⚠️ This post mostly applies to Singles who are not having sex regularly or have never had sex. The reasoning for porn addiction changes a little if you’re sexually active, but you can still find it insightful nonetheless.
How Watching Porn Can Rewire Our Brain
- Having the option to see many women in that position where your primal mind sees them as a sexual partner is something we didn’t have a few decades.
- The option to fast-forward, click to another tab and have endless option of items to see and get excited from create a huge problem when it comes to how we see sex as a whole.
- Watching porn in itself is a very weird thing because, you see a woman and a man having sex and, you as a viewer are just sitting there enjoying what they are doing to each other. This is kind of voyeurism and nothing more.
- Porn is also responsible for setting unrealistic expectations from our own sex life. Do you really think you can have the kind of banging, perfect sex that you see online? People with perfect bodies in the perfect setting. It’s unrealistic in every standard.
We watch all these and try to copy it all. It’s not a bad thing to get inspired by it, by expecting the same kind of excitement can be a very wrong approach.
Masturbation Is A Healthy Activity, But Not Porn!
So to understand why we masturbate and the question of it being necessary is a complicated subject that can’t be condensed in one article, but I’ll try to cover the main points that I think will drive home the points necessary.
Evolved to Shag
We primates have evolved to masturbate, Even Chimps masturbate. So the idea of humans naturally gravitating towards masturbation isn’t something new.
We evolved to create as many offspring as possible due to survival propagation of our genes in order to ensure the continuation of our species. So in that regard masturbation is nothing more than a protection mechanism built deep inside our primal brain to make sure we don’t go extinct.
This primal survival instinct becomes big issue in the modern world. Think about how just a century ago we had a population of around 1.8 billion people. Now we are close to reaching 8 billion people. But our survival instincts from millions of years ago is the same.
Technological Advantage
We can also talk about all the technological advancements in the last few decades. I remember older people in their 50s talking about how hard it was to watch any kind of porn. “You had to go buy VCRs!, and that was it, that was the only thing you could watch until to bought or borrowed something else”.
Now lets take the same conversation a few decades before that. All you had was images, People would buy magazines which had naked women(mostly) and that was it.
Compare this to today, where we have access to hundreds of thousands of high definition porn videos of all varieties. All of this for free, We also have high enough bandwidth to stream all of it in 4K with ease. Not only that there is also a thriving dark web porn industry that contains all kinds of messed up porn.
The Link Between Testosterone and Sex Drive
There is a clear link between the amount of testosterone and the desire to have sex. We also know that men have a higher sexual drive compared to women. This is also related to the amount of testosterone men have. If women had the same level of testosterone they would have a similar sex drive as men.
Which leads to the fact that men are more likely to masturbate and more often than women. This can also be verified by the mainstream porn industry which makes the majority of the porn for male audience.
If you’re addicted to porn, you can reduce how much you watch it. There is a simple hierarchy of watching porn that one can use to go from watching porn videos to watching nothing at all.
Physical and Emotional Well-being
Masturbation has been linked to various physical and emotional benefits. Like sleep quality, relieve menstrual cramps. It can also increase the feelings of sexual confidence and you explore yourself more.
Ways to Reduce Your Porn Consumption
So let’s assume you’re addicted to watching porn! Here are some things you can do to reduce and ultimately stop your porn consumption. There are a few ways you can do it.
First option is going cold turkey, just stopping and not watching again. This can be hard for most people who are actually addicted.
That’s why the second option is a better option for most. If you’re addicted to watching, then take it a step down, don’t watch video, just jack off to some pictures. Then you can take it even a step down and stop watching to all together.
Watching porn Vs Seeing pictures Vs not watching anything
Watching Porn
In HD quality, you can skip to the right moment in the video. You can have virtually unlimited options.
The worst thing you can do for yourself. You don’t even have to think while masturbating to porn. You get to see everything in every genre that you every desire.
Magazines
Depending on where are you seeing these pictures, you can still have unlimited options.
What you can’t have is seeing the ability to see things moving, you have to actively imagine having sex. This is way better than videos because you’re not just mindlessly seeing things.
Using Your Imagination
Not having anything to see is I think the best thing one can do if they are used to watching porn.
You have to actively imagine everything. It’s not easy if you’re used to mindlessly watching porn.
This is something that people from a few centuries ago were doing, as they did not even have pictures.
Among the three, this can be the healthiest thing to do as you do not have any options like seeing other picture, or seeing the object of your excitement moving. If you have to change the person in your imagination, you have to imagine it.
That’s not All
Replace it With Something Else
I’ve seen most people just talk about how they should stop the addictions. The problem with addictions is that it’s hard to let go of it and have that void left in your life.
What I mean is that addictions take quite some room in your day-today life. When you stop it you need to replace it with some else. If you don’t do that it’s easy to relapse.
You can replace it with hobbies, socializing, etc. Most of the people who get addicted to porn are someone who don’t have much of a social life or they are not around other people much often.
Imagine working in an office where you don’t meet anyone new, maybe a few of your colleges who you see everyday. Vs someone who is roaming on the streets or someone in sales who has to meet quite a few people on a daily basis.
At the end of the day we get addicted because we want to fulfill something that we feel is lacking in our lives. And I know meeting new people everyday won’t get you off but, it’s something that can give you some assurance that there is something out there that can be better than watching porn all day.
Why Not Just Have Sex?
And talking about “something better” why not just have sex in real life? The only reason people get addicted to porn in the first place is that they don’t get any or enough sex in real life. but make sure you don’t find a new addiction!
And it’s easy to understand that some might find it hard to get a partner, and this is mostly due to low confidence, low having the social skills, or not having a outlet to meet other people. But you can change those things if you try.
Those things might take sometime but they are not impossible. Until then you can improve your other aspects that can help you. Like learning social skills, getting into shape, getting into some hobby that gives you an outlet to meet new people, like dancing, etc.
Summary
In the end being addicted to sex or sexual activities is a big part of life for many of us. Blame our evolution for that but, you also need to understand that being a slave to pleasure will make you do things that will create compromises in life. And being a slave to anything is not worth it in the long run. So take the time to think about your habits and actions.
Understand what your primal brain is demanding Vs what your higher brain/cognition really wants. In the end, until we are stuck in a physical body of a human being, we’ll go through all the experiences that a human has the capacity to go through.