Can’t Have An Orgasm Without Watching Porn? Try This.
You may think that watching porn is just a thing that men and people with penises do, but you’re wrong, many women and vulva havers enjoy watching porn too! I put a post on my Instagram stories inviting my followers to send me questions about sex, pleasure, and orgasms, and this was one question I got:
“I’m very used to orgasming without porn and can’t come without it, how do I change it?”
Porn can be great! A way to explore your sexual imagination and see depictions of people enjoying sex, but it can also cause issues where you get stuck.
You may have a relationship with it where you feel like it’s becoming a coping mechanism or that it is your only way of experiencing any kind of arousal or orgasm. You want to change and have orgasms without needing porn as a crutch- which I also bet are a specific type of orgasm that doesn’t always feel satisfying too?
Why can’t you orgasm without porn?
Our brains and bodies form habits and patterns all the time, from thought patterns and belief systems, to how we respond to external stimuli.
Porn is easily accessible through the internet in most countries, and it is the most accessible way to see not just depictions of people having sex, but looking like they’re enjoying it too. If you combine that with the fact that you probably never were taught HOW to have great sex, or even that you are allowed to enjoy sex and have sexual pleasure in the first place, it’s understandable why internet porn is the easiest place to find that.
And that it’s completely normal to want to get off and enjoy seeing other people get off. Wahay!
What can happen though, is that if it becomes the ONLY or primary way through which you masturbate or get horny, your brain and body become used to it, and so form a neural pathway whereby it becomes the only way you can orgasm.
It’s not bad or wrong, your brain and body just got used to it.
Luckily, thanks to the concept of neuroplasticity, we can learn new neural pathways.
It may sound unsexy, but you just need to re-train your brain and body and introduce new things.
Porn is not bad, addictive, or “unspiritual”
Unlike many therapists, coaches, and tantra or spiritual practitioners, I will not be talking about the supposed, “evils” of porn, nor will I be making sweeping and untrue statements about porn being “addictive”.
Despite what popular tantra teachers, coaches, or spiritual influencers say, here are some common myths about porn that I see floating around the internet:
- Porn corrupts your energy field
- Porn is “low vibration”
- Porn stops you having, “real intimacy”
- You need to “detox” or “cleanse” yourself from porn usage
All absolute BS, and all different forms of Purity Culture with a New Age spin on it.
Porn CAN cause issues for you, and you CAN form an unhealthy and unsupportive relationship with it, just like with many other things we can form unhealthy and unsupportive relationships with.
You may need to take a break from it if you feel that it’s not helping you and you’re consuming it in a way that is causing you or your partner/s harm. This is absolutely valid.
This isn’t to discount the many shadows in the porn industry too, such as pirating performer’s content, non-consent and coercive behaviour to performers, underage performers, revenge porn, and all of the other generally misogynistic, racist, and exploitative behaviours that have long existed in the world.
But it isn’t the whole picture. Not even half.
Please be very wary of media and marketing that is clickbaity, fearmongering about porn- especially from sites like Your Brain On Porn or the NoFap community on places like Reddit.
The author of the book, YBOP, and the people involved have had a long history of bullying and harassing anybody who speaks out against their dogma, along with making many false claims based on little to no evidence at all.
Porn is a sticky (pun intended!), controversial, and nuanced topic. It can be an amazing tool of liberation and self-exploration or a way to numb out, disconnect from your body, and internalize false messages about sex.
Both can be true.
For evidence-based and nuanced information about porn, I recommend following Silva Neves, Dr. Marty Klein, Dr. David Ley, and Dr. Nicola Prause.
Let’s explore ways for you to expand your erotic reportoire and start to have orgasms without needing to watch porn every time.
9 ways to have an orgasm without needing porn
Here are 9 things to try out and add to your toolkit to start having regular orgasms without needing to watch porn as a crutch.
1. Change your porn
When you say you can’t orgasm without watching porn, I’ll bet that there is a certain kind of porn and genre that you watch. Your go-to fantasy, the scene or performers that get you every time, the specific set up that you know works. I know what mine are and what will send me from 0–60, and you know what yours are too.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with this! To paraphrase Jack Morin, author of, “The Erotic Mind”, these are your Peak Erotic Experiences. We ALL have them, but it becomes an issue when it becomes your ONLY erotic repertoire. You get stuck here and your brain and body becomes used to it.
So let’s switch it up and add to it.
Deliberately search for different categories and kinds of videos. Go to a feminist porn site instead, you can find my recommendations here. Or explore reading erotica or listening to audio erotica, like through an app like Emjoy, Dipsea, or Ferly.
Check out my best feminist and indie porn recommendations here.
2. Change your contexts
In the same way that you probably watch the same kinds of porn videos, you probably also watch them on the same device, at the same time, in the same place (like on your phone, lying down, in bed, before you sleep?).
So, switch it up! Obviously somewhere private, but try watching porn or reading or listening to erotica- especially a different kind of porn- in the morning, standing up, in a different room? The point is you are changing the context for your brain, to start telling your brain that you can get sexy in more than one way.
One of my personal favourites is to download erotica onto your kindle or e-reader device, and read smut on public transport or in a cafe. The sexual tension you’ll feel while reading and knowing you can’t do anything about it until you get home can fire up your sexual accelerators.
3. Change HOW you masturbate
If you’ve gotten into a masturbation rut, it’s probably partly because you are masturbating in the same way every time. Do you usually masturbate lying down? Then sit up. Or stand up. Move around. Walk around your bedroom with your vibrator or wand. Try it in the bath or shower. Pop your vibe or toy on your pillow and ride it. Touch different parts of your body. Play with different kinds of touch and stimulation.
I highly recommend checking out OMGYES.com for more practical masturbation tools.
4. Learn your pleasure anatomy
This may sound like a no-brainer but it’s not. Sure, you know your clitoris is important, but did you know that you have a whole internal erectile tissue network too? And that your vulva and inside your vagina have soooo many different hotspots and pleasure zones? To paraphrase an awesome colleague of mine — and the creator of my vulva pillow- Laura Doe-Harris, when she was performing her comedy play, “Vaudeville of The Vulva”:
It’s like realizing you had a lamborghini sitting in your garage and all you were doing was running the engine inside or taking it for a quick dash the to the end of your road and back.
5. Orgasmic Yoga
Yes, it’s a legit thing! Created by Joseph Kramer, a former Jesuit Priest, Orgasmic Yoga is a practise involving different body movements, breathwork, meditation, intention, self-pleasuring exercises, and making it a 30 day practise. It’s designed to help you to cultivate your sexual energy for yourself, and you’ll wonder why we never learned this in school
6. Learn body-based and energy exercises from Tantra
Similar to Orgasmic Yoga, there are so many body-based and energy exercises you can pracise from tantra and taoism to re-wire your neural pathways and orgasm. From Kegels and breath, intention, pelvic movements, meditation, and so much more.
7. Keep breathing
Do you notice that just before you cum or generally during masturbation or sex that you’re holding your breath? This is your reminder to notice when you are and to take a breath. It could be just one breath to interrupt yourself, some deep breaths into your belly, or breathing down deliberately into your pelvis and your vulva.
Just like how in yoga class you’re encouraged to keep breathing, same for sex.
8. Move your hips!
A super simple technique when you are trying hard to cum and I would recommend as a good practise for masturbation and partner sex is move your pelvis, deliberately. Whether it’s gyrating, circling, curling up or moving your pelvis in sync with your pleasure, this could be one of the single things that helps you orgasm.
This is one of the reasons why for women and vulva havers, the cowgirl sex position is the one you are most likely to orgasm in. Not only do you have more direct clitoral stimulation, but you are freely moving your hips.
9. Stop trying to have an orgasm and just focus on pleasure
Take orgasms of the menu completely. Or rather, stop trying to make them happen. It may feel counter productive, but the harder you try really really really hard to have one, you won’t have one. Or it will feel tiring and not satisfying at all.
Instead, bring your attention to… pleasure. Having fun. All the juicy, yummy, buzzy sensations that you feel when you masturbate. Can you just get off on how good it feels?
Maybe this issue isn’t that you can’t climax without watching porn?
I will hazard a guess that the issues you are having aren’t really about porn at all, per se, but something much bigger.
Maybe it’s because…
- You’ve become used to watching ONE kind, of a particular genre and your default fantasy, so your neural pathways have gotten stuck?
- You’ve become used to watching it in a certain way and so your brain and body have learned to associate it with orgasm?
- You watch it in secret, trying to not be heard or seen, and with a feeling of guilt and shame that it’s wrong/sinful/unethical/dirty? (Because you don’t exactly share on Facebook when you’ve watched something lip-smackingly, lustily, delicious, do you? )
- You try to finish as quickly as possible?
- You tense up and hold your breath while you do it?
- You don’t know a whole load of practical exercises you can do- like breath, kegels, pelvic rocking, intention and more to amplify it?
- We’ve all been taught such a limited view of what human sexuality is, what counts as “normal”, “healthy”, or even, “spiritual”, that it means you have to squash down alll the other not-so-love-and-light parts of you?
- Because porn is the most easily accessible depiction of humans looking like they’re enjoying sex and this is a normal human thing to want to see?
You are not dirty or sinful for enjoying porn
In case nobody told you or you internalized shaming messages about porn from either religious settings, spiritual settings, or communities like NoFap:
It is a normal human thing to want to see and enjoy people having sex where it looks like they’re enjoying it.
You aren’t dirty, a pervert, or sinful for wanting this!
Humans have been into freaky, weird, and fabulous sexual things since we first walked the earth.
There are many porn performers, sex workers, and sex educators who are working to de-stigmatize and educate around porn AND even those who talk about porn and spiritual practise.
For example:
Seani Wild (Formerly known as Seani Love)
Jet Setting Jasmine or on her IG
And many, many more.
Yes, the porn industry has all sorts of issues and you may feel uncomfortable about the ethics of watching the free tube sites. And the fact that thanks to the internet, we it’s easier than ever to watch porn 24/7 if you want to, meaning our brains can get used to this kind of stimulation.
My colleague, Silva Neves, is a respected and well known therapist who trains therapists and practitioners in working with Compulsive Sexual Behaviours, wrote a book on it, and is a vocal campaigner against sex addiction treatments.
He says that in people who experience compulsive and problematic relationships with porn and sexual behaviour, there is always an underlying issue or trauma that needs support, such as anxiety, OCD, PTSD, or something else.
But there are so many other kinds of visual, written, and audio erotica you can explore where the ethics aren’t as sketchy.
Why not instead adopt an attitude of sexual and erotic abundance? Rather than trying to orgasm with porn OR go completely “cold Turkey”, adopt a mindset of both/and or yes/more.
Your path to orgasm gets to be multifaceted, complex, and infinite- just like you are.
Originally published at https://lucyrowett.com.
