Why do so many people have a difficult time quitting porn? At Covenant Eyes, we hear from thousands of people—men and women, married and single, young and old, who consider themselves addicted.
What causes this addiction? In brief, pornography activates pleasureful chemicals in the brain: dopamine, norepinephrine, oxytocin, vasopressin, serotonin, and endorphins. For some, repeated exposure can lead to addiction.
Here’s what you need to know about pornography addiction, why it’s considered controversial, and what causes it.
Is It Really Addictive?
In 2004, psychologist Dr. Judith Reisman testified before the United States Senate that porn is an “erototoxin.”1 By this, she meant that porn is a sexually poisonous substance—addictive, toxic, and deadly. That’s strong testimony to the negative impact porn can have on people’s lives. Many other experts have taken up the warning about pornography addiction.
Not everyone agrees with Dr. Reisman’s assessment. In fact, the medical community does not currently recognize the diagnosis of pornography addiction. Despite this, most people now believe porn addiction is real. And even many skeptics acknowledge that pornography can have dangerous consequences.2 “Problematic porn consumption” is the study of out-of-control porn habits.
Pornography statistics indicate that watching pornography is a problem for significant numbers of people. Here are some examples of what this looks like, shared by our members and readers:
“I’ve dug a HUGE hole for myself with this masturbation problem and pornography addiction. It’s affecting my concentration and, most importantly, my spiritual life.”
“I need help to quit porn, I tried many times and all failed.”
“I am married and have struggled with lust for as long as I can remember and crave porn like a drug addict. I watch it while masturbating or shortly thereafter and feel filthy afterwards, but I keep going back and back…hardest thing in the world to quit.”
How Many People Are Addicted To Porn?
Barna has published some of the best data on pornography viewing in the United States. According to their latest research, over 61% of people consume pornography to some degree.2
And although the porn addiction diagnosis isn’t recognized by the medical community, most people believe it’s possible to become addicted.3 according to one 2019 study, up to 11% of men and 3% of women surveyed self-identified as porn addicts.4
The Main Reason Porn Is Addictive
What’s the main reason that people struggle to stop watching porn. It comes down to the brain’s response to sexual imagery combined with the unique opportunities of modern technology. Author Sam Black explains the “neuro-cocktail” of chemicals activated in the brain by pornography.5
- Dopamine is a chemical that sharpens your focus and gives a sense of craving. It creates the “gotta-have-it” sensation.
- Norepinephrine creates alertness and focus. It is the brain’s version of adrenaline. It tells the brain, “Something is about to happen, and we need to get ready for it.”
- Oxytocin and vasopressin help to lay down the long-term memories for the cells. They “bind” a person’s memories to the object that gave him or her sexual pleasure.
- Endorphins are natural opiates that create a “high,” a wave of pleasure over the whole body.
- After sexual release, serotonin levels also change, bringing a sense of calm and relaxation.
This is how porn affects the brain. These chemicals all occur naturally with any kind of sexual arousal. But digital pornography offers something highly unnatural that our brains weren’t designed to handle: easy access and endless novelty. It’s what neuroscientist Dr. Donald Hilton calls a “supranormal stimulus.”6
The Triple-A Engine
Psychologist Dr. Alvin Cooper identified the “triple-A engine” of internet pornography that drives addiction. Online porn is accessible, affordable, and anonymous.7
These factors make it very easy for anyone to slip into a porn-watching habit. There’s a low barrier to entry—anyone can find it, anyone can afford it, and nobody has to know about it. The triple-A engine alone could be enough to trap someone in a vicious porn cycle.
The Triple Hook
Dr. Donald Hilton gives a more technical look at how this causes porn addiction. He says:
“[P]ornography is a triple hook, consisting of cortical hypofrontality, dopaminergic downgrading, and oxytocin/vasopressin bonding. Each of these hooks is powerful, and they are synergistic.8
Put more simply, porn causes three problems: brain shrinkage, cravings, and chemical bonding. Working together, they create an addictive impulse to look at porn. Let’s briefly look at each.
Brain Shrinkage (Cortical Hypofrontality)
What neuroscientists call “cortical hypofrontality” is a kind of brain shrinkage. Cambridge researcher Dr. Valerie Voon found that the brains of porn addicts look a lot like the brains of drug addicts, both displaying similar damage to the frontal lobe.9
What exactly is shrinking? Specifically, it’s the part of your brain that makes rational decisions. It’s the part of the brain that puts the brakes on things that feel good but are actually harmful.
That means the more porn you watch, the harder it is to make rational decisions regarding porn.
Cravings (Dopaminergic Downgrading)
We already noted that dopamine is the chemical in our brains that makes us want things. It’s important because it fuels any kind of motivation—whether for food, sex, or success. When the dopamine production system is hijacked, it can result in cravings.
The unlimited variety of porn causes unnatural surges in dopamine that can overwhelm the brain. When this happens, the dopamine receptors are desensitized. The same things that used to bring pleasure are no longer satisfying—often leading to riskier and riskier behaviors.
Chemical Bonding (Oxytocin/Vasopressin Bonding)
When oxytocin and vasopressin are released in sex, they create a deep biological “bond” between the partners. When someone looks at porn, these chemicals form a bond with the pixels on the screen. The more porn is viewed, the stronger the bond.
Psychologist and addiction expert Dr. William Struthers writes in his book, Wired for Intimacy:
“Like a path is created in the woods with each successive hiker, so do the neural paths set the course for the next time an erotic image is viewed. Over time these neural paths become wider as they are repeatedly traveled with each exposure to pornography. They become the automatic pathway through which interactions with women are routed. The neural circuitry anchors this process solidly in the brain.“10
Together, this combination of chemicals in the brain makes porn an intoxicating experience and keeps you going back for more.
Why Some People Are More Susceptible to Porn Addiction
Addiction is never simple, and there are often many factors involved. But several factors make some people more susceptible than others to addiction.
1. Early Exposure
Early exposure is one of the most significant determiners of porn addiction. Tragically, children are being exposed to porn at an early age, often before puberty, when their brains are in a highly impressionable stage of development. Author and speaker John Fort writes:
“The sad reality for nearly every adult who struggles with porn is that their compulsive porn use started in childhood. In the more than two decades I have been working with hundreds of men and women trying to overcome pornography addiction, I have met only one who did not first start using pornography as a child.”
Research shows 50% of men and 10% of women who are exposed to pornography as children will develop an addiction.11 One study found the average age of first exposure is eleven years old! This tells us an increasing number of people are being exposed at very young ages, setting the stage for a lifelong addiction.12
2. Trauma
Licensed mental health counselor Jay Stringer says that people who have experienced trauma or abuse are more likely to be addicted to porn. Additionally, those who suffer from other trauma or who experience deep shame have a greater likelihood of addiction. And this often plays a role in the third factor below.
3. Attachment Wounds
Neglect and loneliness can likewise leave people emotionally needy and vulnerable to the false intimacy promised by porn. Dr. Gregory Popkack is an expert in attachment theory and its implications for pornography addiction. He argues that the root cause of unwanted porn use and addiction can be found in attachment wounds:
“The degree to which a person has a hard time avoiding pornography, or the degree to which a person has that compulsive relationship with pornography… tends to be the degree to which they are experiencing deeper attachment wounds.”
Understanding Secure Attachments
Before we can understand “attachment wounds,” we need to know what healthy attachment looks like. Dr. Popcak explains:
“The degree to which a parent consistently, generous, and even cheerfully responds to their child’s needs teaches the child, ‘Oh, I can turn to this person to get my needs met.’”
There, attachment has to do with where you turn to meet your needs. A secure attachment to a primary caregiver shapes the way the child sees the world and relationships. It makes them trusting and teaches them to see human connection as a good thing.
Understanding Attachment Wounds
So what are attachment wounds?
First, if your parents make you work to have your needs recognized, if you feel from a young age that you have to prove the legitimacy of your needs, then you develop attachment wounds, also known as “insecure attachments.” Dr. Popcak says:
“[Insecure attachments] set you up in adult relationships to find people who can’t really love you the way you want to be loved… ‘If I can just push the right button and pull the right lever, I can get that person to be loving in the way I want them to be.’”
These insecure attachment styles develop when parents neglect emotional needs. Although physical needs may be met, emotional needs are suppressed. The focus is on outward achievement.
Dr. Popcak continues, “People with insecure attachments don’t have the neural framework for intimate relationships.” They find themselves unable to enjoy deep and meaningful relationship intimacy. This makes them extremely vulnerable to pornography addiction. (Learn more in our podcast with Dr. Popcak).
These traits do not describe every porn addict. But someone who has one or more of these characteristics is much more vulnerable to porn addiction. Not only does this help us understand the causes of porn addiction, but understanding what makes people vulnerable can be a helpful tool in the recovery process.
So, Am I Addicted to Porn?
In their book The Porn Trap, sex therapists Wendy and Larry Maltz point to three key indicators of porn addiction:
- Do you crave porn intensely and persistently?
- Do you find you can’t control your urges to look at porn and fail when you try to stop?
- Do you continue looking at porn despite facing negative consequences?13
If you can relate to these feelings about porn, you may be dealing with an addiction. For a more in-depth assessment, check out our article, “Am I Addicted to Porn?” Once you recognize the problem, you can move on to the next question.
Is It Possible to Break Free From Addiction?
The good news is that porn addiction can be beaten. At Covenant Eyes, we hear stories every day of those who overcome porn. I recommend starting here: How to Quit Porn: 6 Essential Steps, by porn recovery expert Dr. Doug Weiss. You may also find it helpful to seek out a counselor for porn addiction.
Excellent article on what happens in the brain. But what about the heart?
Is this not, at it’s core, the result of a free choice to engage in sin? At what point do we depart from sin and tell someone it’s a chemical imbalance? When, just maybe, we should depart from the strictly clinical explanations and address the problem where it lies – sin, and the need for repentance and the support of the church community.
YES – counseling is appropriate and needful, but we should keep the proper perspective even when our sinful choices have resulted in physical affliction.
Counseling was of little use and subsequent effect in my life until I was sufficiently convicted and brought to repentance.
the heart is just a muscle… thoughts, feelings and such as those come from the brain, get it? didn´t your god teach you anything useful?
What exactly are you talking about?
Luke, thank you for this post. I expected long ago that there must be some chemical activities going on when any person looks at porn. That explains why people find it so difficult to leave porn behind them.
God bless you.
Herman of bibledifferences.net
Great article. It helped me realize why my wife and I having sex pretty frequently has been so good for our marriage. It has chemically bound us together in ways that wouldn’t have happened if I had taken my needs to porn.
This is perfect! Men need to know what they are up against in this fight. It is essentially and fundamentally a drug addiction (depending on how long they have been viewing porn).
Like any addiction there is much more than just the physiological aspect. The psychological and spiritual pieces need to be addressed as well. But is seems like we tend to over-emphasize these two, to the determent of the ‘chemical’ fight.
There is a great book that I have found can help understand and counter the ‘chemical’ fight, it’s called Spark and it is written by renowned psychiatrist Dr.John J. Ratey.
One thing about porn: those images never go away whether you continue to look at it or not. What happens when people get into gross porn i.e. Kiddie porn: will people who look at that kind turn INTO CHILD MOLESTERS WHETHER THEY WERE MOLESTED or NOT?….we still have to continue the WAR on porn.
@Zipporah – No. Not all men who are into child porn actually molest children, but those who supply the world with child porn are already molesting children. Child pornography is too tame a phrase for it. Really we should call it “crime scene images of child rape.”
Luke,
Great article! This was grand-slam walk off home run!
Jerry