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Pornography & Men’s Health

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MEN’S HEALTH FORUM

The Men’s Health Forum’s Man Manuals contain easy-to-read information on a wide range of men’s health subjects. Founded in 1994, the MHF is the independent voice for the health and wellbeing of men and boys in Great Britain. Our goal is the best possible physical and mental health and wellbeing for all men and boys.

Porn Free © Men’s Health Forum

Written and edited by Jim Pollard (jimpollard.co.uk) with cartoons by John Byrne.

First published: 2023 • Next revision: 2026

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The authors and the publisher have taken care to make sure that the advice given in this edition is correct at the time of publication. We advise you to read and understand the instructions and information included with all medicines and to carefully consider whether a treatment is worth taking. The authors and the publisher have no legal responsibility for the results of treatments, misuse or overuse of the remedies in this book or their level of success in individual cases.

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Printed in the UK. ISBN: 978-1-906121-45-7

Written and edited by Jim Pollard • Cartoons by John Byrne.

Special thanks to Dr Paula Hall of The Laurel Centre for all her time and reading of drafts. Thanks also to Amanda Burbridge and all the men and boys who helped with the manual by suggesting questions and sharing their stories. Some names have been changed.

Men’s Health Forum advisory team: Dr John Chisholm, Dr Su Wang, Sara Richards, Ruth Pott, Dr Annette Fenner and Adelle Shaw-Flach.

First published: June 2023 • Next revision: June 2026

Like all the Forum’s Man Manuals, this booklet is for anyone who identifies in any way as male. Depending on your particular gender identity and sexuality, some sections may be more relevant to you than others. Take what’s useful to you and ignore what’s not.

INTRODUCTION

Pornography is as old as the human race. It has been found in cave paintings. Today, there’s a lot of it about. That can lead us to think it must be very ‘normal’. And, in a way, it is. All animals find the bodies of other members of their species interesting and, in some cases, attractive. There’s nothing wrong, in principle, with looking at bodies you find sexy. Just as there’s nothing wrong, in principle, with drinking alcohol. That doesn’t mean that alcohol can’t cause untold problems for individuals, partners, families and wider society. It can and it does. The same is true of pornography.

This booklet is for adult males of all ages, so we’ll start with a reference many can probably relate to. It’s from the 1990s American TV sitcom Friends. We’re talking about Season 4, Episode 17: The One with the Free Porn. You’ll find it online if you haven’t seen it.

A glitch in their cable TV system means that two of the main male characters Joey and Chandler suddenly have free access to the porn channel. They decide not to switch it off in case they can’t get it back again. Porn plays all day and night. Occasionally they turn down the sound. Thanks to the internet and the smartphone, that’s the situation most blokes find themselves in today: free porn 24/7.

The plot bubbles along through the episode. It’s funny. Chandler is disappointed that the ‘hot teller’ in the bank doesn’t invite him to do it in the vault. Joey is surprised that the pizza delivery woman just takes the money and leaves. The guys pause. It’s happened. The free porn is affecting how they see the real world. They decide they’d better turn it off.

Friends is played for laughs, but there is a serious point in there. Porn can change the way you see the world. It can change you too. This booklet will help you decide whether you want to turn off or turn down the free porn too.

HOW ONLINE PORN WORKS

ARE YOU SAYING PORN’S WRONG?

No, that’s not the issue. Some guys use it when they’re young and stop when they start having real relationships. Some might use it when they’re between relationships. Others might use it when they’re in a relationship, either with or without their partners. Looking at it can be enjoyable. Masturbating to it can be enjoyable. And that’s part of the problem, because anything enjoyable can become compulsive and addictive. But we’ll come to the possibility of addiction later, there are some other issues to think about first.

WHAT ISSUES?

Porn can affect you in many ways. It can affect (and change) what turns you on. It can affect the way you think about sex, relationships and what you want from them. If you’re watching porn designed for heterosexuals (straight porn), it can affect the way you think about women.

To understand how, we need to look first at how the internet works.

WHAT’S THE INTERNET GOT TO DO WITH IT?

Most porn is consumed via the internet. That matters because websites and apps are designed to keep you on them - that’s how commercial sites make their money. News sites, social media apps, video channels, whatever. The site’s algorithms keep you there by noticing what you want and giving you more of it. Porn sites are no different.

Many people worry about spending too much time online and ask whether it’s

affecting their mental health. They’re right to be concerned. The smartphone is a dopamine-delivery device that turns interests into compulsions.

Following influencers, watching cat videos or reading about football is one thing. But if your online kick is porn which messes with something as fundamental as desire, sexuality and relationships, you need to be doubly careful.

WHAT IS DOPAMINE?

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter first identified in 1957. It’s the brain chemical that prompts us to do things we enjoy. We get a boost of dopamine both in anticipation of the pleasurable activity and when doing it. This is followedbecause the brain self-regulates naturally - by a dip or comedown. In other words, you can’t have the high without the low.

Our brain hasn’t changed since the stone age, but the potential to stimulate it has. Once upon a time, finding a mate or finding food took ages. Now you can do it with a click on your phone.

The problem is that if you keep having too much of a good thing, the brain’s self-regulatory mechanism (called homeostasis) gives you diminishing returns. You need more of whatever it is to get the same high and indeed the high seems to get further and further away. Anyone who has ever binged on a bar of chocolate knows this. The first square tastes divine. The last three you wolf in one go and hardly notice.

The point is that this is exactly what is going on every time you click on whatever it is you’re interested in, including porn.

PORN’S JUST A SUBSTITUTE FOR ‘THE REAL THING’

You could have argued that in the days of cave drawings or even of ‘top-shelf’ magazines. But today’s online porn is not merely a substitute for sex with real people. It wants to be an object of desire in its own right. Online porn is designed to exploit your dopamine transmitters to get you into a relationship with it, rather than with real people. You could say the sites are grooming you.

SO WHAT ARE THE RISKS?

Porn changes our brain chemistry. In other words, it’s like a drug with long-term effects. As with any drug, it makes sense to know what the possible side effects are. As we said, addiction is one, but there are others too.

Jayden, age 14

In year 8, I got quite attached quite quickly

I first accessed porn when I was in year 8. I got quite attached quite quickly. I wanted to watch it all the time.

I was masturbating ten times a day. It became my emotional release but, over time, I realised I was feeling worse afterwards. It made me aggressive. I stopped socialising and I felt lonely. My self-esteem was low and my penis was becoming sore.

I talked to my parents and I saw a doctor who said I could damage my penis as I wasn’t fully developed. I don’t watch it now, although I still masturbate sometimes.

You don’t need porn to masturbate. I’m in year 10 now and have a girlfriend. There’s a big difference between the porn feeling and how you feel with a girlfriend. I feel a lot better now.

THE SIDE EFFECTS

PORN CAN DISTORT YOUR IDEAS ABOUT SEX

Using porn as a guide to what real sex is about is like relying on a TV soap like Eastenders for an idea of London - there are some outward similarities but, in truth, one is nothing like the other.

At the time of writing, the average age at which young people first see porn is about 12 - it gets lower year by year. The result is many young people now think strangling or other violent acts are a normal part of sex or that certain forms of sex - oral and anal, for example - are far more usual and popular than they are in the real world with real people.

PORN CAN SERIOUSLY DAMAGE YOUR SELF-IMAGE

Porn can also lead its viewers to think their own bodies and body parts are not attractive enough or even the right size for enjoyable sex. Again, not true.

PORN CAN CHANGE YOUR SEXUAL TASTES

There is evidence that frequent porn use can lead to changes in real-world desires such as an interest in sex in which one partner has power over another. This is fine when all parties fully consent, but abusive and even illegal if they do not.

It’s obvious if you think about it. Because the porn sites want you to come to them rather than to real people, they have an interest in getting you interested in things you are less likely to get in a real consensual relationship. This includes more degradation and more violent sex acts.

PORN CAN AFFECT YOUR REAL RELATIONSHIPS

Even if what you like doesn’t really change, porn can still have a negative impact on real sex in the real world. Therapist Paula Hall puts it this way: ‘If you put chilli sauce on all your dishes, food without it is very bland.’ In other words, masturbating to porn is like chilli sauce compared to partnered sex with a mere mortal.

In the Friends episode discussed on page 4, Joey and Chandler’s free porn runs alongside a plot about Ross’s love affair with Emily. It winds up with Ross travelling from New York to London to declare his love. This, the episode is telling us, is what life is really about.

But, compared to the 1990s when Friends was made, far fewer people are in sexual relationships. Indeed, there is evidence that people of all ages including younger people are having less sex generally.

The reasons are complex, but one is perhaps that today’s women expect more from relationships (to put it bluntly, they’re not prepared to put up with what their mothers put up with). As a result, for straight men, the bar to a real relationship is higher and free porn an easy alternative.

Some men blame women for their being single and follow ‘influencers’, social movements or religious cults that claim women should be subordinate like in the ‘good old days’. These men are missing out on a lot of potential pleasure. Think about the best moments of your life. Were you on your own? Probably not. Prioritising your relationships with other people might be the healthier long-term choice.

Using porn within a relationship needs to be approached with care too (even if you’re watching together). Windowshopping online (or off) seldom makes you happy. It tends to just make you dissatisfied with what you have at home.

PORN CAN CAUSE ERECTION PROBLEMS

The increasing numbers of young men reporting erection problems could well be related to the increased availability of porn. If you keep having that chilli sauce, then you can’t even taste the milder food. Similarly, you may find one standard-issue human being is not as arousing as the intense over-stimulation of porn. The result can be erection problems and a lower libido (less interest in sex).

You may also become inhibited by comparing yourself to what you see in porn - and that won’t help erections either.

PORN CAN AFFECT YOUR ATTITUDES TO WOMEN

We all notice bodies we find attractive, but any male heterosexual heavy porn user will describe how, over time, you come to look at women in only that one, over-sexualised way. If you stop seeing people as people but simply as objects, the potential results are worrying and even dangerous. Obviously, not all porn users are women haters or sex offenders but nearly all women haters and sex offenders are porn users.

NO SUCH THING AS FREE PORN, ANYWAY

There’s no such thing as free porn really. The sites and apps are hoping to get you to the stage where you need to spend money to get your kicks: chat, webcams, sex services, hook-up sites. You could see free porn as the gateway drug to escalate you to those behaviours.

If you’re experiencing any of these side effects, you may be developing an unhealthy relationship with porn. They could also be signs of addiction. See page 13.

Kyle, 32

As you learn more about porn addiction, the starting point of your story goes backwards.

I was born into a single-parent family. Mum was 17. She had lost her brother and her mum by the time I was three. Very tough for her and I don’t think she was emotionally available for me. I lived between two homes - my mum and my stepdad - in some pretty rough areas. There was poverty and violence. People would forget to pick me up from school.

I was bullied from the age of 9 because I was ginger-haired. I had access to a computer from the age of 10. Completely unfiltered. I started using porn around 12. It became habitual. When girls came on the scene, we were sending pictures back and forwards. The fantasy becoming real and very normalised. I had a threesome at 15.

At about 16, I got into a serious long-term relationship. I was besotted by her but cheating on her. I got off on that. I think I was protecting myself from hurt. My previous partner had cheated on me.

I went to uni and I could do anything. I could stay up through the night. I got progressively worse. I found webcams, chat rooms. This was the link between porn and real people. It was worldwide and there was always someone up. I was hiding this chronic masturbation from my partner. I was looking at all sorts, even men and I’m not gay. I’d go all night masturbating. I was doing it so much, there was physical damage.

My partner lost her mum. She had to spend a lot of time back home. I was alone and not supporting her. I put unreasonable pressure on her to resume sex. I thought it would fix my masturbation problem. I regret how I was with her.

We got married. I was 26. We had a house and a dog. But I had two personas: the moral me in love with her and the other side who couldn’t get enough of the dopamine rush you get from porn and risk and cheating. I found a work colleague who fitted me perfectly. She was game for anything. We had a year-long affair. It wasn’t until I left my wife that I realised I had no interest in this other girl beyond the sex.

I went into a spiral of dating apps, one-night stands until I met my current partner, Caroline. I was determined not to mess up this time, but I didcheating, porn, masturbating, dating apps. She found out but didn’t dump me.

I went to university and I could do anything.

She said we needed to fix it and I started therapy. I abstained from porn for several months, but the thoughts were always there.

We had a massive argument, she moved out and I relapsed. We got back together. I started again. I got found out again. It was relapse after relapse. I found a different therapist, Chris. In the first hour, the questions he asked about my porn use were so open and straightforward. The other therapist not asking these had reinforced the shame.

I also tried hypnosis which was useful. I started a 12-step programme with Sex and Love Anonymous (SLA). I thought this would support the therapy but, in fact, it’s been the other way round. The 12-step programme really started working for me once I started telling the truth. I have a sponsor. I go to meetings. I do outreach. It’s given me accountability. It’s given me bottom lines - no communicating with girls, no porn. There’s no shame in SLA. Everybody is there for the same reason: to get better. I’m not cured but I’m still sober.

It has had a negative effect on Caroline, but the communication we have is better than I ever imagined was possible in a relationship. I’m calmer. Believing in a higher power is part of the 12 steps. I’m not religious in any way but it has made me more spiritual. I turned off social media six months ago and it has massively improved my mental health. I’m not comparing myself with others all the time. I get so much work done too. I’m leading my team in sales.

I used to create these narratives in my head from seeing a sexy girl. Chris told me to imagine her brushing her teeth instead. It takes all the passion out of it. I have an electric shock pen. If I’m tempted, I use it. Then I get myself out of the situation for 20 minutes - walk the dogs for example. I do meditation and mindfulness. On a walk now, I notice things. I’m not head down in my phone. I’ve learned new skills. I’ve installed a kitchen and rewired the house. You never do these things when you’re an addict acting out. Telling Caroline that I had an issue was probably the turning point. It wasn’t an easy or quick turnimagine an enormous juggernaut turning - but it was the start. I use apps which help me monitor everything that’s healthy for me: support meetings, vitamins, exercises, everything for physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing. Porn is a drug and we need to treat it as such. We need to educate people on the potential problem. We need to restrict young people’s exposure until as late as possible. I hope I’d be able to communicate the risk if I have a son. We have to take the shame out. Today it’s more acceptable to talk about mental health and this is an aspect of it.

PORN ADDICTION

Something fun that gets you buzzing in occasional, small doses can become dangerous in more regular, bigger ones. That’s true of many things, but the risk is increased online because those sites and apps are deliberately designed to get you coming back for more, more often.

Dopamine can rewire your brain’s neural pathways. The pathway to your addiction becomes like a twelve-lane superhighway; the pathways to other forms of dopamine pleasure become overgrown and neglected. (Therapist Paula Hall explains this brilliantly in her short video on dopamine, the brain and addiction. Search for ‘A Mind Map for Sex and Porn Addiction’.)

There are some standard questions you should ask yourself if you’re worried that you might be addicted to anything, from social media or fantasy football to sex and drugs. These are:

> Do you think about X while doing something else and look forward to it?

> Do you feel you need more X each time to get the same enjoyment?

> Have you made efforts to cut back on X?

> Do you do X for longer than intended?

> Have you put X before more important things like relationships or work?

> Have you lied to others about your involvement with X?

> Do you use X as a way of escaping from problems or difficult feelings?

Ask yourself the questions, replacing X with porn or masturbation (and be honest with yourself about the answers.) If you’re answering yes to some of these, you definitely need to read on.

Even if you’re answering no, there will be a lot here that will be useful. You don’t need to be addicted or even using porn frequently to be affected by it. Unhealthy porn use, like many health issues, can creep up on you. You may be fine for a long time and then suddenly develop a problem.

WHAT ARE THE WARNING SIGNS?

The negative consequences of porn use may not be apparent for some time. Unlike with alcohol or many other drugs, you can use porn all night and still go to work the next morning. So it’s especially important to look out for the warning signs. These could include any of the side effects discussed already or any of the following:

> Frequency - are you doing it more often? Perhaps in inappropriate settings, like at work or on the way home.

> Duration - are you doing it for longer? Perhaps you’re deliberately delaying orgasm to spend more time in your porn world.

> Escalation - are you looking at increasingly graphic, more hard-core material? Are you crossing over the line of what you think is morally acceptable or moving into areas that you’ve not previously been sexually interested in? Are your interests or the images you’re viewing becoming abusive or illegal?

> Salience - is porn an increasing part of your life? Are you thinking about it more and making plans around it? Is time spent on porn getting in the way of your work, family or study?

> Dependency - have you tried to stop and found it very difficult? Has stopping caused irritability, depression or aggression?

> Withdrawal symptoms - when you don’t use porn for a while for whatever reason, do you get cravings?

> Preoccupation - are you becoming obsessed with sex and beginning to objectify the people you meet in everyday life as sex objects?

> Secretiveness - are you telling lies about your use of porn?

> Preference - are you choosing porn over partnered sex or the possibility of it or of other forms of fun? (For example, your mates are going on to a club but you choose to go home and watch porn.) Are you categorisingchoosing very specific types of porn?

In the past, health professionals argued over whether porn really fitted the model of a chemical addiction, in the sense that you develop a nicotine addiction from smoking or an alcohol addiction from drinking. Increasingly, the research shows that it does. The chemical, as we saw on page 6, is dopamine and the traditional markers of a chemical addiction can all be seen: tolerance,

escalation, increased craving, withdrawal symptoms and so on. The World Health Organization classified compulsive sexual behaviour as a mental health disorder in 2018.

I’M GETTING SORE

Be careful. Yes, lubrication might help, but this is a warning sign. Watch out for swelling, bleeding, tearing and infections. Is it interfering with partnered sex? All of these are red lights. If, despite these physical side effects, you’re finding it difficult to stop masturbating, you may be developing an addiction.

I THINK I MIGHT BE DEVELOPING AN ADDICTION

Don’t panic. Your body can repair itself from even the strongest dependency, even after many years, but you need to give it time. Try to stop using porn for a month. If that is difficult, then you have a problem and need to do something about it.

Porn is a complicated addiction. It may not be easy to recover from an alcohol addiction but the principle is simple: stop drinking. Sex or porn addiction is not like that. Yes, you could stop having sex altogether, but most would prefer a healthier sex life. In this sense, porn addiction is more like an eating disorder in which you need to replace your binge eating with a healthy diet. The first thing to do is stop using porn. You may well be able to stop on your own. People give up addictions all the time without outside support.

Stopping may be relatively easy at first. This is because addictions work a little like anaesthetics. They soothe an uncomfortable emotion. Sometimes it takes a while for an anaesthetic to wear off but, a few weeks after stopping, you may see anger and other issues begin to kick in.

The question to ask yourself is: what is the uncomfortable emotion you were trying to soothe with porn and where does it come from?

Addictions can be related to:

> a lack of emotional attachment in childhood to parents or ‘primary caregivers’.

> a traumatic event such as abuse, bereavement, assault or illness. Abuse can take many forms - verbal, emotional, physical, sexual, coercive control. Boys and men can be on the receiving end of all of these as well as perpetrators. Indeed, victims of abuse may become perpetrators.

> simply having the opportunity afforded by the ready availability of the drug. We know that opportunity alone can make us addicted to drugs like nicotine and heroin. Many would say the same is true for dopamine.

What’s going on for you? Perhaps all three are involved.

HOW DO I STOP?

Recovery from any addiction is not about what you give up, but what you take up. In other words, you want to replace porn with some other thing or, preferably, a rich variety of other things.

Remember, addictions do not define us. Past behaviour does not determine future behaviour - we can always change. You can move on to bigger and better things - see page 20.

David, 37

I’ve been to hell and back with pornography. In March 2021 I had a knock on my door from five police officers. I asked what it was about and, when they told me, I must have fallen back into the hallway because the next thing I remember is a police officer holding me up. There was only me in the house. They searched top to bottom. I have never experienced fear like it. Heart pounding. Mouth dry. Ears ringing. I was in a fight-or-flight state for five days.

Since then, I have unpacked my entire life and gone through one hell of a journey, including addressing childhood abuse and trauma. A doctor recently told me a lot of addicts are people trying to feed themselves who haven’t been fed. That rang so many bells in my head.

I’ve made huge progress in therapy but have struggled to accept I’m an addict. I now do. I’ve been an addict my whole life, not just sex and porn but shopping, problem-drinking, gambling, sports, hobbies - intense infatuations which I’d then just drop when they lost their shininess.

I’m a digital native. I had a computer in my bedroom from the age of 12. Mum thought it would be good for homework and it was. But I also had access to porn and became desensitised very young. I was watching very violent porn at that age. It warps your perception of what sex is. This was long before my first sexual relationship started just before I was 18. The relationship, like others later, was very kinky. I’m sure my tastes were the result of the programming I had received when my brain was in its formative state.

At school I’d be bored and make an excuse to go to the toilets all the time to masturbate. I didn’t have porn in my pocket then, but the link between boredom, porn and masturbation was already there. A hint of ankle from a teacher would get me going. This continued through a series of boring temp jobs. Now I had thumbnails on my phone. I’d waste an hour or two a day over the course of several trips to the bathroom.

Videos, high definition and so on just made it easier and worse. I realise now I was often depressed. It didn’t affect my work. I was high-functioning. Nobody knew. You get good at hiding it. I was rarely single, bouncing from relationship to relationship, seeking validation. Some were kinky and adventurous, some more vanilla. Then, in one longer relationship where my interest in BDSM (bondage, domination, submission and masochism) wasn’t reciprocated, I started to see sex workers.

I had a knock on the door from five police officers

In lockdown I couldn’t see much of my then partner and my housemate moved home. Suddenly I was living alone. I became very depressed and felt very isolated. That’s when the porn addiction really became intense. I was trying to cheer myself up with hollow, unsatisfying orgasms which just made me feel even worse.

I’d be in online work meetings scrolling through my phone looking at porn, bookmarking compulsively for later. It was starting to intrude. No separation between work and home now. I was probably masturbating upwards of 20, 25 times a day. I was in this hollow, unsatisfying loop which takes you down a hole into more and more extreme forms of porn.

When the police called, they took all my devices. I bought a phone and messaged my partner. She thought it was some kind of a mistake. Social services got in touch and she realised it wasn’t. They scared the shit out of her. They suggested she might lose her job as a teacher and her children. But she had done nothing wrong. I had put her in that situation.

It was a serious relationship. She has a huge heart and wanted to support me.

Prior to getting ‘the knock’ we had discussed moving in together. But over the weeks after the police visit, the distance grew between us. I decided I was going to end my life. I had sorted out my finances and figured out exactly how I was going to do it. I had a bag with everything I’d need in.

My partner had got me a solicitor and he said to me very directly: ‘are you having suicidal thoughts?’ I looked down at this piece of paper on which I was noting what drugs I needed to ensure a fatal dose. Yes, I said. He gave me a number and told me to it call right away. It was a therapist. ‘When did you get the knock?’, she asked. Between the two of them, the solicitor and the therapist saved my life.

It is too easy for people to fall into pornography addiction - it can happen to anyone - and the dangers of where that addiction can lead are far in excess of many common addictions out there. I’m still under investigation two years later. There was apparently a backlog of cases already and the Lucy Faithfull Foundation told me cases like mine rose exponentially during the Covid pandemic. I have no idea when the sword will drop.

I’m concerned how warped the perception of sex must be for young people today. The surveys of what they think is sexually ‘normal’ are mind-bending. Porn is a poison.

We need to be aware of the warning signs - for me, the frequent masturbation at inappropriate times and places, compulsively saving porn for later, watching it at work, the endless cycle of relationships, the reckless behaviour.

I’ve spent my life punishing myself for things that weren’t my fault and then spent the last couple of years punishing myself for things that were my fault. I knew back in 2016 that I needed help, but it felt too big and too scary. The abuse I’d suffered from my father, I’d just put away in a dusty corner. Now I’ve been forced to address it because of where my behaviour has taken me. I wish I’d addressed it earlier.

> Cases like David’s can take years depending on where you live and the investigating police service. Experts say it’s never less than 18 months, usually more than two years and occasionally over five.

> Dopamine is a big factor in addiction. Other important brain chemicals are oxytocin, serotonin and endorphins. Usefully, they spell out DOSE. David uses a personal DOSE matrix, pictured on post-it notes left, as a daily reminder to keep all his neurotransmitters at healthy levels. A good example of how writing stuff down can help.

The solicitor and the therapist saved my life

BIGGER AND BETTER THINGS

There was a famous psychological experiment carried out in the 1970s by American psychologist, Dr Bruce Alexander.

Researchers had shown that, when rats in a cage were given the choice between two water bottles - one of water and one of water laced with heroin, they would choose the heroin until it killed them.

Alexander replaced the cage with a ‘Rat Park’ - a holiday camp for rats, full of other rats to play and have sex with, plenty of room to roam, toys and games, great food and so on - but he offered the same two water bottles. Some rats in rat park occasionally supped at the heroin-laced bottle but never to the point of death, and most of them didn’t bother with the heroin at all.

Replacing a cage with a community was the difference between life and death. In other words, you can beat addiction by getting out of your cage and into the park.

REMOVE TEMPTATION

Use porn-blocking apps, turn on ‘safe search’ on your internet browser and delete any apps that might be triggering, even YouTube.

Using your phone or computer less will help. Perhaps have a more general digital clean-up and get rid of all the apps and social media that drag your mood down.

What are your other temptations? Perhaps you need to avoid being home alone.

FIND THE POSITIVE

The best way to take a bone off a dog is not to fight with it but to give it something more exciting. What’s your something more exciting? At first, anything you do to replace porn is good, even scrolling through social media, but eventually you want to replace it with something(s) that is good for you and makes you feel good about yourself. The CAN DO challenge (see page 22) can help you find something.

EXPLORE THE FIVE WAYS TO WELLBEING

The five ways to wellbeing are five things we can all do that are scientifically proven to help us feel better.

It is through increasingly relying on one way to soothe us when stressed that we can become addicted. We need to replace that single response with a variety of different ways to boost wellbeing. The five ways are just that. See the box on the CAN DO challenge on page 22.

TRY THE CAN DO CHALLENGE

There’s plenty we CAN DO to boost our health and find meaning based on the five ways to wellbeing.

The five ways are:

> Connect - connect with other people, on or offline, in groups and one-to-one

> (Be) Active - move your body - go for a run/walk/swim/dance etc

> Notice - look up, look down, take note of the environment around you (to do this, turn off your phone for a bit)

> Discover - learn something new - this could be something major like taking a course or something everyday like reading a book or watching an instructional video

> Offer (or give) - do something for someone else - volunteer, donate, smile

The easy way to remember the five ways is by the acronym CAN DO. There’s so much we CAN DO instead of watching porn.

Create your own menu of CAN DO activities. Try to do all five in the course of a week (or a day if you like a challenge). Some activities will tick more than one box. For example, join a litter pick to connect with others, keep active, notice more, learn (what recycles) and offer something to the community.

GO WITH THE FLOW

Whatever your menu, try to include some flow activities. These are activities that you can lose yourself and become totally immersed in. Choose something healthy obviously - don’t replace one addiction with another. Find a hobby. Creative activities are particularly good. Hammering away at your guitar, throwing paint at a canvas, dancing madly, singing badly, it’s all good.

There’s more about the CAN DO approach in our manual Man MOT For The Mind. And if you need some ideas, there are dozens of possible activities in The CAN DO manual. Both manuals are in the Forum’s shop. The CAN DO manual is a free PDF download.

GIVE IT TIME

Invest as much time in your alternative recovery activities as you did on porn. Accept too, as you’ll read in our case studies, that recovery will take time.

TALK TO SOMEONE

It’s not easy to talk about porn but, if you can talk with a partner or a trusted friend, it helps. Support groups and twelve-step groups - see page 29 - can also help. As can professional therapists who specialise in this field. It’s very useful to be accountable to someone to help keep you on track.

If you really need to talk to someone but don’t have anyone around, talk to Samaritans. They’re not just for people who feel suicidal and are available 24/7.

WRITE IT DOWN

Even if you’re talking to someone (and especially if you’re not), it will help to talk honestly with yourself about what’s going on. A proven way to do this is to start a notebook or journal.

It sounds like hard work but, in fact, writing for just a few minutes a day can make a difference. If it takes off, you’ll soon be writing more. Here are some things you can write about:

> Gratitude - experts reckon we need five positive thoughts to overcome a negative one. So everyday, note one thing, big or small, that you’re grateful for. Or perhaps two. (It can be a great way to start and end the day.)

> Achievements - it’s easy to feel negative about yourself when recovering from addiction. Make a note of the good things you’ve done today at home or work that have helped you or others.

> Situations - what situations have made you stressed or angry? Why do you think that is? What could you have controlled in the situation? Top of the list might be your reaction. How can you change that in future? You could score situations from 1 to 10 depending on how stressful you find them and think about how you plan to deal with them.

> Your triggers - what are your triggers to wanting to look at porn? Notice them. Perhaps they’re related to those stressful situations.

> Beliefs about yourself - what do you believe about yourself and why do you think that is? (For example, some of us are told we’re stupid or useless in childhood and carry these messages into adulthood as core beliefs about ourselves. Even ‘good’ parents say these things sometimes and children can take them to heart.)

> Vision - what do you want your healthy porn-free life to be like? Really describe it. Positive visualisation works. You could even add some visuals to your notebook - drawings, images from online or magazines. The value of seeing the positive and accentuating the positive cannot be overemphasised.

> Sex - what would a healthy sex life look like to you now? What activities are OK? What activities are not OK? What activities are you not sure about? (For a while, there may be a few ‘iffy’ activities but eventually you need to put them in one list or the other.)

It makes a lot of sense to write about all these things. That way you can monitor changes over time. But even if you don’t write anything down (it doesn’t suit everyone), it is vital that you think about them during your recovery.

SHOULD I TALK TO MY PARTNER?

Ideally, but nobody would pretend that it is easy and the longer you wait, the tougher it is. Look at it this way: if the relationship is important to you, it’s probably better to start an open conversation than to wait until you get ‘caught’.

What often hurts your partner the most is not the behaviour, but the deceit. What else are you hiding? Sharing voluntarily, even though the reaction may be tough at first, is better than being found out and also means there is much more chance your partner will support you through recovery.

What is the connection, if any, between your relationship and your use of porn? Did it start before the relationship or during it? Are there underlying issues in the relationship that trigger use of porn? Has it affected your relationship, sex life or your attitudes to others? Considering these questions should make you better able to decide how to approach any conversation you have.

How is your partner going to feel and react? Think carefully. Anger is normal. You need to find a way you can both listen to how each other feels in a safe place with plenty of time. Again, writing things down, for both of you, may be useful. Ask for their help. A third party, like a relationship counsellor, may also help.

Having said all that, you know your relationship best. It is your decision.

MINDFUL MASTURBATION

Try masturbating without porn and without fantasising. Just focus on the job in hand, the sensations you feel, not just in your penis but in your whole body.

Think of it like this: if you’ve made a nice meal and want to enjoy it, you don’t put Master Chef on. You sit down, eat, enjoy and slowly savour. Just as savouring the flavours of your food is scientifically shown to make your taste buds more sensitive, so mindful masturbation will make your penis more sensitive and responsive. You’re reawakening the neural pathways in your brain. Move from the visual to the sensual.

In short, get out of your head and into your body. This self-discovery may even make you a better lover.

HOW DO I DEAL WITH RELAPSE?

Any smoker will tell you having ‘just one’ leads you straight back into the habit. So whatever stage you’re at in relapsing, stop. Don’t think: I’ve got this far, I may as well carry on. You can always choose to stop.

Don’t beat yourself up. Ask yourself what caused this relapse or near-relapse and learn from it. Go again.

CAN I HELP MY KIDS AVOID PROBLEMS WITH PORN?

Surveys suggest that many teens regularly watch porn - one in five in one survey. Therapist Amanda Burbridge, who works particularly with porn users under police investigation, says the youngest ‘client’ she has seen was eight years old. The youngest in the criminal justice system was just 16.

Many people, especially the media and politicians, are embarrassed or scared to talk about sex but we need to now, more than ever. That doesn’t mean that very young children need to be taught about sex acts, but they do need know what healthy relationships look like - between adults and adults, between adults and children, between children and children.

Just as we teach about healthy eating or safe drinking, we should have good public health messages on safe sexuality. It’s a vital topic as young people grow up with 24/7 porn but is beyond the scope of this book.

What is your child’s school doing?

Charities like the NSPCC can also help.

Vincent, 48

I first used porn at 12, 13. Magazines, the odd terrible-quality VHS tape. I grew up in a rural area, so there wasn’t much about and I didn’t think much of it. That continued into my 20s.

It started to become an issue in my mid-to-late 20s. The internet was now coming into homes. I started watching quite a lot. Most weekends, 3-4 times a week.

When I got into a more steady relationship, got married and had kids, it disappeared for a few years. But, after kids, intimacy was on the back burner and I turned to porn again. It started to get out of hand. I was about 41. Now we had smartphones, porn in your pocket. I was self-employed, which gave me plenty of opportunity to watch. My use began to affect my work because I was wasting so much time everyday but, at the time, I didn’t see a problem.

As frequency escalated, so the content escalated - I was watching stuff that crossed my moral boundaries. I moved into online chat, dating sites, swinging sites, hook-up sites. All easy access, any time of the day. I was chatting, sharing pix, hooking up for sex. I was being incredibly devious with my wife.

The planning and the build-up is more exciting that the actual act. You feel incredibly guilty afterwards. You try to be good and then it all starts again. I was stuck in the cycle of addiction.

Porn sites are made to get you hooked. They bombard you with super stimuli. You can consume huge amounts of content in very quick time. The little previews, it’s all there to pull you in. They try to escalate you. They know what you watched last time and the algorithms will give you a little bit more next time to get you, pushing you to more degradation and violence against women.

One day, it all came out. Suddenly the blinkers came off and I saw what I’d been doing through my wife’s eyes. A very traumatic time. It cost me my marriage. The kids live with their mum and I don’t see them as much as I used to. That was my rock bottom.

I’ve worked hard to make amends and better myself. I saw a therapist who specialised in sex addiction for about a year - that costs a lot of money, but I made some progress. It helped me to understand that addictive behaviour is often masking something else, you’re soothing yourself.

It cost me my marriage

My father left us when I was five and it tortured me for a long time. Mum had five kids, so she was busy and didn’t have the time to be emotionally available for me. She did her best, but I could have done with more. I think I was looking for this emotional connection in our marriage and it wasn’t there. Once we had children, we had a sexless marriage. So the lack of intimacy in my life continued.

I stopped everything but it wasn’t easy. Marriage break-up and the loss of my business brought a lot of stress, so you go back to your coping mechanism. I had quite a few relapses. It took about 14 months. When I first stopped the porn, I started drinking a bit more. I knocked that on the head. I knew I needed to replace it with a healthier habit.

I got involved in Paula Hall’s Pivotal Recovery Programme. I found it online as I was looking for additional support after therapy. There’s very little out there. Nothing from the NHS. I volunteered for Pivotal’s pilot study. It’s a two-month programme, all online. It was really good and it’s very affordable. You learn a huge amount. It’s a great starting point for anyone.

I retrained and went back to university. I now work in criminal justice, in offender rehabilitation.

I work with people who have committed sexual offences and most of them have varying levels of sex and porn addictions in my view. I think back to my childhood and I wonder what conversations are boys having in the playgrounds today. With such easy access to porn, I think, there’s a porn addiction epidemic of epic proportions just around the corner.

Now I have a new partner. I told her on the second date I had an issue. We have a healthy sexual relationship now and talk openly but, at first, I had no idea if I had a high or low sex drive. It took 6-8 months to regain my normal baseline sexuality.

I’ve been abstinent for two years. I get fleeting thoughts, but they’re fewer and fewer. I’m wary of the potential triggers. We can’t change the thoughts. It’s about how we react to them. Recovery doesn’t end because you have stopped. You’re in recovery forever as with any drug.

I retrained and went back to university

SOURCES OF SUPPORT

THERAPISTS

There’s little support available on the NHS for porn addiction and private therapy is not for everyone, not least because it can be expensive. If you do go for therapy, do your research. As we’ve seen, porn is a complex addiction and not all therapists will be suitable. (See Kyle’s story on page 11.)

For therapists with particular experience in this area, the ASTAC (the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Addiction and Compulsivity) may be a place to start. Relationship counselling service Relate may also be useful if you want support within your relationship.

RECOVERY GROUPS

Recovery groups bring together those with the same addiction in a safe space to talk and provide mutual support. They can be online or in person.

Some of these follow the 12-step model first used in Alcoholics Anonymous. For porn addiction, these groups include Sex Addicts Anonymous (SAA) and Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous (SLA). Each has a slightly different emphasis, so you’ll need to explore further to see which suits you best.

NoFap is a paid-for sexual health peer support platform designed to help you overcome porn addiction. There are other groups that don’t use the 12-step model such as SMART recovery.

BOOKS AND WEBSITES

There are some useful books on porn addiction including Paula Hall’s Understanding and Treating Sex and Pornography Addiction which is for users (and therapists) and Sex Addiction: The Partner’s Perspective for partners. Another popular book (and website) is Your Brain On Porn by Gary Wilson.

PIVOTAL RECOVERY

Run by experienced sex therapist Paula Hall, Pivotal Recovery is an affordable, anonymous 60-day online, therapy-based programme designed to help you quit porn addiction, sex addiction and compulsive sexual behaviours. Vincent (page 27) took part in the programme’s pilot. (www.pivotalrecovery.org)

ILLEGAL IMAGES

> The Lucy Faithfull Foundation (lucyfaithfull.org.uk), a UK-wide charity dedicated to preventing child sexual abuse, provides helps and support for men and women of all ages who have offended online.

> Safer Lives (saferlives.com) also offer specialist, confidential support during investigations into online sexual offences.

> StopSO (stopso.org.uk), the UK’s specialist treatment organisation for perpetrators and survivors of sexual offending, works with offenders and those at risk of turning thought into action.

Jon, 60

I think I discovered masturbation and porn about the same time as I discovered I wasn’t quite as happy as I had been. A friend at school seemed to have a constant supply. Not hard-core, just naked women. I liked it. The girls were always smiling. I was anxious and insecure. Masturbation became my go-to stress relief. Whether I had porn or not wasn’t the issue.

This continued once I began sexual relationships: sex supplemented with regular masturbation. Was I unusual? Probably not, but it was never talked about.

The thing wasn’t the frequency - usually once a day - but the meaning of masturbation for me. It wasn’t just sexual release. I was using it to deal with low mood and low self-esteem.

It was like this for a long time.

Then, as my long-term partner and I got older, we were having sex less. I was finding it more difficult to get an erection both with my partner and alone. Obviously I’d always known there were naked women online, so one day I took a look. I got an erection. I began spending longer on it. Drowning in images. I even found a website with scans of the magazines I’d seen as a teenager. This added nostalgia to the mix.

After a while I found myself watching sex acts, although nothing I hadn’t done myself. But I knew the sites were trying to push me to harder material. I resisted. Simply using porn was shameful to me. I began to avoid the sites and use search engines to find images.

But I could draw all the lines in the sand I wanted. The fact was that I was doing it more and my partner and I were doing it less. I was only half-present in the relationship. I could feel a barrier between us. The secrecy. But I couldn’t say anything.

I felt even worse about myself and, before long, it all stopped working anyway. I went from occasional erection difficulties, like many men in their 50s, to a permanent problem. Now I couldn’t get an erection even with or without porn. I was in stalemate. I felt that I’d broken myself and my relationship.

I was lashing out. My partner and I had an almighty row. She even hit me to try to provoke a reaction. And I told her what had been going on.

I was using it to deal with low self-esteem

I haven’t used porn since and rarely masturbate alone but, even two years on, I still sometimes trip over it in my head. You can’t unsee things or stop your imagination. We have an improving sex life. Things are beginning to feel normal again. I’m very lucky she has stuck by me - a real act of love - and she never uses my behaviour against me when we argue.

Porn is not a solution to erection problems

You don’t have to be watching dark material for years on end, for hours at a time. I became addicted very quickly in my 50s. Sexy women smiling are just very seductive and the pornographers know this.

But, to the older men out there, I’d say this: porn is not a solution to erection problems or any other problem in your life or your sex life, it is a cause of them. Choose meaningful relationships, rather than the easy option of meaningless porn. Make the time for intimacy: listening, touching, foreplay. It’s so much better.

IT’S YOUR CALL

There are many drugs that many people choose not to take. They don’t do this for moral reasons or because they believe the drugs won’t be fun or exciting. They do it because they know the drugs are highly addictive.

Whether you think the cocktail of porn and dopamine is one of these drugs is your choice.

But whatever you do, bear this in mind: however enticing those websites or apps may look, they are not your friends. They are pushers and they want to get you hooked.

YOUR CHECKLIST

> Do you think about porn while doing something else and look forward to it?

> Do you feel you need more porn each time to get the same enjoyment?

> Have you made efforts to cut back on porn?

> Do you use porn for longer than intended?

> Have you put porn before more important things like relationships or work?

> Have you lied to others about your involvement with porn?

> Do you use porn as a way of escaping from problems or difficult feelings?

HOW OFTEN DO YOU ANSWER YES?

Answer every question ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Be honest with yourself. Just one ‘Yes’ is a warning sign. You can use the boxes below to monitor your changing relationship with porn, how you feel about it and how it is making you feel. If you’re concerned in any way at all, read the booklet again…

Date: No. of ‘YES’es What I think about my relationship with porn right now…

WHAT NEXT?

Life is often fast and full on, affecting our health and wellbeing. We all need to spot when we’re stressed, anxious, pissed off or angry and figure out what’s causing it. Is what you’re doing online (and the time you spend on it) making you happy or snappy? The sooner we spot these things, the sooner we can do something about it and preventing it getting worse.

There’s lots more at www.menshealthforum.org.uk and in our shop at shop.menshealthforum.org.uk including lots of FREE downloads.

OTHER MAN MANUALS

Man MOT: www.menshealthforum.org.uk/MOT

The Man Manual: www.menshealthforum.org.uk/MM

Man MOT for the Mind: www.menshealthforum.org.uk/MMM

Beat Stress, Feel Better: www.menshealthforum.org.uk/BSFB

Serious Drinking: www.menshealthforum.org.uk/SD

Diabetes For Men: www.menshealthforum.org.uk/DFM

Man To Man (gay men’s health): www.menshealthforum.org.uk/MTM

Size Isn’t Everything (penis health): www.menshealthforum.org.uk/SIE

All rights reserved. You must not reproduce or transmit any part of this booklet in any form or in any way without written permission from the Men’s Health Forum. This includes photocopying or scanning it.

The authors and the publisher have taken care to make sure that the advice given in this edition is correct at the time of publication. We advise you to read and understand the instructions and information included with all medicines and to carefully consider whether a treatment is worth taking. The authors and the publisher have no legal responsibility for the results of treatments, misuse or overuse of the remedies in this book or their level of success in individual cases.

The author and the publisher do not intend this book to be used instead of advice from a medical practitioner, which you should always get for any symptom or illness.

PORN FREE

Pornography is as old the human race. It has been found in cave paintings. Today, there’s a lot of it about. That can lead us to think it must be very ‘normal’. And in a way it is, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t affecting our health. Free online porn 24/7 has massively increased the risk.

Porn Free: Pornography and Men’s Health answers men’s common questions. It explains how online porn works, how it can affect your brain chemistry and how it can affect many other aspects of your life. It will help you identify if you have a problem with porn and what you can do about it.

Whatever your age, the key message is: understand what you’re dealing with. Read the booklet. Learn more. Get support.

This short, punchy, easy-to-read manual written by Jim Pollard is full of simple, practical information that will improve the health of pretty much anyone.

Much-needed info on a common taboo - gritty and very practical

WARNING: Reading this booklet could seriously improve your health.

ISBN: 978-1-906121-45-7

www.menshealthforum.org.uk