Erectile dysfunction (ED) is reportedly on the rise, and there may be a lot of reasons for this growing trend. Some claim that there’s a deep psychological issue that’s rising in young men, and others claim that there’s some form of physiological nerve damage that exists.
But there’s also the concern that ED may be growing because of overstimulation.
Porn induced erectile dysfunction may be one of the reasons that men are having a difficult time “getting it up.” After all, it takes just seconds to pull out a smartphone, look up porn and become stimulated.
There are more than enough videos and content to consume than a person can actually go through in their lifetime.
What is Porn Induced Erectile Dysfunction?
Porn induced erectile dysfunction is when a man can no longer get or maintain an erection due to high exposure to pornography. The mere volume of pornographic material that’s available online has led to the phenomenon.
Experts are up in arms over the problem.
There’s a debate over whether or not porn diminishes a man’s sex drive. One train of thought is that a man will watch porn, masturbate more often and may have a harder time having intercourse afterwards because of a recent masturbation.
And it may be that this increase in masturbation is leading to more occasions where a man can’t get it up and maintain an erection.
Middle-aged and older men are more likely to have ED, but porn induced ED is reportedly causing young men to suffer from erectile dysfunction. The youths are claiming that they’re:
- Not turned on by real partners
- Suffering from delayed ejaculation
- Suffer from sluggish erections
Physiological rather than psychological, this issue is said to be caused by a man becoming overstimulated by porn. The idea is simple:
- You may love to eat burritos
- You decide to eat burritos for breakfast, lunch and dinner
You may enjoy your indulgence initially, but after a week or two, you’ll find that the taste of burritos has started to diminish. Perhaps you now want something else, something different. Eventually, you’ll start to lose interest in burritos, and you may become disgusted by them.
Porn has this same impact on some people.
What happens is that the man will consume pornography, and maybe he enjoys it for the first few months.
But then, he starts consuming porn daily. The problem is that he starts to have trouble getting an erection. Perhaps he starts to move towards fetish porn and other forms of erotic porn to try and get turned on.
It may work, or he may start losing his desire to watch porn.
He may feel like he has seen everything from soft core porn to the most extreme porn. While the first few times may provide a heightened level of excitement, eventually, the excitement will diminish.
The man has become overstimulated, and masturbation may not even be part of the equation.
Unrealistic porn videos and scenarios may also have an impact on a man’s ability to have an erection. He may not be able to get an erection as easily because he has a different appetite than before. His partner may want vanilla sex while he has become so immune to regular intercourse that he is only able to be turned on in the most extreme of cases.
Mental barriers may also kick in where the man has expectations that are only present in staged scenarios, so he has a difficult time getting or maintaining an erection under traditional circumstances.
Research also suggests that the loss of performance and libido may be because of the brain’s response to pleasure being “numbed.” These researchers claim that the body’s response to dopamine may become desensitized over time, due to the overstimulation of the senses and “normal” limits of the libido.
Dopamine is the neurochemicals behind addiction, and it’s the chemical that is responsible for the search for rewards.
Studies show that dopamine-producing cells activate the brain’s sexual centers. It’s these “centers” that are responsible for producing an erection. These impulses must be sustained, over time, to be able to release nitric oxide into the penis. And without these impulses, the erection is not able to be maintained.
Dopamine is the key in this equation because it’s responsible for stimulating the brain, which sends signals through the spinal cord, to the person’s nerves and ends at the penis.
But when dopamine is stimulated too often, this leads to the brain actually being unable to respond to the signals that the dopamine is sending out. A sort of desensitization will occur, and this can also be seen in all forms of addiction. When the body is so used to an abundance of dopamine, it will start to diminish this response over time. It’s not an issue that happens immediately, so the real impact may not be noticed for a long period of time.
Responses to dopamine in those that watch porn too often will start to be impacted slowly. This response will start to become less and less, and that leads to the inability to achieve or maintain an erection. Everyone’s response is different, and it’s not an issue that happens from watching porn once or twice a week. But when the response is diminished, men respond in the absolute worst way.
A response for many men will rush back to the Internet in search of finding something that will reactivate the dopamine response, and this may lead to more forms of fetish porn or more extreme forms of porn.
And then, the problem will eventually become worse.
Porn addiction will lead to some form of porn-induced erectile dysfunction, usually over time. When this form of ED occurs, the next logical step is to start abstaining from porn. The brain’s response to dopamine needs to be reset.
The reset will take time, so a man may have to stop watching porn or masturbating for a period of several months.
Once a man’s brain has “reset,’’ he should be able to start getting and maintaining a normal erection again. The goal is to stop the overstimulation from occurring, allowing the response to dopamine to return.
