Why does adult entertainment make me sad? (+What to do)

This article will discuss why viewing too much adult entertainment can make you sad. It will show what is the connection between watching mature content and feeling depressed. And what are ways people can cope with this situation.

Why does adult entertainment make me sad?

Watching adult entertainment can make you sad depending on the view you have of it. It can be a way for you to express your sexuality, that won’t impact your emotions.  But for some people, it can bring negative physical, spiritual, and psychological effects. People can watch adult entertainment in an attempt to not feel lonely, and experience human interaction. 

You can be having a sense of emptiness in your life, feel sad, and it seems mature content can fill it, at least temporarily. But this habit can lead, with time, to more isolation, greater sadness, and even depression. 

And even though the experience with mature content can change from one person to the next, some people can experience guilt, shame, and sadness after watching it. To those people, watching adult entertainment can add up to their stress levels and impair their mental health. 

And even though it might increase the risk of depression, it is not clear if it causes depression. For other people, adult entertainment can bring a sense of happiness that comes from a chemical reaction to watching it. 

As they do it, their body releases a high level of dopamine. This can cause them to feel happy, and adult entertainment becomes something of medication to the hardship of their lives. But as you watch it more and more, you may need a higher dose of it to feel that rush. 

As you surrender to those needs, you become more isolated, and it prevents you from living other experiences in your life. It can make you not open yourself up to relationships, and with time, instead of being something positive, it can make you even sadder.

Do people with depression watch more adult entertainment?

People with depression tend to feel sad, and isolated. Although it is not possible to affirm that they watch more adult entertainment, it is possible to affirm that watching it can bring them a chance of escaping the negative thoughts in their minds. 

This shows that not knowing how to cope with the negative thoughts leads them to find a way to escape from their distress. But there is a positive effect on people that are depressed watching this form of content. The release of serotonin that happens when a person has a climactic experience, can cause them to feel better, at least momentarily.

When is it too much adult entertainment?

If you are questioning yourself if you have been watching too much adult entertainment, here are some ways you can recognize it. The first thing is that you become more interested in watching mature content than socializing. Watching too much of this form of contnet can also make you feel less attracted to your partner.

You can start to have sexual thoughts at any time of the day. And you look forward to getting home and browsing the adult entertainment website. Sex loses the emotional connection to you. It becomes more of a physical act. 

Along with that, you can start to develop risky behaviors. It can be browsing for sex websites at work, or in a way your partner can find.

Sex becomes a way to objectify people, and you may start to look for different sexual practices, usually more intense, or even demeaning. People that are viewing too much adult entertainment can have trouble dealing with boredom, and have lower levels of self-esteem. 

You can try to act out the sex acts you see on mature content sites. And you will not care about social belonging. If you notice that is what you have been going through, here are some ways for you to cope with it.

How can I cope with watching too much adult entertainment? 

The first thing to do, once you understand you have been watching too much adult entertainment, to a point that it is affecting your mental health, is to become aware, and accept it. After that, you might want to get in touch with a professional. 

Through therapy, you might start to discover when you become more impulsive, what triggers you to look for adult entertainment, and find better ways to deal with it. With time, you can start to compare how you have been dealing with your feelings, and how often you have been using depression to cope with them.

If you realize you are unable to cope with it just with therapy, there are many treatments in which you can be an inpatient. The programs can go on from between 28 and 90 days. And the main benefit of it is that you will remove the triggers and focus on your healing.

Group therapy can also be a way to cope with watching too much mature content. In it, you will meet people that are going through a similar situation as you. Through it, you can learn new strategies to help you handle the issue in the day-to-day.

In some cases, if you are dealing with a mental health matter, medication might be needed. It can add to the therapy treatment.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ): Why does adult entertainment make me sad? 

What are the main symptoms of depression? 

Depression can have many symptoms, and people may not present them in the same way. But it usually causes people to feel intense sadness. Not only that, people can lose interest in doing things. They can feel like they have no energy to do things and lose their ability to focus. 

Aside from that, depression can make them feel empty, hopeless, and fatigued. It changes their eating and sleeping patterns, makes their self-esteem go lower, and their sense of self-worth is decreased. People with depression tend to cry a lot more and feel more irritable, guilty, and ashamed.

Depression can make people consider acting in self-harm, and sometimes they can also have thoughts of death, and even suicidal thoughts. A person is considered depressed when they experience its symptoms constantly and intensely for more than 2 weeks.

Can adult entertainment be addictive? 

As of right now, adult entertainment addiction is not considered a clinical condition. The only online addiction recognized by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) is the online gaming addiction. But research has shown that this form of addiction may work similarly as the mechanism of substance addiction.

As you are exposed to it, it can give you a big rush, an intense sense of happiness, and even fulfillment. But as you are no longer exposed to it, you can feel sad, and less energetic. 

This can make you look for that stimulation again. With time, you can adapt to what you used to see, and may need more and more. This is when it is possible to say you are addicted.

You can’t live without watching mature content, and how often you see it, and the quality of what you see goes higher and higher.

Can watching adult entertainment make it harder for me to have sex? 

Yes, watching too much adult entertainment can make it harder for you to have sex. When you watch this form of content you are overstimulated by what you see. It makes your brain react in a way to this quick stimulation with a quicker response.

Nowadays, people have started to believe that sexual intercourse should be similar to the ones shown in movies with mature content. Which has had a negative effect in many aspects. It causes people to think the human body should be the same as the ones of people in the movies, which is an unrealistic expectation of themselves and their partners.

It can also make you self-conscious about your sexual performance. You can start to think if you are as good as people show themselves to be in the movies. And that can make you even more nervous when you are having intercourse with someone. 

And finally, adult entertainment can portray sexual intercourse differently than it is in real life. Real intercourse doesn’t happen in that straightforward way the adult entertainment movies show. It has a lot of laughter, funny events, and even embarrassing ones. But if you don’t consider that, you can feel that the sexual intercourse you are having is wrong.

What causes depression?

Depression can be caused by many factors. People can get depressed when they are going through a traumatic experience. Those traumatic moments can mean that they are going through a grieving process, the end of a relationship, or even a financial or legal problem. 

Aside from that, depression has a genetic role to it. So people with a history of depression in their family, usually have a higher chance of developing depression. The same is true about people that have gone through a previous depressive episode. 

And finally, people can get depressed when their brain has a chemical imbalance in it. This indicates that depression has also an organic aspect to it.

Is it normal to cry after sex?

It can be that a sexual experience brings you so many positive thoughts, that you cry. But it can also be a sign you have Postcoital dysphoria. This means you experience a sense of sadness after sex. 

Postcoital dysphoria doesn’t always make you cry. But it causes you to feel sad, depressed, and even agitated. It can happen after a regular, consensual sexual encounter. But it might be related to relationship and intimacy issues, or feelings of guilt and shame brought on by the sexual act.

People that went through traumatic experiences can also cause Postcoital dysphoria, as well as anxiety, and depression. Experiencing physical pain during intercourse, or hormonal fluctuation can also make you feel like that. Treatment for Postcoital dysphoria can be treated especially  through therapy.

Does depression have a cure?

No, depression doesn’t have a cure. That is because it has a genetic aspect to it, which can’t be altered, but also because it is impossible to say a person, who had an episode of depression before, won’t come to develop a new episode in the future.

What is possible is to regain control of your life after you experience depression, and feel its symptoms affect you less and less. With treatment, you will improve your overall sense of well-being, and you will regain a sense of positivity and hope.

BetterHelp: A Better Alternative

Those who are seeking therapy online may also be interested in BetterHelp. BetterHelp offers plenty of formats of therapy, ranging from live chats, live audio sessions and live video sessions. In addition, unlimited messaging through texting, audio messages and even video messages are available here.

BetterHelp also offers couples therapy and therapy for teenagers in its platform. Furthermore, group sessions can also be found in this platform, covering more than twenty different topics related to mental health and mental illness. The pricing of BetterHelp is also pretty cost-effective, especially considering the fact that the platform offers financial aid to most users.

Conclusion 

This article explained why people can feel sad after watching adult entertainment, and what is the connection between depression and mature content. Along with that, the article showed what are ways for people to cope with this situation.

If you have any questions or comments about this article, feel free to write it in the section below.