Feel compelled to watch porn when you masturbate? Is that an addiction?
Reid Mihalko from ReidAboutSex.com and Cathy Vartuli from TheIntimacyDojo.com share.
Cathy: Is it an addiction if you always want to watch porn when you masturbate?
I’m Cathy Vartuli from TheIntimacyDojo.com and this is Reid Mihalko from ReidAboutSex.com
Reid: How did you know? How did you know?
Cathy: We had someone write in and said that they really enjoyed the…
Reid: Are you spying on me? Or can you just tell?
Cathy: I can just tell.
Reid: Ahh.
Cathy: Someone wrote in and said they really enjoyed the videos we did on masturbation but he was concerned because he really feels compelled to watch porn when he masturbates. He’s wondering if it’s an addiction and if it’s a problem.
Reid: An addiction to masturbation?
Cathy: To the porn part. He doesn’t like to masturbate without porn.
Reid: What does it say? Representation is not causation?
Cathy: Right.
Reid: Right. So just because you’re always watching porn when you masturbate doesn’t mean that it’s an addiction.
Cathy: Right, but he said that he doesn’t, he feels …
Reid: Am I addicted to forks if I’m always using a fork when I’m eating food? Am I addicted?
Cathy: You are addicted to forks.
Reid: Oh my goodness. Silverware?
Cathy: Yeah.
Reid: Oh my God. We’re all addicted to silverware! Holy moly! Or chopsticks, or other things if you’re from other cultures.
Cathy: So he’s finding it hard not to use porn when he masturbates. I mean, porn is very hot and it can make masturbating really exciting and it can feel less lonely, but sometimes I like to masturbate just by myself because I can connect with my body and my own feelings.
Reid: So how would you answer this question. I’m sorry. If you’re actually watching this, I’m not making fun of you. I’m having fun with the question because I have some ideas on how culture has us worried about stuff. Just like silverware. We don’t think about it do we? How would you answer the question and I’ll answer.
Cathy: I think it’s important. For myself, I had certain habits when I masturbated that prevented me from connecting with myself. I found it very hard to orgasm without those habits.
Reid: Do you want to share what habit?
Cathy: I would have fantasies. I would be lost in the fantasy.
Reid: Okay, so you’d have a fantasy.
Cathy: Yeah. Or I’d use certain toys and I wanted to see if I could connect with my body and my own sexuality in a different way.
Reid: Okay.
Cathy: At first it didn’t make me orgasm to do that, but I learned to explore my body and understand it better. Over time that became hot for me too.
Reid: Is the point of masturbation to orgasm?
Cathy: Sometimes, sometimes not. Depends on what your intention is.
Reid: Ahh.
Cathy: It can just be relaxing, but I personally like to orgasm.
Reid: Okay. Everyone’s different.
Cathy: Yes.
Reid: Right? And, for those of you who only masturbate to orgasm, I would invite you to experiment with masturbating for a couple of days, not straight, take breaks, and masturbating without orgasming and just seeing how that is because I know that I went through a “Oh my goodness. Dudes, we can masturbate not to orgasm?”
It seemed like the point of masturbation was to have the orgasm.
Cathy: It can actually be really fun when you’re with a partner that knows how to have a really good time without orgasming immediately because then you can play longer.
Reid: There are lots of different things that you should try to explore and create more variety to explore variety. And you get to have your preferences. This is my answer to this. Right? If you can only masturbate by watching porn, maybe there’s a porn addition.
But let’s really talk about what addiction means. True, classic addiction is if you stop the activity, or the substance, you go through withdrawals and, in extreme cases, you die. Most people do not die from not masturbating.
A masturbation addiction. Are you going to die from not watching porn anymore? I don’t think there’s anybody who’s died from giving up porn. So is it a true addiction? Right? There’s what the media calls addiction then there’s what medical people call addiction.
Then there’s what’s erotic in your brain that gets you off, and sometimes what gets us hot and bothered and excited is visual stimulation, stimulating my brain. I’m watching the porn just like you are watching this video, and I am being stimulated visually.
That’s your brain. You’re getting off by something erotic in your brain versus the sensual stimulation.
Cathy: You could keep doing that if you want.
Reid: That’s occurring through your body. In this question I’m like “Okay, so you like watching porn because it gets you hotter and you just happen to maybe consciously, or unconsciously, pair masturbation with porn watching.”
Two really, can be fun activities, two tastes that taste great together, porn and masturbation, but since you’ve never tried other things you’ve started to kind of neurologically anchor your erotic turn on with the physical sensation turn on, which just makes it complicated because unless you practice more variety like Cathy was saying, trying different things while masturbating, you kind of have your go to things, which are fine, but a go to thing isn’t necessarily an addiction.
That’s my answer. If you practice variety you start, like basketball. Now we’re into basketball. If you only have a slam dunk move, then you don’t have a free throw, or a layup, I said lay, or any of the other stuff that makes you a better basketball player.
How can you expand the variety, the number of moves you have on the court, and combining your technique with the things that turn you on?
Cathy: You might also explore why you masturbate. If you have a lot of tension in your life and the really hot masturbation with the porn watching helps you release a lot of pressure, maybe there’s the compulsion part. The feeling that you have to do it could be coming from a lot of stress and a need to relax.
It may not be about the porn so much as that’s a good doorway for you to relax. You might want to look at other ways you could reduce tension in your life.
Reid: It’s a good go to move.
Cathy: Yeah.
Reid: Now, just because you like playing basketball, I’m stretching the analogy, you like the sensation of relieving tension and changing your blood chemistry, which masturbation does. Certainly masturbation to orgasm does. You don’t always have to play a basketball game against other people.
You can just go and play basketball and not be competitive and do it because it’s fun to play basketball. My analogy is broken down. What I mean is, if you’re using, like you said, masturbation to relieve tension because of stress, do you have other ways that are fun and exciting to you to change your blood chemistry to relieve tension and stress that aren’t necessarily sexual?
It’s not because sex is bad. It’s not because masturbation is bad. Masturbation is awesome if you want to masturbate. Sex is awesome if you want to have sex.
Cathy: Porn’s amazing if you feel like watching it.
Reid: If you feel like watching porn.
Cathy: It’s nice to have a choice.
Reid: Yes. So, the addiction piece, not being a doctor, nor playing one on television.
Cathy: Me neither.
Reid: If that’s the only way you can relieve tension, ever, then maybe you’re moving into an unhealthy area because you just lack variety. That’s all. Whether that’s an addiction or not, I’m again not a doctor, nor do I play one on television.
I just think you having more variety, and this is a very long winded answer but it’s a great question.
Cathy: Yeah.
Reid: So thank you for asking it so that we can have this conversation. I hope it’s super useful, what we’ve been saying, and somewhat clear. At least entertaining. At the very least.
More variety in your sexual repertoire, understanding what is erotic to you and turns your brain on versus what is sensual to you and turns your body on physically, having more tools in your relieving stress and changing your blood chemistry toolbox, having friends to share these things with, play basketball together, to practice masturbating together, all this stuff.
More variety in life, more diversity, seems to give people more choice, better tools, and makes life more fun in our opinion. But that’s maybe because we kind of geek out on things.
Cathy: Yeah. So I would just encourage you to explore what works for you in other ways. Just have other doorways. Not that there’s anything wrong with porn. Sometimes when we take the pressure off, when we think something is bad, it’s hard to let it go.
When I thought chocolate cake was horrible, I wanted to eat it all the time. When I said “Oh, I can have chocolate cake sometime” it wasn’t so compulsive for me.
Reid: Chocolate. Another great way to relieve stress and change your blood chemistry.
Cathy: Leave comments below and let us know how you relieve stress and what you think about this.
Reid: If you got this far in the whole video, which was long winded but hopefully fun and educational, thank you so much for watching. Please leave comments, subscribe. We’ll talk to you soon.
Cathy: Bye.
Reid: Bye.