Frequently Asked Questions
All my friends look at porn. That’s what blokes do, right?
Yes, it is a common activity for people to view and masturbate to adult porn, and there is nothing wrong with that. But just as not everyone who drinks alcohol becomes an alcoholic, there are some who drink compulsively in social situations, and there are others who drink secretively and are fully addicted to alcohol and are unable to stop.
The same applies to pornography. Watching the fast-streaming of pornography effects the dopamine reward pathways in the brain, which are stimulated by all addictive substances, like drugs or alcohol, or behaviours like gambling or sex. However, compulsive eating or compulsively sexual activity are more difficult to control because they are pre-programmed biological needs.
Pornography addiction is a rising problem in contemporary society, especially since the lockdown of 2020. The high-speed access of online imagery precipitates compulsive behaviour because it taps into the Seeking circuit of the brain and over-stimulates these dopamine pathways.
An infant is born with pre-programmed emotional circuits designed to precipitate specific behaviours to encourage survival. This Seeking circuit encourages an infant to search his environment with curiosity, stimulation and heightened arousal, using the sensory and, in particular, the visual pathways of the brain. This Seeking circuit bypasses the thinking circuits of the brain in the prefrontal cortex, as it was developed before the infant had words.
It is this Seeking circuit that is stimulated when viewing visual images online, and accounts for why so many people indulge in Internet-browsing behaviour over long periods of time, without thinking through the consequences of their behaviour. The close proximity of the computer screen or the smartphone facilitates this process, together with the graphic, rapidly intense images, and the huge variety of images on offer, producing a curious “what else is there?” effect on the brain. As such, most people will find they spend much more time locked into searching, or browsing, the Internet than they had originally planned, and why the moral compass of “I shouldn’t be looking at this” in the left hemisphere prefrontal cortex is bypassed. Each image is likely to have been viewed for a matter of seconds before the next is searched for, as it is the searching that is addictive, not the images themselves.
Test yourself.
- Do you masturbate or edge to porn for long periods of time, but never feel fully satisfied and want to look some more?
- Have you found yourself losing interest in having sex with your loving partner?
- Are you frightened about losing your erections towards your partner, so are using porn to “boost the system”?
- Would rather have sex with yourself using the internet than with your partner?
- Do you keep viewing porn online when you should be doing other things, like working?
- Do you shut yourself away and go online rather than spending time with the children or family?
- Do you spend hours browsing the net until the early hours, and then find you have had insufficient sleep for your working day?
- Do you find yourself getting tired and irritated with the family and just want to be left in peace with your phone/laptop?
- Are you watching porn while your partner is asleep beside you?
- Do you feel irritable or anxious when you are not online?
If you have answered yes to more than one of these questions, you may be developing a problem.
The best test is to stop using porn for a period of time, say at least a month, and see what happens. You may lose all interest in sex for a while (called ‘flat-lining’), but don’t panic and return to porn. Your body will repair and your sexual arousal will return.
Am I really addicted, or do I just have a high sex drive?
Some people have described themselves as having a ‘high sex drive’ so need porn to stop them becoming a “sexual pest” to their partner. They are probably unaware that the addictive dopamine pathways in the brain create the need to be looking online and keep them aroused for hours searching for the next image, making them think they have a high sex drive. If they had never looked at online porn, they may have described their sexual arousal level as ’normal’. But the fast-streaming imagery and over-stimulation of the arousal system means they are less likely to be turned on by real people because the online imagery is so intense.
I have a 12-year-old son, and I think online porn is a great way for him to get a good sex education, rather than him being taught to put a condom on a banana at school!
The best sex education you can give your son (or daughter) is to talk to them about the porn they will see, either from their own phone, or if you have put parental filters on, on those of their friends. They need to understand that the porn videos they see are not the kind of real sex that usually occurs between loving partners. There is no intimacy, no discussion of consent, and the most repeated behaviours demonstrated often objectify the receiver of the sexual act, most commonly young women and young men. Porn teaches that women and young men want to be ejaculated all over their bodies and/or faces, that they want to have every orifice filled all at the same time, and that whatever is done to them, they are happy and willing recipients. There is no understanding that these are choreographed events, and there is also no understanding that many are coerced into looking ‘happy’.
Having said that, there are many porn stars who do enjoy their craft, but it is still not a good way for teenagers to learn about sex. Their neural sexual template is malleable at this age, and plethora of diverse sexual acts that can be viewed vandalises their sexual template, and makes them confused about their sexual script, because everything seems to turn them on.
I am in my early twenties and have had no real sexual relationships because I am confused about my sexual orientation. I don’t know if I am straight, bi, or gay, as I feel turned on to everything I see, especially trans. How can I make a relationship if I don’t know what my sexual orientation is?
Viewing pornography for long periods of time over many years (often since teenage) means that the body is primed to be turned on to any erotica, which may not even be porn, but beach holiday photos or celeb news. As the body responds with arousal from the priming and conditioning, many get confused about their sexuality as they feel aroused viewing all sorts of porn – straight, gay, trans, children, animals, even furniture if viewed in an erotic stimulus – which is how fetishes develop. All new images viewed are kindling for an already primed dopamine reward system in the brain. This, as a consequence, changes their sexual script – the part of them that knew what turned them on before they started looking at all of the variety online. They will be sexually aroused when looking at all online erotica, and maybe therefore assume that they are turned on by the images they see, and wonder if they should try these things out without understanding that this is how the body is designed to work.
The only way to truly discover your sexual orientation is to stay away from all visual imagery for a substantial period, including not fantasising about the images you have seen in the past as the brain will use the same reward pathways. Your natural sexual orientation will soon become apparent
I am only 32, but I am already losing my erections and my ability to have sex with my husband. I went to my GP and he referred me to a urologist and prescribed Viagra for me, but it hasn’t really helped.
Do you watch a lot of online pornography, and did your GP ask you how much porn you view? Before going down the physiological/medical route, it is important to assess whether it is PIED: porn-induced erectile dysfunction. The paradox of PIED is that the sexual arousal system was not designed to be ‘turned on’ repeatedly for such long extended periods of time, so it exhausts. But this makes some men spend longer looking at different things, desperate to get their erection back. Many also find they develop sexual dysfunctions while trying to have sex with their partners, like retarded or premature ejaculation, or a complete loss of libido all together. To test this, you need to stop looking at porn and stop masturbating for at least a month, but preferably longer. Slowly but surely, if it is PIED, your sexual functioning will return to normal.
I’ve been sneaking out of bed while my wife was asleep to watch porn for years now. But now I am scared because I realise I am straying into forbidden territory. But I can’t stop looking. What can I do?
It sounds like you have been compulsively viewing pornography for many years, and for you it has become addictive. There is part of the brain called the nucleus accumbens. One part of this uses and produces the dopamine in a cyclic process; it is our “I want’ factor which makes us feel sensitised and aroused in our search for novelty and excitement. Another part of this produces endogenous opiates, the ‘wow! I like it’ factor sometimes called the crack cocaine of addiction. However, these opiates deplete over time, so people stop liking what they see (desensitise), get bored and restless, and therefore search for new and novel imagery. So, the wanting persists, but the liking reduces. This is called tolerance and escalation and therefore suggests addiction.
If you are scared of the things you are looking at, you may be coming close to crossing the line, or maybe you have crossed it already. It is vital that you stop, as getting ‘the knock’ from the police will destroy your life. For you, stopping cold turkey may be really difficult, and we know that many people experience withdrawal symptoms when they suddenly stop viewing online porn. It also means stopping all forms of online viewing for a substantial period of time to break the habit, including social media and online news, which are frequently used to fill the void that stopping porn leaves.
Telling your wife and getting her support would be a good first step. Similarly talk to a counsellor or a StopSO therapist to protect yourself and the victims of the imagery you are looking at. You could also consider getting group support through the SAA consortium.
I was feeling stressed and was shouting at the kids all the time. So I went to a counsellor, and he told me that there is no such thing as porn addiction – that there is no evidence that it exists. He said as a sex positive counsellor, watching porn was a good thing, and he didn’t know anyone who went to their grave wishing they had less sex. Are you just making people feel bad about themselves?
Well he is right – up to a point. If you are watching porn as a happy activity that you fit into your everyday life, or you are having good sex with a consenting partner, then yes, good for you. But if you are trying to fit your life into your sexual activity, that is, your life is sex-dominant, and you are feeling stressed and unhappy, then it is more important to consider the reasons why this should be. You obviously were not feeling good about yourself, and you must have raised the issue of watching a lot of porn with your counsellor. Why would that be?
It is right that the research evidence about pornography addiction has been slow to surface. This is because researchers take literally years to undertake outcome research, and online technology is actually moving faster than the researchers can process. But if you want some research evidence trying looking at this website and pick a few:
As for your counsellor’s final point about no-one wishes they had less sex, why not ask that question to the guys whose porn escalation has led them to cross the line, and they have got the knock from the police
I am 17, and I don’t really watch a lot of porn, but my friends and I are chatting and sexting all the time, and sending each other pictures of ourselves. There’s a lot of sex talk, although I’m not sure any of us have done what we talk about. This is just what we all do, and it is fun, and we are not hurting anyone.
I am sure it feels like fun as you are an adolescent and exploring your sexuality. But you are moving into dangerous territory legally. The new Online Safety Bill now has a Cyberflashing offence, and sending Dick-pics or intimate imagery falls into this category. At 17 you are still considered a child, but when you turn 18, and if you are still sending pictures to those who are not yet 18, then you are an adult offending against a child. You also need to check the ages of your friendship group, to make sure they are a similar age to yourself. If they are a few years younger, say 14 or 15, then it could be argued that you are harming them, damaging their sexual template. Talk to your parents or a StopSO therapist about this before you get into trouble.
I have stopped looking at porn as I realised I had a problem, but I still can’t get the bad images out of my head. I think about things that I have seen, and wish I hadn’t seen them, but I still get turned on by it. I don’t want to have these images in my head any more, but my brain is stained!
When you talk about getting the ‘bad’ images out of your head, what you are actually describing is flashbacks from the shock of what you have seen. Online fast-streaming visual imagery, and the imbedded computer algorithms, effect the brain so drastically that it draws you down pathways you would never have gone to if you had been viewing old-fashioned erotica off the top shelf of the stationers.
Even though you chose (either willingly or compulsively) to look at these images, and you may have been partially aroused while doing it, it does not mean that you liked or enjoyed what you saw. Just like drivers who pass the scene of a car crash, they are often revolted by all the blood and gore, but can’t stop looking at it, and many experience flashbacks because of it.
Similarly, when a someone looks at extreme pornography, many are horrified at what they see, and may only look for a few seconds before clicking for the next image. But it can become seared into the brain, or as you say, stained is a good description.
The reason for this is that it is one of the brain’s pre-programmed processes for dealing with
threat: it is a survival strategy. If you are terrified of spiders, and a large one crawls into your living room, you will either keep staring at it frozen to the spot, or bolt out of the room, but the image will come into your mind’s eye with the associated fear every time you walk into that room until you are assured it is ‘dealt’ with.
Our memory processing works by schema – little nuggets of information that when clustered together the brain can weave into a story. What flashbacks are doing is the brain trying to make sense of a traumatic piece of information which the brain doesn’t know where to file. Imagine you were filing some bills into a folder in a filing cabinet that was arranged alphabetically, and then you came across a file that was titled with Chinese or Greek symbols. You would keep looking at it wondering what to do with it and where to put it – that is what a flashback is doing in the brain, and that is why therapy works, because therapists help people to develop a narrative that creates a new folder for the image to be put away. The beauty of the brain is that it can always be adapted and changed, even in senior years.
If you are concerned about your level of pornography use, confused about your sexual orientation, or frightened that you might, or indeed have, crossed the line into extreme viewing, then apply to StopSO for a therapist in your area. You know it makes sense.