Question
I am a 19 year old college student. I have never had sex, but I spend hours watching porn. I have been trying to stop it but I cannot last more than a week. I usually masturbate while watching the porn videos. I want to gain control over the amount I watch, but I don't know how.
Answer
What you're asking me isn't actually about porn videos. Nor is it about masturbation. What you want is a life lesson on the secret of self-control. That's just another way of asking about how to break a habit. Moralists might call it a question of character.
It helps to understand that the brain is hard-wired for habit formation. Say, for example, you had no habit pattern about getting out of bed. You would have to decide whether to look at the clock or not, switch off the alarm or not, pull back the duvet first, or not, put one foot or two on the ground - I won't go on, you get the picture. And that's just the practical bits. Imagine if the birdsong or traffic noise outside was just as relevant to you as the alarm clock, or your mother's voice calling. The point is, habits are not just about what we do. Habits are also about prioritising. You'd forget the video, not to mention the masturbation, if the house went on fire.
This is all by way of saying that habits are necessary for survival. They are also necessary for sanity. Faced with all the choices all the time and we'd be immobilised, mind and body. Why this is relevant to your question is simple. Habits are formidable opponents, when we wish to change. That is particularly true when they are pleasurable. It take determination, effort, patience, endurance, and the upbeat capacity to try again when our efforts fail, as they almost invariably will when we're just beginning the battle, or suffer stress, or get too sure of ourselves and think we no longer have to try.
The rules are simple. Find enjoyable things to do with your time, which helps fill in the gaps and makes you more cheerful. Take up some hard physical activity, which creates the ‘happy hormones' in the brain and gives you a better mind/body balance or harmony. Lose the loner status, which I think is lurking in the background somewhere, since viewing lots of porn is usually a lonely preoccupation. If it didn't sound unkind, I'd say try and get a life. What I mean, and it carries no unkindness whatsoever, is that long hours of porn means a person is unhappy and somewhat lost.
Specify an alternative behaviour which you'll use as a substitute when you're tempted to reach for the porn. And tackle the habit at an early stage in the chain of events. In this case, go out for a drink, or meet pals at the cinema or help your mother in the kitchen, or whatever, when you're tempted to search for the porn site on the computer - or whichever way you view it.
Finally, I believe cold turkey is easier than controlled behaviour - like giving up the booze rather than trying to limit the number of pints. But that depends, amongst other things, on why you want to change. Do you dislike the whole notion of porn? Or are you worried that you using it as a substitute for love and companionship and fun and friendship? Think about it.
