What you watch may alter your tastes
Porn, especially violent and BDSM porn, is made for adults, and not for teens. This material is sophisticated and intense, and requires maturity to understand and incorporate it. While I am against censorship, I do think it is important to recognize that these portrayals can be confusing and even warping, when they are viewed by youth who have not received effective, pragmatic and real-world sex education. ~ David Ley PhD (private communication – Ley is infamously pro-porn and anti-porn addiction, but still warning of the effects of today’s porn on adolescents.)
For many porn users, tastes shift—generally escalating to more hard-core material. Moreover, the hotter the porn someone starts with, the greater the risk that he/she will need something even hotter before long. Anecdotal evidence also suggests that the earlier someone starts viewing extreme material, the steeper the escalation and the tighter the grip of compulsion. This last possibility is disturbing, because today’s young computer users start out with porn that is far more explicit than Playboy magazines. As they habituate to the porn they start with, some users find kinkier, more violent, more taboo materials compelling thanks to dopamine-related conditioning.
On the plus side, staying away from all porn and porn fantasy slowly reverses these trends. But rebooting the brain takes time and unaccustomed willpower. Relapse beckons invitingly, and strengthens the unwanted brain pathways. Most users only undertake the heroic feat of rebooting when they realize they are having erectile difficulties with real partners, or when they grow unbearably anxious about where their random search for heightened arousal has landed them. At that point, however, their anxiety itself can become a powerful trigger, demanding relief. A prime example of this phenomenon is HOCD (homosexual obsessive-compulsive disorder): straight males turned on by transsexual or homosexual porn. (But there are other possible, more distressing destinations, such as child porn.)
The following story, recounted by a twenty-year old, is one of about a dozen similar accounts that have come my way in the last year (this post is rather dated):
My friends were all talking about Internet porn and the incredible erotic movies online. So the very day I got the Internet I went to porn sites. After awhile, the typical porn wasn’t really a turn on, so I shifted over to lesbian porn, which was exceptionally arousing. (Wow TWO women having sex with EACH OTHER?!)
Years passed, and one day while searching for lesbian porn I came across an ad for shemale porn. I can’t really explain what happened. I’d never been attracted to it before in my life, but, all of a sudden, the idea of a woman with a penis seemed so…exciting? I don’t know if that’s the right word.
Something just snapped in my head, like it was a new “high.” The lesbian porn now seemed ordinary. I could tell something wasn’t quite right, because as I masturbated, I actually felt physically sick. I was thinking, “This just DOES NOT feel right, but it arouses me. Why?”
I decided to stop. After a week of no masturbating (VERY hard for this 15-year old boy), I went back to normal porn. My attraction for women and vaginas was great, and arousing again. But then I started looking at “Futanari,” artwork of women with a penis and a vagina. This was another “buzz” for me. Then I went back to shemale porn.
These last 4-5 years have been very confusing. Socially, I’m attracted to women and I have no attraction to men. It’s almost as if the more I FEAR shemale porn arousing me, the more it does, if that makes sense.
I thought I might be bisexual for a while. I tested the idea while on a night out. I ended up flirting with a girl, and looking at the other women thinking, “That girl just looked at me, great!” and completely ignoring the men. I don’t “feel” bisexual in my heart. If I had the same romantic feelings I have for women, for men, I’d be bi/gay in a heartbeat, but the romance, the “naturalness,” just isn’t there.
However, after masturbating to shemale porn, I worry that I could be gay/bisexual. Weird. ‘Cause whenever I’m about to ejaculate, I immediately think of a woman and vagina. I have ALWAYS done this, even when viewing shemale porn. I always imagine myself having sex with a beautiful woman. Deep down I know I’m a straight guy. In real life I can’t not talk to girls. I’m just drawn to them.
My shemale addiction escalated further, to where I was masturbating to it an average of 4-5 times each day, having no energy and not going out. I stayed at home to masturbate instead of going to college. Then, fairly recently, I was shocked to find a man in a shemale porn movie arousing. This was literally the final straw for me, and I began to realize that I actually have a worsening addiction.
This is the stage I’m at now, confused because, after a couple of days of not masturbating, I get aroused by straight, solo girl and lesbian porn. But with shemale porn I can binge longer. I’ve masturbated like 9-11 times in one day, although the porn gets more and more “taboo” and “naughty,” to me, the more I masturbate. A typical pattern would be 1-3 the videos are straight, 4-6 shemale, 7-9th time they will be gay/me being dominated. It is pretty confusing.
Recently, I went away with my family for 3-4 days and was well away from computer and Internet. I hardly ever thought about shemale porn. I remember walking along the beach thinking it would be really romantic if I had a girl with me. Then I laughed at myself, remembering how confused I was even though the romantic thoughts in my head are always about women. When I got back home I masturbated to straight porn for a couple of days. Then, back to shemale porn.
I bet if I had been born 10 years earlier, and never seen that first shemale ad, this would’ve never happened, but hey, can’t change the past. I’m going to try really hard to change my future though!
I speculate that in the near future this problem will gain increasing attention as the next generation—who have practically been born with Internet access and all of that porn available at the click of a mouse—will suffer much worse than I have. I think when I’ve got through this, I’m going to donate some money to an anti-porn organization, who, I’ll be honest, before I thought were a bunch of killjoys.
Basically I’m still a virgin because of this damn addiction. I did have a girlfriend for a few weeks. I noticed I was masturbating hardly at all and thinking about her instead. Hell, I was so excited I even managed to get an erection through some tight jeans she bought for me (wrong size). It felt like they were going to make my balls explode. Ha ha! I want to find an amazing girlfriend and have a really great time with her. I don’t want to be sitting in my bedroom masturbating to porn for the rest of my life.
I speculate that in the near future this problem will gain increasing attention as the next generation—who have practically been born with Internet access and all of that porn available at the click of a mouse—will suffer much worse than I have. I think when I’ve got through this, I’m going to donate some money to an anti-porn organization, who, I’ll be honest, before I thought were a bunch of killjoys.The part of the brain that governs sex and eating is so primitive that it assesses the value of an activity according to how much dopamine it releases. When a user finds something superstimulating, his primitive (limbic) brain assumes there’s something valuable around, and urges him to exploit it fully.
Unfortunately, it may do so by temporarily numbing his pleasure response so he goes only for bigger-than-normal bursts of dopamine, that is, more shocking or novel stimuli. Unlike our ancestors, today’s porn users can always find something more brain-jolting.
Porn roulette can lead to unwanted destinations, but the issue is not specific content. The problem lies in the intensity of initial overstimulation—in this guy’s case, the straight porn. That’s where the cravings for something stronger begin. Notice that his tastes shift back whenever he stops using Internet porn. Recovery may mean foregoing masturbation to orgasm for a time, simply because his brain may not be sensitive enough initially to orgasm without porn or porn fantasy. Daunting in today’s culture.
Users think of the “best” porn as the porn that gets them off the fastest or most explosively, but that may be the riskiest porn. Not all brains will be equally affected, of course. Yet superstimuli can make it more likely that a user’s tastes will morph in unexpected and anxiety-producing directions.
Young brains are very plastic, but even so, this young man’s subsequent posts show that he is really struggling, not totally successfully, to stay away from porn. In his case, his confusion over his tastes is strongly linked in his brain to arousal, apparently making anxiety part of the compulsive ritual. Incidentally, there is a very active forum for distressed men caught in this form of anxious compulsion.
Bottom line: A brain hijacked during porn roulette can land just about anywhere. Which is great…if you like the destination.
For empirical support see – Over 30 studies reporting findings consistent with escalation of porn use (tolerance), habituation to porn, and even withdrawal symptoms (all signs and symptoms associated with addiction).
Also see –
- Who is attracted to ‘shemales’ – Who are gynandromorphophilic men? Characterizing men with sexual interest in transgender women (2015)
- Are Sexual Tastes Immutable? – It’s time to distinguish ‘sexual orientation’ from reversible ‘sexual tastes’
- Can You Trust Your Johnson? – Is Internet porn making male sexuality more plastic?
- Exposure Therapy for HOCD? Porn-related HOCD may call for its own treatment protocol
- Did porn warp me forever? (Salon.com)
A comment on this article from reader at Psychology Today
Just wanted to thank you for your article, Losing At Porn Roulette.
Almost word for word, I have gone through the exact same thing as a young men in your article, and reading your words was like lifting a mask of someone else’s face off of mine. I just started so early with the Internet,I never really had a chance to form my own identity: rather, I was assigned one by the dopamine downward spiral combined with limitless Internet access.
I know I’m not that person, and have been confused by having the same symptoms as the young men in your article; I’ve actually held back from forming romantic relationships because of this. There’s just something so powerful about seeing my exact thoughts, symptoms and worries, from the perspective of a fellow man.
You don’t know how much you have helped me. Thank you so much.
A comment on this article from reader at Psychology Today
SImilar things have happened to me as well. For a while I thought I might be latently gay/bi or something. In my heart I know I am really attracted to girls. the longer I go without porn, the less intense it needs to be, or I even really want it. If I go 3 weeks to a month, I can easily masturbate once or twice to pictures of naked girls. after that I go back to hardcore movies, and sometimes eventually to shemales and sometimes gay.
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