Has pornography become a problem?

Perhaps you have found that you are wasting valuable time each night on viewing, or searching for, porn. Perhaps your real-world relationships have suffered as a result. Or perhaps you have found yourself feeling more and more isolated or neglecting your dreams and ambitions. 

Compulsive users of pornography often experience depression, anxiety, and stress. And long-term use can lead to serious problems including erectile dysfunction.

So, what’s behind the compulsion?

When we are aroused by a stimulus and think that we’re about to experience some kind of pleasure, we get a spike of dopamine. (The stimulus could be a sugary cake or a naked, attractive person.) Although we often think of dopamine as the brain’s pleasure chemical, it has nothing whatsoever to do with satisfaction. Instead, it is associated with anticipation. Dopamine tells the brain to “keep going” towards whatever is stimulating the arousal. 

Everything from the sight of good food to the sight of someone we love can stimulate dopamine production, of course. But porn is considered a “supernormal stimulus.” This means that it is a supercharged form of a stimulus that human beings naturally seek (in this case, sex), making it extremely compelling. 

Dopamine also spikes for novelty. And porn sites supply a virtually limitless supply of sexual novelty, making it easy to waste hours at a time, clicking on link after link. 

However, over stimulation makes the brain reduce dopamine. Images that were initially arousing soon lose their effect. To compensate, the habitual porn user might look for more and more extreme forms of pornography (including, sometimes, those that he would naturally find repellent).

The brain is plastic. And frequent pornography use has been associated with reduced gray matter and “lower functional connectivity” between the brain’s right and left hemispheres. 

Nevertheless, precisely because the brain is adaptable, you don’t have to be locked into negative habits such as consuming pornography.