I have an addiction to porn. I once read a poem about my addiction at a spoken word event in the Lower East Side, but I don’t think anyone took me seriously. I am very well put together, intelligent, eloquent and engaging when I want to be. I’ve almost always had attractive women around me as long as I keep the self-defeatist thoughts out of my head. I was once asked to estimate the cost of my “habit” in my personal time, viewable screen time, disk space, media, and money. The answers are 5-20 hrs per week, you really have to factor in resolution but for just videos maybe 78,280 hrs, 35 TB organized across 11 hard drives, 233 DVDs and easily north of $30k. I started watching porn because I was in a committed relationship in college and after we started having sex my then girlfriend told me we had rushed things and wouldn’t be having sex anymore for a while. I was left with the choice to go off and indulge all the options surrounding me on campus, or stay faithful to her. I was head over heels in love with her so I turned to porn to satiate me. My friend introduced me to a porn BB (bulletin board), early online file sharing and the rest was history. Years later I revealed to him that he was the one that got me started and he expressed great remorse, guilt even, then we all laughed and then it was silent. I have amassed quite the collection of downloads and DVDs. My motivation was mixed to satisfy my urges, cravings and curiosity, exploration of my sexuality, and a means to remain faithful. When I eventually became single, I quickly found random hookups grossly unfulfilling compared to emotionally connected sex. I had a high sex drive along with insatiable curiosity and diverse tastes like every other young 20-something guy. In porn, it can be Redhead Monday, Latina Tuesday, Whip (big ones) Out Wednesday, Tushy Thusday, and Asian Friday and you don’t have to deal with any regret or shame about your kinks or the awkwardness after meaningless sex. I’ve almost always had a higher sex drive than my partners, which means I’m in the mood and they’re annoyed at me. This used to create a lot of conflict because I would save myself up for my partner, then she wouldn’t be in the mood and I’d deal with that rejection badly. Eventually I started handling it myself to alleviate the tension caused by this discrepancy. I found I’d also crave say big breasts 2-3 times a month while dating a small breasted woman or want to sample around ethnically so rather than cheat or pursue my fetish, I could find old and new porn with ease. So I coped with porn. As life became more mundane and I started feeling depressed then I’d numb myself with porn. Masturbation keeps me docile. My coping mechanism turned into my hobby turned into my addiction, and it’s evolved as the sex work industries have evolved. My collection is a lot of porn. It’s one of my obsessions. It’s also extremely well organized. I’m not just an addict, I’m a connoisseur. I know names and faces and studios. I know the proper filming angles. I could script and produce it. With the right partner, I could star in it. I read the interviews, back stories and experiences of the actors and actresses. I know the average age of a woman getting into porn is 22 and the average life expectancy of adult entertainers is under 40. A quick search of IAFD will reveal all pornstars and their entire histories. Up to a third of all pornstars quit after 1 porn scene and about half make 3+ scenes. I’ve tracked careers and scene progressions of hundreds of pornstars from 1 scene and done to contract stars to the couples filming together to obscure amateurs who flew under the radar with lesser studios to ambitious content creators making some of the best raw content, nowadays largely on OnlyFans and ManyVids. I can often predict the career trajectory of new starlets based on age, body, face, energy in scenes, freakiness, and ability, but so do all the major production studios when casting. There’s a reason some starlets make their debut for big name studios and some for obscure websites. For every porno you see publicly released, there are numerous audition/casting, practice and private pornos of that star that never get released. Some stars are in it for fame, some are in it to gain publicity they use for stripping and/or escorting which is more consistent work, and all of them are in it for the money because they think they like sex and are good at it. Porn is the only industry that gives all its performers “star” in their title and job description. When most people look at porn, they see sex. Porn isn’t sex. In sex, you make love to the person. In porn, you perform to the camera. Men regularly take pills to keep an erection and women douche and use lube because stimulation and arousal are secondary to filming the right angles for the camera. Besides, bits have to look clean for full HD and 4K resolution. Porn is so widespread and mainstream now that everyone thinks they can do it, which is why all the streaming websites are full of amateurs trying to cash in on what they see as easy money for something they’re already doing. Porn is so saturated with options. Viewers are extremely critical, and downright mean in chat rooms and message forums, and separate stars who bring high energy and chemistry to scenes and enjoy performing on camera from those who have nice physical features but lack staying power in the industry beyond a few scenes to expose all their goods, do all the acts at least once and satisfy our curiosities. There are always other girls, newer girls and viewers can cycle through their plethora of options, resulting in a saturated market which caps profits for all but the Teanna Trump best. A viewer will watch every pornstar have sex once out of curiosity, but what makes them keep watching that person? It’s the same thing that makes each of us in our personal lives want to keep having sex with the same person over and over again. There has to be some form of a connection. In our personal lives, that connection is often attraction, chemistry, compatibility, emotions, intimacy, love. However in porn, that connection is a one-sided fantasy. It is superficially and fantastically tied to face, ass, tits, a particular sexual act they do well, and/or sexual energy and deviance in scenes. Unsurprisingly, white, blonde, shapely butt, and big perky tits (real or fake) are the gold standard. Not my type, I like slender ebony with perky breasts and a pretty face, hello India! Strong passion and high sexual energy every performance, openness to various acts and good facial expressions in scenes are all important measures for re-watchability. Greg Lansky, the creator behind Vixen/Tushy/Blacked flew those brands to the top of the market so quickly because he put serious bankroll into production and location, focusing on the most popular genres, in an industry otherwise shot in hotel rooms and private homes on amateur-ish equipment. Porn definitely affected my ability to get aroused. You become desensitized to nudity and sex. Normal body imperfections become turnoffs. I found myself beginning to obsess about bodily perfection in my selection of partners down to love handles, breast perkiness and areola size. The problem with seeking bodily perfection in the real world is those women know they have nice bodies and the attention it provides them. They often make suitors deal with so much bullshit and all of their baggage and issues because they know that attention they crave can be easily replaced by someone else. Ironically, these self-absorbed types end up being among the laziest in bed (see Kim K Superstar) because they believe a man has to earn them and they don’t have to do anything for him with so many options readily available and more standing by. I was able to resolve my arousal issues because I realized I can masturbate to porn to completion and continue watching for an hour but never get aroused again. Meanwhile in my personal life, with certain women we would have sex and after I came I would remain aroused and could immediately keep going a second and, on rare occasion, a third time in a row. I developed this level of control by exploring myself through masturbation and working on tantric practices. I am deeply sensual so arousal through porn doesn’t hold a flame compared to arousal in real life with the right partner. I realized the stronger the emotional connection for me the more often this could happen. I’ve had naked strippers dancing on my lap and my dick won’t get hard but a simple greeting hug from a woman I’m emotionally invested in and I’m full salute ready to go right then and there. Porn helped me discern these aspects about myself when random hookups might have buried it under a pile of immediate gratification baggage. Sex eventually becomes just sex and everyone has a limit to the number of partners they can have before they reach their saturation point and it’s no longer as fun or exciting. The same goes for porn. Porn has helped keep my number of partners lower than 50 when it otherwise could have been in the 100’s because I prefer the simplicity of going home and wanking than bringing someone home and having to deal with them after. I would argue porn has been beneficial for my long term sanity at the expense of some unhealthy habits and maybe some missed connections. However, any of my connections that started with sex didn’t approach the depth and evolution of my emotional connections. It had already been time to leave porn in the past, but with my ex now choosing to get involved full time with sex work and porn, there’s no time like the present to truly shed things that have no future and don’t contribute positively to my life. Besides, now that I’m older, my libido is finally slowing down and I know what I want, I really don’t have a need for it anymore.