The Truth About Gay Porn Addiction: What You’re Really Craving

Are You Addicted To Gay Porn?

Let me be clear, porn is not bad. There is no porn shaming here.

Porn can be playful, experimental, educational, powerful and even healing… if you’re using it with awareness and intention.

The problem isn’t the porn. It’s the relationship we have with it.

For years, I had a compulsive relationship with gay porn. I couldn’t stop. I’d seek, search and scroll for hours, going down rabbit holes and come away feeling exhausted, bleary eyed, achey handed and honestly more empty than when I started.

I’d tell myself "this is the last time" then be back at it the next night, sometimes even the next morning.

I thought I had a porn addiction. I thought I was an addict.

What I actually had was a nervous system in survival mode. I was dysregulated and desperately seeking regulation. I was also ADHD with a huge dopamine deficiency looking for any which way to give me a boost.

I also had a heart craving real connection.

And body that didn’t know how to feel without intensity.

Is Porn Addiction Real?

Let’s reframe this.

What if you’re not addicted to gay porn. You’re attached to the relief it gives, the momentary sensation you get from it. Perhaps it gives you:

• A hit of dopamine

• A burst of distraction

• A few minutes of escape from loneliness, shame or numbness

• A relief from stress

That’s not addiction per se. That’s your body trying to regulate itself the only way it knows how.

It’s just like chocolate. Or food. Neither of them are bad, but when they become the go-to way to avoid hard feelings, they can start to feel like a trap and the cause problems.

Why Does It Feel Like Porn Addiction?

Here’s the science: the brain loves novelty and familiarity at the same time! Every new image, genre or video floods your system with dopamine.

But over time, your brain builds tolerance. You need more stimulation to feel something. Your baseline of arousal gets distorted. You become desensitised to real-life pleasure.

You’re no longer turned on by connection. You’re turned on by intensity, the seek, the search, the find, the win, the release.

This isn’t because there is something wrong with you. It’s because your arousal template, the internal map of what turns you on, has been shaped by repetition and overstimulation.

Gay Porn and Fantasy

In The Erotic Mind, Jack Morin explains that our core fantasies often arise from moments of pain, shame, taboo and unmet needs.

We eroticise what we couldn’t process.

Fantasy isn’t the problem. In fact, it’s deeply intelligent. It reveals what we long for. It shows us what we fear. It revelas to us what we crave.

But if we never explore those feelings in the body, we stay stuck chasing the fantasy without ever arriving.

So what porn are you attracted to? What do you keep looking for? What are the patterns? Can you start to see the clues?

How I Healed My Relationship With Porn

I don’t watch porn anymore, not because I think anything bad about it, but because I’ve found something that works better for me. Everyone is different, so you work out what’s best for you.

Over the years I’ve healed my relationship with my sexuality and erotic energy. I trained as a Sexological Bodyworker and help clients do that same.

I love to use my imagination. It turns me on more than any video I’ve ever seen. And I truly mean that!

I’ve learned, through Somatic Erotic Bodywork, to tune into physical sensation and arousal instead of just visual stimulation.

I’ve practised slowing down, feeling my breath, riding waves of arousal without rushing to the edge.

I’ve learned new ways to stroke and massage my cock, anus and body, which I teach in my 7 Day Erotic Reset Program for gay men.

And I started seeking pleasure in other places. Places that actually filled me up: movement and dance, community, connection, joy, fun and delight.

Enter Pleasure Medicine, My Ecstatic Dance For Gay Men in London

Pleasure Medicine is a non-sexual, conscious dance space for gay men in East London.

It’s where we move, dance, feel, express and reconnect to joy, sensuality and presence.

If you’ve been using porn to escape, Pleasure Medicine helps you reconnect to your body, to others gay men and to the part of you that wants more than a screen alone can offer.

When you learn how to fill yourself with warm pleasure, the need to numb and avoid starts to soften.

You don’t need to force yourself to quit porn. Not at all. But you might want to rethink your relationship with it and the way you use it.

I love the idea of adding rather than taking away. Don’t think of what you DON’T want, think of what you DO want.

What You’re Really Craving

If you feel like you’re addicted to porn, ask yourself:

• Am I watching because I want to feel something or because I want to escape?

• What emotion am I avoiding right now?

• What do I actually want more of in my life?

• What do I want more of right now?

Chances are, it’s not more porn.

It’s more connection.

More touch.

More slowness.

More presence.

More you.

Pleasure Medicine gives you a space to explore that through music, movement, community and joy.

Come dance with us.

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