How your brain becomes addicted to pornography

One of the key components that leads to the process of becoming addicted is due, in part to a a compound present in the body as a neurotransmitter and a precursor of other substances including epinephrine, known as dopamine, which brings about an intense series of craving and seeking more. This can be expressed greatly by  the ability of the brain to form and reorganize synaptic connections, especially in response to learning or experience or following injury, ie. neuroplasticity, where repeated developmental changes  in the brain's pathways, leading to intense cravings, that reduce a person’s ability to feel pleasure in other situations, and desensitize people to pornographic material to the point where they crave more and more  extreme content, similar to the ways that drug addiction occurs in the body.

dopamine:

do-pa mine | 'dopa,mēn | noun a compound present in the body as a neurotransmitter and a precursor of other substances including epinephrine.

neuroplasticity:

neu.ro.plas-tic.i.ty /,nooropla'stisade/

noun

the ability of the brain to form and reorganize synaptic connections, especially in response to learning or experience or following injury

How porn addiction develops

• Dopamine surge: Watching porn can trigger MASSIVE amounts of dopamine, the brain's "feel-good" chemical, in the brain, which continues to reinforce your body’s desire to continue certain behaviors.    
• Neuroplasticity and rewiring: Brain rewiring, or neuroplasticity, is the brain's ability to change and form new neural connections throughout life. This process allows you to learn new skills, break old habits, and recover from injury or trauma. You can actively encourage brain rewiring through consistent practice, new experiences, and    lifestyle                                                                                                                    
• Craving cycle: This repeated tsunami of dopamine leads to an extreme craving for more, creating a powerful craving pattern where the brain constantly continues to request the activity to get another dopamine hit.
• Heightened arousal and desensitization: The brain becomes desensitized to pornographic images , causing an extreme, unnatural need for more extreme  content to achieve the same level of arousal. This can greatly impact a person’s sexual function in a monogamous relationship, ie. marriage.

                       (SIDE NOTE)

Often long term porn users often develop “scenarios“ in their brains that develop over time.

These scenarios consist of particular items, actions, preferences that the individual viewer’s mind will insist on finding, leading the viewer to search relentlessly until these specific scenarios pop up on their devices.

Often viewers will spend hours of their downtime searching the internet for specific pictures or videos that match the exact content, which leads to extreme unproductiveness which leads to feeling of disappointment and a feeling of a lessened self worth that usually results in a continuous cycle of numbing these feelings with more and more porn.

               (Tolerance buildup)

As with many other drugs, many porn users develop a desire for more and more “harder” or explicit content, ie. bikinis to full nude photos, to more extreme, perverse pornography.

This could sometimes lead some individuals to search for content that they may at one time, found repulsive and even rabbit trail into illegal content.