Is Internet Porn Destroying a Generation of Young Men?
And what can you do to kick your (porn) addiction?
Hi there,
Let’s talk about one of the biggest problems hitting young men these days. Porn addiction. This has been a hot topic for a while now and it seems that last year, a lot of anti-porn crusaders have stood up and made it their mission to destroy online porn. As well meaning as these guys might be, they will fail miserably. Because they’re not aiming their arrows at the right target.
I tend to leave the issue alone because talking all day about not beating your meat isn’t really my thing. But Zero H.P. Lovecraft’s tweets on porn caught my eye. They expose a deeper issue that most men aren’t willing to face.
Let me start off by saying Zero isn’t wrong. Especially on the individual level, he hits the nail on the head. Guys who treat porn as if it’s the devil keeping them from being high functioning, successful alphas, are coping majorly. There will always be vices around and if you can’t stay away from one, you won’t be able to stay away from others either.
However, there is a nuance that he misses (which I can’t blame him for since it’s twitter and you’d need an entire article to discuss this nuance (which I’m now writing)).
In order to discuss this nuance (and find the solution that will actually turn you from being a porn riddled loser into a successful high functioning man) we first have to get into the cause of addiction.
One drug to rule them all
Every addiction is the same. Gambling, porn, drugs, social media, video games, alcohol, sex, etc etc. They’re all the same.
Every addiction is a shortcut to dopamine. A hack that releases the reward chemical without actually having to earn it. This dopamine addiction is at the root of every other addiction.
This is why Zero is correct when he states that simply eliminating porn won’t solve anything for those addicted to it. Take away a 1000 guys’ porn and two months from now you’ll find some of them getting shitfaced in bars, others will be stuck losing all their money inside a casino and others will be stuck at home playing video games for 10 hours a day. Out of a 1000, maybe a handful will have significantly improved their lives. Not a great score.
Banning all porn wouldn’t do much to help current addicts. They’re not really addicted to porn anyhow, they’re addicted to dopamine. Porn is simply the path they’ve chosen to get their quick fix. It’s impossible to ban all paths so they’ll simply look for the next easiest path towards their sweet dopamine releases.
However, banning porn would help in reducing the amount of new addicts. The less vices there are around, the harder it is for you to become addicted.
Let’s compare some countries here. In both Spain and the UK, gambling is very accessible. There are bookies in every village and betting is highly popular. Compare that to a country like the Netherlands where gambling was pretty much outlawed except for a few casinos.
Spain and the UK have a way bigger gambling problem than the Netherlands. Far more Brits and Spaniards are addicted to gambling than Dutchmen.
This past year, the Dutch government has legalized online gambling. Suddenly there are ads for gambling everywhere. Unsurprisingly, the amount of gambling addicts has skyrocketed.
Zero asks an interesting question. Can you outsource self-discipline to the state?
The easy answer is of course, no. You can’t outsource your self-discipline because there will always be someone to exploit your weakness.
However, reality isn’t that simple. We live in a neo-liberal reality where we’re deluded into thinking every person is rational and responsible for their own choices (highly convenient for corporations when we think this way. Allows them to blame you for your problems and addictions).
Reality is that humans simply don’t work that way. We are pleasure seeking. Rationally everyone knows porn and gambling and drugs are bad, however there is an addict inside all of us. Part of us wants that dopamine even though we know it’s bad for us.
You can’t hold individuals fully responsible for being addicts, because we’re all fighting an unfair fight. Look at smartphones. The vast majority of us are addicted to our smartphone. “Hah it’s your own fault! You should be more disciplined!!!”. But is that really the problem though? Is it our fault for not being disciplined enough? Or is it the fault of the trillion dollar mobile phone industry that does everything it can to make their products as addicting as possible?
Can you blame a man for getting injured if there are bullets flying around everywhere? It is almost impossible in our modern society to be completely free from addiction. You need to have an iron will and no moments of weakness ever to avoid the 1000 easy paths to dopamine we now have at our disposal 24/7.
The matter of fact is, that your brain didn’t evolve to withstand the onslaught of addicting substances and content that we are now bombarded with constantly. Porn addictions, like all other addictions, rarely just happen. We get addicted when we are at a low point in our lives and are prone to the temptation the easy way out offers us.
Guys get addicted to porn because they’re an unpopular 15 year old with an undeveloped brain. Guys get addicted to porn because they went through a rough break up and don’t believe in love anymore. Guys get addicted to porn because they’re in a miserable marriage and they don’t see a way out.
No guy ever got addicted to porn because he was closing million dollar deals and couldn’t choose between which of his 4 girlfriends he wanted to bang tonight.
Addictions are like a little devil on your shoulder waiting to strike at you when you are at your weakest.
So yes, banning porn, gambling, drugs and a whole host of other addictions would make a massive difference in our society.
By restricting access to addictive products, it becomes harder to get to them when you are at your low. It’s pretty hard to get addicted to gambling when there’s no internet and the nearest bookie or casino is a 2 hours drive. It’s incredibly easy to get addicted to gambling when you have 24/7 online access and there’s 3 casinos down the street.
We all have moments of weakness and it is in those moments that we should be protected from harm.
Finding real solutions
Let’s be real though, I’m talking about an ideal world that is about as likely as magic fairies popping out of trees to turn you into Cinderella. In the real world there will always be scrupulous parasites and billion dollar industries that live off of making you miserable. Big pharma isn’t going to magically disappear when they can make a trillion dollars annually by keeping millions addicted to opiates and other trash. Casinos aren’t going to close themselves and porn is simply too lucrative to pass up on for some.
So is there nothing that can be done?
Fortunately, there are two things that make all the difference.
The first one is, like Zero says, self-discipline. At the end of the day you need to take ownership of your life and tackle any addiction you have. You have to get at the root of your problems (why am I so miserable in the first place? Why does porn seem to be the best option so often? What should I change to become who I want to be?)
If you’re not willing to do this, nothing can save you. You could be put on a deserted island far away from any addictive substance and you’d find a way to get fat by overeating on coconuts. You have to take ownership over yourself and your problems. Tackle them face on even if confronting your own weakness and problems can be very daunting.
The second crucial element is strong bonds. You are way more likely to become addicted when you’re lonely and have nobody looking out for you, then you are if you come from a strong & loving family, have plenty of good friends and are in a healthy relationship.
Humans aren’t made to be solitary stoic robots (again thank you for nothing, neo-liberalist thinking). We are made to operate in tribes. Tribes look out for each other and make sure nobody gets left behind.
Now I know you don’t get to pick your family and gaining friends and a good relationship can be difficult, but with enough effort and will, you can find your community and it will help to keep you accountable, just like how you will keep others in that community accountable.
Which ironically is what makes the anti-porn community valuable to many who struggle with porn addiction. They’ve finally found a community of like minded men that wants to keep them accountable and that is there for them in their moments of weakness. Their bonding over a shared hatred of porn and its effects might just be the first step in overcoming addiction. But only if you realize what the root problem of addiction is and that you need to fix your life and work inside a tribe to truly defeat the evils of addiction (but if enough of them band together and criminalize porn, it will be a victory for all).
A few years back I wrote a book on how the brain works. It’s called Summoned or Not and can give you the key insights you need to understand why you’re addicted and what you can do to defeat dopamine addiction. It won’t offer you a community and it isn’t going to magically make your addiction disappear, but it will help you in your struggle. You can find it here: Summoned or Not
Till next time,
Niels.