Anyone else think they wouldn't be addicted if not for the internet?

Before the 2000's, it was certainly shameful, at least it was to me, which had a strong negative affect on my attitude toward sex which contributed to me hiding it and using PMO. Shame doesn't prevent a PMO addiction, and can actually add fuel to the fire, which makes shame insidious. Erotic Mind is a decent book which discusses more about that.

Pre-internet you could get subscriptions to erotic magazines by mail, subscribe to victoria's secret ("the poor mans playboy") under a fake name, whatever to avoid public scrutiny. Censorship? Even if it was practical it'll just change the threshold of what you fap too.

 

A lot of people out there don't want to hear that it has downsides because they've found something that makes them feel euphoric and gives them the ultimate thrill without costing them a dime. Of course they're going to shoot the messenger who tells them that it can indeed be problematic.

 

Adult channels on TV are what got me hooked so I would still be addicted I guess. Take them and the internet away though and I wouldn't have gone out of my way to find it.

 

For me personally, I just think that the internet is a little too vast. It's such a big rabbit hole for literally every conceivable interest.

For me, I 100% would never walk into a shop and buy pornography (magazines, dvd's ETC) however I have paid for services online. Maybe it's a double standard? There's definitely something surrounding the social shame that probably would of turned me away initially.

 

I can't say it any better than has already been said except maybe to be more direct and clear: who cares? Lots d people here say they think that's the problem but don't do anything about it. write letters to state and federal elected officials, hold a peaceful demonstration etc.
Oh yeah and don't use porn wouldn't that suck if we hold a demonstration against porn day outside an adult bookstore to get media attention and then the media find out we've been using porn .
Oh I thought of another response to this belief that is not useful than debate (I used to be the master d'bater) is voting with ones feet. When I was younger and just a few years into active pm addiction I thought about moving to another country and the are lots of options for places that don't allow porn on their public internet, in fact I did end up living in one such country for a couple years. But that's not why I'm free of porn today, nor the times I cancelled my internet.

 

I had a porn dependency before the internet, but it was sort of self-limiting, both in terms of the amount I could afford, and the type of content available. What changed for me with the explosion of (free) content online was that it enabled a huge increase in both my porn consumption AND the escalation into more and more graphic/fetishistic areas.

Of course ultimately it was my responsibility for choosing to dive so deep into all of it, but the combination of 24-hr. access from home, and the social normalization of it definitely made it easier to slide into a daily addiction. I've learned that I can't even take a "peek" at it anymore, since right below the surface is an endless ocean of porn that I can't risk falling into again.

 

I got into porn because rather specific kink, so I can say yes. I never even looked for normal porn. You can be generally repulsed by idea of porn and don;t think about going outside to get it, but with internet you have all the things hitting exactly your buttons at your hand.

 

Yeah, for me it was all due to having unlimited private internet access as a teenager.

I started around 2005 I think. Back then there weren't any tube sites. The closest thing were sites that had thumbnails of porn that would link you to free sample videos from paid sites.

If you wanted to watch a full scene for free, you had to use P2P software or look for "warez" type forums that had a porn section. You'd spend 2 hours downloading a "DVD Quality" 480 x 320 resolution video.

Free porn has gotten way way more accessible in the last 15 years, even on the internet.

 

For me the only way to access it when I was younger was a Magazine or vhs tape. When I did get old enough to walk into a shop I only did so because I was with a group of friends and we were goofing around. That one encounter did open up the possibility of going to a shop that I had never even considered before that time.
Afterwards I found the idea of returning to the shop becoming more and more fascinating. I had to work up a great deal of courage and go very late at night but I did return and purchased mags and videos. This was a real bad step for me but I can't say I was addicted. I liked M and even better with some visual stimulation.
Now it is extremely difficult to do anything without finding some suggestive material online. If only just advertising and just general websites. It is going on very strong and there is only a thin veil behind the "regular" websites and the porn filled ones. I know for certain that the easy access to video and novelty makes it addictive for me.

 

Definitely not! That's the problem with modern day porn, its accessibility. If porn was more difficult to get your hands on I would bet that most of us that started at young ages would have never even known what it was. I would never imagine myself going to a store and actually buying porn. On the other hand if you can just turn on incognito and you can see anything you want without anyone knowing, it's much more tempting.
The modern day porn industry is evolving more into something like the modern cigarette industry. The business giants know how many lives they are destroying but unfortunately they are blinded by the millions of dollars in revenue.. Honestly it's sad!

 

Porn was still present in magazines and in other ways before internet, but certainly internet made it super easy to access and consume it

 

The internet is the gateway drug

 

Even if free internet porn was only banned rn that'd instantly force a fix to 90% of porn addiction.

 

If Porn consumption could be directly tied into a escalation trend and brain damage on a worldwide scale and countries started banning it would probably become like cigarettes, the problem is the governments are corrupt and they want you distracted, someone taking a smoke is less of a distraction than porn consumption and the side effs to the health are too hard to avoid talking about.

 

I was sexually assaulted around 8 years old. Introduced to beastiality porn at 10.
My mind is waaay twisted. If it wasn't for the internet I can't help but think it wouldn't have gotten worse and worse over time.
And then again, who knows? I just wish I never would have seen any porn to begin with.

 

Don't blame it on the internet. Billions of people use the internet everyday, should they be all addicted?
It's entirely in you.

 

I think that all the time, my life could be so different

 

We'd have less distractions without the internet. Males would likely be better Human Doings, but thats about it.

 

Guaranteed!.... id probably be a lot more balanced as an individual and worked through whatever issues I had without resorting to porn and kept a healthier perspective and normal sexual appetite.... I can stop porn and I will should recover but does a lot of damage to a person fapping your life away and ignoring or not being part of reality energy that could be spent focused with what comes naturally instead of numbing yourself with porn