The Origin of Porn and Why It Matters: What I Wish I Was Told As a Young Man
Craig Thomas McAdams, LPCC Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor | Somatic Emotion Coach | Creator of MBSEP for Couples
A letter to every man who deserved to know the truth sooner
Let me tell you something I wish someone had told me when I was 13, the first time I stumbled upon porn, wide-eyed, alone, and completely unsupervised.
Porn is not just a habit. It's not even just a drug.
It's a weapon.
Not metaphorically. A literal psychological weapon that has been tested, refined, and deployed in warfare for centuries. And now it's in our pockets, disguised as entertainment.
What I know now, after thousands of hours sitting with men in pain, working with couples through betrayal and disconnection, and living my own journey of nervous system repair, is that porn cuts deeper than we think. It goes right for the wiring of your body. It reshapes the map of your desire, your self-worth, your relationships, and your mission.
And it's stealing something sacred from you: your strength.
Part One
Porn Was Built to Break Men
Let's go back.
In wartime, soldiers weren't just attacked with bullets; they were targeted psychologically. During World War II, military psyops used pornographic images to demoralize troops on every front. Sexually charged leaflets were dropped on enemy lines showing soldiers that the women they'd left behind were being seduced by other men. Erotic cutouts were bundled with surrender passes. German propagandists produced see-through postcards that revealed hidden nudes when held to the light, engineered to fracture loyalty, ignite jealousy, and erode the will to fight.1, 2, 3
A German leaflet series called "The Girl You Left Behind" depicted Allied women falling into the arms of men at home: a carefully calibrated act of psychological betrayal aimed directly at soldiers already pushed to their limits.4 Another campaign, "Australia Screams," targeted American and Australian troops by portraying officers assaulting their comrades' women while the men bled on the front lines. Surrender passes promised "life and bosoms." Japanese forces distributed pin-up nudes as tactical demoralization tools.1
Even before the World Wars, pornography had been weaponized for subversion. Scholars trace this back to the writings of the Marquis de Sade in 18th-century France, works designed not merely for titillation but to challenge and erode political and moral authority from within.5 The Cold War brought fresh escalation: the FBI flagged pornographic mail as a potential Communist tool to corrode Western moral cohesion, with obscenity mail documented as doubling during certain periods as a vehicle to destabilize society.6
Even back then, intelligence agencies understood something primal: pornography doesn't just arouse; it isolates. It floods your nervous system, hijacks your attention, and erodes your tether to reality and connection.
These weren't accidents. They were deliberate strikes at men's core vulnerabilities: arousal, loneliness, and doubt, designed to make them question their fight, their allies, and themselves.
And that was just the analog version.
Part Two
The Battlefield Is Your Brain
Porn doesn't get dropped from planes anymore. It gets beamed into your eyes at 2 AM when you're exhausted, lonely, and looking for relief. But the results are the same: fragmentation.
As a somatic therapist, I've seen how pornography rewires the male nervous system, down to the breath, the posture, the way a man holds his gaze. Neuroscientists confirm what the body already knows: porn overstimulates dopamine circuits and overtaxes the brain's stress systems, causing measurable structural changes over time.7, 8
What men tell me in session
"I can't feel her."
"I don't want real sex anymore. It's boring."
"I can't feel anything unless I'm alone with a screen."
This is not weakness. It's conditioning.
Frequent use is linked to depression, anxiety, dulled motivation, and a vicious cycle of worsening loneliness and mental fog.9, 10 For men specifically, this shows up as erectile dysfunction in real relationships, diminished drive, and increasingly unrealistic expectations, all of which make you less capable as a partner, a father, and a leader.11
This is trauma. The kind that builds slowly, invisibly, and often never gets named. And as I tell the couples I work with: unresolved trauma doesn't stay confined. It spreads.
And here's something that most people don't talk about: this isn't just happening to civilians. It's happening to our soldiers.
A VA study of 820 combat veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan found that roughly 14% of men screened positive for compulsive sexual behavior, with problematic pornography use identified as the most common form.14 A separate study of 172 male veterans found that PTSD, depression, anxiety, insomnia, and impulsivity were all positively linked to higher rates of problematic pornography use.15 Military therapists and chaplains began reporting in the early 2000s that they were hearing about porn addiction with what one Army Times article called "alarming regularity."16
The mechanism makes painful sense. Soldiers deployed far from home, isolated, flooded with stress hormones, and cut off from real connection, often turn to pornography as a coping tool. The dopamine hit mimics the neurochemistry of combat arousal. It's familiar. It's accessible. And it asks nothing of you in return. But that's exactly the trap. What begins as a stress valve quietly becomes a rewired nervous system, one that can no longer tolerate the slowness, vulnerability, and reciprocity of real intimacy.
The men who were sent to fight came home to find a different battle waiting for them inside their own minds. Nobody warned them about this one.
On a broader societal level, it's fueling violence and division. Studies show that over 88% of pornographic scenes contain physical aggression, normalizing acts of harm and reshaping what men come to associate with desire.12
The tactic has also taken explicitly modern forms. During the 2002 Israeli siege of Ramallah, multiple reports emerged that pornographic films were broadcast on captured Palestinian television stations. The Mail & Guardian documented the incident, with a U.S. consulate employee confirming programs had aired; the Israeli army denied having intentionally substituted pornographic content for regular programming, and accounts differ on intent and duration.13 Whatever the full truth of that specific episode, it reflects a principle that military and intelligence communities have understood for over a century: sexually explicit material, broadcast into a population's homes without consent, is a tool of humiliation, destabilization, and psychological control. Whether wielded by state actors or profit-driven industries, the outcome is the same: people distracted, shamed, and diminished.
Part Three
The Weaponized Erosion of Connection
When a man becomes overexposed to porn, especially during developmental windows, what gets eroded is his capacity to co-regulate.
He loses touch with the subtle rhythms of real intimacy: shared breath, reciprocal attunement, emotional risk, embodied presence. He begins to mistake performance for connection, novelty for aliveness, control for closeness.
And here's what most men don't realize until it's too late: porn doesn't just take away your focus; it takes away your anchor.
Your ability to hold someone in pain. Your ability to show up with depth. Your ability to be a safe harbor for someone you love.
In my MBSEP for Couples work, I often say: intimacy is not built on performance; it's built on safety. But porn trains the nervous system to seek danger as arousal. To associate disembodiment with pleasure. To chase what can never touch you back.
You start to mistake the absence of real feeling for freedom. But it's a cage.
Part Four
The Myth of Harmlessness
We've been sold a lie: "It's natural. It's healthy. Everyone does it."
But let me speak plainly, man to man:
That's the voice of the weapon talking. That's the leaflets falling from the sky, whispering, "Relax, soldier. Your fight doesn't matter. Your mission can wait. Just watch this instead."
Don't buy it.
You are not a passive consumer. You're an organism built to bond, to feel, to lead, to protect, to love with your whole body. And if something is numbing that body, training you to avoid presence, sensation, and connection, it is not neutral. It is not harmless.
Your desire for beauty, love, and connection is not a problem. It's sacred. And the way to reclaim your power is not through shame; it's through embodiment.
Part Five
What I Wish I Had Been Told
If I could sit with my younger self, that 13-year-old alone with a screen, feeling both electric and hollow, here's what I would say:
A letter to my younger self
You are not crazy for feeling hollow after watching that.
You are not weak for wanting more than a screen.
Your desire for beauty, love, and connection is not a problem; it's sacred.
And the way to reclaim your power is not through shame, but through embodiment.
That's why I teach what I teach. I help men regulate their nervous systems, not to make them "calmer," but to restore their ability to feel everything again.
Because when you feel everything, you stop settling for scraps. You stop feeding the system that profits from your emptiness. You start remembering who you are.
Part Six
A Call to Warriors: The Way Forward
If you've fallen into the cycle, you're not alone. And you are not broken.
You've been trained by the culture to be a consumer, not a creator. A scroller, not a seeker. A user, not a lover. But your nervous system can change. Your patterns can shift. You can reclaim your edge.
Start here:
Use cold exposure (showers, ice baths) to begin rewiring your stress response and reconnect with your body's signals.
Practice breathwork and vagus nerve regulation to come home to yourself.
Get off the screen. Get into nature. Get into real relationship.
Learn what intimacy actually feels like when it's slow, safe, and sacred.
Find a therapist, a somatic coach, or a men's group. You were never meant to do this alone.
Begin telling the truth: not just to others, but to yourself.
History's warriors didn't fold to psyops. They rallied. They returned to their brothers, their bodies, their purpose.
Do the same.
✦
You were never meant to do this alone.
You were meant to be fully alive.
You are worth being touched, seen, and loved in your wholeness.
So let's not be casualties in someone else's war.
Let's be the men who wake up.
Let's remember what's real.
Let's fight for the future of our hearts.
Craig Thomas McAdams, LPCC
If something in you felt seen here, trust that.
The patterns that live in secrecy often begin to loosen when they are met with honesty, care, and the right kind of support. If you are ready for a deeper path, one that helps you understand what is happening in your body, your relationships, and your inner life, you can learn more about Craig’s work with men here.
Sources & Citations
This article draws on historical scholarship, neuroscientific research, military studies, and clinical literature. Chicago style.
Historical Use of Pornography as Psychological Warfare
Friedman, Herbert A. "Looking Back: Sex in Psychological Warfare." The Psychologist 22, no. 1 (2009): 84. Primary historical source for WWII-era sexualized leaflet campaigns across Axis and Allied forces.
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Library, Special Collections. "World War II Propaganda." July 8, 2011. Archival examples of German sexualized leaflets targeting Allied troops to lower morale and stir fears of infidelity at home.
Linebarger, Paul M. A. Psychological Warfare. Washington, DC: Combat Forces Press, 1948. Foundational psywar text by a key U.S. military psy-ops pioneer outlining the psychological mechanics of demoralizing enemy forces.
Washington Post. "War's 'Paper Bullets.'" February 10, 1991. Documents the German leaflet series "The Girl You Left Behind" and its use as a targeted demoralization campaign against Allied soldiers.
Wyngaard, Amy S. "Sade, Réage and Transcending the Obscene." In The Cambridge Companion to Erotic Literature, edited by Bradford K. Mudge, 210-223. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017. Situates de Sade's work within the history of erotic literature as a vehicle for political and moral subversion.
United States Office of Strategic Services (OSS). "Psychological Warfare Division Reports," 1943-1945. National Archives. Declassified records referencing the use of sexually provocative and erotic material as part of Allied intelligence operations.
Neuroscience & Psychology of Pornography
Hilton, Donald L. Jr., and Clark Watts. "Pornography Addiction: A Neuroscience Perspective." Surgical Neurology International 2 (2011). Examines the neurological mechanisms by which pornography consumption affects dopamine systems and brain structure.
Kühn, Simone, and Jürgen Gallinat. "Brain Structure and Functional Connectivity Associated with Pornography Consumption: The Brain on Porn." JAMA Psychiatry 71, no. 7 (2014). Neuroimaging research demonstrating structural and connectivity changes in the brains of frequent pornography consumers.
Hald, Gert Martin, and Neil M. Malamuth. "Experimental Effects of Exposure to Pornography: The Moderating Effect of Personality and Mediating Effect of Sexual Arousal." Journal of Sex Research 45, no. 1 (2008): 1-15.
Wéry, Aline, and Joel Billieux. "Online Sexual Activities: An Exploratory Study of Problematic and Non-Problematic Usage Patterns in a Sample of Men." Computers in Human Behavior 56 (2016): 257-266.
Wilson, Gary. Your Brain on Porn: Internet Pornography and the Emerging Science of Addiction. Commonwealth Publishing, 2014.
Content Analysis & Societal Impact
Bridges, Ana, et al. "Aggression and Sexual Behavior in Best-Selling Pornography Videos: A Content Analysis Update." Violence Against Women 16, no. 10 (2010): 1065-1085. Analysis finding that over 88% of scenes in top-selling pornographic films contain physical aggression, predominantly directed at women.
Modern Use of Pornography as Information Warfare
Mail & Guardian. "Captured Palestinian TV Shows Porn Clips." April 3, 2002. Reports that pornographic films were broadcast on captured Palestinian television stations during the 2002 siege of Ramallah. A U.S. consulate employee confirmed programs had aired; the Israeli army denied intentionally substituting pornographic content. Cited as a reported and contested example of modern psychological operations.
Military Personnel, Veterans, and Problematic Pornography Use
Kraus, Shane W., et al. "Examining Compulsive Sexual Behavior and Psychopathology Among a Sample of Postdeployment U.S. Male and Female Military Veterans." Military Psychology 29 (2017): 143-156. VA study of 820 combat veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan finding roughly 14% of men screened positive for compulsive sexual behavior, with problematic pornography use as the most common form.
Kraus, Shane W., et al. "Predicting Problematic Pornography Use Among Male Returning U.S. Veterans." Addictive Behaviors 112 (2021). Study of 172 male veterans finding that PTSD, depression, anxiety, insomnia, and impulsivity were all positively associated with higher rates of problematic pornography use.
Pawlyk, Oriana. "Addicted to Online Porn: X-Rated Internet Explosion Wreaks Havoc with Troops' Careers, Lives." Military Times, March 6, 2013. Reports that military therapists and chaplains hear about pornography addiction with "alarming regularity," and documents the establishment of military treatment programs for the issue.
Somatic Therapy, Attachment & Nervous System
Porges, Stephen W. The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-Regulation. W. W. Norton, 2011.
Maté, Gabor. In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction. North Atlantic Books, 2008.
Zimbardo, Philip G. and Nikita D. Coulombe. Man (Dis)Connected: How Technology Has Sabotaged What It Means to Be Male. Rider Books, 2016.
Broader Cultural Context
Dines, Gail. Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality. Beacon Press, 2010.
Paul, Pamela. Pornified: How Pornography Is Transforming Our Lives, Our Relationships, and Our Families. Times Books, 2005.
Hedges, Chris. Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle. Nation Books, 2009.
