Porn Addiction: Causes, Symptoms & How To Cure It

Porn addiction is real. Here's everything you need to know including what it is, and how to cure it.

Porn Addiction: Causes, Symptoms & How To Cure It

Us men don’t talk about it nearly as much as we should, but pornography is absolutely endemic in our society, mostly thanks to the Internet. Indeed, as much as one-third of all the data transferred across the Internet is porn.

Indeed, according to a 2017 report from the Huffington Post, porn sites receive more regular traffic than Netflix, Amazon and Twitter combined per month. And the hours we spend watching porn? Pornhub Analytics pegged it at 5,517,000,000 hours in 2018 alone for visitors to their site. In other words it’s increasing.

More to the point, porn addiction is a particularly big problem for men. It’s not particularly well-defined and there are no universally accepted diagnostic criteria for porn addiction, but estimates say that around 1.5% to 3% of the adult population of the United States meets the criteria for compulsive pornography use. It’s a big problem.

But, what exactly is porn addiction, how can you tell if you’re addicted and ultimately, how do you cure a porn addiction? Allow us to reveal all.

What Is Porn Addiction?

Porn addiction refers to, as per Medical News Today, “a person becoming emotionally dependent on pornography to the point that it interferes with their daily life, relationships, and ability to function.”

Porn addiction is often closely related to a masturbation addiction, with each fuelling the other.

DMARGE has previously spoken with Samantha Jayne, Channel 10’s relationship advisor to The Bachelor all about porn addiction. She said excessive consumption of pornography can alter your brain chemistry, “causing major issues in relationships, reducing confidence levels, increasing anxiety and impairing sexual performance.”

“The overstimulation [brought on by excessive porn consumption] results in a heightened expectation of self-gratification rather than an intense experience of togetherness—and that equals bad sex.”

Porn Addiction Symptoms

This one’s fairly straightforward. Apart from any addiction being a weakness to get over, “Several studies have found that internet porn in particular is killing men’s sexual performance, to the point where sexual enhancement drugs no longer work,” says Samantha Jayne.

Even worse, “Long term use of porn,” she says, “Can inhibit a person’s ability to emotionally connect with another person, leading to a very superficial relationship with a lack of true intimacy and feelings of isolation and emptiness.”

This has resulted in us as a species, “Getting worse at staying present (as we are) so caught up in this virtual world.” And when we stop connecting we stop intimacy, “And as a result it impacts the quality of sex.”

Luke Vu who specialises in pornography and internet addiction, has previously told DMARGE about other symptoms of a porn addiction. They include:

  • You repeatedly fail at your attempts to control your porn use
  • You regularly use more porn (or more intense porn) than intended
  • You use porn as a means of avoiding negative emotions or problems
  • Your porn use is interfering with your daily life i.e. work, study, relationships and health

What Happens If You Leave A Porn Addiction Untreated?

Like any problem that’s left untreated it can get worse. Those using porn excessively could be neglecting their own personal relationships as they’re supplementing a genuine connection for a sexual one. This neglect then leads to relationship breakdowns or divorce.

On the career front, Vu says it can affect your work performance if you’re spending countless hours and nights in search of the “perfect” porn clip – getting fired for porn addiction is very real these days.

The other side is that excessive porn use has some unique consequences. For some, their sexual interests change. It’s not necessarily a bad thing but it can be bad. Vu says you could find yourself seeking out porn that doesn’t align with your values or worse, that’s considered illegal.

How To Stop Porn Addiction

So if you can get addicted to porn, how do you cure a porn addiction?

Samantha Jayne says, “At first porn can appear to be self-soothing and bring about instant gratification. It can be used to mask uncomfortable feelings of anxiety, stress, depression, boredom and used to block out other unwanted emotional feelings and escape from reality, which may seem harmless at first. It’s not.”

Step two; “Replace the old negative bad habit (porn) with something more positive. Exercise, meditation, yoga all come to mind. Or simply get out more and spend time with real people.”

Understanding it is a prevalent issue in modern society, many men are banding together on Internet communities to share advice and help each other kick their kinky habits.

It points to a greater mindset shift among young men that not only accepts men being more honest about their problems, but also a shift to healthier, more sustainable conceptions of masculinity.

There’s no shortage of porn addiction advice on Instagram and TikTok, but perhaps the best community is Reddit’s /r/pornfree, where men (and women, for that matter) share their trials and tribulations with overcoming porn addiction.

One great analogy shared on /r/pornfree illustrates how difficult it is to overcome porn addiction: “Being a porn addict with a phone and trying to quit is like being a recovering alcoholic who always has a bottle of vodka in his pocket. It’s absolutely insane. No wonder this s*** is so hard.”

RELATED: High-Class Escort Reveals What Men Really Want From Sex

Unlike some communities like the infamous anti-masturbation subreddit /r/NoFap, /r/pornfree is free of some of the pseudoscience and covert misogyny that other communities or popular culture indulges in.

For example, one /r/pornfree user talks about using the HALT technique used by narcotics and alcohol recovery communities as a thought exercise to ‘check themselves’ when they feel a relapse coming on.

“Am I: H- Hungry? A- Angry? L- Lonely? T- Tired? Often, in times when we are feeling any of these 4 things, it makes us more vulnerable to go towards the vices we cling to for that sweet, sweet dopamine rush.”

It’s stuff like this that demystifies porn addiction for us average blokes without delving into toxic behaviours or falling into shame.

How To Train Your Brain To Stop Watching Porn

Recovery from porn addiction is always possible according to Vu. “Brain patterns are changeable and you can always break old habits and form new and healthier habits,” he says.

Those concerned about their porn habits can use these steps to curb consumption.

  • Monitor your use – especially if it exceeds a few hours and you begin watching it at work or during breaks
  • Understand your use and the reasons why you shouldn’t be using it
  • Assess what is your reasonable/manageable amount
  • Be deliberate with your use – set a time, set safe categories and define what the red
    flags are
  • Accept and learn to deal with urges as you attempt to cut down – think about the consequences or use distractions like sports or other hobbies to replace porn
Chris Rock during his Tamborine special. Image: New York Times

A few male celebrities have also been forthcoming about their struggles with porn addiction. Back in 2018, Chris Rock talked candidly about his porn addiction, joking that he was “15 minutes late everywhere” during his Netflix comedy special Tamborine.

“When you watch too much porn, you know what happens? You become, like, sexually autistic… You have a hard time with eye contact and verbal cues… You get desensitized. When you start watching porn, any porn will do. Then, later on, you’re all f*cked up and you need a perfect porn cocktail to get you off.”

RELATED: The One Winner In The Will Smith vs. Chris Rock ‘Smackdown’

More recently in 2020 during a podcast interview, The Rock shared some of the strategies he’s used to address his porn addiction, namely getting off (pun slightly intended) social media.

“One of the things that I’ve done in the last whatever year, not just going to therapy, I’ve kind of gotten off social media. I got off all social media. I don’t watch pornography anymore. I’m like, my brain is like ‘ahh’. Like, I’m focused, man. Now, so, a lot of stuff on YouTube or, what is it, Instagram, I got like a company that puts that stuff out.”

Of course, not all of us can afford to subcontract our social media use to a dedicated company – nor do we suggest that cutting out social media is a sure-fire solution to curing one’s addiction to porn – but it definitely can’t hurt to put your devices down a bit more often if you’re struggling with porn addiction.

Terry Crews and his wife Rebecca King-Crews. Image: Getty

Terry Crews is another big name who’s gone on the record about his porn addiction. As Men’s Journal reports, Crews went live on Facebook in a series of videos titled ‘Dirty Little Secret’ to chat candidly about his journey.

“You know, for years, years, years, my dirty little secret was that I was addicted to pornography, for years… I think it’s a worldwide problem, but pornography, it really, really, messed up my life in a lot of ways. Some people deny it. They say, ‘hey man, you can’t really be addicted to pornography, there’s no way’. But I’m going to tell you something, if day turns into night, and you are still watching, you probably got a problem. And that was me.”

“It affected everything. I didn’t tell my wife. Didn’t tell my friends, nobody knew. But the internet allowed that secret to stay and grow. My wife was literally like, ‘I don’t know you anymore. I’m outta here.'” Crews almost facing divorce was his wake-up call. He continues:

“That changed me. I had to change because I realized, ‘yo, this thing is a major, major problem’. I literally had to go to rehab for it. And the thing [that] I found was that by not telling people, it becomes more powerful, but when you tell, and when you put it out there in the open, just like I’m doing right now, to the whole world, it loses its power.”

“I’ve been free of this thing going on six, seven years now. Thank goodness. But now, it’s become my battle to help other people who are going through the same thing.”

Image: iStock

Porn Addiction Help

What can you do if you think you’re suffering from porn addiction? Well, if it’s particularly distracting, it might be worth talking to a therapist. Healthline also shares some tactics to gain control over your porn viewing on your own.

“Have a plan – choose another activity or two that you can turn to when that powerful urge hits. When you want to view porn, remind yourself how it has affected your life – write it down if that helps. Consider if there are any triggers and try to avoid them.

“Partner up with someone else who will ask about your porn habit and hold you accountable [and] keep a journal to track setbacks, reminders, and alternate activities that work.”

Good luck, kings.

Read Next