Does porn cause erectile dysfunction? What the research actually says
Porn-induced erectile dysfunction (PIED) is a popular term for erection difficulties that some people link to their porn use. It isn't a recognized medical diagnosis and it has no agreed clinical definition, but the term is widely used online, so it helps to know what it describes.
Current research doesn't show that porn causes erectile dysfunction (ED). Large studies of typical porn use find little to no connection to erection difficulties. Where a link does appear, it's in people who already describe their own porn use as out of control. Below, we break down the research with help from psychosexual and relationship therapist Silva Neves, look at why porn and ED can still show up together, and cover what can help.
- PIED is a widely used term with no medical diagnosis behind it
- The research doesn't show porn causes ED. Problematic use and ED can show up together without either one causing the other
- Getting harder with porn than with a partner is usually about anxiety with a partner
- Shame, unrealistic expectations, and using porn to cope with stress are more likely to explain a real link than porn itself
- Quitting cold turkey tends to backfire. Gradual rebalancing works better for most people
- Whether porn is a helpful or unhelpful part of your life comes down to whether you choose it
- Talking openly with your partner helps you both work out what you each need
What is porn-induced erectile dysfunction (PIED)?
You won't find PIED in the DSM-5 or in the World Health Organization's ICD-11, which is the WHO's list of recognized diagnoses.
The WHO does recognize something related: Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorder. That diagnosis is based on distress and loss of control over your life. Two people can watch the exact same amount of porn. One finds it a normal part of a satisfying sex life. The other finds it's taken over everything else. Only one of them has a problem to look at.
That's the real reason PIED is hard to pin down. It's built on a category nobody has managed to define precisely.
Does porn actually cause ED?
No. The strongest research available does not show that porn causes ED.
A large study looked at younger men in Croatia, Norway, and Portugal. It found little evidence that porn use itself is a risk factor for erection, desire, or orgasm difficulties (Landripet & Štulhofer, 2015).
A 2024 review of research published since 2015 reached a similar conclusion. It found that claims of a strong relationship between porn use and sexual dysfunction are "generally unfounded" (Rowland & Cooper, 2024).
One study followed men for a full year. Men who described their own porn use as problematic did report more erection difficulties at the same time, but that link didn't hold up as a cause months later (Grubbs & Gola, 2019). Feeling out of control around porn and having erection difficulties often show up together, and neither seems to cause the other.
You may have come across research claiming the opposite: that porn is driving a wave of ED in young men. The most widely cited version of that argument comes from a 2016 paper whose own publisher later issued a correction (Park et al., 2016).
The correction was needed because one of the authors had written a popular anti-porn book and hadn't disclosed it. For that reason, the paper isn't strong evidence that porn causes ED, and it makes sense to read any source that leans on it with the same caution.
This matches what 50 years of academic research on pornography has found overall: no causation between porn and sexual dysfunction, relationship problems, or mental health issues (McKee et al., 2022). Rather than debate the cause, we'd prefer to focus on what can help if you're dealing with erectile dysfunction, issues with porn, or both.
How porn can shape expectations in partnered sex
Even without a proven cause, there are real ways porn and erection difficulties can end up connected. One is expectations. If the only sexual script your brain knows comes from porn scenes, real sex with a partner can feel like it doesn't measure up, and that gap can raise the pressure you feel and make it harder to stay aroused.
Ideas about sex can start forming early. In a UK study, almost half of children aged 11 to 16 had seen porn online, and 42% of 15- and 16-year-olds said online porn had given them ideas about the type of sex they wanted to try (Martellozzo et al., 2020). Our guide to erectile dysfunction in your 20s looks at porn and ED in younger men too.
Getting hard with porn but not with a partner, explained
This is common, and it usually points to anxiety around partnered sex.
Watching porn alone, there's no one to disappoint. With a partner, there's often a running commentary in your head: am I lasting long enough, am I hard enough, is this good for them.
Psychologists have a name for that running commentary: spectatoring, watching and judging yourself instead of being present in the moment. Your nervous system reads that self-judgment as a threat, and threat is the opposite of arousal.
This kind of pressure is a sign of psychological erectile dysfunction, the same kind of sexual performance anxiety that shows up in plenty of situations that have nothing to do with porn. If stress or worry feels like the bigger piece for you, read about the link between anxiety and erectile dysfunction too.
"Mere use" vs. problematic use: what the evidence actually separates
Not all porn use is the same, and the research treats it that way. Whether porn use is linked to erection difficulties at all depends on whether that use feels out of control to the person doing it.
| Feature | "Mere" / non-problematic use | Self-reported problematic use |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Regular porn use without distress or a sense of loss of control | Porn use the person themselves describes as compulsive, shameful, or out of control |
| Link to erection difficulties | Little to no consistent link (Landripet & Štulhofer, 2015) | Association at the same point in time (Grubbs & Gola, 2019) |
| Does it predict ED over time? | No | No. The same study found a same-time association and no long-term or causal link |
| What actually helps | Nothing to fix | Dealing with the underlying stress, shame, or performance anxiety driving the distress |
Signs your porn use is worth a closer look
Look at how porn fits into your life.
Silva's advice is to figure out what's normal for you, based on your own feelings and responses. A few signs that your relationship with porn might need a closer look:
- You can only get or stay hard while watching porn
- Porn is interfering with work, plans, or relationships
- You cancel on friends to watch porn instead
- Masturbating to porn doesn't feel pleasurable anymore
- You keep watching even though it isn't making you happy
- You think about porn so often it affects how you function day to day
If none of that sounds like you, and porn feels like a pleasurable, well-integrated part of your life, it's less likely to be connected to your erections at all. If you want to rule out other causes first, it can help to figure out if your ED is physical or psychological.
Can porn-related ED be resolved?
Yes, and it often starts with training your system and dropping the self-punishment.
One study found that up to 30% of men under 40 have experienced erection difficulties (Nguyen et al., 2017). In one clinic study of 948 men with ED in Turkey, 83% of men under 40 had mainly psychogenic ED, compared with 40.7% of men over 40 (Caskurlu et al., 2004). Psychogenic means the cause is mostly psychological.
Those figures come from one clinic sample, so they may not hold for every man.
Because PIED isn't a formal diagnosis, there's nothing to cure in the medical sense. Many people find it helps to rebalance their porn use.
Silva suggests starting small: set a clear time boundary around porn, make that window genuinely enjoyable, and get on with your day afterward. If you feel the pull again, remind yourself there's another window coming.
Some people also find mindful masturbation helps rebuild pleasure that doesn't depend on porn at all.
“The most important thing to remember when cutting back on porn is to not pressure yourself or approach this journey with shame.”
Angus Barge, Mojo co-founder
Where erection difficulties are the main issue, whatever the cause, Mojo's Erection Reset program works with the nervous system directly. It regulates stress responses, untangles performance pressure, and rebuilds confidence in partnered sex.
Cold turkey vs. gradual change: which approach actually works
For most people, gradual rebalancing has a better track record than quitting cold turkey, and it carries less shame.
| Approach | What it involves | What the evidence shows | Shame risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cold turkey / total abstinence | Stopping all porn use immediately | Frequently described as difficult, sometimes feeling impossible at first, before becoming achievable with the right support (Fernandez et al., 2021). There's no verified figure on how many people relapse or how fast. | Higher. Often treated as an all-or-nothing pass/fail test |
| Gradual rebalancing | Understanding what's driving the use, building other coping tools, reducing performance pressure over time | Matches the "porn is a signal, not the cause" framing that the research above supports | Lower. There's no single slip to feel ashamed of |
The shame around quitting can do real damage on its own. An analysis of Reddit found that 94.3% of violent posts between 2011 and 2022 came from the anti-masturbation subreddit r/NoFap (Prause & Ley, 2023), a community built entirely around the cold-turkey approach.
Mojo's Break Free From Porn program, built with Silva Neves, is based on a different premise: understanding what's driving the habit.
Porn's place in a healthy sex life
Yes, porn can be part of a healthy sex life for many people, in the right context.
Used consciously, porn can help you self-soothe, figure out what turns you on, and even bring new ideas into a relationship.
Roughly 77% of heterosexual couples report having no explicit rules around pornography (Willoughby et al., 2024). Talking it through together gives both of you a clearer sense of what you each expect. Open communication with your partner is vital, as is considering each other's feelings.
If your partner feels hurt at the thought of you watching porn, try to talk it through together and work out why. They might feel insecure and need reassurance. They might miss the connection if masturbation and porn sometimes replace sex.
You could also talk about whether you'd both prefer to watch ethical porn, together or separately. It's one more part of your sex life and relationship to explore together, without shame.
So, can porn really cause erectile dysfunction?
Studies into pornography and its link to ED are limited and conflicting, with many scientific papers disputing it.
There’s no solid evidence to prove that pornography directly causes erectile dysfunction.
However, we do know that problematic porn usage can increase several other pre-existing issues, which could indirectly lead to psychological erection problems.
Here are some ways your porn habits could be subtly cock-blocking you:
Confusing porn with sex in real life
Mainstream porn often features muscular men who are hung like a horse and get rock hard at the flick of a switch.
So, for men who have been watching porn, it may have created a view of sex that doesn’t represent real life.
This is worrying as it can create inaccurate standards for things like:
- Body image (of both parties)
- Penis size, shape, and hardness
- Sex positions
- How long sex lasts
- How many times you should go in one session
- Use of condoms
- Kinks (if done carelessly, without proper education about them)
- Fetishes (if there’s an expectation of fetish play without talking to a partner about it first)
- Consent
This can ultimately create insecurities which can lead to performance anxiety, and have an impact on your erections.
Increasing pre-existing performance anxiety
Watching a lot of porn can increase sexual performance anxiety because of these unrealistic expectations that porn creates about sex.
This anxiety can get worse when feeling even more pressure about performing in front of a partner.
A range of sexual interests
Men who watch porn generally have a wider range of sexual interests. So, if partnered sex is usually ‘the same’, then there could be some disinterest in sex with a partner.
Shame around sex
Personal shame held towards porn (or your personal porn habits) could be causing anxiety. This can then have an effect on your penis.
For some men, there are external cultural and religious factors contributing to shame around sex or masturbation. Some religions and cultures may create certain standards or pressures related to sex. This could include achieving ‘sexual purity’, avoiding sex outside of marriage, or only having sex for procreation.
So, watching porn and having solo or partnered sex for pleasure may not align with these standards, and this can also lead to feelings of anxiety that will impact a guy’s erections.
There’s a lot to digest here. But none of this is a cause for alarm. Mojo is here to help you tackle any issues that may have indirectly stemmed from problematic porn usage.
ED can also be caused by a million other things
Okay, maybe not a million. But the truth is, lots of people suffer from erectile dysfunction for a huge bunch of reasons, and these can be physical or psychological.
So, even if you are worried about your porn habits, it may actually have no connection to your erectile dysfunction at all.
The best thing to do is to talk to a doctor to rule out anything physical, and then understand more about the other causes of psychological ED. You may find you relate to one or more of these other ED causes, and your porn-watching habits could no longer be to blame after all.
Mojo is here to get you back on track with any psychological erection issues.
How to cure porn ED
At Mojo, we use the word ‘resolve’ rather than ‘cure’. This is because there’s no formal diagnosis for PIED, and therefore there can’t be a ‘cure’.
We see tackling erectile dysfunction, along with a problematic outlook on pornography, as part of an ongoing self-development journey. It’s about integrating porn use as a functional part of your sex life.
Porn Induced Erectile Dysfunction treatment
Remember, if there’s no diagnosis for PIED, there also can’t be a ‘treatment’.
We’ve outlined 4 key tools and techniques below, to help you get your mojo back. You should see these as ways to weave porn viewing into your life in a functional way, rather than a ‘treatment plan’.
1. Rebalancing your relationship with porn
Porn isn’t bad or good, it’s just adult entertainment. So, unless your experiences with porn are extremely negative, Silva doesn’t suggest you must cut porn out of your life – particularly if you use porn to de-stress.
However, if you feel like porn is negatively impacting your erections (and your life), you may want to look into rebalancing your porn usage. This may mean cutting down, diversifying, or stopping altogether. All approaches are fine and we are here to help.
When it comes to rebalancing any porn-watching habits, choose a realistic goal that feels like an easy first step. Silva explains an example of how you can do this:
Also think about the function porn offers you and replace it with something that offers the same reward. For example, if porn helps you calm down or de-stress, replace porn with an exercise or meditation that offers you the same release.
Mojo’s platform has a range of courses and exercises to help you feel calmer and less stressed. Check them out here.
Ultimately, when you’re rebalancing your porn usage, be patient and kind to yourself. And if you have any setbacks, it’s okay. You can always pick back up where you left off.
“The most important thing to remember when cutting back on porn is to not pressure yourself or approach this journey with shame.”
Angus Barge, Mojo Co-founder
2. Avoid making promises to partners
Silva also advises that men shouldn’t make any promises to their partners about what they will or won’t do with porn.
This could create added pressure and feelings of shame.
3. Therapy for porn & ED
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a behavioral approach that uses a combination of talk therapy, mindfulness, and exercises to begin seeing your struggle with porn and ED for what it really is, instead of what your mind says it is.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) can help those suffering from erectile dysfunction become aware of behaviors and triggers that may be coming from pornography usage. If you can spot and confront those triggers, you can begin to create a plan of action.
Mojo offers lots of resources for porn and ED, including recorded expert-led therapy videos and mindfulness exercises. We can help combat your erection issues in a holistic way from the comfort of your bedroom.
We also have an anonymous community where you’ll hear from guys opening up about their porn and ED worries (and how they’ve worked through them).
4. Mindful masturbation
We know ‘mindful masturbation’ sounds a bit strange, but trust us, it can make masturbation more enjoyable, and reduce your reliance on porn to get it up (or cum).
You can do this on your own or with a partner, in the comfort of your own bed.
How to recover from Porn Induced ED (or as we’d rather put it: unreliable erections and problematic porn use)
‘Recovery’ is a pretty scary word that we tend to avoid here at Mojo.
Instead, we encourage guys to see it more as an ongoing journey to have consistently stronger erections, a more satisfying sex life in the long-term, and feel happier and healthier overall.
Can porn help with ED?
We’ve touched on the negative effects porn can have on your penis. But porn isn’t always bad.
If consumed consciously and carefully, pornography can actually help your erections and your sexual relationships. Here’s how:
- Watching porn when masturbating can help to self-soothe, which is where we treat ourselves to doing something that makes us feel better. It can also help to relieve stress and anxiety
- Porn can help us to identify what gets us going, so we can explore that further in the bedroom
- Many people also find porn enriches their sex life with their partners. Some couples even watch porn together, either to light a spark or bring new ideas to their bedroom
But with great porn, comes great responsibility. So, it’s up to you to keep an eye on your porn habits, how pornography makes you feel, and the impact it has on you and your relationships.
Our key takeaways about ED and porn
- Porn isn’t necessarily a good or bad thing in our lives, it’s just adult entertainment
- Porn can be used for fun and to explore what gets you going, but shouldn’t be used as your main source of sexual education
- If you’re a lover of porn and find you’re struggling with ED, it’s probably not the porn directly causing it
- But, porn could be creating other issues which may then lead to erectile dysfunction
- Or, it could be nothing to do with the porn at all, and could be down to one of many other causes of ED
- Whether you find that porn is your friend or foe, you don’t have to put up with ED. There’s a lot of tools and techniques you can do to help you get better erections
At Mojo, we make getting hard, well, easier. We have the resources to understand more about your sex life, what’s going on with your erections, and the tools to help you communicate and work through them. Try Mojo for free here.
And if you'd rather offload anonymously to guys who really get it, the Mojo Community is brimming with open conservations about erectile dysfunction, porn, and masturbation. You’re more than welcome to tap into the conversation.
FAQs
No. It's a popular term that the DSM-5 and the WHO's ICD-11 don't recognize as a diagnosis.
No study has shown porn causes lasting ED. Large studies of younger men found little evidence that porn use is a risk factor for erection difficulties (Landripet & Štulhofer, 2015). A 2024 review reached a similar conclusion (Rowland & Cooper, 2024). Problematic use is linked to ED at the same point in time but not over time (Grubbs & Gola, 2019).
There's no fixed timeline. It's an ongoing process of rebalancing your habits and lowering performance pressure.
Not necessarily. For most people, gradually rebalancing works better than quitting cold turkey, which carries more shame risk and no proven faster payoff.
This is common. It usually reflects performance anxiety with a partner.
Sources
- World Health Organization. (n.d.). Compulsive sexual behaviour disorder. In International classification of diseases (11th revision).
- Landripet, I., & Štulhofer, A. (2015). Is pornography use associated with sexual difficulties and dysfunctions among younger heterosexual men? The Journal of Sexual Medicine, 12(5), 1136–1139. https://doi.org/10.1111/jsm.12853
- Rowland, D. L., & Cooper, S. E. (2024). Pornography and sexual dysfunction: Is there any relationship? Current Sexual Health Reports, 16, 19–34. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11930-023-00380-z
- Grubbs, J. B., & Gola, M. (2019). Is pornography use related to erectile functioning? Results from cross-sectional and latent growth curve analyses. The Journal of Sexual Medicine, 16(1), 111–125. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsxm.2018.11.004
- Park, B. Y., Wilson, G., Berger, J., Christman, M., Reina, B., Bishop, F., Klam, W. P., & Doan, A. P. (2016). Is internet pornography causing sexual dysfunctions? A review with clinical reports. Behavioral Sciences, 6(3), 17. https://doi.org/10.3390/bs6030017
- McKee, A., Litsou, K., Byron, P., & Ingham, R. (2022). What do we know about the effects of pornography after fifty years of academic research? Routledge. https://www.routledge.com/What-Do-We-Know-About-the-Effects-of-Pornography-After-Fifty-Years-of-Academic-Research/McKee-Litsou-Byron-Ingham/p/book/9781032140339
- Nguyen, H. M. T., et al. (2017). Erectile dysfunction in young men: A review of the prevalence and risk factors. Sexual Medicine Reviews, 5(4), 508–520.
- Fernandez, D. P., Kuss, D. J., & Griffiths, M. D. (2021). The pornography "rebooting" experience: A qualitative analysis of abstinence journals on an online pornography abstinence forum. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 50(2), 711–728. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7889567/
- Prause, N., & Ley, D. (2023). Violence on Reddit support forums unique to r/NoFap. Deviant Behavior, 45(4), 602–618. https://doi.org/10.1080/01639625.2023.2280795
- Willoughby, B. J., et al. (2024). Rules (and the lack of rules) about pornography use among heterosexual couples. The Journal of Sex Research, 62(6). https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2024.2395479
- Martellozzo, E., Monaghan, A., Davidson, J. R., & Adler, J. R. (2020). Researching the affects that online pornography has on U.K. adolescents aged 11 to 16. SAGE Open, 10(1). https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2158244019899462
- Caskurlu, T., et al. (2004). Int J Urol, 11(7), 525–529. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1442-2042.2004.00837.x
Mojo aims to provide useful wellbeing resources to its users; however, you should not solely rely on opinions or advice available on the Website or given by the Community. Always seek advice from a qualified medical doctor or other healthcare professional before acting.
About the experts
A psychosexual therapist and Europe's leading specialist in porn habits, Silva helps people understand what's driving their habits, without judgment.
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