Perhaps the massive cultural assumption and recent Joseph Gordon Levitt film had you convinced, but a recent study found there's really no evidence for such a thing as porn addiction. It may have an effect on our desires and, perhaps, how often we masturbate, but at most it's just going to be something you really, really like.
Sex and love blog Nerve explains:
Dr. David Ley, author of a new study in the
Current Sexual Health Reports
, says that slapping the label of porn addict on net smut enthusiasts is not only missing the point, but ignoring the benefits of watching porn. Ley contends that fewer than two in every five research articles about high frequency sexual behavior describe it as being an addiction, and furthermore, a limiting 27 percent of articles on porn addiction actually contain any empirical data. In fact, in studies, there's been no evidence of any of the commonly hyped life-crushing negative effects of porn addiction, like erectile dysfunction and brain rewiring.
While there's such a thing as looking at porn too often or, perhaps, gaining the wrong idea of what all sex should be like through pornography's instruction, there's no evidence for an actual addiction. Like anything enjoyable (e.g. chocolate cake, hot showers, actual sex), porn has its pros and cons. If you think you watch too much, you're not an addict. You don't need to go cold turkey. Just do it a little less. Use your imagination a little more. Don't go pay a company to shame you and break you of your "addiction." Studies have yet to prove such a thing exists and but a lot less trouble finding the opposite.
Surprising Study Finds Porn Addiction Doesn't Actually Exist | Nerve