Your Brain on Porn (5 page)

Common Symptoms

Although most early trials in giving up internet porn were desperate ploys to reverse deteriorating sexual function, today many people make the experiment in order to gain a whole range of benefits. In this section you'll find a sprinkling of self-reports describing improvements after quitting porn, broken down into categories. But many users see a wide range of diverse improvements. For example, this ex-user wrote:

Improvements since quitting:

- Social anxiety improved drastically – includes confidence, eye contact, comfort

interacting, smoothness, etc.

- More energy in general

- Clearer, sharper mind, more concentration

- More vibrant looking face

- Depression alleviated

- Desire to interact with women

- Boners are back!!

Another guy described himself
during
his porn use:

- My friends were drifting away. I gave up socialising to sit in my room and pleasure
myself.

- My family loved me unconditionally, but did not enjoy my company.

- I had trouble focusing on my job and as well as my classes at my university.

- I had no girlfriend.

- I had an enormous amount of anxiety with human interactions in general.

- I worked out furiously, but never seemed to gain anything.

- Everyone told me I was mentally checked out. I even caught a glimpse of me in a video

and you could see a blank stare in my eyes. No one was home. Definition of space cadet.

- No ENERGY, no matter how much I slept, NONE. NOTHING. AT ALL. Always tired. Bags

under my eyes, pale, acne, and dehydrated.

- I was terribly depressed.

- I had porn-induced ED.

- I was stressed, anxious, confused, and lost.

- I was not living life, but I was not dead either. I was a zombie.

People naturally wonder how such disparate symptoms could be associated with internet porn use, and what physiological changes might be behind the improvements. They also wonder why some

users see different results or no results. Solid research on internet porn's effects is just beginning, but in the next chapter I'll hypothesize based on the abundant relevant science already available on brain plasticity and internet use.

Meanwhile, let's take a closer look at people's accounts of what they're experiencing.

Interfering with life, losing control

Inability to control use and use that interferes with one's life are two cardinal signs of addiction. Priorities have shifted due to changes in the brain that we'll look at later. In effect, life's natural rewards, such as friendship, exercise and accomplishment, can no longer compete.

Your brain now believes that IT – in this case internet porn use – is an important goal, and equates it with your survival:

Most days I would wank so much that by the end of the day when I orgasmed nothing
would even come out. ED my first time sent me into a porn spiral. I would literally wake up,

roll over and masturbate, masturbate all day, then at night masturbate and go to sleep. 6

times a day or more, no joke. Safe to say my life was an absolute mess, all the bad effects of
porn x 10. I knew that the porn and masturbation was affecting me but I was in denial,
masturbation is good for you right? You can’t be addicted to porn.

*

My lowest point was when I lost out on my pharmacy diploma and lost my girlfriend on

the same day, due to porn and procrastination.

*

I used transgender porn to get hard so I could finish with heterosexual porn. Without
realizing, I was soon watching a lot of taboo and extreme porn that I never would have
considered a couple of years ago. I couldn’t believe I let myself get to this point. I just
couldn’t stop myself.

*

(Female) I can get off a ridiculous amount of times in one night because the female
biological makeup allows it. Many females (not all) spend a lot of time not with porn, but
with erotica. We fantasise a lot to get off, while men are very visual. With the internet, it's
easy to find erotica everywhere, and there are entire forums dedicated to the type of erotica

you want. At my worst, I would have 7 or 8 different sites open and go through them for about

3 or 4 hours or more looking for the perfect sex story to get off on.

*

I thought that it was due to an increased libido that I watched so much porn. Now I know I

was wrong. I had an addiction. I barely went out and most certainly didn't have any female

contacts.

*

Before I quit I felt like shit 24/7. I had zero energy, and zero motivation. I was lethargic

for every hour of every day. I didn't eat right. I didn't exercise. I didn't study. I didn't care
about personal hygiene. And I could not care. In the state that I was in, it was extremely
difficult to stand for more than 3 minutes, let alone do something productive. I’m over a
month now and I feel so much better.

*

Everything from my social life to my physical health has been damaged by this addiction.

The worst part about it was that I constantly justified it in my head by saying it was ‘healthy
for me’ and ‘at least it isn't a drug’. In reality, this was worse than any drug I have consumed
and the least healthy activity I was participating in.

*

During the heights of my porn addiction, I never looked forward to much of anything:
dreaded going to work, and never saw socializing with friends and family as all that great,
especially in comparison to my porn rituals, which gave me more pleasure and stimulation
than anything else. With the addiction gone, little things make me really happy. I find myself
laughing often, smiling for no real reason, and just being in good spirits all around.

*

I thought I was a pessimist, but really I was just an addict.

Inability to orgasm during sex

Years of porn use can cause a variety of symptoms, which when examined, lie on a spectrum.

Often porn users report that delayed ejaculation (DE) or inability to orgasm (anorgasmia) was a

precursor to full blown erectile dysfunction. Any of the following may precede or accompany delayed ejaculation and erectile dysfunction:

- Earlier genres of porn are no longer exciting.

- Uncharacteristic fetishes develop.

- Porn use is more sexually exciting than a partner.

- Sensitivity of penis decreases.

- Sexual arousal with sexual partners declines.

- Erections fade when attempting penetration or shortly thereafter.

- Penetrative sex is not stimulating.

- Porn fantasy is necessary to maintain erection or interest with partner.

A few examples:

I'm so happy right now! I'm a 25-year old male and until last night I had never orgasmed

in the presence of a female. I have had sex but never, ever been close to climaxing through
any stimulation whatsoever. I started out like most of you, using internet porn from around
the age of 15. If only I'd known what I was doing to myself.

*

(Age 29) 17 years of masturbation and 12 years of escalating to extreme/fetish porn. I
started to lose interest in real sex. The build up and release from porn became stronger than it
was from sex. Porn offers unlimited variety. I could choose what I want to see in the moment.

My delayed ejaculation during sex became so bad that sometimes I couldn't orgasm at all.

This killed my last desire to have sex.

*

I’ve lived with delayed ejaculation all my life and I’ve never found anyone (including
docs) who are familiar with the dysfunction or have any suggestions for improving it. I began

using Viagra and Cialis to help me keep it up long enough to have an orgasm – often well
over an hour of intense stimulation. I thought regular doses of porn were also

necessary. Good news: by staying away from porn, I am now experiencing some of the most

satisfying sex of my life with no ED meds; and I’ve got two decades on most of you. My
erections are more frequent, firmer and longer lasting, and our lovemaking is relaxing and
lasts as long as both of us want it to.

*

(4 months without porn) Yesterday was my birthday, and my girlfriend and I had sex.

We've been sexually active for months, but I had never orgasmed once during sex, until
yesterday. It was the greatest feeling ever. It's a huge weight lifted off both my shoulders and
my girlfriend's, as she was feeling rather self-conscious about the issue.

*

I had some pretty bad delayed ejaculation problems with my previous girlfriend. I'm
talking 2-3 hours of sex for me to be able to get off (so usually I ended up just stopping and
going home and fapping).

*

My success continues in week 10 of my reboot...an even better session with the missus
tonight. Not only did I blow my load relatively quickly (defeating DE), I did it without having
to go as vigorously as I usually would to finish. I went slow all the way, like never before, and
it was brilliant. I could even say that I tried to back right off towards the end as I didn't want
to finish so soon! Not bad for someone with a bad case of DE for a number of years.

Unreliable erections during sexual encounters

As mentioned, on most forums ED is the number-one reason men choose to give up porn.

Eminent urologist Harry Fisch, MD is also seeing porn-related sexual dysfunctions in his practice. In
The New Naked
he writes:

I can tell how much porn a man watches as soon as he starts talking candidly about any

sexual dysfunction he has. ... A man who masturbates frequently can soon develop erection
problems when he's with his partner. Add porn to the mix, and he can become unable to have

sex. ... A penis that has grown accustomed to a particular kind of sensation leading to rapid

ejaculation will not work the same way when it's aroused differently. Orgasm is delayed or
doesn't happen at all.

In 2014, a Canadian sexologists' stud
y[21]
showed that problems in sexual functioning are curiously higher in adolescent males than in adult males (which are already rising). Said researchers:

53.5% [of male teens] were classified as reporting symptoms indicative of a sexual
problem. Erectile dysfunction and low desire were the most common.

High rates of limp penises and low sexual desire in teenage males should make everyone take notice as being extremely surprising. Imagine how unheard of these conditions would be in

young bulls and stallions. Yet the sexologists conducting the research were ‘unclear’ why they found such high rates, and didn't even mention internet porn overuse as a possible influence. The recent Cambridge study by addiction neuroscientists found that almost 60% of the addicts they

examined, ‘experienced diminished libido or erectile function specifically in physical

relationships with women (although not in relationship to the sexually explicit material)’ as a result of excessive porn use.
[22]

I have seen two diverging patterns of recovery. A few men bounce back in a relatively short

time: about 2-3 weeks. Perhaps their difficulties are due to psychological conditioning, excessive levels of masturbation (fuelled by internet porn), or a minor case of desensitisation (an addiction-related change we'll discuss in the next chapter).

The vast majority of guys need 2-6 months (or longer) to
fully
recover. Most ‘long-rebooters’ experience a variety of withdrawal symptoms, including the dreaded flatline.

Typically, they are younger guys who started early on internet porn. I suspect that this unfortunate trend is the natural outcome of highly malleable adolescent brains
[23]
colliding with internet porn:

When I lost my virginity it really did not feel that good. I was bored actually. I lost the
erection after maybe ten minutes. She wanted more sex, but I was done. The next time I tried

to have sex with a woman was a disaster. I had an erection at first, but I lost it before I ever
penetrated. Condom use was out of the question – not a hard enough erection.