The Death of my Porn Addiction
How Covid lockdown killed my 15-year-old addiction to porn.
When you live in a 400-square-foot studio apartment, you get to hear everything, all the time: a humming noise coming from the fridge in the kitchenette, the ticking of an alarm clock on the bedside table. From here, the water raining down on the shower pan sounds almost as strong as if I was in there with my girlfriend. The best cellmate in the world can’t change the fact that you are in prison. In the middle of a lockdown caused by the worst pandemic in a century, we are only allowed to step out of this place for groceries and to throw away the trash.
The fact that I can clearly hear my girlfriend in the shower only means that she can probably listen in on what’s happening around here, and that puts me in a dangerous situation. You see, a few months ago my girlfriend and I agreed that I would stop watching porn. We both understood how it was at the core of the erectile dysfunction that I had been struggling with for more than a year. Cutting porn out seemed like a necessary step to keep moving our relationship forward, so I promised to stay away from it for good. And that’s exactly why I need to be extra careful now, as I lay here on the couch, one hand under my pants, the other holding the phone where I’m watching two curvy Latinas take turns to hop in and out of an oversized penis.
The reality of how despicable this is doesn’t escape me, you know. I just try not to think about it. As I switch to a video of a pretended college dorm party gone wild, I can’t help but think about how easy it would be to blame it all on the stress caused by the lockdown situation. But no, not really. To be honest, being confined didn’t affect me that much. I can work remotely and the introvert in me doesn’t mind the isolation. If anything, my life got more comfortable. I get to wake up late, finish work early, be in my underwear all day, and so on and so forth. No, my life isn’t crumbling and falling apart — it’s just as good as it ever was. Or it would, if I could jerk off to porn all day freely, that is.
A woman is about to sit on a greased-up Sybian on my phone when I hear my girlfriend turning off the water and opening the shower curtains. That’s the sign that my time is running out, but that’s ok, there’s not much to do. This was never a race I started with the intention of crossing the finish line — I can’t afford that while she is around. No, this was more of a short walk to the park. A test drive on a convertible. Or a quick fix for a junkie, if you’d rather put it that way. I scroll down an infinite amount of video previews until I find a good one to kill these last few seconds. I click on it, the sound of a towel rubbing against the skin in the background.
The video turns out to be great. It’s one of those few times where the performers look like they are actually having fun. I don’t have much time, so I fast forward to the thick of it, and it’s everything I had anticipated and more. I can barely hold my excitement when they switch to one of my favorite positions. Knowing these are the last moments I’ll have to enjoy my videos today, I let myself get carried away for an instant — and then it’s too late. All of a sudden I can feel how I reach the point of no return at the exact same time that my girlfriend opens the bathroom door.
She steps out of the bathroom just behind me, as I’m laying down, six feet away, ejaculating while using the back of the couch for cover. I hear a friendly “Hey, what you up to?”. I’m trying to contain with my hand the fluids pumping out into my pants. I poke my head out of the back of the couch, red as a tomato, say “Hey, not much. Waiting for you to finish so that I can use the bathroom, too”. Then, as soon as she leans into the wardrobe to grab some clothes, I spring up the couch, sneak behind her back into the bathroom and close the door, relieved. It’s my time now for a much-needed shower.
As I clean the mess, I hear my girlfriend playing Lion Babe in the bedroom. Tonight, when she initiates sex, I’ll tell her that I’m a bit too tired to do anything. That the stress of this lockdown is really starting to get to me.
My relationship with porn has always been, well… complicated.
I discovered Internet porn as an early teenager and found in it a perfect way to cope with my problems. Social anxiety, low self-esteem, fear of intimacy… A porn video can help you evade that adolescent angst for a while — constant hours of pornography can repress it forever. I gradually spiraled into longer and longer binges that would leave me an emotional zombie. Too scared to face my insecurities, I followed this pattern for years, avoiding any personal development and pushing my body to its limit.
It wasn’t until my early twenties that I started to gradually get out of that hole. Even though my porn use never ceased entirely, it did decrease as I made positive changes in my life: a busier social life, my first dating experiences, an improved self-esteem. Yet you don’t get to heal a wound that’s been open for years in just a couple of months. Becoming sexually active only opened a door to a new set of problems. I struggled to maintain erections and my performance anxiety prevented me from staying present and enjoying myself with my partners.
It was during this time that I met my girlfriend, and it was like pushing a kid into a pool to teach him how to swim. My erectile dysfunction persisted and it wasn’t until months into the relationship that things started to be “functional”. However, even as my erections got more reliable, up in my head sex continued to be a source of anxiety and discomfort. Underlying all of this was a porn habit that I had never managed to kill completely. When I opened up to my girlfriend about it, it seemed obvious how porn was still affecting me and hindering our sex life. We agreed that removing porn from my life was essential if we wanted to make any real progress in our relationship.
If you are a casual consumer of porn, you might be surprised to read just how hard it can be for someone like me to stop watching it. Even at a point in my life where porn wasn’t so prevalent anymore, I found it extremely difficult to go without it for more than ten days in a row (in my worst years, I’m sure I couldn’t have come even close to a week). Relapses were pretty common, so much so that I got into the habit of hiding them to avoid hurting my girlfriend. Yet as much as I tried, there was no way to conceal the effect it was having on us. Our sex life continued to struggle and every inch of progress came only after a mile of pain. The way things were going, it seemed like my issue was wreaking havoc at a much faster pace than I could work to overcome it. Our relationship was running out of steam.
It felt like we needed a miracle.
In March 2020, my country implemented a general lockdown in response to the worst pandemic in over a hundred years. My girlfriend and I decided she would pick up some of her stuff and move into my little studio to spend that time together. According to the restrictions in place, we could only leave the house for groceries or medical emergencies. Ahead of us, an uncertain number of weeks during which we were essentially going to be together all day, every day.
Going into that lockdown was like being put into a rehab clinic. All of a sudden I found myself under constant surveillance, the opportunities to relapse into porn drastically reduced. Unfortunately, though, bad habits always find a way. My girlfriend going out for groceries, taking a shower, or waking up a few minutes after I did were windows of opportunity for me to fall back into my old patterns. These chances being so few and far between only made them that much more triggering. Like a horny Pavlov’s dog, I soon built the association and automatically felt urged to watch porn every time I had two seconds to be alone — similar to what I had felt as a teenager every time my parents left the house.
There is a reason rehab clinics complement a patient’s confinement with an intense schedule of therapy sessions. In a stroke of lucidity, I decided to use all that idle time from lockdown to work on myself and that made all the difference. When did my problems start? What did porn really mean to me? How did watching it make me feel? I liked to picture an old man across the room, serious expression behind circular glasses, listening to me intently and taking notes as I navigated through my inner self. I realized how I was using porn as a coping mechanism, and learned to recognize the feelings that pulled me back into it time and time again.
I decided to take up meditation, and I found in it a great way to deal with my urges and calm myself when I felt stressed. I leaned on my girlfriend, who was incredibly supportive throughout the whole process, helping me help myself and holding me accountable. I tried to exercise at home every day, and even started to eat healthier. I basically went all in, determined to improve myself and come out of this situation a better person.
And, little by little, things started to pick up. I learned healthier ways to cope with my stress and anxiety. I was able to be more and more present during sex. I felt more confident and self-aware. More in control. My urges to watch porn declined, and stringing together days without it became much easier. Yet that was only the tip of the iceberg. Below it was a shift of mindset that changed the way I thought about porn and intimacy. This time, it felt like I was finally making real progress.
When the lockdown ended 98 days later, I felt renewed. I walked out of that tiny studio like Goku coming back from the Hyperbolic Time Chamber. More than two months had gone by since the last time I had watched porn, and I didn’t miss it at all. I now understood the issues behind my addiction and knew that porn would never be an answer to them. Our sex life was much better: we’d already had a few great experiences and I was eager to keep making improvements. Overall, the road ahead of us seemed exciting and we felt hopeful about our future.
Malcolm X once wrote that he would put prison only second to college as the best place for a man to go if he needs to do some thinking. “If he’s motivated, in prison he can change his life”. Lockdown gave me the opportunity to change mine, and I took it. Against all odds, those challenging times ended up setting the perfect stage for me to overcome my issues. It took a once-in-a-lifetime global pandemic to force me to meet my demons, but I sure fought them with all I had. More than ten years after that angsty teenager fell into its clutches, I got to witness what once had seemed almost impossible: the death of my porn addiction.
It’s been over a year now, and life is good. I relapsed once more but overall managed to keep my hands and my head away from porn. My relationship with sex has improved a great deal. I’m now able to relax, be present, and enjoy being intimate with my partner on a regular basis.
Looking back at lockdown, I see a transformational period. In a challenging time and coming from a desperate situation, I was able to find myself and find peace. I’ve since lost some of that peace in the stress of the busier day-to-day life post-lockdown, but the main lessons I learned during that time remain with me.
Lockdown helped put an end to my problems with porn, but I know the experience was very different for others. Pornography use spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly in the countries where stricter lockdowns were enforced. Pornhub, arguably the biggest name in the industry, reported an 11.6% increase in its worldwide traffic by March 17th, when many countries around the globe were immersed in the first wave of the virus. In a time of fear, boredom, and isolation, many people tried to seek refuge in porn. For some of them, it marked the beginning of a toxic relationship.
That’s why, now more than ever, we need to raise awareness about the issue of porn addiction. Understand the risks of porn when consumed irresponsibly. Have open conversations that don’t demonize or stigmatize. Help those that are suffering from compulsive behaviors. With the right information, younger generations will be able to make informed decisions. And with the right support, those that are currently struggling with porn addiction won’t have to wait until the next pandemic to overcome it.
What’s in your math folder?
How did lockdown affect your porn addiction?
Was it an opportunity to work on your issues, or did it make things worse?
Are you now in a context where you can effectively make progress?
Your environment plays a very important role in your recovery. Be especially self-aware during challenging times, and put yourself as much as possible in situations that work in your favor. Avoid stress and isolation, seek accountability and comfort.
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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