Pornography: The Hidden, Accepted Addiction
By: Zach Heckendorf
Tags: Morality, Self Help, Pornography, Society, Addiction

There is a great and powerful illusion that is created when we watch pornography. We are told that we are watching “sex,” but that is not usually the case. Most of the time, we are watching something much different: performance. Again, there’s nothing inherently wrong with sexual performance, but we need to ask ourselves, “Is unfettered access to this kind of material healthy for us?”

If you consult the neuroscientists, the answer is no. It rewires the brain in damaging ways. I won’t bore you with quotes from scientific studies, but instead, I ask you to feel into your own body, your own brain, and see how pornography has influenced you physically and mentally?

For me, I used pornography as an emotional salve. Whenever I felt sad, angry, lonely, or inadequate I used porn for the temporary high. Unfortunately, the feelings I wanted to avoid would inevitably rush back in afterwards. This is addiction, plain and simple.

As a man, I view this issue from the male perspective. Although I have spoken to women who have their own addictions to pornography, I am more familiar with the problem in regards to men. In general, we assume that all men are using porn and it’s spoken about in a very nonchalant way. It’s pretty much a given that if you have a penis, you spend some period of your week locked in your room with a laptop and a box of tissues.

On the surface, there’s something funny about this. In fact, masturbation is funny, which is why the famous scene from American Pie holds so much comedic value. But I’d argue that masturbation in relation to porn can be quite sad.

When I began having honest conversations with my friends, I realized that many of us use porn as a way to avoid an uncomfortable emotional root. It is not always coming from a place of pure sexual expression.

We also talked about how the experience of consuming porn throughout the years had the effect of dulling our sexual sensitivities. We laughed about the fantasies we had as children. They were playful and strange. We talked about hiding our erections while we walked through the mall with our 6th grade girlfriends, a time when even holding hands was erotic.

Of course, as we age we are meant to mature sexually (again, I’m no puritan), but I wonder if the true crime of modern pornography is that it plays a role in dulling the purity of sexuality itself. In many ways, sexuality is an innocent and beautiful thing. Think back to how you were as a child.

When I was a boy, I was highly sexual, kissing girls, boys, and anyone who would kiss me back. There’s a story I sometimes tell about a moment in kindergarten. I had a crush on a girl we’ll call Molly (for privacy reasons). One day after school I asked my parents, “Mom, Dad, why does my penis get bigger when I think of Molly?”

Giving up porn has helped me to reflect on my sexual formation and partly recapture that early sensitivity. But the true benefit of confronting my addiction was that it allowed me to address the emotional root of the issue, which was mostly a lack of love and self-acceptance, something which I continue to work on each day.

That said, quitting porn did not magically fix my problems. It marked the beginning of my healing journey and there have definitely been obstacles. For example, I went through a period of “porn withdrawal” where my libido was very low for months.

At some point though, the obstacles did dissolve and I got to a place where I didn’t crave it at all. After I realized that I could address my emotions in healthier ways (therapy, breath work, meditation), the desire to watch porn went away.