Spotlight on Recovery Resources and Inspiration…
A monthly spot where we shine a light on ideas and information on resources, media, and tools that provide inspiration, motivation, or help in your recovery journey.
If you haven’t been to this website yet, make sure you check out www.yourbrainonporn.com (YBOP) and discover the wealth of resources available at this location. The site is designed to focus on how porn effects the brain and its possible impacts on sexual dysfunction. It is geared primarily for men struggling with porn addiction, porn induced Erectile Dysfunction, and other sexual difficulties related to the heavy use of pornography.
The premise of YBOP is that “extreme porn use alters the brain as it uses primitive circuitry to push you toward porn,” resulting in addictive behaviors and sexual dysfunctions. Founder Gary Wilson and a group of other men who have worked through their own porn addiction and resultant sexual dysfunctions, maintain the site. The site is essentially a depot, where multiple links are found to connect you to other sources to educate, find support, discover tools for change, watch videos, and read articles and research. The administrators of the site state they are secular, although welcome all points of view, and do not approach the material from a moralistic lens, but rather through scientific information. All of this is presented in a way that is highly appealing, friendly, and casual.
Millennials are the first generation that have spent their entire childhoods growing up with pornography easily accessible in the home, offered anonymously, and available for free. We are only just now beginning to see the ramifications of repeated and long term use of porn through the developmental process. The pre-adolescent and adolescent’s brain, not yet fully myelinated or mature, is awash with countless sexually stimulating images and videos. Men now in their twenties and thirties reveal they are experiencing sexual dysfunctions once thought only reserved for those who are aging. On the YBOP site you will find the stories of many men who report they are experiencing erectile dysfunction at in their early 20s and describe feeling great distress as they are unable to get or hold an erection with a real woman even though they can easily do so with pornography and self-stimulation.
As a tool to heal the brain and recover from addiction to porn and its associated symptoms, YBOP suggests, what they have dubbed, “rebooting,” or a process of creating new pathways of sexual stimulation rather than only responding to pornography. A period of abstinence is recommended where one refrains from all porn and artificial sexual stimuli to allow the brain to reset and rewire back to its “original factory presets.” A large part of the website is devoted to this rebooting concept explaining how it works, reasons to do it, and testimonials of others that have found it made a big difference in their life.
I recommend this site as a good information source and its links to connect you to other helpful resources. They encourage you to create an account, and you must do so if you want to comment or contact administrators. They don’t have a forum to connect to others on this site, but they have links to other sites where you will find large online communities of fellow “rebooters.” To maximize the resources YBOP offers, plan to spend some time to take advantage of its many options and numbers of videos.
written by Cheryl Schenck LPC, CSAT