We’ve all heard stories from smokers or former smokers that include something like, “It started with one cigarette, but eventually, I was smoking two packs a day.”
It’s one of the hallmarks of substance abuse: escalation. Users require more and more of their drug of choice to ‘get the same high,’ and their pattern of abuse is driven by their need for a greater quantity. This is especially true when the abuse is spiraling into addiction. But what about porn? Can porn consumption be an escalating behavior as well?
It’s easy to understand how a smoker might need several cigarettes to get the same buzz they used to get from one, but no one says, “I had to watch that scene five times to get the same feeling I used to get watching it once” about pornography. On the contrary, porn consumers become bored with scenes once they’ve seen them. (It’s called “habituation.”Kowalewska, E., Grubbs, J. B., Potenza, M. N., Gola, M., Draps, M., & Kraus, S. W. (2018). Neurocognitive Mechanisms in Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorder. Current Sexual Health Reports, 10(4), 255–264. doi: 10.1007/s11930-018-0176-zCopy ) Multiple viewings generally result in less response, not more.
But despite those differences, porn consumption can escalate every bit as much as substance abuse or any other addictive behavior. Let’s look at the brain science regarding desensitization and novelty to understand how.
Desensitization
Not to be confused with sensitization (which is also interesting and involves becoming highly “sensitized,” or “triggered,” by certain things associated with porn consumption),Pekal, J., Laier, C., Snagowski, J., Stark, R., & Brand, M. (2018). Tendencies toward Internet-pornography-use disorder: Differences in men and women regarding attentional biases to pornographic stimuli. Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 7(3), 574–583. doi: 10.1556/2006.7.2018.70Copy desensitization refers to a numbed pleasure response, or inability to achieve the same “high” a consumer once did.
Desensitization results from too much dopamine—the so-called “pleasure chemical.” Your brain generates different amounts of dopamine in response to all sorts of experiences. These experiences range from kissing to looking at something beautiful to eating a great meal.
Dopamine is your body’s way of telling you, “This is awesome. We should do this as often as possible.” Certain activities, like drug use and porn consumption, turn up your brain’s dopamine production as high as it can go.
The more time you spend at those elevated levels, the more your brain’s dopamine receptors (the parts of the brain that respond to dopamine) start to “plug their ears.” Think of them as little referees becoming increasingly oblivious to complaining players and screaming fans or how you no longer hear your parents yelling at you to put your socks in the laundry and stop scrolling through TikTok.Volkow, N. D., Wang, G.-J., Fowler, J. S., Tomasi, D., Telang, F., & Baler, R. (2010). Addiction: Decreased reward sensitivity and increased expectation sensitivity conspire to overwhelm the brain's control circuit. BioEssays, 32(9), 748–755. doi: 10.1002/bies.201000042Copy
Desensitization also shouldn’t be confused with habituation, which refers to your brain being bored with a picture or video it’s already seen. Habituation, a common response to frequent consumption, happens quickly with various things like movies, music, and food.Kowalewska, E., Grubbs, J. B., Potenza, M. N., Gola, M., Draps, M., & Kraus, S. W. (2018). Neurocognitive Mechanisms in Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorder. Current Sexual Health Reports, 10(4), 255–264. doi: 10.1007/s11930-018-0176-zCopy It’s the brain looking at something it’s seen before and saying, “Meh. I’m getting tired of that.” Desensitization is a much more complicated chemical process that takes place over time with repeated abuse.
It’s the brain looking at something, even if it is brand new, and saying, “Meh. It takes a lot more than that to get my attention.” Multiple studies have demonstrated the existence of desensitization in porn consumers Banca, P., Morris, L. S., Mitchell, S., Harrison, N. A., Potenza, M. N., & Voon, V. (2016). Novelty, conditioning and attentional bias to sexual rewards. Journal of psychiatric research, 72, 91–101. doi: 10.1016/j.jpsychires.2015.10.017Copy Kühn, S., & Gallinat, J. (2014). Brain structure and functional connectivity associated with pornography consumption. JAMA Psychiatry, 71(7), 827. doi: 10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2014.93Copy Albery, I. P., Lowry, J., Frings, D., Johnson, H. L., Hogan, C., & Moss, A. C. (2017). Exploring the Relationship between Sexual Compulsivity and Attentional Bias to Sex-Related Words in a Cohort of Sexually Active Individuals. European addiction research, 23(1), 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1159/000448732Copy including one study that demonstrated how the level of desensitization correlated directly with the extent of compulsive porn consumption.Albery, I. P., Lowry, J., Frings, D., Johnson, H. L., Hogan, C., & Moss, A. C. (2017). Exploring the Relationship between Sexual Compulsivity and Attentional Bias to Sex-Related Words in a Cohort of Sexually Active Individuals. European addiction research, 23(1), 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1159/000448732Copy
The real question isn’t so much like, “Do porn consumers become desensitized?” They do. The question is, “How do porn consumers respond to that desensitization?”
In the case of smokers, it’s a simple matter of smoking more and more cigarettes. And to some extent, escalating porn consumption can also be just a simple matter of quantity, as porn consumers have more and more viewing sessions, and those viewing sessions get longer and longer.
But look closer, and the actual escalation is in what those consumers of porn are viewing.
Novelty
In a pair of interesting studies that were replicated with both menKoukounas, E., & Over, R. (2000). Changes in the magnitude of the eyeblink startle response during habituation of sexual arousal. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 38(6), 573–584. doi: 10.1016/s0005-7967(99)00075-3Copy and women,Meuwissen, I., & Over, R. (1990). Habituation and dishabituation of female sexual arousal. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 28(3), 217–226. doi: 10.1016/0005-7967(90)90004-3Copy college students were hooked up to instruments that measured their arousal and interest and were then shown the same pornographic scene multiple times in a row. You can imagine what happened—arousal and interest, for both the men and women, were initially very high. Still, habituation quickly set in, and their interest and level of arousal waned dramatically. Then, after many viewings, right as the subjects’ boredom was reaching maximum levels, the researchers suddenly and without warning switched to a brand new pornographic film. What do you think happened? Were the subjects just so bored and “over it” that they continued in their disinterest? Nope! Bam! Arousal and interest levels immediately shot right back up to where they were before.
This phenomenon is often referred to as “The Coolidge Effect.” Researchers have repeatedly demonstrated the Coolidge Effect in various research settings.Ventura-Aquino, E., Fernández-Guasti, A., & Paredes, R. G. (2018). Hormones and the coolidge effect. Molecular and Cellular Endocrinology, 467, 42-48. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mce.2017.09.010Copy Hughes, S. M., Aung, T., Harrison, M. A., LaFayette, J. N., & Gallup, G. G. (2021). Experimental evidence for sex differences in sexual variety preferences: Support for the Coolidge Effect in humans. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 50(2), 495-509. doi:10.1007/s10508-020-01730-xCopy Put a male and female of just about any animal together, and they will mate, and mate, and then get bored with each other. But replace one of them with a new partner. Even if they’re exhausted from mating with the last one, they will attempt to mate again. We often have a drive toward sexual novelty. Researchers suggest this is because of a deep biological drive to reproduce as frequently as possible.
What this means is that what the porn consumer wants is not just more porn. They desire new content: new people, new imaginary partners, new situations.Banca, P., Morris, L. S., Mitchell, S., Harrison, N. A., Potenza, M. N., & Voon, V. (2016). Novelty, conditioning and attentional bias to sexual rewards. Journal of psychiatric research, 72, 91–101. doi: 10.1016/j.jpsychires.2015.10.017Copy And as luck would have it, internet pornography offers them exactly the endless variety of sexual “partners” and situations to attempt to gratify that desire.Park, B. Y., Wilson, G., Berger, J., Christman, M., Reina, B., Bishop, F., Klam, W. P., & Doan, A. P. (2016). Is Internet Pornography Causing Sexual Dysfunctions? A Review with Clinical Reports. Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland), 6(3), 17. https://doi.org/10.3390/bs6030017Copy
Dr. Norman Doidge, a psychiatrist and New York Times best-selling author of The Brain That Changes Itself, explains, “Pornography satisfies every one of the prerequisites for neuroplastic change. When pornographers boast that they are pushing the envelope by introducing new, harder themes, what they don’t say is that they must, because their customers are building up a tolerance to the content.”Doidge, N. (2007). The Brain That Changes Itself. New York: Penguin Books.Copy
Consumers may also seek out other aspects of pornography, such as secrecy, shock value, taboos, and shame.
These things offer varying ways to feed a desire for novelty and excitement. And for consumers who consistently view this type of material, it is possible to find their sexual interests eventually deviating in very unexpected directions. In one 2016 study, researchers found that 46.9% of respondents reported that, over time, they began watching pornography that had previously disinterested or even disgusted them.Wéry, A., & Billieux, J. (2016). Online sexual activities: An exploratory study of problematic and non-problematic usage patterns in a sample of men. Computers in Human Behavior, 56, 257-266. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2015.11.046Copy
These findings are consistent with other research that demonstrates that changing tastes and escalation are not uncommon experiences among consumers of porn.Bőthe, B., Tóth-Király, I., Zsila, Á., Griffiths, M. D., Demetrovics, Z., & Orosz, G. (2017). The development of the problematic pornography consumption scale (PPCS). The Journal of Sex Research, 55(3), 395–406. doi: 10.1080/00224499.2017.1291798Copy Downing, M. J., Schrimshaw, E. W., Scheinmann, R., Antebi-Gruszka, N., & Hirshfield, S. (2016). Sexually explicit media use by sexual identity: A comparative analysis of gay, bisexual, and heterosexual men in the united states. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 46(6), 1763–1776. doi: 10.1007/s10508-016-0837-9Copy
None of this is to say that these results are guaranteed or that everyone who consumes porn will find themselves viewing material they once found disgusting. (In the above study alone, if 47% reported they did have that experience, that means 53% did not.) It is only to say that when we talk about the potential forms of escalation among porn consumers, it has the potential to be far more than a matter of time.
The good news is that change is possible! Research and experiences demonstrate that individuals can manage and largely reverse desensitization effects, offering hope for recovery.Young K. S. (2013). Treatment outcomes using CBT-IA with Internet-addicted patients. Journal of behavioral addictions, 2(4), 209–215. https://doi.org/10.1556/JBA.2.2013.4.3Copy Nathanson, A. (2021). Psychotherapy with young people addicted to internet pornography. Psychoanal.Study Child, 74(1), 160-173. doi:10.1080/00797308.2020.1859286Copy In fact, even in cases of serious substance and other addictions, research shows that the brain can heal over time with sustained effort.Pfefferbaum, A., Rosenbloom, M. J., Chu, W., Sassoon, S. A., Rohlfing, T., Pohl, K. M., Zahr, N. M., & Sullivan, E. V. (2014). White matter microstructural recovery with abstinence and decline with relapse in alcohol dependence interacts with normal ageing: a controlled longitudinal DTI study. The lancet. Psychiatry, 1(3), 202–212. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2215-0366(14)70301-3Copy Yau, Y. H., & Potenza, M. N. (2015). Gambling disorder and other behavioral addictions: recognition and treatment. Harvard review of psychiatry, 23(2), 134–146. https://doi.org/10.1097/HRP.0000000000000051Copy Rullmann, M., Preusser, S., Poppitz, S., Heba, S., Gousias, K., Hoyer, J., Schütz, T., Dietrich, A., Müller, K., Hankir, M. K., & Pleger, B. (2019). Adiposity Related Brain Plasticity Induced by Bariatric Surgery. Frontiers in human neuroscience, 13, 290. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2019.00290Copy Research also indicates that, while guilt can motivate healthy change, shame fuels problematic porn habits.Gilliland, R., South, M., Carpenter, B. N., & Hardy, S. A. (2011). The roles of shame and guilt in hypersexual behavior.18(1), 12-29. doi:10.1080/10720162.2011.551182Copy So if you’re trying to give up porn, be kind to yourself and be patient with your progress.
Like anything, it takes time for the brain to recover. However, daily efforts make a big difference in the long run. Think of it like a muscle that gets bigger and stronger the more you use it. The longer you stay away from porn, the easier it is to do so. All it takes is practice.
Need help?
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