The Effects of Porn Addiction – What is it Like to Live with Porn?

The consumption of porn is very much prevalent in today’s society especially among men. Some say it’s their hobby, something that helps them relax after a long day at work. How, then, does porn cease to be a hobby and become an addiction?

Consuming porn stops being a hobby when someone already feels compelled to watch it, whether he is in the mood or not. When giving in to porn becomes almost inevitable, it can already be classified as an addiction.

Push of Hope interviewed five men who are recovering from pornography addiction. In their stories, we will find out what is it like for them to live with their addiction.

Porn Curiosity Starts in Childhood

The men’s curiosity with porn started when they were young. Tas, a 21-year-old single man, first viewed porn when he was 8 years old. It was just pictures he saw online, but it gave him a lot of pleasure to see them so he kept on going back. As he grew older, he turned to porn more and more to help him deal with his sexual needs.

There was no internet yet when Uncle Vic, 48, was born. He got his first taste of porn at 10 years old when he was lent a Playboy magazine by his friends in school. “It was so much fun,” he said, remembering how thrilled he was at seeing pictures of naked women in the magazine.

Malcolm, 18, Adrian, 40, and Semaj, 45, learned about porn when they were in their teens. Both turned to it in the normal process of learning about sex and their bodies. The longer that they used it, however, the more that they lost control over their use of porn.

The Beginning of Addiction to Porn

So when does natural curiosity end and addiction begin? For Malcolm, it was when he began spending so much time watching porn and could no longer stop even though he wanted to. “I remember once trying to stop when I was in elementary school,” he said. “I made it clean about 3 weeks, but then I relapsed.”

This inability to control their use of porn is common among all the interviewees. Tas felt satisfied at first, since he used porn only to help him with his sexual needs. He became aware that something was wrong when he began feeling the need to watch porn even when he there was no sexual arousal.

This compulsion, this strong, irresistible desire to consume pornography even if the men didn’t want to, has become the basis for calling this an addiction. Like other addictions, e.g., alcohol or illegal substances, when porn addicts feel the urge, they become powerless to say no. “Sometimes I felt like a prisoner,” Malcolm said, “I wanted to stop but I couldn’t. It was as if someone else was in control of me.”

There are instances, for example, that the presence of another person would normally inhibit someone from using porn. Malcolm found a lot of ways to ensure that he can do it and remain undiscovered. He could even watch porn while talking to somebody else in the room. He went through the motions of talking to the person without really paying attention. Porn became the priority of his life.

Living with Porn

With their uncontrollable urges to consume pornography, it was inevitable that porn would begin affecting all aspect of their lives. Relationships with significant others deteriorated; with too much porn consumption, addicts only get to sleep a few hours a day and become irritated and moody, affecting how they treat the people around them.

Sexually, it has an adverse effect, too. “My partner became less interested in me,” Uncle Vic said. “I would always want to do the things I’ve viewed and she would find me strange in asking her to do these things.” Lying, keeping a lot of secrets, and not being “fully in the moment” definitely take its toll on the relationships of porn addicts.

Their general moodiness and feelings of guilt also made the matter worse. Adrian, for example, always felt guilty, then depressed after watching porn. Tas understood this well when said that “porn does help at times, but you usually just feel shitty after.”

Porn also changed the way they saw and thought about women. “Porn twists a person and changes your views,” Adrian said. “Women become cheap objects of desire and something to conquer rather than a gift and a blessing.”

For Malcolm, he learned to see the world through porn vision. In every social encounter, for example, he would imagine the men and women he’d met having sex or being in a porn-type situation. His views became extremely distorted.

But it wasn’t only their perspective of others that changed; even how they saw themselves also became distorted. “I always felt alone, even in social gatherings,” Malcolm said. “I would be hanging out with people, and my mind would be elsewhere, thinking about porn or depressed about my lifestyle.”

Lack of confidence, and feeling empty, inferior, and useless—all these are weapons of porn. When people begin to think that they can only feel happy when they watch porn, they will have weaker willpower to resist its call.

“Being addicted really sucks,” Tas said. “I have lost my self-control, making me seem weak-willed. Other men feel horny, too, but why don’t they get the urge to watch porn?”

For Uncle Vic, his pornography addiction really did a lot of damage. It destroyed his self-image, his self-worth, and almost his marriage.

“Pornography is a lie and everything about it is a lie,” he said. “Most of pornography is to show how to dominate, be the boss. It never takes into consideration that to have a wonderful sexual relationship it takes two, and neither has to be humiliated. As soon as this happens, there will be a breakdown in that relationship as there is no trust involved.”

Malcolm succinctly encapsulated it when he said that his addiction to porn made him lose sight of who he really was. Porn had him live his life vicariously through the naked actors on-screen; when it came time to live his real life, he didn’t know who he was and how he was supposed to act. He became out of touch with his true self, the person he was born and meant to be.

Learning to Control Porn Addiction

When they realized that they had become addicted, all the men tried to do something to stop it. Some turned to religion—contacting their spiritual counselors to ask for help—while others went by the self-help route. They read everything they could about porn addiction, reflected on their lives, and tried their best on a day-to-day basis to avoid porn.

They were not always successful, though; all of them are still struggling at some point to successfully get rid of their addiction. “It’s like a bad habit that just won’t go away!” Tas said.

Indeed, there are some life circumstances that make it hard to let go of porn. Semaj and Adrian, for example, still find themselves turning to seek comfort in porn whenever they feel down. “I still struggle,” Adrian said. “At times, porn becomes a reward for a hard day, and replacing that is hard to do.”

Malcolm found that his failure to complete quit porn arose from his refusal to accept life for what it is. He became addicted because “I had been trying to bury myself in an endless universe of pleasure,” he said. “But it doesn’t exist, it’s not supposed to. I know now that I have to accept life for what it is and face it, both bad and good times.”

Quitting porn addiction can be done. As shown by these men who have courageously shared their stories, the way to recovery is difficult, but given the alternative of forever living with porn, they are more than willing to find ways to be rid of their addiction completely and successfully.

“Looking at porn and masturbating is not the life I want,” Malcolm said. “I want true connections with people, a real relationship with a woman, a career I love. If I face life and never give up, I will get these things. But that means that I cannot settle for porn—I must move on.”

This was originally published in PushofHope.com on 11 July 2011. The site has closed. This is ©Aleah Taboclaon and may not be reproduced without the author’s permission.

Photo is categorized as CC0, belonging to the public domain. Thanks to Unsplash.