IMO it desensitizes you so what is normal no longer is enough to fulfill your desires. Keep in mind the porn is not - usually- reality. It is cut and pasted to add effect and duration. Photography can be a beautiful thing...it can also be a destroyer of our natural feelings...

The porn can keep you from ever having a real relationship. If you decide that you give up on ever being with anyone, you can continue without losing anything too much. If you keep on down that road you are on, you are much less likely to start a relationship or keep it going if it does start.

Being addicted to anything is bad. Drink, drugs, God. It means it controls you and all you do. It is the centre of your world, you live for it.

If you merely have an active interest in viewing porn and at the same time you can take it or leave it for days, weeks, months at a time without any effort then I'd say you are not addicted to porn. If however you view it constantly, such that your viewing of it affects the time and energy you have to spend on school, work, developing personal relationships and dealing with life challenges then you share the traits of an addict. If your use accelerates to the point that all you think about is porn then you are heading down the road to a full blown addiction which WILL disrupt your life. The whole addiction sequence starts out almost harmless, though from the very beginning is used as a way to mitigate pain by providing yourself pleasure rather than deal with whatever it was that was causing the pain. Thus the cycle begins until all life's problems are treated with porn.

Very few addicts I have run across simply view porn. Most use porn as a means to stimulate sexual feelings and masturbate to.

So the question Alimac is at what state are you? How often do you view porn? Do you masturbate while viewing it? Can you take it or leave it? What relationship do you have with porn? Does it simply enhance your sex life or is it an integral part of your sex life?

Not everyone in here is a sex addict.

In terms of stopping, one cannot even start recovery unless you want to sincerely stop. And even if you are sincere stopping is not easy, especially if you have developed it as a coping habit.

I agree with justawoman. Speaking now from a male point of view, porn has greatly desensitized me as to what intimacy is supposed to be. I am very cold in sex now due to that, I expect my spouse to do very outlandish things at times, and am very guilty of doing very outlandish things myself. Porn will change your view of women on a passionate, romantic, sexual level and you will find you start viewing women as items for pleasure and not passion.

I think that in moderation it can be ok, but how often can people keep something like that in moderation? We are addictive people and sometimes staying away from somthing is the only thing that can save us from spiraling down. I promise you that this addiction will eat away at you until you are no longer able to have a "real" relationship. No girl will be able to please you right, because you have learned how to please yourself better then anyone else could.

I agree with a lot of what newstrength said. I'm a sex and porn addict, but it hasn't affected my life negatively. It's under control and i maintain the discipline. Then again, i've never liked the word "addict" myself. Makes it sound like a bad thing.

Reading this I finally realized why I have a hard time reaching my peak during sex. Porn has integrated into my mind so much so that now I have to be visually stimulated. I love my guy so much, but sex really does nothing for me because I'm so desensitized to the action. I get turned on more from watching porn than having sex. That can ruin any potential relationship. I need to stop, but it's HARD!

i have to say i like porn...i can take it or leave it and do not look every day. When in the mood i do look at it

Exactly hooper. I do use it pretty much every day, but i'm always aware of my surroundings so that it doesn't affect anyone else in any way. And i'm honest about it.

Longhaul - perhaps I should clarify my statement in saying that porn is rarely the addiction.

When you say you "use it daily" would I be correct that you masturbate to porn daily? If it weren't for the masturbation I doubt the porn itself would have much power over your choices. The fact that the porn is present when masturbating means that the intense biochemical reactions within our bodies become linked to the visual & auditory stimuli presented by the porn and thus the link is established between porn & addiction.

To test this, simply see what happens when you look at porn without masturbating for an entire day. You may feel sexual though you must allow those feelings to dissipate on their own without manual stimulation.

I do agree that continued use of porn to fuel the addiction can result in "creep" into our daily reality. For some this can take the form of unrealistic expectations of our sexual partners, wifes, husbands, girlfriends and boyfriends since they do not live up to the unrealistic expectations of the porn fantasy. Personally I am working on tackling the compulsive masturbation addiction first, then my reliance on porn to fuel the fire.

Much of my recent positive learning on how to do this has been from the website: http://www.sexualcontrol.com

This is a great site for both the addict & partner of the addict to understand how to address the recovery needs of a "sex addict" vs. other addictions that do not involve a "natural" substance like sex.

All addictions ( overwhelming compulsions) are bad.

No, i love watching it even if a can't jerk off at the time. I scout out all of the TRUE free porn sites on the net. Unless i go to the store any buy a dvd, i don't pay for a thing. I also go for "situation" porn ,like Housewives ,mature women, etc.

The reason addiction is bad is because it enslaves and masters you. You are in bondage to it. The next time you are doing it ask yourself, is this really as enjoyable as I thought it would be when I felt that " I must do it"! Like, right after you're done... are you satisfied? Was it REALLY enjoyable? My experience is that it never is either. It is all about the drive to do something that you must have (AS IF there was a beneficial payoff)- but there is none!

When this masters us it also causes us to withdraw from participating in life as much as we may have been otherwise. Participating in life (even if you don't have a girlfriend or whatever you think you wish you had), participating in life and having new expereiences, GETTING OUT OF THE HOUSE, is what makes life something worth living. You will feel more satisfied and less depressed if you get outside and stop using mb to escape your sadness or boredom with life.

You say you like "situation porn". As a non-professional, that indicates to me that you are in need of experiencing EXPERIENCES. You need to go participate in life- SITUATIONS (your word).

I hope none of this comes across as negative cuz I'm right there with you man. Myself, I'm gonna go outside and something, ANYTHING right now. :)

well...the thing is I cant go outside. My parents are too overpertective and they wont let me do anything unless i am with someone else and no one wants to go anywhere with me. They say i can go somewhere if i have a friend go with me and i dont have any friends anymore. Or else I would. and I would hardly ever be home.