(NSFW) How does someone stop looking at porn?

I think porn can be healthy. It’s unhealthy (I’m reluctant to use the word “addiction” which gets bandied about for sex-related activities a lot without any concrete definition) at the point which it actually has a detrimental effect on a person’s life. I guess that goes without saying. But I don’t think porn is necessarily a problem and I think for some people it can actually be healthy to enjoy.

To be honest, I think it would be very difficult, once the habit starts and the person derives a lot of sexual pleasure from it. The sex drive, particularly in us men, is extremely powerful, and when we become addicted to porn, our brains become “hard-wired” so to speak to this pleasure seeking tool. If it’s accessible, it will be used. If it’s not, then it can’t be used. But as we all know, porn is readily accessible today, much, much more than it was say 45 years ago. If it exists, we men will find a way to it. I think most straight men have viewed and enjoyed porn. In fact, for a straight man not to, that would be atypical. We are only satisfying a drive, much like food for hunger. Some forms of porn are bad——for example, the kinds that involve extreme sadism to degrade and torture women (and men). But soft porn, involving love and even kinky sex, can add a lot to the experience and be a positive thing.

If you want to stop something and you can’t for whatever reason and it’s affecting you negatively, that’s an addiction, whether or not I have a problem with porn (I don’t). I am not addicted, I have not looked at porn for over a month, even though my boyfriend and I both agree that we don’t mind each other looking at it. Porn can turn into an addiction for some people, but just because a person likes looking at it every now and then does mean it’s an addiction and does not mean there’s anything wrong with that.

Is it really an addiction? There are healthy ways to make porn part of your love life, like watching it with a partner or using it to get new ideas. The key is that porn adds some fun to your sex life and that it isn’t your entire sex life.

I believe it can become a serious addiction and cause all sorts of problems. If you ask me.. Many people enjoy watching it to get “in the mood” and usually thats how people get started watching it.. Then they get to the point slowly to where thet watch it every day… Which is where the problem comes in..
To stop maybe you could find an accountability partner (if your asking how to stop yourself) and they would ask you if you have watched it lately, and/or keep a close eye on your internet usage sites/history. Or this person can get a parental security thing set up on the computer(s) so that all the sites are blocked from being viewed.

Something else to consider: porn can be a major part of a healthy sex life with yourself. Nothing wrong with that.

As long as it’s not interfering with your relationships and/or life, I don’t think it’s a problem that needs solving. If it is interfering, I imagine it’s much like quitting any other bad habit… difficult, but doable. Block the sites, get busy doing something else (a positive something else), reward yourself for small successes, etc. If those methods don’t do the trick, maybe a few weeks in a cabin with no TV or internet access would help.

Aside from the commercialization and objectification of the human body and sexuality and aside from the exploitative nature of the porn industry, porn is only a problem if it causes you problems. For example, if it replaces normal friendships and relationships. There is nothing morally wrong with “fantasy aides” otherwise.

I’ve heard people speak highly of accountability programs.

I’d like to see the lot of you talking about the moral neutrality of porn post your reasonings.

I didn’t stop for moral reasons. It became boring to me, same old stuff.

Although I can’t imagine it, I have read that people can become addicted to it. I suppose when you have an addictive personality, any addiction is possible.

I guess you can become addicted to anything these days, it only takes a group of psychiatrists to say so, or some religious group. Having a Hustler under your mattress for occasional stress relief is not hurting anyone. Now when you have a subscription sent to a neighbors house because you live with your parents, that suggests that one’s energies need to be focused on other things, more productive things. Like getting a job, my own place, and maybe a real girl. It’s funny how much you can say about yourself on this site, I’m hooked. I am addicted to Fluther, I need a twelve step Fluther meeting. I’m just joking. I love porn. Thanks for the responses, but can we step it up a notch, it’s just sex. I left some video’s with a friend for safe keeping, they exchanged many hands, by the time I got them back the homemade porn vids I made of myself were gone. Now I have to retrace and interrogate all these people because the girl in them would kill me, literally, if she knew some stranger had our sex tapes.

I used to watch porn almost every day, then I mostly quit for no particular reason. Didn’t have any withdrawals or anything. I can’t imagine needing porn, but I’m sure it’s possible to get addicted to.

Seriously, I stopped watching so much porn when I started going out and meeting women. I used to masturabate all the time, but now I save my energy for women.

The best way to eliminate porn from your life is to eliminate all the possible ways you can access it and then slowly bring them back into your life. Watching porn can definitely become an addiction and at the point it does, it usually starts to become destructive in your life (just like any addiction). I will agree to some extent that watching porn isn’t an issue as long as you personally have no moral reservations about it and as long as your gf/bf has no issues with it then anything in moderation isn’t bad. I will however say that there are a lot of issues with the porn industry and IMO would never financially support it. I also just recently read something about how porn effected our personal sex lives. The article basically said what I did above but also listed some sexual deficiencies that can be traced back to watching a significant amount of porn.

@critter1982 I’d be very curious to see that article. Is it available online?

Link to Article+Health++Text%29

You may or may not want to ignore the website that this is posted on, however the source comes from Ian Kerner PhD.

The word “addiction” has some carry-over connotations – usually it’s in reference to people that are chemically addicted to things versus habitually. If you feel it’s a bad habit, try to cut back – or instead of watching porn ritually every night, watch a movie instead or go for a jog.

I don’t view it as a harmful addiction – possibly very loosely desensitizing, but I dont think it’s harmful to your health.