If only there was a simple answer to this question! It would save parents and spouses a lot of emotional distress. It would also reassure a lot of us that we are still in the recreational category and also wake us up if we were inching towards porn addiction.
But, you can not answer the question, how much porn is too much? With X number of hours. There is no measurement of ‘normal’ porn consumption that helps you define an addictive porn consumption. So, in order to answer the question of how much porn is too much, we have to rely on behavior patterns that indicate addiction.
How Much Porn Is Normal? Defining Healthy Consumption
There is no set limit or a specific number of hours that tells you how much porn is normal.
A Canadian survey found that people who self-reported their porn watching as recreational watched around 24 minutes of porn per week. Those with compulsive porn viewing habits reported average porn consumption time of 110 minutes per week.
But, what defines ‘normal’ porn consumption – there is no scientific criteria. Moreover, the term normal can be an illusion in itself. Taking the above example, a person watching only 5 minutes of porn might feel intense guilt that leads to anxiety and depression. At the same time, a person watching 100 minutes of porn might be able to ensure that it does not affect his work. So, defining an X amount as a normal baseline for porn watching is misleading.
So, a much better category for defining ‘how much porn is normal’ would be its consequences.
Whether porn consumption is disrupting your work performance or your relationships is a better indicator of whether it is in the normal or casual category. If you can not stop watching porn or if it causes you emotional distress, then your porn habit is definitely not normal – even if it is for only five minutes a day.
The Fine Line: When Does Casual Viewing Become Watching Too Much Porn?
We all like to think of our porn consumption as a casual habit. But, it is very easy to ignore the signs of watching too much porn. These behavioral patterns are subtle and we often don’t notice them until they become deep rooted.
The first sign of watching too much porn is when it interferes with your life. Sneaking away for a quick five-minute porn fix during work can seem harmless. But, it indicates that you are craving porn at an inappropriate time, and you can not postpone it until later.
Another key sign that you are watching too much porn is when you begin to think about it. If porn watching is a casual habit, then it should not engage any more of your emotional or mental resources. But, if you find yourself thinking about porn during some other activity or simply because you are bored, you are in the risky territory of porn addiction.
Does watching porn (even casually, just for a short time) make you feel guilt and shame? Do you keep going back to porn to escape these feelings again and again? It indicates that even though you are not wasting time watching too much porn, its emotional effects are similar to an addictive substance for you.
The Effects of Just a Little Porn – Can It Lead to More?
Porn is designed to deliver a high degree of stimulation for your brain’s dopamine reward system. So, initially, even if you are watching just a little porn, you will get a disproportionate amount of pleasure. But, over time, your brain builds a tolerance to this baseline level of porn stimuli. So, the amount and the type of porn that used to give you pleasure can no longer arouse you to the same degree.
So, your porn consumption changes in little increments. Five minutes becomes ten, and then it becomes 20 minutes. Even the porn you watch progresses from softcore to increasingly violent and extreme. And, before you know it, you are under the thumb of a full-blown porn addiction where you simply can not stop and keep escalating your porn consumption.
So, even just a little bit of porn can be habit-forming and has endless potential for escalation.
What Happens If You Watch Too Much Porn? Examining the Consequences
Watching too much porn has negative effects on your physical health, psychological well being, and relationships. Here is a look into what happens if you watch too much porn –
- Physical Health Issues – Spending too much time watching porn can desensitize you to real-life sexual stimuli. As a result, you might be at risk of sexual dysfunction (ED) and lack of sexual satisfaction. Porn addiction can also affect your sleep pattern and cause issues like digital eye strain.
- Mental Health Consequences – Research has shown that excessive porn consumption puts you at risk of mental health issues such as depression, anxiety. The shame and guilt of porn addiction can result in social withdrawal and loneliness. Porn also causes body image issues and results in aggressive sexual behavior.
- Consequences for Relationships – Porn addiction affects relationship satisfaction and causes deterioration in intimacy. Porn can lower your libido and make you disinterested in partnered sex. So, the spouse can feel dissatisfied and emotionally disconnected from you. Porn addiction of the husband often affects the mental health of the spouse and leads to feelings of inadequacy.
How Much Porn Is Too Much? Pinpointing the Transition to Addiction
Now to answer the key question – how much porn is too much? At what point is your porn habit becoming an addiction?
There is no specified number of hours in a day that determine your transition into the territory of porn addiction. However, there are behavior patterns that are red flags screaming at you that you are watching too much porn –
- Loss of control over the number of hours you are watching porn – you can not limit yourself to a specific time limit or frequency of porn watching. You often lose big chunks of time to porn and can not complete your tasks.
- You crave porn – You want to watch more and more porn. If you can not watch porn or have to postpone porn even for a short time, it creates intense feelings of cravings.
- Loss of interest in partnered sex – You can no longer feel sexual arousal with your spouse and prefer to masturbate to porn rather than have partnered sex. As a result, your relationship deteriorates.
Can Porn Addiction Be Formally Diagnosed?
Clinically speaking, porn is not formally recognized as an addiction.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) by the American Psychiatric Association is considered the gold standard for the investigation and treatment of disorders. It prescribes 4 categories of criteria to identify an addiction – impaired control, physical dependence, social problems and risky use. Researchers are still not sure that symptoms of habitual porn watching can meet the criteria of an addiction.
The neurobiological mechanisms of dysregulated use of pornography are similar to that of substance addiction and behavioral addiction. But, there is no consensus on using a similar framework and classifying porn watching as an addiction. A main factor being the self-diagnosis of porn addiction can be affected by moral incongruence. If a person who watches porn already has moral judgements about it, then he might end up misdiagnosing himself as addicted.
Porn addiction is also a part of the ongoing discussion about the conceptualization of out-of-control sexual behaviors such as hypersexuality and sexual impulsivity. So, there is a lack of consensus about pathologizing porn watching as an addiction.
Currently, the term Problematic Pornography Usage (PPU) is used as the most theoretically neutral term to describe dysregulated porn use by the researchers. WHO classifies Problematic Porn Usage under the category of compulsive sexual behavior disorder (CSBD) as an impulse control disorder rather than an addiction.
Resources and Treatment Options for Porn Addiction
For compulsive sexual behaviors such as porn addiction, psychotherapy is the major form of treatment. Specifically, CBT or Cognitive behavioral therapy is often prescribed as a tool for recovery.
Porn addiction can cause mental health challenges such as depression and anxiety. In such a case, medical treatment with antidepressants and mood regulators can be used as part of the treatment. During the initial withdrawal period, medications such as Naltrexone and Anti-androgens can help you manage sexual urges and addictive behaviors.
Community-based support systems such as Porn Addicts Anonymous (PAA) have a crucial role to play in your recovery from porn addiction. Online support communities can also provide access to valuable resources and 24×7 support.
Are Porn Blocker Apps Effective?
A key challenge to quitting porn addiction is your online space. When you are online working or just scrolling through social media, you are always at risk of accidental exposure to pornographic content. The temptation of easy access to porn on our digital devices also puts us at a greater risk of relapsing.
Technological tools like BlockP are a must to make your online space safer. BlockP filters the pornographic images and specific keyword triggers on all your devices. So, you can use your digital devices without the fear of accidental exposure to pornography.
Is There Really a Point of No Return?
The power of addiction is definitely strong, and recovery is an uphill battle. Repeated relapses are also an inevitable part of recovery from any addiction. Specifically, someone suffering from an addiction porn feels isolated and helpless. Porn addiction evokes shame and fear of judgement, which increases the feeling of helplessness.
But, there is hope for recovery. There is no such thing as the point of no return. If your porn habit is deep-rooted, it will take longer time and more intense effort. But, you can prevail over it.
Any habit is a learned behavior pathway for your brain. As long as the pathway is there, the familiar triggers will lead you down the familiar addictive paths. But, research has shown that you can rewire your brain to react differently to stimuli and make different and healthier choices.
Recovery from porn addiction will begin with an initial period of abstinence and withdrawal. Then, you have to slowly retrain and rewire your mind to engage in healthy hobbies. You have to spend more time building real-life relationships. If you put in consistent effort over a period of time, your mind will adapt to the new normal and restore itself to healthy sexual habits.
Concluding Insights and Practical Recommendations
If you are watching too much porn, then your physical health, emotional wellbeing, and relationships will suffer the consequences. Compulsive porn watching is not clinically classified as an addiction yet. But, ongoing research acknowledges that its symptoms are similar to a substance addiction. So, we need to approach its treatment and recovery with a similar zeal.
Therapy, counselling, support groups – all these tools can help you address the challenges of withdrawal, relapse, and recovery in porn addiction. Technological tools like porn blockers are your ally in protecting you from temptations and triggers in your digital space. With consistent effort, you can adopt healthy sexual habits and live a more fulfilling life.
How BlockP can Help Overcome Porn Addiction?
Your environment is often an enabling factor for porn addiction. Specifically, the internet makes accessing porn easy and convenient. Moreover, even if you do not seek out pornographic content, you are bound to run into explicit images or videos. Even on social media a certain degree of explicitness has become an acceptable thing.
So, if you want to overcome porn addiction, you need to secure your digital environment with porn blockers such as Block P.
BlockP is the best porn blocker because it analyzes web pages in real time and filters out explicit content (adult websites, images, videos) from all your devices. You can also set custom filters for specific words to avoid the content that is personally triggering for you. BlockP also restricts adult content even if you are using incognito mode or using a VPN. It also provides uninstall protection so that even if you are triggered, you can save yourself from a relapse.
FAQ on How Much Porn Is Too Much?
1. When does porn become an addiction
Here are the key behavior patterns that indicate that your porn consumption has become compulsive or addictive –
- If you are sneaking away during family time or work hours to get a quick porn fix – it indicates that porn has become a compulsive habit for you.
- Addiction often creates cravings. So, if you are craving a specific kind of porn video or can’t postpone porn watching for a short period, then you are addicted to porn.
- If you want to stop watching porn but find yourself relapsing again and again into familiar porn-watching patterns, then you are addicted to porn.
- If watching porn makes you feel intense guilt, shame, stress, and anxiety, then your porn habit might have become an addiction.
2. How to help someone with a porn addiction
Porn habits create a lot of guilt and shame. So, in order to help someone with a porn addiction, you have to be non-judgemental. Only a compassionate approach can encourage the person to share with you about their struggle with porn.
Someone with a porn addiction needs multiple support systems on their way to recovery. To begin with, you can suggest a porn blocker app or extension to filter out the explicit and triggering content. It makes their phones and laptops safer for use.
Secondly, you can suggest therapy or counselling with professionals to address the psychological challenges of quitting porn. Joining support communities such as Porn Addicts Anonymous (PAA) or online support communities will be a good idea. Finally, engaging in constructive hobbies such as sports or taking up yoga can help someone with porn addiction to divert their mind.
3. What causes porn addiction?
Researchers agree that early exposure to porn is a major cause of porn addiction. Teenagers who have had exposure to porn are more likely to develop compulsive porn-watching habits. People with mental health issues such as stress and depression are also more likely to develop porn addiction as a coping mechanism.
Another reason why porn is so addictive is because it is designed to be so. Porn, by nature, causes hyperstimulation. So, watching pornography releases a disproportionate amount of dopamine and oxytocin. These chemicals make you feel a ‘high’ just like addictive substances. Real-life stimuli and partnered sex can not match the hyper dopamine effects of porn. So eventually, you develop a dependency on porn for sexual release.
4. Can BlockP help with porn addiction?
BlockP is the best porn blocker that can help you with porn addiction. When you are on the internet, it is very hard to avoid the temptation of pornographic content. You may not be visiting the adult websites. But you are bound to get accidental exposure to explicit images and suggestive content on social media or other websites.
BlockP protects you from online porn by acting as a custom filter for explicit websites, images, and keywords. So, you can work or browse social media without stressing about your triggers.
BlockP eases the pressure on your willpower and lets you focus on more constructive hobbies and activities.