Netflix just released Chris Rock’s new stand-up comedy special “Tamborine,” his first in a decade. One of the topics Rock discussed, which is bound to get a lot of attention, is that he overcame a porn addiction.
“I was addicted to porn. When you watch too much porn, you know what happens?” he asked. “You become, like, sexually autistic. You develop sexual autism. You have a hard time with eye contact and verbal cues. You get desensitized. When you start watching porn, any porn will do. Then later one you’re all f–ked up and you need a perfect porn cocktail to get you off. I was so f–ked up, like, I needed an Asian girl with a Black girl’s ass that speaks Spanish just to get my d–k to move an inch. I’m a lot better now.”
In 2016 the Brooklyn born-comedian and his ex Malaak Compton-Rock divorced after 18 years of marriage, and Chris said that cheating was part of the reason. He also admitted to being full of himself because of the money he brought in.
“It’s my fault, because I’m a f—king a–hole,” he explained. “I didn’t listen. I wasn’t kind. I had an attitude. I thought, ‘I pay for everything, I can do what I want’. That s–t don’t f–king work. I just thought I was the s–t. I didn’t play the tambourine. It’s f–ked up. When guys cheat, it’s like we want something new. But then you know what happens? Your woman finds out, and now she’s new — she is never the same again.”
“So now you have new, but you have a bad new,” Rock added. “Some of these lessons you’ve just got to learn, like, I brought this s–t on myself. Nobody told me to go ho up, and you’ve got to learn some lessons.”
The Netflix special isn’t the first time that Rock admitted to a porn addiction. In May of 2017, on his “Total Black” tour, he suggested that porn harmed his marriage just as much as his cheating did.
“My father actually wanted to talk to my mother when he came home,” he joked about how communication in his marriage was affected.
Rock also said watching porn made it hard for him to look people square in the eye and pick up on certain social cues. Plus, it made him 15 minutes late to everything, he said facetiously.
The fact that Rock admitted to a porn addiction may not surprise a lot of people considering the shift of how content is distributed and accessed these days.
Gone are the days of heading to a video store and ducking behind a black curtain hoping not to be seen by a co-worker. Instead, porn can be watched on computers and handheld devices while anonymity can be easily achieved.
But despite there being numerous studies that show both sexes are watching porn in higher numbers these days, porn addiction is still not considered an official diagnosis in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. However, it is something that affects the brain and one’s emotions, which is why it can potentially harm a relationship.
In fact, behavioral therapist Andrea Kuszewski said that people don’t actually become addicted to porn but emotionally attached to it because dompaiment-oxytocins are released in the brain upon masturbation and orgasm.
Those same natural chemicals also help two people feel more connected after they’ve had sex and climaxed, and that same type of feeling can occur between porn and the viewer.
“[When you watch pornography] you’re bonding with it and those chemicals make you want to keep coming back to have that feeling,” said Kuszewski.
Conversely, there are others who say it’s not an emotional connection to porn that affects romantic relationships, it’s just the belief that one is addicted.
“Recent research on pornography suggests that perception of addiction predicts negative outcomes above and beyond pornography use,” wrote scientists in the Journal of Sex Research. “Research has also suggested that religious individuals are more likely to perceive themselves to be addicted to pornography, regardless of how often they are actually using pornography.”
There’s another study from the University of Oklahoma that states watching porn on a regular basis can double the rise of divorce for married couples, especially if those couples are newly married, happy in their marriage or don’t follow a religion.
“Beginning pornography use between survey waves nearly doubled one’s likelihood of being divorced by the next survey period from six percent to 11 percent and nearly tripled it for women from six percent to 16 percent,” said Samuel Perry, lead author of the study. “Our results suggest that viewing pornography under certain social conditions may have negative effects on marital stability.”
“Because religious groups stigmatize divorce and prioritize marital stability, it is likely that married Americans who are more religious will experience a greater combination of community pressure and internalized moral pressure to stay married, regardless of pornography’s effect on their marital quality,” he added.
As for Rock, he eventually went to therapy for his addiction and is now in a far different place. “I’m a lot better now,” he stated.
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