Girls Who Quit Porn

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Girls Who Quit Porn
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It wasn’t until I attended a work Christmas party (of all occasions) that it dawned on me that I might have an unhealthy relationship with porn.
Image: Illustration by artist and animator Sara Hirner
Disclaimer: This piece is NSFW and could be triggering as it touches on themes around porn addiction, domination and physical abuse.
I thought I had a healthy relationship with porn. In helping to make up the 30% of women who watch internet porn , I had been regularly partaking in its usage since I discovered its anarchic powers; and its ability to get me exactly where I wanted to go, double quick.
My psycho-sexual routine began rather innocently, a curious exercise in testing my boundaries. But it soon leaned toward the perverse; my impulses became more niche and my satiety less placated.
I was definitely not alone (despite being, ahem, physically alone) in my obsession with the epic availability to watch pounded orifices on my iPhone.
A recent study conducted by porn website Paint Bottle (and thankfully reported on by Huffington Post ) found 30% of all data transferred across the internet is porn. In fact, porn sites receive more visitors each month than Netflix, Amazon and Twitter, combined.
Not long into my foray into the depths of websites like Pornhub and xxxHamster , my taste in content changed. it became more difficult to climax over watching ‘vanilla’ sex between two people. I craved the kind of visuals that would make Sasha Grey blush.
I wanted to watch women gang-banged by a football team of hard-bodied men with raging erections. I wanted to see double penetration; and I wanted to see women tied up and suspended in the air during intercourse.
Disturbingly, in all the videos I craved around male-to-female domination, I was searching for a specific moment in the clip, a particular vulnerable look that could not be faked – at least not by the type of actresses I had watched.
It was when the adult film star would unintentionally reveal her pain. She might move her hand to slightly push on her partner’s thigh, motioning for him to slow down. She might look him in the eyes with a look of terror at the unexpected pain she was in – all whilst offering a disingenuous moan to mask her true feelings. Or she might actually verbalise it with an “Ow!” That was what excited me most. That was what sent me into sensuous oblivion. Odious, right?
I sat down with Pamela Supple, who has a Masters of Health Science and 25 years as a Sex, Relationship and Wellbeing Therapist under her belt. At her Sex Therapy Australia office in Sydney – which is surprisingly not decorated with phallic statues and lotus flower paintings a la Netflix’s Sex Education – I asked her why my sexual cravings had darkened in such a way. How could an out-and-proud feminist – who understands the generational effects of the male gaze – gain pleasure from the pain of her sisters?
“It’s part of your erotic imagination ,” she said. “And if you act out on it and you actually like pain in a controlled environment, you could be a submissive and you’ve got a dominant because and you actually like pain in some way, shape or form.”
However, Supple told me not to confuse my erotic imagination with my innate sexual desires though; because the former can even be suffused by porn-use.
“You’re creating this beautiful voyage,” Supple said of our imaginations. “You’re creating, right? But with sex you’ve got to create it. You’ve got to communicate and you’ve got to explore. So to explore, most people look at porn, and this is where they get their ideas from.”
Despite the obvious signs that my brain was crossing the line past adventurous and over to Patrick Bateman-sadism , it wasn’t until I attended a work Christmas party (of all occasions) that it dawned on me that I might have an unhealthy relationship with porn.
In December 2017, a coworker was telling me about how he and his wife never watch porn, neither individually or together. “If you look into it you’ll realise how damaging it is to your brain and your sex life,” he quipped.
A memory popped into my head of a time when my husband announced he was about to head out for the day. My thought process went a little like this: ‘Sex now or porn after he leaves? Which is quicker? Porn. I choose porn.’
This wasn’t a rare occurrence, too often I was not only choosing porn over my partner due to sheer convenience and time efficiency, I was actually hiding it from my husband. But why?
Sex Therapist Pamela Supple said it’s entirely normal to hide your ‘alone time’ from your partner, and there are many various reasons why some people do.
Her clients who struggle with porn addiction are mostly men, and range from under 25s who have developed performance anxiety, to 30-somethings who forgo food and sleep to undertake two-day porn binges, to the over-40s, whose comorbidities range from body dysmorphia and depression, to workaholism and chemical imbalances.
“[Some clients are] workaholics with whatever type of work they do,” said Supple. “[…] It’s easy to come home and just watch porn, get off, and then go to sleep, ‘Because I have to get up at 5 o’clock in the morning and start all over again. And because I work so often I’m not eating properly’.”
I’m now 15 months ‘porn free’, and with the benefit of hindsight, I can now see the neurobiological affects porn had on my brain at the time.
In the ‘70s and ‘80s it was illegal for people to even view a pornographic film – this wasn’t too long before the advent of streaming porn in the mid-2000s. Even in the ‘90s Playboy magazine still involved using the imagination for the younger eye. And for those who may have encountered their first view of the naked female form in a sexualised way via a porn magazine, their imaginations probably didn’t conjure up the kinds of experiences displayed in porn now.
In fact, as soon as someone views an erotic image, the reward system in the brain activates and begins releasing dopamine.
A 2016 functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study of porn viewers showed elevated activity in the ventral striatum when male participants viewed an erotic image; AKA the brain was releasing dopamine. What’s more, participants of the study who reported signs of porn addiction experienced greater degrees of ventral striatum activity (dopamine release) when they viewed porn.
It should come as no surprise then that a study undertaken by Duke University Medical Center in 2005 found that male monkeys will forgo food in order to view images of female monkey bottoms.
But perhaps this statistic will come as a surprise: Using data from six studies in the last three years, the rate for erectile dysfunction has increased from 2% 20 years ago (before the advent of streaming porn), to around 27-33% for men under 40.
One study on men aged 16-21 found 54% has sexual dysfunction, 27% erectile dysfunction, and 24% had low libido. These are the average rates of men in their 60s and 70s.
In all my research, I found this 2014 study out of the UK to be the most harrowing regarding porn’s conditioning of adolescent brains: It saw a high rate of anal sex in adolescents but found that neither gender enjoyed it. The study by London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine – which collated interviews about the practice with 130 16-18 year olds – found males expected it but didn’t enjoy it, and females felt coerced into doing it.
However, a cursory glance at publicly available research will tell you science is largely at odds over the risk-to-benefit ratio of watching pornography. A blog post on Psychology Today calls findings around the negative affects of porn on your brain “fear-based arguments”.
David J. Ley Ph.D. writes: “The problem is, there has been extremely little research that actually looks at the brains and behaviours of people using porn, and no good, experimental research that has looked at the brains of those who are allegedly addicted to porn.
“So, all of these arguments are theoretical, and based on rhetoric, inferences and applying other research findings to try to explain sexual behaviours.”
However, 15 months without porn in my life and I am one living example of the benefits of exercising abstinence. Almost immediately I found my partner more attractive – hell, I even found myself more attractive – and my orgasms were longer. My sexual tastes have changed and my arousal template no longer includes watching other women in pain, obviously.
Pamela Supple said, “There are underlying reasons why we do what we do.”
“Everybody’s addiction is different and we’ve got to look at that too; what is addiction?,” she added. “Whether it’s mental, whether it’s chemical or whether it’s family of origin stuff. There are different reasons why people do different things.”
It’s a community of over 82,000 which exists “to help people of all ages overcome their addiction to porn.” I asked them what kinds of positive outcomes they noticed after their own experiences with abstinence.
“I have more drive and my mind is clearer. Before everything seemed dull and my head was like it was filled with fog.
“Also I realised that I am lonely and that I crave emotional connection more than sex. Before, all these emotions were sort of brushed under the rug. Also, sex is so much more intense and really more of an emotional thing.”
“For me, cutting out pornography takes away the (extremely) brief high, but it also takes away the crashing low. It always left me feeling worse afterwards.”
This Redditor’s reply might be my favourite:
“I had higher confidence and self esteem. I was much more sure of myself, like I didn’t second guess myself and made decisions quicker. Overall happiness was higher, I was super cheerful all of the time. I would appreciate many different types of women other than the super attractive ones.
“Extra attention from women, now I know that whole ‘super powers’ thing is nonsense but I did notice more women looking at me.”
Sex Therapist Pamela Supple’s advice? “Everything in moderation”.
“Just have a break every now and then,” she said. “And try [masturbating] without porn. Because you’ve got this erotic imagination intelligence happening.
“Sex starts in the head: our thoughts, our processes, our connections, our sight, our smells… everything is associated with the brain. It’s everything.”
Personally, once I ‘unhooked’ I realised I don’t actually want my husband to tie me up and gag me, but I did realise that even his smile or his hand accidentally brushing against mine can turn me on.
If you’re currently struggling with pornography addiction there are many treatment options in Australia. For example, sex therapy , or Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous , or SLAA, which is open to anyone who knows or thinks they have a problem with porn addiction.
Illustration by artist and animator Sara Hirner. See more of Hirner’s work at @sirgross on Instagram.
Poppy Reid is a New Zealand-born, Sydney-based writer who tweets over at @ heypoppyreid 
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Brett • February 19, 2021 • Last updated: September 25, 2021
This article series is now available as a professionally formatted, distraction-free paperback or ebook to read offline at your leisure. 
With our archives now 3,500+ articles deep, we’ve decided to republish a classic piece each Friday to help our newer readers discover some of the best, evergreen gems from the past. This article was originally published in October 2014.
If you’re reading this, you or someone you know is trying to quit porn and are looking for some help in doing so. Here’s the good news: in the vast majority of cases, you don’t need expensive rehabs or retreats to rid your life of porn. As I mentioned previously in this series, in reading a boatload of books and countless blog and forum postings on “porn addiction recovery,” I discovered that most of the advice given is the exact same advice therapists and cognitive psychologists offer to someone who’s trying to change a bad habit as innocuous as swearing or fingernail biting. Sure, there are a few differences, but overall, quitting porn is just like quitting pretty much any other bad habit .
An important thing to keep in mind with changing any habit — be it smoking, drinking soda, or using porn — is that there’s no magic bullet. Habit change takes time, discipline, and dedication, and the process will look a little different for each individual.
Progress isn’t linear , either. Some weeks you’ll feel like you’re well on your way to kicking the bad habit and replacing it with a new one, and others you’ll have setbacks that will make you feel like crap. That’s normal. The key is to not wallow in your setback, but to dust yourself off, and get back in the saddle.
So if you’re looking for that one thing that will solve all your problems, you won’t find it here. Most of the tips and suggestions below are likely things you already know. The only “secret” to habit implementation is having the will to follow through with your intentions. Experiment with the different tips below and find out what works for you.
Before we get into the specific tips and strategies for quitting porn, it’s important to know the two basic parts of the process in your brain: rebooting and rewiring.
The brain responds to the onslaught of dopamine that comes with constant and escalating porn use by reducing its number of dopamine receptors. This blunting of dopamine sensitivity may lead to problems like erectile dysfunction, delayed ejaculation, depression, and social anxiety.
“Rebooting” refers to taking a break from all artificial sexual stimuli so that the brain can restore and replenish dopamine receptors that were lost in response to the overconsumption of pornography. As Gary Wilson notes in Your Brain on Porn , rebooting is a metaphor taken from the computer world: “By avoiding artificial sexual stimulation you are shutting down and restarting the brain, restoring it to its original factory settings.” The goal of rebooting is to rediscover what your life was like before porn.
According to men who have quit and Wilson’s observations while working with these men, it may take weeks or months before you begin to see an improvement in porn-related problems. Wilson has noted two patterns of rebooting recovery: One group of men will take just 2-3 weeks before they start seeing improvements in porn-induced ED and the like. The other group, which he calls “long-rebooters,” can take 2-6 months to fully recover. The men comprising this group usually started using internet porn at a young age and have been using it for a while. During their brain resets, some long-rebooters report experiencing what they call a “flatline” in which they lose any and all interest in sex for a period of time. However, once the flatline passes, their drive for natural sexual stimulation comes roaring back.
The big rule on rebooting is that you abstain from all artificial sexual stimulation. Pornography is the obvious one to abstain from, but veteran rebooters recommend also nixing things like “erotic literature,” sexy YouTube videos, Victoria’s Secret catalogs, etc. Fantasies about porn should also be avoided (which I imagine is easier said than done).
While artificial sexual stimulation must be avoided during the reboot phase, natural sexual stimulation like actual sex is fine. Some say sexual fantasies (about real life sex) and masturbation are okay too, but of course others will have religious compunctions against these practices. While natural sexual stimulation is a-okay, some reboot veterans recommend taking a break from all sex and masturbation for a bit to help speed along the process. Each man is different in his needs and beliefs, so experimenting is key.
If you’ve experienced some of the problems that are associated with heavy porn use, then the reboot phase is a necessary first step for you, and our tips below will help you in your quest to go porn-free.
If you haven’t had any porn-related problems, then you might not notice drastic changes in yourself except for the fact that you’re no longer using porn.
Finally, if you don’t see any improvements after a prolonged reboot, you need to be open to the possibility that there’s some underlying problem with your sexual, erectile health that’s not related to porn, and you may need additional help treating it.
If you feel like you can’t stop looking at porn, that’s because you’ve likely created a very strong habit in the reward circuitry of your brain. Your internet porn use has rewired your neurons so that whenever you encounter an external or internal cue associated with porn, you go into autopilot mode and begin the routine of searching for it. For example, sitting down at your computer when no one else is around can serve as a cue that leads you almost automatically to clicking on porn sites.
The goal of the rewiring phase is to replace the routine of looking at porn when you encounter a cue for it, with something that’s not looking at internet porn. For example, you have a journal that sits next to your computer, and whenever you sit down, the first thing you do is write a few sentences in it. We’re replacing a bad habit with a good habit.
One thing to keep in mind with habit change and “rewiring”: neuroscientists have learned that once our brain encodes a habit, it never really disappears. It’s always there looking for that certain cue to initiate the habit sequence.
The permanence of bad habits shouldn’t discourage you; change is still possible according to the latest habit research. While you can’t completely get rid of a bad habit, it is possible to create more powerful good habits that simply override the bad ones. That’s what rewiring is all about.
The tips below will help you stay away from porn, even when the itch remains strong during the reboot phase, as well as help you rewire your brain so your no-porn habit sticks.
Alright, let’s get into the nitty gritty of how to actually quit using porn for good. The tips and suggestions below are based on my research into cognitive psychology over the years as well as from reported experiences of men who have quit using porn. Again, there’s no silver bullet. What works for one man, may not work for you. You need to be ready to experiment and try different things.
The advice below can be broken into two parts: mindset and action.
1. Don’t Give Porn More Power Than It Should Have
When you characterize porn as an addiction it tells you that it is hard to break free, that it is a struggle, that relapse is inevitable — all things that have nothing to do with porn. But when you characterize online porn as junk food, the solution is obvious: don’t eat it. – The Last Psychiatrist
Among men who are trying to quit, it’s popular to conjure up images of porn being an unbeatable dark monster/plague/war that must be fought tooth and nail and if you succumb to it, you’re destined to becoming a goat rapist, or something. But I don’t think that mindset is very helpful. In fact, firebrand rhetoric like that can actually backfire. Research suggests that this sort of simplistic, over-the-top rhetoric was the big reason the D.A.R.E. Program failed to reduce drug use amongst American teenagers back in the 80s and 90s. One study even showed that compared to middle schoolers who didn’t take part in the program, D
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