Psychology Today notes how porn use can impede sexual function. Fortunately, there is a solution.
Recent behavioral addiction research suggests that the loss of libido and performance occur because heavy users are numbing their brain’s normal response to pleasure. Years of overriding the natural limits of libido with intense stimulation desensitize the user’s response to a neurochemical called dopamine…
In the last decade or so, addiction researchers have discovered that too much dopamine stimulation has a paradoxical effect. The brain decreases its ability to respond to dopamine signals (desensitization). This occurs with all addictions, both chemical and natural. In some porn users, the response to dopamine is dropping so low that they can’t achieve an erection without constant hits of dopamine via the Internet…
The brain needs a chance to “reboot,” that is, return to normal dopamine sensitivity. This can take a couple of months…
Most men are astonished to learn that pornography use can be a source of sexual performance problems. Instead, many are becoming convinced that ED at twenty-something is normal.
See also:
National Feminist Antipornography Movement
“As Jerome Tanner put it during a pornography directors’ roundtable discussion featured in Adult Video News, ‘People just want it harder, harder, and harder, because like Ron said, what are you gonna do next?’ Another director, Jules Jordan, was blunt about his task: ‘[O]ne of the things about today’s porn and the extreme market, the gonzo market, so many fans want to see so much more extreme stuff that I’m always trying to figure out ways to do something different.
Norman Doidge, MD: “Acquiring Tastes and Loves: What Neuroplasticity Teaches Us About Sexual Attraction and Love”
When pornographers boast that they are pushing the envelope by introducing new, harder themes, what they don’t say is that they must, because their customers are building up a tolerance to the content…
As for the patients who became involved in porn, most were able to go cold turkey once they understood the problem and how they were plastically reinforcing it. They found eventually that they were attracted once again to their mates. None of these men had addictive personalities or serious childhood traumas, and when they understood what was happening to them, they stopped using their computers for a period to weaken their problematic neuronal networks, and their appetite for porn withered away…
Commerce, Addictive Products, and Harm: Lessons from The Cigarette Century
Video Series: How to Talk to Your Son About Porn
Time to Explore the Links Between Porn, Testosterone, Sexual Behavior and Violence