And obviously “making use” of it. Daily? Weekly? Twice X month?
When violence becomes what you require to achieve orgasm.
I don’t like porn (you do you guys it’s not for me), but I did see a girl on Reddit who used to do gangbangs that her husband would set up for her, and she would post the photos and videos, and she has OnlyFans and what all set up. Fine, I don’t care about sex work, it’s work. But she looked so dead eyed in the photos, and I watched a bit of a video where she was having a gang bang, and this guy in a balaclava just came up to her and began hammering away, and she just knelt there, looking as detached from it all as if she was waiting for a bus or scrolling on her phone. I’m reminded of the serial killer Karla Homolka, whose crimes took place in my home town, who was a willing participant in the terrible things she and her husband did, but apparently in sort of a flat detached way by and large, just letting it happen apparently without a lick of conscience or self respect or shame, and it’s just awful to see someone let themselves be used like that for the gratification of other people.
Daily is too much. It desensitizes you to normal sex. If your getting your jollies off to to your deepest fantasies every day it does something to the brain. Porn once a week, I see no problem with it messing with one’s psyche. But I’m not a porn brain doctor so what do I know??? Im just a middle aged dude that may or may not have watched way too much porn in my younger days. The biggest warming i can give is one should never ever, never ever, do meth cand watch porn for 24 straight hours. Just take some rando from the internet word for it. You essentially do lines of meth then watch porn all night, edging yourself the whole time, then finally after 20 hours of wanking and looking for that perfect video you have an almost convulsive orgasm, you think you’re having a heart attack, your load shoots into the next bedroom straight the walls and as you cum you lie there thinking your dying and that your family will find you surrounded by various drug paraphernalia and the dirtiest porn imaginable playing while the paramedics load up your still cumming corpse. So yeah like don’t do that.
Anyway, what was the question again?
When you stop seeing people and start seeing porn categories
(As a Transfem this is especially a problem. No, I am NOT a porn category or a sexual object I am a person.)
If your genitalia hurts it’s time to stop
I’m of the opinion that if you’re casually scrolling lemmy and see a titty, pause a moment, say, “Nice titty” and continue scrolling then its whatever. If you’re jacking once a day but are otherwise fine, then, again, whatev. When you start going further then that like cranking a few off at work each day, you gotta start evaluating life choices.
When you’re too focused on staring at people’s assets in public or anywhere. As a struggling porn addict, I have a bad habit where I am gazing or catching glimpses of asses and chest areas of women around public and at work.
When you’re doing that - then it’s too much.
Man, I used to do this. You just gotta take all your mental strength, and use it to look at their faces. It’ll be hard for a week or two, but it becomes second nature. You can do this!
When it affects work or personal relationships.
Boss makes a billion
While I’m just a wage slave
That’s why WFH
Is done in a goon caveOr bathing and self care
IMO personal relationships kind of depend. Some people have unrealistic beliefs and expectations such that any consumption of pornography would be perceived as harmful. That’s pretty often the case with people that are religious fundamentalists.
I mean, I don’t usually talk about my porn viewing with friends. There’s only a handful of people I would talk about it with. As far as fundamentalists goes, while I do have friends who identify as Christian, I would have a hard time being around someone under the fundamentalist label. For reasons that don’t specifically have anything to do with porn.
Therapists often use this term ADLs, Activities of Daily Living, when accessing the impact of a person’s behaviors. Things like bathing, dressing yourself, feeding yourself, cleaning your living space, getting to work and maintaining relationships are all ADLs. Basically, activities and behaviors that help you meet Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
Your question is a bit vague. “Too much” is nebulous. Are you worried that you look at more porn than average? I’m not sure what’s average. I also don’t think it really matters. I think if your porn use is impacting your ability to complete your ADLs, that’s a problem regardless of frequency.
If you’re meeting your ADLs but looking at porn 15 times a day, I’m not sure if it’s truly harmful. There’s something to be said about how porn can create unrealistic expectations of sex and how people interact, but I think if you’re otherwise thriving, your porn usage is largely irrelevant.
If you’re concerned you’re looking at too much porn, that’s worth examining. It might be helpful to do some introspection into why you think that, come up with a metric that helps you evaluate that, and use that to make a judgement.
Edit: Sorry, I’m not a therapist, ADLs don’t include social behaviors. These would fall under IADLs, or Instrumental Activities of Daily Living, which would also include stuff like managing money or preparing meals for yourself. Though, I think if your behaviors impact those, that should still be concerning.
I’m not a therapist nor an expert, just a dude with an opinion, so I may be entirely wrong. I largely agree with you and I think that’s a great way to see it but wanted to expand on it.
If someone’s use of porn (or anything to that effect, videogames, tv, social networks…) affect those ADLs or IADLs I would say that it would fall under the category of addiction, which is worse than the loose and nebulous (that was a great way to describe it) “too much” from the question.
I would rather say that “too much” porn can be way before the addiction point. I would consider that teenagers might easily watch too much porn due to the ease of access and the amount of content available while they are not really addicted. It’s just a reaction to the whole hormones changes and the increase need of sexual gratification. If someone cannot go even a day without watching porn, I would think that that’s too much. If their sexual relations are measured or thought of as porn scenes, that is an indication of too much porn too.
I dont mean that watching porn daily means you watch too much porn, but if you can’t go a day without it, if you stop doing things you would rather do because you didn’t yet watch it, then it is too much. If someone’s idea of sex is lead by porn, then they probably watch too much (but in that topic there’s also the idea of how much real experience they have). In other words, “too much” depends on many personal factors that aren’t so easy to define, but could happen before we get to the point of addiction.
The general measures of things like this are: is it causing a negative effect on you or others?
In a similar vein to pooping some people do every day, some twice or more, some a couple times per week. There’s a range of normal. If it’s not bothering you or anyone else it’s probably fine. (Though see your Dr if you only poop once a week, something’s weird there).
I’m gonna go with the blanket statement of:
If it’s getting in the way of your executive functions then it’s too much. If it takes any precedent over other things that you deem are your responsibility, then you need to take a step back.
If you’re thinking about it when you don’t have it, then it’s an addiction and it’s too much. If you reach the point of trying to watch it in places you shouldn’t be, it’s probably crossed that threshold.
If it’s interfering with other parts of your life like working, bathing, eating or paying bills most definitely a problem. A few times a day, week, month I don’t see a problem, however I like watching porn so there’s that.
I cant hear you, I’m looking at porn!
Any porn AT ALL is too much. PORN is a GATEWAY DRUG to other forms of DEPRAVITY and SIN. To know TRUE ECSTASY, let the light of the LORD into your HEART. Follow JESUS, my child.
(This parody isn’t perfect. There aren’t enough spelling or punctuation errors. Still, I hope you enjoyed it anyway.)
