Quitting Porn is fun, actually.
On eye contact, social awkwardness and how joining your local football team helps combat porn addiction.
No matter if you admit it or not: Porn is anti-social. And as simple as it sounds, when trying to quit porn, socializing can be the antidote. In this article you are going to understand why.
By the means it is constructed, internet pornography is designed to be anti-social. It is something you always watch all alone and in secret. And unlike with the equally detaching Social Media, you do not share any porn with friends or family, let alone talk about it face to face. Another aspect is the voyeuristic design of pornography, meaning the arousement results from other people having intercourse while you, a bystander, watches them. This has been historically observed as a niche fetish but skyrocketed subconsciously with the spread of online pornography. Psychologically speaking, this bystander-perspective further manifests with each and every time one consumes porn, often times resulting in a subconscious passive self-perception. With most porn-addicts being men, and men traditionally playing the more active part in intercourse, this development is concerningly unnatural.
However, the main achievement of the porn industry is that without ever having to talk to a woman you can decide between millions of girls. Do you want a short blonde, or a dark one? Maybe with bigger boobs? Our brains were simply not built for this. Today, an average 14-year-old has seen more nude women than an ancient emperor with his own harem.
Yet, in real life, these 14-year-olds, or even worse their grown-up versions, cannot hold eye contact with an everyday girl, yet alone have an actual conversation with her. This is deeply concerning and automatically leads to the second aspect making pornography anti-social. It makes you lonely.
As I stated in another article: being lonely leads to watching porn, and watching porn leads to being lonely. Why?
Porn just makes you socially awkward. It not only robs you of your interpersonal skills, but also of your confidence (although both go hand in hand). Porn actors do not care how confident you are while jerking-off in your basement the second time today. Real people, especially women do. People who frequently watch porn, and I experienced this myself, have a hard time holding eye contact, smell differently and show a lack of confidence. This is unattractive and therefore leads to less (sexual) contacts, which increases loneliness and desperation, resulting in visiting the hub once again.
So, frequently watching porn leads to social isolation in one or another form. Now, what to do against this disturbing development affecting each of us? Of course, quitting porn is the best solution, yet too many die trying, as even the best prevention-system has its weak spot. So, here is another approach everyone can implement, making quitting porn actually fun. It's Socializing.
What do I mean by that, you now may ask. Simple: rejoin a football club, say yes the next time a friend asks you to go out, or even better you yourself take the initiative of asking them, attend a public event, a karaoke night – you name it. Get in touch with more people, and if is too much of a challenge, at least with your friends. As with everything, the first times are going to be rough, but eventually you will get over it. Believe me. If you do not see the link to overcoming your porn addiction yet, maybe start with acknowledging the rather obvious.
By joining a football club, for example, you are going to be more fit which makes you more attractive. Besides that, your confidence, social intelligence and communication skills will improve. Socializing gives back what pornography robbed you of.
The best part is that this system is reinforcing. Chances are you will meet someone on a night out who invites you to his birthday party another day or a manager during a conference offering a short internship at his company. The most underrated part is however, that you can not watch porn while singing karaoke or climbing with your friends. And you do not want to anymore.
True, depending on your level of addiction, chances are socializing alone will not be enough to stop porn consumption entirely, but it will for sure cut it back. Your brain is slowly going to adapt to this reduced porn usage as its new baseline, making further reduction efforts comparatively easy and the odds of successfully quitting rise exponentially.
PS: The amount of support, understanding, and encouragement I got after announcing the return of this weekly Newsletter was surprising and unexpected, both in a positive way. Thank YOU.