Porn addiction isn’t a thing. It’s made-up bullshit by people that buy into Judeo-Christian morality regarding sexual “purity”. There are reasons that it didn’t make it into DSM-V, and won’t make it into DSM-VI either. The porn and masturbation isn’t the problem, it’s how people feel about it, and how they reconcile it with their own beliefs in morality, which is not even remotely the same as being addicted to opiates or nicotine.
The masturbation definitely is not the problem, the porn might be. It just gives a wrong picture of intimacy and sex to inexperienced teenagers.
And some frankly bonkers ideas about what real sex is like.
But when I think about my youth in pre-internet days, when you relied on a trucker flinging his jazz mag into the bushes and being lucky enough to find it before the slugs, I’m not sure learning about real sex was any easier then.
Even if you don’t call it an addiction, I still consume an unhealthy amount of porn imo. I worry that I wouldn’t be able to get it up for a real person, not that it matters cause I’m too mentally screwed up to try hooking up or dating.
Start slow by starting to masturbate before turning on porn, remembering the last porn you watched. Slowly increase the amount of time before turning on porn. Then over time eventually you might be able to get off entirely by remembering what you’ve seen before. You can use that skill any time when with someone.
You think you consume an unhealthy amount of pornography, because that’s the message that you’re hearing from religiously-motivated sources. (Groups like “Fight The New Drug” are funded and staffed by Mormons, which meets all the criteria for a high-demand religion, AKA cult.) It’s the way that you conceptualize your use of pornography, rather than your consumption of pornography, that is the problem. When you compare self-described “porn addicts” to average people that do not label themselves as addicts, their consumption is most typically either identical, or slightly below average.
Your anxieties about “[not] be[ing] able to get it up for a real person” are what is likely to cause problems because that’s going to interfere with your arousal levels.
Bruh I haven’t been brainwashed by religious messaging, I have an archive of like 20 gbs of super niche fetish shit because I’ve essentially over the past decade shifted what I consider normal way into the deep end. I’m not saying that porn addiction is a thing, just saying that overconsumption can still be a problem.
Surprisingly, porn use has damages outside of just puritanical BS taboo! Instant gratification, a decrease in drive to meet your needs in other ways, unhealthy associations with sex (because that actually exists outside of puritanical views, believe it or not), some pretty gnarly effects around the whole dopamine release and reward seeking thing…
You can only be physically addicted to certain substances but you can be mentally addicted to anything.
You mean, you haven’t met someone with a mental addiction yet.
But — you are technically correct, indeed.
In ICD 10 the disorders that are commonly regarded as mental addictions are classified not as addiction, but as eating disorders, habit and impulse disorders and disorders of sexual preference. Don’t know whether I missed any.
BTW, Substance-related addiction is classified as mental and behaviour disorder due to psychoactive use. So, technically, “addiction” does not exist at all.
