The Groups Emerging From Pornography Addiction (Young Guys)

[TheBadger]

Hey Guys,

This is a post which I have been thinking about for a while now and others have touched on. The idea of different groups of porn addicts and categorising us.
I am now a recovered 20 year old male after 5 months of rebooting and rewiring. Check out my journal for my story and advice/tips.

Anyways back to this idea of categories.

This is mainly aimed at young guys.

Group 1: Addicts to Porn-
These guys have strong changes in their frontal lobes called hypofrontality and find it hard to quit. However, commonly not all porn addicts suffer from sexual dysfunction problems which needs to be looked into. For example,  I know loads of guy who watch a crazy amount of porn but have no erectile problems or DE. For me personally, I was once a bit addicted but this wasn't too strong as I went cold turkey as soon as I realised I had a problem. I just wanna say good luck too all the guys out their struggling with this problem, you can and will beat it.

Group 2: Guys with Delayed Ejaculation
This is clearly being linked as a pre-curser to PIED. Personally, I had DE for a couple of years which progressively worsened and then emerged as PIED which progressively got worse. Towards the end I couldn't get an erection without some sort of stimulant such as porn. I think the deal with DE is the beginnings of a guy not being able to be turned on by their partner, looking back on it, my DE was also strongly correlated to my libido. (i.e As my DE became worse, my libido also dropped). The other factor included within this is escalation which Gary Wilson has done a great job of highlighting. As you escalate your DE will worsen, this I'm sure of. A normal woman just can't keep up with what porn offers but this is not a good thing, this eventually reaches a point where girls are boring and porn is all that can turn you on.

Group 3: Guys with PIED
This has varying degrees just like all the stages. People tend to see this as you have PIED or you don't. I'm sure this isn't the case. In hindsight I found that at the start of my PIED I could still have sex but my erectile strength decreased ect. But months later with continued PMO I couldn't get an erection at all. I think this is missed out as porn addicts often don't have sexual encounters regularly enough to notice the slight changes which occur over months or even years. This isn't black and white but incredibly grey.There are stories of guys who can get erections to certain stimuli on one end of the scale and at the other end there are stories of serious cases when guys can't even get erect to porn.

Group 4: The mysterious Group: Guys with PIED but aren't really addicts- This certainly applied to me. This category splits with group 1. People like myself fit in here. I didn't find I was addicted to porn as everyone knows how it has individually effected them. I knew porn had made me incapable of having important emotions or being able to have sex so i had no problem in going cold turkey and i have never really had an urge to go watch porn since. However, as mentioned by a lot of the guys who do the YBR radio show (big thanks to them); Some guys find they cannot avoid a relapse and have huge urges similar to an alcoholic or drug addict. I think this category varies due to the ranging effects porn has had on the frontal lobes of different individuals. It would make sense that the most addicted guys would be the guys with PIED but this isn't the case at all. Often guys who are really addicted don't have PIED but they just can't give up PMO. However, There is an argument to be made that maybe the guys with PIED are more forced to give up PMO to recover as they are more scared of continuing symptoms. Similar to if a person has a heart attack due to obesity then that person is more likely to lose weight to prevent another heart attack than an obese person who is about to have one but hasn't yet. Nevertheless, this area needs to have a bit more research on it. Peoples thoughts are really welcome on this. Is it just because some people have stronger will power or is something else going on?

Group 5: Pretty much everyone else: Not enough is said about the effects of porn on the general population. I have noticed a problem with what is seen as 'normal' sex. Among a lot of my friends anal is normal as guys watching porn need more stimulation to be turned on and as porn influences what they think is normal. Its important to realise not just that people on these forums are being effected but the general population as well. The demise of guys by Phillip Zimbardo points this out. I have friends who have sex regularly with multiple partners who think it is normal to practice sex like it is seen in porn scenes, this too me is worrying as they are sexually training themselves for things humans aren't evolutionarily meant to do.

Cheers for reading,

John Doe6

 

[fugu]

Hey this is definitely good stuff! Habitual high-speed pornography use manifests itself in uniquely harmful ways for consumers. I definitely have thought about some of these categories and ideas before in my head, so it's really nice to see someone thoroughly lame them out. I can't think of anything else to add!

 

[TheBadger]

Hey this is definitely good stuff! Habitual high-speed pornography use manifests itself in uniquely harmful ways for consumers. I definitely have thought about some of these categories and ideas before in my head, so it's really nice to see someone thoroughly lame them out. I can't think of anything else to add!

Hey Fugu,
Cheers for reading. I have been thinking a lot about the science behind it (being a medical student) and wanted to start laying down some categories which people can put themselves into. Also, i'm not sure people link escalation enough to the deterioration of their symptoms so it was good to put that in. Also, good job on the radio show, i followed it and was really impressed at how you guys managed to normalise all these problems, I would love to get involved with some of that stuff if there is ever an opportunity. I have a few more ideas on stuff to post which I will try and put out soon.

 

[fugu]

Hey this is definitely good stuff! Habitual high-speed pornography use manifests itself in uniquely harmful ways for consumers. I definitely have thought about some of these categories and ideas before in my head, so it's really nice to see someone thoroughly lame them out. I can't think of anything else to add!

Hey Fugu,
Cheers for reading. I have been thinking a lot about the science behind it (being a medical student) and wanted to start laying down some categories which people can put themselves into. Also, i'm not sure people link escalation enough to the deterioration of their symptoms so it was good to put that in. Also, good job on the radio show, i followed it and was really impressed at how you guys managed to normalise all these problems, I would love to get involved with some of that stuff if there is ever an opportunity. I have a few more ideas on stuff to post which I will try and put out soon.

Oh yes, I would be very interested in having you on the show. I'm pretty confident we have a guest lined up for this week, but I think a future episode it would be awesome to have you on the show. I'll send you a message now!

 

[TheBadger]

Just stumbled across some research which might shed some light on the different groups of porn addicts (ABOVE POST):

The following article just popped up on ybop:

http://yourbrainonporn.com/separate-neural-circuits-control-cravings-vs-healthy-eating-researchers-find-2015

To summarise; research has just come out to show that their are separate pathways which control our binge mechanisms for pleasures. As I have previously written on the above post, there seems to be two groups of people within the category of porn addiction: one of which is guys with PIED and are addicted to porn. The other group is guys who have PIED but don't seem to be addicted to porn, people like Gabe and myself who found it relatively easy to quit porn once they found out it was causing a problem. For ages I have wondered why it is that some guys who have PIED don't find it too hard to quit porn. One explanation is perhaps that some guys just have more willpower, however another one links to the article above.

What if there is circuitry linked to our binge mechanism for sex or in the case of PIED sufferers; porn
If some guys had these circuits effected then perhaps that is why they struggled to give up watching porn or relapsing. And the other guys, people like me- didn't have these circuits effected and therefore still had PIED but without the compulsive aspect.

Let me know what you think of this!