So this may seem crazy to some, but I am legitimately wondering if porn can cause people to have gender dysphoria. While exploring the pornfree and nofap subreddits I have seen a few people mention how porn has transformed their sexual fetishes and even their sexual orientation.
I am a straight man, but I’d be lying if I said porn hadn’t make me think about doing some homosexual things at times. I was wondering if in extreme cases can it go as far as to make you question your gender? Do you guys think certain people are more susceptible to this? For example people with other underlying phycological issues or trauma? I did a little research and I couldn’t find any studies done on this subject. I suspect this is because the question is taboo and research on porn in general is limited.
But I did find this reddit post about gender dysphoria and porn addiction. The man was considering transitioning to a woman. However, he was worried he was being influenced by his addiction to sissy/forced-fem porn. He posted the question on the asktransgender subreddit. Majority of the people responding were transgender and thought the idea that porn could change your identity was ridiculous. I am curious if the pornfree community thinks porn is partly why there are so many more LGBTQ people now days. Are the people who are saying porn has a 0% chance of changing someone in denial?
Reply by reliable401k
As someone who has been experiencing this at ground zero over the past few months: absolutely, unequivocally yes.
I was a straight man for the first 29 years of my life, without question. Zero percent interest in any sort of transgender sexuality, pornography, etc. I used to say to people that I was “zero percent gay, even after having experimented.” Which is true: I tried, without any fear or embarrassment, experimenting with other guys, and learned that it just wasn’t really for me. I like girls, and that’s okay.
However, over the past year, my interests in porn have taken a serious turn towards the extreme, and commensurate with that was an upending of my sexual identity, and not in a good way.
This is not to suggest that there’s anything wrong with transgenderism or gender dysphoria itself, of course. But I knew, instinctively, that what was happening to me wasn’t natural at all. It was self-inflicted, honestly—I could feel myself pushing the bounds of my sexuality, trying to reach that new taboo, to reach new heights of bizarro perversion, and alongside that came territory that my “normal” sexual self would not at all be okay with, and I know that now. I was warping my brain in a seriously unnatural way.
So from a personal/lived experience perspective, yes, I think this can definitely happen to someone, although I can’t speak to others’ experiences.
The question of whether or not pornography has led to an increase in LBGTQ population is a very difficult and thorny one. It becomes a question or whether or not the increased numbers of LBGTQ people represents (a) a broader cultural acceptance of an already existing population, leading to a statistical increase, or (b) the result of a sexually distorted culture causing people to become more confused than they would otherwise be. No one really wants to think about the possibility of (b), myself included, and I’m not even sure it’s true. It’s an unpleasant and scary idea, and one that is essentially impossible to measure empirically at this point given the lack of data around porn, its effects on the brain, and the prevalence of non-cis sexual identity over the past century. As it is, I (who obviously have no authority to really speak on this, I’m just some guy rambling on the internet so take this with a huge grain of salt) suspect that it’s somewhere in the middle. It is self-evident that there are people out there who are gay, lesbian, transgender, non-binary, etc etc amen; that is who they are, that is how they were born, and that’s just the size of it, and I’m perfectly fine with that. However, I do suspect that the overemphasis and highlighting of these relatively unusual populations, combined with the prevalence of porn and the general coarsening of culture, has probably led to more people self-identifying with these groups than would otherwise be the case. I mean, Americans think that 20% of people are gay, when in reality it’s more like 5%. That doesn’t mean it’s not okay to be gay—just that people don’t understand other people.
Reply by asaberxd26
YES!
When I was 14 or 15 and had just discovered porn, I was really into lesbian stuff. I was so addicted to it that it made me fantasize about being a woman.
Luckily those days are behind me now.
Reply bymakeit2tomorrow
As a gay woman who has struggled with this addiction since around 11, even though I am now about 2 months clean (lots of ups and downs over the past 12 years), I still sometimes get hella dysphoric about my gender. I’m not sure if I can source wanting to sometimes be a male 100% from porn, but I think it probs plays a role.
This isn’t even up for debate. There’s tons of guys into crossdressing that moved over to full on transgenderism that without issue acknowledge they got sucked in through porn, more extreme porn and finally sissy/trap porn. There’s literally an entire genre of ‘sissy hypno’ porn.
Reply bySgtPepper052667
Yes I believe this is valid. In the throes of my past heavy porn usage I got so consumed by the fascination of watching women get used up and it eventually lead to me wishing I were a woman at times so that I could be the ultimate slut and indulge in the pleasures of the flesh and be used myself by other men. I even bought myself a few items of women’s clothing and did my own makeup once. It probably would have continued if it weren’t for my girlfriend feeling weird about all of it. I think porn definitely played the main character in all of that though. However I am definitely not straight and that is not up for debate with myself.
Reply by HaylingZar1996
I think it definitely is possible. Consider this – when you are watching porn and masturbating, you are conditioning your brain to be aroused by certain stimuli. Even if you only watch straight pornography, you are conditioning yourself to be aroused not only by the female but also the male. Eventually, this may reach the point that the brain naturally associates seeing a penis with arousal, even for a man who would consider himself straight. As a result, excessive pornography usage may cause one to question their sexuality in a way that they might not have before.
Reply by Sepulchritudinous
If you repeatedly pleasure yourself to certain imagery for a long time, you train yourself to associate the things you see with pleasure and orgasm. And you may feel turned on just from thinking about something that was in that imagery, e.g. a penis (or voyeurism, various kinks, etc.).
Reddit and various forums overflow with threads where guys ask if they might be gay/bi. And it’s usually the same story. They’re not actually attracted or into guys, they’re just turned on by dicks/cum, because they’ve been abusing porn.
Reply by ej_warsgaming
I sure this can happens, I mean you are watching other men penises over and over. porn is so bad, and kids start around age of 8 with pornography
Reply by ktreektree
Whole genres of porn are designed with hypnotic like effects and tools with this very thing in mind. These hypno or also called “mindfuck”/ “mindwash” “confusion” genres are designed to do just what you claim.
Reply by Spicy_Zilean
Porn causes a whole array of different psychological problems, could be quite possible that gender dysphoria is one of them, especially if you’re exposed to porn in your formative years (and who isn’t these days)
Reply by FreshPandaSamurai
I tried being with men after being obsessed with the idea of experiencing the pleasure I see women have in porn. It didn’t went well. It wasn’t awful but it just wasn’t in me, it was an expectation created by porn.
Reply by throwawayacc28388444
Yes, OP, I experienced this first hand, back when I was getting into more messed up genres, I started watching shemale Porn and watching porn itself by 11 anyway.. wanted to be a transgender fucked by a guy. Constantly and let me tell you, I am 100% straight guy and have dated women and never had sexual thoughts about men before porn … thinking about kissing or having sex with a guy discomforts me and make me physically feel sick. You’re not gay if this started from watching porn, if you was gay, you’d “just know it” feeling. Porn fucks up your mind, and for the love of God, please please stay away from sissy hypnosis this is the most damaging. I still cannot go a day without getting depressed about watching all that trash or whenever I hear the word “transgender” or anything of the sort, those bad memories happen. The reboot will take longer than 90 days, in my experience it took a year adding all the days up and I’m still not fully recovered. I have pied really bad too. Good luck op.
LINK – Is it possible for porn to cause someone to have gender dysphoria?
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