Author: Ann Schiebert

Types of Reality Distortion Systems

Porn, Part 1

While  pornography is often used as an adjunct to and stimulant for sexual behavior, watching porn can become a physiological and behavioral addiction.  It intrudes on intimate behavior when one finds himself (usually a male) unable to engage in intimate behavior without the stimulation of watching porn.  It intrudes on intimate behavior when one feels less stimulated to engage sexually, without watching porn.  It also desensitizes one to the sexual act with one’s partner; it leads to one’s partner becoming purely a sexual object.

Webster’s Dictionary defines pornography as, “the depiction of erotic behavior intended to cause sexual excitement.” Pornography often depicts behavior that is judged to be immoral, violent and that portrays unequal power in sexual relations. It can be a substitute for, “real sex and lead one into a world of fantasy sex that eventually becomes preferable to having intimate relations with an actual person.”

Porn effects the circuitry of the reward system in the brain. The nucleus acumbens is a major part of this reward system. It is where neurochemical reward signals are produced. One of these neurochemicals is called dopamine. When involved in pleasurable activities that trigger our reward system, hit after hit of dopamine is produced. This triggers us to want to repeat the pleasurable behavior again and again. Our reward systems govern the pleasure of both addictions and drives like sex, so we repeat them. Research indicates that today’s porn is more like a drug. It hijacks normal mating circuits without leading to satiety, and the porn addict soon finds that sexual gratification produced by masturbation aided by pornography, far exceeds the pleasures of copulation with a partner.

How does porn become an addiction? By practice. Research indicates that, like drug use, imbibing in porn leads to tolerance, wherein one needs more and more to achieve the same effect as one experienced at the beginning of the porn watching rituals. Research has also identified impaired decision-making, anxiety, and altered perception as some of the other components of porn addiction. For the porn addict, there are withdrawal symptoms such as shakes, severe insomnia, persistent headaches, irritability, cravings, despair, and the desire to isolate.

More on this RDS, next post.