10 Reasons Why Porn Is Trash And You Deserve Better

Most of us use pornography to satisfy our sexual fantasies. Knowing the consequences of porn when young, most of us would have never walked that path. We all got into it for different reasons – in college stumbled upon it, some due to peer pressure, some took it up as adults hoping to spruce up their sex lives, and some due to sheer curiosity. Boredom, loneliness, and desire for thrill led us towards porn. We have fast-paced lives and hectic work schedules. We prefer to avoid having meaningful relationships. The world is charging toward fast money, easy success, quick gratification etc. The concept of a relationship seems too much effort and daunting. This change in attitude is mindlessly driving us into the lesser-known alleys of porn. At the start, we think we are in control of the situation and can stop whenever we want to, only for things to spiral downward in the future.

Watching porn seemed like a harmless activity to start. But it has deep effects on our brains and psyche.

1. It can lead to dopamine imbalance in the brain. Porn, like any recreational drug, hyper-stimulates the brain and leads to excessive dopamine secretion, which makes one feel happy and excited. This high lasts for a short duration. Once the dopamine levels fall back to normal, it makes us uncomfortable and irritable, making us watch porn again. This unnatural dopamine high from porn makes us unresponsive to the lower dopamine levels from natural sources of pleasure.

2. Porn hyper-stimulates our brain, making us achieve a faster erection and quicker orgasms. Our mind prefers to watch porn rather than interact with our sexual partners. As we fail to get similar hyper-stimulation in our real lives, it impacts our erection and orgasm. It can cause erectile dysfunction too. We are unable to satisfy our partner, which takes a toll on our relationship. Lack of intimacy can lead to dysfunctional marriages and eventual divorce.

3. Frequent dopamine highs blunt the effect of eventual porn exposure. A study conducted by the Max Planck Institute in Berlin, Germany, highlighted that continuous use of porn led to lesser brain activation to regular pornographic imagery. This makes a person want to see more extreme and unconventional forms of porn to achieve the same dopamine high.

4. With easy access to the internet and affordable mobiles, there is greater access to content. The porn industry has grown multi-folds with demand to provide varying content. The themes of these movies tend to be unrealistic, creating stories that are unnatural or crime driven. Such trashy content makes us yearn for similar situations in real life. We expect similar emulations in the bedroom, which does not happen in real life. We stop feeling aroused by our partners. This can lead to disappointment in a relationship and unhappiness.

5. To make their content more sex-citing, pornographers create movies with enhanced visuals and extreme stories. These stories include violence and non-consensual sex, which alters our sense of healthy sexuality. These extreme stories start impacting our sexual preferences. We subconsciously want to look for deviant and illicit content. This slowly desensitizes us against sexual harassment, sex crimes against women and objectification of women. Our negative attitude towards women can only spell doomsday for society.

6. Porn depicts women as sex objects. It instilsdeep fantasies in our minds. Even when we are working we keep dreaming of some wild fantasy. We keep looking for similarities in real-life. This makes us view women as sex objects. We keep comparing women in our surroundings with the porn-stars. Unknowingly we start objectifying women which makes us disrespectful towards them. Frequent use of derogatory terms in porn movies makes us normalize the use of such foul language in real life too. Too much influence by such content can make us physically abuse our partners. Our values given by our parents are soon out of the window. As more women view porn, they objectify men and behave disrespectfully toward men. Women start believing all men are evil and objectify women, which makes them bitter towards men and life.

7. Porn alters our sense of reality and causes poor self-esteem. These movies are shot in multiple takes, where the actors have enhanced their body parts via surgery. Some naive viewers start believing in these unnatural stories and may have unreal expectations from themselves and their partners. We compare ourselves to the unrealistic beauty standards of porn stars and develop a complex towards our bodies. We feel imperfect and insufficient, which impacts our self-esteem. We become insecure about their performance in bed as we expect to perform similarly to the manipulated sexual performance shown in the movies.

8. We are unable to concentrate at work as we are preoccupied with porn. We become lethargic and we do not like working hard. We start avoiding our problems. This eventually impacts our appraisals and destroys our careers. Frequent dopamine highs and lows lead to mood swings. They can trigger depression, anxiety, anger and frustration. This can lead to mental health issues in the long run.

9. Spending too much time viewing excess porn can lead to social isolation, poor people skills and loneliness. It soon escalates to frustration or depression. We spend less time with family and kids and more time with porn. The child suffers from a lack of parental attention and love. It can impact the child’s behaviour and personality. It makes them short-tempered and agitated leading to frequent tantrums. We are setting the wrong examples for our children. They think viewing porn is normal, and disrespecting and objectifying the opposite sex is okay. Unknowingly, we have damaged our child’s minds and destroyed not just ours but their future too.

10. Casual viewing of porn for gratification can slowly escalate into an addiction. Porn addiction is diagnosed when

    • A person is unable to overcome the urge to watch porn and starts shirking responsibilities at work and home to make time for viewing porn.

    • They start viewing more extreme porn progressively to get the same thrill.

    • They start spending a large sum of their income on viewing porn, thus impacting their finances.

With time we realize the grave situation we are in. We want to get out of our habit but feel trapped. With every difficult situation, we fall back to porn. The dopamine high makes us feel good temporarily. Soon we are back to feeling low and dejected. We are unable to break out of the vicious cycle. Porn being a social taboo, we are unable to discuss our habits with others. We are embarrassed to seek help, so we fall back to porn or alcohol to tide the moment. It only worsens our condition. Breaking out of our habit is challenging but doable. With support from friends and family, one can achieve the impossible. The only way to do this is by cutting the crap out of your life. Throw away every last file or hard copy that you have. Start a sport or a hobby. Keep yourself busy. Learn to cook, do house chores, or whatever takes your mind off porn. Is porn worth so much negative impact on a person’s professional and personal life? We worked hard in school and college to achieve our degrees. We dreamed of having successful careers, becoming CEOs, top management, etc. Is porn worth throwing away our dream?