Hi! This is my first time posting on this website and I am glad that I am here. A little history to start. When I was around 14 years old,(I am 21 now btw) I first discovered porn. Like the majority of males going through puberty at that age, I started to look at heterosexual porn. When I watched heterosexual porn I remember giving more attention to the women, though I do not remember how aroused I was when looking at that type of porn. However, it was maybe like a year or so later I started to look at homosexual porn and experimenting with anal play. It was weird because after just one day (if I remember correctly) I started to look at predominantly homosexual porn and experimenting with anal play a lot. And unlike the heterosexual porn, I remember being extremely aroused by both the anal play and porn. So eventually, years pass and there has been two events in my life that made me believe that something was very wrong with my sexuality. The first was a sexual encounter with my first male which I was not mentally prepared for and regretted deeply. Second time was when I over thought the existence of God and literally believed he was going to send me to hell. Luckily I do not anymore, but during that time I did my research and discovered the website yourbrainonporn.org. This is when things got really hard for me because after reading many articles there I honestly believed that I had someone destroyed my sexuality and I would never be able to fix it and that god as going to send me to hell. Luckily I am now much better, and I actually came out to my parents as Bi-sexual (as I still have some attraction for women still.) and they still love me no matter what so.. FUCK YEAH! But after all I have been through, I still question if porn truly had done something permanent to my sexuality? I haven't given much though about it until about 2 days ago and have been doing a lot of research. I have not found many scientific journals published on how porn can influence ones sexuality and if I do they usually go on about how horrible porn is and how it can ruin ones sexual life and sexuality. I have found many people personal explanations such as that "porn helped awaken those feeling that were dormant inside your mind." but they provide no scientific data and facts to prove it. I am not here looking for answers as to how to become straight, because i know for a fact I am not completely straight, But if porn some how increased my likelihood of developing homosexual attraction. So finally for my questions. 1.) How can porn help one discover their natural sexuality. 2.) Have their been any studies done besides yourbrainonporn.com that show a more in depth example of what porn can actually do to your natural sexuality that does not include some sort of fetish?
I don't think there is any real research proving that the porn you like has any bearing on your sexuality. It may have helped you figure things out, but I don't think it's possible for it to have changed you in that way. Overuse of porn can have negative effects, but it doesn't change your orientation.
As Najlen said, there's no credible evidence (the "yourbrainonporn" people notwithstanding) that porn causes any actual changes to the brain. Watching gay porn in no way made you gay. If that were the case, then all the gay people that want to become straight could simply watch straight porn. It doesn't work that way. Porn isn't a reliable indicator of sexual orientation. This is for a variety of reasons, but the combination of unrealism and something that is staged specifically to create sexual arousal isn't going to be a reliable indicator of sexual orientation. Much better is masturbating without porn. If you watch porn all the time, you may need to be patient, and it may take a long time to reach orgasm for the first couple of weeks after you start masturbating porn-free. But your goal is to fantasize in your head, create the images and stories, and try fantasizing about girls in one session, and guys in another. And, perhaps, to not actively fantasize about anything and just let your mind wander and see what images come up. Doing these three things a few times each usually provides a pretty clear indication of which fantasies create stronger and more intense arousal and excitement. And if you find it's mostly guys... you're gay. Mostly girls... you're straight. Both... you're bi. So that's a good way to learn more about yourself, not to mention better for you in the long run in terms of not numbing you to sexual experiences, which porn does have a tendency to do.
Hard to beat that logic. I gotta remember that one. It's on a par with the "Maybe you haven't met the right opposite-sex person"..."Yeah well maybe you haven't met the right same-sea person" retort.
I don't think porn can change your sexuality on It's own. What I think happened is that you had bisexual tendencies all along, and that you just used the interest in porn as a reason to accept that. Now personally, I am a lesbian that has mostly watched gay male porn for the past 5+ years, but It's mainly only because lesbian porn is very fake and not arousing to me. It hasn't turned me straight or bi in the slightest as I still find men to be ugly in person and find the thought of touching one as repulsive as ever. So I go by the first paragraph.
So it is safe to say that I just had a natural predisposition to have more homosexual tendencies then. Ok cool! You also mentioned that the best way to help figure ones sexuality out by themselves is to masturbate without the use of porn and just use fantasy and that using porn is not the best way to judge ones sexuality, which I agree with, But could the use of porn have helped me figure out that I liked men more than women? I am not trying to sound argumentative, just trying to understand and accept myself, but I mean I feel like if I never watched homosexual porn I would have never even thought of or fantasized of men in a sexual manner (as far as I know I would not have until I discovered feelings for them later in life). I have heard of people discovering that they have attractions for men later in life and eventually decided they are gay, but how common is that?
Porn doesn't really have anything to do with your sexuality. I'm mostly interested in men and I only watch straight/ftm porn. I don't really know why but gay porn has never interested me very much. That being said, and although this statement is highly hypocritical, I would consider staying away from porn. Besides the fact that it objectifies people (mostly women) and in many cases normalizes sexual abuse and pedophilia ("Teen" porn), It's essentially a sensory overload for your brain and it can lead to some fairly serious issues in my opinion (mostly mental) including being a contributing factor to erectile dysfunction. Take it from someone who's experienced this EXTENSIVELY when I say that if you're having issues with your gender/sexual identity porn will only exacerbate the problem and make you more confused.
