These things will stop you from recovering.

You might not be using porn anymore, but are you still cheating yourself out of full recovery? A subscriber requested that I cover "porn adjacent" content or "porn substitutes", as I call them. Here we go.

Anon's words are in italics. My comments and responses are in bold.

Would you do a video on "porn adjacent" content and why it needs to be avoided too? That's my nickname for things that affect similar pathways as porn in the brain that could impede recovery but that we don't necessarily realize are still things that can interfere with recovering our full function.

I call those things "porn substitutes". Stuff that may not be technically porn but that is lighting up your neural sexual pathways in very similar ways. Some examples include:

• sexting
• reading or listening to erotica
• looking through dating apps or social media for stimulating content
• engaging in porn-inspired fantasy
• trying to recreate ideas from porn in real life

I saw your video of why intermittent use of porn is still very harmful.

In case the readers want to know:

It occurred to me that my recovery had been stalled for a long time by activities that I didn't realize were still reinforcing the same brain pathways. I had figured if I was drawing images of nude women engaging in sex acts, writing erotica from my own imagination, or "meditating" and focusing on sexual fantasy. I "wasn't actually watching porn" so that my mind would recover, but in effect, it was the equivalent of an addict creating his own underground pharmacy.

It's true that these behaviors can hold you back from seeing the benefits you're hoping for. It's not that all sexuality is bad, but especially in the early days of recovery your brain will be searching anywhere for its fix. If you're giving it that fix, then your brain won't learn that it can do just fine without it, and you'll have a much harder time rewiring yourself for healthy sexuality down the road.

I'd like to be clear that fantasy and masturbation don't have to be off the table forever. But often before you can relearn how to engage with these things healthfully, you need enough time completely celibate to know that you don't need sexual stimulation. But it's alright to want it.

See this video of mine for more on fantasy and masturbation.

Now, I'm focusing on hobbies that avoid ALL sexual stimulation. Anything I write or even look at has to be SFW, and I do not masturbate at all. I even talked about this with my wife. Fortunately, she is a very understanding kind of person, and I told her that means I ought to not even receive oral sex since my mind has to go into fantasy land to orgasm. Basically, the only thing I want to be able to sate sexual desire is her, but that means in the short term, there may be times I fail to finish, as my standard "method" was focusing on intense fantasy to get me there.

I think that's a very good choice. Cutting out all sexual stimulation that's not vanilla intercourse may reduce your sexual pleasure in the short term, but over time it will allow your sensitivity to increase, as well as rewire your desire for being present and intimate with your wife, rather than caught up in your own fantasies.

I didn't realize that may be the reason why sometimes I need to use Viagra, as I had assumed it was just due to being in my 40s. But my health and testosterone level are excellent, so logically, I ought to be able to be as solid and consistently so, as I could get in my early 20's, before I used a lot of porn. I'm not that old yet and I shouldn't need pills ever, and my testosterone, free testosterone, and blood pressure are normal.

I'm no doctor and haven't examined you of course, but from what you've written I believe the most likely explanation is the lingering effects of your porn use (and more recent porn substitute use). If you stay the course you've described, then you'll probably see the benefits within a few months. After you have recovered your full sensitivity and libido for your wife, you can gradually experiment with introducing other sexual activities into your intimacy together--or even experiment with fantasy and masturbation. Just make sure that you don't fall back into your old compulsive sexual patterns, because no matter how long you're pornfree, that part of you will still be there, waiting for its moment.

The other thing I'd like to address today is porn substitutes that aren't actually sexual in nature. These are things you do to fill the emotional or energetic void left by porn. Maybe you used porn as a solution to boredom, loneliness, stress, etc. Whatever your demons or struggles were that pushed you to porn, you're going to have to find healthier ways to cope with them. Otherwise, you can just end up substituting other potentially harmful behaviors like:

• alcohol or substance use
• excessive media use (video games, short-form video content, etc.)
• gambling
• binge eating

While these aren't likely to greatly impede your recovery from porn-induced sexual dysfunctions, they will keep you in a compulsive state of mind, unable to directly confront and cope with discomfort and distress. If you're keen to avoid this cycle, then get started here.