When you first chose to watch porn, it was ultimately your choice. From there, you easily figured it was an insignificant habit to access at your leisure. You had agency—or so you thought. What you probably didn’t realize, however, were the behind-the-scenes actions taking place with your brain on porn that were making this activity more than just something you could enjoy whenever you wanted.
Some time later, you may have found yourself addicted to pornography and are now wondering how it happened. Porn is likely controlling your actions and thoughts, and you don’t know why. While your porn addiction often arises from unresolved past trauma, the mechanics of your addiction develop in your brain, led by a powerful combination: porn and dopamine. So exactly what does porn do to your brain?
How Does Porn Affect the Brain?
To properly understand what porn does to the brain, you need to know how your brain’s reward system works. Inside our brains there is a reward system in place to help us determine the things in life that feel good. In other words, when something brings you pleasure, this reward system in your brain gets triggered. When triggered, your brain releases the neurochemical dopamine in anticipation of the activity that’s about to cause pleasure. As a result, you realize and remember the experience as something that makes you feel good.
When dopamine is released, it’s received into dopamine receptors within your brain, which process the chemical at a typical rate. But sometimes your brain receives so much dopamine that it’s like a “shock to the system” for your receptors, and they begin to shut down. Because your brain associates a specific activity with pleasure, you easily remember it and want to keep doing it again. Consequently however, you have to do even more of the activity that gave you the initial pleasurable feelings to achieve the same previous effect.
Porn and Dopamine Don’t Mix Well Over Time
Are you beginning to see why this is a problem for porn consumption? Porn, when consumed, releases dopamine in your brain, making you feel good. You recall that pleasure you first experienced and want to do it again. But over time, porn and dopamine don’t mix well when you start looking at porn regularly, as the activity can generate too much dopamine, causing your dopamine receptors to shut down. That means the feel-good vibes you got early on don’t come as easy, so you need to look at more porn. And then some more. And then even more hardcore porn to get the same dopamine hit—and achieve that same level of pleasure.
Back in your grandparents’ day, when porn was something you could likely only find in a magazine every now and then, consuming porn regularly was harder to achieve. But today, porn is accessible 24/7 from anywhere online (in fact, according to a 2021 report, shares Gitnux.org, there are 420 million pages of pornographic content on the internet). As a result, the chase for more porn—and more dopamine—means you’re more easily susceptible to porn addiction as your brain craves the pleasure you’re now used to expecting.
An Early Predisposition to Porn Addiction in Your Brain
Remember how we said porn addiction can arise out of past trauma? Let’s unpack that for a moment: as a kid, you may have sought your parents’ help to cope with difficult situations. But when you do experience trauma or stress as a child, it can make a bigger impact on your brain than you’d think. Such trauma can range from minor situations to more impactful adverse childhood experiences like neglect, abuse, sexual assault, divorce, bullying, and more.
Even as a child, you looked for dopamine-producing “feel good” activities to cope with the difficulties you faced. But if you faced adverse childhood experiences as a kid, you likely sought these pleasurable activities more often, shutting down your developing brain’s dopamine receptors more easily. This left you less able to process feel-good experiences. And at some point along the way, when you learned that sexual stimulation brought pleasure, your brain’s situation only made you more predisposed to an eventual porn or sex addiction.
Your Brain and Pornography: A Chemical Dependence
So if you find yourself addicted to porn, it’s likely you’ve developed a chemical dependence on the dopamine you’ve received from your porn consumption. Even though you develop dopamine naturally, it’s not enough, so you seek out more through more porn. When you have a chemical dependence on dopamine generated through porn, you begin to use porn as a coping mechanism for stress or anxiety to give you a sense of control.
Your chemical dependence on dopamine can lead to what’s called downregulation. When this happens, you’ve developed a tolerance by shutting down the dopamine receptors in your brain, so you’re less receptive to the pornography you continue to consume. That means the porn you watch is no longer as thrilling or pleasurable. As a result, your compulsive sexual behavior can escalate into consuming more extreme porn or engaging in other consequential sexual activities.
What Porn Does to the Brain: The Fallout of Addiction
As your porn addiction continues, the impact is felt in a variety of ways. Not only are you dealing with your own physical and mental ramifications (including porn withdrawal symptoms), your addiction can also harm the people you love most. The fallout of your brain on porn over time can cause:
- Mental Health Problems: An addiction to porn means you’re more likely to develop anxiety, depression, and other mental health conditions. You may also struggle with the embarrassment of your addiction and become displeased with your life choices.
- Missing Out on True Pleasure: With a porn addiction, you’re often turning to porn to cope with stress instead of more meaningful activities like connecting with others, participating in hobbies, or exercising. As a result, you miss out on the real joy and pleasure you deserve.
- Sexual Dissatisfaction and Erectile Dysfunction: Over time, your brain gets desensitized to porn. When this happens, you may struggle with responding to similar stimuli, leading to erectile dysfunction, difficulty ejaculating, a lack of interest in having sex with your actual partner, and ultimately a poor sex life.
- Relationship Challenges: If porn has rewired your brain, you spend much of your free time consuming it. Consequently, you may decline the pursuit of dating others, or begin to ignore your romantic partner. Your partner may also feel the pain of betrayal trauma as a result of your addiction.
- Accepting Violence as Typical: As you watch more porn, you’re regularly exposed to the sexual violence often portrayed in pornographic media. This may lead you to normalize violence as an acceptable behavior in your life and relationships.
Overcome Your Porn Addiction at Integrative Life Center
When you think about what porn does to the brain, you realize that breaking free from your porn addiction isn’t just about personal willpower and behavior modification. To figure out how to stop porn addiction, you need more help than that. Because of this, many struggling with porn partner with a porn addiction treatment center to address their condition
At Integrative Life Center, we take a holistic approach to porn addiction treatment, addressing the root causes of your addiction with personalized therapy. Our dual diagnosis treatment capabilities also allow us to treat any accompanying mental health conditions you may be facing as well. With our help, you can reclaim the stronghold that porn has taken on your brain and in your life. To get started, contact us today.
