How Porn Addiction Works

Viewing pornography floods the brain with a chemical called dopamine. When this happens on a regular basis at the level and intensity created by pornography, the chemical actually begins to rewire the brain’s reward pathways.

The brain responds to this chemical overload by reducing the amount of dopamine that is produced and released. This causes a person to seek out pornography more frequently and in a variety of different ways in order to trigger a response in the brain.

Over time, regular activities that would normally set off a burst of dopamine to produce feelings of happiness are no longer strong enough to register. This has devastating effects on the overall mental health of the person, and it begins to erode the ability of a husband and wife to bond in the marital embrace.

Developing Habits

In addition to this, dopamine doesn’t travel alone. When the brain is getting a hit of dopamine, it is also getting new pathways built into it with a protein called “iFosB”. This protein leaves trail markers in the brain, creating a pathway. This is very beneficial when it helps us develop habits with healthy behaviors, but is very problematic when it comes to pornography. The more a person looks at porn, the more iFosB accumulates, which makes it easier and easier for the person to turn back to that behavior, whether they want to or not. Eventually, if enough iFosB accumulates, it can cause irreversible changes in the brain that leave the person more susceptible to addiction.

For teens, the risks are especially high, since a teen brain’s reward pathway has a response two to four times more powerful than an adult brain—which means teen brains release even higher levels of dopamine. Teen brains also produce higher levels of iFosB, leaving them extra vulnerable to addiction.

Craving Novelty

Our reward system is built to crave novel sexual stimulation. This can be observed in a phenomenon behaviorists call the Coolidge effect: mammals of either gender will seem disinterested in a partner they’ve just had sex with, but will show renewed sexual interest when presented with a new partner to pair with.

Our reward system is built to crave novel sexual stimulation.

This craving for novelty is why porn users are never satisfied with simply looking at one picture or video for the rest of their lives. If they owned only one picture, they’d get bored with porn pretty quickly! The internet provides an unlimited amount of new porn available on demand 24/7. We live in a world of abundance, where sex and food can pose a threat to survival if we have too much. The reward system in the brain is not equipped to handle the widespread availability of pornography.

Addiction Progression

A common marker for the progression of any addiction is tolerance. With pornography, tolerance builds when a user needs to look at more porn, more novel porn, more intense porn, or a combination of these in order to trigger a release of pleasure chemicals in the brain. This is where pornography addiction gets dangerous. The addictive quest for novelty in porn has lead some porn addicts to search for extreme, taboo and even illegal material.

Porn addicts may also search for ever more super-stimulating porn, searching for videos, images and stories which provide a more intense dose of fantasy. They need porn that depicts a more intense, unrealistic version of bodies, sex, and relationships. This can mean anything from searching out images of more extreme body enhancements, violent and abusive bondage videos, or reading erotic stories that draw them deeper and deeper into a fantasy that seems more appealing than real life.