HealthyGamerGG - Can You Make P*rn Healthy

Episode Date: July 5, 2025

In this episode, Dr. K takes on a question that sparks a lot of debate: can porn ever be healthy? He explores what makes something “healthy,” how porn affects the brain, and whether there’s a way to engage with it without harm. This isn’t just a yes-or-no conversation. Dr. K breaks down: The psychology behind why people turn to porn How it can impact motivation, relationships, and mental health The difference between mindful use and compulsive habits What a “healthy” relationship with porn might even look like Whether you’re curious, skeptical, or just trying to understand your own habits better, this episode offers an honest look at a complicated topic—without shame. Reserve YOUR seat for Dr. Honda's "Healing from Narcissistic Parents" Workshop on 07/27: bit.ly/4nxiOWd⁠ Puer Aeternus Resources: ⁠bit.ly/3G8KUGL This Episode on YouTube: ⁠bit.ly/4lejMW4⁠ HG Coaching : https://bit.ly/46bIkdo Dr. K's Guide to Mental Health: https://bit.ly/44z3Szt HG Memberships : https://bit.ly/3TNoMVf Products & Services : https://bit.ly/44kz7x0 HealthyGamer.GG: https://bit.ly/3ZOopgQ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ambition comes in all shapes and sizes. At First Citizens Bank, we're fit for your ambitions, whatever shape they may take. Whether you're planning for today or tomorrow, we've got the flexibility and know-how to help you reach your goals. Because we're built for what you're building. First Citizens Bank, fit for your ambition. Learn more at firstcitizens.com slash ambition. Hey, chat. Welcome to the Healthy Gamer Gigi podcast.

I'm Dr. Alok Kanoja, but you can call me Dr. K. I'm a psychiatrist gamer and co-founder of Healthy Gamer. On this podcast, we explore mental health and life in the digital age, breaking down big ideas to help you better understand yourself and the world around you. So let's dive right in. Welcome to another Healthy Gamer Gigi stream. My name is Dr. Allo Kanoja. Just a reminder that although I'm a psychiatrist,

nothing we discussed on stream today is intended to be taken as medical advice. Everything we discussed today is for educational or educational, entertainment purposes only. So if you all have a medical concern or question, please go see a licensed professional. So happy Friday, everybody, for those of you all that are celebrating Independence Day in the United States of America, happy Independence Day. Today, we're going to talk about healthy pornography use and whether healthy pornography use is possible. And as we answer this question, I hope we will be able to discover, right? So if we understand what healthy pornography use looks like if it's possible.

Then what we can do is once we know what healthy use looks like, then we may have some insight into what creates unhealthy use. And if we understand those two variables, it will give us a way to navigate our pornography use, right? So what is really the problem with pornography? And I think like, so this too is like inspired a little bit by people in our community. So is moderate porn use really that bad? I've been conflicted with porn.

I used to watch it a lot. Then I would be in a cycle of low-key trying to quit. You know, one of the most common arguments that I have is that if you start watching it twice a week, then it ramps up. You know, there are people who are clearly pro-porn. I'm concerned about frying my dopamine receptors. Since porn gives you a high dopamine rush, you know, one final thing is that people say, say it ruins relationships and makes sex worse. So the counter argument is I usually hear is that I'm replacing porn for sex,

but if I stop watching porn when I'm in a relationship where I can have sex, then is it okay to start watching it now if I can't get it any other way? So there's, you know, this post is pretty long. And I think it touches on a lot of the common ideas about pornography. Okay. So the first is that porn is bad for you. So we know that porn activates your dopamine receptors. People struggle to sort of figure out how to use pornography in relationships.

Is porn something that I should do outside of a relationship? Is it something I should do inside of a relationship? Is it a form of infidelity? Like, what's the deal? Okay. And what's really shocking is that we now sort of have a very good idea of, maybe not a very good idea, a far better idea of what makes pornography problematic. And what we've discovered is actually quite shocking.

So there's been an explosion of research in the last two or three years. And the key thing is there's been a lot of something called meta-analyses. So meta-analyses are when we take something like, you know, studies that have a thousand participants each, we put them together so that we have a sample size of like 50,000 people. One of the studies that we're going to be looking at today combines data from 50,000. 50,000 individuals. And what we sort of found is quite shocking. So a couple of the key things that people, as we've combined all this data, here are a

couple of shocking things that float to the surface. The first is that the amount of pornography that you watch does not seem to be correlated with how damaging it is. Shocking. So there are people who watch a lot of pornography for whom it is a big problem and people who watch a lot of pornography for whom it is not a big problem. Okay, so the amount that you watch, so this kind of like general idea that, you know, once you start ramping up, it becomes more damaging, that doesn't appear to be the case. Okay? And we'll support this all with data in a second. Second thing is that there's this really contentious idea around pornography and relationships. But as the data shows, a lot of pornography actually enhances relationships. So pornography can be used to enhance relationships.

or it can cause problem in relationships. And we'll sort of dissect why that happens, okay? So these are like two really big things. Third thing is that it seems that whether pornography is harmful or not, doesn't depend on whether you're in a relationship, doesn't depend on the frequency of usage, but depends on the way that you use it. And this is what I think is sort of floating to the surface.

So we have all these ideas that like, you know, porn is bad for us, right? and we have this idea that like porn is like this stuff that affects the brain. And that's something that I've explained several times before, how it affects the brain, affects our dopamine receptors, affects our emotional circuitry, so therefore it is bad. But I think the picture that we're starting to develop about pornography is that is actually very similar to any other addictive thing, whether it's a behavior or a substance. So if we look at alcohol addiction or alcohol usage, 6% of, people are addicted to alcohol, the majority of people who utilize alcohol can utilize it in a

healthy way. And I think what we're starting to see with pornography is that that may be true. Now, this is where things are a little bit different because substance use disorders and behavioral addictions are fundamentally different. In the case of alcohol use, for example, you can have a genetically inherited single receptor which alcohol activates more robustly. so you can have a very robust transmission of a neurotransmitter called GABA, and that can make you like, you know, you can have like alcoholism runs in families. So you can inherit a single receptor. So this is important to understand.

When we're talking about a substance use disorder, like a substance-based addiction, you can have an alteration of a single receptor that can drastically increase your risk of addiction. When it comes to behavioral addictions like video game addiction, pornography addiction, social media addiction, whatever, there's not a lot of, a single receptor in your brain that, you know, gets activated by a chemical compound. Therefore, I think the risk of these behavioral addictions is more like global. So it's more like of a whole brain effect. There are more issues around personality and kind of vulnerability, personality vulnerabilities and certain kinds of behaviors and dynamics that make it addictive or not

addictive. We'll go into all that. Does that kind of make sense, y'all? So today we're going to talk about this stuff, okay? And then once we understand, so it's... It's not based on the frequency of usage, can actually be used to enhance relationships, can improve a sense of like life satisfaction by using pornography. Like there's data behind that. So we're going to dive into all that. And then what we'll sort of settle on is when does pornography become problematic? And how do we address those issues? Okay.

So let's start. I feel like there was one other thing that I wanted to say. Oh, yeah. So, hold on. Okay. Okay. So let's start with this study. Okay. So this is a study that's looking at perceived effects of pornography on the couple relationship. Initial findings of an open-ended participant-informed bottom-up research. Okay. So here's the key, first thing we need to understand about pornography addiction research. Much of the empirical research concerning pornography's impact on couple relationships can be legitimately, characterized as a confirmatory search for the presumed harms of exposure. So let's start by understanding what this means, okay? Typically involve theoretically guided experimental and correlational investigations of pornography use on selective close-ended endpoints.

Okay? So what does this mean? This means that if we look at the research on pornography, the studies will be trying to assess pornography addiction or problematic pornography use. They're not looking at the effect of pornography. They're saying, let us see if pornography is damaging. So when these researchers are doing this investigation, they will craft their questions and frame the study in a way that presumes that pornography is harmful.

So they'll use close-ended questions like, do you have a. problem with pornography. Or do you use more pornography than you want to, for example? So if you look at that question, I can answer yes to that question, but that doesn't mean that I have a problem with pornography, right? Like, you could say, like, do you eat more chips than you want to? Yes. And just because I eat more chips than I want to doesn't mean that I'm addicted to chips. So the first thing that these researchers are now, researchers are now realizing is that there's like a bias in the way that we do research. So what this study is, is they didn't start with the presumption that pornography is harmful. They did qualitative research that's bottom up. So

they just asked people open-ended questions. Like, how does pornography if pornography affect your relationships? So let's take a look at what they found. Okay? So if you just like, if you don't presume it's harmful, the other thing that we should talk about is that most of the research on pornography is done on individuals. Right? So it's not looking at relationships and asking what is the impact that pornography has on your relationships. Sometimes they'll have studies like that. Well, they'll ask how has pornography harmed your relationship. And do you all see how those two research questions are very different?

But there are all these assumptions about the harms of pornography use, right? So there's a bunch of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Oh, whoops. I'm the wrong thing. Okay. So let's look at this. So while a similar number of positive and negative perceived effects were identified, generally speaking, positive effects of pornography use were reported more frequently

than negative consequences by participants. And there was a predominant tendency for participants to reject the view that pornography contributes to negative consequences, i.e. that pornography, people were on board with the idea that pornography has no negative impacts. Okay? So it would appear that many individuals experience effects of pornography on themselves and the couple relationship that do not conform to the investigator-imposed, close-ended endpoints represented in bulk of published experimental and correlational research in this area. Okay? What that sort of means is that if you ask people open-ended questions, how does pornography impact your relationship, instead of asking them, does what problem?

does pornography cause? We end up with very different answers. The most common response in this sample by a very large margin was that pornography had no negative impacts on the pornography users, their partners, or their relationships. So the most common answer, right? And this is asking 430 people, by the way, okay? So many scholars may be surprised and dismissive of the reports of positive perceived effects of pornography use is it has been strongly asserted that pornography limits

rather than liberalizes sexuality. Such assertions have their roots in longstanding radical feminist assumptions that pornography privileges male sexual pleasure, denies female agency, and degrades women. Okay. So several positive perceived effects uncovered in this study correspond to known clinical benefits of pornography use, including several benefits that have been established and experimental studies involving women, such as increased sexual arousal and interest, okay? The acquisition or imitation of pleasurable sexual behaviors and the reduction of sexual anxiety, right?

We are particularly intrigued by the prominent theme concerning pornography's association with sexual communication. We found that many people expressed how using pornography made communication easier, and such responses frequently mentioned learning about each other through sexual self-disclosures of likes and dislikes, as well as increased perceived closeness and intimacy that accompanied such communications. Okay, so this is very interesting. Now, we're going to present a lot more nuance than this, okay? So the first thing to understand, right, we're going to recap for a bit.

is that a lot of the studies, so there were, there's this kind of idea from radical feminist views that pornography is subjectating to women and things like that. And I think there's a fair amount of evidence for that. There's a lot of abuse that happens in the production of pornography. I don't think that those arguments are wrong by any means. These authors, I think, I think they draw a conclusion. So like they have this sentence over here that I don't agree with. So here's something spicy. I left it out. In light of such empirical evidence, continuing claims that pornography typically

limits sexual expression, especially for women, are dubious at best. So they sort of make this conclusion. I don't know if that's a fair conclusion. But the key thing here is that if you ask people how pornography messes up your relationship, and it does negatively impact relationships, we'll get to that. That's the key point. But on the whole, if you ask 430 people who do not have problems and who do not have a problem, you just ask them, how does pornography affect your relationship. The most common answer is that it doesn't cause a negative impact and that there are a lot of really interesting things that come up, which are like, it enhances communication, it gives people ideas, it gives people an option to explore, it helps them understand their partner, it increases

sexual intimacy, which is weird, right? That's not the narrative that we hear a lot. So this is the first thing, is that it doesn't necessarily harm relationships. In fact, it appears sometimes quite the opposite. So here's a study looking specifically at women. So women in relationships and their pornography use, a systematic review and thematic synthesis. So shared use of pornography with partners provided variety in sexual activities, could aid in communication about sexual issues,

and helped improve intimacy. Pornography use can help some women feel sexually empowered, relaxed, and better able to enjoy their sexual lives, right? So we're not going to go into, let me just make sure. Oh, sorry. Why it's over there? Just make sure. Yeah, I don't think there's something else I want to pull out of this.

Oh, no. See. Okay. So let's take a look at this in more detail. So here's some, so generally speaking, women appear to find pornography on average to be helpful. But there is some more concerning evidence. So among women, however, there is a negative. association between discontinuing pornography use and divorce.

Of those women who continue to watch porn during both surveys, 18% are predicted to be divorced at time two compared to only 6% of those who stopped viewing porn in between the two surveys. Overall, these figures suggest that women who watch pornography get divorced at higher rates than men who watch pornography. So this is a bit of data that seems to imply that women who continue to watch pornography after they enter a relationship have a higher rate of breaking up. So, and some of these concerns about pornography in the relationship are valid, right?

So nearly one-third of engaged and married women report that they view pornography as a form of marital infidelity. So there are actually, like, there's like, there are absolutely sub-pockets or pockets of people. there are absolutely pockets of people who find pornography use problematic in relationships. And there is some evidence that it leads to higher rates of breakup and divorce. And a third of women find it to be a sign of marital infidelity. Okay? I'm going to just check in with y'all for a second. How do you all feel about the pace of the day?

data. Are you all able to understand? Do you all want me to slow down, speed up? What do you all want me to do? It's great. Okay. Great. Okay. Awesome. We're going to keep going. Okay. So the key thing here, so I want to stop for a second and just talk about this. Okay? So the key thing here is that if we look on, if we, if we don't ask biased questions, it seems like pornography can be used in a healthy way, that even women find, I don't know if I can say the majority of women, but there is a solid. amount of evidence that many women find pornography use in relationships and men in relationships as non-negative things. In fact, it can enhance communication and intimacy and lead to things like exploration. But there are, there is evidence that even though people feel like it can be good, there is an increased risk of breakup and divorce that a third of women consider it to be some form of infidelity.

Right? So this is where I think we're kind of getting into like why we want to talk about this today. How do we tell the difference? Right. So how, what is the difference between a relationship where we watch pornography? It enhances communication and intimacy. And in another relationship where we use pornography and it increases the risk of divorce. It is not the pornography itself.

It is something going on within the relationship or within the person that makes it problematic or positive. So there is a way to use pornography in your own life where it doesn't harm you, potentially even helps things. There is a way to use pornography in your relationships where it doesn't harm you, potentially helps the relationship. And there are ways that you can use pornography that seem to cause problems. Okay?

So let's get into why that is. So now let's talk about... Pornography, consumption, and satisfaction, a meta-analysis. Okay, so this is looking at the relationship between pornography, consumption, and satisfaction. So first, that satisfaction is a subjective state influenced by comparisons. Okay. I got to add some context. So in early papers, authors primarily hypothesized that pornography had detrimental effects on satisfaction, i.e., if you watch pornography, it's going to ruin sex.

for you, right? First, that satisfaction is a subjective state influenced by comparisons to others in their experiences. So basically, people assume that pornography would have a detrimental effect on your satisfaction. And the reason is because if you watch born, you have all these unrealistic expectations of what sex looks like and stuff like that. And then when you engage in the real thing, the tits are not huge, the penises are not huge, not everything is huge and bouncing, super high, deaf and colorful and whatever. Right. And so therefore, you will, feel less satisfied than the real thing. Second, that pornographic actors are more sexually attracted and skilled than most consumers

and their partners and the gratifications from sex depicted in pornography exceed the gratifications that most consumers experience in their lives, right? So the gratification that is portrayed in pornography with all the yelling and the screaming and the wriggling and the shaking and the moaning and the whatever is like so big and like the gallons and gallons of bodily fluids that are expressed. Real life just isn't like that. You know, penis is like four inches. The sexual act on average lasts three to seven minutes.

50% of women prefer that it be done within 10 to 15 minutes. And so like if there's this like a larger than life kind of representation you compare it to the real thing, you will feel inferior. Okay. In recent papers, however, it has become common for authors to reason that pornography may enhance the satisfaction of consumers. Okay? So, for example, in a series of studies, Hald and colleagues found that when queried about how pornography has impacted them, consumers report that their use has increased their satisfaction with their sexual knowledge, outlook, efficacy, skill, relations, experiences, and even their life in general. Like, what?

If you ask people like, how does porn affect your life? They're like, yeah. It makes me better at life in general. It makes me more effective. I'm learning some secret jutsus from the porn hub. People who consume pornography more frequently and for longer durations are especially likely to perceive such positive impacts. What? So people who watch more porn and watch porn longer are more likely.

To say that it increases their sexual knowledge, their outlook, their efficacy, their skill, their relations. Yeah, I watch porn for an hour three times a week. It really enhances my relationships. And it really improves my life. Like, what? Okay? Right? So this is like really strange.

Let me see if, let me just make sure there's not other stuff here that I want to. highlight. Okay, I think that's this paper. Okay, great. So this is strange, right? This is not the bill of sale. Like, this is not what we were sold. And so is it really that bad? Because there's all these kinds of communities, right, about, you know, like no FAP and things like that. So like, let's try to dig into, you all curious about this? Do you all want to like, you all want to go over more research and dive into what's going on or you all want to take a look at more posts? What do you all think? Okay. Let me just check in. Okay. These studies are fake and biased. Okay. We'll keep going, okay? All right.

Next. The highs and lows of pornography use. Does motivation affect users' life satisfaction? So now this is important. So if you look at some studies on pornography, they show that as you use pornography, your life satisfaction goes down. You have depressive effects. We're going to get to those studies in more detail in a second.

Now, this is a really cool study. because this is a study that's trying to figure out for the people who have highs from pornography and people who have lows from pornography, what's the difference? If it improves your life satisfaction or makes your life satisfaction worse, what is the difference?

So now we're getting to a more nuanced understanding of pornography. The first of which is that porn... Hold on a second. I'm going to wait for the garage to close. Okay? More like people are... Yeah, so we'll get to... So they talk about bias here.

Hold on. No, not this one. Let me see if I can find this. Okay. Let's take a look at this, right? So, y'all were saying, but what if they're biased? Oh. So, however, these authors of these studies cautioned that these self-perceived effects may also be due to rationalization, justification, and biased optimism.

It is common for people to rationalize and justify, and to perceive themselves as personally less susceptible to any negative impacts of the B or the BIAs. behaviors that provide them with immediate and powerful rewards, right? So great job, chat. You all pointed out, hey, like, maybe it really doesn't have these effects. Maybe people are wrong. They're biased. They're not going to answer honestly. And that's a consideration in the research for sure. Okay. So now let's look at the highs and lows of pornography use because there are, but not the counter argument, but an additional data point to consider is that some studies show that it causes problems and some studies show that it doesn't cause problems. So now this study is trying to figure out, does motivation affect users' life satisfaction?

This is an important study. We're going to pause for a second, okay? So we know that porn harms some people, seems to help some people. So now the question is, what's the difference? Is the reason that you use pornography? Is your motivation towards pornography? Does that influence whether it helps your life or harms your life? Okay.

Really cool question. Participants with problematic pornography use felt less satisfied with their life. Okay. Participants with problematic pornography use felt less satisfied with their life were less self-aware and experienced lower levels of perceived choice than both the no symptom and few symptom groups. Okay. So this is a study that's looking at problematic pornography use versus non-problematic pornography use and what's the difference? So let's keep going. I think there's more stuff in here.

Okay. Studies focused on the effect of problematic use on sexual well-being and satisfactory, or no, pornography use, on sexual well-being and satisfaction suggested that although it can have positive effects on one's attitude, sexual well-being, and sexual satisfaction, when it becomes problematic, it is often associated with negative outcomes on the aforementioned variables. So this is important to understand.

There is a camp of people for whom it is, okay, and if we shift into problematic use, all of the things that pornography enhances, it now starts to damage. Right? So like pornography use is a little bit like, I'd almost say it's like, let's like consider drinking water. So drinking water is generally speaking healthy for you. But if you cross over into hyponatremia, which is consuming too much water and your sodium balance drops, suddenly water which helped you can start to now cause weird swelling in your brain

and things like that. So there is a critical point at which pornography becomes problematic. And the moment it becomes problematic, all the things that it used to help in your life, it is now hurting. Okay? Let's see if we can figure out why. Okay. So now let's look at the discussion.

Our results suggest that compared to non-problematic problematic pornography users, individuals with problematic pornography use experience less self-awareness and have a lesser sense of choice, specifically that less autonomous and more extrinsic motivations are associated with higher levels of problematic pornography use. So people who are not very self-aware and feel like they're out of control in life,

people who are driven more by extrinsic motivations, people who feel like they are not autonomous with their pornography use, those are the signs of problematic pornography use. Now, this is where things become a little bit tricky because if I'm addicted to porn, does that lead to a lack of autonomy or does a lack of autonomy lead to problematic pornography use? Do you all understand that? It's like, maybe I feel out of control, which is why I feel out of control. Like I can't, I'm addicted to porn. It makes me out of control.

Is it the chicken or the egg? Based on current outcomes, we can posit that individuals who experience negative symptoms associated with pornography use are less self-determined and autonomous in their motivation and are less satisfied with their life. Okay. So this is like sort of seems obvious, right? Where like, okay. So if you have negative symptoms with pornography use, you're going to be less satisfied, less, less. less self-determination, less autonomy, and less satisfied with your life. Okay.

Now we get to the mother load, and then we tie it together. Okay. High-frequency pornography use may not always be problematic. Okay, so this is a really interesting study that looks at the frequency of pornography use and compares high-frequency pornography use. This is where the acronyms get a little bit tricky, but I'll help you all out, okay? So they... This episode is brought to you by CarMax.

Want to buy a car the easy way? Start at CarMax. Want to browse with confidence? Get pre-qualified with no impact on your credit score and shop within your budget. From luxury to family rides. CarMax has options for almost every price range, including over 25,000 cars under $25,000. Want to get started? Head to CarMax.com for details.

and get pre-qualified today. Want to drive? CarMax. Basically look at like how often you use porn and how problematic it is. And what they discover is that frequency of use doesn't necessarily correlate with problematic use. So even if you watch a lot, it's not necessarily bad. And they look at all kinds of things. They look at impulsivity, compulsivity, ADHD.

It's a really great study. Okay. Here we go. So, first thing, really fascinating. ADHD symptoms did not distinguish between non-problematic high-frequency use, i.e. people who watch a lot of porn but doesn't affect them negatively, and problematic high-frequency use. So both categories are watching a lot, but ADHD doesn't seem to affect whether it's problematic or not.

What ADHD does do is, seems to correlate with higher levels of usage. but not necessarily problematic usage. Despite previous results reporting a positive association between ADHD and problematic use. So I think this is really important. Okay. Previous studies have showed that ADHD correlates with problematic pornography usage. But if you separate, what it probably correlates with is more pornography usage, but not necessarily problematic.

So it increases the total amount of porn consumed, not necessarily making it harmful, okay? the latter finding is consistent with the criteria for hypersexuality disorder that include engaging in behaviors such as pornography viewing to escape from or cope with negative mood states. Regarding stress, well-being, and depression domains, measures of perceived stress, mindfulness, and satisfaction with one's life did not differentiate between non-problematic high-frequency use and problematic high-frequency use. So this is crazy. So stress, well-being, and depression domains, measures of perceived stress, mindfulness,

or satisfaction with one's life do not appear to differentiate people who are healthy gooners from people who are unhealthy gooners. Okay? According to the present results, individuals having lower levels of self-esteem were more likely to belong to the problematic high-frequency use. So low self-esteem seems to be critical. not stress, not how mindful you are. So you can be like meditating a lot,

but if you still have low self-esteem, now we're really getting somewhere. If you use pornography to deal with cope with negative mood states, that's a problem. Not directly, so this is kind of tricky, okay? So I'm going to explain this. You may say, but hold on a second, Dr. Kay, like, let's look at this sentence and this sentence.

This sentence says, depression is not correlated with problematic use, this sentence right here. and this sentence says escaping from negative mood states is associated with problematic use. Okay, so let's talk about this. So it's not whether you're depressed or not. It is how you manage those feelings of depression. Do you all understand the difference?

This is critical. So depression or well-being or life satisfaction aren't directly correlated. It is the way in which you use the pornography. It's not the feelings themselves that cause the pornography problems. It is the way that you use the pornography in relation to the feelings. So there are a lot of people who are depressed who watch porn, but don't use it as a coping mechanism. They may be in relationships where it actually enhances their sexual intimacy and their feeling of connection. So it is not the presence or absence of depression.

It is how the pornography combines with the feelings of depression. key thing, though, is that it seems like self-esteem as a variable is correlated with problematic use. Okay? So if you feel bad about yourself and you watch pornography, that is probably a problem. Okay, this is all correlational data. So among men who viewed pornography and thought about it as wrong, relatively low frequencies of pornography viewing were associated with depressive symptoms. So this is also really interesting. The way you view pornography, issues of moral incongruence and religious views, that's what causes the problem.

So it's not how much you watch. If I think watching pornography is wrong, if I'm in a relationship where my partner thinks watching pornography is moral infidelity, then if I watch pornography, then it causes problems. It is my attitude towards pornography plus a small amount of usage that causes the problem. not the pornography itself. There is something within my mind that when combined with pornography can make it healthy for me or unhealthy for me. Okay? Oh my God. Okay, let me just make sure this is the last thing and then we'll explain.

Okay. So overall, basic psychological needs frustration contribute importantly to illness and impairment. Individuals who feel they cannot develop mutual, meaningful social relationships because they are a hand- Inured in them may find pornography is an easy way to feel connected to someone, especially in the case of feeling that they are hindered in their romantic relationships. This process could result in a vicious cycle of problematic pornography use in which the individual cannot develop meaningful personal relationships, thus consuming more pornographic materials, which in turn could result in even fewer social interactions. Furthermore, individuals who feel ineffective in their environment and feel that they are thwarted in fulfilling their capacities might turn to pornography as a tool to reduce their negative feelings in emotions deriving from competence frustration, such as in the case of depression. Okay. Non-problematic high-frequency users and problematic high-frequency user groups, competence and relatedness frustration differentiated the classes.

Okay. So I'm going to pause for a second. Did y'all understand what that meant? And if not, now we're going to tie it together. Did you all get that? What did you all understand from that? That's kind of the... Okay, good.

Great. I think it means I can goon on. Okay. So let's understand this. Okay? I'm going to tie it together. So, is porn, bad. The answer is, it depends. Okay? So the first thing that's really interesting is frequency is not

directly correlated with bad or good. So you can watch a ton of porn. It doesn't necessarily mean that it's harmful. That there are cases where it enhances intimacy, satisfaction, It's like, yeah, like, I got a promotion. I went home and I watched porn for a while. Like, I'm living the life. It's great, dude. It's great. Okay?

It can also enhance relationships. So this is, it's not bad. And then this is, it's bad. So let's understand what makes it bad. Okay. So we know that pornography is associated with loneliness. pornography can cause relationship problems. And we'll talk about relationship problems in a second.

But here's the key thing. So this issue, I want to kind of pull this up, because this is like, it's nuanced and it's important, okay? Basic psychological needs frustration. This is the problem. This is the nuts and bolts. So it's psychological needs frustration. This is really important to understand.

Problematic pornography use does not depend on whether your needs are satisfied or not. So psychological needs frustration comes from something called self-determination theory. And what they basically say is that human beings have a need, or let's say love. psychological frustration does not come from whether this box is filled in or not. Okay? You can be satisfied with an empty box. Or not satisfied. You're not satisfied.

But this doesn't cause the problem. You can have an empty box and be fine. What causes the problem is when I try to fill in the box and it doesn't work. So when I make an attempt and I am rebuffed, that is what causes the problem. So people who try to engage in relationships. And psychological determination theory has a couple of components, okay? The first is autonomy. So when my autonomy is suppressed, oh yeah.

When my competence is undermined. And my attempts to relate slash connect with others are rebuffed. This is really important to understand. understand. In both cases, you can be lonely or not lonely. Like, it doesn't matter. It's not the loneliness. It is not the need being satisfied or not satisfied that causes the problem. You can be hungry. What increases the risk of problematic pornography use is when I try to connect to another human being, and I am rejected. When I have no purpose or direct, no, when I try to exert a direction in life, when I try to exert control, when I try to do a good job,

and it doesn't work out, that is what leads to problematic pornography use. A sense of lack of autonomy after trying. A sense of low, this is not loneliness, no, after trying. This is what leads to problematic pornography use. It isn't the loneliness itself. And this is when we get into this vicious cycle. Okay? Individuals who cannot, who feel that they cannot develop mutual meaningful social relationships

because they are hindered in them may find pornography an easy way to feel connected to someone. This process could result in a vicious cycle of problematic pornography use in which the individual cannot develop meaningful personal relationships, thus consuming more pornographic materials, which in turn could result in fewer social interactions. Furthermore, individuals who feel ineffective in their environment and feel they are thwarted in fulfilling their capacities may turn to pornography as a tool to reduce their negative feelings and emotions, deriving from competence, frustration, such as in the case of depression. So this is important. It's not just that they are lonely, it's that they try to connect and then they get rejected. And then the other thing that happens is when they feel bad, right? And this could be depression, it could be loneliness.

Then they turn to porn as a coping mechanism. And so what makes pornography use problematic is the intersectionality of who you are, how you view it, the way that you use it, but also this is really important, the way that you are in the outside world. do I have low self-esteem? Did I try to connect with other people and I get rejected? And this is, I think, why we're seeing an epidemic of pornography use. It's not about the dopamine.

It's not about the amygdala. It's not about the emotions. It is about an attempt to connect to other people. It is about an attempt to create direction in your life. It is about an attempt to exert competency. And when you get rebuffed, rejected, that's when pornography becomes a problem. It is those feelings combined with the unhealthy coping mechanisms, right? That's what creates the problem.

Make sense? So it's not the pornography itself, right? So if you want to use pornography in a healthy way, this is where the first thing that we have to do is work on self-esteem. The second thing we have to do is focus on autonomy. autonomy. The third thing we have to do is focus on competence and exerting competence. It's not just being competent. It is being able to let that competence find a manifestation in the real world.

It is about being able to control the direction of your life. And here's the key thing, relatedness. Being able to connect with other people. And then what we can do is get to the standard pornography addiction stuff, right? So coping mechanisms, emotional awareness, emotional regulation. But I want you all to understand this. This is not just doing this stuff. So this is why I think everyone struggles with pornography addiction,

because they focus on these things and not these things. Now, there are a couple of other nuances here. The first is that these are perceptions. Psychological frustration, remember, is not about, the reality of whether you are alone or not alone. This is so weird. You can be alone and not be psychologically frustrated. The psychological frustration is what causes the damage. Not the loneliness. It is the attempt to connect where you get rejected. That is what causes the problem. But that too is a perception. So this is the crazy thing, right? So a lot of people think, like you fall into

this trap, which is like very real, of getting trapped in an isolated way. Where you watch a bunch of porn, it's hard for you to socialize, and then you kind of get trapped in the cycle. But this is the crazy thing. It's not about you actually being alone. It's about your perception when you go out into the world. Do you get rejected? Yeah. But some people get rejected and we'll try again. some people will even, like when they get rejected, they kind of won't take it personally, right? There's a weird, like, psychological opponent where if you ask someone out on a date and they say, no, that doesn't mean that you're a loser. That means maybe they're not interested in dating. Maybe they're not attracted to your gender.

So when I work with people who are addicted to pornography, what I find is they fill in the gaps of their real rejections with a lot of psychological frustration. And this is what makes it so hard. It's not that the rejection isn't real. But it is not the rejection, or it is not that the loneliness is not real. The loneliness is real, but the loneliness is not the problem. It is the attempt to connect followed by the rejection. And this is the really good and bad thing. The good thing is that part of this is in your perception, not all of it.

So there's a reality here, but it is the way that you can. connect with that reality. It is the way that you interpret that reality. That is what is really in your control. Right? So this is where like oftentimes people will get upset when because Dr. Kay doesn't understand the reality of my situation. I'm not saying that there isn't a loneliness epidemic. There is a loneliness epidemic. The issue is in a loneliness epidemic, if you were addicted to porn, what can you do? And like, like we try to work on the system here at Healthy Gamer like, you know, we went to Capitol Hill last year. earlier this year. Time is a blur.

And like tried to increase funding for the addiction workforce by $2 billion. So we tried to do things on a system's level. Right? We try to do things with the United Nations, World Health Organization, United States government, whatever. We like work on those angles. So we're trying to fix the problem systemically. Right? Because the system sucks. But if you're someone who's struggling, you've got two choices. Wait for the system to get better. or control what you can in your realm. And this is what makes it so hard because we're so focused on loneliness.

We're so focused on no-fap and cutting back our usage. This is the reason why, despite the fact that people are doing all of this stuff, it's not working on a global scale. It may work for some people. But the problem is still increasing. And the reason it's increasing is because we don't understand really what the problem is. So many people I work with who are struggling with pornography spend all of their cognitive energy in trying to watch less. And then they relapse. Whereas that's not where the problem is.

So you're spending all of your energy digging a hole where there is no water for your well. So you can dig as much as you want to. You're cognitively exhausted. It doesn't even work. There are all these perceptions about, you know, what it does to your relationships. Those are, it does not have a effect on the relationship. it has on your relationship, depends on who you are, depends on your partner, who your partner is, and how you all navigate that. We'll get to that in a minute. So if you're struggling with porn,

focus on building the life, focus on becoming autonomous, becoming competent, because those are the psychological vulnerabilities that when you feel that way and you feel rejected, then you feel bad on the inside, then you turn to the porn, that's what creates the cycle. And this is why, you know, when we, like, so we developed a coaching program specifically to target technology, the technological world we live in. And that's why the North Star that we have, it's not a clinical program. The reason it's not a clinical problem because the goal isn't depression or anxiety. Our North Star is life purpose. The reason we built it that way is because if you can develop a purpose in your life, if you can become autonomous and competent and start to build a life,

life, then the addiction will melt away. You still have to do some behavioral stuff around it. But the fuel for it is gone. And that's why when we put together lectures like this, we're trying to explain to you all what the principles are. So you can understand where to target your energy. Okay? Now let's talk about pornography and relationships. So pornography isn't good or bad for relationships. Whether it is good for bad or for relationships depends on the people involved. So first thing that makes pornography harmful in relationships is a moral stance towards it. The moment that you moralize it, doesn't matter if it's the man, doesn't matter if it's a woman, doesn't matter if you're gay, doesn't matter if you're straight, doesn't matter. Someone who takes a moral view of pornography, presuming there is disharmony.

It's someone who takes a moral view, I mean, it's only a problem if you use pornography and you think it's bad. Or if y'all are in disagreement. So there are cases where if both people are happily like married or whatever and they both think that pornography is a sin of the devil and no one ever touches pornography, I imagine that they're fine. But the problem isn't the usage. It is the view towards the usage. So if you view it as moral infidelity, it will cause problems in your relationship and likely lead to an increase in divorce. The other cool thing is that couples who use pornography find that it is that it is that it is, like really helpful if you can approach it in the right way.

The first thing is that it allows for people to explore. So like literally what this looks like, I have patients who've done this. You know, you watch some pornography and you get excited about something and you're like, hey, can we try this? Because I don't know if this makes sense, but do you all know how awkward it is to try to tell your partner about your fetishes? like just how vulnerable you have to be, how scary it is, and then you like have to go into detail, right?

Because like, then you speak in like vagues, like, hey, do you ever think about doing other stuff? And they're like, what do you mean other stuff? Like, they're on their guard. You're like, I don't know, put your something somewhere. I don't know. Put your something somewhere. And they're like, put my something somewhere.

What does that mean? What do you want me to put where? Right? It's so awkward. So the amount of communication skill that you need, is like really, really high. So instead, what people will use is they'll watch pornography. They'll be like, hey, should we try this?

And then there's an experimentation. And in order to experiment, it actually, like, you have to figure out a system of communication where the pornography can do some basic foundation for you, some scaffolding. So then you start communicating around it. Then you kind of ask your partner, what do you like about it? What excites you about this? Hey, can we try this? And then it can move in the right direction.

I think the big, a huge mistake that a lot of people make, if y'all are like gooners listening to this, this happens way too often. Where like usually, I don't know if it's just because the majority of my patients who I talk with about pornography are dudes. But, you know, they'll be like, they will try to turn their relationship into their sexual fantasy. That is harmful. IMO. Where it's like, oh yeah, like, can you do this and do this and do this? I want you to become what I see in the pornography. That I think is bad, right?

Because then you're not with your partner. You are trying to turn your partner into a fantasy. So I find that oftentimes like dudes who are like, yeah, like let's do this and like, let's watch this. They're very self-centered with their approach. They're not considering their partner's feelings. It's not an exploration or experimentation together. That's the key thing. experimentation means not having an end goal in mind.

That means figuring it out together, relying on communication. So if y'all are like dudes out there and you're like, oh, Dr. K says this will enhance our relationships, let's watch this porn and I want you to do this to my body. No, that's bad. Okay? It's a way to explore. It's a way to connect. It can be, anyway.

And the more that we make it about our fantasies, the less. you know, the less connected we make it, the more harmful it's going to be. And if you do have, this is the other thing that makes pornography harmful is having a moralistic attitude towards it in relationships and in your personal life. So if you view yourself as a pornography addict and you say pornography is bad and it's the sin of the devil and things like that, that's going to make things worse, not better. So that's where like practice a little bit of self-compassion. It's not, if you have a goal of like wanting to reduce your pornography,

use, go for it. But you don't need to beat yourself up in the process. Right? You can say, hey, I want to live a life that has less pornography or no pornography. I don't think it's really healthy for me. It's a process. It's a journey. I'm going to start working on it, but it's not going to be easy. So someone's asking, why is pornography not banned? I think the reason it's not banned is because it doesn't clearly have a uniformly harmful effect. Because we don't ban things that people like that hurt us unless they are all damaging. Right? So we have alcohol.

We have nicotine. We have all kinds of addictions, video games, gambling. We have all kinds of harmful stuff that we allow because people like it and it doesn't hurt everybody. The stuff that is very, very, very harmful is usually what we ban. So let's do, do you all want to do, okay, let me just look at one other post. Okay. Nofap opened my eyes. It's not just about urges. It's about respect. So let's look at a post. And now that we know more of the science, let's try to take a look at a post and see how we can analyze this. Okay. This is not hate, not red pill, not misogyny. It's a wake up call for men to stop giving away our energy, stop chasing fake validation and start building real self-respect. I joined NoFap to stop wasting time on urges. But what I realized in just a few clean days is this. The problem goes way deeper. Modern dating, feels broken because we helped to break it.

Men gave out likes, validation, simping, and free attention to women who don't even value them. Even average girls have 10,000 plus followers and 100 thirsty DMs, not because they've earned it. I'm not quite sure what it means to earn it, but because we've enabled it. Threes, ghost sevens, good men are invisible, validation is the currency, and we're broke. Nofap helps you wake up. When you stop fapping and chasing your illusions, you start seeing how bad it's gotten. Stop giving free validation to women who give you nothing back, unfollow thirst traps,

build your values, stop begging to be seen, say no to porn, only fans, and digital illusions. Remember, self-respect is the first step to real love. We as men must act together. One guy doing no-fap isn't enough, but millions of us reclaiming our power. That wires the whole system. Share this, spread it, post it, post it, post it, not for clout for truth. Respect isn't given to men who chase. It's earned by men who grow.

What do you all think about that? this. This is what, like, I appreciate these responses. So let's start with this, right? So now let's go through our paradigm and see if we can suss out what's going on here. So this is going to be cool. What do you think this person thinks about their self-esteem? Self-esteem is high or low?

This is good. Super mixed is great. So I think this is really good. So y'all are saying super-mixed, and this is exactly the problem. is that people have a sense of what the problem is, but they don't really understand what the problem is. Okay? So self-esteem is absolutely in the pits.

We need to teach ourselves self-respect. We need to have self-respect. All of us need to have self-respect. Everyone in the no-fat community, let's do self-respect together, bros. It's not, I don't respect myself. It's projecting out onto everybody else. How do you all feel about this person's sense of autonomy?

Do you think this person is in control of their life? Right? Stop giving out free validation. Unfollow. Build your value. Stop begging to be seen. What do you all think about this person's sense of autonomy? Whoa.

What do we think about their competence? Right? So competence, I think, is kind of hard. Maybe they're competent. Maybe they aren't. Right? Relatedness. How do you feel about their...

Yeah, so we'll leave a question. mark there. How do you feel about their capacity to relate and connect to other human beings? Do you think that they are psychologically frustrated, that they have a psychological need that they try to get met, that then gets rejected? Low. Here it is. Look at this. And I swear, I didn't like find a post that perfectly fits this model. The post came first. someone on our content team sent me this post and they're like what do you think about this so we look at the data and suddenly everything becomes clear right so this is where they're and here's the problem so here's where i think the problem is here's how we change it stop giving

validation on follow thirst traps build your value your mind your income your wealth stop begging to be seen so i think the problem with this is this is all in relation to the other person except for this, right? They think, and this is what I think the problem is, this is where all the misogyny comes from. See, if you're addicted to pornography or you're like in this alpha male kind of thinking, it's not necessarily misogyny. It's not necessarily hate. But there's still, the locus of power is still with the other person. So you think like, oh, I am weak because I simp, we all simp, we're all weak. If we stop simping, then we will be strong automatically. That's not how. That's not how. it works. It is not the stopping of the simping that makes you strong. It is the development of

strength that no longer makes you need to simp. It's the other way around. The answers have very, I mean, there's a behavioral component sure where like if you're just doing this all the time, it's hard, but this should not be your focus. This is a great focus. Build a life that is worth living. These behaviors will melt away. And this is the problem is if you say stop giving free validation, What's that going to be driven by? It's going to be driven by anger. Stop it. I hate you and I hate myself.

You're giving into that emotion. You're amplifying that emotion. The more you amplify that emotion, the more you're pouring gasoline onto a fire. So we try to like hard knuckle ourselves. Like, it can help. Certainly. It can get you started.

But it's not the root of the problem. Stopping to give someone validation will just turn you into a cold person. It's not actually filling the void. No one in here, nowhere in here is this person saying, connect with another human being. Find a partner who loves you. Right? They sort of talk about building your value. And I don't blame this person. I don't think this person is bad or anything like that. I think this person is on their journey. They've discovered something. They're sharing it with someone. This is the beautiful thing about the internet. Is that we don't have to know all the answers. We're all on a journey. We can figure out a piece.

It's kind of in the right direction. But do you all? see how, like, in the right direction can fall off very quickly because of a couple of fundamentals. Like, if I dial your phone number and I mess up one digit by 10%, I end up in a completely different place. So I think the problem that I see a lot with pornography addiction today is that you have to know all of it or as much of it as you can get. It doesn't work to just figure out one piece because then your solutions will be in the wrong direction. Stop giving validation. Ask yourself why you're giving validation.

Just focus your energy, not on resisting to give validation. Focus your energy on building a life that is worth living. Once you feel better about yourself, you won't need to give anyone validation. Why do you give people validation? Because you crave something in return. Why do I tell you you're the prettiest bell of the ball? Because I want something from you. feel satisfied within yourself and all of this behavior will go away, right?

Stop begging to be seen. Choose women who choose you. Sounds great. Sounds empowering. But what do you do if no one chooses you? Right? And I think there's a lot of practical stuff here that's good. Like, I think reducing these behaviors is good.

But in my experience, the behavior is not, I mean, the behavior is important, but the behavior is half the problem. It's understanding of the underlying mechanism. Okay? And this person wants everybody else to do it. Let's reclaim our power, bros. No, you didn't need to, I mean, you guys get the anger. It's like, I'm tired of these, I'm tired of these people. I'm tired of these people getting all this validation.

So while we're populating for questions, we're just going to do a couple of quick announcements. We've had a lot of Puaer-Turness stuff. A lot of people care about Pueira-Turnas, resonate with the concept. There's some cool posts sort of criticizing it as a construct. I think all that stuff is like awesome discussion. We'd love to nerd out with y'all and just talk about the scientific validity of Jungian things and what it is. Like, we should absolutely have that conversation one day.

But we've started to try to create resource pages for people who resonate with certain pieces of content. it allows you to explore some various resources, explains what the concept is, tries to summarize things, draws things out in cycles. You know, if I start something, I want to be sure that it will turn out well,

and then it kind of goes into, like to move past this paralysis of action kind of gives you some guidelines. There's a confidence resource pack, which is free, by the way. You must be signed in, but it's free. It's kind of like a set of insights,

exercises, videos. and then it just basically talks through all of the things that we offer to help y'all with this problem. So some of the stuff that we offer is free. Some of the stuff that we offer is not free. So I think coaching is actually very, very good for Puaer-Turnas. Because coaching is about taking action. And if y'all struggle with something like Puaer-Turnas, I don't think the issue is whether you can do it on your own. I also think, like, a lot of the stuff about a hum-gad from the meditation guide is going to be very, very, very.

helpful, right? So people are asking, what do we do? There's a lot of stuff that we've built to help you with this. I think the main question is, what is your timeline for results? So the longer of a timeline that you have, the more you want to DIY it, you all have to be careful if you're Puerre's. Because if you're puer's, then you're going to look for the perfect solution. You're going to look for a reason to not act. You're going to look at something like coaching and you're going to say, oh, like it's not tailored to this or it won't be perfect or I don't know if it's going to work, those kinds of thoughts. Right?

So be aware of that. Not saying you have to do it. The minimum, be aware. That's the really important thing. But if y'all are interested in results fast, I think also for stuff relating to pornography addiction, like that's why we built it around life purpose. Okay? So there's a lot of good resources here.

We have a workshop with Dr. Honda that is almost full. So we've got some spots left. Early Bird pricing is over. So G.G. Noobes. If y'all are AEOE healer tier on memberships, you can still get a discount. And this workshop is all about healing from a relationship with narcissistic parents. Dr. Honda's great.

Strongly recommend y'all check him out. Okay? And then I already kind of talked a little bit about. Oh, yeah. And then we have meditation tracks. This is cool. So we built these tracks for meditation to help you all focus on things like emotional processing, focus and impulse control.

So if you all have trouble with, you know, some stuff around pornography addiction, that lack of self-awareness, we're trying to build tools for y'all, okay? And this is cool. In the last 10 days or so, people have meditated for about 700 hours. Good job, team. Okay, let's see what questions we've got. And just to kind of mention this, I don't know if this makes sense. So we talk a lot about problems on stream, and we do videos about them. The problem is that I can spend two hours talking about a problem, but the solution to that problem is going to be way longer than two hours. Does that make sense? The solution will be eight hours, 10 hours, a lot of application, a lot of introspection. We've tried to build this stuff for you all from the beginning. And so even today, I offered a framework, right? Focus on self-esteem. Be careful about psychological frustration. That's the real problem. That's the risk factor.

lack of self-awareness using pornography. It's not the amount that you use. It's why you use it. What is driving you to use it? That's what causes the problem. So then if you all say, okay, how do I learn alternate emotional regulation techniques? How do I build autonomy? How do I build competence?

The fastest way is to work with a coach. That's why we built it. Because literally, we do not know, I don't know if this makes sense. That is the most effective thing that we can build. How do you teach someone to be autonomous? in life, watching a YouTube video will probably go in one year and out the other. It's not like you watch a video and then you're transformed unless apparently it's the Puera Turner's video.

So we're trying to do that as much as we can, as often as we can. But the truth of the matter is, if you want to put together your life, it will require an investment. An investment of your time, of your energy, of your sweat, or your money. It will require an investment. I can't just say something to you and have you a... apparently be transformed unless it's Puaire. So once in a while, we'll take that long shot and we'll hit it. But do you all understand you can't rely on me to hit, to be like landing full court shots day in and day out? I literally do not know how to do that. If I could, believe me, I would.

If I could fix your problems with a YouTube video, I would. I try every single day. But the truth of the matter is if you want to put together your life, it's going to take more than a talking head on the internet. I wish that we're not true, but that's the reality of it. This is what I've learned as a clinician. I can explain a concept to my patient in two hours. Fine. I have to work with them for 12 weeks, 14 weeks, 16 weeks, one hour a week to actually help them with their problem. So that's why we strongly recommend that you all invest time, energy,

money, resources, whatever you have to invest to fix your problems. We've tried to create some of that stuff on our own, but by all means go elsewhere if you feel like that's better. We try to build things that are tailored to y'all. We know y'all really well. And the reason we know y'all really well is because many of y'all fill out our surveys. So thank you very much. Okay?

So even this stuff, like, how did we decide on focus and impulse control and emotional processing as the first two of the first three tracks? because those are the things that matter the most to y'all. And that's why we get such good outcomes. Okay? Let's go to questions. Does the type of porn matter whether it's healthy or not? Basically, I think the answer to that is no.

So we do not have studies, or I haven't seen any studies that talk about the specific type of porn that you watch and the impact that it has. So it could matter, but we have no data to suggest. that it matters. And I think we have enough research now to where we know what the problems are. The problems aren't in the porn itself. Whether the porn becomes problematic for you, so think about this, right? If the effect is within the pornography, then it should have a universal effect on people. Now, you can make an argument that there's a particular kind of porn that is more damaging and everyone who watches damaging porn will be damaged. We just don't have data about that.

but generally speaking, I think there's convincing evidence that it is the way that you use porn. What is going on in your head and what is going on in the rest of your life? Are you psychologically frustrated because you don't have control in your life? You don't have direction in your life. Your competence cannot be, cannot show up in the world. You are competent, but it doesn't result in anything. People don't give you a chance to demonstrate your competence, to build something good. When you try to connect with other people, it doesn't work.

You get rejected. Those are the problems. At least as according to the evidence. So right now, the type of porn you watch doesn't seem to matter. Now, if you all believe it matters, by all means, please share that with me. Right? So if you all disagree with this stuff, like, I don't know if this makes sense, but like, dude, like half of what we do is, I mean, like, we pay attention.

You know, I troll, I'm a troll user on our subreddit. Like, so I read a lot of this stuff. I don't hang out quite as much on Discord, but other people do. And so we spend a lot of time, like, listening to y'all. That's why I think we're so effective. Because if you all, I mean, it's not like Dr. Kay is the knower of truth. If you guys tell me, hey, I think the type of porn I watch matters a lot. Here's why.

We'll read it. What do you think of people who consume porn because their sex drive is higher than their partners? There is a ton of stuff about that. Let me find this. Okay, so increased interest in sex. Responses considered how pornography use increases libido, sex drive, sexual desire, interest in having sex, makes people more receptive to sexual advances. So pornography can actually increase arousal, especially in women. And it is absolutely utilized with cases of higher libido.

So pornography use is absolutely associated with high levels of libido. Let me see if I can find. Right. So participants reported watching pornography for diverse reasons, including entertainment, curiosity, is self-arousal activity, masturbate, an arousing activity with partners as a means to learn how to perform certain sexual acts, to learn more information about a type of sexual act they are not familiar with, and an inspiration for sexual acts and offline sexual activities as a way to check if a sexual interest desire is normal. So there's a lot of stuff about desire. But I'm trying to find, there's stuff about libido.

There is absolutely a big correlation with mismatched libido in a relationship. And so if you have a partner who has a libido that's very different from yours and one of you all uses pornography, that can be healthy. That can be fine. I think that's where like transparency and communication matters a lot. Right. So that's where discussions with your partner and like figuring out, okay, like, Like, is this a situation of pornography usage and masturbation or like if you've got a headache or whatever? Like, actually you should have sex if you have headaches.

It's one of the best treatments for a headache is sexual activity. So that's not a great excuse. I mean, you can have any reason to say no, but the data suggests that it's very helpful for headaches. So it's a treatment. So I think it's all about healthy communication with your partner. Lust starts with looking at chicks on Insta or even on streets. How does one break that loop? Posted by Poirre.

So if you are a man today or woman and you spend some time on the internet, what you will discover is that you will become a thirsty motherfucker. There's so much, so much thirst trapping going on. You know, and it is, it is like intentional, right? So people will post pictures for the sake of invoking lust to get attention, to evoke feelings in you, maybe drive behavior to their only fans' website or whatever. So how do you deal with this? So there are a couple of key things that we need to understand.

Anytime a sensory input happens, our reaction to that depends on our level of satiety. Okay, so let's understand basic neuroscience. The amount of hunger that I feel when I smell French fries being fried or hamburgers being grilled or things like that depend on my satiety. Right? So there is, it is not just the sensory stimulus. It is my degree of hunger that will create the response. So the first thing is you got to think about satisfying your lesson. or managing your lust, let's say.

So if I have lust within me, there are multiple ways to manage it. And this is where I think there's a really great post here, where chronic masturbation is about the avoidance of horniness. So oftentimes the way that we manage our lust is to get rid of it. So when I feel lusty, I want to make that feeling go away. This is why we turn to things like masturbation, pornography, whatever, thirst traps, take your pick. So if I deal with my lust by making it go away, what does that train my brain to do?

That trains my brain that when I'm hungry, I got to eat something. So then what happens is I start to spoil myself. My capacity to tolerate distress, tolerate internal, uncomfortable states goes down. So I don't know if you all have ever known someone who can't handle being hungry. They get really, really cranky. They start complaining a lot. Or they can't tolerate a room that's too hot or a room that's too cold. They're like giant babies.

Their capacity to tolerate internal discomfort is very low. So if we're not careful, we will see a lot of lust that is evoked, right, by people who are intentionally competing with each on the internet to evoke the most lust. And they figure out how to evoke it in the strongest way. That lust then enters us, and how do we respond to that lust? Do we give into it? Do we have to make it go away by satisfying it? Because whatever you feed will grow.

So if I'm used to getting all my needs met all the time, I will become a baby. Right? I'll start to throw temper tantrums. So how do you manage that lust once a lot? it arises within you. So managing that lust means three things. The first is be careful about your sensory inputs. The more you walk around smelling hamburgers,

the more hungry you will be. And advertisers understand this. That's like literally why advertising is a thing. If they can bombard your senses, they can create urges and control your behavior. So as best as you can, stop watching people on Instagram, unfollow them.

Now, if that becomes hard for you, which it's going to be, you should ask yourself, as you are sitting there, let's say you pull up your favorite Instagram influencers, start unfollowing them. Pay attention to yourself and how you feel. How does it feel to unfollow them? What is going on within you? You must understand that. Because there's a part of you that doesn't want to do it. That you must understand. You can't, this is where, like, you can't fight this opponent if you're blind to it.

emotional awareness is key. Internal awareness is key. So what is it that draws you to that person? Second thing is when you feel urges, it's not all the time or every time, as often as you can and slowly you want to build this up, do not satisfy the urge.

Do not satisfy the urge to open Instagram. Do not satisfy the urge to masturbate. Do not satisfy the urge to subscribe to their only fans. whatever. The more that you resist your urges, the more powerful you will become and the weaker the urges will become. Literally from a neuroscience standpoint, when my brain sends me a signal and then I give it a response, those neuronal connections strengthen. They start to become habits and then they become very hard to resist. So one thing that, you know, I've done several times is like quit soda. And it's hard at the beginning to resist. But each time you resist,

you win. Each time you fail, you make it harder. So you can kind of think about it is every time you have an urge, there is a hundred experience points which gets distributed. If you resist the urge, you level up. If you do not resist the urge, the urge levels up. Every single time you fight against an urge, one of y'all is leveling up. So a lot of people think it's about conquering the urges. That's not the right strategy. The question is, who is gaining XP? You don't have to conquer it because if you level up enough, it won't be able to stand against you. You'll just one shot it every time. It becomes easy.

So every time you resist, you level up. Every time you don't resist, it levels up. That will determine who wins and who loses. Third thing is once you understand what it is that this person is activating with you, what is your hunger. you must try to satisfy that hunger directly. Don't use the cheap ultra-processed shitty version of Instagram influencer to satisfy that thing within you.

If you look at that person and you say, I want to have a relationship with a hot human being, then you fucking go for that. Man, woman, I don't care. If you want a hot human being and you want to have sex with a hot human being, you should get your ass to the gym,

start to work harder, Go to a stylist, start to grind towards that goal. This is the craziest thing. When you give into lust on the internet, you are disabling the very motivation that will transform your life. Your desire, and then what happens is you give into that lust, then it goes away. Then it's like, oh, I guess I'm going to play video games until I got horny again.

And it's like, no, like you use that, man. Like that's so, that is a powerful pull. It is such a powerful motivator, which is why Instagram influencers being thirsty is like a fucking industry. It's an industry. Why is it an industry? Because the motivational drive within us that it activates is so powerful. And if you don't fucking, like literally and metaphorically blow your load on that, you've got so much load for other things. fucking go to the gym

like you'll feel amazing afterward. You feel like powerful. Virya. It's hard to describe that word. Viria is like the strength. Like going to the gym and like if you don't,

if you have a choice between masturbating and then you feel like, right? Let me find this. This, my friends, is the onanist. The masturbator from a

Swedish textbook in 1918. When you jerk off, this is what happens to you. Tissot is the author of that text. Okay? So like your energy is depleted. Like your motivation is gone. And it's like, uh, and like that's from 1918, okay?

That picture is 107 years old. And this fucking Tissot Tso guy wasn't, didn't use AI. He predicted what your post O Face looks like. He like figured it out and he drew it. And like slapped it in a textbook. So let that energy like strive for that thing. That is your body, your brain telling you,

hey, we want this thing. Fucking go for it. Don't use some cheap-ass substitute of pixels on a screen and auditory waves coming out of your speaker. Fucking go for it. You will feel amazing about yourself. When you grind towards it and then you start asking people out, you develop confidence.

Like you can turn your fucking life around. You can have that. You can date someone who is hot. You can actually do it. You can do it. This is the crazy thing. I think somewhere along the way, a lot of dudes gave up hope that this is possible. Right?

We all think we're ugly ducklings, but like, and then we like find certain beliefs about ourselves like, oh, I'm 5'4, so no woman will ever want me. Like, that's not true. You know why that's not true? Because, and this is great. I saw this post, which we can talk about a little bit later, but why I and many women have stepped away from dating some thoughts from the community, it's a beautiful post. But if you're like a 5-4 short king and you're not a dick, like women are piecing out of dating

because there's a lot of asshole dudes. All you have to do is be a fitness bro without being an asshole. And you're Gucci. You're set. You do all the things that the podcast bros tell you to do except become an asshole. And you can do that. Meditate some, work on your ego. And then you'll be like amazing. Like, women will be lining up. Just don't be an ass. And it's not that easy. I know it's not that easy. It's hard.

It requires a lot of effort. If only you had some source of endless motivation, like lust and a drive to act, that you could channel that shows up every single day, that you could invest into building something useful in your life. Like, wouldn't that be cool? But instead, what we do, we fucking, we do this. We onanist our way into an empty life. Great question. Okay, this is great. So as women, how can we recover our self-worth and self-esteem after a partner who chose pornography over a healthy relationship, knowing he lusts after women who are different than their girlfriend?

Excellent question. Love it. See, this is about the framing. So how does it feel if your partner... is attracted or lusts after people who are not you. So this has a lot to do with how secure we are in ourselves. So if you're someone who needs to be the only thing that your partner is attracted to, where does that need come from?

I'm not saying it's right or wrong. Right? We all want our partner to only be attracted to you. Where does that need come from? Do you need to be perfect in their eyes? Do you need to be everything in their eyes? Why do you need to be so perfect to begin with? So oftentimes when I work with women who are insecure about their partner's pornography use,

it's not my place to say, oh, this is an insecurity, therefore you need to get over it. We do an exploration. And what we discover is oftentimes they are not secure in themselves. And then what happens is they try to control their partner's behavior, try to reduce the pornography, usage, which, by the way, if we look at people who get addicted to pornography, one of the huge reasons they get addicted is because their use of it is driven externally. So if you try to restrict your partner's technology use, their desire is there. And you're trying to control their desire from the outside. I'm not saying it won't work, but it is not the best strategy.

So when I'm working with someone who has an alcohol addiction, I can try to put as many safeguards around as I want, but if in their heart they want to drink, they're going to find a way. The way to fix that problem is to alter their internal desire, not put restrictions around them. Now, how can you alter their internal desire? That becomes challenging. Now the question is, is it easier to alter their internal desire or alter your internal relationship with them lusting after people that are not you? So this is what's really hard. If you're in a relationship, you can try to control your partner to help you feel more secure. But that doesn't solve the insecurity. In fact, that can enhance the insecurity. Because now, just like we talked

about with dudes, you are giving into the insecurity. You're not learning to tolerate it. You're not conquering it. You're giving it what it wants. Now, this is tricky because there are many relationships where people will fall into really unhealthy patterns with like thirst traps. They're like spending, I mean, I've had not patience in my office, but people in my personal life, women whose husbands have spent $30,000 on OnlyFans in like a single year and they find out about it. It's a financial betrayal. It's like, why the hell are you spending this kind of money on someone on the internet?

Is there some kind of emotional affair going on? there's lots of like problems associated with this. So it's not just an insecurity on your part. There can be a very real damaging, something that damages your relationship involving lust. So this is where I think it's like a little bit of both. Right. So recover your self-esteem after someone looks at naked girls on the internet. As long as those two things are tied, you're screwed.

if your self-esteem depends upon the behavior of your boyfriend and whether he looks at boobies on the internet, you're fucked. It is not self-esteem. It is esteem given to you by him. That is not self-esteem. As you develop self-esteem independently, your ability to tolerate that behavior or kick his ass to the curb will increase. Both of those will increase. As you feel secure in yourself, you will decide, you will look at this without the lens of your self-esteem. So now you don't have a horse in the game.

You're fine either way. You feel good about yourself. You're confident in yourself. Then you're going to look at the behavior and you will look at it objectively. As long as your self-esteem is tied up in the behavior, you won't be able to see it objectively. Let me know if you'll need more explanation on that. Someone just say, please say more about that, Dr. Kay. But once you have self-esteem, you'll be able to look at that.

their pornography usage and you'll say like, okay, they clearly love me, they clearly are attracted to me, their libido is higher than what I want to accommodate. It's a pain in the ass, they're horny all the time. If they want to watch porn from time to time, like whatever. As long as they're available when I want them, it's fine. Or you'll look at this and you'll say this person is way too emotionally invested. They prefer the fictional relationship or the fantasy life of pornography to our real relationship. This is not someone that I want to have a relationship with. I'm going to kick him to the curb. I'm breaking up with you. You will be able to see how problematic it is. So the key thing is to separate your self-esteem from who they choose to be lustful towards.

Second thing is to have a conversation with them about it. What do you like about it? Why do you do this? What does it do for you? How do you think about me? And really listen to what they have to say. Here's how I feel about it. Here's what makes me uncomfortable. Right? Because there is a lot of insecurity associated with it. But I think that insecurity comes a lot from needing to be everything. And 17% of people, women, I think, consider pornography used to be moral infidelity. So you're not alone in that, right? Almost 20%. And some people may consider it moral infidelity. I imagine there's a larger percentage of people who consider it unhealthy in some way are not ideal for the relationship. That's probably close to 30, 40, 50%. So I think, like, separate.

separate your self-esteem, you are worth more. You deserve enough self-respect to where your self-esteem should not be tied to the lusty choices of the person you're in the relationship with. You should respect yourself more than that. And that will bludge in your self-esteem because you should respect yourself more, right? So I'm even denigrating the person that I'm talking to by using the word should. So take a deep breath. Ask yourself, and they're saying, is the first step of conversation? I don't even think the first step is a conversation.

First up is reflection. Always reflect before you converse. Why is this so important to me? What am I afraid of if he watches this? What does it mean about me? Where does my esteem come from? Where did my low, presuming it's low? Where did my current state of esteem come from?

Understand yourself first. Then when you talk to them, you can articulate things. Because what's really confusing, this is really annoying in relationships. See, the biggest mistake that many people make in relationships is they try to talk about their problems, which I know sounds dumb, right?

Aren't we supposed to talk about our problems? Well, yes and no. So sometimes, I don't know if y'all have ever been in a relationship where someone just comes to you to talk about their problems, even your boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever, wife, husband, and they haven't thought things through. So they just come to you and they're like, they just start, like,

vomiting all their, like, concerns, and you're like, I don't know what I'm, supposed to do with this. It's like some like downloading of some pile of anxiety. And it's like your partner doesn't know what to do with that. And OG Spiral Night is good. Just listen helps a lot. But sometimes it's not sufficient.

So I think if you want to have an important conversation with your partner, reflection is the first step. Organize your thoughts. Convey what you want to convey. Ask the questions when you need to figure out, what information you need and ask those questions. Clarify what you want to say. Reflection prior to conversation will enhance conversations so much more. Because it can get really frustrating when someone else is thinking out loud, especially when it's problems in a relationship.

When someone shows up and just starts thinking out loud about problems with you, that can be really hard to tolerate. And then you do this and then you do this and then you do this and then you do this and then you do this. and then you do this, and you never do this, and you never do that. And it's like, that's like, that's how divorces are born. And then I'm not saying you shouldn't talk to your partner about, hey, can you cut back on your pornography use? Why do you use pornography? It helps me, it makes me feel really insecure.

I feel less attractive than the people that you're masturbating to. And they may have a different perspective on it. Right? So I had a patient once who watched a certain kind of fetish porn. and their partner did not want to engage in that fetish. So this is where like, okay, I have a desire for something that makes me sexually satisfied. I don't need you to engage in it. I love you.

I enjoy our sexual relationship. It's every once in a while I want to do this fetish. And since you're not comfortable with it, I would never ask you to do something that you're not comfortable with. And at the same time, I have certain needs. I don't really think it's very harmful. like I just kind of do it every once in a while. You know, I'm not spending $30,000 on OnlyFans. I'm not forming emotional relationships.

Does that work for you? And for each couple, that's going to be a separate answer, right? For some people, it's going to be, okay, like, let's figure out how to engage in that fetish. I want to be a part of it. For other people, it's going to be like, okay, you do your thing. I'm content. We can figure out some way to have some happy medium where you do your thing and then we're going to have a relationship that involves our sexual relationships.

relationship, and there's many people, probably the majority of people, who break up or divorce. Tbh. Maybe that's a sample size issue because I'm a psychiatrist. But most of the time, that doesn't work out. TBH. I wish that it did, but it doesn't. Which is life. Great question.

Right. So knowing he lusts after women who are way different than his girlfriend. So I think that's something where you got to do some internal work and talk to that person about it. How do I figure out why I watch porn? What a great question. So if you want to figure out why you watch porn, one really simple thing you can do. Don't watch it. As you don't watch porn, you will notice something arise within you.

Whatever that is will feel more uncomfortable as time goes on. It'll feel deeply uncomfortable. And this is the thing. We don't know. So there's a correlation between lack of self-awareness and problematic. pornography use. We are usually blind to this stuff. A big part of this is oftentimes alexathymia, which is emotional colorblindness. You don't know what you're feeling. You just have these impulses. You have drives, but you don't know where they're coming from.

So if you're alexothymic, there's one really interesting thing that you can do. If you don't know why you watch porn, the key thing is, as you don't watch it, whatever that signal is will get louder. As the signal becomes louder, it will be easier to detect. At the top of the list for why people watch porn and don't realize it. Emotional regulation. So oftentimes you are feeling anxious, you're feeling overwhelmed, your brain needs a break from what it's focusing on. It's a mental reset. Second thing is self-stimulation, boredom, lack of dopamine.

So something about your life feels empty. And to fill up the void, we watch porn. There's an inverse relation, and then this isn't technically true, but functionally true. There's an inverse relationship between dopamine and serotonin. The more dopamine I activate in my nucleus accumbens, the less good I feel about my life. Serotonin gives us contentment. Dopamine gives us pleasure. Usually there's an inverse relationship between these two things.

If I spend a whole day or a whole week engaging in pleasurable activities, I use, usually don't feel content at the end of that. If I work really hard, work my ass off for a week, and do something really, feel really accomplished, my serotonin level will be high. I will feel very content. But it's not like that was pleasurable. So oftentimes the reason that we fall into pornography is because we don't feel content enough in life. If we don't feel content and we feel empty, we will fill that void up with dopamine. Okay. So those are usually the two most common things. How do I stop seeking validation when being rejected multiple times? After all, validation is a part of a healthy relationship. Okay. How do you stop seeking validation after being rejected multiple times?

So this is once again the problem. See, if you are seeking validation, you feel uncomfortable in your, you feel discontent in yourself. Right. So validation is I feel this way. I don't feel great about this. I need someone else to tell me this is okay to feel. I don't feel good. Tell me I'm not crazy.

Give me permission to feel this way. That's what validation is about. It is about permission to feel the way that you feel. Because you doubt, you don't give yourself permission. You're like, am I crazy? Is this okay? And when someone else validates you, they're like, yeah, it's okay, it's hard. It's hard.

You know, like I would be struggling to. We feel really good. So generally speaking, yogis don't need validation. That's why they sit in the Himalayas and in caves. They're just chilling. So validation is only necessary when you don't feel good about yourself. Right? If I feel like leaving this job is the right thing to do and I feel centered, I feel tranquil,

I don't need anyone else's tell me it was okay or not okay. So the core need is that if you don't validate yourself, you need it from somebody else. If you don't feel good about it in here, that's where it really comes from. The cool thing is that once you feel centered in here, other people can reject you and not give you your validation and you don't need it anymore. The problem isn't that people reject you so you need their validation. when you get tied up requiring validation from outside of you, that is when you become sensitive to rejection. Because then they hold the power of making you feel okay or not okay.

It becomes a vicious cycle. So find that internal contentment with yourself. And validation can be a useful way to build that over time in some cases. Right? So if I, like, get dumped by my boyfriend and then I'm like, oh my God, like this guy is kind of an asshole. And then my friends are very validating. They're like, yeah, he is an asshole.

Yeah, he is an asshole. It can sort of validation can sometimes coalesce a belief I have. And then once it becomes coalesced within me, then I feel secure. So it's not that validation is bad. It can cement your self-esteem. It generally speaking has that effect. But then we've got to be super careful because if we are relying on it, to cement our self-esteem,

then we become victims to other people's validation or lack of validation. So we lose power. And that's where I think you've got a couple of options. Right. So option number one, so after all, validation is part of a healthy relationship, right? So if you're in a relationship with someone

where they are not validating, then you should re-examine that. And this is the tricky thing. Re-examine doesn't mean they need to validate you more, maybe they're validating you plenty. So I had a patient once with body dysmorphia, and their partner went insane trying to validate them because no amount of validation was enough. I've had patients with BPD, who have abandonment fears, whose partners go insane trying to

tell them, hey, I'm not leaving. No, you're going to leave. Hey, I'm not leaving. You're going to leave. I'm not leaving. You're going to leave. I'm trying to demonstrate my commitment. Not enough.

You're going to leave me. Fuck it. I don't know how to win. I'm out. I don't know how to make you happy. Right? So you've got to be really careful. How much do they validate you?

What's their perspective? Are they being assholes? Or is your need for validation too deep of a pit? I don't know. Both are options. Maybe you're dating an ass. Maybe you're way too insecure. So I check out some stuff around

some scars, ego, like how is your ego? How do you feel about yourself? Do you feel about yourself? Pretty, like, you feel pretty good about yourself most days? And then you're just married to someone who's kind of like self-absorbed and can't, it doesn't have empathy, then like, move the fuck on. Or actually, don't move the fuck on. I don't like that answer.

So I think with the other big mistake that we make is, see, everyone in the dating world is like, if they don't have this, move the fuck on. Which is where, like, if you've got a pretty good partner who has, some fundamental flaws, like giving them some time to work on it, I think is the best way to find a good relationship. Give them some time to work on it. Like I was, I mean, if my wife listened to the dating advice on the internet, we wouldn't be married today. Bras, she started dating me as fucking college dropout, no money. I didn't think I was very physically attractive. I guess she disagreed, but whatever. You know, I was like a quintessential loser. Like, you check the box. You take your pick

of any alpha male podcast. You take your pick of any like feminist, whatever, like girl power podcast. The one thing they agree on is that loser dudes are losers. It's kind of weird, right? Like, that's the one place they agree. Don't date a fucking loser. Don't be a fucking, I was a loser.

And thankfully, my wife gave me a chance to like, you know, step the fuck up. And she was crushing it. She started working when she was 16. He's been working for 20 plus years straight, had her shit together, had good grades, had her own apartment, had her own car, was hot, is hot, you know, does pretty well.

Like, she had it all. And I was like a loser. And so then I was dating her and I was like, okay, this is fucking pathetic. I really got to up my game to be, like, worthy of dating this woman. So I fucking up to my game is what I did. So I think give people a chance to up their game. She was also really patient with me.

She never said, this is the crazy thing. Blows me away. She never said, hey, you need to do better. Like, that blows my mind. She was never like, you're a fucking loser. You get your shit together. Years. Not once.

So she was just supportive. And so now it's like, damn. So I think we got to give people those chances. Got to give losers a chance to grow the fuck up. And this is what makes it so hard is like, if you give them a chance and you're dating a loser, like those are years of your life that are gone. Years of your life that you invest in this loser. And that's a big price.

She paid it. And that's why we have the relationship we have today. And it's like we kind of want to make sure that we're not going to waste years of our life. I think you've got to waste years of your life on losers if you want to find love. And so then how do you know who to invest in? I think it's people who take it in their hearts to want to do right by you. People who take it in their hearts that they want to be better. Even if they struggle, even if they watch porn, even if they play video games,

people who are like in their hearts are invested in trying to do better. All right. There's a great question about, am I experiencing a placebo factor as my increased proactivity during long abstentions real? I'm working on a on a lecture on hello okay she apparently has been watching okay don't talk about your okay why not

okay she says I shouldn't talk about myself like that go ahead good bye I feel secure I'm okay she's protective but I'm fine I don't I can shit on myself and it's

not like, I hope you all can tell. Like, I don't feel bad about myself. It's an appreciation. And look, like, sometimes we suck in life. Like, that's not, you know, like, we got to admit it. Like, we can't be like, oh, yeah, no, like, oh, like everything is okay. Like, you'll, you're great and you're doing an awesome job. Like, no, no. Sometimes I'm doing a shitty job in life. Sometimes I stream and it's terrible. And sometimes, like, and that's okay. You know, like, it's okay. Like, this is where everyone's like, oh, don't like, don't talk so bad about yourself. And it's like, this is the thing. I think we should live in a world, or just me. I think instead of not talking poorly about ourselves, we need to be okay with it.

Like, we have to be able to admit, hey, sometimes I suck at things, and that's okay. And it doesn't mean I'm going to suck at things for the rest of my life. This is not my destiny, but this is a problem. And it's a real problem. And I'm really bad at it. And that's okay. And I totally get that she's like, love. and protective and all that kind of stuff.

But, like, I mean, I still suck at stuff. You just don't have to get your ego invested in it. Right? You can admit that, like, look, the reason I suck at this is because I haven't tried a whole lot. My brain doesn't work in a great way. Or I don't exert the right effort. Or I don't have experience.

You don't have to take it personally. It doesn't have to become a... The suck doesn't have to be a part of your identity. It can just be an attribute of like, oh, I have like, I'm level one in speechcraft. I suck at socializing with people. So be it. Right? That doesn't define you as who you are.

It is a competence that you lack. And so if you all suck at something, that's okay. The problem is when you make being bad at something your destiny. It is like, oh-ho, I suck. And forevermore, I will suck. I will be terrible. For the rest of my life, it is determined. It has been seen.

It has been written in the stars. I know astrology is bullshit but my inability to date that has been foreseen it has been prophesized I have seen the prophecy in my mind forever I will be alone for the rest of my life

you do not know I am 19 years old and I've never had a girlfriend I'm 21 I've never had a girlfriend I'm 40 I've never had a girlfriend it will be for the rest of my life right and I think that your future is determined by your actions

and your karma your circumstances can kick your ass. And I don't think they form your destiny, right? So you can't control your circumstances. You can only control how much you respond to them. And there is a huge debate I hope to stream next week on internal versus external motivation. And it's wild, right?

Because there's a ton of people out there who are like, there's nothing I can do. I've tried everything. Nothing is working. And like, I think they're not wrong, but also they're not right. I've tried everything, nothing has worked. And that like presumes that trying the same thing again will have the same result. Presumes that the circumstances are exactly the same.

The only thing that really leads to failure is giving up. So good, so good, so good. New spring arrivals are at Nordstrom Rack stores now. Get ready to save big with up to six. 60% off ragging bone, Mark Jacobs, free people, and more. How did I not know rack as Adidas? Because there's always something new. Join the Nordy Club to unlock exclusive discounts, shop new arrivals first, and more.

Plus, buy online and pick up at your favorite rack store for free. Great brands, great prices. That's why you rack. Right, so that's when the probability of success. People will say, oh my God, Dr. Kay, that's not true. The probability of success drops to zero. When you stop trying, that is the only definitive thing that leads to failure. Now, is the probability of success zero if you exert 100% effort?

Maybe, I don't know. But neither do you. You don't know. Maybe the 1,000 first person you ask on a date will say yes. You do not know you cannot predict the future. Is the likelihood of probability low? Absolutely. But there are the things you can do to increase the probability, but we don't think about

those as much. And a lot of people do. They try everything. They're like, I tried this, I tried this, I sure this, nothing works. Even then, like, the reason I believe this stuff is not because I think y'all are wrong. It's just I have had too many experiences of people being hopeless and have given up on life where they get their shit together. Like, it's wild. That's why I believe.

Because I've seen it happen again and again and again and again. Where can I find a spark? What a beautiful question. I'll tell you where you find your spark. You stop extinguishing it. That's where you find a spark. There are so many things that you do throughout the day that extinguish your spark. Right?

And it's not your fault that you do them, but you give in to what the circumstances of the world push you to do. You have the fucking spark. It's just, it's so hard to keep it going. You don't have to find it. Just stop extinguishing it. Whether that's not playing a video game, like I think just spending time with yourself, we get burned down by work and relationships

and family drama and all this kind of shit. It's so easy. And then when we get ground down, right, we're the ones, I don't know if this makes sense. It's not that they kill your spark. They wear you down so much that you take your big ass foot and you stomp down on whatever hope or dreams you have left.

Because when you're looking at the world, world and there's too many mountains to climb. You don't have time for the one thing that you love because you got to work, you got to pay bills, you got to work out, you got to do your laundry, you got to work on certifications, the existential threat of AI, everything is falling apart. I don't have time for this. That despair, that sense of being overwhelmed. You think you can't find it, but you're the one that killed it. You're the one that steps on it every single day when midnight rolls around and you're thinking to yourself, oh my God, tomorrow is going to be different. Why the fuck do you say tomorrow instead of now?

Tomorrow I'm going to get up and I'm going to work. Get the fuck up now. And then you'll say, but then I'm going to be tired for work. Be tired for work, right? Pay the price to like building your life comes at a price, a very high price. That's why people don't do it. Everyone's like, oh, live the life of your dreams. No, living the life of your dreams sucks.

Living the life of your dreams means in your weekends nights in the minutes that you have left, when you're taking a dump on the toilet, instead of like watching Instagram, you have to like leave your phone behind. So you've got seven more minutes that you have now that you're going to do a tiny bit of administrative work. So you're going to carve this. It's like escaping from prison with like a fork and tunneling through the wall. Building the life of your dreams comes at a very high price. The reason it comes at such a high price is because while you, you are trying to build the life of your dreams, you have to live a life of your nightmares

every single day. You have to build two lives. Here's the life of my nightmares that I exist in now that I have to survive while I am building the life of my dreams. And the only way to do it is with sweat and toil and suffering. The road to heaven looks like hell, and the road to hell is paved with good intentions. All right. If you're going to start now, I'm going to peace out. So got to be honest with y'all y'all are fired up y'all are juiced up I'm wiped so I'm gonna play a little bit of doan awakening maybe take a nap

and then tomorrow morning I'm gonna work get up and I'm gonna work my ass off but I think I've deserved I've earned a break so I'm gonna take it if that's cool with y'all and um you know sometimes you just get eaten by the sandworm and that's what it is

thanks for joining us today. We're here to help you understand your mind and live a better life. If you enjoy the conversation, be sure to subscribe. Until next time, take care of yourselves and each other.