Why 'hardcore', why shocking stuff makes an addiction?

Speaking as someone who did a bunch of drugs in my younger days, there are two ways to keep getting high:
1. Increase the dose (intensity)
2. Switch drugs (variety)

Shocking stuff is giving you variety

 

I believe that bad feelings make our brains crave for balance, to feel good again.
The effect may be stronger the more intense those feelings are (traumatic/shocking).

Now how can this balance be achieved?
Some people may work hard to solve their problems, but feeling bad this takes a lot of willpower and time.
Most people may feel an overwhelming craving for a immediate shot to feel better.
Drugs. If the traumatic experience has a sexual component, masturbation/orgasm.

But doing so we connect those bad/shocking/traumatic feelings to orgasm. Our reward system in the brain remembers this pattern, remembers what the trigger for orgasm was. We repeat and create a self-strengthening pattern of seeking traumatic footage, because we connected trauma with orgasm.

The solution is, we have to battle the problems in life to feel better. PMO will only give us a quick shot but already after short time we feel worse and seem to need another even more harmful shot, similar to drugs.


TLTR:
traumatic sexual experience -> craving for balance, masturbation to cope with bad feelings -> trauma/orgasm-pattern in reward system -> seeking for more PMO

 

A rush of adrenaline maybe? I don't know

 

You don´t have the intensity of the initial shocking encounter constantly for years. But it is still there like a splinter in your brain. As you say:

You as a kid just couldn´t act it out sexually back then. The "sexual component" as I wrote in last post was at least not fully there. It was lurking in your brain for years, waiting that you stumble upon something that triggers you to feel it again. Maybe the "normal" porn (sexual + often really bizarre stuff is only one click away) triggered you to remember it and act it out sexually.

Yep, that´s what I say. You fapped to it and it is a self-strengthening pattern, now you want to see more and more disturbing stuff, because your brain remembers, that you want to self medicate with orgasm after seeing it.

 

I think it is basically human nature. We ALWAYS want bigger, better, faster, & more... sometimes this is a good thing that makes us strive to improve. Unfortunately with porn "Bigger, better, faster" usually translates to "harder, grosser, more shocking". IMHO.

 

Strangest post ever. Are you aware of our off-topic forum?

 

Well, that is only one component I believe. For example I never fapped to bigger, better, faster cars.
It has to be footage that for some reason pushes your individual buttons.

For me it is often something that connects my deep desire (my dreamgirl) with something that mentally hurts me (for example she does something shocking). Other people have other patterns, but I believe in many cases it has something to do with bad feelings/pain connected with "medication" by orgasm.
For example physical pain connected to arousal -> BDSM.
I´m talking about widely spread fetishes, not just a few individuals.

It may not be the correct answer for everyone. But observe yourself, when you feel the urge to fap and you have your answer. Did you have a shitty day, bad feelings? How can you feel quickly better now? Many relapse then.
Or you saw something bizarre? Why you deepen this bad feeling by fantasizing more about it? To trigger you to relapse.

 

When you are addicted to something you build up a tolerance to it and need a more intense dose to feel the same effect you used to feel from a lesser one.

 

Question is, why are you even addicted to it in the first place.

Most people start watching something "normal", like models in a magazine.
A higher dose of that would be if you see more pictures/videos showing those women per day.
It doesn´t explain why you would want for example to see her do something shocking.

 

Maybe this is just a coincidence, but from the threads I read, some people with escalated fetishes are/were on drugs.

I guess it´s not so easy to break it all down to only one single cause, there may be multiple reasons/mechanisms for a new fetish to develop.

Another reason may be "novelty". In evolution it is often very useful, if you find something new. For example a new food source, a new weapon etc. - so it makes sense if you are "rewarded" by getting it.
Maybe your brain judges shocking footage as something interesting new, while you connect "novelty" with reward.

 

No, a higher dose would be something "new" because you no longer find the magazines exciting because you've built up a tolerance to them. Novelty is what this addiction is all about.

 

A higher dose of something is not the same as something new.
For example if you drink two bottles of beer a day, a higher dose would be five bottles. A higher dose would not be to take heroin - that would be something new.


Again, I believe the triggers for something new may be very different from person to person.
OP, you may get the right answer for you, when you observe yourself next time you feel the urge to watch something shocking.
From what I know about you, it makes most sense, that it has something to do with your little childhood trauma. It sticked in the back of your head as you said, and later you rediscovered it in a sexual way, when something happened to push your buttons. It would make sense, because exactly the stuff you were confronted as a child later became your porn-addiction.


And again, I believe that for a lot of people (maybe not for you, but for many) the mixture of arousal/orgasm combined with negative feelings is very toxic. More examples for that besides BDSM:

Findom fetish: Beautiful girls (arousal) behave arrogant, even insult men and want money from them without any compensation (negative feeling, painful financial ruin of these men - one user here wrote, he payed 300.000).
After they payed, they fap.

transwoman fetish: Again on the first look attractive women (arousal), but then they pull out a fat cock (the heterosexual man is attracted and now shocked and the same time and very often feels shame, as we see in many posts of this forum - negative feelings of doubt about sexual identity and shame, but that makes them only fap more to it. They even watch videos where the viewer is intensely humilated in a hypnotic way - more negative feelings during arousal).

Cuckold fetish: You are attracted to your partner (arousal), but for some strange reason you want her to have sex with someone else and only watch it (negative feelings for example jealousy or humilation may occur).

Scat fetish: You see an attractive girl (arousal), but then you see her eat poop (you feel disgusted, negative feeling - the first time I saw it I almost vomited), but you fap?


And so on. I see fapping as a coping mechanism for sexual frustration (arousal and then no fulfillment but negative sometimes even traumatic feelings).
Observe yourself and find out what triggers you, then you may have a good chance to avoid those triggers or find other coping mechanism than masturbation.

 

For this addiction it clearly is, whether we fully understand why that is or not.

You're getting confused. An alcoholic doesn't move on to heroin because they're two different addictions. More beer bottles is only a higher dose because it's increasing the total amount of alcohol. Because they've built up a tolerance to the old dose. Which is exactly why so many alcoholics move on to hard liquor.

"Extremely intense porn" is shocking. And it's not always that we're actively seeking out something shocking but that we are bored with what we are using (because we've build built up a tolerance) and stumble upon some genre that shocks us. Something shocking is inherently arousing, exciting, not boring. It moves the needle, even if we have a negative reaction to it at first. Arousal isn't always sexual. But somewhere along the lines in this addiction that arousal turns into sexual arousal. I can't explain to you why people go for specific fetishes (no one understands that well, we need more research done on PMO addiction in general) and I'm not saying that other factors don't play a role in which specific ones someone goes for but what I have been saying is the basis for this addiction and you'll find it echoed everywhere.

 

Sorry, but I feel I am not the one who is confused about this:
An alcoholic may just over time increases the dose of alcohol, this is not something shocking new for him, it´s still the same drug, no matter in which bottle he buys it.
But if he tries a different drug, he may have shocking new experiences.

Someone who is aroused by models in a magazine may look at MORE women (just like having more alcohol in hard liquor), but this is only the QUANTITY.
It doesn´t explain why he for example suddenly wants something completely different, for example to see his wife be fucked by a horse.

I believe for this extreme fetishes something has to be seriously fucked up, it is not just an increase in quantity to look at your dreamgirls. And I believe we have to observe ourselves to see what it is that triggers us individually, so that we can avoid it or find alternative coping mechanisms for it instead of fapping.

 

When I said that you were getting confused I was referring to your misinterpretation of what I am saying.

I don't know why you have it in your head that I've claimed that PMO addiction works in exactly the same as way as other addictions, because I haven't. I'm not saying an alcoholic looks to be "shocked" or for an entirely new substance, that makes no sense and isn't backed up by evidence. All addiction involves the building of tolerance and the increading of dosage as a result. For an alcoholic the increased intensity is the literal higher dose of alcohol. They may drink more frequently but they also drink in higher quantities.

To clarify where we are disagreeing let me walk you through the process that I am arguing: Yes PMO addicts often will increase the quantity of consumption but that does not solve their "problem", they've built up a tolerance to the content.

1. They are no longer aroused by the same content. (Therefore increasing the consumption of the content that no longer produces that hit would do nothing for the addict)
2. So the natural increased dosage for them is content that they do find exciting, that does give them that dopamine spike
3. which inherently is something they haven't had enough experience with to build up a tolerance to, in other words something "new". Whether you consider that to necessarily be "shocking" is subjective and not really relevant.

I don't know at which point you and I are disagreeing because this is the common consensus among pretty much everyone. I really think this is just a matter of miscommunication.

Please read what I have written. I already said that there are other factors that go into particular fetishes and I'm not attempting to explain that.

I genuinely don't mean this to be offensive or douchey but what I am saying is so basic and commonly understood to be true and either you aren't actually understanding what I am saying (which I accept could be my fault) and this is just a stupid misunderstanding or you disagree with said commonly accepted logic. I'm going through a rough time right now and wichever is true this disagreement isn't worth me continuing to try to resolve. Again not meant as an insult.