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Pornography is like an drug

Discussion in 'Porn Addiction' started by Deleted Account, Jan 10, 2020.

Do you guys agree that porn is like drugs?

  1. Yes

    100.0%
  2. No (Explain why WITH Evidence and research in the comments below)

    0 vote(s)
    0.0%
  1. Pornography is like a drug

    January 10, 2020, | Michael’ Walter T. Farrell II​



    Why are people so blind to see the silent killer that is destroying most men’s and women’s lives? This silent killer is pornography, even though it doesn’t kill the user it destroys how they see women, relationships, family, and mental health. People get addicted to pornography of a way of an escape or in puberty many young teens are curious about their bodies and start to think about their male/female friends; they use porn to fantasize about sexual situations with these people (lusting). Even though those with an addiction to pornography are small, but it needs to be addressed as a serious issue because too many young people's lives are being destroyed by pornography.





    Let's start from the beginning, how a person gets addicted to pornography. The average age that begins to watch porn is 11 years old and into the adult population, approximately 5–8% of the population are addicted to pornography (The Recovery Village,2019). Young teenagers start to begin pornography because of puberty – even though puberty is not the issue is that the effects of it causes teens to do porn. “The hormones in your body are becoming more active. As a result, you're starting to have more feelings.” (KidsHealth Medical Experts,2019) - During the process of puberty, the hormones in a person's body start to become more active making them have feelings. This usually makes most men and some females think about one of their friends or kids from school, it's natural. But some get curious about their body, causing them to resort to porn to research their counterparts. Some people though also may resort to porn due to depression or the lack of the feeling of love so they use pornography as a way of escape yet It hurts them more, for example, My addiction started when I was 11; during that time I've moved to somewhere else and was new student to a school, however, I was bullied a lot plus with a high of amount of hormones I started to feel depressed so I've resorted to it as a way of an escape but suddenly over time it sucked in me in after. Shortly, after exposed to porn the effects of it start to take place in the user, that I will be talking about next.



    As the user starts to use pornography for long periods and multiple times, It starts to affect you socially, physically, and mentally negatively. First I will talk about socially; as the user starts to use pornography more, they start to disconnect from reality. Users have a hard time talking to people, so they usually distance themselves from others and spend more of their constructive time watching pornography for hours than spending time doing a hobby or talking with friends: “Pornography robs many people of their hours in their week when they would invest in these constructive pursuits and gives them nothing in return.” ( Hambrick Brad, 2018). Second is physical - Over time the use of pornography, the user will feel fatigued, stressed, Sexual dysfunction, and neglecting personal care (psychguides, 2019). And third the users mental health – As the user loses the touch of reality, as shown above, this brings many consequences; like shame, depression, guilt, perceiving women/men as objects than a person, Numbness, unable to socialize with people, unhappy with partner, and mood disorder (rewardfoundation,2016). As I used to be addicted myself, I thought I would be happy but yet, in reality, I'm hurting myself more, I've stopped talking to people, I started to isolate myself from the world because I used to be so ashamed. To live in a world like that was killing me inside, I thought I would never get out. As a result, pornography can bring tremendous consequences as drugs but It does not stop there, pornography can also hurt the ones around you too.





    Like drugs, pornography can be harmful to the user but also the user's loved ones around them too. “Pornography lies, then, by imitating the pleasures and the sacrifices of love, and destroys them in the process. But death can mimic life persuasively for only so long. We are hurtling fast toward pornography’s triumphal destruction of the romance that once guarded and preserved our relationships.”(Anderson M, 2019). Pornography like I say again, brings the user from reality to fiction, making the user addicted to a digital screen that will never satisfy them. The result of this consists of addiction, this makes the partner of the user feel unloved and this ultimately destroys the relationship. Even though this never happened to me, I've found a video that shows how pornography addiction can destroy a family. This video describes a man that haves a family. Before his marriage, he used to do all of these crazy things that have lead to his pornography addiction. Many times he has lied to his wife that he quitted pornography and almost destroyed the marriage but finally he got help (CBN,2013). All together, pornography can destroy and hurt the people around us.





    Pornography requires your soul and mind but also your money. Many pornographic websites like pornhub make millions of dollars due to the amount of people that are clicking on their websites but also their subscriptions if they want premium content: “The pornography industry is enormous, raking in an estimated $16.9 billion each year in the United States alone.” (The Recovery Village,2019). Plus money spent on pornography is making most people financially in trouble: “People who struggle with porn addiction also frequently have financial problems as a result of their porn use.” (The Recovery Village,2019). All in all no matter what you `ll never win with porn even when your single your still losing money out of your pocket.



    Regardless of drug-like effects, people ignorantly claim that while doing pornography, you’ll never get hook to it because its “natural”. In reality, you're abusing your body for that sweet feeling that your body releases called dopamine like abusing drugs and though we can't see it, it's still there: “Since our bodies are constantly trying to achieve homeostasis, these consistently high levels of dopamine create plastic changes to the brain, desensitizing neurons so that they are less affected by it and decreasing the number of receptors available.” (Ye,Bryan,2017). Doing things that may seem natural, in reality, maybe hurting you.





    In summary, pornography should be brought up as a drug, because it's addictive to many young teens and adults and can be very destructive. What we can do about it is that we can spread the awareness and facts about the lies of pornography people ignorantly make. But also get help or help those that are addicted to porn, there are many opportunities to help people with pornography or get help from websites like nopfap.com and get to know God to help overcome the addiction of pornography. We should do petitions and organizations that will bring down pornographic websites like pornhub and many more. Finally, to prevent this from ever happening we should teach our kids about the dangers of pornography and guide them through restricted devices. One day, pornography shall be banned like drugs are because of its dangerous and addictive habit but also I hope one day people will open their eyes as I have.


    Editors Note: This was originally my embedded assessment for my English class but I figured since I did a good job at writing it, Ill publish it. Also With this I hope I can achieve things that will help other people with pornography addiction too.


    Cites:

     
  2. ClenchedFist

    ClenchedFist Fapstronaut

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    Short answer: no.
    Equating porn addiction with drug addiction in order to derivatively demand a ban on porn won't result in a ban on porn because that notion would be destroyed in a court of law, and rightly so, because they're different things.

    To bring porn addiction to the forefront of public discourse one must clearly define it and differentiate it from other addictions, not lump everything together. That would make it easy for people whose interests clash with porn addicts in recovery and with the nofap community to keep denying that there's such a thing as porn addiction.

    Videogaming can also be addictive. Is it like a drug? More people have died while gaming than while PMOing. Should we ban videogames too?
     
    MikeisMedic_07 likes this.
  3. Really good points you bring up. Your right I`ve should have been more specific when it comes to talking about Porn - I've should of put the specification on banning Online Pornography; Also You bring up another good point of "Video games should be banned too?" Even though Video Games are equally addictive as anything else and It causes the same effects as pornography, but Video games aren't and won't be banned because the deaths by video games have actually decreased throughout the years (Mahnken,2018). Though Its an interesting topic; but that's for another day. Anyways, Thank you for your feedback, and this brings more questions regards to other topics. Again thank you for your feedback and your point of view.


    Cite:

    Mahnken, K. (2018, March 7). Game Over: Trump Says Video Games Could Cause Real Deaths. But Research Finds Scant Links Between Digital Mayhem and Violent Behavior. Retrieved January 13, 2n.d., from https://www.the74million.org/game-o...-between-digital-mayhem-and-violent-behavior/.
     
  4. Absolutely, spot on. Porn really messed me up now I can't look at women the same way ever again, without even lusting. It's really sick, that's why I publish this article, to help spread awareness of online porn or porn altogether. I have friends that suffer from the same thing, their sick of it as I am. Many deny the fact that this IS a real problem but yet its damaging our kids and people.
     
    Deleted Account likes this.
  5. ahighertruth

    ahighertruth Fapstronaut

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    I believe porn is like drugs that it alters chemicals in your mind. People saying its normal are not looking at the fact how porn has become increasingly popular and how likely it is to become addicted now. Its not like the 70s where you had to pay for a show, or a magazine. Now all you need is internet, and porn is everwhere.

    Porn addiction is like drug addiction because you keep craving it. You are never satisifed with it and you need more and more of it to keep you going. Porn addiction exhibits withdrawal just like drug addiction. Anxiety, cravings, the need for more are all symptoms both these substances can have.

    I think we really can argue that the effects are the same.
     
  6. When drugs like heroin are made freely available number of addicted individuals in society grows rapidly, these people exit the labor force, abandon their obligations and engage in crime - that is what real addictive drugs do.
    If pornography did that, we could argue it can be compared to drugs, but it does not, despite being widely available.

    Instead, pornography has effects more comparable to sugar consumption, where widespread over-consumption leads to health problems.
    Yes we can agree that eating too much sugar leads to physical and psychological problems, yes we can agree that many people indulge too much in sugar consumption and as a result suffer physical and psychological consequences.
    However, it is a stretch to say that sugar is a drug that needs to be removed from everyone's life and we should all eat natural fruits and vegetables. Not because there are no negative effects, but because it is an attempt to misplace the cause of abuse.
    Majority of the population do just fine with sugar, but some people struggle because they have problems managing their eating habits.
    Typically when we look closely at why people over-consume, we discover verity of causes, from trauma to habit.

    Debate about pornography's nature keeps reemerging on this forum precisely because determination like one attempted here can not be made.
    Pornography is not "an addictive drug" and does not cohesively resemble any effects addictive drugs have.

    Demonizing of pornography mainly comes from the idea that not using pornography will somehow make one more healthy than he/she is now.
    There is expectation of "improvement" expectation of "change for the better" if pornography use is stopped.
    However, positive effects of behavior change, are always small, almost imperceptible, because they lead to stability of mood, and stable mood is not one that "changes for the better" its the one that consistently stays the same.
    Same way cutting sugar consumption leads to more stable blood sugar levels, and not amazing improvements in health.

    Perhaps least discussed aspect of pornography use is why people use it.
    Notion that it is addictive is flawed, as people in general exercise significant control over when pornography is consumed and can ignore it for long periods of time.
    Vast majority of people consume pornography alongside sexual activity, kind of like we consume sugar mostly with food and not on its own with a spoon.

    Finally large part of human motivation comes from attempts to avoid or cope with pain. It is always bad news that sends people to a bar to get drunk, high or jump off a building (we can go far to avoid the pain).
    Discomfort is what sends you to get a Cappuccino with a donut, we pay little attention to it but, discomfort: emotional or physical rather than pleasure seeking, is what motivates us to act most of the time.

    People with mood stability and self esteem issues, are the ones generally predisposed to abuse. Ongoing stress, lack of social contact, poor diet, lack of exercise alongside verity of disorders like Attention Deficit that is so prevalent in modern times combine to create emotionally unstable people.
    Lack of emotional stability leads to mood swings and feeling bad makes people abuse. From there: "you pick your poison" and current generation picks pornography.

    In conclusion I must say that pornography use does not have as big of an impact on ones health as many think, but limiting use or not using it at all has long term emotional benefits in form of more stable mood and better self esteem, these are long term and generally not noticed.
    One should focus on understanding why pornography is used, not on the use itself. Abuse is always a way to cope, without exception.
    For this reason forcefully stopping abuse when it is used to cope with high stress of work, of feelings of loneliness and depression will not help or work.
    People with unstable mood, have frequent mood swings, from being happy, confident and motivated to being depressed, lonely and frustrated.
    Normally they do not pay attention and only focus on them when they feel bad, but once they get on NO PMO bad days are withdrawals because of NO PMO and good days become benefits of NO PMO.
    However PMO regimen reduces the ability to cope so you begin to have more "bad" days and they last longer. During this time people naturally try to find other ways to cope(exercise, social interactions, like this forum, cold showers etc) and if they are successful they remain "PMO free" as the saying goes, if they fail to find another rewarding activity to deal with depression - they inevitably fall back to previous known behavior.

    It is incredibly insightful to read some of the personal stores where people describe how they are in so much pain, their family is falling apart, or they suffer in some other way with mental disorder for example and it is clear as day that they use pornography to cope with all that pain, and then watch them express hopes that stopping use of pornography will stop this very pain.

    Porn addiction or PMO has become a label to tag all ailments, what ever the problem one has are said to be caused by PMO. But in a twist those ailments usually cause PMO.
    Please be more objective, nothing hurts as much as following some idea for years only to see it lead you in to a dessert.
    You can find your way out of the dessert but you can never get the years back.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 14, 2020
    Compiler likes this.
  7. CodeTalker

    CodeTalker Fapstronaut

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    If there was no refractory period. I think it could be like that, some people would stop living and pmo all day.
    Even with actually, some people edges for countless hours, and do nothing of their day and miss appointments etc.
    No crime because porn is free.


    Dude, it’s bloody hard to ignore porn. Many tried for years and couldn’t do it. I failed for 5 years, trying everyday.
    It is addictive, not everyone get addicted sure, but out of 100, how many do you think can stop watching porn for a month ?
    Everyone can put a mask and you won’t see what’s wrong with them. But inside the addiction is there.

    Wait for a few years. I’m convinced it has a terrible impact on society. But we do not see the extend yet. Many people suffer in silence because you can’t discuss this subject in public.


    That I agree with you. Porn is terrible but not everything in your life going bad is due to porn.


    I would consider porn a drug but I would not go to the extend of comparing it with heroin. The main difference is that you don’t get instantly hooked (and of course heroin is stronger).
    BUT the real issue with porn is that everyone watch it way too early in their life. The brain isn’t fully developed yet and therefore the addiction can put its root more deeply.

    I am for a total ban of porn everywhere. But let’s be honest, that’s impossible. What should happen though, is to ensure porn is accessed by adult and only them. There is literally no security, and I think it’s just insane how everyone ignore this problem (Nice try England). If we had global law that forces adult website to have a proper way of checking the age of the user, I’m sure we would see less and less addict.
    Sadly porn isn’t the only issue. Everything is sexualized now, but that’s another problem.
     
  8. CodeTalker you look at this issue from your own personal experience. It is hard to stop something only if is relevant to you, only if you developed a habit.
    Most people have no problems avoiding porn on demand, in fact whole message of this community is to warn people to reduce or avoid it.
    This message fails to make an impact because it goes extreme and outright demonizes pornography use, calls it a drug and calls anyone using pornography an addict, doing something sinful.
    Apart from not being realistic, condemning and shaming majority of human population will not get them interested, so majority of people reject this message on the basis of it extremism alongside all its good intentions.

    We seem to have no problems finding a middle ground with alcohol, we do not call everyone who consumes alcohol - alcoholics.
    Most people can refuse an alcoholic drink and not think much about it and they may enjoy having a drink other times. However people who abuse alcohol generally do not refuse a drink.
    Most people do not develop alcohol addiction, but some do. Saying that alcohol is bad and should be banned for everyone because it destroys lives is far fetched and - yes it sometimes does destroy lives.
    These statements come from tiny minority of people who abuse alcohol and we know they do so because they are usually predisposed to abuse not because alcohol is inherently bad.

    Significant evidence exists that people with abuse problems can change what they abuse if it is no longer available. If drugs are no longer available, individual may start drinking, if alcohol is no longer available they may start watching porn or completely immerse in to some engaging activity, or do dangerous activities, or participate in inherently dangerous sports or develop other unhealthy behaviors.
    So the issue is abuse and not the activity itself. And cause has to be found before this behavior can be changed

    So the further pornography use is pushed towards being a "horrible addictive drug" - the less people will actually even listen to what this community have to say.
    Because we all know it is not a horrible addictive drug, but very small part of the population does suffer from abuse.

    There are so many changes happening in our society, form air we breathe, to food we eat, to EMF and other pollution and radiation exposure, that making any definitive determination about what will cause variety of physical and psychological issues in the upcoming generation is a big question.
    However it is likely that effects of pornography use on the overall human population will be minor compared to above mentioned factors, like poor air-quality, poor food quality, hormonal contamination of foods etc.
     
    Compiler likes this.
  9. JustADude

    JustADude Fapstronaut

    I agree with most of your post. But... this statement. It is hard to quantify these things and hard to compare them. That doesn't really matter, because I get your point. What I am not sure of is the magnitude of an impact that easy to access porn is having on society. It might be minor as you suggest or major. Have you found any studies that make a compelling case either way?
     
    MikeisMedic_07 likes this.
  10. CodeTalker

    CodeTalker Fapstronaut

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    I lost my whole answer message

    sorry if I don't go more deeply.

    Most people on this site are in the same situation as me. So it isn't just my personal experience. Also I met people in real life struggling with that, people that you couldn't imagine they had a problem with it in the first place.

    It is 100% sinful, but that's another topic.

    Many people refuse to believe the fact that porn is harmful at first, but then they think about it and realize some of their issue can be related to porn. Nofap is growing every day, and more and more people realize porn is an issue.

    If you started drinking alcohol at 10yo every day you would be an alcoholic.
    What you said is true only for grown adult.

    So what, you want to say that porn is good, it's totally natural to see stranger f******, to see men being dominated, disguised as girls ?
    Porn is gross, induce terrible fetish, confuse sexuality and destroy couples and the industry is terrible.
    There isn't a single good thing in porn.

    I think quite the opposite. We will realize sooner or later the damages of porn on society. And I think we see them already. All those young men suffering from PIED for instance. The oversexualization of the society clearly linked to porn, etc.
     
  11. Do not put words in my mouth with "what you want to say is.... insert whatever"

    What I think and say is in written word on this page. Your interpretation is wrong and you should devote more time to understanding what people you converse with say, before you simply say what you want to say.
     
  12. CodeTalker

    CodeTalker Fapstronaut

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    I'm not entirely satisfied by the way I answered because I had to write it quickly. I could develop more arguments but I don't think you will change your thought anyway and I clearly get what your view on porn is, simply I don't agree with it so let's agree to disagree. We are not talking about scientific fact here. There are a lot of study going on and we keep discovering things.

    I guess time will give us a proper answer.
     
    Last edited: Jan 15, 2020
    MikeisMedic_07 likes this.
  13. Thank you CodeTalker, I respect your opinion and desire to avoid long fiery discussion for which I have no fuel.

    I think you may find it useful to know that I do recommend people limit or avoid pornography, and I do so myself.
    So we are not very different in our views.
    I realized that people often look for a way to avoid personal failures and responsibility to fix them and simply blame everything on porn, diet, being lonely or overweight, depressed, abused etc.
    We should be honest with these people and point to their real problems, statistically, everyone that comes here is told they are caused by porn, but on its rational merits - that can not be the case.
     
    CodeTalker likes this.
  14. CodeTalker

    CodeTalker Fapstronaut

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    Like I said before I agree entirely with you on this point. I do think porn cause damages BUT I do think there are other issues underlying. The human mind is complex and if just not watching porn could help us resolve all our problems, that would be great, but that's not the case. There are often depression, loneliness, anxiety and sometime mental illness in all that.
     
  15. The Purpose of the Article was to open the eyes of people that believe porn isn't harmful due to the sexualized world we live in. It sounds harsh and means but reality and life are mean too. Putting a forceful aspect will help the reader open their eyes, even though it may be like a condemning message to addicts and all but in reality, I'm stating the facts and logic - with stats and numbers. Also, I can understand your point of view of being harsh and it does hurt but there have been many articles that are harsh like for example about video games being violent; Many news outlets like CNN and Fox with harsh points about why Video games are an issue and should be banned(I'm just using this as an example). They give these horror stories and scary stats that convince the reader but also this angers the opposition. Articles all have a purpose whether to make everyone to like your cat to where why Games should be banned. Either way, Articles should sound like they're going against the opposition and harsh - That's why they're called Argumentative writing. Seeing opposition and agreement on my article means I've created a Good Article, but it doesn't mean its perfect.
     
  16. There is stark difference between - here is how I understand your point and so widely media adopted "what you said is".
    If one misunderstood you - you can indeed clarify your point.
    If one says you said something you did not - that is putting words in to ones mouth, words that have to be refuted, before any discussion can even continue.
    If you do not address and say - I did not say that, then you agree with the accusation, its well known "trap" so many people fall in to.
    There is a big difference between "you are saying porn is ok" and "I think you believe porn is ok"

    I welcome and support "professional debate" and my posts in general are build on those principles, you should talk about "professional debate" to people who respond "you commer" to well articulated solid ideas, that happens allot here.
     
    Deleted Account likes this.
  17. I do not really understand why you think this is opposition.
    In the part of my post you quoted, I explained that one of the major problems with attempts to reduce pornography here is extreme nature of it.
    Being extreme about social problems places you in to "crazy" category and you get ignored.
    As much as people think they do not care about looking crazy because "this is such a massive issue" and it is so important, no one listens to "crazy" people and they are not at the table to make the decisions.
    It is ironic that previous post I replied to was about "professional debate", there is code of conduct in debate, and when it is disrespected noone will listen to you.

    We know there were many situations where people said some activity has problem and should be avoided like reading books, watching TV, driving cars, use of contraceptives.
    Claims that people will go insane and be corrupted by the books was crazy, and most people knew it was, so they ignored those who said such things.
    But there were negative effects of reading books, and some people suffered greatly.

    As long as there is mentality that everyone who uses porn is bad and horrible, there will be no change.
     
  18. Pornography is part of life, and it has been part of life for a long time.
    When opium effects were discovered, people got very happy about benefits it gave, opium became "the miracle drug" and its use was widespread. Many people warned about its negative effects and said it should not be used.
    Some years later health problems and dependence became real social problem, it only took few years. Everyone clearly saw the problem existed and steps were taken to control and limit distribution of opium and derived products like morphine.
    When negative effects on society are obvious we take action rapidly and fix the problem. History has shown that to be the case.

    NoFAP community seems to make two claims that contradict each other:
    Claim that pornography and masturbation have massive negative effects on people.
    And another claim that these effects are not being noticed and recognized.

    These are contradictory because if something has significant effect on people - that effects is apparent, that is why it is considered significant.
    Significant negative effects are easy to identify because they stand out in research studies; cause and effect relationships become vividly apparent.
    So just this fact, that no significant effects have been found indicates that effects are not significant.

    From scientific perspective it is easy to just say - we have not found significant negative effects from use of pornography or masturbation, it is possible some effects do exist.
    However it is very difficult to accept this for someone emotionally invested and holding a formed a belief that pornography use and masturbation "ruined their health and life", accepting they are wrong would mean they have to find another reason why their life is in disarray.
    Ability to be critical and take things for what they are is uncommon, most people have emotional reactions and show aggression when their ideas come in to question, no matter how rational supporting evidence is.

    I invite people to explore, question and experiment to find the truth, not just believe.
     
  19. JustADude

    JustADude Fapstronaut

    But believing is so much easier.

    To be fair, nofap seem to officially propogate all anti-porn media. But doesn't officially endorse any specific anti-porn belief. And, the forums are full of various viewpoints. You are correct that the most popular viewpoints attribute too many symptoms to porn, but a large minority do not agree with that perspective.
     
  20. Niyaz

    Niyaz Fapstronaut

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    I have this problem for 7years
     

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