Confessions of a Recovering AI Porn Addict

WIRED

2 days ago

A 'gooner' tells WIRED he became hooked on the cartoonish nature of AI porn. Several addictions experts say the genre could pose a problem for people prone to compulsive sexual behavior. A blurred image of a mobile phone with pornographic scenes. Photograph: Getty Images
Kyle's interest in AI porn began last summer as he circled rock bottom. From the outside, everything seemed fine. He was in a committed relationship with his longtime girlfriend. He enjoyed the perks of his job working for a sports betting company. Still, all he could think about was fueling his porn addiction in new ways—even at the cost of feeling mentally drained and tired. 'Pretty much all I wanted to do was doomscroll on my phone and watch content. And I wasn't able to stop even though I noticed that it was a problem. I became desensitized,' he says. 'I was looking for that next dose of excitement.'
'It was something I had not seen before—and I had to see more.'
That's when he came across the Instagram Reel showing an AI-generated image of a woman with 'extremely large breasts the size of her body,' he says. He knew it was fake but also felt strangely seduced by it. 'In the back of my mind, I was like, OK, I do find this kind of attractive,' he says. 'It was something I had not seen before—and I had to see more.'
Kyle is a 'gooner,' a term for someone who finds pleasure from prolonged sessions of intense masturbation. The 26-year-old, who asked to be identified by his first name citing privacy concerns, says that at the peak of his addiction he would force himself to masturbate 'either out of habit, obligation or desire.' The Instagram Reel led him down a rabbit hole of dreamlike pleasure as he searched for AI porn that depicted 'women with cartoonish boobs, aeriolas and nipples twice the size of the rest of her torso, [and] super wide hips.'
When we speak over the phone one recent afternoon in July, Kyle tells me he always had an interest in surrealism—'things that are just completely unnatural and not possible in real life'—and that AI unlocked his appetite tenfold. On Reddit he started commenting on r/BustyAIBabes and would often take time out of work to check X and Instagram, or cycle through Xvideos late at night, while his girlfriend slept, for 'POV stuff, blowjob videos, and jerk off inspiration,' he says. 'I started looking for more taboo things, such as AI porn. And then it got to a point where that didn't arouse me anymore. So I had to search for even more AI.'
Porn sites are some of the most-visited online, according to a 2023 study, and as AI has gone mainstream, so have concerns around the risks that this growing genre of adult entertainment presents for people who suffer from compulsive sexual behavior disorder (CSBD), the official term recognized by the American Psychiatric Association. Porn addiction, as it is commonly referred to, is not considered an official diagnosis, and is not currently listed among the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders , the APA's approved guidebook; it's a contested topic within academic circles. Still, people report feeling out of control with their porn consumption; a meta-analysis published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior in 2018 found that those who express concerns about porn addiction are often actually experiencing distress over their religion-based moral beliefs surrounding pornography.
The spread of AI porn poses 'intriguing yet concerning implications,' says Leor Ram, a therapist at Integrative Psychotherapy Group in Beverly Hills, California. 'We already live in a society where people are growing increasingly accustomed to having what they want, when they want it. While that's convenient for many aspects of life, it's detrimental to relationships and community.' Like other mental health professionals who spoke to WIRED, he says the problem has less to do with its proliferation and more to do with its capacity to magnify pre-existing vulnerabilities toward compulsive or unhealthy behaviors. 'There's every reason to anticipate its growing presence as the technology becomes more sophisticated, personalized, and accessible.'
In June, a member of the subreddit NoFap—a porn addiction peer support forum for people who suffer from CSBD, specifically gooners—warned against the use of AI porn.
'Came across the devil himself and you know they say the road to hell is really fun,' they posted to the group, which has 1.2 million members. 'Stay the fuck away from that shit guys … It's going to get harder to avoid because it captures all your vices and traps you.'
'Already went down that rabbit hole, super hard to get out of it,' one member replied.
'Agreed,' wrote another. 'AI porn is insane and insanely addictive.'
Ross Crothers, a therapist who specializes in queer and trans-affirming care in East Los Angeles, believes AI porn will change how people approach relationships, 'or rather, avoid them,' he says.
Once the neural pathway between AI and sexual pleasure is firmly established, he adds, 'it almost becomes too efficient. This causes other sexual experiences to shift and become less pleasurable in comparison. This is where we will see more avoidance of relationships and an increase in isolation.'
Kyle says his girlfriend, who he has been with for seven years, began to notice a distance growing between them this year that started to negatively affect their sex life. 'My erections weren't as strong as they could have been. I couldn't last as long,' he says. 'And I never directly told her what I was exactly struggling with. But I could sense that there was less attraction there than there had been before. She had gotten the proverbial ick.'
Outside of Reddit threads, though, AI-specific porn addiction isn't currently dominating the clinical landscape. 'We're not seeing a surge of cases in our practice yet,' Rob Terry, a sex addiction therapist and founder of Karuna Healing in St. George, Utah, says. 'But it does come up here and there.' Still, several experts WIRED spoke with say they believe it is 'only a matter of time' before the effects of AI-generated porn become a larger issue.
AI erotica is a quickly developing genre. AI generators and nudifying apps, like Undress.cc, have contributed to the prevalence of AI porn while also raising ethical concerns around the use of nonconsensual deepfakes. An analysis by Indicator, which investigated 85 nudify websites, found that the industry is already pulling in an estimated $36 million per year.
On Pornhub, one of the most visited websites in the world, AI porn is restricted to animated content. Current protocol only allows for AI content from the original creators; they are required to undergo a verification process before uploading videos. 'We ask that people prove it's their work,' Alex Kekesi, Pornhub's vice president of brand and community, says. But even the content uploaded within those restrictions has found an audience, from hyperreal fantasies ('Fucked a bitch without a spine and I liked it') to smutty reimaginings of Marvel characters ('Spider Gwen's First Lesson in Love'). Hentai—a genre of porn content that includes exaggerated video game and anime characters—is currently the most searched term on the site in the US, according to Pornhub. In 2024, Gen Z were 193 percent more likely to view Hentai content compared to all other age groups.
Everywhere, it seems, interest around the subject is intensifying. Since April, search traffic on YouTube for 'AI porn' has been the highest in Sweden, Australia, and Canada, according to Google Trends. More recently, the Supreme Court's decision upholding Texas' porn ID law—which is similar to laws in at least 20 other states and requires adult websites to verify their users are at least 18—has raised the question of whether some people may instead make AI porn at home, bypassing these platforms altogether. Its increasing ability to create hyperreal sexual images, catered specifically to a person's desires, can now produce porn that is just as orgasmic as any human-generated video floating around on aggregator sites. Companion apps like Nomi and Replika are also being used as alternatives to build intimate relationships and have sex with AI bots.
But 'AI porn, in itself, is not necessarily a problem,' says Paula Hall, a psychotherapist at London's Laurel Centre, the leading specialist provider of treatment for CSBD in the UK, 'but rather the way in which it is used.'
As people become more accustomed to getting what they want from realistic AI renderings of porn, in addition to the buffet of erotic media that already exists across the internet, human connection, for some, may no longer be enough, says Monifa Ellis-Addie, a therapist at Banyan Therapy Group in Los Angeles, a faith-based counseling practice. In the most extreme cases, mental health professionals say that an increased dependency will enable people to fully detach. 'The effects are going to be pretty damaging,' Ellis-Addie says. For some people, sex addiction is built on a kind of 'faux-intimacy,' she continues. 'AI is only going to make that easier. It's going to feel as if you're dealing with an actual person, and with an actual person comes things like actual feelings. It will make people more distant in real life.'
Kyle's epiphany that it was time to finally temper his addiction came during a work trip to New York City in February. He was alone in a hotel, away from his girlfriend, and, he says, 'I just kept doing it and doing it but I didn't feel any better.' He's since taken action to limit his need to masturbate, including joining the Reddit support group NoFap, where members share similar struggles.
Professionals believe that could make initiating new IRL relationships more difficult.
Young people are currently facing a mental health crisis. Last year, the US surgeon general called for a warning label on all social media platforms. One major consequence has been a 'loneliness epidemic,' according to a 2024 Harvard study, which suggested that people who feel more alone suffer from higher rates of depression and anxiety.
'Social media has distorted our views on so many things—body image, social class, politics. It's hurt people in many ways,' says Daniel Glazer, a psychotherapist at Fifth Ave Psychiatry in New York, citing loneliness, isolation, depression, shame, and issues related to sexual performance as areas of concern. What's happening with AI porn 'could be another extension of that,' he adds.
But AI also has the potential for real 'positive crossover' for people who struggle with relationships, both platonic and romantic. 'I understand sex addiction as a way to avoid life, a way to avoid relationships. So AI can be a kind of a bridge to someone who's fearful of a relationship,' Glazer says. 'Here's a relationship that isn't scary and one where you won't be criticized.' They'll just have to manage their reliance on it.
More recently, Kyle has fully curbed his intake of adult content. Though AI porn is still in its early days, he considers it 'one of the worst technological developments that we have coming up right now' because of its over accessibility. 'It's worse than the real thing.'