5 Warning Signs You Should Quit Porn … Today!

Porn damn near ruined my body at age 39.

Like many men, I started looked at and watching porn in my early teens, and did so for decades – mostly Victoria Secret catalogues and late night, soft-core Cinemax movies – without noting any obvious negative affects on my body or my relationships (I mostly didn’t watch porn when in a relationship).

Then I got a smartphone.

Then smartphones got porn.

By the time I hit 38, the iPhone in my pocket had become an endless supply of cocaine for my porn habit.

I never thought I was addicted during the few years my habit flourished. I only watched a few hours a day, usually at night to help me fall asleep (by 3 or 4 am), and I was single, so I wasn’t hurting anybody (although, I may have carpal-tunneled my right forearm).

But then unwanted things started happening to my body (like premature ejaculations), and wanted things stopped happening (like erections), whenever I was in the intimate presence of an actual woman.

That’s when I realized – to my horror! – porn was unfaithfully screwing my sexual health!

It scared me enough that I quit, full-stop. I was still single then, but when I met my current partner a full year later, my body still hadn’t fully recovered.

It was a solid 2 years after I quit that I finally felt confident my body was back to its pre-smartphone vigor and responsiveness.

Since then, I’ve coached other men who didn’t think they were addicted to porn, either, yet who suffered negative consequences just the same.

Addiction is tricky when it comes to human sexuality.

We’re wired to enjoy sexual imagery and play; humanity goes kaput without it. Healthy sexual expression then, in all its myriad forms, is about conscious personal choice and balance. Repressing sexuality due to social or religious pressure, shame, tends to create other pathologies, like infidelity and porn addiction.

It’s like holding a beach ball underwater until it’s so pent up with sexual frustration and resentment it finally leaps out of the water and sleeps with the personal trainer.

So when it comes to porn (so to speak) and a healthily sexually expressed you, here’s the truly meaningful question:

Is watching porn creating beneficial experiences for your body, mind, relationship(s)? … or impairing them?

5 warning signs to help you answer that:

1) You sometimes prefer porn to your partner (or compare her to porn)

I get it. Porn is an endless buffet of pliable, responsive women enthusiastically willing to do or be whatever and whenever you want.

Even if your partner is most adventurous, no human can compete with the on-demand sexual variety available in that phone in your pocket nestled up cozy against your desire.

Beware: Watching porn can cause you to devalue the human you love, who loves you.

Comparing her to a fantasy world of sexual partners who never say no, never feel bad, never complain, never gain (or lose) weight, or whatever your enduring fantasy, will inevitably change the way you see your partner – especially as she changes in all the ways a woman may – and it won’t go well for either of you.

2) You ejaculate prematurely or not at all, or your erection is unreliable.

The younger you are, the less likely you are to know how your body functions without the influence of smartphone porn.

I’m 44. I knew my body before I found in-hand on-demand porn at 36. By 39, it was clear to me something was seriously, frighteningly off.

It’s not so simple to blame porn for unwanted ejaculation or erection issues. Everything from the enduring effects of childhood sexual trauma to smoking and poor diet can affect sexual function.

However, if you can get a solid erection and/or ejaculate how you want with porn, yet struggle without porn, particularly when with your partner, then porn is definitely not working for you.

3) It regularly distracts you from more important concerns (work, rest, relationship).

All time is free, and you can spend it however you choose. Like anything, watching porn requires time, energy, focus. If you’re using porn when you know, deep, deep down inside, that your time would better be spent playing catch with your kid, or writing that book, or finishing those TPS reports, or doing that Bryan Reeves program your lady’s been begging you to do with her, well … porn probably isn’t serving you.

4) You treat your partner like your own personal porn-star.

What turns one woman on turns another woman off.

And to complicate matters, what turns one woman on today might turn the same woman off tomorrow – to your dismay, though you wouldn’t have any other way.

Yet so many men impose what they see in porn onto sex with actual women.

You can learn a lot from porn. Some things can even be fun to try with your partner. But your best guide, when it comes to sex with your partner, is your actual partner.

The most mutually satisfying sexual interactions – no matter the techniques, positions, places, or costumes – absolutely require partners who are sensually attuned to each other’s excitements and pleasures and thus able to play off them.

Otherwise, imposing what you see in porn onto actual sex with a person is likely to miss your partner’s mark, and even outright hurt her. She might go along with it, even if it does hurt, for women aren’t generally supported or encouraged to discover what they authentically want sexually, outside of merely being providers of a man’s pleasure.

With a mutual willingness to explore and experiment, along with communication and sensitivity to boundaries, you can make sex an adventure you go on together. Which is the best way to keep things exciting while also maintaining real intimacy between you.

Your woman surely does want to please you, and many women will do so at the cost of their own pleasure. But that doesn’t serve either of you in the long run, or in a quickie, either.

5) Your chosen intimate partner is consistently bothered by your porn use (or you’re hiding it).

You’re gonna upset your partner throughout your life together. You’re going to say things, eat things, choose things, think things, do things that she would prefer you didn’t say, eat, choose, think, or do. That’s inevitable. Changing your behavior merely to please her is like stepping onto a slippery slope with greasy feet: You end up angry at yourself (projecting that as resentment at her) as the target for her satisfaction moves (it will).

However, being insensitive, uncaring or indifferent to how your behavior affects her is also like stepping onto a slippery slope with greasy feet, only now you’re disguised as a piñata and she has a baseball bat and desperately wants candy.

Because although she probably doesn’t like the idea of you getting turned on by even virtual women on your phone, it’s your lack of care and concern about how it affects her that hurts her even more.

You may even decide that once-in-a-while porn is actually good for your relationship – from your perspective, it may actually be! – but that’s irrelevant if she isn’t on board. This then becomes a courageous boundary conversation you must have together. She needs to be clear about her requirements to feel safe and cherished in the relationship, and you need to be clear about your requirements to feel trusted and respected. (I offer scripts to help you do this in my online program, “The Boundaries Program: Relationships Suck Without Boundaries!“)

So, should you quit porn?

That’s for you to decide … Actually, it MUST be YOU that decides.

Quitting porn can be hard. Your smartphone is always in-hand, ready, willing, and uncomplicated.

If you don’t genuinely want to quit, you won’t be able to ignore the incessant, pleading whispers emanating daily from below your waist, where you stash both your sex organs and your smartphone with access to all the porn in the known Universe.

You must decide whether porn is serving you or harming you.

The signs are clear, when you know what to look for.

♦◊♦

P.S. If you decide to quit, consider getting support (12-step, therapy, coaching, etc.). If you’d like to learn more about how I can help you, contact me.

P.P.S. Yes, this post is full of (mostly) unintended yet unavoidable sexual innuendos.