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June 30, 2017 9:45 pm  #1


Brain rewiring from online porn?

I've discovered a series of websites dedicated to helping men with porn addiction. They explain that since smart phones and high speed Internet came along, access to porn is now so easy and fast that straight men quickly desensitize to hetero porn, and have to move on to other genres, including gay porn, to be aroused. These sites argue that this is causing men to question their orientations, but that if they stop viewing porn for a period of time, their brain wiring returns to their original orientaction, be it gay or straight.

I'm confused about this, and contemplating divorce because of my husbands online Craigslist surfing, which he explained away as porn addiction.

Do you all think desensitization to porn would have someone viewing gay Craigslist ads daily for weeks on end?

I'm also considering seeing a new therapist who counsels spouses on sex addiction, but I wonder if she will try to convince me that there is nothing to this, that it is all just a symptom of his porn addiction, not an orientation issue.

I appreciate any thoughts or advice, aso always!

 

June 30, 2017 10:24 pm  #2


Re: Brain rewiring from online porn?

I don't buy that. I can see how it might desensitize someone towards graphic or aggressive behaviour in porn but not in the changing of ones preference of gender. I don't think it creates anything that wasn't there to begin with, it just makes it easier to find. Sounds like you are doing couples counseling, are you doing any personal counseling? If you think there's something to this, then there is and it should not be lightly dismissed.


“The future is unwritten.”
― Joe Strummer
 

July 21, 2017 10:32 am  #3


Re: Brain rewiring from online porn?

Stonehouse,

I think that porn can be like drugs - it's addictive (because it hits the pleasure center of one's brain), and you will eventually need a bigger and bigger hit to get the same high.  The same could be said of sex in general - think of how in the beginning of a relationship a kiss will thrill, but later even sex can be monotonous.  In a society that has had sex become increasingly easy to come by (online), fetishes abound.  Fetishes have always been around - for millennia.  But is it my imagination that now there's like 4 billion fetishes compared to "I like feet"?  People who have exposure to all different kinds of online viewing can can get easily hooked on stuff they never even knew existed until they saw it.

That being said, I don't think that people often get hooked on things that once turned them off.  You're not going to find a guy out there who has a foot fetish when he's absolutely hated feet his whole life.  He wouldn't want to view it in the first place.  I think of porn viewing that way.  If you're a straight man who is repulsed by the idea of man-on-man action, why would you start watching it in the first place?  I think there's always got to be a bit of attraction to that in the first place for it to even become a possibility.

But that's just my $0.02; I'm no sex expert (despite my husband's assurances, lol!).

Kel


You are not required to set yourself on fire to keep other people warm.
 

July 21, 2017 12:32 pm  #4


Re: Brain rewiring from online porn?

I believe your .02c to be pretty right Kel. I believe that porn addiction is a thing although it's really a masturbation addition. It's masturbation - not porn - that hits that pleasure center in the brain.

I don't buy the argument that porn is like a drug where you need to go to harder core porn to get your 'fix'. I think people like what they like. Porn certainly can't 'make you gay'. You've gotta have an interest in something to watch and enjoy it.

It wouldn't matter how much straight porn I watched (not that I do *shifty eyes*) it doesn't make me want to watch dudes doing it.

Last edited by Steve (July 21, 2017 12:34 pm)


You have a future. A good one. It begins as a flicker of hope. Nurture it until it becomes a dream and when you are strong enough you will make it a reality. NEVER give up. 
 

July 21, 2017 2:39 pm  #5


Re: Brain rewiring from online porn?

The below site has some really interesting info on porn, and how it's like a drug to our brains.  It rewires our brains.  And yes, it's progressive.

http://fightthenewdrug.org/get-the-facts/

Kel


You are not required to set yourself on fire to keep other people warm.
 

July 21, 2017 2:42 pm  #6


Re: Brain rewiring from online porn?

Using this stream of logic..  We should be able to convert our gay spouses back to hetero by having them watch lots of straight porn then right?

Pretty sure that theory has been tested and proved incorrect. 
Pretty sure most of our spouses tried to be hetero by having sex with us..  how'd that turn out?

If you can't turn a gay person straight then you can't turn a straight person gay.  It's not a one-way street.  


It is however, a very convenient excuse that most gay men like to employ to keep from being accountable for their actions. 


-Formerly "Lostdad" - I now embrace the username "phoenix" because my former life ended in flames, but my new life will be spectacular. 

 
 

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