Alec Capel

In the United States alone, it is reported that 58% have viewed Porn once, 27% in the last month, and 11% watch it daily. It is estimated that 42% of women and 80% of men have watched within the last year (2024 data). Of course, this is hard to get a good measure of since it is mostly self-reported, and it is possible the numbers are even, especially higher in conservative regions (where I live).

I saw my first Porn with I was 11 years old, shown to me by my best friend at the time. It was not a simple Playboy; it was a Japanese Porn magazine depicting a lesbian orgy. For me, it was a rush unlike anything I had ever experienced. I had always been someone who was more sexual than other’s my age, so seeing Porn was an immediate hook for me. I was also the youngest child in a family of “prodigies”, which probably contributed to my addiction. Keep in mind, this was the time before smart phones, so the only way to access Porn was late night TV, magazines, a home computer, or VHS/DVDs. Porn was something you could not simply pull up on the internet, you had to actively seek it out. I ended up going down a road that did not end until my 30s, and only after a divorce that nearly ruined my life.

There are 5 issues that I have identified throughout my journey and research that are ways Porn will destroy your life.

1. Porn can Change your brain
2. It changes how you view sex and women
3. Porn wastes time
4. It stunts your motivation and energy
5. Most importantly, it harms your partner

Now, this is not a comprehensive list. These are simply what I have gathered through my experience and from those who I have spoken to that also struggle with porn. Feel free to leave a comment for other issues, and I will address them in the future.

Let’s explore each of these in detail.

Porn can Change your Brain

Porn can change your brain structure and make it more easily activated by sexual images.

Duffy et al. (2016) performed a meta-analysis of 10 peer-reviewed articles that dealt with self-perceived Pornography addiction (SPPA). Chronic daily usage on Porn can also make it more difficult to stop, typically defined as more than once a day or more than 1 hours per day.

Fernandez et al. (2023) conducted a study to see if those with problematic Pornography usage (PPU) would experience withdrawal symptoms after abstaining for 7 days. They used 176 undergraduate students who reported using Porn at least 3 times weekly in the last 4 weeks, 64.2% female and 38.5% male. The study found that those with problematic levels of daily usage may experience withdrawal-type symptoms. However, many did not report withdrawals, which is actually a hopeful position for those with less than daily usage.

Now at this point, especially if you are a research nerd, you might be saying “Porn isn’t harmless, but compared to alcohol or drugs it doesn’t seem to be as bad for your brain as alcohol.” And you are right! The physiological aspects of the effects of Porn usage are not well supported by research. However, the emotional and relational issues that regular Porn issues causes are far greater. Sadly, we live in a society where quantitative research is valued more than qualitative (numbers over experience). This means that we miss out on the anecdotal experiences of those who report issues in their relationships, and how it changes their view of women and sex.

It Changes Your View of Sex and Women

Stories from Facebook and Reddit tell us that many men, young and old, struggle with Erectile dysfunction, compulsive Pornography usage, chronic masturbation, and relationship breakdowns.

Walking around the store, going to the beach, or even just watching TV when pretty women are around, triggers thoughts of “what would they look like naked” or “I wonder what sex with them would be like”. I have experienced and heard of many others who experience an almost automatic sexualization of the women observed.

A good friend of mine said it well,

“It is like you immediately imagine ‘what would sex with that person be like’ whenever you see a woman remotely attractive.”

This is one of the primary ways Porn damages our brains and our perceptions of the world around us. Women turn into sex objects, nothing more than a way for us to imagine sex, exactly as they are in Porn…images that our brain has to convert into theoretical experiences. We are wired for sex, and our brain is trying to prepare us for that action, but when we train our brain to be activated by images, then deny it the experience, it will reroute to handle what it is given.

Kühn and Gallinat (2014) performed a study where they looked at brains that were exposed to several hours of Porn a week, citing that it did have a direct effect on brain size and reward center activation. The most interesting part, to me, was how they said it could correlate to the brain being activated by non-Porn sexual images. Essentially, watching too much Porn can cause you to get turned-on by regular imagery, over sexualizing your brain, backing up our anecdotal experience.

When I got away from problematic Porn usage, I started to notice that I did not look at women the same way. After a few months (it is different for everyone), I noticed that I was finding myself thinking “I wonder if they like the same music I do?” or “are they the kind of person who compliments others?” My mind started wondering what type of person they are and how that would fit into my life. While fawning over strangers is another issue – read my article here—it means that your brain is making progress toward its intended state again, finding a mate.

Porn can also be considered the gateway drug to other, more risky, sexual activities (Aghamiri et al., 2022). Since your brain is now re-wired to seek out that stronger reward, specifically related to sex, there is a higher likelihood of sex seeking behavior that overrides common sense. As we will explore in the last point, this greatly contributes to the damage Porn has on partners or future partners.

Porn Wastes Time

As you have probably noticed, I enjoy reading peoples experience of dealing with porn on sites like Reddit.

In some of the extreme cases people post they are wasting several hours a day on Porn. Karim et al. (2025) conducted a study that measured the amount of time 828 nursing students in Egypt spent watching Porn.

The study found that:

• 55.5% of the students watched less than 1 hour
• 27.9% between 1-3 hours
• 13.9% between 3-5 hours
• 2.7% 5+ hours per week

Now you may say, “I only watch less than 1 hour per week, so this doesn’t really apply to me. However, I posit that the residual effects of having an over sexualized brain add to the time that we find ourselves distracted during our day-to-day. In the end, you are still practicing a non-relational form of sexual activity that takes your brain away from reality and into a fantasy world around unrealistic sex. When I ask people what kind of porn they seek out when they are not regular users, it is rarely a type the mirrors “normal” sex but a specific fetish that they find works for them.

Now, you may be one of the people who do not struggle with Porn to the extreme, and that is great for you!

Unfortunately, like me and so many others, it is not so simple. Porn becomes a place of comfort where we can hide from responsibility and the hardships of life and relationships. Porn cannot tell us no, or make us feel stupid, ugly, or useless. Porn gives an easy to get what we want without having to risk being rejected when we expose who we are to a real person. This safe place becomes our go to, and we end up watching Porn at work, in the bathroom, across the living room from our partner, places we would have never imagined looking at it.

Porn Tanks Your Motivation to Succeed

Another outcome of the Karim et al. (2025) study is that 60.9% of students reported significant increases in stress, depression, and anxiety related to viewing Porn. 54.3% reported boredom as the primary reason they would watch Porn.

Boredom is one of the most common reasons I see for watching porn or relapsing when people try to quit. But boredom is often the superficial explanation of the numbness that many of us feel when we are faced with the purposelessness that many of us experience.

I found that for me, it was how I avoided facing how hard and scary life can be, and how I excused myself from taking hold of life and making the most of it! I was in a place that I felt I had no purpose, no meaning, no dreams, and my path forward was not of my own making or even one I chose.

Without purpose, we lose the drive to move forward and face the difficult things that reward us. We take the path more traveled, risk nothing, and gain nothing.

A great quote, albeit from a somewhat ironic source, comes from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald – see my must-read books here – who writes about wealth, purpose, and the relentless pursuit of status and success.

“He knew that when he kissed this girl… his mind would never romp again like the mind of God.”

— The Great Gatsby, Chapter 6

Gatsby’s desire to win back Daisy drove so much of what he chose to do. In the same way (hopefully a healthier way!), men are creatures driven by desire and purpose. We seek to be someone who can change to world, to be respected and successful. We want to take our dreams and desires to heights unknown! Yet, somehow, we tell ourselves…or are told…that we must comply with the way the world is and stifle our passions and stomp our dreams for the greater good. It was not until I admitted that my purpose went against my family’s idea of success that I found myself motivated by something other than porn. My faith is also the biggest reason I continued to struggle against porn.

I have been reading The Art of Manliness blog by Brett McKay since I was 15. The day I discovered that blog was the day I knew what I wanted to do with my life: help people become all that they could be. I was so excited, I went to my father, who was an IT executive, to ask him how to build a website. I don’t remember what he said now, as it was all too commonplace with him, but my dream was crushed as being unrealistic and “something only a few lucky people succeed at”. Without support, I gave up.

 I imagine most of us have a similar story. Of course, now that I am older, I know that my father was deeply insecure about success and envied those who had it. We have talked about it, sorted out many of the issues he passed on to me and my brothers, and I am now writing this Blog. I surrendered a career in finance that was good, but was not what I truly wanted, for a career as a therapist. I know money will be scarce, but the riches gained through relationships are far more valuable to me.

The point is, porn is place for us to use that energy when it is not being used to pursue our true purpose. Porn is a place where we can safely give that piece of ourselves that was hurt, still bleeding from never being healed, and let it soak is the calming elixir of dopamine and oxytocin. This is one of the main reasons Porn can be so hard for some to overcome, it gives what we want and receives what we desire to give to world – but it is a weak substitute for real relationships. We tell it, “I want to change the world!”, but it will not answer back or support us in our endeavors.

Porn Hurts Your Spouse

Duffy et al. (2016) found that intimate partners to those with SPPA reported higher rates of emotional distress/harm than the porn user.

In my own experience of talking to those who struggle with Porn, their partners often express how it tanks their self-esteem, breaks the trust they had their partner, and decreases sexual desire…which adds to the spiral of watching more porn. When we watch porn, we get something out of it. Our spouse or partner gets nothing from it.

We all need emotional intimacy, trust, respect, and mutual purpose in our lives.  These are lost when porn usage is introduced to a relationship. These building blocks of a good relationship are critical; without them, a couple experiences entropy – a loss of energy – decay, and eventually ends.

Remember how I said porn is weak substitute for the feelings we give it, for real relationships? This is how it saps the energy away from our other relationships. It will never say “I love you” back to us.

Sadly, it may be a weak substitute, but that doesn’t mean it gives us nothing.

Many times I hear people parrot that “Porn takes everything and give nothing in return.” Usually by friends, family, or self-proclaimed experts who have never had to overcome porn. But Porn does give us something;, it gives comfort when we are mad, it makes us not feel alone, we feel wanted, and we can’t be rejected by it. Porn gives a place to put all our anger, our loneliness…it means we don’t burden other people with the things we are struggling with. We “save them from us”, even if they didn’t ask for it. Porn gives us a way out, and lets us be selfish. It is easier than overcoming our fears and trauma.

It gives us so much, and that is why we go to it.

A relationship with porn is a complicated, convoluted, tiresome, harmful relationship. It will eventually destroy you, like a slow poison that weakens your bones. It will take away the foundational building blocks of a meaningful life with meaningful people.

Do not become another victim to porn.

If you would like to read more about what you can do to change your life, see my other articles under – Overcoming Porn.