Looking for greater contentment? Know thy brain.
Sexual fantasy has long been touted as a way to meet sexual needs or fill the gap between mates’ out of sync libidos. This assumes sexual desire is like hunger: you simply eat (or orgasm) until you’ve had enough. Obviously, if you have a bigger or more varied appetite than your mate, you’ll add snacks, or masturbate, as the case may be.
Many people view orgasms as they do dietary staples. If fast food is a valuable convenience because it gets you fed sooner, your favorite fantasy is valuable because it gets you off faster, or with a bigger blast of neurochemicals.
Could there be more to the story? Just as some kinds of food trigger cravings and binging, perhaps some kinds of sexual fantasy do, too (i.e., whatever gets you really aroused). For example, make sugary foods a habit, and you are likely to yearn for them even when you have no desire for healthy food, that is, even when your body does not need to eat. You aren’t looking for nutrients, but rather for a brief rush of the brain chemical dopamine, which soon drops off again—leaving you anxious for more.
Similarly, the more you fantasize about that three-way or kinky partner, the more intrusive and stronger those thoughts seem to become. You wire nerve cells together to construct a pathway connecting your internal movie with sexual arousal. As a result, fantasizing can lead to playing something over in your mind like a damaged CD. As you jack up your dopamine with each promise of pleasure, cravings for orgasm may rise far above previous baseline libido. Your increasing frustration can make it that much harder to find satisfaction. At the same time, your brain may become desensitized to the real deal. Said one woman,
I enjoy fantasizing to porn scenarios. But now I keep it to a bare minimum, because when I had sex with my husband again orgasm seemed difficult.
An urge you enhance with fantasy is different from your healthy need to connect deeply with another person. Loud neurochemical “GOTTA GET IT!” signals arising from fantasy can dysregulate your brain’s reward circuitry—and skew your priorities. When this primitive part of your brain releases more exciting neurochemicals during your fantasy than during sex with your partner, part of you will actually value your fantasy above your mate. This creates inner conflict and may mislead you about the benefits of warm affection and close, trusted companionship (both of which have been shown to enhance well-being).
Fantasy is widely assumed to be harmless, whatever its content. However, just as in the case of food, type and quantity of sexual stimulation seem to matter at a brain chemical level. One man said of his experience:
There are a lot of problems with being too intense with sexual fantasies. I’ve noticed a ratcheting effect: once I act upon a fantasy, the fantasy becomes less interesting, and then I have to move on to something more intense and even less realistic, kinda like porn escalation. The reality of enacting a fantasy rarely matches the expectation, and many fantasies would not be healthy for a relationship if acted on.
Is too much fantasy a problem for you?
Are you climaxing with increasing frequency, or to more extreme scenarios? Do you experience demanding cravings, which don’t abate for long even when you orgasm to your fantasy? Do you feel angry when your mate does not meet your “needs” for, say, domination games or making home videos? Is your anxiety increasing? Are you isolating more? Are you moody or irritable? Are your erections weaker? Do you quest endlessly to find that perfect video of your fantasy so you’ll be satisfied at last? (Good luck with that.)
If you are experiencing such things, then more, or hotter, orgasms are not the answer. It could be time to seek satisfaction via another route. A version of the following technique helps obsessive-compulsive disorder patients rewire their brains. An OCD sufferer believes that if he can just check that the stove is off enough times, he’ll feel at ease. Instead, his anxiety grows because he is activating an unhelpful brain loop each time he checks. He only begins to weaken the loop when he doesn’t act on his impulses. In other words, the more you do it, the more you want to do it; the less you do it, the less you want to do it.
Instead of trying to exhaust your sexual frustration via more fantasy, let the air out of your fantasy. Allow that brain loop to weaken from neglect. Stop climaxing to your fantasy. Stop searching the Internet to find videos of it. Each time it pops into your mind, say to yourself playfully, “Reject!” Imagine a loud buzzer going off in your head, and visualize stamping a big red circle with a slash through it over your flashback image with a clang. Immediately turn your attention elsewhere.
As you stop stimulating those familiar brain pathways, the connections at the synapses of the related nerve cells actually weaken, and the fantasy loosens its death grip. Take care not to wrestle the fantasy, call it names, or label it (or yourself!) “sick” or “sinful.” Don’t try to analyze whether you’re making progress. Such tactics increase anxiety. (If you establish a link between anxiety and arousal, you could find yourself wanting to orgasm whenever you’re stressed.)
At first this process is challenging, seems pointless, and increases frustration. Your brain wants its fix of exciting neurochemicals and withdrawal is uncomfortable. No matter how much inner turmoil you feel while applying the technique, it is what you do that counts. Your goal now is to gently disconnect all fantasy from your natural sexual arousal, and allow your brain to return to balance. It will take patience and consistency, but it can be done.
You’ll know your new approach is working when your sexual arousal arises naturally without fantasy. That’s an excellent sign; your brain is rewiring itself. You are also likely to discover two things: (1) your need for orgasm is far less than you imagined while you were using fantasy to climax, and (2) reality is a lot more fulfilling as the sensitivity of your brain increases.
One man, who had been seething with resentment and dissatisfaction for years because he was convinced that anal sex with his unwilling wife was his only path to happiness, stopped fantasizing about it and seeking out anal-sex porn. After a month, he posted:
I feel increasingly attracted to my wife and find it easier to forget my resentful feelings. The strife seemed to come from entertaining my fantasy, instead of concentrating on the immediate reality during sex.
For years, that fantasy appeared during sex when the sex in no way resembled the fantasy. My interactions with nearly all women were, fundamentally, overshadowed by the initial thought of ‘what if this one would let me…’ The fantasy twice brought me within a 10-minute car-ride of infidelity. I let it waste hundreds of irretrievable hours.
Remember, the thoughts and images that make your genitals jump may be little more than cartoons, random cues you have inadvertently wired to activate your brain’s reward circuitry. Your brain falsely values such cues because they release exciting neurochemicals, so it keeps signaling that you need another fantasy-based orgasm. Over the long haul, however, contentment appears to be a product of balanced brain chemistry, plus intimacy (or lots of friendly social interaction), rather than frequency of orgasm. This is easier to see once your brain is back in balance.
What helps in the meantime? Vigorous exercise, friendly social contact, daily bonding behaviors with your mate, daily meditation, dancing, partner yoga, time in nature, playful or caring interaction with family and pets, cutting back on sugar and caffeine, and many other well-being practices.
Sexual fantasy seems like a sure way to increase your happiness. Yet if your angst is increasing, you could be looking for satisfaction where it can’t be found. More and hotter orgasms offer fleeting relief, but they do not satisfy more completely or for longer. In short, not all orgasms are like dietary staples. Some have more in common with Fritos.
Once you have allowed your brain to come back into balance, you may find that the occasional orgasm—the product of a fantasy-free, sensual encounter—eases frustration better than a fantasy-sex binge. You may even care to try a more radical approach to lovemaking.
Compilation of triggers (collected by guys quitting porn)
Guy’s report from forum
I started [3 months ago] It has been one hell of a ride and a mixed bag of results – but in the end it was all worth it. This is my report.
I decided to do this after experiencing ED with one of the most gorgeous girls I had ever seen. She was into me from the day she met me. We went out a few times and ended up in bed. This didn’t go so well. We were drunk, and she ended up doing most of the work. The next morning, she wanted to go again but I just couldn’t do it. I knew it was time for a change.
Porn was never really a thing for me. I’d fap to my own fantasies and I’d do it 1-2 times a day. This has been going on since I was in grade school. There were times (such as college) when I had girlfriends and the fapping would slow down because I was getting laid, but I never truly stopped. Over the last several years, I just felt I didn’t really need sex so I just stuck to fapping.
The first few days were NOT the most difficult for me. On the contrary, the first few weeks were the easiest. Sometime around the third week, I started experiencing my triggers. My fantasies would come to mind and my body would beg for an orgasm. Fighting this took everything I had. Every few seconds, I had to redirect my thoughts. It was brutal, but it worked.
Sometime after the fourth week, I started noticing some very interesting changes – my penis looks bigger. I’m not entirely sure why. It is fuller, rounder, and healthy looking. My energy levels are better than ever. I’m not necessarily bouncing off walls, but I have this intrinsic ability to push forth through work, school, and other activities – whereas before, I’d be taking nap and snack breaks every so often.
I did this on hard mode, but I still fooled around with a couple of girls here and there, but I never had any orgasms.
Overall, I’d say this journey was definitely worth it. The sexual fantasies that once owned me are no more – just blurry images from the past that have no impact on me whatsoever.
I had told myself I can go back to fapping after the 90 days, but you know what – I don’t feel I need it. If I start fapping again I may just fall back into that vicious cycle. So, today I say no thanks. I don’t feel I need to fap anymore. I think I will just continue dating and keep moving forward with my new lifestyle.
Fantasies will fade away and die as long as you don’t continue “
One of my main triggers after giving up porn has been these damn fantasies, some of them would last just a few seconds, but others when my brain is “idle” , like when trying to fall asleep, and often involved long detailed fantasies. It would rarely lead to full blown Fapping, (more like a fondling, or what I would refer to as mind-masturbation.
I’m on day 62 of my reboot and surprisingly the fantasies are now fading away, and I’m guessing it’s the neuropathways in my brain restructuring, and not crying out for that little squirt of Dopamine.
In a way it is like letting go of “an old friend”, one that I could visit with people all around me, and no-one ever had a clue. In my early stages of reboot I would still go to that all familiar “happy place”, even though I knew better, but because I had been fantasizing for 10+ years it was a hard place to give up visiting.
So there is a bit of a melancholy here, but I now am noticing that because they are fading that my brain is (finally) healing.
I just wanted to share this amazing breakthrough I’m experiencing! If anyone else has the same problems with fantasies, it may take awhile, but they will fade away and die as long as you don’t continue “feeding” them!
UPDATES
- An official diagnosis? The world’s most widely used medical diagnostic manual, The International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11), contains a new diagnosis suitable for porn addiction: “Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorder.” (2018)
- Porn/sex addiction? This page lists 39 neuroscience-based studies (MRI, fMRI, EEG, neuropsychological, hormonal). They provide strong support for the addiction model as their findings mirror the neurological findings reported in substance addiction studies.
- The real experts’ opinions on porn/sex addiction? This list contains 16 recent literature reviews & commentaries by some of the top neuroscientists in the world. All support the addiction model.
- Signs of addiction and escalation to more extreme material? 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).
- Debunking the unsupported talking point that “high sexual desire” explains away porn or sex addiction: At least 25 studies falsify the claim that sex & porn addicts “just have high sexual desire”
- Porn and sexual problems? This list contains 26 studies linking porn use/porn addiction to sexual problems and lower arousal to sexual stimuli. The first 5 studies in the list demonstrate causation, as participants eliminated porn use and healed chronic sexual dysfunctions.
- Porn’s effects on relationships? Almost 60 studies link porn use to less sexual and relationship satisfaction. (As far as we know all studies involving males have reported more porn use linked to poorer sexual or relationship satisfaction.)
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