How Porn Can Ruin Your Sex Life

Always young. Always beautiful. Always new. Porn keeps dopamine surging in the brain. But at what point does chronic stimulation become chronic dissatisfaction?

If you’re married and using Internet porn regularly, your sex life—the one with your wife—is probably a lot less satisfying than it could be.

You probably know that from an evolutionary standpoint, a man is rewarded for spreading his seed. But your wedding vows have an evolutionary purpose, too: they increase the chances that your joint offspring will have two caregivers, thus improving the odds that your genes will survive.

Internet porn, it turns out, messes with both these instincts. The endless variety and overstimulation may initially help you get more excited during sex, but over time it has the opposite effect: porn can dull your ability to please, and be pleased by, your partner.

When free, streaming porn became available, psychiatrist Norman Doidge, in The Brain That Changes Itself, noticed something unsettling among his porn-using patients:

They reported increasing difficulty in being turned on by their actual sexual partners, spouses, or girlfriends, though they still considered them objectively attractive. When I asked if this phenomenon had any relationship to viewing pornography, they answered that it initially helped them get more excited during sex but over time had the opposite effect.

Today’s porn can dampen your sexual responsiveness to your partner by over-activating three brain mechanisms. First, an ancient biological program in the brain overrides natural satiety when there are lots of mates begging to be sexed. Your brain perceives each new individual on your screen as a valuable genetic opportunity. Second, too much stimulation can numb the pleasure response of the brain for a time, pumping up cravings for more novel stimuli. Therefore, a familiar mate—your spouse—appears less and less enticing. And finally, too much stimulation of the brain’s sex and mating circuitry obstructs the mammalian instinct toward monogamy.

The result? Indifference.

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Meet the Coolidge Effect (or, What You Have in Common With an Oversexed Rat)

Consider what happens when you drop a male rat into a cage with a receptive female rat. First, there’s a sexual frenzy. Half a dozen copulations later, the fireworks fizzle. Even if she wants more, he’s not interested. His brain chemistry whispers, “Roll over and snore.” However, if a new female shows up, his exhaustion will miraculously fade long enough for him to gallantly attempt his fertilization duties. You can repeat this process with fresh females until the male nearly dies of exhaustion.

His renewable virility is not indicative of an insatiable libido. Nor does it increase his wellbeing—although it may look (and temporarily feel to him) that way. He goes after each new female because of surges of dopamine in his brain. They command him to leave no willing female unfertilized.

Scientists know this biological program as the Coolidge Effect.

Dopamine, the “gotta get it!” neurochemical behind all motivation, is central. Without it we wouldn’t bother to court, pursue climax, or even eat. When dopamine drops, so does motivation.

The more the rat copulates with the same female, the less dopamine he gets for his efforts—until he heads for the recliner, toting the remote.

Consider this graph. The fifth time a rat copulates with the same female, it takes him 17 minutes to get off. But if he keeps switching to novel females, he can do his duty in less than two minutes, five times in a row.

Unlike rats, humans are pair bonders. We’re wired, on average, to raise offspring together. But that doesn’t mean the Coolidge Effect isn’t strong in us, too. One man said,

I watched a documentary on guys with extremely expensive “love dolls.” One guy had so many that he was running out of room in his home. Even though these were dolls, he had already started to see them as girls he had spent enough time with. Probably why guys collect so much porn. I thought I was amassing some wonderful database of pleasure. But I can’t remember ever actually going back. The compelling part is the new image, the novel image … the novel love doll.

The uniqueness of Internet porn can goad a user relentlessly, as it possesses all the elements that keep dopamine surging. The excitement of the hunt for the perfect image releases dopamine. Moreover, there’s always something new, always something kinkier. Dopamine is released when something is more arousing than anticipated, causing nerve cells to fire like crazy.

In contrast, sex with your spouse is not always better than expected. Nor does it offer endless variety. This can cause problems because a primitive part of your brain assumes quantity of dopamine equals value of activity, even when it doesn’t.

Indeed, porn’s dopamine fireworks can produce a drug-like high that is more compelling than sex with a familiar mate. In a Playboy interview last year, musician John Mayer admitted he’d rather jerk off to images than have sex. He explained,

Internet pornography has absolutely changed my generation’s expectations. How could you be constantly synthesizing an orgasm [with a person] based on dozens of shots? You’re looking for the one … out of 100 you swear is going to be the one you finish to, and you still don’t finish. Twenty seconds ago you thought that photo was the hottest thing you ever saw, but you throw it back and continue your shot hunt and continue to make yourself late for work. How does that not affect the psychology of having a relationship with somebody? It’s got to.

Mayer is slave to the Coolidge Effect. His brain lashes him with dopamine each time he clicks to a novel “mate.” Keep in mind that dopamine is the hook in all addictions.

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Why Isn’t My Spouse Doing It for Me?

Why does your beloved start to look to you like cold oatmeal, even if others see her as homemade pumpkin pie? One factor may be the degree of abnormal stimulation of Internet porn.

Too much stimulation can actually numb the pleasure response of your brain, producing a variety of symptoms. We know this from recent research on gamblers, overeaters, and, of course, drug users. The brain starts to respond more weakly to whatever dopamine is around—such as that produced by your spouse’s “Honey, it’s date night.”

Dopamine is the gas for your desire engine. Blunted sensitivity means that even if you have plenty of gas, your V-8 is only running on four cylinders. Your numbed brain simply doesn’t respond to her as it did before.

Lack of desire was a factor in the failure of my marriage, and the failure of a relationship subsequent to that. I am in my late 30s, have used porn heavily since my teens, and have blamed my problems on partners (“I’m just not attracted to you,” “I wish you were more responsive”), the newness of partners (“I need to give my body time to catch up to my brain,” “I need to get over my ex”), fitness levels, diet, age, stress, performance anxiety …

Like a lot of men, I went to a doctor, got a physical that ruled out any serious medical conditions, and got Viagra. Once my marriage failed and I was single again, porn use went into overdrive—at least once a day and often two or three times. But when I realized I could no longer even masturbate to orgasm without porn, something clicked. Cause and effect seem blindingly obvious now, of course.

I’m with a new partner to whom I am very attracted and with whom I am very comfortable sexually—but I still cannot perform. Thankfully she is open to frank discussions about this stuff.

Ironically, even if sex with your spouse isn’t calling to you, you may feel intense cravings for something hyperstimulating (novel, risky). You keep slamming down that dopamine accelerator because your brain desperately wants to feel good again. As comedian Bill Maher once observed, that’s what led Hugh Grant, who had Elizabeth Hurley at home, to end up with “Marvin Hagler in a wig.”

Why would we have evolved to be more dissatisfied after particularly intense stimulation? It may be that this mechanism drove our ancestors to override their natural satiety during mating season, or when high-calorie food was around. Think the Coolidge Effect on twin turbos.

For example, when a guinea pig broke into a cage of females, he managed to father 42 pups. (When apprehended, he slept for two days straight. Brains need time to recover from such intense stimulation.) When we flood our brain with too many visuals of mates begging for our sexual favors, our brain perceives a similar genetic bonanza and obligingly drives us to binge by subtly numbing our pleasure response.

Unless you understand this hidden brain mechanism, which urges you to step on the gas even when you’ve had more than enough, it’s hard to connect an insatiable libido with a less responsive brain. After all, it feels like your libido is getting stronger. The reality is that neurochemically induced dissatisfaction deep in the brain is urging you to seek more stimulation.

Clues that your libido thermostat has been readjusted would be: you feel restless and dissatisfied more of the time; want kinkier sex with your mate; find your mate less attractive or compelling than the Internet; need more extreme material; and so forth. Experts call this effect “tolerance.” It can indicate an addiction process at work in the brain.

I’ve started speaking to my ex again. I explained that I wasn’t distant because I found her sexually uninteresting, but because I had been watching so much Internet porn that she’d have needed to be juggling with her feet, sucking off a horse, and rimming a [transsexual] for me to be fully engaged during lovemaking.

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How Does Porn Interfere With My Instincts for Monogamy?

If pair bonding benefits us and our offspring, then why are we so vulnerable to becoming hooked on the dopamine rush of novel cyber “mates?” Paradoxically, it’s partly because we possess the brain mechanisms to fall in love. This ability to pair-bond is completely dependent on blasts of dopamine goosing our love circuits. In the 97 percent of mammals that are promiscuous, these brain circuits for lasting bonds are missing.

When scientists compared the socially monogamous prairie vole with its promiscuous cousin, the montane vole, they discovered two curious things:

• Animals that form pair bonds, or fall in “love,” are more prone to addiction. They get a bigger dopamine blast from addictive substances. This may be why many of us are easily lured by dopamine-producing substances and activities such as Internet porn and gambling.
• Even more telling is what didn’t happen when scientists artificially flooded the pair bonders’ brains with chemical stimulation. These naturally monogamous animals no longer formed a preference for one partner. The artificial stimulation had hijacked their dopamine-dependent bonding machinery, leaving them just like regular (promiscuous) mammals.

Having a brain that’s sensitive to the high of falling in love supports your pair bond. You get somewhat “hooked” on your mate (provided there’s no scientist drugging you). Ideally, you stick around snuggling just as you evolved to do—because there isn’t a lot of other temptation. (Of course, if temptation falls in your lap, your genes may crack their dopamine whip.)

It’s evident, however, that the same sensitivity that urges you to fall in love becomes a vulnerability when you’re saturated with hyperstimulating sexual goodies. Suddenly, the circuitry your pair bond depends on is inundated with dopamine associated with stimuli other than your mate. It can make a mate uninteresting, and override your normal satiation mechanisms.

Far from just “rubbing off,” we chronic masturbators generally engage in a practice we call “edging”: bringing ourselves to the brink of orgasm repeatedly, without ejaculation. [Thanks to porn,] we can sustain extremely high levels of sexual arousal literally for hours. I am an active participant in several masturbation-focused Internet groups, and moderator of one.

Many of us go so far as to abandon partner-sex, even while the partner remains available and willing. We’ve also coined the term “copulatory impotence” for the common phenomenon of being able to get it up to Internet porn, but not for a partner.

Does this mean everyone who views porn will give up on his marriage? Of course not. However, support for the hypothesis that supernormal stimulation—even in less-stimulating versions than Internet porn supplies—interferes with human pair bonds has already shown up in research.

According to a 2007 study, mere exposure to images of sexy females causes a man to devalue his real-life partner. He rates her lower not only on attractiveness, but also on warmth and intelligence. Also, after pornography consumption, subjects in a 2006 study reported less satisfaction with their intimate partner—including the partner’s affection, appearance, sexual curiosity, and performance. Moreover, they assigned increased importance to sex without emotional involvement.

Obviously, if you want to stay married in reasonable contentment, you make your task easier by choosing not to trigger perception shifts that cause your partner to look like Hamburger Helper.

So, what’s in it for the contented pair bonder? Aside from only having the expense of maintaining one household, he gains health benefits. For example, research shows that intercourse has more beneficial effects on the body than masturbation. It releases neurochemicals that reduce stress better, and the benefits linger for days. Also, daily warm touch between couples benefits men by lowering blood pressure.

The Internet can’t do that. As one man observed,

In the long run, fantasy based on pornography creates stress. Craving the unattainable is just hollow and unsatisfying.

In contrast, relaxed intimacy with an emphasis on affectionate touch not only soothes, but also automatically strengthens bonds.

During the middle years of our marriage, I quit worshiping my wife. Instead there was plenty of yoni to worship, courtesy of the porn industry. Always young. Always beautiful. Always horny. Always new. Always able to get an orgasm. And never fulfilling. I recently unplugged totally from porn, and I have returned my wife to her pedestal. Our marriage has come out of a long stale period and is rejuvenated. We are closer than we have been for years, in bed and throughout the day. I am really enjoying the long, slow, non-goal-oriented lovemaking that never really ends—we just take a break and start again the next day. I feel better, and my libido seems to be present more continuously.

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How Do I Get the Magic Back?

You can re-link your sexual arousal to your spouse. Stop climaxing to stimuli that produce more dopamine than she does. Remember, a primitive mechanism in your brain always urges you to focus on the option that releases the most dopamine. It doesn’t care what best eases your stress, protects your health, or sustains your relationship. When an e-babe beckons, your brain assumes you’re in the gene-spreading business—a top priority.

Extreme stimulation can innocently tarnish your appreciation of your spouse by messing with your brain’s pleasure center. It’s up to you now: simply understanding our atavistic programming is the easy part.

Since I stopped masturbating to porn a couple of weeks ago, things are changing. When I see a woman with long hair walk by in a nice skirt or dress, I get that physical rush of energy. Used to be I needed a stronger pornographic fantasy from the Internet to get any type of arousal.

In another few weeks even his wife will give him a rush.

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More From Our Special Marriage Section:

Even stellar relationships lose their spark over time; here are the ingredients of a lasting, fruitful partnership, and techniques for weathering the the stormy times: What Your Marriage Needs to Survive

When Tom Forrister transitioned from female to male, his same-sex marriage became a federally-recognized, “traditional” marriage. The one constant was the bond he shared with his wife: My Exemplary, Everyday Marriage

Encouraging princess culture—however innocently—contributes to the sexualization of girls. Men can be part of the solution to the “princess problem”: Men and the Sexualization of Young Girls

The night­mare of fam­ily court is enough to deter a guy from even think­ing about tying the knot. Marriage: Just Don’t

For all the stories written by and for women on this issue—and there are few—men are more likely to be absent from the public dialogue about intentional childlessness. Why aren’t men’s stories also being heard? Two Is Enough

Men are more promiscuous than women, but that doesn’t mean we should buy the cultural fallacy that men are programmed to cheat; the vast majority of men are happily, naturally monogamous: Are Men Natural-Born Cheaters?

Tom Matlack talks to married men to find out when they knew their wife was “the one”: She’s the One

As Gabi Coatsworth’s son’s bipolar disorder gave way to full-blown manic episodes, she watched her husband slip deeper into drink and detachment: Reading Between the Silences

Monogamy sounds like “monotony,” but it doesn’t have to be monotonous. Hugo Schwyzer explores how we can have the security—and the novelty—we desire in our relationships: Red-Hot Monogamy

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—Photo jguild12/Flickr