It depletes dopamine in the brain which is linked to anxious and depressive episodes.

[LiteraryLark]

I've also heard that it does the exact opposite.

[LiteraryLark]

Does morals come into play with this? Because people here who complain of their masturbation claim it is due to their guilt from religion/loved ones/ personal values that they are depressed.

[AppalachianAxis]

Originally Posted by DrSkipper

Does morals come into play with this? Because people here who complain of their masturbation claim it is due to their guilt from religion/loved ones/ personal values that they are depressed.

I'd say you're on the right track.

Plenty of people love pornography of all different types and it doesn't affect them negatively in the slightest.

Then there are people who were brought up to believe that it's something to be condemned and therefore feel depressed when they indulge in it.

Then there folks like me. I was never influenced or coerced to believe that sexuality or pornography were "bad" things and I am very open to other people viewing and enjoying the stuff. But my own indulgence makes me heavily depressed all the same.

It's all a matter of personal perspective.

Originally Posted by DrSkipper

Does morals come into play with this? Because people here who complain of their masturbation claim it is due to their guilt from religion/loved ones/ personal values that they are depressed.

No, although if you do feel things such as shame you''ll release even more dopamine so it'll affect you even more.

This is suggested more of an issue for men then women. Porn induced erectile dysfunction created by the use of too much dopamine from porn.

Originally Posted by AppalachianAxis

I'd say you're on the right track.

Plenty of people love pornography of all different types and it doesn't affect them negatively in the slightest.

Then there are people who were brought up to believe that it's something to be condemned and therefore feel depressed when they indulge in it.

Then there folks like me. I was never influenced or coerced to believe that sexuality or pornography were "bad" things and I am very open to other people viewing and enjoying the stuff. But my own indulgence makes me heavily depressed all the same.

It's all a matter of personal perspective.

This is nothing to do with morality. Serious changes happen in the brain.

[LiteraryLark]

Links or it didn't happen. If you're out to prove something, you better back up your sources.

Is porn making my social anxiety/confidence/depression worse? | Your Brain On Porn

Why masturbation lowers your self esteem and causes depression | 2KnowMySelf

[Confusedinomicon]

Both of these are articles about the effects of porn addiction and not about normal usage of porn.

I occasionally look/read at porn, but it's never been excessive and I've never had a problem stopping for months at a time.

Excessive use of /anything/ is bad.

[LiteraryLark]

5 Health Benefits of Masturbation | Men's Health News

This is from a trusted source and is aimed to average men who are generally healthy. Your two sources are directed towards those who are mentally ill and currently dealing with depression. Also, "Your Brain on Porn" is clearly not a website that supports the viewing of pornography, in fact, it's not even talking about regular, healthy pornography or masturbation, it is aimed for people who have an addiction to the above and is more like WebMD which will only tell you that you have some disease you never knew you had. Your Brain On Porn will not tell you that masturbation or porn is okay, it is meant to scare you.

edit: And the second source wants to sell you something. It'll tell you that your life is in a downward spiral and if you buy their books and pay for their "professional" coaching, they will cure you of your bad habits.

Yourbrainonporn doesn't say you shouldn't masturbate. It recommends to not masturbate whilst recovering from porn addiction.

Also this is aimed at men not women. I don't know how dopamine affects women when it comes to porn but I think it's different.

[growlithing]

Originally Posted by Lycanthrope

Is porn making my social anxiety/confidence/depression worse? | Your Brain On Porn

Why masturbation lowers your self esteem and causes depression | 2KnowMySelf

Thank you for having something to back up this claim. Most people do not.

I question the reliability of these sources. The first one is off of a website dedicated to condemning porn. The second one makes fairly far fetched claims and then does not back it up with data to prove it. For example, they said that porn addicts become fat because they need to regulate their low levels of dopamine with food. No where did they say there was a study that proved that nor did they provide sources that established those findings.

Here is an article from psychology today that literally talks about your first article and disputes it: m.psychologytoday.com/blog/women-who-stray/201307/your-brain-porn-its-not-addictive

http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...y-side-of-smut

[growlithing]

My first link did not post correctly: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/...-not-addictive

Originally Posted by growlithing

My first link did not post correctly: www.psychologytoday.com/blog/women-who-stray/201307/your-brain-porn-its-not-addictive

Go to the comments section on that link and scroll down a little. The guy responds to that article.

[Confusedinomicon]

I read the comment and they were referring to an addiction.

Just because there is a bigger market of porn for men, the first reference isn't stating it is only guys who experience it. Anyone can become addicted! Its possible to get addicted to anything.

Pornography can lead to shame if you are masturbating rather than living your life fully. It's ok to masturbate to pornography when you're in the shower at night and you're alone and you have earned some me-time. But if your masturbating at 10am and still haven't rolled out of bed and you should be looking for a job it probably doesn't help.

Originally Posted by Confusedinomicon

I read the comment and they were referring to an addiction.

Just because there is a bigger market of porn for men, the first reference isn't stating it is only guys who experience it. Anyone can become addicted! Its possible to get addicted to anything.

No you misunderstand. Dopamine and sexual material may affect the male brain differently to the female brain.

[hamster-bamster]

To me, it is all very simple. Very very simple.

Why would a guy spend so much time watching porn? Why is he not having sex with real people, instead?

There must be some kind of a problem with him. Maybe he has social anxiety and cannot find suitable, fun partners in real life.

So he watches too much porn. BECAUSE HE WAS ANXIOUS TO BEGIN WITH.

So, reverse causation - it is not too much porn causes anxiety, but men with anxiety watch too much porn.

I agree with IT - a bit might be OK, but doing it too much means that there is an underlying problem with social interactions, prioritization and self-discipline (in IT's example, the guy has a problem with prioritization and self-discipline), maybe self-esteem, etc. etc.

[hamster-bamster]

Originally Posted by Lycanthrope

Is porn making my social anxiety/confidence/depression worse? | Your Brain On Porn

I tried reading this, but very soon stopped.

So, they are publishing letters from guys. and, publishing without edits - just true to the source with no changes... mistakes and all...

And the first letter says (I stopped reading after it):

First guy: About a month ago I decided to give up PMO. I ended up going 14 days total without masturbation. During this time my mood was never better. I've been going to a therapist to resolve my emotional issues but I was at the point where I cancelled appointments because I felt great and just wanted to continue feeling great. The next day I got a huge craving/thought about a porn actress that I liked and ended up binging. I never realised how addicted I was to porn until that day. It was a rush of "oh my god I need this right now" but the release I felt was incredibly empty.
I binged the next day and the emotional hell that I've experienced for years came back. I was incredibly surprised to realize that a lot of my emotional issues were related to stopping PMO so I tried another week. I gave a weak excuse and binged. This time old feelings of suicidal and despair came back. It was a nightmarish 3 days but I started my recovery again. It's been 9 days since PMO and I'm back to my balanced self. I don't have the social anxiety, or fear that something bad will happen to me, that I used to. My depression is gone and I'm not worried about anything. Things that would make me angry are now a thing of the past. I was at a local music show recently and someone shoved me while passing through. I ended up shoving them back and not worrying at all about the consequences. This confidence that I have feels great and can only get better with time. My goal is a full 8 weeks.

***

First comment - I do not know what PMO is other than a Project Management Organization which, I KNOW, cannot possibly be the de-acronymization in the sense intended by this site. So it must be something else. Some private language accessible to the site's subscribers? I dunno... It is possible that P in PMO stands for Porn. I think it very well might.

So...a bit of analysis of this gem of English writing...

"During this time my mood was never better"

So, I would hope to have Harley, Hankster, and others who are native speakers of English (not necessarily with a userid that starts with a "Ha!") to opine on this with more confidence, but to me this phrase does not sound right. It is true that it is perfectly OK to say: "My mood has never been better", but not what this guy wrote. I am ready to stand corrected, though.

So...for now, I will assume that the guy who wrote this missive to the site is...just...towards the dumber side...

but in order to check with my intuition is right, I do a Google search in quotation marks:

"my mood was never better"

and only get 48 results.

Then I search on Google AGAIN, this time with the phrase as corrected by me above, "my mood has never been better",

and get 76, 100 results on Google.

So, thanks to Google, I am now feeling a bit more confident about my level of intuition when it comes to English expressions.

And that leads me back to suspecting that the guy who wrote this letter to the site's editors just is not particularly "with it" to begin with.

More to come in the very next two sentences, from which we learn that a guy has been in therapy for a while, but once he stopped masturbating for a period of two weeks, he felt great and immediately cancelled appointments with the therapist because of that great feeling.

Now, this is not about English anymore...no.

So, most people who have been in therapy for a while have a general understanding of how the therapeutic relationship is supposed to work. And, if they start feeling great, they are happy to share with their therapist that they are feeling great, realizing, of course, that a great feeling that has lasted for 14 days is just that... but still. They do not cancel appointments.

But this guy not only canceled appointments, but also wrote about the cancelation in a matter-of-factly manner as if anybody else were sure to see the connection between feeling good and canceling therapy.

***

That is enough to appreciate that is source is completely and entirely bogus.

I have not read the whole thread but have scanned enough to realize that other posters have reached the same conclusion (that the source is bogus) by analyzing it based on its actual content.

[hamster-bamster]

PS

To boot, the first guy, when he writes about the newfound pleasures of his life, says:

"Things that would make me angry are now a thing of the past."

To that I have no comment.

PMO stands for porn, masturbation, orgasm.

Look I'm not suggesting that all social anxiety/depression is caused by watching porn. Brain studies suggest porn affects dopamine, similar to the way cocaine can.

A lot of men who quit porn say their social anxiety/depression went away. Not all, but there's something in it. Unless you're suggesting all these men are liars.

Originally Posted by hamster-bamster

To me, it is all very simple. Very very simple.

Why would a guy spend so much time watching porn? Why is he not having sex with real people, instead?

There must be some kind of a problem with him. Maybe he has social anxiety and cannot find suitable, fun partners in real life.

So he watches too much porn. BECAUSE HE WAS ANXIOUS TO BEGIN WITH.

So, reverse causation - it is not too much porn causes anxiety, but men with anxiety watch too much porn.

I agree with IT - a bit might be OK, but doing it too much means that there is an underlying problem with social interactions, prioritization and self-discipline (in IT's example, the guy has a problem with prioritization and self-discipline), maybe self-esteem, etc. etc.

Porn can desensitize men to real sex that's why. When you become addicted real women can't compete, and that's to do with changes in the brain.

[growlithing]

Originally Posted by Lycanthrope

PMO stands for porn, masturbation, orgasm.

Look I'm not suggesting that all social anxiety/depression is caused by watching porn. Brain studies suggest porn affects dopamine, similar to the way cocaine can.

A lot of men who quit porn say their social anxiety/depression went away. Not all, but there's something in it. Unless you're suggesting all these men are liars.

No. No no no. Porn is NOT like a drug. Porn is images/videos/text you read on the screen. It is NOT a highly dangerous physical substance you put in your body that could kill you every time you ingest it. It does NOT create withdrawal when you try to stop it.

Yes, porn/masturbation releases dopamine. Dopamine is not a bad thing. Exercise also releases dopamine. There are some people that take exercise too far, but those people are far and few between.

I have met a few people who find that porn makes them feel depressed and lonely. They find that watching two people doing sexual stuff on camera made them feel more alone because they don't have anyone to do that stuff with. They were depressed and lonely before porn and it ended up exasperating it for them. I have to admit that if I'm having a bad day, watching two people do stuff on camera can make me feel like I'm missing out on life. But that thought was a pre-existing thought that porn triggered.

You're also leaving out context. Perhaps someone enjoys porn and his wife found out and she got jealous. Or maybe someone feels like porn is something wrong/sinful so they feel an immense amount of shame from watching it. In those instances, porn can be a negative stressor on your life, however the porn by itself is not what is creating the problem.

If you are comparing porn to drugs, it is ridiculous to say that porn affects the male brain differently than the female brain. The reason you mostly hear about men having problems with porn is because most men have a higher sex drive than most women. Not all men and not all women, but generally speaking. A lot of women also often prefer to read their porn rather than watch it and there is for some reason MUCH less social stigma against reading porn rather than watching it (ex soccer moms ready Fifty Shades of Gray on public transport). But these men don't have a problem with porn, they have a problem with a monstrously high sex drive.

I'm sorry but there is no way that images and video can be harmful to your brain in anyway similar to cocaine.

Well people who study brains tend to disagree with you. So I'll let you take it up with them. Porn releases huge amounts dopamine. Far more then exercise or even sex.

[hamster-bamster]

Originally Posted by Lycanthrope

Porn can desensitize men to real sex that's why. When you become addicted real women can't compete, and that's to do with changes in the brain.

I cannot believe that the dumb looking women with fake breasts whom I saw on a typical porn site and whose orgasm sounds are so obviously affected and not real that I wonder how the producers sign off on such a work product (I am taking about a professional porn site and not amateur porn, so there must be a producer there who takes responsibility for the final product)...

...are better than real women.

No man I personally know would find them better. A distraction, a different kind of reality - sure, but better, no.

So, I would continue to maintain that there was something wrong with the men who became addicted to porn in the first place. I am not saying that those men are liars. I am saying that there was something inherently wrong with them, and that something - I do not know what it was - made them fall for porn addiction.