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Comment by hiran88 | Hacker News Reader

From my perspective and direct experience, it’s widespread porn use, which has extremely detrimental effects on your dopamine system, which leads to something you might term ‘lack of charisma, confidence and vital energy’, which leads to less people having sex due to confidence/charisma issues and lack of any drive.

By my experience and observation, porn is really bad for oneself, and it’s really addicting. I’m a millennial male, and at some point, all four of us in my friend group realized and mentioned we are addicted to porn.

I still have addiction issues, but I’ve managed to reduce my use on average to once every 2-4 weeks from 4-5+ times a week, and the benefits to my entire life and being have been immense immense immense.

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Anybody who has taken a long break from porn can back this up 100%, and it's obvious when you think about it. How sexually motivated are you after release, and the fact that porn makes it easy and free and low effort will obviously have an impact on that motivation to put in the effort.

If I could give 2 pieces of advice to all young people (men in particular) it would be to stay off dating apps and leave the porn alone. Go talk to women in real life, as long as you're not trying to get laid with a 30 second conversation you can build those connections up over time and you'll see the difference it makes.

Do you feel like porn prevented you from meeting people in the first place, or just made you not as satisfied with what relationships you had? As also a millenial dude, I definitely have gone through cycles of watching it alot, but always just in the times in between being in a relationship (or in college, just sleeping around in general).

I definitely believe you, and well aware you are not alone in the peergroup, I just personally can't imagine my relationship to porn ever winning out over real sex. Even bad sex is better than the best porn.

Not as much porn use as very regular ejaculation.

I have started to look into sexuality and tantra, and it really seems like there are some effects people will only see after 5-6 days abstinence.

And yes, the added energy will definitely also make men more willing to do the hunt, if they don't ejaculate 2 times a day.

Porn, however, seems to be the enabler of so much ejaculation.

Then again: The risk / unknowns of getting a partner can definitely also outweigh the cons of abstinence.

> the added energy will definitely also make men more willing to do the hunt

You know this sounds creepy right? Misogynistic?

Women are more than trophies to be won in a hunt. They're people, just like you and I.

Well, this is only in the context of courtship, which is _inherently_ sexually polarizing. You most _definitely should not_ bring this view into the work place. In that case you are in your right to call is misogynistic.

And this comment is also a prime example of the derailment that leads to the vanilla meeting between the genders.

(I expect people to be able the read "masculine core" for men and "feminine core" for women)

Treating people as trophies to be won is the problem. And yes, seeing it, as a man, as a pure hinting exercise misogynistic. Also contra productive.

This feels like a rather uncharitable interpretation. Entering into in an exclusive relationship with someone means you have come out ahead of other potential "competitors" and are able to claim the reward: access to the elevated relationship with the said individual, and not necessarily the individual themselves.

Do you also take issue with the phrases like "How to win his heart" or "You need to win her over"?

You called women trophies, they didn't. You can hunt for a job etc, it is a general term for when you put in effort towards finding/getting something.

> the added energy will definitely also make men more willing to do the hunt

Perhaps it is you with your interpretation that is misogynistic. The person was writing focusing on men, but both men and women are on the hunt for a compatible partner with which they could build a fulfilling relationship.

It's the reality of biology. You cannot avoid this.

Trophy relationships are avoidable. Heck, I know Ace people who started families.

Trophy relationship menas you actively went out to look for a proper partner and earned it. It's normal animal behavior to hunt for the best mate.

Ah, I see you are using a new and exciting definition of the word that I was previously unaware of.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trophy_wife

In my last long-term relationship, in the first year I stopped using porn completely as I was completely satisfied with sex. As time went on sex with the same partner becomes less exciting, even if you love them. By year 3 I found sometimes I would not be excited enough for fulfilling sex (I'm a mid-30s man). What I found was that watching porn improved this a lot. It made me excited again, but I still ejaculated exclusively into my partner. It wasn't that I would think about porn during sex or anything either. It just caused me to see her in a different light somehow. But if I got carried away and ejaculated while watching porn it was over for at least 2-3 days. Completely dead sex drive. So yeah, I've come to agree that it's ejaculating while watching porn that is the real bad thing. Porn itself I think can be bad too, but for other reasons.

The same things have been said about cars, music, movies, the internet etc. People make their choice and choose porn or anything else. Chasing sex for pleasure never made a lot of sense evolutionary but there was in past decades a lot of social pressure to be seen as sexually successful. People are rejecting that and don't feel ashamed for it anymore

> From my perspective and direct experience,

But not from a scientific perspective. ... But go on, go on...

> it’s widespread porn use, which has extremely detrimental effects on your dopamine system, which leads to something you might term ‘lack of charisma, confidence and vital energy’, which leads to less people having sex due to confidence/charisma issues and lack of any drive.

Your perspective is wrong and your individual direct experience means nothing and cannot be generalised to others. If you (and your pear group) decide porn is bad for you and you don't watch it anymore, that's your perfectly fine decision -- no one forces porn on you! But do not generalise, please.

Say: 'I was an addict and porn was bad for me.' Do not say: 'porn is highly addictive and bad.'

Porn is quite unlike alcohol. More like chocolate, maybe, but don't cite me on that.

Take a look at my response to jstx1

> widespread porn use, which has extremely detrimental effects on your dopamine system

Is this not begging the question? A cursory glance through pubmed doesn't show evidence for this.

If you were to say you did most other tasks four to five times a week you would call it a habit and not an addiction.

Certainly compulsive sexual behavior, hypersexuality disorder, and sexual addiction have many hits in pubmed but the requirements seem to require significant negative impacts on one's life and not the actions themselves (or necessarily even the frequency) as the issue.[1]

[1] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/add.13366

Take a look at my reply to jstx1

What is worse than porn addiction is an active social stigma against those standing up against it. Subs like r/noporn have received a lot of criticism for their views and associations (usually religious orgs).

What is rarely talked about is that a lot of porn consumption is done by married men, which leads one to think that the problem is not changing morale norms amongst the youth, but in fact porn itself, better yet: instant access to free algorithmically formulated dopamine stimulation.

My lack of drive in life comes from the disillusionment of the idea that life is a meritocracy. Get screwed over enough and eventually you realize it's all BS.

Has it increased the frequency that you have sex?

I watch at least as much porn as the next guy, and have multiple partners on a regular basis. But I don't tend to get addicted to anything, so I might be a bad example.

Not meeting people anymore, because of the pandemic, had a much bigger impact for me. I never was particular successful with dating apps, real-life worked magnitides better.

I don't know if it causes people to have less sex. However, I do agree it could be a slippery slope to addiction. I stopped watching a week or two ago and I have urges daily. Can't say for sure this is real addiction but it definitely could lead there for many.

This has no backing in actual science (regardless of what the cult-like communities on reddit and similar places claim). I think a lot of people misattribute many of their problems to porn because (1) they watch porn and (2) they have some serious life problems. But that doesn't mean that (1) causes (2).

I would be surprised if the scientific mechanisms behind this aren’t discovered within the next 10 years, due to the prevalence of this issue (if what you’re saying is indeed true that this has no current backing in science).

If you’re a porn user, I would suggest that you give it a try and observe what happens in your direct experience. Take a break from porn and masturbation. I think that if your discernment is subtle and sensitive enough, you will definitely notice something. What’s the harm in a fun little experiment?

Sometimes, science lags behind a bit on describing and explaining the phenomena of this universe. This doesn’t invalidate the occurrence of the phenomena themselves or make them inexistent. Sometimes, science just needs a bit more time to catch up, and improve its sophistication and paradigms.

There are studies about what abstinence does to hormones. At day seven there is a peak of testosterone then it drops back.

What would the science explain? that people like sexual activity, alone or with partner? that's not exactly new. A habit becomes a problem when it is compulsive. This is rare. It's also not an entirely new situation. For most of history prostitution was widely available, even state-regulated for low prices in cases. But it s not like they all became sex addicts, it was rare.

> Sometimes, science lags behind a bit on describing and explaining the phenomena of this universe.

And porn has only been ubiquitous and effortlessly available for what, maybe a decade or two. It stands to reason that the scientific examination of the consequences is not completed yet.

That's overly complicated. You can't look at someone and say "Yep, he watches porn." It's more likely people satiate their primitive needs with porn, and realise they don't need all the emotional extras/burdens with relationships.

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