Health Update: Health Update: More young men are addicted to porn. Here’s how they’re getting help. – What Experts Say– What Experts Say.
Ryan didn’t open his phone with the intention of finding porn. But when the 11-year-old came across it on his social media feed, he was intrigued. As he watched, he experienced a rush of curiosity and excitement.
Soon, his brain was hooked on that dopamine rush. It became a daily routine.
He told himself he could stop if he wanted to, but the habit grew from something he did in the confines of his bedroom to an all-consuming urge. His parents installed internet blockers, but he got around them. By the time sixth grade started, he was ducking out of class up to three times a day to watch porn and masturbate in the bathroom.
“Porn is just an emotional crutch to avoid all of the feelings that I didn’t even realize I was having,” says Ryan, now 25, who, like others USA TODAY spoke to for this story, requested that his last name be withheld because of the sensitive nature of the topic.
Many Gen Z men, who grew up with smartphones and unrestricted internet access, say they happened upon porn early and frequently. Some now describe themselves as addicted and are turning to a fast-growing community of men online who are trying to help each other break these habits. Research shows that men struggle with compulsive porn consumption more than women.
Anthony Preischel, a New York–based sex therapist, says the accessibility, affordability and anonymous nature of porn have contributed to its earlier adoption among teens and children.
“The unlimited access to porn has been higher with Gen Z, really, than probably any other generation,” Preischel says.
Sex ‘was just a facade of what I thought it could be’
For years, Ryan told himself he could stop if he wanted to. But when, as a teen, he was sent on a mission trip where was unable to watch porn for nine months, he felt depressed and experienced physical symptoms, including chronic exhaustion, headaches and extreme mood swings.
“I was so lethargic and just tired all the time and sad,” Ryan says.
Within days of returning home, he had gone back to using porn. It was the start of a period that at its worst, involved constant intrusive thoughts. Some days, he spent upwards of six hours a day consuming pornography.
When Ryan became sexually active in his early 20s, he thought things would change. But his expectations were warped by porn, and he struggled with porn-induced erectile dysfunction.
“I knew porn wasn’t real, but I had no clue what (sex) was supposed to be, because I wasn’t experiencing real, actual, intimate, loving sex,” Ryan says. “It was just this facade of what I thought it could be.”
How young brains respond to pornography
Preischel says porn in combination with masturbation, like alcohol or similar substances, triggers the brain’s reward system. The activity sends a release of the pleasure-inducing chemical dopamine, which can reinforce the behavior and create a habit loop. Over time, this loop overwhelms the brain’s reward pathways in a way that can permanently alter how it processes impulse control, pleasure and motivation.
“It started as a coping mechanism for trauma and mental health issues,” says Tyler, a 22-year-old who struggled with anxiety, depression and sexual abuse as a child. “If I was watching pornography…I wasn’t thinking about those things.”
The behavior is especially impactful for young boys whose brains are still developing; teenagers’ executive functioning, abstract thinking and decision-making skills continue to form through age 25.
“The prefrontal cortex is not developed yet, so the impulse control is not there, and then that dopamine begins to start to rewire those reward pathways,” Preischel says.
Max, a 35-year-old who was first introduced to porn at 11 years old, says he struggled to regulate complicated emotions in adulthood because of consuming porn in his youth.
“Because I started so young, it became the way of self medicating uncomfortable emotions, because that’s what I had always done,” says Max.
The porn industry is booming
A 2022 report from Common Sense Media, a nonprofit focused on media ratings and digital online safety for children, found that 71% of teenagers reported intentionally viewing porn in the last week.
The average respondent reported they first viewed porn at age 12.
When men view porn at a young age, it has long term impacts on their perception of relationships, sexual intimacy and views on women, according to Brad Salzman, a licensed clinical social worker and certified sex addiction therapist at the New York Sexual Addiction Center.
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“All you have to do is look at porn and it’s there waiting for you, right? Whatever type of porn you want, whatever you’re into, it’s there,” Salzman says. “But now, try translating that into the real world, and it just doesn’t work. Your girlfriend or your wife doesn’t always want to do what you want to do when you want to do it.”
The porn industry is rapidly growing. One recent analysis shows that the adult entertainment market is valued at more than $191 billion — with its growth expected to reach close to $275 billion by 2032.
Some corners of the internet even celebrate compulsive porn use. There are entire discussion forums dedicated to “optimizing” the experience of watching illicit videos and discussing specific content. In 2024, Reddit banned a popular subreddit on the subject, but dozens of others remain active.
Max says porn’s transition to the internet coincided with his teenage developmental years. What started as looking at his dad’s vintage magazines or printing off pictures online grew into something available 24/7.
Porn, which was his primary introduction to sex, eventually drove a wedge in his relationships.
“I would definitely find myself sexualizing women a lot, just objectifying them and just looking at them as more objects for my pleasure, versus real human beings,” Max says.
Here’s where men go for help
While the DSM-5 does not recognize compulsive porn use as a formal disorder, online communities of men who have been impacted say that to them, it feels like an addiction, and it’s one for which people are constantly seeking help. Some Reddit forums dedicated to quitting porn now have more than 1 million members.
Max says speaking with other men who have experienced compulsive porn use has been the biggest motivator in his journey. More than a dozen Reddit groups dedicated to quitting porn draw more than half a million weekly visitors combined.
“I think it’s the biggest thing impacting men today, and it’s a bigger problem than anybody probably even knows,” Max says.
For young men who struggle to find professional help due to the shame, guilt and embarrassment associated with porn use, these groups provide a first step toward support. Group moderators lead monthly motivational challenges that users can sign up for. To track their accountability, some users place the number of days they’ve been free from porn in their user profiles.
Users say these groups have helped them find accountability, recover their relationships, and push them to seek out professional help from therapists and sex addiction support groups.
Salzman says the value of these groups can’t be overstated.
“Finding that there are, in fact, other men going through the same thing, guys who can relate to them and aren’t going to judge them, and then hearing stories from some of these guys about what strategies have actually worked… I think it’s tremendously helpful,” Salzman says.
Ryan, who uses Reddit forums to supplement an in-person 12-step sex addicts anonymous group he attends, says it took exploring these support spaces to realize he had an abnormal relationship with sex.
“I had this idea in my head that everybody, men and women, regardless of who they were, would cheat given the opportunity, and everybody’s thinking about sex as much as I am,” Ryan says. “Hearing people’s stories… I realized that that’s not true at all.”
How to get help with compulsive porn use
Ryan says recovery is a long road, but he’s focused on replacing porn with new, healthy habits.
He deleted most of his social media and started reading before bed. He’s implemented a diligent workout plan. He’s also sought out hobbies that compel him to leave his house; he purchased a membership at an archery club and joined a local Dungeons & Dragons group.
For the last 14 years, Ryan hasn’t known who he was without porn. A large part of the isolation behind his addiction, and the shame of hiding what he was going through, led him to mask his personality in front of his friends and family.
Those urges are still there, but he feels equipped to handle them, and for the first time, he feels hope that he can move past this.
Now, he wants to figure out who he is when porn isn’t there.
“One of the biggest motivations for staying clean,” Ryan says, “is to figure out who I am, really, and to be that person in front of everybody.”
Rachel Hale’s role covering Youth Mental Health at USA TODAY is supported by a partnership with Pivotal and Journalism Funding Partners. Funders do not provide editorial input. Reach her at rhale@usatoday.com and @rachelleighhale on X.