According to various studies , the average age that someone starts watching porn is between 11 and 12 years old. Around 70% of teens consumed pornography at least once per week. With this in mind, a person graduating from college likely has a decade of consistent exposure to porn. 

But is watching porn harmful for your mental and physical health, your relationships, and your sexual development? In this article, we will examine how long-term porn use can impact your well-being.

Porn Addiction is Strongly Associated with Sexual Dysfunction

One of the most common and troubling effects of porn addiction is sexual dysfunction . This refers to any problem that prevents a person from enjoying or performing sexually. 

A shockingly high rate of dysfunction was discovered in a 2 year observation of adolescent males (age 16-21). 78.6% reported a sexual problem during partnered sexual activity over the period.

Specifically:

• Erectile dysfunction  (45%)
• Low desire (46%)
• difficulty orgasming (24%)

Research reinforces the correlation between porn addiction and sexual dysfunction.

Furthermore, thousands of anecdotal reports show that quitting porn reverses sexual dysfunctions caused by porn addiction. As a result, urologists often prescribe quitting porn as a treatment option for patients who do not have a problem "below the belt."

Examples of sexual dysfunction include:

• Difficulty achieving or maintaining an erection during sex
• Delayed ejaculation (and sometimes inability to orgasm during sex)
• Premature ejaculation
• Lack of libido for real-life partners, but seemingly high libido for pornography

Porn Addiction can Lead to Mental Health Issues

People who have formed a porn addiction are  frequently diagnosed with mental health issues  like social anxiety, low self-esteem, concentration problems, lack of motivation, depression, and performance anxiety.

Causes of mental health issues:

• Accumulation of CREB in the brain reduces dopamine produced from everyday activities. This can cause depression.
• A malfunctioning stress system in the brain leads to withdrawal symptoms when away from the addiction.
• Escalating into more extreme content can cause panic due to the belief that their sexual orientations have changed, or that they must be closet perverts.
• Fear that they will never be able to have intimacy due to sexual dysfunctions.

I never looked forward to much of anything: dreaded going to work, and never saw socializing with friends and family as all that great, especially in comparison to my porn rituals, which gave me more pleasure and stimulation than anything else. With the addiction gone, little things make me really happy. I find myself laughing often, smiling for no real reason, and just being in good spirits all around.

Staying off porn really makes a difference! I thought it was impossible to quit porn to the point of contemplating castration and suicide. Here’s one thing I actually didn’t know that helped me out: People who view ‘transsexual’ porn do it because of all the stimulation, and even the producers admit that they make this fetish for a straight audience. My thoughts that I might have been bi/ gay were more of an optical/ psychological illusion.

Porn Addiction Leads to Watching More Shocking Content

Another possible effect of porn addiction is content escalation. This refers to the need to watch more extreme or diverse porn genres to achieve the same level of arousal or satisfaction as before.

Content escalation can occur because of the brain's adaptation to repeated exposure to porn, which reduces the dopamine response and creates a tolerance. To overcome this tolerance, a person may seek out more novel, intense, or taboo content that they may not have been interested in before.

Because continued internet porn use leads to desensitization (tolerance), long-term porn users inevitably escalate into more extreme genres. This is because the brain  seeks more dopamine via novelty, shock, forbidden content, kink, etc .

This often prompts long-term porn users to wonder  if it's possible to be addicted to porn .

Society attempts to write this off as if these people are discovering their true sexuality, but really these preferences are induced by years of exposure to porn.

I’m tired of hearing, ‘You like what you like’ from people. A lot of the things I look at I don’t like. I just can’t get off to the normal stuff anymore. 

Just like Pavlov’s dog learned to salivate to the bell, today’s porn users risk wiring unexpected stimuli to their own arousal.

This is one of the greatest feelings of all – to know that my fantasies are returning to those of a normal, earth-born and bred, human being. When I stayed away from porn for 5 months all those fantasies and urges were gone

Addicted to Porn?

Porn addiction can affect one's sexual function, mental health, and social relationships. It can also lead to content escalation that exposes one to more extreme or risky porn genres. If you're wondering if a porn habit has turned into an addiction, take the porn addiction assessment test .