This is a piece that I’ve been sitting on for a while and wanting to write about but struggled with gauging the tone and being so open about certain experiences in my life. Now though, I’m ready to open up and use my experience to empower other men and women to recognise what something that’s been normalised, but is far from normal, is doing to them mentally and physically. Yes, it’s quite an intense title for this blog but a blog that I think is very much needed in the 21st century based on what seems to be “normal” around us. The clear evidence of this is the amount of visits certain websites get as well as the increased prevalence and popularity of sites such as OnlyFans.
This is going to be a piece that will be vulnerable for me as I give details about how this form of “entertainment” has had an effect on me both mentally and physically. It will talk about how I have come to recognise these negative patterns since I’ve stopped consuming it and had time to reflect. I will go into as much detail about things as I feel is necessary but will of course omit the gory parts. These details are needed though to show others that they may not be alone when they have the same experience themselves and that if you feel there’s no hope from that point, reassure you that there is always a way back. Trust me, I know.
Another element of this blog will be the open discussion of things that are of a sexual nature. I will not be dancing around any points and I will be making my thoughts clear and blunt. I won’t be making any apologies for those that will read this and make excuses about themselves and project that back on me. I won’t be making any apologies to those that work in this form of entertainment who may see this an attack on them; it’s not. This is a discussion for those who consume this entertainment only. In what ever way someone wishes to earn their money, whether they truly enjoy it or not is down to them and those around them.
As always with these long pieces that I write, it’s not going to be all doom and gloom, don’t worry! I will be talking at the end about giving up and what it will give you, how you can firstly reduce your usage before you quit completely and share some resources where there are communities. Though I don’t have an affiliation with them, it is more a case of that I know they are out there for people to use.
I’m going to lay out my stance right now: Porn shouldn’t be normalised. It’s not normal. It’s not normal for people to seek their own gratification from watching other human beings conduct themselves in a sexual manner through the medium of a screen. For some, the differentiation between pornography and certain kinks/fetishes needs to be made. I’m talking purely about the medium of watching people through a screen, not the act of watching other people in person in whatever environment that may be. The latter is a very different thing.
Enough disclaimers and explainers, let’s get into the good stuff and why you are here.
Why Do People Use
It’s an interesting thing to consider, isn’t it? “Why do people sit in their own privacy (or with others) and stimulate their own genitals whilst watching other people have sex on their screen?”. When you put it into its full description of what it actually is, I think the concept sounds absolutely crazy!
When I personally consider why I used pornography as a teenager and a young adult, what would I have traded it for? Well, it would be to have sex with someone else and not my right hand. But what drives that want to be with someone else and be intimate with them? For one, there’s the obvious sexual urges and the array of hormones it releases to make us feel good such as serotonin. But it’s also the connection we get through the bonding and release of oxytocin. We want to connect with other people. It’s a primal instinct. For most, if you asked them what’s better, a satisfying session in the bedroom vs on their own, the majority are going to say the former. So the crux of it could be argued to be the want for connection along with the pleasure that is felt from the act.
With the proliferation of pornography, like other forms of media, we can still get the arousal from the visuals and pleasure element through what we do ourselves whilst vicariously getting the connection element. This latter point has only increased more through the existence of POV pornography or OnlyFans, breaking down that virtual barrier somewhat.
With this, you have the perfect recipe to fall into the trap of addiction, whether it’s just casual (I know plenty who say they HAVE to for one reason or other) or serious. You have ease of access, especially compared to having to go out to find someone in real life, the act on your own to give you the pleasure element and keep you motivated to keep doing, and now the ever increasing “connection” element.
When put simply, you can see how it can firstly become an addiction, which can very quickly snowball and compound itself when the side effects manifest themselves, as I will discuss later in the blog.
Effects It Has On Your Life
How far down the slippery slope that you are will depend on which of these effects have manifested in your life and how severely they have afflicted you.
Desensitisation
They are two ways that this will manifest for you and you can either get one, or they will both come to you at the same time. The first type of desensitisation will be seen in you physically and really, you won’t notice this as it will be gradual. If you’re not interacting with other people physically, you’ll not see a good enough comparison to bring it to your awareness. Depending on how vigorously you go at it, both in intensity and in grip, you are going to start “numbing” the sensitive skin that you have on your genitals. This will mean that it will take more and more for you feel what’s actually going on and in turn, make the experience harder and harder to enjoy to the fullest, whether on your own or with others.
Obviously, I can only speak from a male point of view however, this stands true for women in the age of the various contraptions that vibrate.
The other kind of desensitisation that’s experienced is mentally. Again, this depends on the frequency of which you are partaking in things. As you’re tapping into the various hormonal systems repeatedly, the kick you’re going to get isn’t going to be quite the same. You’ll also be expending the stores in your body and not allowing them to restock. It’s this that will explain why as you view things more and more, your tastes will morph into something new and potentially weirder as you chase that new high because the kick isn’t quite the same. A page that consolidates studies for this topic can be found here and was used alongside my own experiences.
It’s this mental desensitisation that explains some of the sexual dysfunctions that people will see, which I’ll talk about next.
Sexual Dysfunction
This is going to be one of the most alarming and embarrassing for some people should them come to experience. What doesn’t help is the fact that it will set off a feedback loop within that will positively reinforce in a negative manner. I’ve spoken about the desensitisation that people will be experiencing and how that kills your enjoyment both mentally and physically. Well, it’s this mental desensitisation that will cause something that’s known as Porn Induced Erectile Dysfunction or PIED. The two main drivers of this are training you to only find a certain kind of person attractive from what you view and how you react, driving into your mind that behavioural pattern. The other driver will simply be you engraining you only getting enjoyment from super sexualised, over the top and screen based interactions rather than the real thing.
This results in when you have someone in front of you, you simply can’t get aroused because it’s too mundane for you in comparison to what you’ve been watching. If you don’t recognise this, you’re likely to actually go back to the thing that caused it to escape from the embarrassing real world interaction.
See how this can snowball into an addiction with positive reinforcement of negative behaviours?
Another driver for this could also be simply the fact that you are “spent” physically and have nothing left to give. Your body doesn’t have an endless supply of energy and other things for sexual acts so eventually, it needs time to rest. Of course, this is as bad as PIED.
The other type of sexual dysfunction that can be caused from this sort of entertainment is the premature ejaculation. This isn’t as direct as that of PIED but is a second order effect. It is perceived that as you’re rewiring your brain through porn usage, as you are there for a good time and not a long time, you rewire your brain to finish quickly, which then will happen when it comes to the real thing.
Normalising Certain Behaviours
What we take in influences our life decisions and actions across the board, leaving us with a sense what we think is “normal” and not so much. This is particularly strong when it comes to that of media taken in from a video format. How many children grow up wanting the Disney fairytale for themselves at some point in their life? Let’s bring that same influence across to that of pornography and the influence it’s having on those who take it in. It will have an effect on adults on what they may see as a “normal” woman and “normal behaviours”, leaving them expecting the same from women that encounter in real life.
The main concern though is that of adolescents that view this. Many of them will have yet had an intimate sexual encounter with another person and their only information concerning what may go down in the bedroom is that of what is seen through their screen. A study into this sort of changed behaviour and expectation was reported on in the BMJ.
This is just one aspect of what could do down in the bedroom. As time as gone on, there have been a variety of articles that have been published talking about women being on the receiving end of some of the rougher stuff out of the blue (one example here from a quick search). This seems to be backed up in the literature from this meta-analysis that there’s an association between pornography use and the aggression people face behind closed doors.
From my own personal experience, I can vouch the what I consumed having an effect on me and what I expected to occur in the bedroom during my first time. I will leave out the intimate details but I can certainly recall requesting something in particular that I’d seen time and again in various videos I’d seen online prior to me losing my virginity. Looking back and since sharing this in confidence with some individuals, there’s an element of collective shock that something like that was requested for someone having their first time. It goes to show though that my expectations were not only altered from what I’d been viewing but my enjoyment of my first time maybe somewhat tainted by finding out that wasn’t the norm when behind closed doors.
Another behaviour that is backed up in the research is the influence of this kind of material on the mentality of men just seeing woman as a sexual object for their pleasure. The saying that “Men only want one thing” is at the level of being a cliché but how much of it is instinctive vs conditioned into them.
It’s not a healthy behaviour in any to see women simply as someone you wish to use for your pleasure but I believe too many have had this attitude instilled into them one way or another, with pornography being a major influence.
As someone who’s ingested this kind of material from a young age, this is something that I can verify from personal experience. There was definitely a spell of my life whereby the value I saw in women was for them looking a certain way and the pleasure that could be delivered. This left my interactions with them vying for one thing only: something casual.
Could this lack of commitment be a driving force for a plethora of other problems? That’s likely a full blog in itself.
Feelings of Inadequacy
I’ve spoken about the dangers of the perception of what a partner to those who indulge however, there’s also the consideration for the warping of the what the watcher should be like in all respects. I don’t think you need me to describe what your typical star looks like or the attributes that they have but it’s very easy for someone to start feeling inadequate about themselves in comparison. Especially when that’s your only reference point. It’s not like the norm is for you and your buddies to whip out certain body parts and compare. (Unless you have a group of very close friends…)
Low Libido
If you’re getting your fix from porn, your libido is going to start dropping as you’re already satisfied. In the background, there are various hormonal reactions and balances going on to keep you at homeostasis. Eventually, these are going to crash your libido to allow your body time to rest, recover and recuperate itself. It may not happen initially but eventually, it’ll hit you and leave you wondering what’s going on. There’s only so much you can expend before enough is enough and things need to rebalance.
Though please note that this point is for men and from personal experience, as my libido hit rock bottom once or twice from simply doing it all too much. As you may expect, I don’t have much experience of being a woman, watching porn and masturbating frequently.
Addiction
Something I touched on before but this is genuine problem. But through normalisation and lack of discussion about what’s “normal” (relative) consumption and not, often exaggerating usage, it’s not spoken about as a problem.
You can see how easy it is to get addicted without the side effects. The moment you add any of the side effects and you aren’t functioning properly during the real act, suddenly it becomes your safe haven where you know it works. Where you can get your release. Where you’re safe. It’s escapism. All this and more is what was stated in the first article I referenced as to reasons for use.
And so the downward spiral continues and consolidates the problem, getting harder and harder to break out of the addiction and recover.
Dangers At A Young Age
With all these side effects outlined, you can see how easily it is to board the slippery slope to many abnormal issues. For a fully grown adult, it is very easy to start your journey and end up at rock bottom sexually.
Now imagine the impact on children and adolescents. When your brain is primed to be rewired as you learn new behaviours, the dangers quickly become apparent for them. These problems could be wired into their brain and without a concentrated effort to reverse this programming or it being caught earlier enough, it could be all they know and set them up for life on the wrong foot entirely.
The second and third order effects of ruined relationships, body image problems and mental health problems are only the tip of a nasty iceberg.
Money
This is a simple one and very self explanatory one. If you’re signing up to subscription based services, you’re spending your own hard earned money on at least just watching someone else do things on their screen either to themselves or with others involved. Now, in the age of platforms like OnlyFans, there are a variety of add ons that you can have to increase the “experience” that just pry upon your natural instinct of wanting to have human connection. The fact that you can send your favourite creator a message makes it feel you are somewhat connecting with them in a weird and completely faux way, whilst paying for the pleasure.
Personal Relationships
This is definitely a second order effect that is influenced by the other side effects that have been listed above and may manifest in various ways. I will speak from personal experience on this one mainly to give you an insight, outside of what’s already been said, as to how my personal relationships were affected.
The first one that I noticed was that of being agitated with family members and friends as a teenager when I’d not gotten my “fix”. Obviously, there were other hormonal things going on for me at that age but it was definitely remember a contributing factor. There was also the shame and embarrassment of trying to explain your way out of certain situations. All I’ll say, sometimes people don’t knock when coming into your room…
The second one is that your relationships with your partners may be damaged too, whether these be short or long term. In the short term, it may not be such an issue as you can pass it off to them as one of those days but for you, you are more aware of issue and the trend, if it keeps happening to you.
Where this was hardest for me was at university, having to come up with reasons and excuses for not doing anything if I went home with someone.
For long term partners, this is where the issue could manifest more severely. There’s only so long that you can allow the behaviour to interrupt. This could be lack of intimacy from you “getting it” from elsewhere, behaviours to try and hide what you’re doing due to shame or even hiding any subscription fees being paid.
What You Gain Giving Up
To reinforce what I’ve said about the negatives and to give you hope that there is light at the end of the tunnel, I will detail what you will actually gain back in your life from giving up this habit/addiction. Many of these changes for the positive are something that I have personal experience with. Don’t just take my word for it, there are a variety of online communities that I stumbled across when I first embarked on this journey that are still going strong and have other testimonies to them. You’ll be glad to know that as it becomes a more talked about thing, there are more people out there voicing their experiences. These are listed below for those who want them.
Reverse The Effects
The first and most obvious thing that you will notice as you abstain and get used to life without this in your life is the reversal of the effects it’s had on you. This obviously depends on what of effects manifested within you but these are some of what I experienced myself as I “recovered”:
- Porn Induced Erectile Dysfunction – Yes, I was finally able to freely and easily have erections again when with a real woman! How blooming reassuring that was!
- Not seeing woman as just a provider of sex – There are other elements to this within our culture that influence this mentality but porn is a big factor. Since giving it up though, the fact that I stopped just seeing women as merely objects of sex was refreshing. Genuine human connection shouldn’t be based o anything intimate between people, not just to get off.
- Low libido – Your libido will likely come back and will come back stronger than ever! Just be careful with this one and use this energy properly.
- Desensitisation – I found this both physically and mentally. When being in the act of love making, everything felt so much better than when I was doing it amongst porn usage. Alongside that, the morphing of what I found a turn on and had been unconsciously conditioned to enjoy toned down considerably.
- Money – If you are someone who is spending money on subscriptions to various sites, you’re obviously going to save this cash.
Have More Time & Motivation
This was a big one for me. As the addiction got stronger and stronger, I was spending more and more time in the privacy of my room and not doing the things that I should be which was having a detrimental effect on both my health and my academic endeavours. I wasn’t studying like I should have been, I wasn’t working on my projects with as much gusto as I should have been and I wasn’t training to the level that I should have been. The fact that I was having late nights driven by such an addiction was also negatively impacting my health across the board.
When you give it up, firstly you’re going to open up a lot of time in your life that you’ve been sacrificing to porn and the acts that you engage in around it. It may not seem like a lot but you have the build up, the getting yourself into a position to do it, finding the video you want, the act itself or releasing (however long that is), followed by the clean up and the time it takes to get you out of the lull you fall into afterwards.
Then, you have the increase in motivation which is from the removal of the continuous pleasure and satisfaction feeling you get from repeatedly finishing on whatever frequency it may be. With the release of hormones, there’s a signal to you for there to be no need to be driven and achieve. Going out and achieving something is the last thing on someone’s mind after finishing. I mean, where else would the cliché about guys falling asleep afterwards come from?
Allow You To Gain The Connection You're Actually Wanting
Mainly influenced by the fact that you are reversing the effects from use, the time and motivation that you’ll have and the changed perspective of how you should actually interact with people. This will allow you go out into the world and have the connection with others that you’ve been wanting and seeking in the first place. You won’t be getting the false stuff through your screen but the actual connection with those around you. You won’t be seeing people simply as a means to “get off” and instead, will see them as what they truly are: a human being – someone to talk to, laugh with, enjoy your time with and if it ends up there, be intimate with. Not simply a source of pleasure.
On the topic of getting intimate with people again, the confidence that you will regain in yourself and your physiology to operate correctly again will allow you to be more forthcoming in having connection with people in a more intimate setting. Gone will be the performance anxiety that may have once faced when the time came.
Communities That Can Help
I never actively partook in the communities that are out there to help people out there but used the various message boards to read about other people’s experiences to confirm my own and gain motivation from the testimonies of those out there. Alongside that, there are many different types of advice, help, tips and tricks on how to overcome the addiction that has been formed. There are people who have gone through it and clearly come out of the other side of things in a better place, from the minor to the major. It may be something that you find worth in to varying degrees but it was only right to share some resources for you.
The one thing I will say about these communities, as helpful as they are some people, they should to be taken with a pinch of salt. There are individuals that are fanatical about it and maybe over exaggerate their outcomes but on the most part, they mean well.
Outside of online forums and maybe one of the better ways, if you are at that stage to face the issue, and that’s to seek professional help.
I genuinely wish that you have gotten some benefit out of reading this piece. Admittedly, it wasn’t an easy post to write and be so open and vulnerable. However, it’s the only way in my eyes to convey the message and help others on to the road to recovery. I hope it has helped you either understand why you are the person that you are based on the media that you’ve been consuming or have been able to understand someone around you who’s changed . After falling victim, for want of a better phrase, to “adult entertainment”, I don’t want you to follow the same path and have to deal with some of the anguish that I did. The sooner that’s stopped, the sooner people won’t fall down that slippery slope and gives them a better and earlier chance to go out into the world and truly seize their potential.
Not everything on my blog site is this hard hitting, don’t panic! There are plenty of lighter articles around to read to give you somewhere new to travel to, other ways for you to change your life for the better or just generally talking fitness endeavours I’ve encountered recently.
Finally, if you haven’t already, why not follow me on my various social media profiles? Sometimes I talk about topics off the cuff, share videos and pictures on how to improve your life for the better or generally just share what I’m up to that day. Go ahead, click your preferred platform down below and hit the “Follow”/”Like” button. I’m sure you wouldn’t want to miss out and won’t be disappointed.
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