Is NoFap and Porn Addiction related activities scientifically proven?

Hi, I am new around here. My 2c:

Is porn scientifically addictive? Yes

Does/can addiction(s) cause changes in behaviour? Yes

Do I want to eliminate this behaviour? Yes.

So that is my science. I don't expect wings, or a 20 point IQ increase, or the ability to run faster. Nor do expect to transcend this ephemeral form. I just want to change my behaviour surround this habit and this seemed like a good place to get and offer support.

 

My therapist didn’t think porn had anything to do with poor mental health. He actually suggested I stop trying to quit four years ago, because I wasn’t having success and he thought (maybe correctly) that my inability to meet my own standards was having a detrimental impact on my mental health. Roughly six months ago I was in a stable enough place, I started NoFap again. He thought if it was important enough to me I should do that, but he still didn’t think porn itself had any direct link to mental health. After some struggle I got a 30 day streak, and he noticed a difference. Then I got 60 days, and he was impressed. At 90 days he was blown away. Then I screwed up around 130 days and that confirmed it. He 100% believes porn itself has a negative impact on my mental health. As I was struggling through January-February, he kept telling me, “You have got to get a streak going again. That’s the number one thing that helps you.”

It has to do with dopamine. You can look it up here on this site, in the basics, and you can look it up here. This is just one group’s research. I don’t know if others have replicated their results. What I do know is, mainstream culture seems to have an irrational reaction to the assertion that porn might be bad. If we are wrong, who cares? We might be weird but worst case scenario we’re merely annoying. Why would they care if we believe porn has a negative effect on our lives? That’s not how they respond. People act like Gollum protecting the Precious, when we speak against porn.

For myself, I’ve gone through it too many times to deny it. The first two weeks of quitting are utterly wretched. Then I start being capable of good days, though I usually have more bad ones. Then, usually around 60 days, I have more good days than bad. Yes, I do take better care of myself when I’m trying to quit. I absolutely must run every day. That means I have to eat every day. I can run and eat every day while I’m using porn as well, I’ve tried it, I’m still miserable. Porn is the deciding factor.

I know I’m just one person. I know it’s anecdotal. Idgaf, I’m better without porn.
Here’s my challenge to you; try quitting. Just try. See if you can go 30 days without porn. If you can with no problem, congratulations, you’re not addicted. You can probably use it as you like. I wouldn’t, but you’re not me, you get to make your own choices. If it’s hard to do, you know you’re dependent on porn.
But so what, right, I mean we’re dependent on air. We’re dependent on food. Some people find it almost as hard to quit refined sugar, that doesn’t mean it’s poison. So at the same time, try tracking your mood, your interactions. If you don’t see an improvement, great. What did you lose? Nothing.
But I bet you will notice a difference.

 

Even porn addiction (or at least its purported effects in popular material such as "Your brain on porn") is not strongly established scientifically.

However it's worth pointing out that this is a phenomenon that hasn't had much resources thrown at it, has been of interest for a rather short time as far as scientific research go, and, as anything that relates to sex, typically difficult to gather reliable data on.

Meaning you have to take every claim with a grain of salt, but at the same time, it's not like there is no compelling, scientifically informed rationale to at least hypothesize about the existence and plausible effects of porn addiction.

To me, that the addiction exists is trivial: people can be addicted to literally anything. The reported effects regarding impotence, loss of sex drive and loss of sensitivity, seem plausibly and anecdotally related, but there isn't yet a definite body of evidence about them.

I find that the benefits of "nofap", however, are much more questionably documented. I do think there can be some coinciding benefits: very much like a bunch of claims made about every nutrition fad ever: people do it and it coincides with measurable improvements. Except they forget to tell you that as they started their new diet, that de facto cleared their diet of all junk food, and they also started a workout routine and became diligent about their sleep hygiene, and so on. The benefit of the diet itself are quite difficult to isolate from all the other changes.

Same here. Most likely, people's nofap begins with a wave of motivation and coincides with a stop in an unhealthy level of porn consumption and obsession with masturbation. Can you observe benefit from NoFap if you used to masturbate 5 times a day and feel like a loser for it? Yes. But that doesn't prove that masturbating is generally harmful, or that anyone would benefit from nofap. It just means you broke from an addiction and are newly feeling empowered, on top of letting your body recover from what was quite arguably self-inflicted abuse.

So no, it's not proven. But as many things that are unproven, it can still be helpful to some, and as mentioned, the absence of proof isn't proof of absence, and it's not like there is no sound reasons to believe there might be something to it.

 

People that deny porn addiction are severe addicts that can't deny their problems, they belittle and intimidate others.