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By Steve Mayeda
Austin, TX

Porn the great scapegoat for our inability to talk about sex.
We talk about sex all the time, but always as a joke, or a cause we believe in or some opinion about it.  We talk about sex as information, a novelty or a point of anger and fueled opinions, but never do we talk about sex as a normal thing.  Sadly because of this we have a culture that has all the problems that come about when sex isn’t seen as something normal.

Sex is one of your greatest expressions and porn didn’t make it ugly.  Something else did and that’s what we are going to talk about here.

This isn’t your typical article on porn, masturbation and addiction.  In fact we are going to take a look at masturbation, sex and porn in a way that you might not have thought of or considered before.  What you might have thought about sexual health, masturbation and sexual or porn addiction is most likely not true, and there is way too much bad information about it.

I’m going to start this off by saying I am not a scientist.  I am not someone who has done CAT scans or MRIs on the brain while people are watching porn, or in the midst of addictive behavior, but I am someone who has worked with men who have had sexual addiction, chemical addiction and helped them live a healthy sexually lives consistently for 10 years.  I am also someone who is a sex addict and drug addict that has lived a healthy social and sexual life for quite some time now.  I will also say that the people who do write articles on porn and sex addiction usually aren’t scientists or researchers, and the studies they site are incomplete.  In fact they’re not true because for the past 10 years of my working with men what they site as the problem never ends up being the problem and the general solution proposed may help for some, but some someone who really is a porn addict or sex addict it will make them worse.

I will also say that when it comes to my work in addiction I do not make money at this.  My career is a men’s coach.  I say this, because I do not have any financial ties to this, I only have a ton of experience and what I see out there as advice is not the truth.
This is a long article, because it has to be.  What we are going to go over here are multiple things, because they are necessary to point out the entire problem.

• Masturbation
• Porn
• Sexual Dysfunction (Cause & Why it is Maintained)
• Who Uses Porn
• Proposed Solution
• What Really Works

Not a week goes by where on one of our calls, our men’s group forums or private groups someone asks about masturbation, no-fap or porn addiction.  The reason for this is because is it a huge issue in men’s health these days.  However, it isn’t a ‘huge issue’ for the reasons that are normally given – porn addiction, a detachment of sex or the rerouting of neural pathways in the brain.   The 2 main problems with masturbation and men’s sexual health are lack of talking about sex and its importance in people’s lives and the hysteria around it.

These days we are talking about masturbation a lot. Much like anything sexual we talk about it not as something normal or our experience with it, but  as a joke, or in judgment, sharing an opinion or we talk about it as a source for blame.  We never talk about it as what it is, a normal sexual function.  Combine that with a the TED Talks, articles, documentaries and other media on the problem with sex, porn, rape culture, the ‘men’s movement’ the ‘women’s movement’ it is easy to see how we got here.  Young men across the world see their natural sexual urge to masturbate as something to deny, control or regulate, starting a war with themselves they cannot win.

Think about it, when do you really talk about sex?  When do you share your sex?  When do you not have to joke, share a story in the 3erd personal or gossip, to talk about sex?  Your sex?  That hardly happens.  Sex, something that everyone feels, we all see it, sell it, buy it, but nobody really has it.

Let’s spend a few minutes going through masturbation itself, the hysteria around porn, the problems that may arise from oversexed stimuli and the real solution of sexual health.
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Listen to the Podcast

Masturbation 

Masturbation is one of the most normal things that you can do.  It is important to build a relationship with yourself and your sexuality.  A sexually healthy man is not afraid of it.  He is not ashamed of it, he is not seeing it as something to fear or run from, but seeing as something he does.

One of our long time Alumni Jim, sees it as something is the foundation for being a healthy overall man.

Check out this interview I did with him, talking about masturbation.

Regardless, masturbation is something that before the internet, porn and even civilization was a part of men’s sex lives.  One thing we may be unaware of in the world we live in now is that masturbation has always had rumors, shame and a lack of comfort around it.  It has always been a point of hysteria and social ridicule.

• You’re going to go blind
• Your hair is going to fall out
• You’re going to go to hell

and so on.

Masturbation, and sexual activity in general has been vilified for many reasons throughout the years. Yet, with all that cultural pressure every man has done it.   It is a force of nature, and when you stop fighting yourself with it and possibly allow yourself to enjoy it the act adds to who you are, gives you awareness of sexuality and confidence in self.

Once again I am going to refer back to Jim’s interview, give it a listen (Click Here).

Porn 

We hear a lot about porn destroying men, women and our culture.  For this article let’s keep it to the men part.

One things that Jim talks about is porn is great, but internet video porn is bad.  This is where I’m going to go a little bit deeper, because internet video is not the overall problem either.  It is a symptom of a greater problem.

Currently and for the past several years there is a massive campaign stating that porn has caused an epidemic of porn/sex addiction.  There are tons of articles, TED Talks and films on this.  The general premises is that the human brain was not made to process high-speed internet porn.  The over saturation of porn use creates a conflict in the neural pathways in the brain related to sex and intimacy, and the result is an epidemic of sexual dysfunction and objectification of women in men.   This makes total sense.  If you start adding it all up, you really can’t deny this, so how can it be so wrong?

However, much like any movement facilitated by hysteria there are holes in the ideas.  When it came to the war on drugs, the ‘crack epidemic’ and the sensationalism of drugs we saw the same thing.  I’ll be the first to admit if someone suffers from drug addiction it is a real problem that exists, but the whole drug issue is far more complex than we make it.

If someone suffers from porn or sex addiction, the problem may manifest itself in porn or masturbation but the behavior is not the problem.  The problem is the relationship that person has with sex.  This could be the idea and concept of sex itself, their sexuality or how they experience sex.

When it comes to the different publications blaming porn as the cause for sexual dysfunction and distortions of sex and sexuality we are told this is an addiction, or a major problem.  However this is part of the problem.  Let’s explore this more

Sexual Dysfunction 

Every single sexually active man I have worked with has had a problem with

• Premature ejaculation
• Not being able to get an erection (very common for the first and second sexual encounter)
• Not being able to maintain an erection
• The inability to orgasm during sex
• Bad sexual experiences

Many men have these problems more than once.

There has always been sexual dysfunction in young men.  It is a normal phenomenon.  Before internet porn, before magazine porn and even before stag parties existed young men had plenty of problems with performance with sex.  Inexperienced males had problems with premature ejaculations, the inability to get or maintain an erection as well as false ideas about what sex was.  There were massive exaggerations of what it was the affect of sex or the experience of sex.  These are normal qualities of a young man’s sexual journey.  With experience they stop being problems.
What is interesting is what made these problems worse before internet video porn.  These problems got worse in households and cultures that shamed sex, or tried to control, vilify or regulate it.   For instance if a culture didn’t talk about sex and looked at it as an act of the devil or a heavy cultural judgment was placed on it, there were more problems with sex and how it was expressed. If there were sexual dysfunctions where the person with the problem had a hard time letting it naturally work itself out, the problem progressed.

Then we add pornography into the mix.  Once there is the advent of magazine porn or early video or stag film porn there starts to be a heavier campaign on what porn, masturbation and sex before marriage will do.  It will ‘ruin your life’, it is an ‘epidemic’, it makes you ‘bad human being’, it is what ‘serial killers do’.  Masturbation and how you have sex always and consistently gets the same message.

“It will cause serious harm to you and it is an epidemic plaguing our youth.”

Now with internet porn.  A whole new dangerous animal that is assaulting young men across the globe.  This time it isn’t religion, or a conservative culture fueling this, it is science.   Pure truth, that is propelling this idea that internet porn will ‘ruin your life’, cause an ‘epidemic’ of sexual function in men, and makes you a ‘bad person’.  Yet the hysteria is the same.   Doesn’t that make you think, ‘maybe the science being shared isn’t complete or perhaps propagated?’ This happens all the time ‘Don’t eat fat’, ‘eat fat’, ‘smoking is good for you’, ‘smoking is bad for you’, it takes a long time for science to work out the truth but it takes a few seconds for someone to market it into however they want it.

The same problems that all young inexperienced men have always had with sex are still happening.  And they’re happening more.  More men per capita, who watch/have watched porn are having sex problems.  This does not necessarily mean that watching porn is worse.  As cultures put more confines around sex, sex problems became greater as well.   What porn has pointed out is this is actually a greater symptom of the real problem.  Imagine this, if there were people that watched a lot of porn and didn’t have sexual dysfunctions this might mean that porn isn’t as much of a problem as we might think.  But then imagine if people who had major sexual dysfunctions and sexual addiction problems (including porn) were able to continue to watch porn or continue in sexual behaviors that weren’t of the norm and not have any sexual dysfunction problems then this idea would definitely be wrong.
And this idea would absolutely be wrong especially if the solutions being suggested by the mainstream were incomplete or didn’t work, but it would really be bad if it actually made the porn addiction or sex addiction worse.

If there was a solution that consistently solved these problems with or without porn it would ultimately prove that the sexual dysfunctions were not solely because of porn use, but because of something else.

And guess what, that’s what we are going to dive into now.  How all of that information is proven to be wrong.

Who Uses Porn

Almost Everyone Watches Porn, Few People Have Problems 

The top ranking sites in the world are porn sites.  This is not because a small percentage of the population is watching a lot of porn, but because nearly everyone watches some porn at some point.  There is no doubt some people watch a ton of porn.  There is no doubt many people with sexual problems also watch a lot of porn.  But there is still massive amount of people who watch a lot of porn and do not have sexual problems.

If porn was as toxic as it is made to be then we would see a lot more sexual dysfunction than we already do.  The numbers don’t add up.   One of the statistics people bring up in their articles or videos about porn addiction is that the rise in sexual dysfunction in young men has skyrocketed.  I’d like to see that number and ratio compared to the number of young men who watch porn now in comparison to 20 years ago.  There’s no doubt there’s more sexual dysfunction but is that more than 1% or 10% of users.  And does that really point out the real problem?
Let’s ask a better question

Who Does Porn Addiction & Sexual Dysfunction Affect? 
In my experience the people who have problems with sexual dysfunction who watch a lot of porn are –

Young Men with little sexual experience
People Who Have Poor Concepts About Sex due to Cultural or Religious Upbringing

People Who Have Been Sexually Inactive

People Who Have Had Sexual Trauma

People who don’t have problems with porn are people who are sexually active in a healthy way.  People have had relationship and sexual experience.  People who have a healthy sexual identity.

There is no doubt that you can be sexually unhealthy and watch porn without problems as well.

Here’s the main problem, at some point in almost every young man’s life they will have an experience or even a period of a few months to a year where they are not able to perform sexually.  Whether that is premature ejaculation or inability to maintain or get an erection.   They could have never watched porn in their life, and this will still happen to a large very large percentage of the male population.  When this situation happens it is an anxious moment.  If a young man isn’t prepared for this and NEVER in his life has this sort of question or issue been addressed.  Remember we are a culture that doesn’t openly talk about sex.  The anxiety immediately turns into isolation.   The anxiety becomes more and more.  If the young man then goes online and types into google ‘inability of get an erection’ ‘sexual performance anxiety’ or ‘premature ejaculation’ he gets a bunch of spam as well as a number of articles, TED Talks and other reputable publications where researchers scientists and therapists are talking about how internet porn caused this and it might be a part of a deep addiction.

The anxiety builds.

He starts thinking ‘There must be something wrong with me’.  The articles and videos all indirectly or directly say porn is the villain.  It is what is to blame for the embarrassment or the problems they had.  If that person walked into the situation with some personal, cultural or religious shame towards sex then the anxiety is even worse.

Fortunately for most men who have this, solve the issue like most men who through the years, before porn ever existed, solve it.  They eventually have sex a few more times, they get comfortable with a girl and the problem stops becoming a problem.  They go back to what everyone else does, they date girls, they watch porn, they masturbate and they stop making it a big deal.   When porn hit just as many young men had sexual dysfunction as after porn hit, but then there was internet porn to watch.  I have no doubt this sustained the isolation and shame that comes with a taboo topic of the culture, but now it’s worse.  Now there’s a whole bunch of ‘science’ telling you, you’ve truly messed yourself up.  Kind of the equivalent of ‘you’re going to hell’, ‘or masturbation makes you a bad person’ (propaganda from 30 years ago).

But wait!!!!  What about the people who still have this problem?  What about those guys who it didn’t go back to normal with?  At this point in the article you’re thinking, ‘This just confirms I am different.  I am doomed to looking for an answer, but never getting better!’

That’s bullshit.

Why Sexual Dysfunction Continues

Sexual dysfunction happens for 2 reasons,

1.You’re physically incapable

2.You have a psychological problem associated with sex

If you have a physical problem then you need to see a doctor and this article can’t help you.  However, if you are capable to get an erection and have an orgasm physically, no matter how it is stimulated, this may help you.
Why sexual dysfunction continues is because of anxiety.  What causes anxiety is isolation, guilt, shame and things that disconnect you from the rest of the world.  What is interesting about sexual problems is we have a culture that doesn’t talk about sex, but we sell it, make fun of it, gossip about it and so on.  It is easy to get into isolation with sex.  It is easy for guilt and shame to become really big problems.   It is easy to think that you’re different and nobody can understand your very personal sexual problem.

The solution to this problem (which we will get into in detail later) is basically to manage and clam your anxiety in sexual acts.  Continue to have sex, whether or not it is fitting your definition of sex and start having enjoyable experiences.  When you start having those, the anxiety and major dysfunctions will go away.

Before we get into detail about what has worked for our clients, let’s look at why the proposed solution adds to the problem.

The Proposed Solution 

As we get into the solution, let’s get into some bullshit first.  The purposed solutions in the mainstream propaganda about porn addiction is generally the same.  First it says, this is ‘porn addiction’ which adds a level of anxiety and imagery to it that seems impossible, shameful and a major problem rather than a normal and natural expression of something all men have gone through.  It adds an unnecessary intensity to it.

With all the science and research here’s the general solution –

• Stop Masturbating for 30-90 Days
• Stop Watching Porn (because it is the problem)
• Start Relearning Intimacy – for instance go on dates with no physicality 5-20 times before engaging with someone physically.

Here’s the problem with this.  For a normal guy that didn’t really have a sex addiction problem he will make it through a few days or weeks of this, go back to normal.  He will most likely not be able to complete the assignment.  Start regulating and having good sex, and after a few months or a year he will watch porn again but without problems.  That is the same as it was before internet porn existed.   the only problem is he won’t see it as normal but he will see it as a possible danger.

For the guy that really does have a sex addiction or porn addiction problem he will end up worse.  Here’s what happens.  After not masturbating for a few days or a week your body will naturally start having erections when it didn’t before.   If you don’t ejaculate through masturbation your body will do it on its own, usually when you sleep.  You have forced yourself to stop watching porn and possibly you have started to go through some therapy, usually with someone who has little to no experience with rehabilitating sex addicts, and you’re covering some ground.
Whatever the protocol is, ‘don’t get physical on dates’ or be ‘sexually objectifying’ you follow it the best you can.  You feel good about how you’re dating a certain girl and one thing leads to another and you two end up having sex.  Everything works.  You are able to get an erection, maintain and erection, you do ejaculate too fast but you’re able to go again and if you can’t who cares, you’re no longer plagued by this horrible problem.   It was the porn, it was your view on women and how to be sexual.  The new ways of being sexual that you have learned in therapy are the way to go.  You feel sexually confident and you decide to either continue or discontinue therapy.  The problem is after a few weeks or months things change.  The rush of confidence goes away.  Perhaps the girl and you break up.
Now you’re alone.  You’re not able to have a sexual outlet anymore.   Your ‘bad behavior’ is coming back.  You’re getting urges to masturbate and watch porn.  You’re not going to do it.  The pressure and urges are building but you’re holding them back, but this time your head and imagination are getting worse.  The disease of sexual addiction is getting stronger.  You eventually have to break, and this time you break big.

This is what happens when my clients enter this type of solution to their sexual addiction problems.  They get worse after the break.  They compound more and more problems.  It may have started out as porn addiction, but now they are into getting prostitutes, illegal pornography or some other form of sex that is seen as bad or socially unacceptable.   They get deeper in their head about what their impossible problem.

They weren’t into some weird fetish to begin with, but now it is the only way they can see sex.

Why is it consistently more shaming, illegal or isolating?  It is because we isolate sex and don’t talk about it.  Now their expression is an expression of shame.  This is what happens when you put natural expressions in a box.  They distort.

The Solution 

About 1 out of 10 guys who have worked with me have some problem that they feel is sexual addiction (remember nearly all of my clients have had a form of ‘sexual dysfunction’ multiple times in their life).  How we handle it and have always handled it is different than most men’s groups or sex and dating advice companies.  However the result is consistent, in fact predictable.  Within 6 months to 1 year they will be sexually healthy and see sex as a normal thing.  They will have a completely different view of sex, sexuality and the anxiety associated with sex.  What is also predictable is the opposite.  The guy who joins our course, but once he finds out it has to do with exploring yourself and working with other men in a group he leaves.  Their story goes like this, they join our group, attend a few online meet ups we facilitate, never come back (usually once we suggest to look at yourself intensely and it isn’t a quick fix) then 2, 3, 4 etc years later they come back still having the same problem but worse.

What is different with what we do is we say nothing is wrong.  No sexual behavior, or action is wrong as long as it doesn’t cause harm to anyone else.   If it is truly causing harm to you we will suggest you stop it, but if you can’t no big deal.   Keep attending our groups.

Then we will encourage you to look at yourself.  Perhaps take a few inventories, perhaps listen to some of our stories then tell a few of yours and get to a point where we stop feeling, shame, guilt or pressure about how sex needs to be.   This will only go so far, because as long as we are not having sex or being sexually active it is all concept.

Then at some point we will start having sex again.  This is where the real learning comes into play.  If you have a serious sex problem, you will make mistakes.  You will not get it right the first 1, 2, 3, 4 or more times around.  That is fine.  Don’t cause direct intentional harm, and if you do cause harm bring it to the group and we will help you deal with it.

The key is we take all the hysteria, anxiety, weirdness and fetishes out of sex.  If you’re a sex addict and have truly walked that road then you have developed some abnormalities (at least to society’s standards) however they may not be abnormal to you now, nor to us.  When you’re a part of our group long enough you’ll start to realize that your sex is always normal.  When you start seeing it that way your expression comes out and your sexual expression may still have some (according to society) quarks, but to you it will not.  You will realize everyone has those quirks, but they handle them in different ways.

One of the problems in the typical therapeutic approach to sexual dysfunction and addiction is the polarizing of it.  There is no right or wrong, you cannot start there.  If you’re someone who has deal with sexual trauma or a series of sexual experiences that is not the ‘norm’, then your natural and pure expression of sex is going to come out very different than the ‘average Joe’.  What you like, what turns you on and what you desire is going to be different.  You need to start there.  There cannot be judgment associated with it.

When sex or sexuality is polarized then it represses the expression and forces it to be something else.  This will be impossible for someone to maintain and they will break.

One of the other issues with sex and what people say when it comes to sex addiction is they say, ‘the brain releases similar chemicals when you’re doing hard drugs’.  Usually they say cocaine.   This may be true.  It is also true for when you eat sugar, have a bowel movement or have a moment of joy.  The thing is that with joy, having a bowel movement and sex, is you’re supposed to have these experiences.  Sex we can stimulate ourselves as well as find it in other people to experience these feelings and they are natural.  It is very easy to mix them up with ‘addictive qualities’ because the qualities of sex are mirror images of addictive qualities.  That doesn’t mean they need to move into addiction.

When you or anyone you know is aroused and moving towards the state of sex they will get hyper focused, obsessed about whatever is stimulating them and act compulsively. That is normal.  However that is the same for drug addiction.  It is very easy to think you’re possessed by the devil (propaganda from 30 years ago) or you’re a sex addict (propaganda now).

The fact of the matter is we need to talk more about sex.  Stop making is a joke, stop making it a cause or some movement and start making it a part of our lives.  We need to realize that in order to have it, whether or your a porn addict or just some normal guy, that what will make you fully happy sexually is when it is no longer a big deal.  Sex is literally one of the most normal things you can do.

If you are interested in what we are talking about get our Webinar on Porn & Sex Addiction emailed directly to you privately
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