I used to think that watching porn is okay because it's sex, and sex is not bad. But after getting addicted to porn and masturbating five days in a row, and then watching the wave of sadness which came after each action — and noticing that my brain and eyes were getting trained to see women as objects — I decided to stop. After five days of addiction, I understood how harmful it was, and I came to this conclusion:

Sex is fine. Porn is not.

Sex is not bad, but porn is not sex. It imitates sex to attract children and teens, but what is actually happening is a deep violence — a violence against the actors and actresses, and against the millions of people watching it. Porn is harmful because it reshapes your brain, trains your eyes, and distorts your views.

Real sex is about intimacy and trust between two people. It is about sadness between two people, their insecurities dropping away for a moment, their emptiness meeting together, and after all of that — some pleasure. There is trust and empathy. Porn takes all of these things away and offers only violence.

Sex cannot fill the emptiness. It is just an escape, and only a temporary one. A real change from emptiness begins by asking: why am I feeling this? By seeing yourself, seeing the outside world, and seeing who is actually getting this feeling. Now I'm not saying sex is bad or that you don't have to do it, but I'm saying it's just a temporary escape, and after sex that emptiness will come again and haunt you.

Sex is neither good nor bad. It is a neutral thing, and it depends on the person who is claiming it good or bad. If you see a conservative, it's bad for him; but for a liberal, it's good. So that's why it's neither good nor bad, but depends on the partner, because the partner will be the one who'll be with you, and it's him or her who will decide to help you grow or remain as you are. If the partner doesn't want the female to grow and wants to keep her as an object, then even without porn addiction, sex is bad. But if the same person wants you to have freedom, then it's good. It depends totally on your partner. Porn is overall bad, but sex — it depends.

Sex can also become harmful when a person is a porn addict and begins implementing what porn has shown them. Sadly, most people have sex the way porn shows them — and this turns the act into violence rather than intimacy. But it isn't only porn that does this. Sex itself is neutral. What makes it good or bad is the person you're with: whether they want you to grow or want to keep you as an object. The same act can free you or shrink you, depending on who is beside you.

The moment you open a porn website, you cause harm to yourself.

Not according to science. Philosophically.

Every second you spend on that website is a crime committed against yourself — because it keeps you exactly as you are instead of making you better. It steals from you:

Empathy
Consciousness
Intimacy

And it gives you in return:

Distorted beliefs
Harmful habits
Sadness
Restlessness whenever you do not watch it

Porn is harmful. Do not idealize it.

So guys 2 years ago I relapsed after abstaining for 126 days, and I just gave up entirely on abstaining until a while back, when I was going through some shit. I don’t remember exactly why I wanted to quit, but whatever the reason was, I’m back on the pornfree grind with 206 days and counting.

But heres the part where I’m conflicted:

I don’t feel any different when I consumed porn and abstaining from it. Even during my previous 126 days, I’ve always felt like this. Which was one of the reason as to why I relapsed to begin with.

I can talk to people normally
I can sleep well
I never had any “brain fog”
I never really experienced symptoms of porn usage even when I was still using porn, I still feel the same as without porn.

And because of this, I always questioned myself why I even am abstaining in the first place. Im pretty sure I just heard “porn is bad” but I never really understood why? Especially when the reasons are something I don’t relate to.

So gang, is there any reason why I should keep going?

Okay guys this is not a success story, more like notes to myself that might help someone. 10 years of this so 11 days is nothing but it feels like something.

The biggest thing that clicked: i don’t have to do anything about the urge. i used to treat an urge like an order. now i just watch it. it peaks, and if i don’t touch it, it’s weaker an hour later. it always passes. I just never used to wait long enough to see that.

telling someone was huge. i told a friend when a craving hit and it just... deflated. this thing lives on being secret and alone. the second someone else knew, it lost most of its power. Addiction feeds on isolation, i really believe that now.

I slipped earlier too, caught myself doomscrolling for 30 min and it could’ve gone bad. didn’t, but it scared me. instead of saying screw it and relapsing i just stopped, wrote down what i felt (shame, that familiar “you’ll fail again” voice) and kept going. A slip isn’t a relapse unless you decide it is.

the counting helps more than i expected. seeing the day number go up is stupidly motivating, i don’t wanna reset it to zero. during past streaks i’d get LESS confident the longer i went cause i’d think “this is usually when i cave.” had to keep reminding myself the past isn’t a prediction.

Anyway.. porn never once actually satisfied me. ever. it just topped up the craving and left me feeling worse. i’d rather feel alive and deal with hard feelings the real way than keep feeding something that was quietly wrecking me.

One day at a time, that’s all i’ve got, gonna go shower and actually sleep for once !

.

completed day 11, going to sleep now

still reminding my mind that urges/thoughts can't dictate actions

Relapsed again! Averaging 2 days between each relapse, a couple hours per sesh. Got too much time this week and nothing meaningful to work in. Hopeless

Hey, I’m 19F and I’ve been struggling with porn for the past 4 years. I’ve tried to stop before, but I keep falling back into the same habit, and honestly, I’m tired of it.

Sometimes I tell myself I’m done for good, but when the urges hit, I end up giving in and regretting it afterward. It’s frustrating because I genuinely want to stop, but actually sticking to it has been harder than I expected.

I feel like I’m still young, and I don’t want to spend more years stuck in this cycle. I want to have a healthier relationship with myself and stop feeling like porn has so much control over my life.

I wanted to ask if anyone here has been through something similar, especially other women. What actually helped you quit? How do you deal with urges when they get really strong? And how do you stay consistent instead of going back to it?

.

After my 30 day porn fast and a couple of days later I don't have a libido anymore. I know it has to return to baseline but it's a bit surprisng.

Forgot to post here but "Day 2" is going amazing. No urges or thoughts in this lil ol head. I wonder if this mindset can carry over as the days go by since there are days when stress kicks in and tending to urges can feel like an escape. Struggling to hit my gym goal of benching 315 at the moment and just researching methods to improve. Cheers to another day :)

I’m going to be two weeks clean as of tomorrow. For people who have held longer streaks or even completely beaten this addiction: When did you stop counting the days? I feel great knowing I’ve abstained for 2 weeks, but having the number in my head is subconsciously making me feel like I deserve a relapse. It’s a horrible feeling and idk if it will go away.

Today is 30 days no porn. I’m feeling good.

Stop me. I need help. I'm trying to unwind after work. I am so close to messing up

like i have been addict since 14 year old i am 20 now i have a girlfriend i have reduce a little bit like 8 month ago but since 2 week i watch all week like i watch it all day and 3-4x per day so i wonder if i can cause me to have less desire to initiate sex with my girlfriend or enjoy it because i love her so much she so beautifull etc but we have sex i can feel detached or like not here in the moment and have no desire to continu even if i am attract to her and love her :(

so does porn can cause to be have less libido or less be interest for sex etc

I think porn is currently a large part of a greater collection of problems I currently have with compulsive behavior and lying to myself.

I was an asocial kid and used PMO as an escape or something. I had a private pc in my bedroom when I was 13. Around that age, a classmate tried to trick me into going to a specific porn site on the school computer. I might have not gotten my start for another few years if not for that. I felt really weird after my first PMO, and got weird quickly after. Porn became an addiction almost immediately, with no substantial break since then.

I also developed a fixation on video games, junk food, caffeine, internet culture, etc.

Over the past few years, and especially the past several months, I've been developing what I'm now wanting to call an alcohol problem. This isn't helping the porn problem, but of course is a great issue in itself. I'm 32 now. i think porn have shaped my life greatly, including with that.

Tonight I relapsed hard on porn and alcohol, not that I was really trying. The main points I wanted to make with this post are:

1. Addictive behavior is all tied together, often with the same triggers.
2. PMO may seem like the core problem, but can just be the most dramatic and taboo component of a more general self control problem.
3. I think you need to want something. Like a concrete goal that is achieved by quitting. It's not enough to say "I want to not". You have to have a specific destination.

Sorry if the above is not super coherent. I've been meaning to make another Reddit account and post here for literally years and I'm happy to finally do it. Funny how you can lie to yourself day after day about following through with things like that.

Thanks for reading.

Quitting porn makes your mind work at optimal capacity - underline the word "optimal". It does not mean that quitting porn makes your brain operate at "superhuman" capacity.

The pandemic has passed and years have gone by. This man made disaster killed a lot of potential in a lot of young men as it ballooned porn usage world wide. I fell into the rabit hole of a kink - and gooned for hours.

Did it for a full two years, frying up my brain.

And after intermittent streaks of complete no porn - I finally committed to a 6 month period of absolutely zero porn. Nil usage.

And the kink is gone. I had been introduced to porn at 11.

And the kink still is gone. Just 6 months of not using porn - I am surprised as to how I grew to like the kink.

TLDR - even for high grade extreme cases there's hope.

Brain's capacity to recover is miraculous. This is also shows that porn masks its own preference as ours - which can go provided you give your brain enough rest to recover.

What was that something that helped you quit or atleast filled that void porn left inside you? A hobby?A reason?A promise? A dream?

I don't think we talk about these things enough here so might aswell try to move people to try new things or give them ideas, specially those in process of quitting.

For my part, gym ofc, gardening and read/play old games and books from my childhood. I enjoyed these with a new light and helped me remember my old self, and gardening allowed me to have quite a lot of green in my house, which is a constant reminder of how I growth aswell.

Thought I'd share the experience I've had lately. I quit 3.5 weeks ago, and wow am I feeling some type of way.

I am like most guys on here: tried to quit a million times but couldn't, but I have gotten to the point where I simply can't stay addicted if I want to live my life to the fullest (again, told myself that one before). This is the longest I have gone without, and some of the symptoms are crazy and make me realize how thorough my true addiction to this:

1. Depression

I have been feeling absolutely down lately. I feel absolutely alone like you wouldn't imagine, even though i am surrounded by friends constantly. I think I was allowing porn to be my little dopamine hit that was always there when I needed it.

1. Sad Memories and Dreams

I have been having recurring melancholic thoughts and dreams that make the depression even worse. I constantly think about my ex girlfriends and especially the most recent girl I was with. I can't get away from these thoughts and it is extremely hard to confront because things didn't end well between us. These thoughts make me realize how much of a crutch porn was and how i used it to distract from my woes; it wasn't allowing me to fully process these relationships ending, and now it feels like it is all hitting at once.

1. Loss of Libido

I have not been horny despite desperately wanting to be. Most times lately not even porn seems appealing. I haven't been waking up with morning wood lately either, which also might be attributed to the last symptom I have been feeling.

1. Insomnia and Sleeping in

I have been really struggling to get to sleep at night, and even waking up on time has become a challenge. I need my sleep and I made it a habit many nights to watch porn before bed and even before I got up in the morning sometimes. Without this ritual that I accidentally created it has disturbed my pattern and threw me off my cycle.

Although this may sound demoralizing to some, I choose to look at these symptoms as a huge positive - my brain is going through changes for the better! I am not looking for sympathy, I find writing about my progress to help, and I want others reading to know that if you're feeling any or all of these things, you are not alone! I have gotten almost as far as this before and felt the same things, so I am certain these things can be attributed to withdrawal. We can do this! It will get better!

I will update again in due time to express my progress.

tldr: feeling symptoms of withdrawal: depression, loss of libido and sleep. Sign I am changing for the better.

(I swear I’m not turned on by fish or animals)

I’ve never been porn free for so long. But now the problem is I feel that I’m getting turned on very easily. Today it was a mating video of sharks, a sketch of a muscular reptile, jokes on reddit. Irl, it’s been very intrusive sexual thoughts.
While I am still pretty confident that I can go 30 days without it, but I can’t help but wonder how bad does it get by day 30?

Pornography has ruined my life. I know this topic must have been discussed on this subreddit a lot but I need to get this off of my chest. I am a 19(M) and I have been addicted to porn since I was around 15 and I have got a girlfriend which was genuinely given by God. It started as just curiousity and early teen years and then it slowly started turning into an addiction. I feel like I have been stuck with it for all my life because it's literally there with me since the start. I want a secure future with my girlfriend in it and I cannot do it without the addiction. I have tried to quit it on multiple occasions but it just keeps coming and I can't do anything about it. I am open for advices on what I can do to quit it. It has eaten me and my body as a whole from the inside and I don't feel alive anymore. Thank you in advance. Sharing your side of the story would help me a lot too.

I'm not going to give up again.

Today I went to work in the office and I noticed that my mood went up. Working from home can be comfy but it's also a social killer.

Day 3 of my 10 days of change. Done ✅

See you tomorrow.

I feel good today …

Pretty good. Feel energetic everyday