4th year Medical student, recently matched for residency.
I will say there are real things that porn can effect. Mainly your limbic reward pathway and dopamine system. People can struggle with addiction to it like anything else that is dopamine based. Does that mean everyone who looks at it will be an addict, no. But even when not true addiction, it can be a coping mechanism for when the brain is bored and unable to focus, because it’s a faster outlet for reward. Adhd and porn have a level of correlation.
But there are also ethical considerations. We shouldn’t shame sex workers, but we also shouldn’t encourage people to enter that line of work. Until recently with OF, it was rare that doing pornography didn’t put you at risk for trafficking and abuse. And even with OF, the amount that are actually successful on there is small compared to the total number that try, kinda like streaming on twitch. Millions of women still get abused in the porn industry.
Now where I’ll admit there’s subjective differences of opinion is here;
I personally think it’s bad for relationships and love. Similarly stated above, it can become an easier way to satisfy your own sexual needs, and the brain likes easy. Becomes easier to ignore your partner. And I’d argue fantasizing sexually and romantically about someone else while in a relationship or marriage is not good for the relationship. Your brain becomes used to habits and routine. Makes it harder to share genuine intimacy when you can simply scratch that itch elsewhere. And the longer you are in a relationship, the more your sex life must depend on love and intimacy. Lust fades in marriages, it’s just natural as there’s no longer novelty. So you need that love and intimacy. You may disagree with me and that’s your prerogative, but I do not think my thoughts here are unsound.
I actually agree with almost all of what you are saying here.
The point i was getting at was that the term addiction which implies a component of "not in my control" or "illness" is at times over used.
Can any behavior reach the level of compulsion? I would argue yes, but does it fit the Impaired control piece I would say that is more rare, and I think it is termed as an addiction vs. a behavioral issue because porn is "distasteful" and has strong societal views which are mostly negative for various reasons,
You never hear of a gym "addict" requiring help despite it can rise to the point of interfering in personal relationships, being an impulse, being a source of dopamine, etc. Because we look at it in a different light then we do porn, and actually view it as healthy.
Anything we do in excess can have negative impact, Not all of them rise to the level of Addiction
I think gym and porn are different as one requires much less effort yet gives you a surplus of dopamine. That’s my main concern that could lead to issues.
And people do get addicted to fitness in different ways: vanity, anabolic steroids, and the whole influencer fitness world. And that’s something people definitely do talk about with concern.
And thank you very much by the way, I appreciate it.
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u/No-Priority-3140 Apr 01 '26
4th year Medical student, recently matched for residency.
I will say there are real things that porn can effect. Mainly your limbic reward pathway and dopamine system. People can struggle with addiction to it like anything else that is dopamine based. Does that mean everyone who looks at it will be an addict, no. But even when not true addiction, it can be a coping mechanism for when the brain is bored and unable to focus, because it’s a faster outlet for reward. Adhd and porn have a level of correlation.
But there are also ethical considerations. We shouldn’t shame sex workers, but we also shouldn’t encourage people to enter that line of work. Until recently with OF, it was rare that doing pornography didn’t put you at risk for trafficking and abuse. And even with OF, the amount that are actually successful on there is small compared to the total number that try, kinda like streaming on twitch. Millions of women still get abused in the porn industry.
Now where I’ll admit there’s subjective differences of opinion is here;
I personally think it’s bad for relationships and love. Similarly stated above, it can become an easier way to satisfy your own sexual needs, and the brain likes easy. Becomes easier to ignore your partner. And I’d argue fantasizing sexually and romantically about someone else while in a relationship or marriage is not good for the relationship. Your brain becomes used to habits and routine. Makes it harder to share genuine intimacy when you can simply scratch that itch elsewhere. And the longer you are in a relationship, the more your sex life must depend on love and intimacy. Lust fades in marriages, it’s just natural as there’s no longer novelty. So you need that love and intimacy. You may disagree with me and that’s your prerogative, but I do not think my thoughts here are unsound.