If You Want to Kick the Porn Habit...

With smartphones and home computers, pornography is readily available, always. For some people, that means the act of masturbation has been completely co-opted by the porn industry, sometimes to their detriment. The habitual use of porn during masturbation often leads to a desire for escalating external visual stimuli. So how can you break this habit, if it has become a problem?

Mirror, mirror

It's easy to associate masturbation as a practice to the visual cues we see when consuming pornography. Part of what gets lost in this escalating experience is the fact that masturbation should be about the person doing it, not anything external. In order to recalibrate your visual sexual appetite, try masturbating in front of a mirror.

This might be difficult for some people. Insecurities about body type or other aspects of physical appearance, as well as general discomfort with the potential self-absorption the act might imply, can be a bit of a turn-off. Instead, try to notice the attractive traits of your body that you typically ignore. By pulling these aspects into the forefront of your consciousness, you're actually practicing a sort of mindfulness that can be very helpful in boosting your confidence and comfort in your own body.

Keeping it simple is important. Make sure you have a comfortable place to sit or lie down, whatever works best for you. Avoid the temptation to use your phone's camera or film yourself in the process of self-pleasure. This exercise is all about being in the moment, sitting with your organic self and recognizing just how sexy you can be.

Arousing affirmations

There's nothing wrong with talking to yourself now and then. A lot of porn leans into degradation and humiliation as a means of arousal. These interests are fine as healthy expressions of sexual uniqueness, but indulging too much in negative talk can be harmful to your psyche. A simple way to counteract this experience is to do just the opposite during your most intimate alone times.

Talking to yourself in an encouraging, affirming way may not come naturally. Try to focus on positive aspects once you've already begun a little bit of self-exploration and play, or forget about using words completely. After all, some of the sexiest utterances we hear from sexual partners come in the form of groans or primal, guttural noises. Certain interesting desires may float to the surface of your mind as you get more and more comfortable talking and listening to yourself during masturbation.

Masturbation massage

Having your muscles and ligaments worked over can be an incredibly relaxing and enticing experience. But there isn't always an extra set of hands around to do the kneading your body needs.

Since you probably don't have the skills of a circus contortionist, you might think self-massage is beyond your reach, but your back isn't the only place on your body where tension and frustration build up and get stored. Massages don't have to be full-blown spa experiences to be enjoyable.

After a hot bath or a shower, get into a comfortable position and focus on a single, sore part of your body. The key objective is to relax and remind your brain and body that masturbation can have calming aspects. A lot of commercial porn is produced with the intention to instigate high levels of arousal around increasing adrenaline responses very quickly. This creates conditions of stimulation that differ from what occurs organically during sex or masturbation when porn isn't present.

Everything in moderation

Neither masturbation nor porn is unhealthy. Both provide advantages to mindset and sexual awareness, but an important difference between healthy masturbation and healthy porn consumption is in the frequency and attitudes practitioners adopt toward both, over time.

If you have a partner or a close friend with whom you feel comfortable, discuss some new ideas about intimacy. You never know what might come up.