Pornography addiction and compulsive masturbation are problems many people battle with globally. It is a common activity amongst people of all ages and has become a huge issue for many.
Porn addiction and compulsive masturbation have caused people to lose their jobs, broken many marriages, interfered with people’s mental health and made people have a negative view of sexuality and intimacy.
Although research may prove that masturbation is a healthy sexual practice that helps relieve one of stress and may not have any serious detrimental effect. When it becomes compulsive and likely turn into an addiction, it becomes a problem, mainly because it begins to interfere with people lives and relationships in a negative way.
If you suffer from this problem or you know someone who does, we recommend you read through this article till the end, as we address this issue and provide information on how to deal with compulsive masturbation and pornography addiction successfully.
The issue of Obsessive Masturbation
Masturbation is considered one of the most secretive and seclusive sexual addiction. People addicted to masturbating are likely acting upon specific stimuli which are hard to tolerate. These actions may be influenced by Intense emotions such as loneliness or stress, and may also be accompanied by an identifiable trigger such as pornographic contents or idleness.
Some of them lose valuable hours of their day, masturbating probably with the help of pornographic material and drugs. They may lock themselves up in a room to indulge in their masturbatory escape. This type of behaviour may likely result in genital injury due to the immense amount of time and energy dedicated to masturbating.
Typically, injury and pain are not a sought of pleasure, but the compulsive or binge masturbator will not see physical damage as a reason to stop masturbating and seek for self-care. Instead, they continue masturbating, even to the point of hurting themselves further as they can no longer help the urge, or control themselves.
Addicts to compulsive masturbation may find it hard to concentrate or remember things, and this is because the brain might be over drained of acetylcholine and replaced with stress adrenaline. This could cause a dangerous side effect on compulsive masturbators.
Furthermore, addicts may be very reluctant to seek help because they may consider the act as shameful and dirty. And often may not recognise their behaviour as problematic until they begin to see direct consequences for their behaviour. At this point, they may decide to seek therapeutic assistance to relief them from anxiety, isolation, obsession and being unable to maintain a healthy intimate relationship.
The Issue of Pornography Addiction
Pornography addiction can significantly influence one’s attitudes and perceptions about sexual intercourse. People who are obsessed with pornography may highly exhibit abnormal sexual behaviours, promiscuity, sexual aggression, and even rape.
When people interact with pornographic contents, an enormous amount of dopamine hormone is released and acts as a mechanism for transmitting a pleasurable sensation to the brain. They become addicts when they become obsessed with the pleasurable experience they get from watching porn.
Porn addicts are also at a higher risk of contracting a sexually transmitted disease or having a baby out of wedlock due to their increase permissiveness to sexual pleasure.
Pornography obsession can negatively affect people’s emotional lives. For men, they may begin to see women and even children as sex objects or instruments for their pleasure, and not as people with dignity.
Married men who are obsessed with porn may feel emotionally detached and sexually dissatisfied with their wives, which may result in the feeling of betrayal, anger and mistrust from their wives. The use of pornography for married people may lead to infidelity and divorce.
Furthermore, women who are obsessed with porn may view abusive sexual activities as the best way to enjoy their intimate relationships and may find it difficult always to satisfy their sexual urge.
For adolescents who view pornography, the feeling of shame, doubt of self-confidence, and sexual uncertainty may overwhelm them.
How to Overcome Obsessive Masturbation and Porn Addiction
1. Staying Active
Most people become Obsessed with porn and masturbation as a result of idealness. When they find themselves doing nothing, the thought of indulging in these acts takes over them.
Therefore one way to curb these actions is to engage in other activities that would be more beneficial. Such as participating in sports, eating healthy diets, be creative and find a new hobby, or learn a new skill. This way, you would have less time to masturbate or watch porn.
2. Avoid Pornographic Materials
Pornographic contents may act as a trigger to masturbate in most cases. To avoid it, you would first have to do away with every pornographic material in your possession such as porn magazines, logins to a porn website and your browse history, porn videos on your mobile phone or PC.
You can also consider installing porn-blocking app or software on your devices. You can use a random text you are less likely to remember as a password so that you would not be able to bypass the blocker when sexual contents popup
3. Limit your solitude
Some people frequently masturbate because they feel lonely. If one is socially active, the chances of feeling lonely would be minimal. Therefore one has to find ways to be socially engaged as much as possible.
Joining clubs and participating in a variety of activities that would be of benefit to you is an excellent way to build relationships and stay socially active.
Another thing you should do is limit the times when you are likely to be alone at any given place. If you feel compulsive to masturbate or watch porn whenever you are alone, you can consider taking a walk, visiting a friend or go somewhere public.
4. Be persistent and patient with yourself
Overcoming masturbation and porn addiction would not happen all of a sudden, it’s a process that requires commitment, and there may be times where you would make the mistake of relapsing, and occasions where you would unknowingly bump into pornographic contents and feel compulsive.
If this happens, you do not have to punish yourself, don’t forget you’re human, and it may take time to do away with this sort of addiction. However, if you put in conscious effort to achieve your goal of overcoming addiction, and you stay persistent, you can put a stop to your addiction.
You can set up some reward system that could help you bribe yourself to stay on track. For instance, if you can go for a whole week without indulging in these acts, treat yourself with your favourite things.
5. Seek Help
If masturbation is preventing you from participating in your regular life activities, it may be time you considered reaching out for help. Whenever you feel ashamed, remember that many people have similar problems.
Therefore, you should consider booking an appointment with a medical professional, counsellor, psychologists or psychiatrists depending on how severe your case may be. These professional are trained to help people with different levels of addiction.
If you are a Christian, you can also consider reaching out to a reliable minister in your church and also seek God in Prayers.
