I discovered porn as a teen. And from the beginning it was something I felt I should hide. As time went on, people would always write how bad and shameful it is which made me feel bad everytime I indulged in it.
I’ve been thinking lately that my fantasies of thinking about sex in family over chat and abusing is bad and unethical but it’s really impactful to see that it doesn’t really make me that person as I’m no where close to that in reality
Things changed especially after having ED for the first time. It planted a seed of doubt and convinced me I wasn’t good enough for sex, as it had happened multiple times. After the first time I started to lean on porn more and more to get me to where I wanted. I even added weed in the mix which made it so much more intense. It got to the point where I could no longer pleasure myself conventionally. It had psychological since at the time I could get hard for both my gf and when watching porn. Now I can do neither, and it really has tanked my confidence.
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My main issue with porn is basically the opposite of what is said on this forum: I dont like watching porn but I am so used to it that it almost feels like a bad habit.
It’s not shame it’s just less joyful then it used to be for me
I’ve currently tried to cut it out of my life and see if going completely cold turkey on both porn and masturbation whilst taking these lessons seriously could help rewire and restore my sexual craving of those teen years so that when I’m with my partner my head is purely in that primal moment. But we will see.
Ive looked at porn since I was a teenager. At points where my relationship was worst with my ex wife my usage was high, there was virtually no intimacy. I used porn to get that sexual connection as it really didn’t exist with my wife. It created a lot of guilt that still lingers, a vicious circle that acknowledges that it wasn’t the porn that caused the lack of intimacy, it was more the other way around but it doesnt help the little voice that says ‘maybe if you hadn’t used it the intimacy could have existed’.
Having a more open communication of porn and using it as adult entertainment may have helped.
At the same time I know that we had no clue how to communicate or really feel safe with each other. It requires so much vulnerability and trust to really be open with a person, particularly with sex.
My ex wife said I was adicted to porn and it was desensitising me to getting turned on for physical sex with her.
When I first started using porn, it was all videos. But as time went on, that began to feel really fake to me, and I discovered erotic literature. I’ve always been a big reader, so finding erotica was incredibly up my alley, and even let me explore kinks of mine that aren’t usually covered in traditional videos. Recently, I’ve even begun to explore erotic video games.
I’ve had a complicated relationship with porn in that I believe I encountered it too early in life and it had likely had some negative effects, but at the same time has been an important part of my sexual self-discovery in a way that I am reluctant to discard.
As a gay guy growing up. Porn was the only place I could live my sexuality. And even then I restricted what I watched so that I could still claim to be straight, ie I only watched guys jerking off together cause that’s just friendship:joy:
(that didn’t work out) So watching porn itself was always ok but it’s what I watched. I would always turn the video off straight after I cum. I would never imagine that the people in the videos are enjoying the sex their having, instead I would judge them or feel sorry for them. Obviously I was just projecting my own issues on to them. I’m trying to get over my judgement of the people having sex in porn cause it’s exactly the way I judge myself and getting in the way of me understanding what I actually want and find hot.
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I didn’t have any issues with porn until my wife decided she wanted a baby. She wants me to focus my attention on her and abstain which has bothered me a lot and made it difficult for me to enjoy porn on the rare ocassion I masterbate.
Until this app, I thought my porn habits were addictions. I thought my fantasies were weird, but they do not reflect my true self. I can see porn as a tool now.
I grew up religious so its always been viewed negatively. I don’t think I have an addiction just habits. But perhaps I should understand them better and be more intentional
I hate this bullshit “research doesnt show addiction”. I had a phase where i would work from home and do nothing but watch porn. Weed + poppers + porn + most intense orgasms really does rewire your brain to crave some specific visuals. Im my case all that extreme bnwo stuff. It is funny how they quote a research from 2013, over a decade old, in an internet age where things change by the year. Porn nowadays is not the boring porn where you have one scene over 30 min or so, but rather trippy captioned high intensity videos with scenes switching every fractions of a second. More often than not with humiliating captions about your porn addiction. The addiction itself became a fetish for many people, including me. So dear doctor, wake up and update your data
It’s been a slow process for me to move away from my religious upbringing that drilled into me porn is bad. Now that I’m not religious, I’m trying to slowly rewrite that story and replace it with more positive feelings. This education really helps me, because it breaks the stories aren’t true. It’s really crazy though how challenging it can be change the feelings of shame that were internalized at a young age. But I’m hopeful.
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Porn is good if you select. And it’s ok to have wiered desire.
I’ve never had a problem with porn
I’ve always felt the same about porn as if it’s to turn ya on more during sex
Since I started getting ED, I rely heavily on porn. Having an erection is fine but keeping it is nearly impossible without continuous stimulation. I feel like I’m always timing myself about how long it stays without stimulation and most likely causing myself more anxiety adding to the problem.
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I seem to have developed an unhealthy perception of porn. I feel shame when I watch it now that I am divorced.
Prior to that I would watch it occasionally but it never really affected my sex life.