61 questions · each answer graded

Straight answers.

The questions people actually type, answered from the same 68-claim evidence register the course is built on. Where the evidence is mixed, the answer says so in the first line. Where it's a myth, it says that too. Each answer links to the lesson it comes from; the whole thing, in order, is the free course.

Who writes this, and how each answer is checked

Read the course in order The evidence register →

Does porn cause erectile dysfunction?Nobody knows yet, and anyone who tells you otherwise is guessing.Mixed evidence
Does porn lower your sex drive?The evidence is mixed.Mixed evidence
Is porn addiction real?It depends which of the world's two diagnostic manuals you ask.Well established
What is compulsive sexual behaviour disorder?Compulsive Sexual Behaviour Disorder is the WHO's ICD-11 diagnosis (code 6C72) for a persistent pattern of failing to control intense sexual impulses or urges, with real cost to the person's life.Well established
How common is porn addiction?There is no single defensible number.Mixed evidence
How do I know if porn is a problem for me?Not by counting.Well established
How much porn is too much?There is no number.Well established
Why do I feel addicted to porn when I don't use much?Because feeling addicted is predicted by moral disapproval of porn, on top of how much you actually use.Well established
Does porn ruin relationships?The largest meta-analysis found a small association, not a catastrophe: across 50 studies and over 50,000 people, porn use was linked to lower sexual and relationship satisfaction, with an effect around r = −.11 to −.13, significant for men only, and unrelated to how people felt about their own bodies or selves.Well established
Should I tell my partner about my porn use?There is no universal answer, and be suspicious of anyone who gives you one.Mixed evidence
Can women be addicted to porn?Yes, and the research has mostly ignored them.Mixed evidence
Do I have to quit porn completely?Not necessarily.Mixed evidence
How do I stop watching porn?Change your environment before you rely on willpower, decide your responses in advance with if-then plans, and treat a slip as information rather than a verdict.Mixed evidence
Do porn blockers work?They help, and not in the way they are sold.Mixed evidence
What are if-then plans, and do they work for porn urges?An if-then plan is a decision made in advance in a specific format: "If [situation], then I will [action]." Researchers call them implementation intentions, and across 94 independent tests they reliably improved goal attainment with a medium-to-large effect.Well established
How do I stop a porn urge right now?You don't stop it; you outlast it.Well established
What is urge surfing, and does it work?Urge surfing is turning toward an urge and observing it rather than fighting it.Well established
What should I do after a porn relapse?Stop the episode now, log the bare facts, do the thinking tomorrow, and change one thing.Well established
What is the abstinence violation effect?It is the finding, from Marlatt's relapse-prevention model, that what happens after a lapse depends on how you explain it to yourself.Well established
Why does shame make quitting porn harder?Because shame is a concealment emotion: it makes you want to hide, and hiding is exactly the state in which a private behaviour thrives.Well established
Do accountability partners help you quit porn?One or two people who don't perform disappointment help.Anecdotal
Does NoFap work?The part that holds up is peer support: in an analysis of over a hundred rebooting journals, abstinence became attainable with cognitive-behavioural strategies plus other people.Anecdotal
Is No Nut November a real thing?It began as an Urban Dictionary entry in 2011 and went mainstream around 2017; Rolling Stone reports it was created as a parody of viral challenges.Well established
Is semen retention backed by science?No.Mixed evidence
Does not ejaculating increase testosterone?The evidence says no.Mixed evidence
Does porn fry your dopamine receptors?No.Well established
Why do porn urges feel so strong when the experience is so flat?Because dopamine is about wanting, not liking.Well established
What is the flatline when quitting porn?The flatline is a stretch during abstinence when libido drops, arousal goes quiet and mood flattens.Anecdotal
How long does the flatline last after quitting porn?Nobody knows, because it has never been studied.Anecdotal
What are porn withdrawal symptoms?What people consistently report is a flat stretch: libido drops, arousal goes quiet, mood dips.Well established
How long does it take to quit porn?Nobody knows, and anyone confident about it is selling something.Anecdotal
Does porn cause depression?The link is with problematic use, not with use.Well established
Why do porn urges always hit late at night?Because late at night stacks the conditions: alone, tired but not sleepy, nothing planned, phone in hand.Mixed evidence
Does lack of sleep make porn urges worse?Sleep loss reliably makes mood worse and anxiety higher, which is the state urges thrive in.Mixed evidence
Does therapy work for porn addiction?There is meta-analytic support for CBT and ACT for problematic pornography use and the depressive symptoms that travel with it, with the caveat that the studies are small and carry a high risk of bias.Mixed evidence
Why does every generation panic about porn and masturbation?Because the same pattern has repeated for three hundred years: a social change, a confident new biology, dramatic claims of harm, and a product to sell.Mixed evidence
Has the UK's porn age verification law worked?Measurably, yes, on its own terms.Well established
If I slipped once, is that a relapse? Do I reset to day zero?There is no measured threshold, so the honest answer is that it is whatever you decided it was before it happened.Well established
Why does the day counter make me feel worse?Because it is a single number that can only be earned slowly and lost completely, which makes it very good at producing the one reaction that predicts a full return to the behaviour.Well established
Why do I want porn when I'm stressed or after a bad day?Because it is doing a job, and using something to change how you feel is the most ordinary thing there is.Well established
I've been clean for months and nothing has improved. Am I broken?No, but you were handed a recovery curve that nobody has ever measured, and that is worth knowing before you conclude anything about yourself.Anecdotal
Why did I relapse right after my longest streak?Usually because the conditions came back before the behaviour did, and a long run makes that easy to miss.Well established
Is punishing myself after a porn slip making it worse?Probably, and the reason is mechanical rather than sentimental.Well established
Is masturbation without porn okay, or does that count too?Nobody can settle that for you, and the research does not try.Well established
I quit porn but now I scroll reels and thirst traps. Is that the same thing?Probably not the same thing, and quite possibly the same sequence.Mixed evidence
Is edging the same as a relapse?Nobody has studied it, so there is no research verdict to hand you — your own definition decides, and it should have been written down before tonight.Well established
Why do I relapse when I'm bored, alone, or on a free weekend?Because the common factor is not the feeling, it is the absence of a decision.Well established
How long does a porn urge last, and what do I do while it lasts?Nobody has measured it, and this page is not going to invent a figure for you.Well established
Is it normal to feel worse in the first two weeks after quitting porn?Feeling worse before feeling better is widely reported, and the number in the question is the one part nobody can supply.Anecdotal
I have been at this for twenty or thirty years. Is it too late, and is it different for me?Nobody has measured whether twenty years is harder to change than two, so the honest answer to "is it different for me" is that nothing has been found either way.Mixed evidence
How do I quit porn as a woman when every space is built for men?The spaces are male because the numbers are and because the research was built on them: men report problematic use somewhere between three and nine times more often depending on the instrument, and the data on women are comparatively sparse.Mixed evidence
Does porn cause anxiety?Anxiety and problematic porn use travel together, but the association is small and nobody has shown that one causes the other.Mixed evidence
Does ADHD make quitting porn harder?Nobody has measured whether attention problems make quitting harder, so the honest answer is that it has not been shown either way.Well established
Is porn causing my brain fog, and will it lift if I quit?Nobody has measured it: no study has ever tested cognitive performance before and after a period away from porn.Mixed evidence
My porn tastes escalated. Will they go back if I quit?Nobody has measured it — no study has tracked what a person is aroused by before, during and after time away from porn.Mixed evidence
Has porn permanently damaged me, and is it reversible?The thing you are afraid of has never been found, and the thing you are hoping for has never been demonstrated.Well established
Does quitting porn improve sleep?Nobody has measured it — no trial and no prospective study of pornography abstinence has ever taken sleep as an outcome.Anecdotal
Does exercise reduce porn urges?In smokers and people in drug treatment, a bout of exercise is followed by a drop in reported craving, and it is gone within about half an hour.Mixed evidence
Does alcohol make porn urges worse?Nobody has tested it — there is no alcohol experiment and no daily study with pornography use as the outcome.Anecdotal
Does a wet dream break my streak?A nocturnal emission is involuntary, so this is not really a physiological question — it is a question about the rule you set, and the rule is yours.Well established
Is AI-generated porn different, and how do I quit it?It is already common, and almost nothing is known about it: no study compares AI-generated pornography with ordinary pornography on any outcome.Anecdotal

More on urges in the app.

The full 41-lesson course is in the app, every claim graded the same way, and a Panic button for the moment an urge hits. Free.

Coming to iOS and Android.