Pornography and Loneliness – Part 2

Continued from Pornography and Loneliness –  Part 1.

Once porn has become your life, your comfort, you community, there is nowhere to turn; nothing satisfies — not even the porn. Complete loneliness has set in and the addict reaches a point of desperation. There are three options: keep increasing the quantity of porn you consume hoping that one day you’ll get that same dopamine rush that hooked you in the first place, find a new and harder drug, or get help reclaiming your life. Thinking “it’s no big deal” or that you can get your consumption under control on your own are only indicators of denial.

In The New Yorker article “The Porn Myth,” Naomi Wolf speaks of the pervasive loneliness of porn addiction—not only for addicts, but for their partners as well:

“The young women who talk to me on campuses about the effect of pornography on their intimate lives speak of feeling that they can never measure up, that they can never ask for what they want; and that if they do not offer what porn offers, they cannot expect to hold a guy. The young men talk about what it is like to grow up learning about sex from porn, and how it is not helpful to them in trying to figure out how to be with a real woman. Mostly, when I ask about loneliness, a deep, sad silence descends on audiences of young men and young women alike. They know they are lonely together, even when conjoined, and that this imagery is a big part of that loneliness. What they don’t know is how to get out, how to find each other again erotically, face-to-face. … A whole generation of men are less able to connect erotically to women—and ultimately less libidinous.”

Not only does the porn consumption damage the user, but the partner as well. There is no longer a normal or agreed upon framework for relating to the other in an emotionally or physically intimate way. All of the rules have been rewritten by an outside, moneymaking, envelope-pushing entity. And neither feels happy, fulfilled or loved. They are lonely together.

Is there an answer? A way to come back from the dark world of porn? A way to reengage in healthy, functional relationships? A hope of breaking the cycle of isolation and loneliness?

Make no mistake, porn addictions are never easy to break and should be approached as such. Downplaying the power of porn or one’s dependence upon it will not help the addict to take the disease and his or her recovery seriously. The disease is no less crafty, intense, addictive or damaging than a heroin addiction.

Underlying porn addiction are high levels of stress and deep-seated insecurity and anxiety, whether the user appears “stressed out” or not. While lifestyle stressors must be addressed, the problem goes much deeper—usually rooted in childhood. The flaws in early childhood relationships are what often lead to the obsession with the pseudo-relationships attained through porn and cybersex. Childhood sexual abuse is also typically a factor in porn addicts. When relationships are skewed and lacking at such a young age, when parent-child attachment fails, the individual doesn’t learn proper relationship to himself or others. Though he may desire emotional connection and intimacy, his deeply held internal beliefs that he is not right and that he is likely to be rejected shut down the normal processes of relationship building with others—romantically and otherwise.

Recovery that is to be effective is more than figuring out how to relieve stress and form normal relationships with others, but it is not less than that. The therapy must go deeper than looking at the superficial stressors of jobs and relationships and must press deeper into the individual’s more universal sense of being out of control, insecure in the world, and fundamentally unlovable and unknowable. If this deep sense of being out of place is the result of abuse or dysfunctional family relationships from the addict’s childhood, then these injuries and traumas must be dealt with specifically so as to allow the addict to begin to live securely in the adult world and in healthy adult relationships.

There is hope for recovery from porn addiction and hope for the attainment of functional and fulfilling adult relationships with family, friends and lovers. If you believe you struggle with a porn addiction, do not delay in getting help. Therapy, church support groups or 12-step programs for porn addiction are the places to start the journey toward relational and sexual wellness.