The Importance of Talking About Porn – From a Porn Addict
January – March 2026Perspectives: Porn Addict
"My consumption escalated. The “lady in black” no longer did anything for me. I needed something harder, more extreme, to reach the same level of stimulation."
My experience with the “P” word is usually met with one of two reactions: an awkward cringe or a shy giggle — depending on who you ask.
I’m in my early forties now, but my career of indulging in pornography has spanned more than 25 years — nearly three decades of consuming explicit, pixelated images of women. Not something I’m proud of, to be clear.
If memory serves me right, my first introduction to explicit images came from a “girly magazine”. It was nowhere near the hardcore content I would eventually descend into, but it was enough to spark the fire that would later consume my life.
At the tender age of 13, in an all-boys environment, hormones were often front and centre. Left unchecked, most conversations inevitably drifted towards something someone had seen in a magazine they had borrowed (without permission) from an older brother, cousin, or uncle.
Unsurprisingly, that “something” was what we now refer to as “NSFW” content. (For the uninitiated, that means Not Safe For Work).
Silence Breeds Ignorance
Today, on my way to yet another 12-Step meeting, I can’t help but wonder: what would life have been like if someone had spoken to me openly about pornography decades ago — someone knowledgeable and mature enough to communicate the darker effects of this highly stigmatised topic.
Perhaps back then, parents, educators, and caregivers were simply unaware of the extent to which pornography could shape a young person’s development. Or how the arrival of the internet would catalyse the evolution of the porn industry.
Recounting my first experience with internet porn, I can still remember the sensations that surged through me as a classmate pulled up an explicit image on Firefox using a public library computer. The air was still, the atmosphere thick with boyish anticipation, as the image slowly loaded line by line. The 56k modem churned away while four teenagers huddled around a 20-inch monitor.
She was wearing black. My dopamine levels spiked. I took in every pixel. The rest is history.
How The Poison Polluted Me
I understand that not everyone exposed to pornography becomes addicted. But porn can affect a person in many ways.
As a young teen, pornography gave me a false understanding of sex, intimacy, and love. And at an age when relationships meant everything, that distorted mentality only pushed me further into isolation.
As my body matured, my emotional growth did not, because numbing out with porn had become my way of coping. Interacting with an image on the internet is not connection; it is objectification. And this compulsion to objectify women gradually spilled over from the screen into real life.
My consumption escalated. The “lady in black” no longer did anything for me. I needed something harder, more extreme, to reach the same level of stimulation.
Guilt, shame, and frustration became my constant companions as I developed unrealistic expectations about sex and the human body. Fantasy eroded reality. Lust suffocated love.
All of this might have turned out differently if someone had created space for a healthy conversation about what I was encountering — helping me understand, without shame, what I was experiencing and addressing the misconceptions around it.
The Responsibility Is Ours
As parents, educators, or caregivers, we carry the responsibility of educating the next generation about the risks of pornography before it is too late. And in this age of AI, internet porn is evolving into an entirely new creature. Openness is essential. Even if one feels uncomfortable or unprepared to discuss the topic, being willing to listen, learn, and talk — rather than sweeping it under the carpet — makes all the difference.
As Patrick Corrigan once said, “Stigma is a barrier to recovery.”
It is time we start talking about porn.
By SL
