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Self help modules:

Adult pornography

This self-help section will help you explore and understand your use of legal pornography and whether your use of adult pornography is a problem.

Objectives

This self-help section will help you explore and understand:

  • your use of legal pornography, which we will call adult pornography
  • why you look at adult pornography
  • whether your use of adult pornography is a problem
  • techniques to reduce or stop using adult pornography

Module chapters

Adult pornography
If you are viewing legal adult pornography then this is your choice and we are not here to shame you for using it or to tell you to stop
When viewing adult pornography becomes a problem
People who think that the way they look at adult pornography is out of their control might say it is like an addiction to alcohol or drugs
What is a trigger?
A trigger is something that affects how you are feeling, which then affects how you behave.
Drivers
Many people have problems with limiting the amount of time they spend viewing adult pornography or how often they view it
Managing your adult pornography use
If you decide it would be helpful for you to reduce your use of adult pornography, or stop looking at it completely, then here are some changes you can make to help.
Self-care and tips
Feeling negative effects when you give up pornography is normal.

Adult pornography

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If you are viewing legal adult pornography then this is your choice and we are not here to shame you for using it or to tell you to stop.

But this self-help section will encourage you to think about whether viewing legal adult pornography is helpful or harmful for you.

Some people we work with connect viewing legal adult pornography to their illegal online sexual behaviour. Some of the reasons for this may become evident as you work through this module, particularly when you look at the section on drivers.

What is pornography?

Pornography is sexual content designed to sexually excite people. It can be pictures, videos, written stories, or other forms. It often shows sexual body parts, people having sex, foreplay, or masturbation.

Legal pornography can show one or more adults (aged 18 or older) having sex or engaging in other sexual behaviours. The adults must consent to these sexual behaviours, to being filmed or photographed, and to the videos or pictures being distributed.

Bondage and fetishes can be shown as long as they are consensual and do not lead to abusive behaviours, for example, a person being physically harmed, their life threatened, or rape scenarios.

Is it OK to view adult pornography?

In the UK, if you are aged 18 or over you can legally view adult pornographic material.

If you are an adult viewing adult pornography then this is your choice and we are not here to shame you for using it or to tell you to stop.

But this self-help section will encourage you to think about whether using adult pornography is helpful or harmful for you.

Before the internet, people might have gone to a shop or a cinema to pay for adult pornography. But now it is easily and freely available online. This reduces any social embarrassment, inhibition, or shame that may have been felt when buying adult pornography face-to-face.

As a result, the amount of people viewing adult pornography and the amount of pornography they view has grown. Some people view hours of adult pornography before they notice how much time has passed.

Is adult pornography good or bad?

Lots of men who we work with talk about pornography being good or bad and think that viewing mainstream pornography is OK because it is legal. But they also talk about feelings of shame after viewing it.

Adult pornography can be harmful to some of the people shown in it. Some adult pornography actors (porn stars) will have thought about their decision to be involved and given consent, performing in an environment they feel safe and looked after.

But others might have thought there was no other option, been unwilling, forced, threatened, or even been through sex trafficking. With amateur footage, you might be viewing people who give consent to show themselves sexually online, but you could also be watching something that wasn’t supposed to be shared, such as revenge porn. It is impossible to guarantee the people you are watching have given consent.

When viewing adult pornography becomes a problem

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When does viewing adult pornography become a problem?

People who think that the way they look at adult pornography is out of their control might say it is like an addiction to alcohol or drugs. They might have some of the same problems, for example:
  • feeling preoccupied with adult pornography itself or thinking about searching for it
  • experiencing withdrawal, craving the adult pornography, or finding it difficult to stop thinking about it
  • unable to stop or reduce time spend viewing adult pornography, eventually spending more time viewing it, searching for it, or thinking about it
  • becoming desensitised and needing to view more, or more extreme adult pornography over time to experience the same effects
  • continuing even though there are negative consequences, including for relationships or mental health, or when you begin breaking the law by viewing extreme or abusive imagery.

Exercise 1: Is adult pornography a problem for you?

How can you tell if your use of adult pornography is a problem? Use the quiz below to find out.

The more questions you agree with, the more problematic your pornography use appears to be. If you answered ‘yes’ to any of the questions, you might find this module helpful.

The impact of adult pornography on your life

Everybody is different. Some people can view adult pornography without experiencing any problems or negative effects. But for many people, adult pornography can have a negative impact on their real-world life. For example, it can:
  • affect relationships by creating distance between people. You might find it easier to spend time alone online
  • breakdown an intimate, sexual relationship with a partner. Adult pornography can lead users towards an easier way of getting regular sexual pleasure
  • dull a person’s senses to real-world experiences. Some people might put pressure on their partner to copy what they’ve seen online, creating tension and resentment
  • lead to pornography-induced erectile dysfunction, which is when it is no longer possible to be aroused by the person in front of you
  • affect your attitudes about what sexual behaviour between adults you think is acceptable in the real world
  • lead to anxiety and depression

Exercise 2: Is adult pornography affecting your real world?

These questions will help you work out whether your adult pornography use is affecting your real world.
  • In what ways might have/has adult pornography changed the way you view yourself?
  • How has it impacted your relationships (both sexual and non-sexual)?
  • How has it affected your work, sleep, and ability to look after yourself?
  • How might adult pornography have impacted your view of the world and other people?
  • Has your use of adult pornography contributed to you being in trouble with the law?
  • Is your use of adult pornography changing the way you deal with life problems?
  • What effect does it have on other areas of your life that are important to you?
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What is a trigger?

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A trigger is something that affects how you are feeling, which then affects how you behave. Some triggers can be positive, for example seeing an attractive adult and feeling sexually aroused. Some triggers can be negative, including:
  • sadness
  • boredom
  • loneliness
  • frustration
  • anger.

What triggers these negative emotions in the first place?

This will be different for different people.

Some triggers are emotions themselves, for example, feeling bored, or living with a constant feeling of stress or anxiety.

Some triggers are caused by something that happens, for example, having a bad day at work or an argument with a partner.

Some triggers come from situations, for example, sitting in the room where you’d usually look at adult pornography.

Some triggers come from habits, for example, viewing adult pornography at the same time of day.

Negative feelings can trigger some people to go online and view sexual content to make themselves feel better or help them cope. They try to replace the negative feelings with more positive feelings of excitement, arousal, and adventure.

This might feel like it helps in the short term, but using pornography in this way is a bit like a sticking plaster – it is only a temporary fix and the issues behind your negative feelings might still be there.

It is important to remember that we are in control of our own behaviour, even if it sometimes doesn’t feel like it. Even if something has triggered you to have a strong emotional reaction, you still have a choice of how to make yourself feel better. You have a choice whether to go online and view pornography, or whether you manage your feelings in a different way.

How to manage your triggers

If you want to view pornography then there are a range of techniques that you could use to help stop yourself. Check out our information on fantasy management.

Exercise 4: Keep a trigger diary

Over the next week, we encourage you to keep a diary, completing the diary each time you go online. You can have more than one diary entry each day.

Sometimes it can be difficult to know what triggered your feelings before you went online. It can help to think about what you were doing or whether something specific happened before you went online. You might need to spend some time reflecting on this.

DayTimeHow I was feeling before I went onlineWhat did I do online? What type of content did I view?How long did I spend online?How did I feel when I was online?How did I feel after I stopped being online?Ideas for what I could have done instead
Monday       
Tuesday       
Wednesday       
Thursday       
Friday       
Saturday       
Sunday       
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  • Are there any patterns between how you were feeling before, during, and after you were viewing adult pornography online?
  • Are there any patterns between your feelings and the length of time you spent online, or what you did online?
  • What triggers can I identify?
  • What are some things I could do instead of watching pornography?
  • What have you learned from completing this exercise? 

If you want to understand more about why you use pornography to solve problems, you may find it helpful to visit our understanding problems module.

Drivers

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Many people have problems with limiting the amount of time they spend viewing adult pornography or how often they view it.

This might be because of drivers. Drivers are psychological factors in your mind that make it harder to control behaviour.

When viewing pornography online, you could see hundreds of different images and videos within minutes. This has a powerful impact on your brain and can make it very difficult for you to control your online behaviour. They affect the way you view adult pornography and your feelings while you are viewing it.

Here are a few examples of how your brain can be affected.

It doesn’t have the same effect because it isn’t new. To get the same level of sexual arousal, you might need to keep viewing new things.

For people who have viewed a lot of adult pornography, this often means they start pushing boundaries and view things that they might have found too extreme, odd or distasteful before.

Seeing or thinking about new and arousing pornography releases a chemical called dopamine into your body, which makes you feel happy and rewarded.

This is because all species, including humans, evolved to try to reproduce so that they don’t go extinct. So your modern brain is linking pornography with its aim to reproduce – ejaculating as many times as possible to impregnate as many females as possible.

This is sometimes called the bikini effect. It can have a bigger effect on people who are unhappy because they have less to lose or more to escape. There is less research into the effect on women.

This means that when you are online and feeling sexually aroused, you might be more likely to take risks, push boundaries and think more about the immediate rewards than the long-term consequences of your online viewing. You might be less likely to think about the negative impact your viewing habits could be having on your life.

Sexual arousal also reduces your ability to think about other people (you have less empathy) so you might be more able to watch films with violence or abuse without feeling uncomfortable or concerned about the people in them.

Advertisers know this, which is why they sometimes use suggestive or sexual pictures when selling things to men.

Thinking about pornography, the pleasure might eventually be less from what you see and more from what you hope to see. You might be rewarded from time to time with a particularly arousing image or film, but for the most part, you may be spending hours online in a state of expectation, and keep searching because you think that there must be something better out there.

You might lose awareness of what else is going on in life and feel like you’re in a bubble. After you stop viewing pornography, you might not have any clear idea of what you thought or felt while you were online.

This is sometimes called a state of flow. There is something that feels good about doing activities that hold your attention. Dopamine is released when your brain is active and focused on a rewarding task. This can help understand why the behaviour continues and you might be drawn to it in the future to escape from life’s stresses.

How do drivers affect you?

  • Do you view more extreme material, for longer, without having knowing why you were doing so once you stop being online?
  • Do you feel as if you were acting out of character or feel ashamed or numb about what you viewed, but still look for it next time you are online?
  • Do you feel that the ‘online you’ is very different from the ‘offline you’?
Most people don’t know or think about drivers. But the people who make pornography do. This is why pornography sometimes contains violence, coercion and unusual acts because the makers need to find new things to keep their audience.

Exercise 5: Thinking about your own behaviour

Below are some questions to help you think about your pornography use.
  • What type of pornography do you view now?
  • Have your opinions changed about it?
  • Would you have viewed that type of pornography a few years ago?
  • Which drivers do you relate to?
  • How does this help you to understand how your pornography use has changed?
  • What can you do differently now that you are aware of your behaviour and triggers?

Managing your adult pornography use

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Practical changes

If you decide it would be helpful for you to reduce your use of adult pornography, or stop looking at it completely, then here are some changes you can make to help.
  • If you live with other people, only go online or use your phone, tablet or computer in a shared space, for example the kitchen or living room. Knowing that other people can see your screen can reduce how likely you are to look at adult pornography.
  • If you usually use your phone, tablet or laptop late at night, don’t take it to bed with you or charge it in the bedroom.
  • Set restrictions or activate parental controls on your internet connection. This can stop you from being able to connect to websites with adult pornography. Find out how to set restrictions.
  • If someone knows you are trying to reduce your adult pornography use, ask them to help. Some apps allow a trusted friend or family member to see your internet history, which can motivate you to avoid adult pornography. Check out Covenant Eyes.
  • If you don’t have someone to support you, NoFap might help – it’s a website and support group designed to help users overcome porn addiction, porn overuse, and compulsive sexual behaviour.

Relaxation techniques

Using mindfulness, meditation and guided visualisation can help manage emotional triggers to online pornography use. Use a technique that works for you, which you can plan and rehearse in advance. Find out more about relaxation techniques.

Self-care and tips

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Self-care and tips to view less adult pornography

Feeling negative effects when you give up pornography is normal. When you view adult pornography, dopamine makes you feel good, so you might feel the opposite to this when you give up.

When you first give up, it might be very tempting to view just a bit of pornography. Don’t test yourself. If you give in to these temptations, you might find that you view more and more and the habit has reformed.

  • Try your best to power through. The part of your brain that responds strongly to pornography also responds to other things that make you feel good, for example talking with friends, playing a sport. Those dopamine hits might not be as strong and quick, but eventually, they will be more satisfying and less harmful.
  • Try to fill your time with other things. If you feel bored, you might be more likely to give in to your urges to view adult pornography. Try to fill your time away from the internet, maybe with a new hobby.
  • Write a list of the people and things that are important to you. Put this list next to your computer as a way to put you off viewing adult pornography.
  • Learn new ways to manage negative feelings. When you are feeling stressed or low, you are more likely to give in to urges.
  • Be honest about what you lose out on when you stop viewing pornography. Are there other ways to make up for these losses?
  • Eat well and sleep. Eating processed foods and lack of sleep can impact our mood, our resilience, and how we process information, which affects how well we can cope with situations.
  • Exercise. It is a good distraction and makes you feel better, and also releases dopamine.
  • Be kind to yourself. You may not get this right the first time. You may slip up. But you can always start again. Reward yourself when you are able to manage your use of adult pornography. 

Take a look at our suggestions for places to get more help and information.

Talk to us if you need support

The experienced advisors on our confidential helpline can support you if you want to discuss anything covered in this module, have struggled when working through it or want to go through the information with a practitioner to guide you. You can stay anonymous and don’t have to give your real name, location, or any contact details. If you’re not ready to speak to anyone yet, you can also use our live chat or send a secure email.

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Concerned about your online behaviour

Many people who have engaged in online sexual behaviour involving children believe that there is a ‘grey area’ between what is legal and illegal. There is not.

View modules

Fantasy

This module will help you explore and understand your current sexual and non-sexual fantasies, and the link between your fantasies and your online behaviour

Fantasy
Fantasies can be about a range of different things and everybody will have their own reasons for engaging in a fantasy
Exercise: When fantasy becomes a problem
A good starting point in considering if your fantasies are problematic is to look at your fantasies in more detail.
Appropriate versus inappropriate fantasy
So what are appropriate and inappropriate fantasies? We split inappropriate fantasies into three sections
Exercise: Fantasy knowledge
Understanding the issues around fantasy
Exercise: Inappropriate fantasy
Fantasies do not automatically lead to behaviours, but they do increase your likeliness of wanting to ‘play out’ particular fantasies.
Exercise: a fantasy management technique
Many individuals use fantasy management techniques to help stop having these harmful sexual fantasies.
Reflection: fantasy
What have you learnt about your fantasies?
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Understanding why

If you are concerned about your worrying or illegal online sexual behaviour and want to stop this behaviour, it is important for you to learn as much as possible about yourself and what you are doing.

Understanding why
If you are concerned about your worrying or illegal online sexual behaviour and want to stop this behaviour, it is important for you to learn as much as possible about yourself and what you are doing
Exercise 1: internet use
You might already have some understanding of why you have been or are tempted to behave illegally online
Exercise 2: timeline
The second exercise is in three parts and looks back over your life to help you think about how you started behaving illegally online
Reflection: understanding why
As with the introduction to this module, using the table below, write down your current level of knowledge and understanding about your online behaviour.
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Taking control of your online behaviour

This module aims to help you explore and gain understanding your level of control over your current online sexual behaviours, how you have used denial to allow your problematic behaviour to continue and how to make immediate changes to start the change process.

Triggers: taking control
How does feeling out of control affect your mood?
Changes
It is important that you recognise that making changes can be hard and so people can easily go back into old habits
Reflection: taking control of your online behaviour
Has this module raised any further questions for you or made you want to explore any ideas further?
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Online world

Sexual offending happens in the offline and online world. But some people we work with often tell us they would not have offended without the internet, apps or smartphones.

Online world
Sexual offending happens in the offline and online world.
Online behaviour
Some people we work with say they behaved in a way online that they wouldn’t have done in the offline world.
Online relationships
We all have an idea of how we come across to other people.
Exercise 3: So what is the problem with online relationships?
When we engage with people online and form friendships, it is usually around something specific, for example the sexual images of children.
Exercise 4 and 5: Online world
Some people don’t have as many offline relationships as they would like.
Reflection: online world
Think about what has prompted you to take action
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Triggers

This module will help you understand, different types of triggers and your own triggers

Triggers
A ‘trigger’ is also called a cue, prompt or call to action.
Situational and environmental risks
Some places and situations present specific risks and triggers for people, for example being alone at home late at night with internet access
Reflection: triggers
Think about the triggers you have identified.
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Adult pornography

If you are viewing legal adult pornography then this is your choice and we are not here to shame you for using it or to tell you to stop. But this self-help section will encourage you to think about whether viewing legal adult pornography is helpful or harmful for you.

Adult pornography
If you are viewing legal adult pornography then this is your choice and we are not here to shame you for using it or to tell you to stop
When viewing adult pornography becomes a problem
People who think that the way they look at adult pornography is out of their control might say it is like an addiction to alcohol or drugs
What is a trigger?
A trigger is something that affects how you are feeling, which then affects how you behave.
Drivers
Many people have problems with limiting the amount of time they spend viewing adult pornography or how often they view it
Managing your adult pornography use
If you decide it would be helpful for you to reduce your use of adult pornography, or stop looking at it completely, then here are some changes you can make to help.
Self-care and tips
Feeling negative effects when you give up pornography is normal.
Visit the module
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Addiction

This module aims to help you explore and gain understanding of how you can start to address your addictions.

Addiction
What do we mean by a compulsion or addictive behaviour?
It’s not my fault?
Wrong – the first time you engaged in illegal online sexual behaviour, you knew it was wrong, you weren’t addicted then but you went back and did it again
Dealing with addiction
It is really important to look at the motivation for your behaviour and the emotions you are avoiding.
Reflection: addiction
Reflect back on what you have learnt about addiction
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Sexual communication with children online

This module aims to help you explore and gain understanding of your motivation for engaging sexually with children online, how your behaviour progressed into sexual communication and how you might have justified your behaviour.

Sexual communication with children online
Sexual communication with a child is often referred to as online grooming.
The different groups
Some people tell us that their interaction with children was not only motivated by sex.
Different stages
In order to understand more about how to avoid situations which may lead to you communicating sexually with a child in the future
The cycle of online grooming
Some people find it more helpful to think of their behaviour as following a repeated pattern rather than, for example, the stages set out above
The child’s perspective
Many people do not believe they are harming children when they communicate with them sexually on the internet.
Reflection: sexual communication with children online
Understanding more about your behaviour online can help you to consider what changes you need to make to stop the behaviour and move forward positively
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Images are children

This module will help you understand the false justifications offenders use to avoid responsibility for their actions, that these images are of real children being abused and the effects of being photographed on the children in the image.

Images are children
It’s likely that you will have used self-justifications to persuade yourself that it is ok to allow yourself to view sexual images of children
Exercise 1: understanding and responding to justifications
For people to allow themselves to view sexual images of children, they will generally be using a number of self-justifications to persuade themselves that it is ok to do what they are doing
Consent
‘Consent’ means to give permission for something to happen.
Exercise 2: Empathy
‘Empathy’ means trying to understand what another person is thinking and feeling, or “putting yourself into their shoes”
The effects on the child
Psychologists have tried to look at what it means to the child to be photographed and for these photographs to be used in a sexual way
Exercise 3: effects on you
Consider how you would feel about how close you could get to the child abuse taking place
Images are children: reflection
Your level of knowledge and understanding around your awareness of the child abuse taking place in these images
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Problematic collecting

This module aims to help you to explore and gain understanding of why you collect, how it links to your offending and the relationship between collecting and some of the unsatisfactory aspects of your life.

Problematic collecting
For some people, collecting – and cataloguing, organising and all the other stuff that goes with it – can seem a big part of their offending
Exercise 2: when collecting is a problem
If you are collecting sexual images of children, then this is always a problem because it is harmful to both you and the children in the images
Exercise 3: why collect sexual images of children
Of all the things you could collect, why collect sexual images of children?
Exercise 4: justifications
A lot of people will have known that their collecting was wrong, but still continued to do it anyway
Reflection: problematic collecting
What have you learnt about yourself? What are you going to do?
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Problems of immediate gratification

This module aims to help you explore and gain understanding of why immediate gratification is so powerful and how to manage the desire of immediate gratification.

Problem of immediate gratification
understand why you prioritised your immediate needs despite the consequences
Problem of immediate gratification – reflection
Understanding the issues around fantasy
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Contact us

Our confidential helpline is free and available to anyone concerned about the safety of children.

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Lucy Faithfull Foundation offers support and advice for parents, carers, professionals, survivors and communities. Shore is for teenagers worried about sexual behaviour. 

Our helpline 0808 1000 900

2 Birch House, Harris Business Park, Hanbury Road 
Stoke Prior, Bromsgrove, B60 4DJ

Lucy Faithfull Foundation is a Registered Charity No. 1013025, and is a company limited by guarantee, Registered in England No. 2729957.

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