What do you think causes "porn induced" erectile dysfunction, low libido and other mental problems porn users experience?

[Jinzo]

We have recently found out that the dopamine d2/d3 receptor downregulation is a myth.

View: https://www.reddit.com/r/NoFap/comments/p1kvvd/porn_d23_addiction_study/


So what would it be you think?

 

[Nebula]

Multiple ejaculations per day through masturbation when already in a weakened metabolic state. I don’t think the hpta or maybe some other system in the body can handle the recovery in those conditions.

A lot of guys who are drawn to masturbating and watching porn too much are probably already running on stress hormones. Sleeping and eating too little or something else that’s wearing them down so their instinct is to seek out easy stress relief. But forcing ejaculations too often while in poor health probably chronically raises prolactin high enough to downregulste dopamine production, not necessarily desensitize the receptor. Maybe it chronically over activates the pituitary gland.

A dopamine agonist might antagonize pituitary activity.

 

[Jinzo]

Yeah a lot of fappers do multiple ejaculations a day every day. Prolactin could play a role for them yes.

Me? I am a sicko. Since I was in middle school I would edge for hours and hours a day, no ejaculation. So it probably would not have been prolactin, but I still I developed porn induced erectile dysfunction and horrible mental symptoms the same as what you see on no fap and such. I was sold on the dopamine receptor downregulation for so long, none of it makes sense now.

 

[MetabolicTrash]

No idea but interesting to consider/get to the bottom of for those with said apparent issues, though I wonder how common and/or severe these "porn induced" issues really are among some.

I watched plenty of high-speed, hardcore porn in my teens and never developed such a problem personally. So I have my skepticism over the whole "nofap gives you super powers" idea since I personally never noticed any sexual issues from using porn, although that may not be saying much either....

 

[Jinzo]

I think the superpowers thing is overhyped as well. What's weird is I have had 80 day streaks of no porn/no ejac with only a small/moderate libido improvement.

Do you clench you pelvic floor to get harder when you are choking the chicken? I think this is also a big problem for many porn users, including myself. I have developed a wicked pelvic floor tension from this that has hampered my sex life for at least 10 years. I developed this condition called hard flaccid first and then I developed an even worse condition where my pelvic floor muscles literally became all twisted up and literally strangled my d and contorted it. Spent years trying to figure out what the cause of this was.

Recently I have loosened up the pelvic floor a bit (long way to go still) and legitimately as my physical symptoms are decreasing so are my mental symptoms. And I'm still watching porn like a sicko. Libido is coming back too. It feels like a big part of the puzzle. Physical erectile dysfunction from pelvic floor dysfunction is a no brainer, as the muscles are involved with getting and keeping an erection. But, maybe having a chronic muscle cramp in the body is a strong enough stressor to release serotonin and give you mental problems and lowered libido as well. Might explain why some people watch porn and are perfectly fine and others get all screwed up.

 

[dhtsupreme]

I think the superpowers thing is overhyped as well. What's weird is I have had 80 day streaks of no porn/no ejac with only a small/moderate libido improvement.

Do you clench you pelvic floor to get harder when you are choking the chicken? I think this is also a big problem for many porn users, including myself. I have developed a wicked pelvic floor tension from this that has hampered my sex life for at least 10 years. I developed this condition called hard flaccid first and then I developed an even worse condition where my pelvic floor muscles literally became all twisted up and literally strangled my d and contorted it. Spent years trying to figure out what the cause of this was.

Recently I have loosened up the pelvic floor a bit (long way to go still) and legitimately as my physical symptoms are decreasing so are my mental symptoms. And I'm still watching porn like a sicko. Libido is coming back too. It feels like a big part of the puzzle. Physical erectile dysfunction from pelvic floor dysfunction is a no brainer, as the muscles are involved with getting and keeping an erection. But, maybe having a chronic muscle cramp in the body is a strong enough stressor to release serotonin and give you mental problems and lowered libido as well. Might explain why some people watch porn and are perfectly fine and others get all screwed up.

Bro I've had the exact same issue as you. Hard flaccid sucks. I've made lots of progress by targeting the psoas and I believe the piriformis.

It went away multiple times on long nofap streaks.

Stand up and do hands to toe stretch. Stay in that position and breathe deeply in a calm manner for as long as you can. Instant relief. The longer you do it the more you stretch the psoas and a muscle that lies deep within the glute.

Also do a glute bridge and hold it for 30 seconds. You should feel tightness in some muscles. It's entirely muscular

Lmk if it does or doesn't work.

 

[Vileplume]

I think erectile dysfunction issues do become worse from porn—especially when you try to stimulate your penis when it’s flaccid, because then your penis gets accustomed to becoming manually aroused.

Also though, I think erectile dysfunction stems from a lack of mental excitement during sexual things. While making out and taking your clothes off, it’s natural to be very excited and be so turned on that your penis gets hard.

If you have low thyroid function or digestive issues, you will not reach the level of mental excitement necessary to get a strong erection. At least that’s how it feels to me, who is struggling with ED right now. My digestion is poor, and with poor digestion I don’t feel the same amount of carnal lust during foreplay that I’ve felt in the past, when I had better digestion.

 

[JamesGatz]

I practice semen retention - rarely will I let go of my load - the recovery time is quiet bothersome to deal with and costs a lot in food

however, I do view pornography regularly (for entertainment and exercise purposes to keep my genitals active) - I would rather not do it, but in my current location the girls are not the best and also because is a CIA psy-op - it's worth noting all popular scenarios/categories of pornography pushed on the public is in line with the NWO agenda

1) Interracial Porn is heavily promoted (race-mixing is encouraged to create one racial identity)
2) Stepmother and stepson scenarios (made to destroy the meaning of family)
3) Not to mention pornography is quiet useful in maiming the male population when it comes to focusing on real women and reproducing. If the vast majority of men are regularly watching porn and ejaculating - that is a significant amount of men that will never attempt to make their mark on the world and eventually reproduce

With that being said - I don't believe I experience any negative effects of viewing porn - I do feel in a little bit of an euphoric state after, but DHT will bring me back to earth. If I was ejaculating regularly then that would be a different story - I could watch it for a few hours for entertainment and exercise and go outside and still feel how I usually feel with women - my libido is always there (unless of course the woman is horrendous)

 

[-Luke-]

I watched plenty of high-speed, hardcore porn in my teens and never developed such a problem personally. So I have my skepticism over the whole "nofap gives you super powers" idea since I personally never noticed any sexual issues from using porn, although that may not be saying much either....

In my opinion, the so-called "superpowers" are just a return to some normality. When people have little energy and feel constantly fatigued and unmotivated for a long time, this state becomes "normal" for them. And an improvement back to normalcy or even slightly below normalcy is such a big improvement, that it feels like "superpowers".

Regarding the dopamine receptor downregulation or desensitization/tolerance: Whether the downregulation is a myth or not, there is one thing that can't really be explained by physiological issues like stress, hormones, etc (unless I'm missing something). Young men can't get an erection with a partner or with their own hand, but get an erection within seconds when they watch porn. The problem with a partner could just be performance anxiety, but that's not an explanation for why they can't even masturbate without porn. If it's a physiological problem, why does that physiological problem disappear within seconds after turning on porn?

From my own experience and hundreds of testimonials I have read over the years, I am pretty much convinced that some sort of desensitization/tolerance takes place. Whether this is due to dopamin receptors or some other mechnaism, I don't know.

 

[Jinzo]

Bro I've had the exact same issue as you. Hard flaccid sucks. I've made lots of progress by targeting the psoas and I believe the piriformis.

It went away multiple times on long nofap streaks.

Stand up and do hands to toe stretch. Stay in that position and breathe deeply in a calm manner for as long as you can. Instant relief. The longer you do it the more you stretch the psoas and a muscle that lies deep within the glute.

Also do a glute bridge and hold it for 30 seconds. You should feel tightness in some muscles. It's entirely muscular

Lmk if it does or doesn't work.

It's seriously terrible. Has been a long journey for me to say the least. But yes this is the exact stretch I have been doing that has helped! I have actually been doing a weighted stretch variation of hands to toes stretch. I just go to the gym and stack up a platform and do the stretch while holding a dumbell in each hand. It takes the stretch to the next level and I feel looser directly after the stretch. Glute bridge has not really helped me unfortunately. I think I have other muscles and imbalances involved that I am still trying to figure out. I will look into the psoas and the piriformis though. Thanks for the advice man I really do appreciate it!

 

[Jerkboy]

People who get addicted to porn do so because they have a dopamine problem in the first place. ADD is also dopamine problem.

They feel better with heavy stimulation of the dopamine receptors. Same people who get "addicted" to stimulants, excercising, sex, etcetera. Dopamine deficiency.

Addictive personality = low baseline dopamine

Watching porn and using drugs will make the problem worse obviously in the long term.

 

[PeatBull]

I think its mostly psycologic.

 

[PeatBull]

No idea but interesting to consider/get to the bottom of for those with said apparent issues, though I wonder how common and/or severe these "porn induced" issues really are among some.

I watched plenty of high-speed, hardcore porn in my teens and never developed such a problem personally. So I have my skepticism over the whole "nofap gives you super powers" idea since I personally never noticed any sexual issues from using porn, although that may not be saying much either....

IMHO its related to shame. I do no fap for a week or two, and i start to look to the eyes of the people. And hold the stare for example with random people on the street.

 

[golder]

IMHO its related to shame. I do no fap for a week or two, and i start to look to the eyes of the people. And hold the stare for example with random people on the street.

I seem to have the same thing with eye contact and abstinence. I’m not convinced it’s shame though, as on the surface I don’t feel like I feel shame about masturbating. I think it could largely be a hormonal thing here. Big prolactin spikes are no doubt terrible if you are trying to be social.

 

[golder]

People who get addicted to porn do so because they have a dopamine problem in the first place. ADD is also dopamine problem.

They feel better with heavy stimulation of the dopamine receptors. Same people who get "addicted" to stimulants, excercising, sex, etcetera. Dopamine deficiency.

Addictive personality = low baseline dopamine

Watching porn and using drugs will make the problem worse obviously in the long term.

Makes perfect sense.
What would you say would be the 3 best ways to sustainably raise baseline dopamine?

Also, can someone in this situation safely incorporate a low dose dopamine agonist to help break this inertia at the same time as the lifestyle changes? Which of the Parkinson family drugs would be the safest in this context?

 

[CastorTroy]

Makes perfect sense.
What would you say would be the 3 best ways to sustainably raise baseline dopamine?

Also, can someone in this situation safely incorporate a low dose dopamine agonist to help break this inertia at the same time as the lifestyle changes? Which of the Parkinson family drugs would be the safest in this context?

I'd say low dose selegiline (5mg week) and some l-dopa from a clean mucuna pruriens extract.

 

[golder]

I'd say low dose selegiline (5mg week) and some l-dopa from a clean mucuna pruriens extract.

I read that selegiline has amphetamine metabolites. Wouldn’t rasagiline be a better choice?

 

[CastorTroy]

I read that selegiline has amphetamine metabolites. Wouldn’t rasagiline be a better choice?

Maybe but I don't care much for some amph metabolite traces, and up to this day I'll trust selegiline for his long track record safety over rasagiline.

 

[Cloudhands]

i think in porn we develop an emotionless and effortless sense of control over the subject of our desire, and we maintain this from a voyeuristic POV. And then when we go to bang a IRL person, we return to the headspace of not being "there". But the issue is that real life stuff requires us to be an active participant, rather then distractedly thinking about things that arent there. Thats only part of it though, the other part is that we grip our weeners super hard during masturbation and jerk them aggressively while edging ourselves. The female touch is a lot more delicate and doesnt provide the same constant stimulation. And on top of that, with porn we scroll through pages finding the most sexy babes ever and choosing them, which our real life babes might not conpare too, even though we love them. Basically porn simulates a standard that is hard to achieve in real life. Idk the exact horomonal mechanisms, nor if my theory is even accurate, but at the end of the day porn makes real life banging less good, and should be avoided for that reason.

 

[Jerkboy]

Makes perfect sense.
What would you say would be the 3 best ways to sustainably raise baseline dopamine?

Also, can someone in this situation safely incorporate a low dose dopamine agonist to help break this inertia at the same time as the lifestyle changes? Which of the Parkinson family drugs would be the safest in this context?

Low dopamine can be caused by all types of things. For stressed people lowering stress will raise dopamine. For people with too low/no stress hormones, they have to increase stress/activity.

E.g. If you need coffee to feel good you probably have to be more active physically. Or use both for more effectiveness.

This applies if you don't have deficiencies of building blocks for dopamine.

I don't think there is something wrong doing high dopamine activities, sex, drugs, gambling etc. But the problem with high stimulation things is I think that it can cause deficiencies. Your body produces dopamine from minerals, vitamins, etc. Also normal activities pale in comparison to high stimulation stuff.

Same reason why fighters can never calm down much in retirement. They miss it forever. They are used to high stimulation.