Porn wasn't about the actual sex for me, it was about forcing my brain to focus on one source of stimulation because I hated my real life and never wanted to think about it. I turn on porn, my brain stops thinking.
@@ImLehwzI’ll be completely honest, no. I only recently Quit and the reason I watched it so much hit me like a train, I hate my real life and don’t like thinking about it. I’m currently in the lowest mental state I’ve ever been in but I know porn is the problem and my motivation to cut it off and live a better life is greater than my motivation to watch porn. It’s not easy, but I’m determined to fix it and I don’t care how depressed I get along the way because I KNOW there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.
That's what I'm thinking too. The solution must be to find a different easily accessible positive activity that you can turn to when you want to turn off your brain.
I think it was Dr. K that said in another video that chronic porn consumption is a symptom of severe loneliness. When I started thinking of it in that term, I started fostering my relationships, and what I've found quite suddenly is that I am far less reliant on pornography. I currently have a network of people I care about and trust, and they feel the same for me. I've also learned that I, in fact, can be viewed as attractive by some women, which I did not believe to be the case when I was younger. In lieu of these recent developments, I have stopped viewing porn as of about three weeks ago. I used to consume pornography on average once a day. I have had some temptation to resume the habit, but I am currently curious to see how far I can go without. Ideally, I would like to take that energy and put it towards fostering a legitimate romantic relationship, instead, as I feel that would be better for long-term fulfillment. I may also relapse at some point, but I hope that if I do, I handle it with grace and try again.
@artbeau1234 So, I am a people pleaser by nature. A lot of my actions are often in the service of others. This has been a mixed bag: decent people think I am "nice," but people who are not decent will try to take advantage of me. I've had to learn to be more assertive so that I don't get walked on as much. I've also tried to make a concerted effort to be "kind" rather than "nice," because sometimes you have to say something unpopular to actually help someone out. What has happened in recent history is that, because I am more firm with people, and I approach situations with genuine caring, I feel reciprocity for my efforts. This has made a positive feedback loop, where I become more confident with time, and this helps me deal with people better. I would say, first and foremost, if you are dealing with toxic individuals in your life, distance yourself as much as possible as soon as possible. They will drain your social battery more than you realize, and that will make you progress much more difficult.
I can agree totally with the Loneliness aspect I am 42 years old I had been married for 17years, we moved abroad for semi retirement, and out of the blue my wife left me. She didn't leave me for another man there was no problems in our relationship that I was aware of I still don't know why she has gone. However however I'm in a position of complete isolation with no friends. Alone in a house, in a country where I don't speak the language. I've noticed that when feeling depressed and miserable I've started to turn to pawn again even though I loath the detest it. I have met some people that I have associated with and they are pleasant enough company but I never find fulfilling. I never really developed friendships when I was married because I like my own space and I was content with the company of my wife she had her own friends but I never felt the need. I don't want to watch prawns I don't like doing it. sometimes is the only thing that seems to make me feel any positive emotion so I can get on with the day. I suppose it's like taking a snort cocaine? even though I've never done drugs.
When you discover / reach the poiny of being attractive to women that are attractive to you then you've reached a great milestone. Assuming you have decent judgement
Porn addiction is incredibly hard to stop. I was addicted to opiates for many years back in the day and while it was very difficult to quit it was so much easier than giving up porn. Porn has a way to creep back into your life over and over again.
its right there. Addicted to pills, drugs? You have to go pick them up, legally, or otherwise, and spend money. Porn? its right there, theres a computer everywhere, that seems to automatically load it up for you.
1. Boundary setting 2. Emotional regulation techniques 3. Processing trauma 4. Building/working towards a purpose in life We use pornography to escape our pain or trauma, so replace this pain or trauma with a different satiating habit, such as exercise or purpose GIVE YOURSELF PURPOSE, something to work towards and act upon it
Not everyone uses porn to escape pain and trauma. A lot of people have a lust addiction and if they can’t fulfill it with a real person, they use porn.
@@KS-pi1kt Why not? Men and women are after all different so it's no surprise that men respond to visual stimulae, while women prefer narrative based erotica. But the underlying purpose remains the same. Of course given that all masculine forms of sexuality are these days demonised - much of this 'porn addiction' panic really just has a big fat element of male shaming involved.
@@philipwilkie3239 i think it becomes a problem when people start to use it more than once a week, that goes for any kind of pornography and or erotic writing since it takes people away from making actual connections from others
@@philipwilkie3239 and you basically just made it clear that it isnt the same thing by explaining it for me lol. Sure theyre both sexual but one of them is made with imagination, and one is made with real people who often get harmed/abused in the process of making it. not to mention the porn industry perpetuates this harmful and unrealistic beauty standard for both men and women and erotic writing perpetuates it way less.
@@KS-pi1kt True - but you just shifted the goalposts from 'addiction' of the consumer to 'exploitation' of the producers. Personally I think there would be no good place for porn in an ideal world - but given so many people, both men and women, find themselves cut off from relationships that might fulfil their emotional needs - then it's not terribly surprising we resort to non-ideal means.
Sure it can become an addition but people write as if there are other options for millions of guys who can’t get a woman to pay even the slightest attention to them.
Do NOT text a person frequently until AFTER you spend time with them. Then you can imagine the personality and facial expressions while reading the text.
This sounds like some major wisdom, im assuming this is how we avoid projecting our insecurities onto someone else via texting? I feel like i should have internalized this a decade ago.
I think this is a good idea, but what if you meet someone who you can’t meet up with because they may be in a foreign country or something? Would things like video calls suffice?
Porn addiction for me it started in HS. I was never one of the cool kids, so naturally, i never got any girls back then. There's IMMENSE pressure for teen boys to have sex during that 4 years btw. I couldnt physically experience sex with any of the girls i wanted in HS, so the next best thing was to watch other men have sex with women i found attractive and live vicariously through them. As i've gotten older and have become busy with life stuff, i dont watch it as much.
Degenerate culture and romanticized hollywood high school tales are what facilitated this. Romance and trying to understand gender differences is an inevitable part of the high school experience. It just sucks that in recent years, this has been conflated with basic promiscuous hypergamy.
I had no pressure to have sex in HS. In fact I didn't even think anyone in my HS was having sex. I was a nerd so I only knew one guy who even had a girlfriend. I also didn't have porn when I was in HS and just masturbated. So for everyone that blames porn in their teen years for messing them up, just know that even without it you can end up just masturbating all the time. The porn is not necessary. The outcome is the same though.
The vast majority of this video is about dating and has nothing to do with porn, addiction or masturbation. Nor does it give any hint whatsoever about how to "break free".
What? Unless the video has changed its like all they cover at the beginning. Dealing with pain and trauma Dealing with emotions Dealing with failures at life Like im 5 minutes in and covering why people are addicted to porn
@@Faq-ubeach The title says "how to break free". They don't discuss that at all. And even just looking at the chapters you can see that from 4 minutes in to a 16 minute video they switch to talking about dating.
1.Boundary settings. 2.Emotional regulation techniques. 3.Processing trauma. 4.Really building purpose in life. Thank you so much Doctor. Appreciate it.
Yes, being dumped by my long term girlfriend 3 months after graduation was rough because it was infinitely harder to find a partner outside of university. Took another decade before I met my wife. As much as I hated dating apps, they were instrumental in helping me find a partner as I certainly wasn't meeting anyone outside of them.
Social media is a stain on humanity. It has done incalculable damage to the world. The ramifications may not be fully understood for at least another generation. I think millennials, of which i am one, are the most impacted because we're just old enough to remember being alive before everything really took off and therefore have been in the transition and fully feel the consequences. The generations after were born into it and know nothing else. I pray for the younger generations.
It’s actually going to be way worse for the gen z and gen alpha. Jonathan Haidt wrote The Anxious Generation which was about social medias effects on these young generations. One thing he said was that the mind pre and post puberty is fundamentally changed, and there examples of things like your speaking accent which, if you lived in another country and moved to the US before puberty, you will now have an American accent as an adult, but if you moved to the US post puberty, you will retain your country of origin’s accent for life. That’s how powerful puberty’s effect is on the brain. The consequences of that are that if you were exposed to social media before puberty, your mind will have grown up with all of its ills and attention destroying capabilities. However, if you are a millennial, you have a *bit* of resistance to the negative effects, because your brain matured at a point when it wasn’t exposed to social media. So as bad as it is for us the millennials, it will be absolutely worse for the next generations who will grow up with instragram at 9 years old.
Man I was born in 97 I witnessed the social media era bloom… But my point is I swear before that or the start of that it was way easier to start a relationship with a women then it is now… Things were a lot more authentic growing up until now…
Only for the people with unconventional kinks, if it's about regular straight intercourse, there's nothing different that porn does that you don't do In the bedroom. Problem with porn is that it always shows the hot women so then as an average guy that probably would never get to sleep with a hot porn woman, they have difficulty getting turned on by average women and enjoying sexual intercourse with them. I think that is the issue, people's brains have been conditioned to only get turned out by the specific 10% of women and men.
As a man at 43, my wife doesn't give me any anymore. So it's not an addiction. It just helps with the process to make it finish as quickly as possible.
For me im hypersexual and think about sex all the time since i was 9 or 10. I tend masturbate/watch porn to avoid hookup culture and drama. Ill give way and say Part of it may be grief, depression and being a virgin late in life and the shame of not living in my 20's. While also avoiding connection from losing alot of people in my 20's I lost 5 family members, a puppy to cancer, multiple friends to jobs and moving out of state. and seeing family that havent delt with grieft... going into hookup culture. I feel bad for kids growing up with half siblings and no dad or watching thier sibling get to spend time with thier other parent. Being a child of multiple generations of divorce, i wont risk making a child grow up in a broken or drama driven family. Even if i have to suffer being sexless and alone, i can control that part of my life. But i dont like the idea of using or being used for 15 minutes, with a stranger. And im just tired of dating and online apps. Even if the fantasy of it is extremly enticing to me. I just cant tell if its intuition or insicurity that drives me towards or away from what i want/need...
And yet you can let it define who you are if you so choose. How you go about that, good or bad also matters. I also believe in moderation, but ulitmately feel like i can do whatever it is i damnwell please. Going from being a nobody to the person people wish they had, the problem with that is, you priced yourself out of the market. And you find yourself right back where you started, bored with people and alone. And all you are left with, is doing what works for you. Ultimately what im sying is, we cannot walk out on the game society built and are forced to play. So play your hand well i say.
This is actually interesting. I work with teenagers and my main concern with them is their lack of social skills. I was a shy teenager who didn't have much social skills, so I can relate. I had a lot of learning to do as an adult. But there is a real challenge is this society where you can just text someone and don't have to deal with the anxiety that comes from talking to people face to face. It was a different world where I grew up and that has become apparent in my work.
Thank you for sharing your observation. I have been always avoiding people because of anxiety. I even quit my job. I am 37 male. Do you have any advice for me? Please help.
@@c.f.okonta8815 No. He should be going out and try to chat up girls. Testtosterone is not a hormone that makes you sit in front of a computer screen rubbing one out. That is an acquired habit.
For me, getting busy doing creative projects broke the habit. To make a long story real short, I got busy, made money, and the initial "habit" didn't even occur to me any more. I had found meaning and made connections with people, so it just stopped being a thing. I understand it won't be that easy for everyone. I know there are addictive personalities, but think of it this way. For every problem in gaming, there is a solution. In knowing this, we grind grind grind until we solve the problem and level up our skillset. The same applies to life. For every problem, a solution exists that is doable for you. It may take some work to get there, but I believe in you.
I swear the universe and God is throwing more things my way to help me get my life back on track. This video is one example of my current struggling circumstances in my life. Thank you Dr. Rena. 🙏
Denial of the flesh only leads to other mental issues. It's probably the reason that the Inquisition and witch-burning went on for so long. At the height of it, women were inspected to find one mole, which was all that was necessary to condemn her to the fire. They got to strip a woman, torture her, and then burn her to death. Do you really think that these were "men of God?" And why did "God" allow it to be done in his name - for more than 1,500 years?
@samjohnson3124 glad I don't think of myself as being no different than my neighbors dog. I guess you feel quilt if you run over a human on the way home from work and if you run over a dog you would feel exactly the same way you felt when running over a person, because in the mind of a Godless person there is no difference between a person who is made in the image of God or a dog or a bug or any other living thing. If there is no God than life is as cheap as you are. You can't be offended because you have no value and are as important as a cockroach roach if you truly believe there is no God who has made us in His image and sets us apart as special compared to every other living thing. If there is no Creator, than why do we have laws that were given by God in the 10 commandments.
@johnwhitneykokalis9990 idk what you are rambling about since whatever you are saying isnt really an argument, but if believing in God truly makes your life feel fuller and happier then there's nothing wrong with it and dont worry about those edgy redditors telling you otherwise.
I feel that. Got my first glimpse of porn at 7 years old. Was nearly a decade in before I learned that it caused problems and its been a struggle ever since.
@@tamashii14 the same for me....keep fighting ...eventually you will win...I took me 7 years to completely stop. Do it progressively , reduce the frequency at which you watch it, resist to the urge...try to identify what trigger you to open p*rn site and resist to it. As you are reducing the frequency of watching and avoiding the triggers, you will finally get away from it
I have been watching porn once a day (before bed) for years now. The reasons I do it mostly are: 1. Have prolonged dry spells between sexual partners (currently over 2 years since the last one), so it’s the only kind of activity I can engage in regularly that relieves sexual tension. 2. I have been constantly stressed from all the shit happening around the world, especially for the last few years, and I’ve found porn and masturbation to be a decent outlet to relieve some of that stress at least to sleep. Thankfully I’ve still been able to function properly as an adult and do my job without problems and still have a healthy group of friends, and still maintain a good and loving relationship with my family. From my experience, the problem isn’t watching porn regularly, it’s if you let it overtake your thoughts and makes you want to experience it more than other activities, especially ones with friends and family.
@@robertdesmond1131 Liked your comment because I understand where you’re coming from. Remember God gave men and women sex drives, and not so we could ignore them. I think I’ve been addicted to porn, but I know my sex drive is a gift to me - and my next wife. Plus, I believe my sex drive helps me have ambition and the desire to be my best. After briefly satisfying myself with porn, I soon just feel empty and unmotivated with low self worth. Porn probably always will tempt me. Just thinking about porn right now makes me want to watch some and gives me a little excitement. But intellectually and spiritually I know I’m better without it.
I’m gonna be honest, that this is kind of the problem with porn. Is that you get a side of people that say “oh it’s fine, it’s not a problem” but basically you’re cheating your brain out of a real reward system. Also creates unrealistic expectations for both men and women. Men stop trying to go out and get the real thing because why bother when it’s easier to watch porn. And women start valuing themselves based on how much of a porn figure they have. Posting thirst traps just to get unlimited male attention. Which creates male orbiters, or men to pedestalized women, and the false sense of obtaining any kind of partner they want (both men and women). Then they are confused why they can’t get that partner. Or when they have that partner they aren’t even happy because they are always looking for something even better. Porn is a problem, just look at the difference between a man in his 50s during the 90s vs a man who is in his 20s now. The men in there 50s back in the 90s have higher testosterone levels than the kids who are in their 20s now.
@@dancopeland254You lost me at what T levels have to do with porn. T levels are lower because of microplastics, pesticides, and other environmental toxins. Porn does not affect testosterone.
As someone who started that twenty plus years ago and is now clean. I can’t emphasise the dangers of watching any of it. Content escalates, your brain shrinks and you can’t make good decisions anymore, anxiety, angry, low energy and motivation ED. Also porn is very much linked to human trafficking. Life is difficult I understand that engage in self pleasure but focus on memories of past relationships rather than the screen. Try and reduce the self pleasure frequency and get outside in nature. Get natural dopamine from being alive.
The dates under 75 mins is an eye opener! How did it take this long for me to hear about this?! It makes so much sense. Too much time hanging out gets us both tired and I start to question if it’s because we aren’t compatible vs tired from the activities.
It's brilliant how this video became more about how Falsified values & distorted perceptions on dating/love cause men & women to stay single more than anything else (including porn addiction). More power to such people who hold a mirror to society and show us we have a lot of work to do 👍👍
Because porn addiction is not an actual addiction in the conventional sense we know it. It has some traits similar to it, even neurobiologically but it also shares traits with compulsive and impulsive disorders.
Porn addiction isn't about sex but it's about chasing the intimacy I don't receive in my relationship. I'm 31, I'm desperate for a life of meaning. My partner is an anxious avoidant and I'm a shell of who I used to be. I feel like I've been strip mined for my good qualities and all that's left is this shallow husk of who I used to be.
It is the porn that is creating the void, the listlessness, the lack of interest in life. Porn is a level 15 stimulus. Normal stimulus is between 0-10.
@savvasgamingchannel5062 I mean I'd be more inclined to agree if all of that hadn't started occuring before the porn. However, my ex was a vampire and drained me of myself. I allowed it, yes. I was foolish yes. I loved an unlovable.
@@savvasgamingchannel5062 it doesn't matter what it is. People can be addicted to anything. People have these views about gambling not being as bad as hard drugs. It's worse, you have the same level of addiction and you don't look like a ragged drug addict so people don't see it. Hoarding is an addiction too, all of them fill voids.
8:03 that's kind of the problem. Women telling you is completely devoid of their actual actions. Women generally know the politically correct answer within social norms.
Big points: 1) Porn addiction is more about self-regulating emotions and finding meaning than sexual release 2) "women dating the top 5% of men" more about dating app sex ratios. Monogamy is still the norm, Chad w 7 GFs is incel myth. 3) Many women can't find a guy that fits what they want, so drop out. Many 20somethings live with their parents. 4) Society is better at solving problems, so less need for partner in general 5) In developed nations, birthrates are cratering and it's economically unsustainable 6) Social skills atrophy in a digital age, leading to increased social anxiety 7) Science of attraction: Interests, things tinder looks at don't matter. Similar emotional experiences help.
1. Porn is often a way of enhancing sexual experience. Knowing a partner would almost certainly be put off by you USING porn in this way with them, means it's going to usually be a solitary thing. The guy having to fantasize about another woman when he's trying to make love to his wife of many years is a cliche for a reason. You can love someone, but repetition and familiarity, particularly with someone you care for but who WILL NOT EVER experiment or try new things, and who you have NO RIGHT to ask to do so, is going to push you to find a workable solution they don't have to know about. People who insist on "total honesty" usually aren't going to like the results, since PEOPLE have pretty dark sides they keep hidden away FOR A REASON. You can often never look at a person the same way after they tell you their worst thoughts and feelings. 2. The divorce rates put the lie to your contention. Monogamy is the norm - temporarily in most cases.
@@kenle2 genuinely sorry to hear about your marital strife. Will pray that you can find some peace and understanding. God knows we could all use some more of that. I think if you re-read my comment in a spirit of trying to understand it, you will see how your arguments fail to connect with my summary of the video.
On point 1) I disagree or I throw a different angle on it. Porn addiction is getting the ever increasing dopamine hits from ever extreme porn and masturbation. Women do date the top 5-10% of what they think of as top. It might be looks, build, how much they resemble her father, it might be intelligence, it might be kindness, it might be sociability, it might be success. And women have different preferences at different ages and times in their lives.
This is maybe the best overview of this topic I have come across. I think that porn (and really sex) has become stigmatized with the label of addiction. What it often comes down to is human needs not getting met, so while you may call it addiction it is also just not getting very human needs for connection met. I agree with the need for developing social skills. For men with a healthy or high sex drive, this is a very hard world to navigate, and I don't think that stigmatizing human need with the label of 'addiction' is very functional. The message that it sends is that being sexual is shameful for men. I also think that if you suggest the idea of improving male 'boyfriend skills' then it's also fair to bring up the idea of women improving 'girlfriend skills.' Much of the relationship world now is defined by what women need, and we could use greater discussion of male needs in relationships and in dating. But this is a good conversation between two great minds, and I'd love to see a part two.
Addiction is not a "stigmatizing label". It's that what you explained as lack of needs met leads to addiction. That's just a consequence. Whether it's alcohol, porn, pot, whetever one uses to "run away from reality" constantly is a poor coping mechanism that can lead to addiction because it temporarily makes us feel good. I recommend you read Dr Gabor Mate's work on addiction
@@Kaybye555 Hmmm. I would argue that one can live without drugs and alcohol, but you can’t live without love and connection. Sex is an expression of love and connection with another human being. It’s not a substance. The distinction is that porn is a process addiction. Yes there’s an attempt to escape discomfort, but it is often fused with a sincere human need to connect. The focus of healing is learning healthy love, sex and connection. There is no healthy drug or alcohol use for an addict. There’s a difference, and it’s worth pointing out.
@@Kaybye555 If there are young people who struggle with social skills and lack opportunities to find mates, as discussed in the video, that is not simply addiction. It is partly a lack of life skills and experience. There’s so much more at play than addiction, and that’s a huge point of the video.
Exactly. Mainstream media will talk and talk about FOOD, shelter, and clothing for EVER. But another basic human need. . Sex+Companionship gets IGNORED. It makes me sick.
I agree completely. A friend of mine and I started trying to find any positive dialogue or expressions of male sexuality in any fashion in our society, and it’s extremely hard to do. Almost every depiction of females sexuality seems to be glorified, praised, protected, empathized with, desired, met with intrigue and positivity. Males on the other hand are generalized as out of control, dirty, disgusting, crude, oppressive, un-evolved, primitive, crass and objectifying etc. I also believe feminism played a huge role. Hence you won’t learn anything of much positive value regarding men in secondary gender studies curriculum. And scholars that still don’t see the focal bias genuinely leave me dumbfounded. 🤦🏽♂️Great comment ✅
Got into it for years....finally 1 day i felt tired of it, and its been 9 years now never had an urge of it, i think there will be a point that you will get tired of it, and for me I just gave up on it. Not sure what happened but never had an urge to watch again even if im alone. I still easily get attracted to women and sex drives still on peak but the urge on wanting to watch porn just because i want it is no longer there.
The biggest obstacle to a man finding a woman are other women along the lines of "you don't need a man" encouragement. They go sailing, partying, wine-tasting, etc. together excluding men. Ok, there won't be any babies then. And if there are any, divorce - there goes half the hard-earned wealth and restrictions on seeing the kids. You couldn't have a better lose-lose situation.
In my experience, women tell single women that they don't need a man as a cope for not having a good one. The truth is, a lot of men make women's lives harder not easier.
Relaying information from a bunch of young men (I have younger brothers and a step son who works with teens and I manage a team of younger guys). Marriage, divorce and custody are the biggest reasons that they cite as why they aren’t interested in long term committed relationships. 1. Life is hard. trying to carve out an existence is hard and seeing all the Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates and Flo Rida divorce horror stories is off putting. These are people with the BEST lawyers and if we’re being honest won’t even FEEL the lifestyle difference of 100billion to 50 billion. But The average PERSON man OR woman can’t afford to risk 1/2 of their life savings on the emotional stability and maturity of another person, we could debate the biological and societal “fairness” but that IS the perception. 2. Child custody, most men love their kids just as much as the next but there is 0 perception of fairness in custody hearing. Ive personally been coaching two separate employees with GOOD paying jobs, in the medical field who are veterans. Everything you could really ask of a model citizen. Both are in custody battles with what appear to be exes who are their opposites don’t work or make the necessary accommodations for two different special needs kids. But still managed to get preferential custody. Young men don’t articulate it this way exactly but what they are saying IS THAT men are effectively punished for doing what society asked of us. provide for a family? Great you are now financially obligated to KEEP doing that ad infinitum REGARDLESS of circumstances or short comings of either party AND you will have almost NO SAY in how that family gets raised. Many children will be raised to “resent” what they are taught is an absentee father without understanding that mostly EVERYTHING after the act of conception OUTSIDE OF his control. Exacerbate these with men vs women gender war bad faith non sense and it has been NIGH impossible to convince them that there IS something worth pursuing on the other end of commitment.
@@interloc1290 Thank you for putting in words what so many of us have to go through. I hope others get to notice your meaningful description of the problem.
@@Calbac-SenbreakThat's in their biology to choose the top males Just like how you like young and beautiful women But I've also seen women with average men so 🤷🏻
Processing trauma I think is an extreme way of putting it. Often “trauma” is really just a stress response, and the pleasure we get from porn. What I mean is, this “traumatic experience” could be the rejection of a girl, getting a write up at your job, given a failing grade in class, etc. This is why porn as a stress response is one of the most common slippery slopes into porn addiction. What I’ve learned at 27, average looks, average height, low status, and not that much money, is that you gotta make the most with what you have. I’ve gotten back into the gym, moved out of my parent’s house, I cut my own hair, cook my own food, pay my own bills, etc. In society, there’s no excuse for you as a man. Stay strong and carry on brothers
What Dr. Alok Kanojia is saying in the first few minutes is the whole topic. He says, "any addiction brings pleasure and takes away pain... if you can reduce the need to take away pain, the [pornography] addiction will melt away". This applies to every addiction, whether it's alcohol, sex, pornography, phones, screen time, excessive gaming, etc. You have to understand the underlying emotions as to why you have developed an addiction. What are you coping with via your addiction? Some examples might be: Do you hate your job and the toxic environment it brings to your life every day? Are you feeling disconnected from your spouse/friends/family? Is someone in your life being regularly manipulative/abusive? Are you feeling overwhelmed by the challenges in your life (school, work, starting a family, finances, debt)? People usually develop an addiction and stick to it because it distracts them from a bigger problem in their life. It's something to think about regularly and assess your habits to determine if they're healthy or not.
Guys don't mess around with porn addiction. Believe me it will ruin you. When you do find someone and fall in love, you will regret your porn habit because it WILL influence your intimacy. Trust me, I have been through it. Just stop it. It's really not that difficult.
Something important was glossed over. People are becoming more independent and less reliant on a spouse. For women, it's financially, for men it's sexually. Most men feel no need to pursue women because it's much easier to consume explicit content online then go about our business.
And attractive women can make thousands on onlyfans so why do they need a man to provide for them financially which has always been the traditional relationship dynamic which also fucks everything up these days
I have noticed with the lower number of eligible men comparatively speaking, women are content being single. Which is cool, but the problem is men are losing motivation without the hope of a reward like a family. Feedback loop.
I’ve always wanted to know how women know who the “top 10 of men” are? I’m 6ft, 6 figures and attractive and honestly women ignore me left and right. I’m out of the dating game but I feel for young men who are looking for partners. They won’t give you signals or approach you, but then act annoyed or offended when you approach them
I 100% agree with Dr. K's 2nd description of a porn addiction. For me my "porn" addiction began when I was around 8 or 9. By then I had 2 younger siblings and I realize now as an adult how neglected I was as a child by my parents. My father has very abusive and controlled my mother and in turn she controlled us kids. I never had a best friend, never had friends over, only went to 1 birthday party as a kid, wasn't allowed to date, and even got yelled at if girls that liked me called our house to talk to me. As I heard another therapist describe it, my mom treated me more like a little husband than her son. To cope I found comfort in my mom's lingerie catalogs and by 9 or 10 I remember seeing a Fredrick's of Hollywood catalog which was like porn to me. With that came masturbation and I know now all the pleasure chemicals that release. It's almost like you are an internal drug addict and that how I was coping with the pain. As I got older it turned into real porn, chatrooms, random hook ups, prostitutes, and eventually legal trouble. I often wonder if I was allowed to develop "normally" with girls my age is this would have happened to me. I remember feeling shame and embaressment expressing interest in women and kept it hidden. Today I feel better where I am at. I have been in therapy for 3 years for depression, sex addiction. I also have done a lot of self-help groups like sex addicts anonymous and have a better understanding of what triggers my addiction and what to do about it. There is no shame in asking for help and wanting to speak up. Thanks for this great video Rena! ❤
You are addicted to the hyper dopamine rush you get from porn. That's where the addiction comes from, not the masturbation, nor the porn but the dopamine from it.
Porn comes in so many facets it's likely overblown. Sex in America is an obsession, while the rest of the world sees it as natural. I do not think porn is habitual but an escape route from everyday life. In fact, even the Greeks and Romans viewed porn as a necessity for a healthy society.
Multovaried regression analysis: Two variables 1. Meaninglessness in life 2. Emotional Regulation - Trauma Processing 3. Finding ways of Reducing Emotions in the present. E.g learning to set boundaries.
1:54 Be aware that when you do this one of the consequences can be getting kicked out. That's what happened to me. Even if you are kicked out setting boundaries is still the right choice to make.
I used porn and masturbation as therapy for my anxiety and depression, it has very little to do with being a sexual deviant and more to do with survival. I use it to de-stress and for autoemotional support. I've had many relationships that have gone so horribly, and lost the willpower and self-esteem to even try anymore. I've decided a long time ago that I'd rather be alone than deal with heartbreak and the emotional toll it takes on me.
dont lose the hope or give up no matter how hard it is or gets I do have huge social anxiety tho too to approach a girl even tho I have good qualities just cos of rejection issues and fears but thats just society these days i feel like
I've been cheated on by every woman I've been with. A few went the radical feminist lesbian route and constantly made me feel horrible for other guy's bad behaviour, as if we all respresent the same thing. All the porn bashing makes me roll my eyes. I'm incredibly grateful it exists. I have plenty of friends, female friends included, and many things in life I love. Porn is one of them. Most women my age are three times my size, married, or lesbians. Is what it is. This ain't my world, I'm just living in it.
so if you've been cheated on in every relationship what is the common denominator? Im not saying you're the root cause for their cheating but maybe jus analyze who it is that you're about to be entrusting your heart/body/mind with. Maybe its not "women" who are the issue jus the women you are choosing.
I have the following questions: 1) Logically, I find it impossible to be addicted to porn. Based on logic, porn addiction is not possible. Can anyone give me a precise definition of what porn addiction is? 2) What adverse effects or consequences would a porn addict experience? Use specific examples to illustrate the negative consequences for someone addicted to porn?
The women are all daring the top 10%. He actually said it when he said women want the someone who makes more. He stated the average salary is 45k. If guy is making over 100k several women are going after him hoping to be picked. The more boxes the guy checks off the more choices he has.
But that‘s only when they‘re in their 20s. When they hit 30, they wanna have kids and settle for a more average man. He then has to support her old ahh. The rule stays the same: Alpha fux, Beta bux lol
How would they know? It’s not like they go with you to fill out your taxes, and it’s not tattooed on your forehead, so what really determines the diff between 45K and 100K? If she asks how much you make… A. Red flag obviously B. Only applicable AFTER you’re close to living together C. “I make enough to support my lifestyle”
Stap complaining man, do this: 1. Read 5 books a day. 2. Go to the gym 6 hs a day. 3. Sleep 2 hs. 4. Buy a new car every month. 5. Approach 100 woman every hour (even when you're sleeping, reading, training, buying cars and approaching other woman) 6. Work 26 hs a day. Win 100k per week. Sucess. Easy.
Porn is fantasy but some think it's reality, so it can skew relationships through unmet expectations. One partner has expectations of how often and what goes on in the sex life in the relationship and then is disappointed. If we aim for intimacy and understanding around sex we can be happier.
Or communicate and if sex is that important to you, get with someone who more or less likes what you like sexually. Not that sexual chemistry should be top priority BUT ppl have to stop acting like that’s not important
I think the basic version of the answer is because Masturbation is a bodily necessity, but watching porn tends to lead to excessive use of it, which is bad for you mentally.
Here is my take: Addiction is mostly and maybe always Escapism. The person is actively escaping. From what? Stress. This can come in two types: First, internal, which means trauma related. Supressed emotions are trying to surface and keeping them supressed requires energy and causes stress. Instead of processing the emotions the person subconsciously rather soothes the stress by overlaying it with the addiction. (dopamin spikes) Or second, external, which means the person is entangled in a situation or with a person that is emotionally overwhelming. It that case a freeze, then fight or flight response is triggered. Freeze means understanding the conflict at hand. Fight means looking for a resolution to eliminate whatever causes the stress. Flight means avoiding a confrontation/resolution and causes the search for escapism to soothe the stress again. Emotional trauma means nothing else than the second (external) stress that happened in the past when the person was unable to resolve a situation (a child that cannot confront the parents because it relies on their care to survive or a heavy emotional burden that couldn't be processed) and is now triggered again. The solution to these cases is common sense. Process trauma from the past. Learn to deal with emotions. Resolve issues or challenges at hand. If there is no stress that cannot be handled, no Escapism is necessary. Of course, if the person is bored, because he doesn't find something meaningful the solution, again, can be found through common sense. Psychology is not rocket science. Everything is cause and effect. Addiction or escapism is simply a behavioral symptom. Find the causes. Solve the issues. Addiction gone. Additional thought: Most issues come down to an underlying assumption of not being loved and not being enough. Therefore, addiction becomes a substitute for the experience of feeling good/being loved.
When I attempt to abstain from pornography and masturbation, I don't feel a longing as if I'm just so addicted and wanting to do it. What actually seems to trip me up is this extremely empty feeling when I haven't done it for a long time. I literally feel like once I detach from pornography, it's almost as if my sexual urges are completely dormant and non-existent. It's very strange and I don't know if anyone else goes through this
Same feelings. Replaced it with working out at gym. However don’t cut out masturbation. It’s your plumbing system. Flush it once a while. Also as men we need to have sex. That’s the hard part.
That is so true that the therapist takes the woman’s side in couples counseling. Women just know how to express themselves better and they know how to play victim
You would think a so imposed intelligent medical proffession would be well , intelligent and not bias. Therapist are genuinely a waste, not for men at in general.
I couldn't agree more, especially about it being weaponized. Most of the B on W stuff is so hateful. I just wonder what happened to the women to want to be so abused that way.
I’ve always had the view that “masturbation has saved my life and my wallet” then it be times for me to have intimacy with the woman I’m with, the struggle to perform at a satisfactory level I always fell short. But what has helped me abstain from it has been to get out of the comfort zone of my house, which kept my mind free from even thinking about it. The gym, hanging out with the homies and discussing life improvement tips/new ideas/etc. Each day away from porn is momentum to keep going.
Try to be less self conscious about "satisfactioning" women, a mature woman who is in touch with her body should be able to tell/show you how to get her off. If she's unwilling to or doesn't know her body well enough, that's tough for her and not your fault
I am so curious to know ..... Why would a married man (not young at all) that has a wife that is intimate and does not deny him of sexual activity still feel the need to masturbate before work, when he gets off of work and during the day? It honestly perplexes me to my core. Not on a daily basis but still. It makes no sense to me. And when he is asked about sex, he says that our sex life is fine, nothing needs to change and everything is fine.... I would love to hear a man's perspective. Blows my mind
@@zeethreemostly no. Maybeee if your doing it once or twice every couple weeks. In summary, the more you twiddle your stick, the less sharp you become. Dont dull yourself. Use that sexual energy for something else wether creative or physical(like weight lifting). Twiddle it if ya want, but remember. Your life your happiness.
@@steelyiumThat sounds like bs maybe if you're not naturally sharp you gotta worry about that but a lil brain fog never made me less sharp just less motivated at times
I do not have a problem with social skills or being able to carry on a conversation. I cannot tell when a woman finds me physically attractive and wants me to ask them on some kind of romantic venture. I can get along with anyone, have a nice engaging conversation where we are both laughing and having fun. None of this matters if the woman is not physically attracted to you and I have cannot clarify that without asking them out and getting a yes or no. Asking every girl you find attractive is psycho so what am I meant to do? I have watched endless TH-cam videos about choosing signals and how to tell if she likes you and I still get rejected and can’t get a woman to agree to going outside with me anywhere. I have gotten numbers, sometimes actually had a conversation or two but inevitably it ends in a “no” from the woman in question. I legitimately do not understand what is happening or what to do and it’s so crazy that all this pressure has to be on me because I’m the guy and it’s completely unfair. For context Black 5’9, 180lbs of muscle, full head of long neat locs, I am normal looking with no deformity.
At 73, as a lifelong bachelor, watching porn has never become a problem. 60 years ago there was no "watching" porn but it was still very much available; now it's ubiquitous. I go for weeks, sometimes months without it and then I might watch it every day till I am bored😊!
@@JackKing12. depends Kids and young adults neuroplasticity is very malleable, which can increase the likeliness of addiction development, specially with things that are considered supernormal stimuli
depends Kids and young adults neuroplasticity is very malleable, which can increase the likeliness of addiction development, specially with things that are considered supernormal stimuli
It's better to just stay off it...porn forms neural networks in your brain that feed on supernormal dopamine levels..this makes the reward center of your brain to be fried...With time you no longer enjoy the proclivities that you normally would,this leads to increased anxiety, depression, increased intrusive thoughts,E.D,etc....stay off porn it will literally FRY YOUR BRAIN!!!....
I wish they defined the difference between regular porn usage and porn addiction. Addiction is a serious thing so it shouldn’t be thrown where it doesn’t apply. Also, a lot of people let their negative feelings about porn bias them
I've heard a good few of these kinda discussions, but I really liked the observation around 9:40 that it's now just easier to live independently now than it ever did. Before, we recognized our deep need for each other, which is healthy at both an individual level (emotional and pragmatic/daily needs are met) and at a societal level (community needs are met). Humans are not meant to live as silos, which is what is what's creating this void of loneliness in so many -- we can live as "part" of the wider society, but we're still in "individual packets", and so we're still lonely within a crowd -- leaving the dating scene (and subsequently the porn scene) in the horrible state that it is. And it's quite easy to see that we can be self-sufficient in the day-to-day needs to feed oneself or handle financial pressures -- but the emotional needs are invisible and not quantifiable/measurable. So how does one weigh our "need" for our other half? And so we're more likely to settle for cheap quick-fixes that don't meet the need in any substantial way that a truly interdependent, authentic, vulnerable and committed relationship. This is what we were built for, but we've given ourselves too many tools to remember how good it is to depend on one another.
Being in my 20s, hearing him explain that it could be a sense of meaninglessness in my life, it made so much sense to me I literally got teary eyed. How do you solve meaninglessness 😭
Once you realize you were created out of love to experience love & love in return then everything in life has meaning. When something good happens you are experiencing love. If something bad happens it’s your opportunity to grow in love. So that no matter what happens to you, good or bad, you are either being loved or expanding your love. This is how Jesus demonstrated love, by laying down His life for all mankind. You see how Jesus had more meaning in this life than anyone else. When you get to that level of laying down your life for others, your life will have the most meaning. Jesus was just the 1st to show us the meaning of life. Now we follow His example to have such meaning & such love pouring through us giving everyone around us LIFE because we put others first. What can I do to make life better for everyone around me? The most terrible things happened to Jesus. But instead of becoming bitter, seeking revenge, returning the hate, He grew in love, forgiving them, laying down His life for them, even though He did not 1 thing wrong to them. He didn’t get mad, He didn’t blame God, He simply let it all happen & continued to trust God because that’s what love does. It is never self seeking, but seeks the good of others. Yet somehow this is the greatest satisfaction in life. Knowing that person knows they are loved, even if it’s just 1 person, that is enough to bring me joy.
Build purpose in life... if you can't do that yet, just apply meaning to the difficulties in your current place in life e.g.: you'll learn from this and grow.
I read in a book that porn takes your mind away from what you’re feeling, and has caused some to not be able to feel things when they get in real relationships. A more healthy way to deal with your sexual desires when you’re alone is to focus on making yourself feel good but remain “with” yourself
The best way to break addiction is to deeply understand how harmful it is to oneself, and to stop any behavior and symptoms. Porn, drugs, alcohol, tobacco, food, etc., are all symptoms, not the illness. The illness is inside, in repetitive thoughts and behaviors that fill natural or normal, but destroy the person. Self discipline, healthy diet, positive thinking, exercise, and mind nurturing are the answers.
Regarding birth rates, globally it's a trend in literally every country except two or three. Even countries with positive birth rates have *declining* birth rates.
I didnt come to this realization over night, but i think my own porn addiction started as a need to feel some kind of physical intimacy- something i could not or didnt know how to get in a meaningful way.
He said there about 7 or 9 men to 1 women on Tinder. That would mean a whole lot of men are not getting women because there are far more men in the sop than women - which is not what he is claiming. He doesn’t understand that that statistic supports what she is saying of a lot of men not being able to get dates.
The times in my life I've been successful at abstaining were when I had some kind of female connection to look forward to such as a first date or just in the middle of a new relationship with a woman who knew about my struggles with that. It's kind of an accountability issue.
Better stop watching violence in media too and no more food with too much fat and heaven FORBID swearing lmfao yall are new age puritans and you don’t even realize it. THE MEDICAL COMMUNITY DOES NOT RECOGNIZE PORN ADDICTION AS A CONDITION
I went to couples counseling and the therapist sided with me a lot of the time. I encouraged my good friend to go with his wife and he had the same experience. My relationship improved greatly and so did my friends with his wife. Women might be surprised how much they are also contributing to the issues the couples are getting therapy for.
How many guys, after finishing, stay on the page afterwards? I believe almost everyone closes it immediately and doesn’t spend another second on it. Hinting to it just being a mechanical need for us men to let out..
Exactly right! Once I bust, i click out of the page and go on with my day. It's the perfect release and I don't have to deal with all the drama a girl brings. I suppose some people can get addicted to it. I just use it for a quicker release since I have too many things to do
I don't know what he's talking about with women having more generalized interest than the top 10%. Other studies show that the average man is considered very below average to women.
Ive always felt that i wouldn't be addicted if i had a relationship. No relationship, no possibility of one, why abstain from porn? Theres nothing stopping you. I will be years before any semblance of success, i cant imagine abstaining from anything that long when chances are so low.
I'm 30M and honestly I stopped dating about a year and half ago because apps are just soul crushing. I'm definitely lonely, but I just focus on exercise and my career, as well as my hobbies. I dont expect to develop a romantic relationship with this livelihood but I tell myself every day that I don't care
5:16 reality is totally like that. They would rather share a "chad" then have a normie or "subfive" all to themselves regardless of their looks. This lady is right on the money. I'm also assuming that data is coming from surveys or questionnaires but the rule is men lie about their numbers being higher & women lie about their numbers being lower. This leads what he says at 5:26
A really interesting discussion that was enjoyable listening to. I had no idea that so many young people are living at home with their parents in this day and age. When I turned 18 in 1975, I was gone. I had started working in restaurants when I was 15 and had learned to become a cook, a skill which allowed me to fully support myself by the time I was 18. I not only moved out of my mother's house, I moved to a place entirely. I lived/worked in Yosemite Nat Park, then South Lake Tahoe and moved to San Diego, on my own, when I turned 21. In 1978, my rent in San Diego was $210 a month for an ocean front duplex. Different time then.
What a life that would have been. While $210 is roughly equivalent to $1000 today, good luck finding a duplex for that amount next to the ocean. Upwards of $4000 or more today. Of course the standard of living has increased but the housing/renting market is ridiculous
@@skillfulfighter23 My net income was probably around $1k per month back then, my housing costs where a relatively small part of what I took home. It's so different now; I recognize how difficult it is for young people today. America has become a very expensive place to live over the past 4-5 decades.
How was your relationship with your parents/family when moving out? I’m Hispanic so the idea of moving out at 18 has always been strange to me. I only moved out at 28 lived alone for a while… fell into addictions… ended up moving back in with family at 30. This economy is trash, I’ve lost all hope.
I’ve been addicted to porn since I was almost 12. I’ve never been able to have a proper relationship with a woman. I’m 40 now and have all but given up overcoming this. It just makes me angry now.
No mention of guys (because of course it is guys) who are in relationships and are addicted to porn. I have heard of marriages breaking up because he likes porn too much.
For me I had family dumping toxicity / negative emotional stuff on me all the time, and I got used to that since childhood. Then I had a friend who turned into that person too. So it was exactly what he said about trying to get rid of that toxic emotional dump, because I hadn’t cut people out (he said set boundaries, but these people just never listened to mine and didn’t take anything seriously for more than a couple of days before going right back to the habits that I told them that I was sick of). I was abused as a kid so I was just used to feeling depressed and having people act these ways. Didn’t know how else to live.
Porn wasn't about the actual sex for me, it was about forcing my brain to focus on one source of stimulation because I hated my real life and never wanted to think about it. I turn on porn, my brain stops thinking.
Sounds like you’re doing better now bra. Is that true?
@@ImLehwzI’ll be completely honest, no. I only recently Quit and the reason I watched it so much hit me like a train, I hate my real life and don’t like thinking about it. I’m currently in the lowest mental state I’ve ever been in but I know porn is the problem and my motivation to cut it off and live a better life is greater than my motivation to watch porn. It’s not easy, but I’m determined to fix it and I don’t care how depressed I get along the way because I KNOW there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.
@@markgaumee Allright bro. Take care of yourself. Get some routines in check and hold some composure during it all
@@ImLehwz I’m doing the best I can, thank you 🥹
That's what I'm thinking too. The solution must be to find a different easily accessible positive activity that you can turn to when you want to turn off your brain.
Any addiction not just porn, is about something else. We all need love.
find dance parters even older ladies !
@@MauricioMontoya-dd1wiThat's not the type of love he meant.
Banks lend money to those who need it the least,
Women give their love to those who need it the least
@@El-Dorado930that’s a quote right there!!
The harsh yet liberating truth is that we all may not receive, but we can give it. And giving is far better than receiving.
I think it was Dr. K that said in another video that chronic porn consumption is a symptom of severe loneliness. When I started thinking of it in that term, I started fostering my relationships, and what I've found quite suddenly is that I am far less reliant on pornography. I currently have a network of people I care about and trust, and they feel the same for me. I've also learned that I, in fact, can be viewed as attractive by some women, which I did not believe to be the case when I was younger.
In lieu of these recent developments, I have stopped viewing porn as of about three weeks ago. I used to consume pornography on average once a day. I have had some temptation to resume the habit, but I am currently curious to see how far I can go without. Ideally, I would like to take that energy and put it towards fostering a legitimate romantic relationship, instead, as I feel that would be better for long-term fulfillment. I may also relapse at some point, but I hope that if I do, I handle it with grace and try again.
Have to leave this at 69.
Can I ask how you created your network of friends? I'm currently trying to build a group of my own but it's difficutl
@artbeau1234 So, I am a people pleaser by nature. A lot of my actions are often in the service of others. This has been a mixed bag: decent people think I am "nice," but people who are not decent will try to take advantage of me. I've had to learn to be more assertive so that I don't get walked on as much. I've also tried to make a concerted effort to be "kind" rather than "nice," because sometimes you have to say something unpopular to actually help someone out.
What has happened in recent history is that, because I am more firm with people, and I approach situations with genuine caring, I feel reciprocity for my efforts. This has made a positive feedback loop, where I become more confident with time, and this helps me deal with people better.
I would say, first and foremost, if you are dealing with toxic individuals in your life, distance yourself as much as possible as soon as possible. They will drain your social battery more than you realize, and that will make you progress much more difficult.
I can agree totally with the Loneliness aspect I am 42 years old I had been married for 17years, we moved abroad for semi retirement, and out of the blue my wife left me.
She didn't leave me for another man there was no problems in our relationship that I was aware of I still don't know why she has gone.
However however I'm in a position of complete isolation with no friends. Alone in a house, in a country where I don't speak the language.
I've noticed that when feeling depressed and miserable I've started to turn to pawn again even though I loath the detest it.
I have met some people that I have associated with and they are pleasant enough company but I never find fulfilling.
I never really developed friendships when I was married because I like my own space and I was content with the company of my wife she had her own friends but I never felt the need.
I don't want to watch prawns I don't like doing it.
sometimes is the only thing that seems to make me feel any positive emotion so I can get on with the day.
I suppose it's like taking a snort cocaine?
even though I've never done drugs.
When you discover / reach the poiny of being attractive to women that are attractive to you then you've reached a great milestone. Assuming you have decent judgement
Porn addiction is incredibly hard to stop. I was addicted to opiates for many years back in the day and while it was very difficult to quit it was so much easier than giving up porn. Porn has a way to creep back into your life over and over again.
It’s like quitting smoking but you have a lighter in your hand and a pocket full of cigarettes at all times
@@desmonides Facts
It’s so easily accessible
its right there. Addicted to pills, drugs? You have to go pick them up, legally, or otherwise, and spend money.
Porn? its right there, theres a computer everywhere, that seems to automatically load it up for you.
It’s because it’s so much more publicly accessible and most of the time it’s free
1. Boundary setting
2. Emotional regulation techniques
3. Processing trauma
4. Building/working towards a purpose in life
We use pornography to escape our pain or trauma, so replace this pain or trauma with a different satiating habit, such as exercise or purpose
GIVE YOURSELF PURPOSE, something to work towards and act upon it
Not everyone uses porn to escape pain and trauma. A lot of people have a lust addiction and if they can’t fulfill it with a real person, they use porn.
@@BrotherMalMusic agreed
@@blueseaturtle6031So what’s your solution for that?
yes we watch the video
What always fascinates me is that when women read 'romantic novels' - no-one calls them out for ''porn addiction'. Yet it's the exact same thing.
its not the same tho
@@KS-pi1kt Why not? Men and women are after all different so it's no surprise that men respond to visual stimulae, while women prefer narrative based erotica. But the underlying purpose remains the same.
Of course given that all masculine forms of sexuality are these days demonised - much of this 'porn addiction' panic really just has a big fat element of male shaming involved.
@@philipwilkie3239 i think it becomes a problem when people start to use it more than once a week, that goes for any kind of pornography and or erotic writing since it takes people away from making actual connections from others
@@philipwilkie3239 and you basically just made it clear that it isnt the same thing by explaining it for me lol. Sure theyre both sexual but one of them is made with imagination, and one is made with real people who often get harmed/abused in the process of making it. not to mention the porn industry perpetuates this harmful and unrealistic beauty standard for both men and women and erotic writing perpetuates it way less.
@@KS-pi1kt True - but you just shifted the goalposts from 'addiction' of the consumer to 'exploitation' of the producers.
Personally I think there would be no good place for porn in an ideal world - but given so many people, both men and women, find themselves cut off from relationships that might fulfil their emotional needs - then it's not terribly surprising we resort to non-ideal means.
All addictions are ways we escape reality. We use it to fill a void.
It's important that we find the missing piece to the puzzle.
Facts!!
The void we are filling with porn is a longing to be loved. The problem? Dating Apps and finding someone who will talk to you.
@@fieryphoenix586REAL
@@fieryphoenix586 you need to do what people used to do without Dating Apps
Sure it can become an addition but people write as if there are other options for millions of guys who can’t get a woman to pay even the slightest attention to them.
Do NOT text a person frequently until AFTER you spend time with them. Then you can imagine the personality and facial expressions while reading the text.
This sounds like some major wisdom, im assuming this is how we avoid projecting our insecurities onto someone else via texting? I feel like i should have internalized this a decade ago.
You’re thinking about this too hard lol
@@Citizenflabano no, he has a point.
I think this is a good idea, but what if you meet someone who you can’t meet up with because they may be in a foreign country or something? Would things like video calls suffice?
@@kertchu I think that's a start...but one would have to be patient and meet the person in real life to make sure it's legit.
In my opinion.
Porn addiction for me it started in HS. I was never one of the cool kids, so naturally, i never got any girls back then. There's IMMENSE pressure for teen boys to have sex during that 4 years btw. I couldnt physically experience sex with any of the girls i wanted in HS, so the next best thing was to watch other men have sex with women i found attractive and live vicariously through them. As i've gotten older and have become busy with life stuff, i dont watch it as much.
getting laid in hs was my only mission. i failed. I felt the pressure to have sex as a form of validation.
Degenerate culture and romanticized hollywood high school tales are what facilitated this. Romance and trying to understand gender differences is an inevitable part of the high school experience. It just sucks that in recent years, this has been conflated with basic promiscuous hypergamy.
I had no pressure to have sex in HS. In fact I didn't even think anyone in my HS was having sex. I was a nerd so I only knew one guy who even had a girlfriend.
I also didn't have porn when I was in HS and just masturbated. So for everyone that blames porn in their teen years for messing them up, just know that even without it you can end up just masturbating all the time. The porn is not necessary. The outcome is the same though.
@@zeethree Insightful.
@@lewis1180we have to remake what is valuable
The vast majority of this video is about dating and has nothing to do with porn, addiction or masturbation. Nor does it give any hint whatsoever about how to "break free".
What? Unless the video has changed its like all they cover at the beginning.
Dealing with pain and trauma
Dealing with emotions
Dealing with failures at life
Like im 5 minutes in and covering why people are addicted to porn
@@Faq-ubeach The title says "how to break free". They don't discuss that at all. And even just looking at the chapters you can see that from 4 minutes in to a 16 minute video they switch to talking about dating.
@@EndoScorpion… so you didn’t watch the entire video
Thanks for saving me a couple of minutes
People don't realize porn addiction is cousins to sex addiction
1.Boundary settings.
2.Emotional regulation techniques.
3.Processing trauma.
4.Really building purpose in life.
Thank you so much Doctor. Appreciate it.
For me it was like a very bad replacement of my lack of social interaction with girls
I interact with girls all the time and still watch porn a lot. I don't think those two are mutually exclusive.
Asking women what they want is pointless. Women will tend to say what's socially acceptable, and then act differently.
Holly Generalization batman
@@matheussanthiago9685😂😂😂
@@matheussanthiago9685 they do it too though, no?
Except two wrongs will never make a right, so I agree with you
Woman really only do want good looks, money and status. Dr. K is shaming men again...
ALWAYS
Spirituality really decreased my porn addiction but my youtube addiction is really insane
Right, not about sex. But about lack of sex or no sex. Some men are not getting any.
Probably married
That part!
Not some but many. Market's insanely inflated.
@@sgtgrantham early 20's and teenagers who are virgin ( sexlessness)
Some..... Try most men aren't getting sex. Prior to last year, I'd gone without sex for over a decade. All this is a symptom to a sick society.
So glad I met my wife in college. And we got married in 2006 still going strong 4 kids and 17 years.
Yes, being dumped by my long term girlfriend 3 months after graduation was rough because it was infinitely harder to find a partner outside of university. Took another decade before I met my wife. As much as I hated dating apps, they were instrumental in helping me find a partner as I certainly wasn't meeting anyone outside of them.
Give it time.
@@chadjordan9382 so you are saying you still have a really healthy sex life?
@@d_no_allyn_86 I'd say so
Entropy + TIME creeping in.
Social media is a stain on humanity. It has done incalculable damage to the world. The ramifications may not be fully understood for at least another generation. I think millennials, of which i am one, are the most impacted because we're just old enough to remember being alive before everything really took off and therefore have been in the transition and fully feel the consequences. The generations after were born into it and know nothing else. I pray for the younger generations.
It’s actually going to be way worse for the gen z and gen alpha. Jonathan Haidt wrote The Anxious Generation which was about social medias effects on these young generations.
One thing he said was that the mind pre and post puberty is fundamentally changed, and there examples of things like your speaking accent which, if you lived in another country and moved to the US before puberty, you will now have an American accent as an adult, but if you moved to the US post puberty, you will retain your country of origin’s accent for life. That’s how powerful puberty’s effect is on the brain.
The consequences of that are that if you were exposed to social media before puberty, your mind will have grown up with all of its ills and attention destroying capabilities. However, if you are a millennial, you have a *bit* of resistance to the negative effects, because your brain matured at a point when it wasn’t exposed to social media.
So as bad as it is for us the millennials, it will be absolutely worse for the next generations who will grow up with instragram at 9 years old.
@@jejo63660 this is an outstanding insight which i hadn't considered! Very interesting and true! ⭐⭐⭐
Man I was born in 97 I witnessed the social media era bloom… But my point is I swear before that or the start of that it was way easier to start a relationship with a women then it is now… Things were a lot more authentic growing up until now…
“All addiction is a response to trauma.”
- Dr. Gabor Mate’
He is wrong, and any quote from Dr. Gabor Mate should be scrutinised with extreme criticality
It's the trendy new thing nowadays to think that everything has to do with trauma for some reason.
@@kalo8524 Which makes it harder for people who actually experience it to be taken seriously.
@@kalo8524 or metabolism .. the pseudoscience is a real time waster.
That is Dr Gabor’s explanation for everything even farting😂no offense
Porn and social media have completely distorted people’s expectations vs reality
Only for the people with unconventional kinks, if it's about regular straight intercourse, there's nothing different that porn does that you don't do In the bedroom.
Problem with porn is that it always shows the hot women so then as an average guy that probably would never get to sleep with a hot porn woman, they have difficulty getting turned on by average women and enjoying sexual intercourse with them.
I think that is the issue, people's brains have been conditioned to only get turned out by the specific 10% of women and men.
As a man at 43, my wife doesn't give me any anymore. So it's not an addiction. It just helps with the process to make it finish as quickly as possible.
Time for a divorce.
Totally understandable....keep going
@@dustinolvey8877 no
@@dustinolvey8877 no
Consider getting a girlfriend bro
For me im hypersexual and think about sex all the time since i was 9 or 10. I tend masturbate/watch porn to avoid hookup culture and drama. Ill give way and say Part of it may be grief, depression and being a virgin late in life and the shame of not living in my 20's. While also avoiding connection from losing alot of people in my 20's
I lost 5 family members, a puppy to cancer, multiple friends to jobs and moving out of state. and seeing family that havent delt with grieft... going into hookup culture. I feel bad for kids growing up with half siblings and no dad or watching thier sibling get to spend time with thier other parent.
Being a child of multiple generations of divorce, i wont risk making a child grow up in a broken or drama driven family. Even if i have to suffer being sexless and alone, i can control that part of my life.
But i dont like the idea of using or being used for 15 minutes, with a stranger. And im just tired of dating and online apps. Even if the fantasy of it is extremly enticing to me. I just cant tell if its intuition or insicurity that drives me towards or away from what i want/need...
You might want to consider therapy
Who can afford therapy? Not me
Sounds like the very lofestyle youve chosen to hide from life's problems is a prison itself. Why not be the one to break the generational curses
Sounds 98% similar to my own experience.
And yet you can let it define who you are if you so choose. How you go about that, good or bad also matters. I also believe in moderation, but ulitmately feel like i can do whatever it is i damnwell please. Going from being a nobody to the person people wish they had, the problem with that is, you priced yourself out of the market. And you find yourself right back where you started, bored with people and alone. And all you are left with, is doing what works for you.
Ultimately what im sying is, we cannot walk out on the game society built and are forced to play. So play your hand well i say.
This is actually interesting. I work with teenagers and my main concern with them is their lack of social skills. I was a shy teenager who didn't have much social skills, so I can relate. I had a lot of learning to do as an adult. But there is a real challenge is this society where you can just text someone and don't have to deal with the anxiety that comes from talking to people face to face. It was a different world where I grew up and that has become apparent in my work.
Thank you for sharing your observation. I have been always avoiding people because of anxiety. I even quit my job. I am 37 male.
Do you have any advice for me? Please help.
Was there anything that helped you improve your social skills (besides just socializing with people)?
100% I agree turning to porn is a function of loneliness, unhappiness, and toxicity for sure. I’ve both seen and experienced it.
The porn makes these problems 100 times worse. Also, pron steals your time, energy and your mental clarity and so much more.
I disagree. If a guy has constantly high testosterone levels then he will use porn to get off whenever he gets horny
@@c.f.okonta8815 No. He should be going out and try to chat up girls. Testtosterone is not a hormone that makes you sit in front of a computer screen rubbing one out. That is an acquired habit.
For me, getting busy doing creative projects broke the habit. To make a long story real short, I got busy, made money, and the initial "habit" didn't even occur to me any more. I had found meaning and made connections with people, so it just stopped being a thing.
I understand it won't be that easy for everyone. I know there are addictive personalities, but think of it this way. For every problem in gaming, there is a solution. In knowing this, we grind grind grind until we solve the problem and level up our skillset. The same applies to life. For every problem, a solution exists that is doable for you. It may take some work to get there, but I believe in you.
What hobbies you did? What ones made you money?
@@ProfessorGoldstriker I'm a writer, author, learned Python Coding, and kept on with my TH-cam stuff.
I swear the universe and God is throwing more things my way to help me get my life back on track. This video is one example of my current struggling circumstances in my life.
Thank you Dr. Rena. 🙏
God is always showing us those things, sometimes we are listening, sometimes not so much.
Denial of the flesh only leads to other mental issues. It's probably the reason that the Inquisition and witch-burning went on for so long. At the height of it, women were inspected to find one mole, which was all that was necessary to condemn her to the fire. They got to strip a woman, torture her, and then burn her to death. Do you really think that these were "men of God?" And why did "God" allow it to be done in his name - for more than 1,500 years?
@@samjohnson3124your gods not real time to grow up
@samjohnson3124 glad I don't think of myself as being no different than my neighbors dog. I guess you feel quilt if you run over a human on the way home from work and if you run over a dog you would feel exactly the same way you felt when running over a person, because in the mind of a Godless person there is no difference between a person who is made in the image of God or a dog or a bug or any other living thing. If there is no God than life is as cheap as you are. You can't be offended because you have no value and are as important as a cockroach roach if you truly believe there is no God who has made us in His image and sets us apart as special compared to every other living thing. If there is no Creator, than why do we have laws that were given by God in the 10 commandments.
@johnwhitneykokalis9990 idk what you are rambling about since whatever you are saying isnt really an argument, but if believing in God truly makes your life feel fuller and happier then there's nothing wrong with it and dont worry about those edgy redditors telling you otherwise.
Been addicted since a kid after my uncle showed me the spice channel. I gotta quit. It really affects your life
Remojo
You can do it bro. You have my support
I feel that. Got my first glimpse of porn at 7 years old. Was nearly a decade in before I learned that it caused problems and its been a struggle ever since.
I hate porn addiction. It really has robbed me of so much. I haven't been able to kick it out completely.
@@tamashii14 the same for me....keep fighting ...eventually you will win...I took me 7 years to completely stop. Do it progressively , reduce the frequency at which you watch it, resist to the urge...try to identify what trigger you to open p*rn site and resist to it. As you are reducing the frequency of watching and avoiding the triggers, you will finally get away from it
I have been watching porn once a day (before bed) for years now. The reasons I do it mostly are:
1. Have prolonged dry spells between sexual partners (currently over 2 years since the last one), so it’s the only kind of activity I can engage in regularly that relieves sexual tension.
2. I have been constantly stressed from all the shit happening around the world, especially for the last few years, and I’ve found porn and masturbation to be a decent outlet to relieve some of that stress at least to sleep.
Thankfully I’ve still been able to function properly as an adult and do my job without problems and still have a healthy group of friends, and still maintain a good and loving relationship with my family.
From my experience, the problem isn’t watching porn regularly, it’s if you let it overtake your thoughts and makes you want to experience it more than other activities, especially ones with friends and family.
Can relate to this. Sometimes I wish God will just turn off my sex drive so I don't get urges anymore.
@@robertdesmond1131 Liked your comment because I understand where you’re coming from. Remember God gave men and women sex drives, and not so we could ignore them. I think I’ve been addicted to porn, but I know my sex drive is a gift to me - and my next wife. Plus, I believe my sex drive helps me have ambition and the desire to be my best. After briefly satisfying myself with porn, I soon just feel empty and unmotivated with low self worth. Porn probably always will tempt me. Just thinking about porn right now makes me want to watch some and gives me a little excitement. But intellectually and spiritually I know I’m better without it.
I’m gonna be honest, that this is kind of the problem with porn. Is that you get a side of people that say “oh it’s fine, it’s not a problem” but basically you’re cheating your brain out of a real reward system. Also creates unrealistic expectations for both men and women. Men stop trying to go out and get the real thing because why bother when it’s easier to watch porn. And women start valuing themselves based on how much of a porn figure they have. Posting thirst traps just to get unlimited male attention. Which creates male orbiters, or men to pedestalized women, and the false sense of obtaining any kind of partner they want (both men and women). Then they are confused why they can’t get that partner. Or when they have that partner they aren’t even happy because they are always looking for something even better. Porn is a problem, just look at the difference between a man in his 50s during the 90s vs a man who is in his 20s now. The men in there 50s back in the 90s have higher testosterone levels than the kids who are in their 20s now.
@@dancopeland254You lost me at what T levels have to do with porn. T levels are lower because of microplastics, pesticides, and other environmental toxins. Porn does not affect testosterone.
As someone who started that twenty plus years ago and is now clean. I can’t emphasise the dangers of watching any of it. Content escalates, your brain shrinks and you can’t make good decisions anymore, anxiety, angry, low energy and motivation ED. Also porn is very much linked to human trafficking.
Life is difficult I understand that engage in self pleasure but focus on memories of past relationships rather than the screen. Try and reduce the self pleasure frequency and get outside in nature. Get natural dopamine from being alive.
Building Social Skills is crucial in order to make yourself talking with opposite gender.
That is only partially correct. Most times, being a Good Person isn't Good Enough anymore.
Mandatory for men and optional for women
Correct Use Of capitalization is cruxial to order yourself make opposite gender with
Its not even social skills as much as its just being able to take social risks to get what you want. Not really a skill as much as just having balls.
The dates under 75 mins is an eye opener! How did it take this long for me to hear about this?! It makes so much sense. Too much time hanging out gets us both tired and I start to question if it’s because we aren’t compatible vs tired from the activities.
Less is more is kinda genius here, seriously!
It's brilliant how this video became more about how Falsified values & distorted perceptions on dating/love cause men & women to stay single more than anything else (including porn addiction).
More power to such people who hold a mirror to society and show us we have a lot of work to do 👍👍
Because porn addiction is not an actual addiction in the conventional sense we know it. It has some traits similar to it, even neurobiologically but it also shares traits with compulsive and impulsive disorders.
Porn addiction isn't about sex but it's about chasing the intimacy I don't receive in my relationship. I'm 31, I'm desperate for a life of meaning. My partner is an anxious avoidant and I'm a shell of who I used to be. I feel like I've been strip mined for my good qualities and all that's left is this shallow husk of who I used to be.
Why not look elsewhere?
It is the porn that is creating the void, the listlessness, the lack of interest in life. Porn is a level 15 stimulus. Normal stimulus is between 0-10.
@savvasgamingchannel5062 I mean I'd be more inclined to agree if all of that hadn't started occuring before the porn. However, my ex was a vampire and drained me of myself. I allowed it, yes. I was foolish yes. I loved an unlovable.
@@savvasgamingchannel5062 it doesn't matter what it is. People can be addicted to anything. People have these views about gambling not being as bad as hard drugs. It's worse, you have the same level of addiction and you don't look like a ragged drug addict so people don't see it. Hoarding is an addiction too, all of them fill voids.
8:03 that's kind of the problem. Women telling you is completely devoid of their actual actions. Women generally know the politically correct answer within social norms.
exactly
Dr K takes a woman's words too much at face value
Big points:
1) Porn addiction is more about self-regulating emotions and finding meaning than sexual release
2) "women dating the top 5% of men" more about dating app sex ratios. Monogamy is still the norm, Chad w 7 GFs is incel myth.
3) Many women can't find a guy that fits what they want, so drop out. Many 20somethings live with their parents.
4) Society is better at solving problems, so less need for partner in general
5) In developed nations, birthrates are cratering and it's economically unsustainable
6) Social skills atrophy in a digital age, leading to increased social anxiety
7) Science of attraction: Interests, things tinder looks at don't matter. Similar emotional experiences help.
1. Porn is often a way of enhancing sexual experience. Knowing a partner would almost certainly be put off by you USING porn in this way with them, means it's going to usually be a solitary thing.
The guy having to fantasize about another woman when he's trying to make love to his wife of many years is a cliche for a reason.
You can love someone, but repetition and familiarity, particularly with someone you care for but who WILL NOT EVER experiment or try new things, and who you have NO RIGHT to ask to do so, is going to push you to find a workable solution they don't have to know about.
People who insist on "total honesty" usually aren't going to like the results, since PEOPLE have pretty dark sides they keep hidden away FOR A REASON. You can often never look at a person the same way after they tell you their worst thoughts and feelings.
2. The divorce rates put the lie to your contention.
Monogamy is the norm - temporarily in most cases.
@@kenle2 genuinely sorry to hear about your marital strife. Will pray that you can find some peace and understanding. God knows we could all use some more of that. I think if you re-read my comment in a spirit of trying to understand it, you will see how your arguments fail to connect with my summary of the video.
On point 1) I disagree or I throw a different angle on it. Porn addiction is getting the ever increasing dopamine hits from ever extreme porn and masturbation. Women do date the top 5-10% of what they think of as top. It might be looks, build, how much they resemble her father, it might be intelligence, it might be kindness, it might be sociability, it might be success. And women have different preferences at different ages and times in their lives.
This is maybe the best overview of this topic I have come across. I think that porn (and really sex) has become stigmatized with the label of addiction. What it often comes down to is human needs not getting met, so while you may call it addiction it is also just not getting very human needs for connection met. I agree with the need for developing social skills. For men with a healthy or high sex drive, this is a very hard world to navigate, and I don't think that stigmatizing human need with the label of 'addiction' is very functional. The message that it sends is that being sexual is shameful for men. I also think that if you suggest the idea of improving male 'boyfriend skills' then it's also fair to bring up the idea of women improving 'girlfriend skills.' Much of the relationship world now is defined by what women need, and we could use greater discussion of male needs in relationships and in dating. But this is a good conversation between two great minds, and I'd love to see a part two.
Addiction is not a "stigmatizing label". It's that what you explained as lack of needs met leads to addiction. That's just a consequence. Whether it's alcohol, porn, pot, whetever one uses to "run away from reality" constantly is a poor coping mechanism that can lead to addiction because it temporarily makes us feel good. I recommend you read Dr Gabor Mate's work on addiction
@@Kaybye555 Hmmm. I would argue that one can live without drugs and alcohol, but you can’t live without love and connection. Sex is an expression of love and connection with another human being. It’s not a substance. The distinction is that porn is a process addiction. Yes there’s an attempt to escape discomfort, but it is often fused with a sincere human need to connect. The focus of healing is learning healthy love, sex and connection. There is no healthy drug or alcohol use for an addict. There’s a difference, and it’s worth pointing out.
@@Kaybye555 If there are young people who struggle with social skills and lack opportunities to find mates, as discussed in the video, that is not simply addiction. It is partly a lack of life skills and experience. There’s so much more at play than addiction, and that’s a huge point of the video.
Exactly. Mainstream media will talk and talk about FOOD, shelter, and clothing for EVER. But another basic human need. . Sex+Companionship gets IGNORED. It makes me sick.
I agree completely. A friend of mine and I started trying to find any positive dialogue or expressions of male sexuality in any fashion in our society, and it’s extremely hard to do. Almost every depiction of females sexuality seems to be glorified, praised, protected, empathized with, desired, met with intrigue and positivity. Males on the other hand are generalized as out of control, dirty, disgusting, crude, oppressive, un-evolved, primitive, crass and objectifying etc.
I also believe feminism played a huge role. Hence you won’t learn anything of much positive value regarding men in secondary gender studies curriculum. And scholars that still don’t see the focal bias genuinely leave me dumbfounded. 🤦🏽♂️Great comment ✅
Got into it for years....finally 1 day i felt tired of it, and its been 9 years now never had an urge of it, i think there will be a point that you will get tired of it, and for me I just gave up on it.
Not sure what happened but never had an urge to watch again even if im alone.
I still easily get attracted to women and sex drives still on peak but the urge on wanting to watch porn just because i want it is no longer there.
The biggest obstacle to a man finding a woman are other women along the lines of "you don't need a man" encouragement. They go sailing, partying, wine-tasting, etc. together excluding men. Ok, there won't be any babies then. And if there are any, divorce - there goes half the hard-earned wealth and restrictions on seeing the kids. You couldn't have a better lose-lose situation.
In my experience, women tell single women that they don't need a man as a cope for not having a good one. The truth is, a lot of men make women's lives harder not easier.
Relaying information from a bunch of young men (I have younger brothers and a step son who works with teens and I manage a team of younger guys). Marriage, divorce and custody are the biggest reasons that they cite as why they aren’t interested in long term committed relationships.
1. Life is hard. trying to carve out an existence is hard and seeing all the Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates and Flo Rida divorce horror stories is off putting. These are people with the BEST lawyers and if we’re being honest won’t even FEEL the lifestyle difference of 100billion to 50 billion. But The average PERSON man OR woman can’t afford to risk 1/2 of their life savings on the emotional stability and maturity of another person, we could debate the biological and societal “fairness” but that IS the perception.
2. Child custody, most men love their kids just as much as the next but there is 0 perception of fairness in custody hearing. Ive personally been coaching two separate employees with GOOD paying jobs, in the medical field who are veterans. Everything you could really ask of a model citizen. Both are in custody battles with what appear to be exes who are their opposites don’t work or make the necessary accommodations for two different special needs kids. But still managed to get preferential custody.
Young men don’t articulate it this way exactly but what they are saying IS THAT men are effectively punished for doing what society asked of us. provide for a family? Great you are now financially obligated to KEEP doing that ad infinitum REGARDLESS of circumstances or short comings of either party AND you will have almost NO SAY in how that family gets raised. Many children will be raised to “resent” what they are taught is an absentee father without understanding that mostly EVERYTHING after the act of conception OUTSIDE OF his control.
Exacerbate these with men vs women gender war bad faith non sense and it has been NIGH impossible to convince them that there IS something worth pursuing on the other end of commitment.
@@interloc1290 Thank you for putting in words what so many of us have to go through. I hope others get to notice your meaningful description of the problem.
@@megeles if they just dont end up chosing the same top 1~5 men, which are full of others candidates, it may help them
@@Calbac-SenbreakThat's in their biology to choose the top males
Just like how you like young and beautiful women
But I've also seen women with average men so 🤷🏻
Processing trauma I think is an extreme way of putting it. Often “trauma” is really just a stress response, and the pleasure we get from porn.
What I mean is, this “traumatic experience” could be the rejection of a girl, getting a write up at your job, given a failing grade in class, etc.
This is why porn as a stress response is one of the most common slippery slopes into porn addiction.
What I’ve learned at 27, average looks, average height, low status, and not that much money, is that you gotta make the most with what you have. I’ve gotten back into the gym, moved out of my parent’s house, I cut my own hair, cook my own food, pay my own bills, etc.
In society, there’s no excuse for you as a man. Stay strong and carry on brothers
What Dr. Alok Kanojia is saying in the first few minutes is the whole topic. He says, "any addiction brings pleasure and takes away pain... if you can reduce the need to take away pain, the [pornography] addiction will melt away".
This applies to every addiction, whether it's alcohol, sex, pornography, phones, screen time, excessive gaming, etc. You have to understand the underlying emotions as to why you have developed an addiction. What are you coping with via your addiction?
Some examples might be: Do you hate your job and the toxic environment it brings to your life every day? Are you feeling disconnected from your spouse/friends/family? Is someone in your life being regularly manipulative/abusive? Are you feeling overwhelmed by the challenges in your life (school, work, starting a family, finances, debt)?
People usually develop an addiction and stick to it because it distracts them from a bigger problem in their life. It's something to think about regularly and assess your habits to determine if they're healthy or not.
Dr. K is such a blessing to this world.
Damn, you just perfectly described my Dad's experience with couples counseling. He felt like he was constantly singled out.
Guys don't mess around with porn addiction. Believe me it will ruin you. When you do find someone and fall in love, you will regret your porn habit because it WILL influence your intimacy. Trust me, I have been through it. Just stop it. It's really not that difficult.
Wow.... That stuff at 2:20 is exactly what happened to me. Though my coping mechanisms are varied - videogames, pot, booze, etc
you had me at "multivariate regression analyses".
NNNNNEEEEERRRRRRDDDDD!!!
😂
@@ChineduOpara don’t knock if you haven’t tried it….JA
Something important was glossed over. People are becoming more independent and less reliant on a spouse. For women, it's financially, for men it's sexually.
Most men feel no need to pursue women because it's much easier to consume explicit content online then go about our business.
And attractive women can make thousands on onlyfans so why do they need a man to provide for them financially which has always been the traditional relationship dynamic which also fucks everything up these days
I have noticed with the lower number of eligible men comparatively speaking, women are content being single. Which is cool, but the problem is men are losing motivation without the hope of a reward like a family.
Feedback loop.
Your analysis is incorrect. Childless 40 year old women are the highest consumers of antidepressants
@@MrAncientAstronaut true
0:48 this is.... really specific, Dr. K, are you... talking about me?
Lmfaooo 😢😅
I’ve always wanted to know how women know who the “top 10 of men” are? I’m 6ft, 6 figures and attractive and honestly women ignore me left and right. I’m out of the dating game but I feel for young men who are looking for partners. They won’t give you signals or approach you, but then act annoyed or offended when you approach them
I 100% agree with Dr. K's 2nd description of a porn addiction. For me my "porn" addiction began when I was around 8 or 9. By then I had 2 younger siblings and I realize now as an adult how neglected I was as a child by my parents. My father has very abusive and controlled my mother and in turn she controlled us kids. I never had a best friend, never had friends over, only went to 1 birthday party as a kid, wasn't allowed to date, and even got yelled at if girls that liked me called our house to talk to me. As I heard another therapist describe it, my mom treated me more like a little husband than her son. To cope I found comfort in my mom's lingerie catalogs and by 9 or 10 I remember seeing a Fredrick's of Hollywood catalog which was like porn to me. With that came masturbation and I know now all the pleasure chemicals that release. It's almost like you are an internal drug addict and that how I was coping with the pain. As I got older it turned into real porn, chatrooms, random hook ups, prostitutes, and eventually legal trouble. I often wonder if I was allowed to develop "normally" with girls my age is this would have happened to me. I remember feeling shame and embaressment expressing interest in women and kept it hidden.
Today I feel better where I am at. I have been in therapy for 3 years for depression, sex addiction. I also have done a lot of self-help groups like sex addicts anonymous and have a better understanding of what triggers my addiction and what to do about it. There is no shame in asking for help and wanting to speak up.
Thanks for this great video Rena! ❤
How do I cope with this depression in post withdrawal phase? Please help sir
You are addicted to the hyper dopamine rush you get from porn. That's where the addiction comes from, not the masturbation, nor the porn but the dopamine from it.
No cuddling, no bullshit talking, no STDs, no problems.
Porn comes in so many facets it's likely overblown. Sex in America is an obsession, while the rest of the world sees it as natural. I do not think porn is habitual but an escape route from everyday life. In fact, even the Greeks and Romans viewed porn as a necessity for a healthy society.
Those were horrible societies 😅
@@VernonMaxwellsfriendwhy?
The rest of the world is not obsessed with sex? That's far from the truth😂😂😂
In America, sex is an obsession; in other parts of the world, it's a fact. Marlene Dietrich
Multovaried regression analysis: Two variables
1. Meaninglessness in life
2. Emotional Regulation
- Trauma Processing
3. Finding ways of Reducing Emotions in the present. E.g learning to set boundaries.
1:54 Be aware that when you do this one of the consequences can be getting kicked out. That's what happened to me. Even if you are kicked out setting boundaries is still the right choice to make.
I used porn and masturbation as therapy for my anxiety and depression, it has very little to do with being a sexual deviant and more to do with survival. I use it to de-stress and for autoemotional support. I've had many relationships that have gone so horribly, and lost the willpower and self-esteem to even try anymore. I've decided a long time ago that I'd rather be alone than deal with heartbreak and the emotional toll it takes on me.
dont lose the hope or give up no matter how hard it is or gets I do have huge social anxiety tho too to approach a girl even tho I have good qualities just cos of rejection issues and fears but thats just society these days i feel like
It's about dopamine for me as someone with ADHD.
You’re reducing your problems to a chemical. Use critical thinking. Get beyond “the medical model”
This talk cleared up my understanding of emotions when dealing with the sin of lust, porn. Thank You 🙏🏼
I've been cheated on by every woman I've been with. A few went the radical feminist lesbian route and constantly made me feel horrible for other guy's bad behaviour, as if we all respresent the same thing. All the porn bashing makes me roll my eyes. I'm incredibly grateful it exists. I have plenty of friends, female friends included, and many things in life I love. Porn is one of them. Most women my age are three times my size, married, or lesbians. Is what it is. This ain't my world, I'm just living in it.
i agree
so if you've been cheated on in every relationship what is the common denominator? Im not saying you're the root cause for their cheating but maybe jus analyze who it is that you're about to be entrusting your heart/body/mind with. Maybe its not "women" who are the issue jus the women you are choosing.
I have the following questions:
1) Logically, I find it impossible to be addicted to porn. Based on logic, porn addiction is not possible. Can anyone give me a precise definition of what porn addiction is?
2) What adverse effects or consequences would a porn addict experience? Use specific examples to illustrate the negative consequences for someone addicted to porn?
The women are all daring the top 10%. He actually said it when he said women want the someone who makes more. He stated the average salary is 45k. If guy is making over 100k several women are going after him hoping to be picked. The more boxes the guy checks off the more choices he has.
But that‘s only when they‘re in their 20s. When they hit 30, they wanna have kids and settle for a more average man. He then has to support her old ahh.
The rule stays the same: Alpha fux, Beta bux lol
How would they know? It’s not like they go with you to fill out your taxes, and it’s not tattooed on your forehead, so what really determines the diff between 45K and 100K? If she asks how much you make…
A. Red flag obviously
B. Only applicable AFTER you’re close to living together
C. “I make enough to support my lifestyle”
@@TheTMNTurtle maybe an online dating profile where you show off your car, house, and what you do for work
And that guy who does so also understands this and is likely to mistreat those women knowing they aren't capable of love
Stap complaining man, do this:
1. Read 5 books a day.
2. Go to the gym 6 hs a day.
3. Sleep 2 hs.
4. Buy a new car every month.
5. Approach 100 woman every hour (even when you're sleeping, reading, training, buying cars and approaching other woman)
6. Work 26 hs a day. Win 100k per week.
Sucess. Easy.
Porn is fantasy but some think it's reality, so it can skew relationships through unmet expectations. One partner has expectations of how often and what goes on in the sex life in the relationship and then is disappointed. If we aim for intimacy and understanding around sex we can be happier.
Or communicate and if sex is that important to you, get with someone who more or less likes what you like sexually. Not that sexual chemistry should be top priority BUT ppl have to stop acting like that’s not important
Here folks is someone that apparently has not dealt with porn addiction (kidding)
Why are doctors always saying there's nothing wrong with masturbation but porn is bad?
Because in fact masturbation is not bad for you if you control it, but porn can damage how your brain works
right, porn essentially MEANS masturbation
They want you to use your imagination 😂😂
I think the basic version of the answer is because Masturbation is a bodily necessity, but watching porn tends to lead to excessive use of it, which is bad for you mentally.
Probably because that's what the studies indicate.
Here is my take:
Addiction is mostly and maybe always Escapism.
The person is actively escaping. From what? Stress. This can come in two types:
First, internal, which means trauma related. Supressed emotions are trying to surface and keeping them supressed requires energy and causes stress. Instead of processing the emotions the person subconsciously rather soothes the stress by overlaying it with the addiction. (dopamin spikes)
Or second, external, which means the person is entangled in a situation or with a person that is emotionally overwhelming. It that case a freeze, then fight or flight response is triggered. Freeze means understanding the conflict at hand. Fight means looking for a resolution to eliminate whatever causes the stress. Flight means avoiding a confrontation/resolution and causes the search for escapism to soothe the stress again.
Emotional trauma means nothing else than the second (external) stress that happened in the past when the person was unable to resolve a situation (a child that cannot confront the parents because it relies on their care to survive or a heavy emotional burden that couldn't be processed) and is now triggered again.
The solution to these cases is common sense. Process trauma from the past. Learn to deal with emotions. Resolve issues or challenges at hand. If there is no stress that cannot be handled, no Escapism is necessary.
Of course, if the person is bored, because he doesn't find something meaningful the solution, again, can be found through common sense.
Psychology is not rocket science. Everything is cause and effect.
Addiction or escapism is simply a behavioral symptom. Find the causes. Solve the issues. Addiction gone.
Additional thought: Most issues come down to an underlying assumption of not being loved and not being enough. Therefore, addiction becomes a substitute for the experience of feeling good/being loved.
When I attempt to abstain from pornography and masturbation, I don't feel a longing as if I'm just so addicted and wanting to do it. What actually seems to trip me up is this extremely empty feeling when I haven't done it for a long time. I literally feel like once I detach from pornography, it's almost as if my sexual urges are completely dormant and non-existent. It's very strange and I don't know if anyone else goes through this
We're somehow on the same page
You have to gibe it more time. Also feel that void with something fulfilling and enjoyable
Same feelings. Replaced it with working out at gym. However don’t cut out masturbation. It’s your plumbing system. Flush it once a while. Also as men we need to have sex. That’s the hard part.
That is so true that the therapist takes the woman’s side in couples counseling. Women just know how to express themselves better and they know how to play victim
You would think a so imposed intelligent medical proffession would be well , intelligent and not bias.
Therapist are genuinely a waste, not for men at in general.
Pornography serves many roles for people, pornography is like any other tool, it can be used, it can be abused and it can be weaponized.
@@frankrothiz4u don’t try justifying porn
I couldn't agree more, especially about it being weaponized. Most of the B on W stuff is so hateful. I just wonder what happened to the women to want to be so abused that way.
@@lean4real_11 nothing wrong with porn as long as you dont let it take over your life
@@budguy21 you probably watch it multiple times per week and claim it’s not taking over your life
How is it a tool
Every time Dr K and Rena get together on these topics it seems like Dr K is the only one who truly understands these issues.
What women say they want and what they actually want is not the same thing.
That’s why you go off of what they respond too not what they say
After 3 Weeks of No PMO i feel like a happy little kid, no Depression and bad feelings anymore
I’ve always had the view that “masturbation has saved my life and my wallet” then it be times for me to have intimacy with the woman I’m with, the struggle to perform at a satisfactory level I always fell short. But what has helped me abstain from it has been to get out of the comfort zone of my house, which kept my mind free from even thinking about it. The gym, hanging out with the homies and discussing life improvement tips/new ideas/etc. Each day away from porn is momentum to keep going.
Try to be less self conscious about "satisfactioning" women, a mature woman who is in touch with her body should be able to tell/show you how to get her off. If she's unwilling to or doesn't know her body well enough, that's tough for her and not your fault
I am so curious to know .....
Why would a married man (not young at all) that has a wife that is intimate and does not deny him of sexual activity still feel the need to masturbate before work, when he gets off of work and during the day? It honestly perplexes me to my core. Not on a daily basis but still. It makes no sense to me. And when he is asked about sex, he says that our sex life is fine, nothing needs to change and everything is fine....
I would love to hear a man's perspective. Blows my mind
It's not good for any part of us psychological, physical or spiritual, must stay clear to be healthy
Is masturbation a healthy alternative?
I don't have the ability to be with anyone.
@@zeethreemostly no. Maybeee if your doing it once or twice every couple weeks. In summary, the more you twiddle your stick, the less sharp you become. Dont dull yourself. Use that sexual energy for something else wether creative or physical(like weight lifting). Twiddle it if ya want, but remember. Your life your happiness.
@@steelyiumThat sounds like bs maybe if you're not naturally sharp you gotta worry about that but a lil brain fog never made me less sharp just less motivated at times
@@roninsoul9051 hmm i see what you mean, saddly in my case i have to abstain a bit or it gets bad, buts that just me :D
I do not have a problem with social skills or being able to carry on a conversation. I cannot tell when a woman finds me physically attractive and wants me to ask them on some kind of romantic venture. I can get along with anyone, have a nice engaging conversation where we are both laughing and having fun. None of this matters if the woman is not physically attracted to you and I have cannot clarify that without asking them out and getting a yes or no. Asking every girl you find attractive is psycho so what am I meant to do? I have watched endless TH-cam videos about choosing signals and how to tell if she likes you and I still get rejected and can’t get a woman to agree to going outside with me anywhere. I have gotten numbers, sometimes actually had a conversation or two but inevitably it ends in a “no” from the woman in question. I legitimately do not understand what is happening or what to do and it’s so crazy that all this pressure has to be on me because I’m the guy and it’s completely unfair. For context Black 5’9, 180lbs of muscle, full head of long neat locs, I am normal looking with no deformity.
Its over bro
At 73, as a lifelong bachelor, watching porn has never become a problem. 60 years ago there was no "watching" porn but it was still very much available; now it's ubiquitous. I go for weeks, sometimes months without it and then I might watch it every day till I am bored😊!
I agree there isn’t anything wrong with it. People can’t argue there is if they don’t feel anything is wrong with being a LGBQT.
Have to admit...can get boring...
@@JackKing12. depends
Kids and young adults neuroplasticity is very malleable, which can increase the likeliness of addiction development, specially with things that are considered supernormal stimuli
depends
Kids and young adults neuroplasticity is very malleable, which can increase the likeliness of addiction development, specially with things that are considered supernormal stimuli
It's better to just stay off it...porn forms neural networks in your brain that feed on supernormal dopamine levels..this makes the reward center of your brain to be fried...With time you no longer enjoy the proclivities that you normally would,this leads to increased anxiety, depression, increased intrusive thoughts,E.D,etc....stay off porn it will literally FRY YOUR BRAIN!!!....
I wish they defined the difference between regular porn usage and porn addiction. Addiction is a serious thing so it shouldn’t be thrown where it doesn’t apply. Also, a lot of people let their negative feelings about porn bias them
Attraction,Dating,and relationships is down to 3 things:
L - Looks
M- Money
S- Status.
M factor is enough
L factor and S factor are optional not essential
If you have the M then the chick is yours
100% true
not me watching this after watching porn 😅😅
boredom almost made me watch but i saw this vid
Lmao
I was thinking of watching then I saw this video 😂😂
@@david_jackson854 GO FOR A RUN INSTEAD!!!
@@david_jackson854 same... im postponing my "sinful meditation"
I've heard a good few of these kinda discussions, but I really liked the observation around 9:40 that it's now just easier to live independently now than it ever did. Before, we recognized our deep need for each other, which is healthy at both an individual level (emotional and pragmatic/daily needs are met) and at a societal level (community needs are met). Humans are not meant to live as silos, which is what is what's creating this void of loneliness in so many -- we can live as "part" of the wider society, but we're still in "individual packets", and so we're still lonely within a crowd -- leaving the dating scene (and subsequently the porn scene) in the horrible state that it is.
And it's quite easy to see that we can be self-sufficient in the day-to-day needs to feed oneself or handle financial pressures -- but the emotional needs are invisible and not quantifiable/measurable. So how does one weigh our "need" for our other half?
And so we're more likely to settle for cheap quick-fixes that don't meet the need in any substantial way that a truly interdependent, authentic, vulnerable and committed relationship. This is what we were built for, but we've given ourselves too many tools to remember how good it is to depend on one another.
Being in my 20s, hearing him explain that it could be a sense of meaninglessness in my life, it made so much sense to me I literally got teary eyed. How do you solve meaninglessness 😭
Once you realize you were created out of love to experience love & love in return then everything in life has meaning. When something good happens you are experiencing love. If something bad happens it’s your opportunity to grow in love. So that no matter what happens to you, good or bad, you are either being loved or expanding your love.
This is how Jesus demonstrated love, by laying down His life for all mankind. You see how Jesus had more meaning in this life than anyone else. When you get to that level of laying down your life for others, your life will have the most meaning. Jesus was just the 1st to show us the meaning of life. Now we follow His example to have such meaning & such love pouring through us giving everyone around us LIFE because we put others first. What can I do to make life better for everyone around me? The most terrible things happened to Jesus. But instead of becoming bitter, seeking revenge, returning the hate, He grew in love, forgiving them, laying down His life for them, even though He did not 1 thing wrong to them. He didn’t get mad, He didn’t blame God, He simply let it all happen & continued to trust God because that’s what love does. It is never self seeking, but seeks the good of others. Yet somehow this is the greatest satisfaction in life. Knowing that person knows they are loved, even if it’s just 1 person, that is enough to bring me joy.
Build purpose in life... if you can't do that yet, just apply meaning to the difficulties in your current place in life e.g.: you'll learn from this and grow.
Get a hobby or pet or both.
I read in a book that porn takes your mind away from what you’re feeling, and has caused some to not be able to feel things when they get in real relationships. A more healthy way to deal with your sexual desires when you’re alone is to focus on making yourself feel good but remain “with” yourself
The best way to break addiction is to deeply understand how harmful it is to oneself, and to stop any behavior and symptoms. Porn, drugs, alcohol, tobacco, food, etc., are all symptoms, not the illness. The illness is inside, in repetitive thoughts and behaviors that fill natural or normal, but destroy the person. Self discipline, healthy diet, positive thinking, exercise, and mind nurturing are the answers.
Regarding birth rates, globally it's a trend in literally every country except two or three. Even countries with positive birth rates have *declining* birth rates.
This was a great intellectual discussion on how to be a better partner. Thank you
I didnt come to this realization over night, but i think my own porn addiction started as a need to feel some kind of physical intimacy- something i could not or didnt know how to get in a meaningful way.
He said there about 7 or 9 men to 1 women on Tinder. That would mean a whole lot of men are not getting women because there are far more men in the sop than women - which is not what he is claiming. He doesn’t understand that that statistic supports what she is saying of a lot of men not being able to get dates.
yes. He makes a full circle, but he does come back to her position, just in other words. Tinder or not tinder, most of dudes don't get laid.
Statistically men and women get laid the same proportion, like, there needs to be two people regardless lol.
@@bonaaq86 Logic?
@@bonaaq86 You've completely missed the point 😂
The times in my life I've been successful at abstaining were when I had some kind of female connection to look forward to such as a first date or just in the middle of a new relationship with a woman who knew about my struggles with that. It's kind of an accountability issue.
better stay away from porn before things get out of hand porn is not helping a person its harming it psychologically emotionally
Better stop watching violence in media too and no more food with too much fat and heaven FORBID swearing lmfao yall are new age puritans and you don’t even realize it.
THE MEDICAL COMMUNITY DOES NOT RECOGNIZE PORN ADDICTION AS A CONDITION
So it's, get this,.in hand, instead of out of hand
I went to couples counseling and the therapist sided with me a lot of the time. I encouraged my good friend to go with his wife and he had the same experience. My relationship improved greatly and so did my friends with his wife. Women might be surprised how much they are also contributing to the issues the couples are getting therapy for.
How many guys, after finishing, stay on the page afterwards? I believe almost everyone closes it immediately and doesn’t spend another second on it. Hinting to it just being a mechanical need for us men to let out..
Exactly right! Once I bust, i click out of the page and go on with my day. It's the perfect release and I don't have to deal with all the drama a girl brings. I suppose some people can get addicted to it. I just use it for a quicker release since I have too many things to do
Dr. K and Dr. Malik doing a collab? OK now THIS has to be heaven!
I don't know what he's talking about with women having more generalized interest than the top 10%. Other studies show that the average man is considered very below average to women.
Having a reason to NOT watch porn helps a lot.
I don't think he completely gets it. You can tell he's trying to play more in the middle so he doesn't offend anyone.
Have you seen his content? I recommend you do
He 100% is. Thats what he does all the time
Ive always felt that i wouldn't be addicted if i had a relationship. No relationship, no possibility of one, why abstain from porn? Theres nothing stopping you. I will be years before any semblance of success, i cant imagine abstaining from anything that long when chances are so low.
What about a 65+ yr old addicted? After my girl friend of a few yrs left.... this is what I've become.
You might want to listen to Dr K in his channel. He has many helpful videos. Good luck
Abstain from it and live better life.
@@abdullaalteneiji6533 You know man, a young me would say WTF? But older me says, you may be right. Thnx
I'm 30M and honestly I stopped dating about a year and half ago because apps are just soul crushing. I'm definitely lonely, but I just focus on exercise and my career, as well as my hobbies. I dont expect to develop a romantic relationship with this livelihood but I tell myself every day that I don't care
5:16 reality is totally like that. They would rather share a "chad" then have a normie or "subfive" all to themselves regardless of their looks. This lady is right on the money. I'm also assuming that data is coming from surveys or questionnaires but the rule is men lie about their numbers being higher & women lie about their numbers being lower.
This leads what he says at 5:26
Good God! Thank You Dr. Rena! Finally someone pushing back on Dr.K.
A really interesting discussion that was enjoyable listening to. I had no idea that so many young people are living at home with their parents in this day and age. When I turned 18 in 1975, I was gone. I had started working in restaurants when I was 15 and had learned to become a cook, a skill which allowed me to fully support myself by the time I was 18. I not only moved out of my mother's house, I moved to a place entirely. I lived/worked in Yosemite Nat Park, then South Lake Tahoe and moved to San Diego, on my own, when I turned 21. In 1978, my rent in San Diego was $210 a month for an ocean front duplex. Different time then.
You were living next to Jack Tripper and the girls. (I know they were in L.A. but you get the point.) 😁😁😁😁
That same place would probably be for rent for 1K weekly now
The youth is being price gouged out of life
What a life that would have been. While $210 is roughly equivalent to $1000 today, good luck finding a duplex for that amount next to the ocean. Upwards of $4000 or more today. Of course the standard of living has increased but the housing/renting market is ridiculous
@@skillfulfighter23 My net income was probably around $1k per month back then, my housing costs where a relatively small part of what I took home. It's so different now; I recognize how difficult it is for young people today. America has become a very expensive place to live over the past 4-5 decades.
How was your relationship with your parents/family when moving out? I’m Hispanic so the idea of moving out at 18 has always been strange to me. I only moved out at 28 lived alone for a while… fell into addictions… ended up moving back in with family at 30. This economy is trash, I’ve lost all hope.
I’ve been addicted to porn since I was almost 12. I’ve never been able to have a proper relationship with a woman. I’m 40 now and have all but given up overcoming this. It just makes me angry now.
@jroq101 😊It’s never too late bro!
No mention of guys (because of course it is guys) who are in relationships and are addicted to porn. I have heard of marriages breaking up because he likes porn too much.
He has a lot of content about this. Please look up his channel. His approach saved my marriage once
For me I had family dumping toxicity / negative emotional stuff on me all the time, and I got used to that since childhood. Then I had a friend who turned into that person too. So it was exactly what he said about trying to get rid of that toxic emotional dump, because I hadn’t cut people out (he said set boundaries, but these people just never listened to mine and didn’t take anything seriously for more than a couple of days before going right back to the habits that I told them that I was sick of). I was abused as a kid so I was just used to feeling depressed and having people act these ways. Didn’t know how else to live.