Writing this more as an indicator of hope for anyone who might be struggling with this rather than seeking advice for myself.
If you're someone who, like me, has considered themselves a porn addict and has been trying to shake the habit of masturbating fruitlessly to porn, then don't give up, it is possible but you have to ADHERE to it. Dumping your video/image collection, not accessing sites or staying off instagram pages does help clean out your mind and reduce your dependence on the stuff.
During the first half of last year's lockdown, I completely deleted all my porn, and for 6+ months I felt so much better not having to go through the ritual of opening up a video and wanking to it, or worse, cycling multiple videos and not really wanking, just constantly looking for the dopamine hit. I've had instances of relapse (mostly from the mania of things re-opening and work being work), which have made me feel terrible, but in all I've done a lot better than I have been for the past 5 years or more.
To contextualise a little, I'm 30, male and bisexual, and was pretty much fully aware of porn as a late teen but at the stage was never truly aware that it really wiggles into your brain. From being quite socially outgoing in my 20s, I managed to become somewhat oversexed, shared porn and fetishes with various partners, always liked to stay fit too because I liked to feel confident and hot especially with other people. Time goes on though and with changes in social circles and attitudes, the casual sex slows down, particularly when you become more serious with people. Wanking on your own to porn doesn't really go away though, most men my age end up doing it easily.
From about 25 onwards, maybe 24, I was buying porn videos off places like clips4sale and other pay sites, purely because I wanted the videos immediately and really didn't want to wade through various dodgy websites for something I knew I could just have legitimately and stick on whenever. No harm done. A couple of things really affected me over the course of this; one of which is how performing in porn is just a job like any other, it's not real sex, it's fantasy, I get that and why that maintains such an appeal especially if you're looking for a 5 minute or 20 minute thrill, but what really occurred to me is how those performers are basically immortalised in those videos. They're on to the next job after that shoot has wrapped up, they age like anyone else. It hit me how certain pornstars and models I had wanked over had died, and I felt very uncomfortable continuing to use videos of them when they were alive. It's much different to seeing an actor in a film after they've passed away, you don't really sit there wanking to films.
Generally speaking as well, I've always managed to maintain my expectations when it comes to having actual sex with people, how much messier it is, even with all my porn consumption I don't think it totally warped my sense of reality with women or men. In a wider sense though, other men I've met seem to have completely had their minds changed by it, some young men seem to have an uncontrollable relationship with it, but never acknowledging it as such. My actual sexual interests always seemed to remain consistent, something I never understood was people who constantly had to delve into every type of porn (I want to stress by this I mean legal porn, I've never been tweaked to the point I feel the need to look at anything extreme), looking for a new thrill. I don't expect people to constantly be articulating what gets them off, but when people exhibit signs of no shame at all from porn exposure, it really sets off alarms to me.
Drug use in my 20s really didn't help much at all, MDMA and sex is one thing (which I'm convinced did serious damage to my ability to produce serotonin and hence contributed to this), wanking to porn on weed and LSD is another, and wanking on coke is just fucking misery. I kicked a lot of that a long time ago because weed wanking would especially just keep me ticking over on videos all night. If you have to kick a substance too to help you slow down your porn usage, do that as well, all for the better.
Porn to me is a lot like any other easily abused substance, it provides an incredibly short term thrill but can have extremely long term effects, but I find it isn't always seen as such. I've kicked alcohol, smoking and drugs, but porn I've always found has definitely been the one to linger the most, purely to my level of consumption as a younger adult.
As I've said the though, the results from staying off it entirely do seem to be valid, at least to me, it's a lot more rewarding wanking to a mental conjuration in bed than seeing what you can fry your retinas with for however long. I'm aware this post is rambling, I just hope it does offer some advice and insight to any other men who might be struggling with this.
Just to follow-up on this I have to point out once pornhub deleted all unverified videos following allegations of non-consensual content being uploaded I noticed a lot of dodgier-looking free sites immediately cropped up.
Interesting post, thank you for sharing. I have a couple of questions and observations, if you don't mind letting me ramble a bit, and maybe telling me what you think.
I don't really understand how one becomes a porn addict. I see a lot of myself in your post- I'm a complete fetish deviant, and I've long since left regular porn behind for the realms of hentai and furry porn, which indulges altogether more imaginative kinds of lust. Regular old porn where it's just a video of two people fucking does next to nothing for me, there's just no substance to it. All night wanking sessions on the come down from an acid trip with a fat spliff burning down on the bedside table have been a more frequent indulgence than I'd like to admit throughout the course of my 20s; indeed that's how I came to confront the fact I'm most likely bisexual, and at any rate I love having my prostate tickled.
The difference is I'm really not ashamed of any of it. It doesn't feel like a problem to me at all- I might spend hours edging myself over an elaborate and highly unusual fantasy, but once I've spaffed my load? Serenity and relief washes over me. My urges entirely vanish for an hour or two, and my mind isn't troubled at all. It's just another part of my day, and I go about my business afterwards the same way you would as if you'd just finished doing the dishes or built a MÖRBYLÅNGA for the living room. It doesn't affect my "real life" sexuality, although as you might reasonably expect the frequency and nature of my habits changes depending on how sexually pro-active my partner is.
Was it the sheer frequency of it? Was it clouding your mind at inappropriate times, and you couldn't resist it? Was it encouraging unhealthy attitudes towards your real sex life? What made you decide to confront this habit as if it was a problem, and not just something you do?
The reason I ask is because there are certain internet communities that have become fascinating to me. The attitude that porn is some sort of toxic mental carcinogen seems to becoming rather widespread amongst younger lads in certain parts, with this whole "nofap" cult spectacularly reviving a bizarre modern reincarnation of 1890s Quakerism; and I believe the attitudes and philosophy of those groups is every bit as unhealthy as an overindulgence in even the worst sort of porn. They believe that denying themselves masturbation will help them keep their focus on real sex with real women, and bettering themselves in order to be more appealing to women. Now, you really don't have to be a sexual health expert to see the flaws in that approach. It becomes a vicious cycle for them.
As with nearly anything in life, I believe the true way lies with all things in moderation, and that the real problem for these lads lies in a lack of self confidence, and a fractured relationship with their sexuality. They cycle between repression and obsession, because they have never had the opportunity of positive sexual encounters to frame their instinctual desires against. It's like, society, maaan.
Of course, I don't mean to suggest you're one of them, OP. But I see some similarities in your reasoning, which made me curious how you came to those conclusions. Why did porn make you feel bad?
I'm not the OP, and I don't want to confuse the issue, but just in case there are some younglads reading that are facing similar issues to me and it helps them somehow...
There's a few ways in which pornography and masturbation make me feel bad, and it actually doesn't have much to do with "shame" or associated stigma. For me it's more:
1) The physiology of it. Sex and orgasms are genuinely draining (for me, at least). Despite being otherwise physically healthy, or indeed maybe it's because of the high activity level in other parts of my life, an intense experience like an orgasm can actually lead to overstimulation, fatigue, and irritability. At its worst, I could even feel cold or flu like symptoms if I'd masturbated multiple times in succession. What's more, this tends to happen more when I masturbate than when having sex with a partner, maybe because the latter takes longer and I have the chance to relax/go through the proper refractory stages afterward.
2) Psychologically, it feeds pretty negatively into anxiety. I used sex and masturbation as a crutch when I was younger to get over feelings of anxiety, almost like a dopamine or serotonin button. The associated irritability and fatigue I describe above may either be a direct symptom of this association, or it might be another physiological thing that exacerbates it.
3) Similarly, it has a horrible effect on me with depressive symptoms. I find I just have more energy and interact with people differently when I haven't been through an intense experience like orgasm. But on a more tangible level, there was nothing worse for me during depressive episodes when I'd lose all track of time, my circadian rhythm would be all over the place, my work and leisure time blended meaninglessly, and on top of that I'd lose hours of the day to long edging sessions which were essentially a way of self-soothing for existing anxiety anyway.
Conversely, I want to bring up that pornography actually had some benefits for me. It's debateable, but I seriously doubt I'd be as sexually open and comfortable with people as I've been in my relationships if I'd not had some exposure to it. I think it helped both to broaden my personal tastes and also helped me view sex in a "live and let live (if they're consenting adults)" kind of way.
TL;DR - My issues were (still are) primarily to do with physiology, associations with masturbation specifically, time management, and self esteem rather than any social or cultural issues surrounding porn.
