You might be surprised to note that porn can have a devastating effect on your love life. The reason? These are many, but the biggest reason is that porn movies can actually change your perception of what sex should be and change your expectations. What has been found is that younger and younger men are seeking help for impotence and they have a direct correlation to their watching porn. Sex experts have said that overstimulation of sexual activity is indeed something that can and does happen. What this means in terms of performance is that dopamine levels in the brain are affected and it may be unable to sustain an erection.
Porn Addiction
Many are heavily into porn – almost worshiping it like a god. Why? For one, most men are not the sexual conquerors they like to be and pornography enables them to fulfill their wildest and biggest sexual fantasies – and more – with all the hottest, nastiest and horniest around. And with the advent of the internet, it is practically free to indulge in it anytime and anywhere. It’s like breathing for many men! As with many good things (assuming for the sake of argument that it is "good"), it can be very bad. Specifically, addiction to stuff is a very real factor that can contribute to contributing to a man’s incapacity. What? Can porn addiction cause erectile dysfunction? Seriously? Yes, I’m serious. But before we move on to how it can lead to erectile dysfunction, let’s first figure out how much porn is too much? When does an appetite for beautiful, naked women — the popular rock band Guns N’ Roses has a name as one of its albums — become an appetite for destruction?
MensFitness.com features a quiz, developed by Paula Hall, author of Understanding and Treating Sex Addiction (Routledge, 2012), that can help evaluate whether a particular interest in pornography is just “average” or already an addiction. You can – if you choose – by answering the following questions, tallying your total score based on your answer choices and checking it against a grid at the end of the quiz. A disclaimer though - this quiz is for personal use only and should not be used to substitute for professional evaluation and diagnosis.
➢ Do you spend at least 11 hours weekly looking at porn? Never = 0 Sometimes = 1 Often = 2 Most of the time = 3
➢ Is your relationship with your partner negatively affected by your porn watching? Never = 0 Sometimes = 1 Often = 2 Most of the time = 3
➢ Does watching porn interfere with your work or time with friends and family? Never = 0 Sometimes = 1 Often = 2 Most of the time = 3
➢ Do you prioritize watching porn over spending time with family and friends? Never = 0 Sometimes = 1 Often = 2 Most of the time = 3
➢ Do you watch porn to relieve boredom or feel happy? Never = 0 Sometimes = 1 Often = 2 Most of the time = 3
➢ Do you think you need to stop watching porn? Never = 0 Sometimes = 1 Often = 2 Most of the time = 3
➢ Do you find it challenging to get an erection or ejaculate during sex? Never = 0 Sometimes = 1 Often = 2 Most of the time = 3
➢ Do you have to fantasize about women you saw in porn being horny just for sex? Never = 0 Sometimes = 1 Often = 2 Most of the time = 3
➢ Do you feel the need to watch more and hard-core porn to maintain similar feelings? Never = 0 Sometimes = 1 Often = 2 Most of the time = 3
Tally up your total score. If you got less than 8 points, you most likely are not addicted to porn – at least not yet. However, if your family has a background of porn addiction, consider yourself at risk for becoming an addict. It is highly recommended that you keep your sexual experiences as free of pornography as possible and reduce your reliance on accessories to manage boredom, stress, and sadness. With certain medications and supplements, your body can develop an immunity or resistance to porn, making you want to get it more and hard-core, so intermittent or extended porn fasting can help or greatly reduce your risk for addiction. Doing so helps recalibrate the chemical in your body that is responsible for pleasure: dopamine. Think of it as walking regularly. The more consistently and you run, the more tolerant your body becomes and when you run for an extended period of time, your body tolerance for it goes down.
If you scored between 9 and 15 points, consider yourself the tail of becoming an addict. At this point, you have to start taking matters into your own – punishment – sorry hands. Cutting back on your porn watching is no longer an option – it’s a must! This is because pornography can become a poison rather than a medicine that you hope can relieve your life crises. It is as sensible as trying to get promoted by taking days off work frequently to sleep at home. If you scored 16 and above, you almost — with certainty — dub yourself a porn addict. Chances are, you’ve tried to dig out porn for quite some time, but failed to do so because you’re in too deep. Like, self-treatment or self-help is no longer a viable option and it's time to seek help. Consider joining support groups like Sex Addicts Anonymous or getting professional help from a qualified therapist.
Too Much Is Too Much
With some of the most pleasurable things in life like alcohol and salty, fatty and sugary foods, masturbation is a very controversial health topic. This is due to the abundance of seemingly scientific, but contradictory information on the internet concerning the supposed benefits and side effects of the practice. Take health benefits for example. Studies have shown that masturbation isn’t just normal – it’s also good for a man’s health as it can significantly reduce the risk for prostate problems, help reduce anxiety and as a result, normalize the immune system. On the other hand, there are also reports of excessive masturbation, leading to more frequent cases of erectile dysfunction in men. Honestly, they are not contradictory. It’s a well-established fact that too much of good things can eventually cause harm. Protein is good for the body, but if you eat too much of it, especially if you already have kidney problems, you run the risk of kidney failure.
Lifting weights in the gym is certainly beneficial in terms of building physical strength, but lifting too much weight and too often – i.e., not enough rest – can lead to injuries like muscle and joint tears. And like Brian May — she as the famous rock band queen — wrote and sang, Too Much Love Can Kill You. When a man becomes addicted to porn, his view of women also changes. He sees all women as potential porn stars, which of course they are. They participate in sexual acts and although they do not do so behind a camera, they could. Thus, men who are addicted to Internet porn are unlikely to distinguish between their partners and the women they see on screen. The reality, of course, is very different. His expectations of his partner were exaggerated.
Another thing about porn and masturbation addiction is that it can make a man more anxious about his sexual performance. He’ll come to believe that the “passing grade” for sexual performance is what he sees on porn—inhumanly large penises, mutant abilities to hold ejaculate despite all the dirty and horny stuff women mutant abilities do for those well-sex-marathoned men. Because he comes to believe that such supernatural characteristics are the norm, he will feel so inadequate and begin to see himself as unworthy, leading to low self worth. And as mentioned in an earlier chapter, a man who looks down on himself will have a tough time and may struggle to experience an erection. It also affects an area of the brain called the frontal cortex. This part of the brain is used to send messages to the body and make plans. Thus, if excessive or stimulated, it appears that frontal cortex messages may be distorted and impotence may result. The brain is clearly not getting the messages it needs for the penis and thus it is impossible for it to get an erection.
Scientists found through the study of a case where a man had suffered severe damage to this area of the brain that this frontal cortex also determines the person that someone is. A damaged frontal cortex was responsible for the change in behavior by a man who, unfortunately, suffered an accident that punctured the area in question. Although he survived, he was not able to continue as the mild and humble person he was before the accident. Another reason why an excess of porn or porn additions can change a man’s perception of what love should be is that it stimulates an unhealthy interest in porn, instead of realistic love and turns the mind off to anything other than being normal. Thus, he becomes apathetic in normal stimuli and may rely on porn rather than actual sex as the one to satisfy his sexual needs.
Thus, with this very unrealistic view of sex, a man cannot achieve an erection because the picture in his brain of raw porn sex is more interesting and important than actual sex. With the stimulation of the frontal cortex, this area begins to be erased, so that the personality of the man is also affected. Too much masturbation is also considered an addiction — one that has been exacerbated by pornography. When experiencing any pleasurable stimuli, such as, food or sex, the body releases dopamine, which is considered the “pleasure” chemical. When men watch porn and masturbate, there is a flood of dopamine around the system. Doing so often makes the receptors responsible for generating feelings of sexual pleasure more and more conditioned to dopamine – making it less and less sensitive over time.
When this happens, a single sexual stimulus becomes less potent and over time becomes useless in terms of sexual arousal and erection. More – in terms of frequency and intensity – sexual stimuli are required to reach the same sexual arousal and erection and a downward spiral of decreasing libido and erections becomes. At this point, a man begins to suffer from erectile dysfunction. If you’re already at that level, what’s the solution? Simple - stop watching porn and masturbating. Go on porn and masturbation for longer – ideally about 12 weeks. This is to reset your brain and your psyche to normal human sexual standards and make it healthy to help reset your libido and achieve regular and healthy erections again.
If you’ve started using porn as a stimulus and it’s more important than real life, you need help. Even though your love life may not initially be affected by what you see, the eventual breakdown of various elements of your love life is inevitable and this includes becoming castrated. If you have experienced an erection or the inability to maintain one and are always looking for the next opportunity to watch porn, you need to see someone who can help you train this addiction so that it does not change the person you are or in a normal way with a healthy erection that will continue to affect your ability to make love in the course of.
