GQ: Your Porn Addiction Might Not Be What You Think

Most men who come to me worried about their porn use have already diagnosed themselves. They walk in certain they are addicts, and often a part of them finds relief in that. If porn is the problem, then porn is the enemy, and the fight is out there somewhere.

My new piece in GQ is about why that framing often makes things worse.

The addiction story is everywhere right now. Podcasters track their day counts. There are apps that screenshot a man's browsing and send it to a partner or a pastor. Influencers warn that porn rewires your brain like a drug. The message stays the same. You are powerless, and you need their program to get free.

The evidence behind these claims is way shakier than influencers would have your believe. The DSM-5 declined to include hypersexual disorder in 2013, and later updates left it out completely. The World Health Organization recognized compulsive sexual behavior in 2019, but classified it as an impulse control problem, not an addiction. AASECT, the main body for sex therapists in the US, says there is not enough evidence to call porn or sex addiction a mental health disorder. Some of the most cited research on the subject found that what drove a man's distress was moral conflict about watching porn, more than the amount he watched.

That last point matters in the room. Shame is doing most of the damage.

When a man accepts that he is an addict, the goal narrows to abstinence. He counts days. He slips. He feels worse, resolves to try harder, and starts counting again. The behavior stays in the spotlight while the reason for it often goes unexamined. The men I see who make real progress usually share one thing. They get curious about what the porn is doing for them.

Because it is doing something. For a lot of men it takes the edge off stress, or quiets a feeling that is too big to sit with. That makes sense once you look at what it is responding to.

So I ask simple questions. What does this give you? What are you afraid you might feel if it were gone? Those questions tend to open into harder ones. About old relationships. About what a man learned early on regarding whether his needs mattered. About parents who were distant, or who loved on conditions. When some of that gets tended to, the grip of the behavior often loosens on its own.

None of this means porn use is always harmless. It can strain relationships and pull a man deeper into isolation. Some of the men I work with choose abstinence and find it useful. The label matters less than the motivation. Stopping was never the problem. The shame is the problem.

The aim is to reach a place where you can make a grounded choice about porn, one that comes from what you want rather than what you are trying to avoid.

If your relationship with porn feels outside your control, therapy can be a place to understand it without the shame layered on top. You can read the full piece in GQ.

Matthew Willner, LCSW, IFS Certified, is a psychotherapist in virtual private practice in New York, New Jersey, and Colorado, where he specializes in working with men. You can learn more at matthewwillnertherapy.com/sexual-behaviors.