This is going around for some reason, just gonna point out that many studies have been done about porn addiction, held by researchers who believed in porn addiction, only to find that porn addiction is not real and never was. Turns out it was religion. www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/wome...
Religion addiction is terminal
"Prisons are built with stones of law; brothels with bricks of religion." - William Blake, Proverbs of Hell, Line 21
Been saying this for ages. It’s not a porn addiction, it’s a dopamine addiction. You can get the same effect from literally anything pleasure inducing, it’s not porn specifically
You've been wrong for years. Dopamine isn't an addictive substance.
Yes, it's the dopamine. Revenge can actually provide the same dopamine response as certain drugs. I would say, as with most things dopamine, it really depends on whether or not you can control it, or how much it controls you.
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oooh this is very interesting and honestly a good point overall
It makes sense considering that many years ago the church used its influence to manipulate the masses into serving the leaders of said churches through altering information and various other horrid tactics. Who's to say that isn't what religions are doing now?
tbf, porn addiction doesn't exist, but a lot of people have absolutely become "porn-brained." I'm talking ahegao-hoodie-type guys. Porn isn't responsible for causing their issues, but it certainly figures prominently in how those issues have manifested
there's no issue there, they aren't hurting anybody
i don't think a person has to be hurting others for their behaviour to be concerning
Right. We shouldn’t be denied our god given right to regulate and judge others!
uh yeah. are you really suggesting we should never judge others for their behaviour?
can you IMAGINE such a thing? Lolol
Please explain in detail how it’s your problem then
call me crazy, but i think (hot take) that media which objectifies women can play a role in perpetuating misogyny. guys who publicly wear hoodies covered in pornographic pictures of women kinda demonstrate this. is it hurting me? no. but it's clearly symptomatic of a broader social issue
I think that’s more indicative of individual personality traits (and are fringe cases besides) and less so because of media which objectifies women. Plenty of people consume pornographic or hentai material and are not misogynists. I’m a NSFW artist myself and I think ahegao hoodie dudes are weird.
they'd probably be weird no matter what, but the fact that their weirdness is manifesting in this specific way can tell us a lot here's an unrelated example—bear with me for a minute: you know the TV show 24? 1/
it's about an anti-terrorist action hero, it aired post-9/11. It portrays torture as a necessary part of anti-terrorism. American soldiers who tortured people in real life have testified that 24 is part of what convinced them it was okay. Now, does this mean 24 was responsible for torture? Idk. 2/
Maybe they would have done it regardless, and 24 was just the easiest justification they could think of. I'm not sure it matters. But if you want to understand why torture was regarded so favourably in that period, you can't ignore 24. 3/
I don't think we can draw a direct line from trends in pornography to trends in how our culture treats women. That doesn't mean porn is irrelevant though. I think the kinds of sexual media we produce & consume and the things we take away from them tell us a LOT about how we see sex. 4/
you’re acting like you wouldn’t be uncomfortable or weirded out by seeing a guy with a hoodie made entirely with faces of manga hentai girls moaning in public
Is that the problem of porn or is that the problem of guys getting into really weird communities? I can agree it is gross but also the only way to completely prevent that is to just remove all hentai manga
yeah i don't think it's the type of thing we can prevent. I do think it can tell us something about our culture, though
People like to troll and transgress boundaries. I don't think we're ever not going to have edgelords, they might wear different hoodies though.
You mean gooners? That's just a fetish. They're fetishising the idea of porn addiction.
Yeah, gooners aren't addicts. And liking raceplay doesn't necessarily make you racist. However, it wouldn't exist in a non-racist society. And similarly, the existence of gooners is a symptom of deeper societal discomfort with our relationship to media. 1/
We don't feel in control of our media diets, so we fetishize that helplessness. I'm not saying these people are bad. I'm saying they're a symptom of something. (And some of them are weird to be around.) 2/2
If I see another TERF blaming feminicides on BDSM, I´m gonna scream.
I also hate that post because the right wingers on TikTok already complain about the BookTok girls. There was a whole reactionary lash out at a book that had a cartoony cover with sex scenes in it. It was very dumb and should not be encouraged by anyone on the left.
Now that i look at myself, this all makes sense
Addiction can be defined as 'needing something without liking it' ... If that describes you, then I'm sorry, you're an addict.
i stare at topless pictures of celebrities i love all day and i love looking. am i not addicted then
Addicted to driving cars and negotiating with bureaucrats not to take away my lifesaving medicine every time they think they need to
Addicted to eating dinner and drinking water.
I understand that critical thinking can be elusive.
Don't worry, you'll get there
You also CAN define addiction as "That thing! Where you do drugs!" but just because you CAN say something doesn't mean it's exactly an all-encompassing definition is it.
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📌 porn addiction is not real
I like that porn and smut are listed separately.
Porn: visual media with real life actors Smut: written media So they are /technically/ different things.
But what category is drawings of monsters with huge/unusual penises banging human women and/or men? I'm just asking for a...friend who loves monster romance smut swag boxes.
That's neither porn nor smut. That is FINE ART.
I'm a Patron of the Arts!
We just call that monsterfucking :b
you responded here as if the original reply was a sarcastic dig, but I took it as earnest appreciation for distinguishing them on the list. then again I'm as dense as a collapsed star, so..
I didn't take it as a sarcastic dig. I took it as someone just thinking it's the same thing bc they're often used interchangeably and responded to explain, that's all.
oh cool like libel and slander
Not wrong.
yeah, to the extent there's problems with porn the problems are labor rights issues and broader issues with people who have no fuckin media literacy about anything also not having any for horny media, it's not actually addictive brain poison.
Fuck religion.
Don't try to pull a "but religion helped," this is not X, I can block you fully the second you try and put your imaginary friends into a hobby agrument unlike over there on that shipwreck
Been screaming about this for years than porn addiction is not a real thing.
*slams my bowl of cornflakes* unbelievable!
It's even older than that. It's the excuse Ted Bundy used to explain why he was a serial killer - and his audience was James Dobson of Focus on the Family, who ate it right up because it was what he wanted to hear (which is why Bundy said it)
I feel this on a very deep level. I was put through so much immense guilt and shame and feeling like something was wrong with me. After letting go of this made up “addiction” I’ve never felt happier and more free.
thats just very *very* funny man am i glad i dont belive in any gods exept lucifer the lord of chaos
I started reading some of the comments in that post and I feel like I fell into an entire alternate dimension of bluesky where right wingers are taken completely at face value and no one is gay. *shudder*
Like obviously if you get holed up in your mind about guilt and loneliness and yearning and angst around intimacy and friendship and romantic expectations and sexual desire, obviously it can fuck you up emotionally and change how you interact. But that's a function of social relations. Not addiction
But that's like, something someone can get over without addictions support. More a therapist or a reassessing how they feel about and interact with people. Rather than a gradual recovery spiral, and not some intrinsic property of porn. Shrug
Okay I have been saying this and was told I was wrong. GET FUCKED I WAS RIGHT ALL ALONG
I wish that when articles meant "Christianity," they would come out and say "Christianity," instead of just "religion."
There’s an article somewhere that compares gambling vs porn and gambling is wayyy more harmful/addictive, yet while online gambling addiction is only growing the big cultural scare is porn…Does not compute. Unless of course you’re a Bible thumper. 🙃
That checks out actually.
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Hi 💕
Believing religious proscription is based on science or medical research and not the other way around has really fucked our perspective on these things up.
It’s like having a healthy understanding of one’s sexual self and others allows you more healthy expressions of desire versus hiding it in shame to fester till you commit a crime.
It seems like we're inventing new ways to talk past each other. I'm not sure you can handwave moral attitudes away so easily. "Eating too much and lack of exercise can't be the root cause of obesity because if you filter out people with certain genes there's not a relationship between them"
Doing something that you believes harms you, despite believing it harms you, is the problem. If it’s possible to change the belief that the behavior is ‘bad’, will the self-harm impulse remain and transfer to something else? Or will aligning the morality and behavior be enough?
My hot take on this is that 99% of the supposed effects of porn are in reality an effect of shame over porn consumption. Recently I have been watching Dr K stream, and he talked about how the amount of porn is not the issue, but how you use it and your interpretation of the act.
ah yes, because something that releases happy chemicals in the brain couldn't possibly be addicting for any reason... i swear whenever that cauntry brings in religion it feels like laws get shot back a few hundret years
In early days, a lot of nofap content on reddit was heavily Christian
Yeah, that makes sense.
Once again organized religion has created a moral panic to target a vulnerable community out of pure sadism, the only instinct a fundamentalist is capable of
If you can convince someone something is wrong with them you can sell them a solution.
I wish there was more talk of the damage from what in my case should be called Catholic sex shame. It took me years into adulthood to see consensual sex in a loving relationship even as something that is OK to enjoy
i notice... too... a lot of the people who believe this shit aren't particularly knowledgeable about addiction, and neither particularly sympathetic. It is often said as an insult.
Thank you thank you thank you so much for pointing in this direction of inquiry. Been... struggling with this issue lately.
@vai-nessa.bsky.social
Hahahahahahahaahahha amei muito
im not addicted to porn! although opening a lot of tabs too quickly gets a pavlovian response from me
Religion addiction sounds about right.
So the problem isn't porn, but people trying to live by rules written down almost 2000 years ago in a world that has changed beyond recognition in the past 50 years (Let alone the 1900+ years before that) I think i'll file this under "No shit, Sherlock!"
I’ve been link surfing this publication after this article. Interesting site
Interesting.
When I was deeply religious I did believe that I had an addiction to porn and masturbation and it made me feel like I was evil for doing so. It took a few years but I had realized that no, I don't have anyl addiction but rather what I was, and still, doing was completely normal.
I only thought about porn addiction when I wasn’t actually using porn. I would see a cute guy, think he is cute, decide my addiction to porn I hadn’t seen in months was the cause.
Sounds like horny people doing horny things. If religious groups don't like horny people, maybe start by cleaning their own house and stopping their horny priests from having sex with altar boys 🤷
cishet men always inventing a new thing they’re addicted to to explain why it’s not their fault they’re bad people 😭 sorry it’s not my fault i’m a womanizing misogynist who can’t remain faithful to a partner im addicted to porn and sex
Yeah, like, I do think there's IS such a thing as being "porn-brained", but it has nothing to do with "porn addiction". From what I see, "porn-brained" is just women-objectifying misogyny but from....a secular perspective, I guess?
I'm just spitballing here, but like...constantly treating women as sex objects with no interiority but in a "women are objects I possess and who owe me sex" instead of "women are stupid objects who need to be protected and corralled into being my religious love slave"? That's porn-brained.
Perhaps that's a distinction without a difference, though. It all comes from the same place (misogyny, linked with white supremacy and christian nationalism) and all ends in the same place (depriving women and minorities of freedoms). It's just a matter aesthetics, I suppose.
One of the weirdest parts about this P addiction thing is the AI ad slop that is thrown out that is always sung "This is what porn addiction does to you". It always feels out of pocket to be watching dumb video essay stuff then get an ad saying porn is bad guys stop engaging with it and have babies.
At first I thought it was about denying the truth about something for some stupid reason, but after reading I understand that this doesn't say there is no problem. It is actually good that porn itself doesn't seem to be more addictive than most other things that release dopamine in your brain.
After thinking a little bit I also realized that I my high consumption of porn is related to my poor sexual/social life. Otherwise I wouldn't "need" it to compensate...so I understand what this study wants to say. But still if you consume too much it can make you less sensitive to real stimuli.
*real stumli: Anything that could arouse you in real life instead of porn.
I remember someone once saying something along the lines of "Porn addiction just means you hate yourself for liking porn"
This + it's an very easy scapegoat. Let's you blame a surface level habit that is already villainized instead of digging deeper into the issue that caused the habit in the first place.
I'm really glad they chose a stock photo render of a red enter key labeled "SEX" as the cover for this article
a sprawling aftermarket of replacement red keys as everyone's Porn button keeps wearing out faster than the others
Is it sticky though?
Seems appropriate for the Enter key, if you ask me
“I’m addicted to porn!” No, you have a normal human sex drive, and someone convinced you that was horrible and wrong.
patriarchy, not porn, is the problem. a culture that only views women as objects, whether for sex or baby-making, will always find its way to a "male loneliness epidemic" whether it's got tons of porn or not
theres like non drug "addiction"/ compulsion and I think its possible to develop a harmful pattern of action as maladaptive coping. buying, exercising, hoarding, ocd - watching so much media it interferes with daily life. its not an addiction, its nothing to do with porn per se
Pretty much, I've heard of dudes going to therapy because porn was fucking up the dudes sex drive and he could only get hard via media but not irl with his partner, it gave him erectile dysfunction, poor guy basically had to stop his porn consumption all together because it fucked with his mind
but I can understand ppl feeling they need help to deal with dealing with a need to compulsively consume media, buy things, hold/hoard to a physically hazardous level (coupled with feeling shame)as self soothing bc it interferes with daily life for the person leavin that to church orgs is not wise
Yup, I've got a porn "addiction," but I know it was from behavioral problems as a kid and finding it WAY too early, and that was a supervision problem, not an access problem. You don't solve hoarding or overconsumption by making it so everyone has to buy less stuff
yeah, compulsive [anything] thats a behavioural issue & not caused by something organic cant be solved by removing the thing used to soothe, but to look at what purpose that behaviour has & how to find healthier way of coping or improving the situation/s that led to that coping behavior
i think porn, erotica etc are this kind of special topic to ppl bc theres a large amount of shame connected to sexuality for a lot of people, relationships make you vulnerable and one sided consumption feels safe, controlled & kinda detached from the emotional messiness that (can) come with humans
the article does cover all of this, just fyi
Good debate
I mean im definitely addicted but its a tactical advantage
"It releases happy chemicals you'll get addicted like drugs do!" Failing to realize that without actual addictive substances, it will never be an "addiction" People can have unhealthy and dependent relationships with anything that makes them happy, but only porn is vilified
Yeah falling into a pattern because your chasing a natural release of dopamine is called a habit, not an addiction
Bluesky has a proof of cat addiction.
if it making you happy was all it took, man, im addicted to seeing Monkey D. Luffy punch fascists
If with all the pressure from religious groups science still doesn't recognizes porn as addictive is because it really isn't. Which is no surprise at all honestly
Also, for porn to be considered addictive we would have to first define what even is porn, cause i know some weirdos who get off on literal objects. Then what? We gonna ban chairs from public places too?
I'm going to add to this because many people don't want to read the article or any of the studies I guess. Yes, people can create unhealthy connections with and even reliance on porn, that's not what's being disputed. Those connections, however, are unrelated to porn, that's not the cause.
Porn "addiction" is almost always a coping mechanism for something else or caused by secondary factors like drug addiction. Getting rid of the porn won't remove the actual problems and people will just seek out different coping mechanisms.
I personally use toxic yuri visual novels which occasionally feature NSFW elements as a coping mechanism for when I feel like I shouldn't exist. Does that mean I am porn addicted?
The same way people can be overly attached in unhealthy ways to inanimate objects or children's media or anything else that can provide joy or pleasure. Porn is not addictive, porn does not alter your brain, porn does not create habits or worsen compulsion. That's what the study says.
David Ley? Are you fucking serious, bro. That guy literally works for the porn industry. Bravo on doing zero due diligence.
This isn't even a "it's only mentally addictive, not physically addictive" argument either, because porn is not mentally addictive. The people who become addicted to porn had some kind of experince that led them to porn, but if you remove porn from the equation it would have been something else.
Porn usage in this way is a response to some other trauma or compulsion that was created before the porn usage. Porn may have become a troubling thing, but it didn't start the trouble, and handling porn addiction in this way requires tackling the actual source of the problem.
It's important to understand the broad concept of what has been discovered so that you can understand that the vilification of porn in this way has been weaponized as a tool against it so it can more easily be argued for censoring. Talking about porn in this way is dangerous for this reason.
You or someone you know very well could have had a troubling relationship with porn and I get that, no one is trying to undermine that or say your problems were fake. What is being clarified is that the porn wasn't the root cause, this is a broader problem with human psyche.
I doubt many people will click through and actually read this thread, they didn't even bother to read the article in the original post, but I've explained what I need to explain and I'm gonna mute the notifications for this post so they'll stop blowing up my phone.
i read through at least half of the tread and didn’t click through to the article, so i’d definitely say the summary in bsky posts has value. it’s easier to stay on platform than to click away and not know if you’ll face a paywall nor how long the article will be. but mostly just not go elsewhere
My bad health means articles cost way more on my body and brain than a thread synopsis. I'm still interested in learning, but I can't dive as deep as I used to. So I'm always glad when people give a breakdown. Then, I still get the core ideas to think about.
RIP your mentions, which will doubtless be stuffed beyond full with people very dogmatically saying, "No, it's the scientists that are wrong!"
I remember I used to feel so guilty over consuming porn (and yes I still consume porn, I don't give a shit), thinking I was a "chronic porn addict", even though I don't even consume porn THAT OFTEN, but I used to masturbate a lot.... turns out you are actually supposed to masturbate a lot as a male
to help prevent prostate cancer, lol. But like seriously, I get that some people have unhealthy relationship with porn, and that the porn industry has a lot of issues, but the problem was never porn itself or the consumption of porn, the problem is the fucking industry, and some other shit
that was going on in a person's life that triggered them to rely on porn as a coping mechanism like that!
Hmmm. I totally get that the porn addiction discourse comes from the religious right but don't all addictions have a psychological cause? I mean of course there's a biological/chemical component behind drug addiction but I thought people didn't get hooked on shit just because.
Not everyone has the same experience, but it can 100% be a pure chemical/physiological thing. When they talk about the addictiveness of different drugs, they're talking about the speed of physiological dependence. Once or twice can be enough.
Some people with mental health problems turn to drugs, yes, but A LOT of healthy, happy people try drugs for no better reason than a little fun or why not. Whether you get addicted has WAY more to do with your body chemistry than your psychology.
No, you will in fact get addicted to heroin just because.
That's why addicts are generally very happy people I guess?
What it means is that these attachments are a symptom of external factors acting against them which influences their internal world and choices. Porn "addiction" is a symptom of something else in their life affecting them.
I understand, what I mean is if you send someone to rehab because of an addiction with an actual chemical component but their life is still in shambles or whatever they're gonna relapse, right? I understand the idea that porn doesn't inherently do anything addictive to your body chemistry,
Wait, what your saying is that the totally natural and in fact built in desire and need for something inherent to our very humanity and being is in fact NOT responsible for bullshit, and it was and always will be the weird obtuse constructions we build on top of it like society and religion? whaaaat
As both an amateur actor/producer and consumer of a lot of porn and NSFW, the closest thing to addiction I have is a Therian mental stint that causes me to go into 'heat'. Problem is, I can't tell if the horny stuff causes the state, or helps it fade. I'm aware it's a very peculiar case...
I have to stop filming for clients occasionally because I begin drooling or becoming too feverish, and I prefer to be coherent when making content. The main 'puzzle', is whether NSFW became a coping mechanism, is causing my heat spells, or has nothing to do with it at all.
I guess it's just weird because I've heard the porn addiction/sex addiction talk from so many people who claim that they 'can't' stop, but then stare at them wondering when the next 'cycle' is, hoping I don't get way too sexually provocative around them. It's... complicated to explain, honestly.
Our sex drive and even interest in everything from certain ranks of 'taboo' or 'grotesque' comes from a savage response, and seeing what we 'like' triggers neuron activation, but It's rare that it ever goes 'past' that. For me, I know it's not 'addiction', but more a carnal synapse firing off.
There's actually a strange connection to mutative Therianism and libido or drive. Apparently the more you exhibit territorial or aggressive spells, the more you exhibit heat spells and sexual tension or do unaware acts like scratching or touching tender places.
I don't know if it will, due to its rare... everything, but I hope this helps anyone understand why you get that urge and start sweating profusely or get really frustrated out of nowhere. It's not an addiction because lewdness didn't cause the behavior, more that it's an instinct and response.
Just Say Things Summer is full swing these days
No words can describe how in my opinion this is so backwards. 😡
It's not real. preferring porn to sex has more to do with external problems not addiction (trauma,insecurities, etc ) the worse that can happen is that too much porn makes penetration sex or having someone touch your penis feel weird, but that passes the second time you have sex
Let me take a wild guess before I read it. It turns out humans are just horny due to our biology and religion tried to shame people for their basic biology?
I used to be a “porn addict.” Then I stopped judging myself for watching porn. Turns out I still do it everyday but it takes up much less of my time because I don’t spend hours before and after hating and punishing myself for it.
Porn can also help you find stuff to do with your partner