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 I had a 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. What if you’re attached to the relief it gives you.

The momentary sensation you get from it.

What about if it is really giving you is:

• A hit of dopamine

• A way to feel something you find hard to access alone

• A burst of distraction

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

• A relief from stress

• A space to play out a fantasy that is trying to help in some way, but not quite going about it in the most efficient way

That’s not ‘addiction’ per se.

It’s your body trying to regulate itself in one of the few ways it’s learned how.

Think of chocolate, for example. Or food in general. Or exercise even. None of these are bad, of course!

But when they become the go-to way to avoid hard feelings, or to punish yourself, or to feel a sense of control in your life, they can start to feel like a trap. Is it the food, chocolate or exercise that are the problem? No. They are morall neutral.

The thing itself isn’t problematic, it’s the way it’s used.

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, body, cock, ass and video floods your system with dopamine.

But over time, your brain builds tolerance. You need more and more stimulation to feel something.

Your baseline of arousal gets distorted.

You become desensitised to the real-life pleasure that is available to you. You’re not really feeling the full pleasure in your cock and body when you masturbate to porn.

You’re getting turned on by more and more intensity in your mind and in your brain.

It’s the seek, the search and the scroll that becomes the focus, rather than your pleasure, arousal and sensation.

You’ve made the journey of ‘find, win, release’ the aim of the game. It’s very similar to how gambling on slot machines work.

Now, here’s the thing; this isn’t because there is something wrong with you.

All that’s happened is that your arousal template, the internal map of what turns you on, or what I call your ‘erotic template’, has been shaped by repetition and overstimulation.

The good news?

You can change it!

It’s just a set of neural pathways in your brian. And the wonderful thing about neural pathways is that they can be pruned and dissolved and new ones can be sprouted.

I should know, because I’ve done it! I used to have a serious compulsive relationship with sex in general, apps and porn. And now I do not. Simple as that.

But I have done the work!

What I’ve learned is that it takes the desire to change, the consistency to make that change and the knowledge to know how!

Desire + Consistency + Knowledge

Read on for more on that…

Gay Porn and Fantasy

In a wonderful book called The Erotic Mind (which I reccommend every gay man read), 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.

Now, fantasy isn’t the problem. In fact, it’s deeply intelligent. It reveals what we long for. It shows us what we fear. It reveals to us what we crave. And it highlights our deeper core needs.

>>> I talk more about this concept in my article for QX Magazine ‘The Kink Code: How Your Sexual Fanatsies Can Help You Heal’

But if we never explore those feelings in the body, in a safe, contained and safely held way, we stay stuck chasing the fantasy without ever arriving anywhere.

So, it’s time to become your own Poirot of Porn… a sex detective! Start asking yourself with curiosity:

• What porn am I attracted to?

• What do I keep looking for, on repeat?

• Can I find the patterns and clues?

Have fun with it! There is deep wisdom, clarity and healing here for you…

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. If I wanted to watch porn, I would… for sure. I just don’t want to anymore…

I have a Somatic Erotic Bodywork client right now who came to me wanting to heal sexual shame and to experience more pleasure in his sex life. I’ve prescribed him a self pleasure practice which does not involve eradicating porn!

Instead, he has a self pleasure practice which involves one day working with porn, one day off, one day on and one day off. And he is exploring the difference. He is noticing what comes up. He is getting curious.

And we are cultivating a mindful relationship with porn for him. Before working with porn he sets an intention; he finds the best porn he can and afterwards he journals on what the deeper needs and desires was behind the types of porn he was searching for.

Then, we look at the ways he can start getting those needs met in other areas of his life. He may continue using porn or it may fall away at some stage. Who knows?!

It really doens’t matter. Using porn is morally neutral.

What’s important is how you work with it.

Over the years, and especially this year, I’ve healed my own relationship with my sexuality and erotic energy.

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 or numb out, Pleasure Medicine helps you reconnect to your body, to other 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 positive 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.

Focus on what you’r turning towards, rather than what you’re turning away from.

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 connection to yourself.

More pleasure…

Pleasure Medicine and The Erotic Reset gives you a space to all this…

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