Shame – Why you need to quit watching porn right now

Intro

Lets be real, there’s nothing good that ever comes from watching porn… apart from you.

This is what I believe to be the most insidious and often overlooked aspect of watching porn regularly that can be EXTREMELY detrimental to your development and overall sense of wellbeing.

SHAME

Shame – This is it at it’s root. Watching porn creates shame.

We operate day-to-day at our foundation, on a spectrum of emotional states.

All of your thoughts and feelings are generated through the filter of this scale.

(For further exploration check out Frederick Dodson and David R. Hawkins work.)

The porn you watch generates deep and permeating feelings of shame (consciously or not) that keeps you ‘trapped’ so to speak, at the lower end of the scale everytime you partake..

Porn is the metaphorical anchor that keeps dragging you to the bottom of the scale everytime you watch it.

So what does shame actually do to you?

Shame manifests itself in many, many ways, here’s what I’ve personally noticed but I’m sure there’s other things to that I’m not even aware of as of yet…

Physically

• Poor eye contact – They say eyes are the windows to the soul, so it makes perfect sense to me that if you are feeling shame you want to remain hidden and avoid eye contact.
• Poor posture – Similiarly to the above, body language reveals the inner state of what a person is feeling. Bad posture often represents a lack of confidence and insecurity.
• Black circles under eyes – I don’t really know why this happens, it’s just something that I’ve consistently noticed and read accounts of guys on /r/nofap, /r/semenretention and /r/pornfree talking about..
• Poor/weak vocal tonality – Another manifestation of a lack of confidence, you speech is impacted because subconsciously you want to remain hidden and not expose yourself because you have something to hide.
• Unhealthy skin tone – I don’t know why this happens either, but I’ve noticed it in myself aswell as reading numberous reports of men reporting the same thing. Could simply be that men make other positive lifestyle choices along side deciding to quit porn, such as cleaning up their diet or drinking more water..

Mentally

• Low self esteem – Let’s be real, watching porn is loser behaviour. It’s the modern day equivelant of our ancestors hiding a bush and watching two other people fuck, ultimate beta behaviour. So it makes sense that it would effect your self-esteem even if you know what you’re doing is bad for you.
• Overwhelming regret – Opportunities missed, days wasted, relationships ruined due to porn.
• Self hate – Feelings of being unworthy of good things, a person can end up hating themselves because on some level, they know what they’re doing is detrimental to their life trajectory and happiness.
• Social anxiety/approach anxiety – This is more a symptom of low self esteem, you avoid making social connections because you have a dirty secret that you want to keep hidden. There’s also a neurochemical aspect to this too, for more information check out the porn section of my dopamine detox post.

Behaviours

• Gravitation towards hedonism – This is due to your dopamine reward system being so messed up that only artificial and highly stimulating (often very damaging) activities excite you.
• Escapism perpepuated by vices (excessive video gaming, porn, substance abuse) – If there was such thing as the four horsemen of a unfulfilling life and wasted potential in 2024 it would be… excessive social media use (doomscrolling), excessive video gaming, porn and substance abuse.
• Stagnation or even atrophying of the comfort zone – Your primal brain believes you’re being biologically successful everytime you bust a nut to porn, so why would you be motivated to change or challenge your limiting beliefs and comfort zone? Short answer, you wouldn’t.
• Chronic procrastination – This is multifactorial, because you haven’t completely hit rock bottom YET, you can justify that, what you are currently doing is ok. There’s a dopamine aspect to this aswell. To put it simply, you don’t have any dopamine left available to ‘spend on’ things that are actually good for you.

The removal of shame

Absinence from porn slowly but surely starts to remove what’s listed above as the source of the shame is eliminated.

You’ve killed it at its core.

Depending on the severity and duration of porn, use the timeline to recovery can be different and very individualistic, but I believe a full recovery is 100% possible given absinence and correct lifestyle choices.

Leaving porn behind and accending the scale towards a more meaningful and fulfilling life

My own journey has followed this path and I believe that it leaves a important blueprint to recovery that most guys can use and as such ‘map out’ their individual journey to recovery and act as a guide to see where you currently are based on how you are feeling.

Refer to this chart to understand the stages below.

Shame – Deep sense of shame generated by habitually watching porn and partaking in vices.

Guilt – Porn is removed but the feelings of wasted time and potential remain, as well as opportunities wasted and relationships ruined.

Apathy – The dead zone. Your neurochemical system is still in ruins so it’s very hard to motivate yourself to do anything productive. At this stage your main focus should be remaining clean.

Grief – Here you get the first glimpses of what could have been possible without vices in your life, but you’re still immersed in deep overwhelming feelings of regret.

Fear – Generally this is when most guys are confronted with the long road ahead towards a better life. Many fears arise surrounding things that they’ve been putting off and masking with porn use.

Such fears could include…

• Joining a gym and getting into better shape
• Developing your confidence and social skills and working on improving your dating life.
• Quitting a meaningless day job and starting to build a business you are genuinely passionate about.

Desire – Even though it’s still inaction, this is where you start to fantasize about what you could possibily achieve.

Anger – Anger is a great motivator to propel you into action. It’s a necassary phase to go through and one I believe is absolutely KEY in order to start taking meaningful action to improve.

Pride – This is the ego. The anger has created action but it’s very possible for a sense of pride to take hold and stop you moving on up even further. Although pride and courage are very similar, pride still carries the weight on the previous negative emotions and doesn’t come from a place of true authenticity. You’ll compare yourself to others that are in a worse position than you were.

Courage – This is where everything starts coming together, taking action becomes more effortless, vices are dropped and you’ve began to develop healthy habits and are now moving in the direction of your goals.

Neutrality – Your new baseline is now one of productivity and general contentment, as opposed to one of a much more negative baseline of escapism you had prior.

Willingness – The expansion of the comfort zone. Your life seems to become more exciting. Thoughts like “What else can I achieve?” commonly arise. You are much more likely to pursue new opportunities, form new positive habits and take actions that would have been inconceivable to you in the midst of addiction to porn and/or other vices.

Acceptance -This level is what I believe to be a barrier/shield that prevents you from falling back to your old ways. Bad days and relapses are inevitable on the path to recovery, but you now see the bigger picture and are no longer a slave to your emotions. Journalling and mindfulness practices can be beneficial here to identify triggers for cravings.

This is my journey and I can’t really comment on further levels, but I have no doubt that as you continue to grow and abstain from damaging habits that things will continue to improve.