7 ways porn affects you
The dangers of porn are all too little known by the general public, that’s why we can find ourselves stuck in a hellish and vicious cycle. Here are the top 7 ways in which porn affects you and your life.
PORN, what does it do to you?
In the moment, you feel excited, you’re looking at pictures and watching videos, and it’s enough for you to feel like masturbating. You feel sexual arousal and that’s exactly the aim of porn: to provoke sexual excitement and arouse pleasure through a visual stimulus. It stimulates your senses, which is one of the main reasons it produces such an effect in you. In addition to the arousal triggered by the images, pleasure is generated, by the viewing experience which is generally done in secret or as a solitary activity, so as not to be caught.
If this seems cool at first glance, it doesn’t come without consequences.
Porn exploits our sexual urges, which is an utter catastrophe for the brain.
Here’s what porn will trigger:
1) Super powerful addiction
The brain assimilates the viewing of pornographic images, to a sentiment of well-being. And so it will ask to be stimulated like this again, in order to have the same feeling of well-being.
It’s the same sort of thing for people who smoke or take drugs; they need regular doses in order to feel well.
However, the consumption of porn acts differently on the brain. As it quickly gets used to images, it demands a more regular and more hardcore consumption to find once again the pleasure and well-being it initially experienced.
2) Depression
Porn completely destroys the reward system. In our brain we have an inbuilt reward system.
It’s present in all mammals, including humans. Its function is to foster and encourage behaviours which are necessary to our survival.
The feeling of pleasure produced by viewing a pornographic image is the result of interacting chemicals. The reward circuit in the brain is activated and releases dopamine, which makes us feel the sensation of pleasure.
It seems logical to try and trigger this pleasure circuit again, but the line between well-being and addiction is quickly crossed.
The pleasure experienced is relatively subjective, fleeting, and can make you lose control of your behaviour and your body. This can drive you to act in a way you didn’t really choose to, as it transforms into dependency.
Scientists describe abnormal and strong explosions of reward and pleasure which subsequently establish an addiction in the brain, of an extremely strong nature. Consequently, this dependency creates numerous sexual dysfunctions impacting mental health and/or the sexual life. Known symptoms notably include depression and anxiety.
3) Modifying beauty standards
“That girl is so beautiful”, generally, masturbation happens after having seen a really beautiful actress. But the women we see every day out on the street aren’t all porn stars. The habit of watching women with a body shaped for porn modifies your reality. The physique presented in these types of films is not ordinary or common. The porn stars are chosen for particular physical characteristics, which don’t reflect reality in any way.
In everyday life, you may find that women tend to have a more normal physique, and it’s hard to find an ‘attractive girl’, but this is because your beauty prism has become distorted.
The dissatisfaction, linked to this fruitless pursuit of an out-of-the-ordinary physique, pushes you into a greater consumption of porn, when you find that reality is seemingly not beautiful enough for you.
4) Deep social apathy
Seduction is too much like hard work…
It’s much easier to sit in front of your screen and consume images. Pornography draws you into isolation and makes you close-in on yourself.
In this way we fall into deep social apathy, a laziness where we avoid making any effort.
5) Serious sexual problems
Consuming porn orientates us towards the search for instant pleasure. It’s easier to sit and watch something by yourself than to put time into a relationship concerning two of you. It becomes a functional sexuality which traps you into the pursuit of personal gratification.
In sex, what about the other person? By just looking for instant pleasure, sex involving another person can get a bit annoying and will lose all its meaning.
6) Reduced libido
Yes you heard me, arousal is actually reduced as your vision of reality is totally deformed.
Sexuality involving the two of you gets more and more deceiving. The brain has racked up numerous pictures and videos where everything seems to go well, but when you are with someone it’s not always the case. This leads to a lack of sexual arousal and trouble in achieving an erection.
And in seventh place…
7) Brain atrophy
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- Slower brain activity
- Reduction in grey matter
- Dysfunctioning stress circuit of the brain
- Loss of concentration and shorter attention capacity
- Loss of motivation
- Increase in anxiety
- Memory loss
- Loss of neurones
- Weakening of impulse control circuits
- Damage to emotional regulation
Here’s how porn affects you. What do you think? If you want to get out of porn, and you’ve tried everything and you can’t manage it, you can pray here with an e-missionary, present online, who will ask the help of Carlo Acutis.
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