# Husband's porn addiction is ruining us



## newwife123

We've been together three years, married one. Six months after dating my husband left his laptop signed on to his email. I snooped and discovered he belonged to three (that I know of) "meet people porn sites." I got on to one of them through his email and discovered he had been having very sexual conversations with three different women. He apologized, said he was just curious, and said he never planned on meeting any of them. We split up and slowly got back together. Since then I found out that he has an addiction to porn. He had several hundred movies downloaded. He apologized and said he would quit. Caught him again, ect. He agreed he had a problem and said he would quit and he would come to me if he felt the urge. Then I found evidencce of it again. He agreed to go to counseling and we went for about a month. It seemed to help. then I found out that he signed up for two different pay for porn sites. I saw it on his credit card statement. He denied it and said he used to belong to them and they just automatically renewed it. I called the sites and they do not automatically renew yearly subscriptions. You have to sign up new to them for the yearly plan. He signed up ten days after we were married. We do have sex and it's great, I'm the one who always initiates it and he does turn me down sometimes. I feelm so undesireable. I am not a prude at all, but I can't stand this! I constantly feel the need to check things and every time I do, I find something. He says how can we move on if I keep bringing up the past. I say I'm not bringing up the past, it's then present and what I've found recently. He says I need to quit looking. I say that every time I look I find something! Now he uses the inprivate browsing on his computer! I have no way of knowing what he looks at, but the fact that I saw him using that tells me he's hiding something! Last week I found a history on his phone of several videos he watched and he even had neked pictures saved to his photos on his phone. He said he would not go back to counseling because he doesn't have a problem. He says there's nothing wrong with a little porn. I said it's not a little porn, it's a ton! I don't want a divorce and I do love him, I just feel so sad that he lies all the time and he just keeps on doing it!


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## klarson27

Is his porn usage replacing your sex life?


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## newwife123

klarson27 said:


> Is his porn usage replacing your sex life?


No we still have sex and it's great but he does turn me down. I always initiate also. I'm just sick of all the sneaking around and lying!
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## klarson27

That's a tough one since he's so heavily involved into the porn world I'm not sure you can get him to quit. If you weren't having sex it'd be a different story.


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## The Renegade

As I see it, there are only two ways:

1) Divorce (Which you don't want)

2) Acceptance (which you probably also don't want)

However, know, that you won't change him. 

You might consider talking to him in a productive rather than a restrictive way. Find out what kind of porn turns him on most, tell him what you maybe turn you on and ask him to introduce it to you. It would allow him to be more open with you and it could actually lead to lots of fun.

In case you, yourself, are generally offended or in any way repelled by porn, you will sooner or later need to choose option 1 above.


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## dubbizle

The NAGGING IS NOT WORKING and he is not going to stop so do something totally off the wall and let him enjoy what he is into and you can also try sitting next to him with the porno you like,WHY NOT.Have you ever asked him why he likes it in a non-angry way or what you can do to enjoy it with him.

There are Women and men that like porn and will not give it up,so you can keep being negative about it or you can look for something that will actually work.


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## Hope1964

My husband did something similar, and when I found out I kicked him out. Wanting to meet up with other women for sex is cheating. We are reconciling, but only because he is getting the help he needs.

My husband is also a sex/cybersex/porn addict (porn addiction is a type of sex addiction - all porn addicts are sex addicts but not vice versa). There are links in my sig that may help you. Unless your husband is willing to get himself some major help, you don't have much of a chance, sorry to say. Sadly, many sex addicts end up in jail.


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## CandieGirl

Listen to Hope; the rest of the replies you could do without, IMO. Your husband, however, will have to be the one to quit, otherwise you're just 'Officer Newwife123'. Erect some firm boundaries around yourself, and figure out what you're willing to accept. And reject.


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## iheartlife

Google how to disable inprivate browsing with your network operating system. It isn't very hard, but just hard enough that someone who doesn't know this will be mystified as to how to get it back.


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## Manas

Reality check - most men watch porn and almost almost all husbands do masturbate from time to time .... but if its replacing your sex life its a problem and he shouldnt be lookin at cybersex options or meeting people on adult websites .... choose your battles and am sure you guys can reach some common ground ... and dont let other women tell you not to listen to male points of view .... if you are in this forum i think its better you look at the picture from both sides.


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## johnnycomelately

The conversations with women is a seperate issue from the porn.

Porn use is normal among men and totally legal. Why is it a problem for you? You said it doesn't affect your sex life, so? As for the lying he wouldn't feel the need to lie if you didn't over-react.

'Porn addiction' is not included in the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA’s) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III-R). 

Men and women have the right to masturbate. If men don't masturbate they are much more likely to get prostate cancer. 

I don't believe that anyone has the right to tell you not to masturbate or to tell you not to use legal pornographic material to help you do so.


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## *LittleDeer*

If he isn't initiating and he's turning you down then it's a big problem. Porn is highly addictive and can be very damaging. It leads to unrealistic expectations and desensitized some men to real sex. Porn is a huge problem and is fast becoming one of the biggest problems brought into marital counseling, it is not nothing and not harmless.

There are places your husband can go to get help.

You deserve to feel desired by your husband, and he shouldn't be doing 
Something that hurts you or harms your relationship. 

Not to mention he's also lying to you and has had 
Intimate sexual chats with other women. None of this OK.

Anything that comes between you, particularly that takes the focus off the sexual bond between the two of you is very harmful.
I suggest you also go to counseling.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## johnnycomelately

*LittleDeer* said:


> Porn is highly addictive and can be very damaging. It leads to unrealistic expectations and desensitized some men to real sex. Porn is a huge problem and is fast becoming one of the biggest problems brought into marital counseling, it is not nothing and not harmless.


Do you have any evidence to back those statements up? 

If porn is highly addictive why isn't it included in the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA’s) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III-R)? 

More than 70% of men regularly use porn, are you saying that 7 out of 10 of the men out there have 'unrealistic expectations'?

Blaming porn for marital problems is a mistake. _Excessive _porn use is a _symptom_ of a problem, just like excessive eating or drinking, it is not the problem itself. 

This obession with pornography is a distraction and can prevent people from seeing the real problems and dealing with them.

See an excerpt from a study at the University of Montreal below: 

*Prof Lajeunesse interviewed 20 heterosexual male university students who consumed pornography.

Around 90 per cent of consumption was on the internet, while 10 per cent of material came from video stores.

Single men watched pornography for an average of 40 minutes, three times a week, while those in relationships watched it 1.7 times a week for around 20 minutes.

The study found that men watched pornography that matched their own image of sexuality, and quickly discarded material they found offensive or distasteful.

Prof Lajeunesse said pornography did not have a negative effect on men's sexuality.

“Not one subject had a pathological sexuality,” he said. “In fact, all of their sexual practices were quite conventional.

“Pornography hasn't changed their perception of women or their relationship, which they all want to be as harmonious and fulfilling as possible,” he added.*


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## *LittleDeer*

Yes I do have evidence to back up my statements.

I would also add that just because something has become a norm doesn't make it harmless.

Three Myths about Porn | Reuniting

This ^ article is quite good, and the OP may find it very helpful. Please read and let me know if it doesn't adequately refute your points above.

Moreover studies do show that it changes men's perception of women and sex, however they don't notice these shifts as it then becomes a new norm for them.

Most importantly if you are in a relationship with someone and you believe that their porn use/ drinking/ gaming/ freindships or whatever else you want to insert here, negatively effect your relationship, then your spouse should care enough about you to look at the issue and put you first. Relationships with selfish, self indulgent people who don't pay attention to the needs of their spouse don't last.


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## johnnycomelately

*LittleDeer* said:


> Yes I do have evidence to back up my statements.
> 
> Three Myths about Porn | Reuniting


I tend to pay more attention to studies that are from independent, peer-reviewed academic organisations, otherwise it is a bit like defending pornography with a study sponsored by Hustler magazine. Do you have anything from a credible organisation?



*LittleDeer* said:


> Moreover studies do show that it changes men's perception of women and sex, however they don't notice these shifts as it then becomes a new norm for them.


Can you post links to those?


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## *LittleDeer*

johnnycomelately said:


> I tend to pay more attention to studies that are from independent, peer-reviewed academic organisations, otherwise it is a bit like defending pornography with a study sponsored by Hustler magazine. Do you have anything from a credible organisation?
> 
> 
> 
> Can you post links to those?


Can you post a link to yours?

I am happy to get more for you ASAP

Moreover rather then try and justify your porn use, shouldn't we be trying to help the OP who does have an issue with her husbands porn use. I'm trying to post useful info that may help them.


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## dubbizle

Ok LittleDeer* we get it porn is not for YOU but a GREAT many of us out here both WOMEN AND MEN like it and do not have unrealistic expectations of our partners and its not going anywhere .It get so tiring when people start blaming something on the object and not on the person;in many countries where there is NO PORN women are treated the worst. 

The husband has let her know what he is going to do so she can either leave or try to figure something else out,so the balls in her court and I suggest trying to come to a good resolution for both of them if she wants to stay.


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## johnnycomelately

*LittleDeer* said:


> Can you post a link to yours?


I did.



*LittleDeer* said:


> Moreover rather then try and justify your porn use, shouldn't we be trying to help the OP who does have an issue with her husbands porn use. I'm trying to post useful info that may help them.


I am. 

I genuinely feel that focussing on porn in this instance, and many others, is a red herring and will not do the OP or her marriage anything but harm.

I am trying to show her that her husband's porn use is normal and is (according to most independent, peer-reviewed, science-based studies) not harmful. 

She should be focussing on why he was talking to other women.


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## *LittleDeer*

johnnycomelately said:


> I did.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I am.
> 
> I genuinely feel that focussing on porn in this instance, and many others, is a red herring and will not do the OP or her marriage anything but harm.
> 
> I am trying to show her that her husband's porn use is normal and is (according to most independent, peer-reviewed, science-based studies) not harmful.
> 
> She should be focussing on why he was talking to other women.


Most peer reviewed articles, sceinece based articles? That is ridiculous. 

Again just because something is a norm that doesn't make it harmless. Obesity is also a norm etc.



> 102 The current porn epidemic gives a graphic demonstration that sexual tastes can be acquired. Pornography, delivered by high-speed Internet connections, satisfies every one of the prerequisites for neuroplastic change [forming new neural circuitry- a key piece in addiction].
> 
> Pornography seems, at first glance, to be a purely instinctual matter: sexually explicit pictures trigger instinctual responses, which are the product of millions of years of evolution. But if that were true, pornography would be unchanging. The same triggers, bodily parts and their proportions, that appealed to our ancestors would excite us. This is what pornographers would have us believe, for they claim they are battling sexual repression, taboo, and fear and that their goal is to liberate the natural, pent-up sexual instincts.
> 
> But in fact the content of pornography is a dynamic phenomenon that perfectly illustrates the progress of an acquired taste. Thirty years ago, "hardcore" pornography usually meant the explicit depiction of sexual intercourse between two aroused partners, displaying their genitals. "Softcore" meant pictures of women, mostly, on a bed, at their toilette, or in some semi-romantic setting, in various states of undress, breasts revealed.
> 
> Now hardcore has evolved and is increasingly dominated by the sadomasochistic themes of forced sex, ejaculations on women's faces, and angry anal sex, all involving scripts fusing sex with hatred and humiliation. Hardcore pornography now explores the world of perversion, while softcore is now what hardcore was a few decades ago, [103] explicit sexual intercourse between adults, now available on cable TV. The comparatively tame softcore pictures of yesteryear--women in various states of undress--now show up on mainstream media all day long, in the pornification of everything, including television, rock videos, soap operas, advertisements, and so on.
> 
> Pornography’s growth has been extraordinary; it accounts for 25 percent of video rentals and is the fourth most common reason people give for going online. An MSNBC.com survey of viewers in 2001 found that 80 percent felt they were spending so much time on pornographic sites that they were putting their relationships or jobs at risk. Softcore pornography’s influence is now most profound because, now that it is no longer hidden it influences young people with little sexual experience and especially plastic minds, in the process of forming their sexual tastes and desires. Yet the plastic influence of pornography on adults can also be profound, and those who use it have no sense of the extent to which their brains are reshaped by it.
> 
> During the mid- to late 1990s, when the Internet was growing rapidly and pornography was exploding on it, I treated or assessed a number of men who all had essentially the same story. Each had acquired a taste for a kind of pornography that, to a greater or lesser degree, troubled or even disgusted him, had a disturbing effect on the pattern of his sexual excitement, and ultimately affected his relationships and sexual potency.
> 
> None of these men were fundamentally immature, socially awkward, or withdrawn from the world into a massive pornography collection that was a substitute for relationships with real women. These were pleasant, generally thoughtful men, in reasonably successful relationships or marriages.
> 
> Typically, while I was treating one of these men for some other problem, he would report, almost as an aside and with telling discomfort, that he found himself spending more and more time on the Internet, looking at pornography and masturbating. He might try to [104] ease his discomfort by asserting that everybody did it. In some cases he would begin by looking at a Playboy-type site or at a nude picture or video clip that someone had sent him as a lark. In other cases he would visit a harmless site, with a suggestive ad that redirected him to risque sites, and soon he would be hooked.
> 
> A number of these men also reported something else, often in passing, that caught my attention. They reported increasing difficulty in being turned on by their actual sexual partners, spouses or girlfriends, though they still considered them objectively attractive. When I asked if this phenomenon had any relationship to viewing pornography, they answered that it initially helped them get more excited during sex but over time had the opposite effect. Now, instead of using their senses to enjoy being in bed, in the present, with their partners, lovemaking increasingly required them to fantasize that they were part of a porn script. Some gently tried to persuade their lovers to act like porn stars, and they were increasingly interested in “****ing” as opposed to “making love.” Their sexual fantasy lives were increasingly dominated by the scenarios that they had, so to speak downloaded into their brains, and these new scripts were often more primitive and more violent than their previous sexual fantasies. I got the impression that any sexual creativity these men had was dying and that they were becoming addicted to Internet porn.
> 
> The changes I observed are not confined to a few people in therapy. A social shift is occurring. While it is usually difficult to get information about private sexual mores, this is not the case with pornography today, because its use is increasingly public. This shift coincides with the change from calling it "pornography" to the more casual term "porn." For his book on American campus life, I Am Charlotte Simmons, Tom Wolfe spent a number of years observing students on university campuses. In the book one boy, Ivy Peters, comes into the male residence and says, "Anybody got porn?"
> 
> Wolfe goes on, "This was not an unusual request. Many boys [105] spoke openly about how they masturbated at least once every day, as if this were some sort of prudent maintenance of the psychosexual system."One of the boys tells Ivy Peters, "Try the third floor. They got some one-hand magazines up there." But Peters responds, "I've build up a tolerance to magazines...I need videos." Another boy says, "Oh, f'r Chrissake, I.P., it's ten o'clock at night. In another hour the cum dumpsters will start coming over here to spend the night...And you're looking for porn videos and a knuckle ****." Then Ivy "shrugged and turned his palms up as if to say, 'I want porn. What's the big deal?'"
> 
> The big deal is his tolerance. He recognizes that he is like a drug addict who can no longer get high on the images that once turned him on. And the danger is that this tolerance will carry over into relationships, as it did in patients whom I was seeing, leading to potency problems and new, at times unwelcome, tastes. When pornographers boast that they are pushing the envelope by introducing new, harder themes, what they don't say is that they must, because their customers are building up a tolerance to the content. The back pages of men's risque magazines and Internet porn sites are filled with ads for Viagra-type drugs--medicine developed for older men with erectile problems related to aging and blocked blood vessels in the penis. Today young men who surf porn are tremendously fearful of impotence, or “erectile dysfunction” as it is euphemistically called. The misleading term implies that these men have a problem in their penises, but the problem is in their heads, in their sexual brain maps. The penis works fine when they use pornography. It rarely occurs to them that there may be a relationship between the pornography they are consuming and their impotence. (A few men, however, tellingly described their hours at computer porn sites as time spent "masturbating my brains out.")
> 
> One of the boys in Wolfe's scene describes the girls who are coming over to have sex with their boyfriends as "cum dumpsters." He too is influenced by porn images, for "cum dumpsters," like many [106] women in porn films, are always eager, available receptacles and therefore devalued.
> 
> The addictiveness of Internet pornography is not a metaphor. Not all addictions are to drugs or alcohol. People can be seriously addicted to gambling, even to running. All addicts show a loss of control of the activity, compulsively seek it out despite negative consequences, develop tolerance so that they need higher and higher levels of stimulation for satisfaction, and experience withdrawal if they can't consummate the addictive act.
> 
> All addiction involves long-term, sometimes lifelong, neuroplastic change in the brain. For addicts, moderation is impossible, and they must avoid the substance or activity completely if they are to avoid addictive behaviors. Alcoholics Anonymous insists that there are no "former alcoholics" and makes people who haven't had a drink for decades introduce themselves at a meeting by saying, "My name is John, and I am an alcoholic." In terms of [brain] plasticity, they are often correct.
> 
> In order to determine how addictive a street drug is, researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Maryland train a rat to press a bar until it gets a shot of the drug. The harder the animal is willing to work to press the bar, the more addictive the drug. Cocaine, almost all other illegal drugs, and even nondrug addictions such as running make the pleasure-giving neurotransmitter dopamine more active in the brain. Dopamine is called the reward transmitter, because when we accomplish something--run a race and win--our brain triggers its release. Though exhausted, we get a surge of energy, exciting pleasure, and confidence and even raise our hands and run a victory lap. The losers, on the other hand, who get no such dopamine surge, immediately run out of energy, collapse at the finish line, and feel awful about themselves. By hijacking our dopamine system, addictive substances give us pleasure without our having to work for it.
> 
> [107] Dopamine, as we saw in Merzenick's work, is also involved in plastic change. The same surge of dopamine that thrills us also consolidates the neuronal connections responsible for the behaviors that led us to accomplish our goal. When Merzenick used an electrode to stimulate an animal's dopamine reward system while playing a sound, dopamine release stimulated plastic change, enlarging the representation for the sound in the animal's auditory map. An important link with porn is that dopamine is also released in sexual excitement, increasing the sex drive in both sexes, facilitating orgasm, and activating the brain's pleasure centers. Hence the addictive power of pornography.
> 
> Eric Nestler, at the University of Texas, has shown how addictions cause permanent changes in the brains of animals. A single dose of many addictive drugs will produce a protein, called delta FosB that accumulates in the neurons. Each time the drug is used, more delta FosB accumulates until it throws a genetic switch, affecting which genes are turned on or off. Flipping this switch causes changes that persist long after the drug is stopped, leading to irreversible damage to the brain’s dopamine system and rendering the animal far more prone to addiction. Non-drug addictions, such as running and sucrose drinking, also lead to the accumulation of deltaFosB and the same permanent changes in the dopamine system. [Note: Not sure these are permanent. The study we saw said 1-2 months for lingering deltaFosB. More on Delta FosB, and even more on DeltaFosB.]
> 
> Pornographers promise healthy pleasure and relief from sexual tension, but what they often deliver is addiction, tolerance, and an eventual decrease in pleasure. Paradoxically, the male patients I worked with often craved pornography but didn’t like it. The usual view is that an addict goes back for more of his fix because he likes the pleasure it gives and doesn't like the pain of withdrawal. But addicts take drugs when there is no prospect of pleasure, when they know they have an insufficient dose to make them high, and will crave more before they begin to withdraw. Wanting and liking are two different things.
> 
> [108] An addict experiences cravings because his plastic brain has become sensitized to the drug or the experience. Sensitization leads to increased wanting. It is the accumulation of deltaFosB, caused by exposure to an addictive substance or activity, that leads to sensitization.
> 
> Pornography is more exciting than satisfying because we have two separate pleasure systems in our brains, one that has to do with exciting pleasure and one with satisfying pleasure. The exciting system relates to the "appetitive" pleasure that we get imagining something we desire, such as sex or a good meal. Its neurochemistry is largely dopamine-related, and it raises our tension level.
> 
> The second pleasure system has to do with the satisfaction, or consummatory pleasure, that attends actually having sex or having that meal, a calming, fulfilling pleasure. Its neurochemistry is based on the release of endorphins, which are related to opiates and give a peaceful, euphoric bliss.
> 
> Pornography, by offering an endless harem of sexual objects, hyperactivates the appetitive system. Porn viewers develop new maps in their brains, based on the photos and videos they see. Because it is a use-it-or-lose-it brain, when we develop a map area, we long to keep it activated. Just as our muscles become impatient for exercise if we've been sitting all day, so too do our senses hunger to be stimulated.
> 
> The men at their computers looking at porn were uncannily like the rats in the cages of the NIH, pressing the bar to get a shot of dopamine or its equivalent. Though they didn't know it, they had been seduced into pornographic training sessions that met all the conditions required for plastic change of brain maps. Since neurons [109] that fire together wire together, these men got massive amounts of practice wiring these images into the pleasure centers of the brain, with the rapt attention necessary for plastic change. They imagined these images when away from their computers, or while having sex with their girlfriends, reinforcing them. Each time they felt sexual excitement and had an orgasm when they masturbated, a "spritz of dopamine," the reward neurotransmitter, consolidated the connections made in the brain during the sessions. Not only did the reward facilitate the behavior; it provoked none of the embarrassment they felt purchasing Playboy at a store. Here was a behavior with no “punishment,” only reward.
> 
> The content of what they found exciting changed as the Web sites introduced themes and scripts that altered their brains without their awareness. Because plasticity is competitive, the brain maps for new, exciting images increased at the expense of what had previously attracted them--the reason, I believe, they began to find their girlfriends less of a turn-on.
> 
> ...
> 
> [110]Until he happened upon the spanking pictures, which presumably tapped into some childhood experience or fantasy about being punished, the images he saw interested him but didn't compel him. Other people's sexual fantasies bore us. Thomas's experience was similar to that of my patients; without being fully aware of what they were looking for, they scanned hundreds of images and scenarios until they hit upon an image or sexual script that touched some buried theme that really excited them.
> 
> [111]Once Thomas found that image, he changed. That spanking image had his focused attention, the condition for plastic change. And unlike a real woman, these porn images were available all day, every day on the computer.
> 
> Now Thomas was hooked. He tried to control himself but was spending at least five hours a day on his laptop. He surfed secretly, sleeping only three hours a night. His girlfriend, aware of his exhaustion, wondered if he was seeing someone else. He became so sleep deprived that his health suffered, and he got a series of infections that landed him in a hospital emergency room and finally caused him to take stock. He began inquiring among his male friends and found that many of them were also hooked.
> 
> ...
> 
> Hardcore porn unmasks some of the early neural networks that formed in the critical periods of sexual development and brings all these early, forgotten or repressed elements together [112] to form a new network, in which all the features are wired together. Porn sites generate catalogs of common kinks and mix them together in images. Sooner or later the surfer finds a killer combination that presses a number of his sexual buttons at once. Then he reinforces the network by viewing the images repeatedly, masturbating, releasing dopamine and strengthening these networks. He has created a kind of "neosexuality," a rebuilt libido that has strong roots in his buried sexual tendencies. Because he often develops tolerance, the pleasure of sexual discharge must be supplemented with the pleasure of an aggressive release, and sexual and aggressive images are increasingly mingled--hence the increase in sadomasochistic themes in hardcore porn.


The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the ... - Norman Doidge, Norman Doidge MD - Google Books

Porn is only one section, it's quite fascinating.


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## johnnycomelately

*LittleDeer* said:


> Again just because something is a norm that doesn't make it harmless. Obesity is also a norm etc.


Obesity has been proven to be harmful, porn hasn't.



*LittleDeer* said:


> Most peer reviewed articles, sceinece based articles? That is ridiculous.


Why?

If you are giving evidence in an argument you should use credible sources not crack-pot, mom and pop psychobabble websites. 

This hysteria about porn and how _eeeeevvvvvvvvvvviiiilllllll_ it is just shows a lack of maturity and self-confidence. 

@ OP - Focus on your relationship, not a cultural phenomena that you have no power over.


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## *LittleDeer*

johnnycomelately said:


> Obesity has been proven to be harmful, porn hasn't.
> 
> 
> 
> I believe that depends on what you read, and where you get your information.
> 
> There is plenty of scientific and peer reviewed stuff out there, but more research needs to be done. However many people who do study the harmful effects of porn, do say it's difficult because many people won't touch the subject for fear of being ridiculed and called a prude, religious nazi etc. If you read my first link it does have some great points, many of which have been proven with your responce.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Why?
> 
> If you are giving evidence in an argument you should use credible sources not crack-pot, mom and pop psychobabble websites.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> I don't think you understood what I was saying, I was making the point that it is ridiculous to state that all peer reviewed articles etc say porn is harmless, that is simply no the case. It's a huge sweeping false statement to make. I think you know this.
> 
> 
> 
> This hysteria about porn and how _eeeeevvvvvvvvvvviiiilllllll_ it is just shows a lack of maturity and self-confidence
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> .
> I hardly see me disagreeing with you as hysteria. I find that to be a very odd responce, to some one wanting to provide info to the OP.
> 
> Importantly you only have to look at this site to see that porn is in fact a huge problem in many marriages. Are you discounting the very real personal problems of many posters on TAM? Does it not count just because you wish it didn't? There are often multiple posts about it daily.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> @ OP - Focus on your relationship, not a cultural phenomena that you have no power over.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> If any cultural issue that effects your marriage, then you should focus on it.
> 
> Top Marriage Counseling Problems in Roseville, Folsom, Sacramento
> 
> That article is one of many that lists porn as a top marital problem.
Click to expand...


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## iheartlife

What I would find amusing, if it wasn't so sad, is that there is a rising group young men in their late 20s / early 30s who have watched video porn since practically the dawn of the Internet. This group has a disproportionate incidence of ED. Apparently Viagra doesn't always work for them because it isn't a physiological problem. The only thing that works for them is to reduce the amount of masturbation and porn down to a reasonable amount.

Most men do enjoy porn, because most men are highly visual sexual creatures.

It's the instant gratification issue coming back to bite the ones who let it take over their lives.

Porn addiction is probably too strong a word, the more proper term is compulsion. Compulsions can be very powerful, habits don't have to rise to the level of addictions before they become intensely difficult to break.

The other issue with porn is that men who use it compulsively find they can't get off on more mundane stuff so they have to go more and more out there to get off from it. We're not talking stuff that can be printed in your grandpappy's Hustler. The analogy to obesity is apt--Oprah once said she caught herself eating a box of frozen waffles straight out of the freezer with butter and syrup on top. There is "normal"--and then there's a serious problem. I don't see why we can't distinguish between the two.


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## BigLion

newwife123 said:


> Since then I found out that he has an addiction to porn. He had several hundred movies downloaded. He apologized and said he would quit. Caught him again, ect. He agreed he had a problem and said he would quit and he would come to me if he felt the urge. Then I found evidencce of it again.


I find it hard to see how the OP would see how there is no problem with porn in this case after what she has said.

In this case porn seems to be a major problem as he is addicted/obsessed/compulsed to see it. There are most likely other issues too of course as to why he would continue to hurt her by watching it and lying about waching it. He seems to enjoy porn and other activities more than being with his partner.


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## johnnycomelately

*LittleDeer* said:


> There is plenty of scientific and peer reviewed stuff out there, but more research needs to be done. However many people who do study the harmful effects of porn, do say it's difficult because many people won't touch the subject for fear of being ridiculed and called a prude, religious nazi etc. If you read my first link it does have some great points, many of which have been proven with your responce.


Generally when you are talking about academic studies they are not accepted as evidence unless they have been carried out by an acknowledged expert, using controlled science-based methods and published in a respected academic journal, where other experts in the field have a chance to respond to the claims. 

The articles that you have come up with don't fit that criteria. They are just people's opinions. 

I read the first article and it was interesting but could in no way could it be considered 'evidence' of anything. There were no controlled studies done, no scientific methods applied.

In the case of Norman Doidge he is a crack-pot who claims to have pioneered the 'new science of neuroplasticity' which has actually been around since 1890 and was pioneered by the psychologist William James.



*LittleDeer* said:


> I don't think you understood what I was saying, I was making the point that it is ridiculous to state that all peer reviewed articles etc say porn is harmless, that is simply no the case. It's a huge sweeping false statement to make. I think you know this.


I didn't say all, I said _most_ and I stand by that. If you think I am wrong come up with some credible evidence. 

You are the one who made sweeping statements about the damage that porn does, I challenged your position and used science-based evidence to back up my argument. You have simply tried to justify your prejudice against pornography using the opinions of people who agree with you as evidence.


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## Manas

Men are stimulated visually while most women emotionally .... the day my wife swear she will never again get emotional or cry on something most guys will take rationally and easily will be the day I swear I will never again watch porn .... but I think we would both be aiming too high with that .... comprende? :lol:


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## Manas

Of course if the porn is a huge addiction he needs to cut down drastically


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## error

i dont think it is addiction , so many men fall into this problem , it is about time , if he has the time in front of the internet with nothing really important to do he would check porn sites THIS IS A GENERAL PROBLEM
IF the man has no time for porn he wont get invulved to it


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