feature of Nature to make sure the species would reproduce.

Addictions (all types) work as follows:

5. Craving

Control: loss of control in engaging with the behavior previously craved.

Consequences: negative, obviously.

The fact that evolution compels us to look for food and sex means that we’re likely to be addicted to overstimulation made by food and sex (which explains McDonald’s success).

This makes porn the prime addictive thing to be addicted to, which is backed up by data.

The changes in the brain of porn addicts are similar to the changes in the brain of substance addicts.

Here’s how addiction shows in the brain:

Desensitization: it’s the need for ever greater stimulation to reach the desired reward.

Sensitization: it’s when neurons wire together to spot the cues that an overstimulus is going to be received (triggers).

Hypofrontality: it’s when the brain changes to weaken the willpower you’d need to resist the craving, making the addictive behavior harder to resist.

Dysfunctional stress circuit: activates cravings even in presence of minor triggers.

This is exactly what happens to people consuming a huge volume of porn.

Porn desensitization leads to:

Diminished sexual behavior

Decreased risk-taking

Increased anxiety

Decreased willingness to socialize

Inability to focus

Lack of motivation

The problem is that many young men with these symptoms are prescribed drugs and treatments aimed at alleviating these symptoms. Medical practitioners are not looking for the cause of the symptoms – but merely to fix the consequences.

This is because medical practitioners neither believe nor know that porn is behind all that.