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Break down the craze of porn addiction with Plymouth, Minnesota
In recent years, we have begun to take small steps as a society to make it okay to discuss our sexual behavior and the challenges it faces in our lives and relationships. The result of this change is the increase in openness and dialogue about porn use. Unfortunately, this has led to a lot of sensation and buzzwords. Mainly porn addiction. Today, I want to really look at the idea of porn addiction. As part of the discussion, I will also include ideas surrounding healthy personal sexual behaviors manifesting in our relationship sexual experiences.
“Pornographic addiction” is actually not the same thing
To address the elephants in the room immediately, let’s talk about porn addiction. Do my best, porn addiction does not exist. This may cause strong opposition or frustration from some people, but hear me. Addiction is a very real and very serious concern. Addiction is a specific situation in which something itself becomes addictive. Alcohol, methamphetamine, nicotine, caffeine. These substances have legal compounds that cause addictive feedback loops that can alter and control brain chemistry. No one will back off the floor because it doesn’t exist. Now, to sum up, porn use can certainly mimic some addictive behaviors, but there is a very important difference in porn use. This difference is that porn is a very effective maladaptive coping technique. When a person feels pain, they seek any way to stop the pain. They will lie, steal, cheat, and even cause harm to their lives and relationships to avoid pain. Our primitive motivation to escape pain is one of our most powerful and instinctive motivations. So when someone finds that porn can make the pain go away, they are forced to drive recovery even for a short period of time. What they are “addicted” is not the pain, not the pornography itself. All of these same things can be said to be “addiction”. For example, a person struggling with mental health may find that buying new things will give them a brief height that they can feel good. They may even drive themselves into financial disruption or create major conflicts in relationships because they can’t stop buying things. This is the only way they know how to relieve pain.
How to connect pain and porn
So, what kind of pain is this? One of the main problems with this problem is that men who struggle primarily with compulsive porn use are not raised or cultivated because they are emotionally smart or expressive. Nine out of 10 I worked with men struggling with this issue and they started telling me they didn’t know why this happened. But as we explore their history and emotions, they are able to identify internal negative feelings about themselves, untreated trauma, depression, and more. Without the ability to recognize your own internal pain, it is almost impossible to determine why you are forcing porn, let alone expressing those complex feelings to your partner. What’s amazing about this difference is that if we can work hard to address this internal pain in treatment and teach healthy coping, the compulsive nature of porn use disappears completely. This is so important. Many of the individuals and couples I talked about are scared that they will have to deal with porn addiction in their lives or marriages forever, or fear that they will have to end a relationship due to this relationship. By dealing with the basic problem, we can really solve it, and it’s a promising idea.
Sex conveys a lot of different things
I want to take some time to notice that these thoughts are also correct for partner sex. Sex conveys many wonderful things: love, connection, value, desire, etc. should! Sex is a great thing. However, these powerful messages can also serve as a powerful pain reliever for internal pain. This can make an individual compulsively desire sex and put pressure on his partner to make it closer as a way to feel, kind, enough to want. As I said, gender should convey all these things, but if you don’t feel them internally, you end up relying on sexual behavior for them and having an unhealthy relationship with sex.
Worry about porn “addicted” companion?
The biggest message I want to communicate with everything I say here is: If you are afraid that you or your partner is addicted to porn/sex, please help them explore their reasons. What does it do for them? What did they get from it? Sex therapists seeking to use compulsive sexual behavior models instead of sexual addiction models. If you are just treating porn use, you are just taking the band-aid to a deeper problem. No matter how many control skills you stack, if you don’t heal deeper wounds, that’s the reason for compulsive behavior to happen first, then nothing will change. You can overcome this problem and just need the right help.
Consider online therapy in Minnesota.
As individuals or partners, sexuality and sexual behavior can be an incredible part of our lives. So many people get this joy from them, whether through sexual trauma, negligence education, cultural shame, or multiple reasons. You should have sexual desire to be the highlight of happiness in life, not a place of fear or shame. We often say to sex therapy that when things go well, sex is 10% of your life, which is important, but so are other things. But when the gender goes wrong, it becomes 90%, and it feels like it takes over your life. Let us help you take the first step to get your sex life back. If you are ready to talk to an online sex and relationship therapist in Minnesota, we can help!
- Contact the Sexual Health Institute to set up your first date.
- Meet one of our skilled online sex therapists to make an appointment.
- Ultimately, feel more comfortable and confident about your sexual health, relationships and pleasure.
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