The 10 Substitutes of Porn that You Should Avoid at All Costs
Are you familiar with all of them?
1. Social media
Let’s get the main one out of the way first, should we?
Social media is a big fat thirst trap and we all know it.
I’m not sure how it came to that (it all happened so gradually I barely noticed), but somewhere along the way apps like Instagram — once home to artsy photographs, selfies with friends, and little more — were taken by a storm of sexualized content from all sorts of established and wannabe influencers, models, and sex workers with OnlyFans links in their bios.
Then those damn recommendation algorithms did the rest. They figured out our weaknesses and exploited the hell out of them. Sure, the algorithm isn’t intrinsically evil — it only recommends to me what catches my attention, but here’s the thing: as a recovering porn addict, I do NOT want to see what I’m craving.
Others might be able to enjoy these apps safely; for me, it was hard. If as a teenager I could masturbate nonstop to the perfectly modest pictures that my girl friends would post on MySpace, what wouldn’t I do with all that’s available these days on Instagram and TikTok?
So once I saw my feed turn into an erotic catalog, and realized how doomscrolling it was an almost sure way to lure myself into a relapse, one thing became clear: in order to successfully quit porn, I had to stay away from most social media — at least for the time being.
If you can relate to that, I suggest you do the same.
2. Dating apps
Second only to social media, dating apps such as Tinder are like Instagram on steroids.
Not only is the content there just as sexualized, if not more, but the girls happen to be around me and down to fuck. This makes the wild scenarios that I would play in my head while I masturbated feel much more real (even if the girls I would fantasize about were the ones I had zero chances to match with).
Swiping on Tinder became a problem in itself. Even when it didn’t escalate into porn, I was still capable of jerking off to those profiles for hours on end. What’s worse, using these apps was a habit that I could not afford to give up completely, because at the time having an active dating life was a goal as important to me as quitting porn.
I became so addicted to dating apps that even after I got into a relationship I continued using them — swiping left on everybody, just for fapping material. Admittedly, this was incredibly insulting to my partner, and you can imagine the kind of drama that ensued when she caught me red-handed…
Bottom line is, learn from my mistakes and use these apps with caution.
3. Drawing a portrait of your cute classmate then attaching it to a naked body you drew from a picture you found on Google
Yes, I’ve done this… and now with AI, everybody can do it too!
But seriously, don’t do it — it’s as terrible of an idea as it sounds.
4. Masturbation
Masturbation is a whole topic in itself, and there’s no shortage of people out there selling abstinence as the solution to all of your problems.
Not me.
I think masturbating is perfectly healthy and I even recommend you incorporate it in your process, particularly if you’re not sexually active otherwise. Quitting porn is hard enough without being horny all day because you’re doing NoFap or semen retention. I know I’ve definitely had much more success in my attempts to quit porn when I gave up those practices than when I was trying them out.
However, that’s not to say that masturbation is fine always and under any circumstances — which is why it made it into this list. When done compulsively, masturbating can become a pretty close substitute for porn, leading to the same kind of unhealthy dependency and resulting in many of the same negative consequences.
Don’t fall into that trap: fap for fun, fap as a tool, but never fap as a substitute!
5. Fantasies
A healthy masturbating agenda can still be problematic if done wrong.
You might masturbate only every once in a while and for sexual release, but if every time you’re doing it you’re thinking about porn, then you’re not quitting porn, my friend.
I’ve personally struggled a lot with this one through the years. I would think about porn constantly, manage to fight the urges to watch it, then feel proud of the streak I had built — even though during that period I had been masturbating to the memory of videos I’d watched in my last relapse.
It’s easy to see the holes in this logic. It’s the same reasoning that, taken to the extreme, has people edging for hours to porn thinking it’s ok as long as they don’t come. The truth is, you won’t overcome your addiction if porn is in your head every time you masturbate or have sex.
Focus instead on the present moment, on your body sensations, on your real (or imagined) partner: you’ll find the whole experience much more enjoyable that way.
6. Asking other users for nudes while pretending to be a girl in a lesbian chatroom
Never again. Come on, it reeks of desperation. It’s the equivalent of pawning your grandma’s jewelry for a nugget of crack.
Plus all those other lesbians that you are masturbating to are also dudes.
7. Softcore material
Quitting porn can sometimes trigger an interesting form of age regression.
The first few times I tried to stay away from porn I would always end up resorting to the kind of stuff that would turn me on as an early teenager, when Internet porn wasn’t so easily available. I would masturbate to sex scenes in movies and TV shows, browse through swimwear and lingerie catalogs, look up NSFW wallpapers online… anything that was arousing but did not technically violate the terms and conditions of my recovery.
R-rated movies, certain subreddits and forums, hentai, erotic novels, magazines… the list is infinite, but just because it isn’t hardcore porn does not mean it can’t be bad for you.
Don’t get me wrong, the point here isn’t to live an ascetic life like you’re some sort of monk.
The point is to be introspective enough to recognize what triggers you and what doesn’t, then stay away from the things that do — no matter how harmless they might seem to an outsider.
8. Frequenting your local brothel so much that…
…you end up falling in love with sweet Stacey. She’s a stunning beauty with silky blonde hair and the longest legs at the bar. But she’s not like the others. No, Stacey is a cute and innocent girl that just happened to be born into a broken home.
Then in between lap dances she opens up to you about her ambitions in life, and you resolve to rescue her from the underworld she inhabits and help her pursue her dream of becoming a Hollywood star. The problem is, when her pimp Mikhail gets word of her plans to leave, he demands the incredible sum of one hundred thousand dollars for her freedom, and threatens to break her long legs if she tries to escape.
This puts you in a delicate situation. There’s just no way you can pay off her debt. Not because you don’t have the money — you’re a millionaire, after all — but because everybody that knows you knows that you live by two rules: 1) never call the police and 2) never, ever pay extortionists. So forced to take matters into your own hands you decide to dust off your nunchucks and charge into the club, knocking out henchmen left and right, and beating the final boss Mikhail with a karate mortal kick in the face.
As you drive away in your beastly motorcycle, with bruised knuckles and a blood-stained shirt, sweet Stacey snug behind you with her silky blonde hair swept away by the wind, you start to think how this whole ordeal might have actually been even worse than watching porn.
9. Porn addiction recovery resources
Let the guy with a porn addiction recovery newsletter tell you about this one.
When you are starting this journey, reading up on porn addiction and joining a community are definitely great steps to take. It will help you understand your situation better, give you plenty of useful tools, boost your motivation and make you feel understood. But there’s a fine line between being involved in your process and turning it into your whole personality.
I walk that line all the time. Not only do I write this newsletter, but I’m also active on social media and other online groups. Porn addiction recovery is an important part of my life — more so now than when I first started — but I’m always mindful of the time that I spend on it and give myself a break from it when I need it.
Try to do the same.
Remember that, ultimately, the goal is to build a new life free from the constant presence of porn.
10. Other addictions
Out of all the substitutes on this list, this one’s by far the most dangerous.
Videogames, weed, alcohol, even controlled substances… it’s not uncommon for porn to become a gateway drug into more serious addictions.
What this transition reveals is an important truth about porn addiction: it’s not that different from other addictions. At the end of the day, it’s only the result of using a potentially addictive behavior — watching porn — to cope with negative feelings like anxiety, stress, or depression. That’s why, if you don’t do anything to deal with those core feelings, quitting porn might simply mislead you into a new addiction.
Behind this truth lies the real nature of all substitutes. Every single one of them is an alternative coping mechanism. Some might make you relapse into porn, others have the potential to turn into their own condition. All of them are ways to keep your addiction alive.
Only once you understand this will you realize that porn is just one of many villains, and that the only superhero that can save you from them all is yourself.
What’s in your math folder?
Do you regularly fall into any of these substitutes?
Did reading this story help you identify more?
What truly defines a substitute is the impact it has on your recovery. If you’re indulging in something that leads you into relapses or similar binges, allowing it just because it’s not porn is a way to lie to yourself and hinder your progress.
Try to identify all of your substitutes and invest as much time and effort into avoiding them as you do with porn.
Share your insights in the comments below, on social media, or in your favorite porn addiction community, and if you know others that are struggling with porn, help them by sharing a link to this story.
Let’s start a conversation!
Hi, this is James! Thank you for reading!
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