Chronic Erectile Dysfunction and Porn

Here is what a typical porn user had to say. “I am in my late 30s and have been using porn heavily since my teens. My ED problems started in my late 20s. It is only recently that it has become total ED. I blamed it on the attractiveness or the newness of my partners, my fitness levels or my diet, my age, stress, performance anxiety and lots of things. It is only recently I realized I could not even masturbate to orgasm without porn. This is when I figured what really could be the problem”. It is very common for heavy porn users that they often don’t see their ED is porn related.

Here is another quote “I am 24 years old and have been battling ED for years and only recently attributed it to porn addiction. I have been on an emotional roller coaster trying to figure out what the problem was. What makes the whole situation so difficult is that you know that you should be aroused by real women but for some reason you are not. You try consciously to make yourself aroused but it’s basically impossible. Once this fails you spiral into depression and anxiety”.

I have come across teenagers with erectile dysfunction. This is not normal. Boys in their teens and twenties can have occasional anxiety but not chronic impotence, unless they have a serious medical condition. Very clearly their ED is caused by heavy porn use. When they stop and stay off of porn their erections and desire return. Here are ways that ED may manifest itself:

No spontaneous erections
Not aroused by static porn
Decreased penile sensitivity
Delayed ejaculation
Copulatory impotence
ED drugs losing effect
No erections even with extreme porn

The effect is, there is no morning wood. They are not being aroused by the porn they are using. They need to escalate to more extreme porn to get aroused. This is also a sign of addiction. Reduced penile sensitivity means that your brain is less sensitive to current porn. Delayed ejaculation or inability to have an orgasm with a real partner leads some men to fake an orgasm with sexual partners. Many are doing this. There is inability to maintain an erection with a real partner; this is a major complaint. ED drugs lose effect because the problem is in the brain not the penis. Eventually they cannot get it up even with extreme porn use.

Fast and Free Internet porn is a real phenomenon but we hear very little about it. The fast Internet connections with free streaming internet porn is a relatively new phenomenon. Now that fast connections with free Internet porn have been in place for a while we are seeing boys who started at 12 coming down with impotence by they are 15/16. It takes some time for ED to develop perhaps years. Time frames are highly variable, ED may suddenly appear. More importantly users may not notice ED and escalate to longer duration and more extreme porn. This is not about porn but how it is affecting the users. Men don’t want to admit they have ED and they don’t talk to each other about it. So there is no knowledge of what is happening to them. Guys also do not make the connection. We are often blind to cause and affect. The omnipresence of Viagra and other ED drugs has created this consciousness that chronic ED is normal. 

ED is supposed to be very rare under the age of 40 and unheard of in the teens and twenties, at least until recently. Health care providers may not be aware how today’s Internet porn, with its constant novelty and endless variety affects the brain. It is a dynamic phenomenon. The good advice is to be up to date on the latest neuroscience. To understand how Internet porn can affect the brain you have to know excessive gambling, food and video games can cause brain changes that mimic drug addiction. It is clear that masturbating to Internet porn can be more stimulating than those other things. Historically there has been a paradigm. If you had a problem like erectile dysfunction it was caused by guilt or shame. If that were the case ED would show up immediately in porn users. Another reason why health care providers are in the dark is because no research has been published of the effect of Internet on ED. There have been a few studies but they were merely questionnaires. There has been no brain study yet to assess the effect of Internet porn on its users.

There are reports of large numbers of boys aged 16 to 19 not interested in sex. Many older men are not having sex with real women for months. There are a few things that are clear. Internet porn addiction is real with structural changes occurring in the brain. Porn viewing can cause Erectile Dysfunction.