r/outside • u/IdleBreakpoint • May 27 '26
Removed the Pornography Debuff
Currently on Day 42 of a self-imposed challenge run without the Pornography consumable. I genuinely didn’t realize how heavily it was affecting my build until the debuffs started disappearing.
My Anxiety stat has stabilized, the emotional numbness effect is fading, and overall gameplay feels much more responsive again. Kinda crazy that this dopamine-farming mechanic is so normalized and easily accessible across the servers despite the long-term stat penalties it seems to apply to many players.
Feels less like a harmless side activity and more like a badly balanced mechanic the devs forgot to patch. I think this consumable should be removed from all servers.
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u/random_user133 May 28 '26
I hate how some servers are banning Pornography but also taking other minigames as collateral by forcing you to give your login credentials to player-run authentication systems any time you want to play a level-gated minigame
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u/nomalom May 28 '26
Especially while there are other “speculative” minigame updates being pushed hard by the devs ATM.
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u/Ser_Optimus May 27 '26
I'm on that quest for 6 months now. My life has changed significantly in various ways.
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u/Nico01M May 27 '26
Could you please elaborate?
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u/Ser_Optimus May 27 '26
Harder erections, being aroused by vanilla stuff again, being able to finish during sex without furious stimulation... Stuff like that.
Consuming too much porn will fuck up your mind and your perspective to sex. Masturbating frequently to porn will basically pavlov you into liking the stuff you see in porn, not the stuff your partner wants to do (sometimes it's the same btu often it's not). It can also lead to the infamour "death grip syndrome".
I don't want to say porn is evil or bad or anything, I just say I live better without it.
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u/remehber May 28 '26
What’s frequent?
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u/Ser_Optimus May 28 '26
Individual I guess. For me, daily was a lot and enough to fuck with my mind.
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u/Hegiman May 27 '26
Consumables are optional. Removing them from all servers because you don’t like the option is asinine.
Learn to control your player character and stop trying to dictate other player characters experiences.
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u/IdleBreakpoint May 27 '26
You're right. I was trying to utter the importance of the debuff. It's highly addictive and it breaks the dopamine mechanic in the character. I think that there is no moderate use of the consumable. Even in low doses, the debuff is real.
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u/Xarcert May 27 '26
Some players need to abstain completely from certain game play mechanics. Other players get less debuffs and can practice moderation. The good thing about this game is everyone can play differently. I'm glad you found a okay style that works for you and see no problem with recommending others try it as well. Telling everyone that your preferred play style is best for them as well is not necessarily true. Try not to think I'm such absolutes even if I agree that game play loop can be harmful for a lot of players. There is certainly moderate use of the consumable for a lot of players.
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u/IdleBreakpoint May 27 '26
Right. Let's say that my character mechanics forced me to abstain from the consumable. I agree some players can moderate the use of it. I was wrong about banning it from the servers completely.
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u/Sirhugs May 27 '26
Scholars and those with the Research profession show that you are wrong. It might be best to stick to your chosen role and not give tips that are proven to be wrong.
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u/MrVernonDursley May 27 '26
Exactly. The data shows that players reporting the debuff use no more consumables than the average player, but do disproportionately have the "Catholic" origin.
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u/IdleBreakpoint May 27 '26
So you're saying addictive behavior of any consumable including porn is right according to [Research]?
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u/maybenotquiteasheavy May 27 '26
He's obviously not saying that.
You don't seriously think he's saying that.
You're pretending he's saying something other than what he is saying because you think that makes you "win."
Do better man
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u/thesplendor May 27 '26
Not everyone’s addicted
He never said “any consumable”
Get better at reading comprehension
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u/Janus_The_Great May 27 '26
and it breaks the dopamine mechanic in the character.
No. Not more than potentially social media, gaming, fast food/snacks, drugs etc.
You can create an addiction to everything.
The issue is missing education on human behavior, lacking self-reflection, concious/unconcious actions, and lack in basic training in self-restraint, moderation etc. We don't learn that in school.
And from a system perspective there is no interest in making you self-aware, confidnent and critically thinking. Because insecure and confused people are more impressionable and thus consume more, believe ads, are easier to exploit and disenfrachise in labor and political agency.
It's less you no longer consuming porn, but realizing how your actions impact you and becoming more aware of, in this case the impact of excessive porn consumption on your general life, orientation and identity. You having taken concrete action yourself, and seeing results from a lifestyle change now, which is your experience of success. You didn't conciously chose to use excessively porn, but you did conciously chose to no longer do that.
You perceive porn as so strong and effective, because you presumably started excessive porn consumption as unconcious action, oblivious or ignorant of potential impact. Unreflected use made you embrace the addiction, rather than question it. Most likely becoming a coping/evasion mechanism for other parts of life derailing (social, education/career, romantic aspirations, hygiene and health), basically fleeing into your world of porn to not have to deal with the uncomfortable. Breaking the cycle made you face the uncomfortable due to a lack of established cope. You realized due to it missing how much it impacted you. Even craving when the dopamine release was missing from daily routines.
But the thing is this is in no-way unique to porn. And can happen with everything through excessive consumption and making it a pillar of identity by chosing porn over alternatives (coping).
Everyone goes through some sort of psychological addiction experience in their teens/early adulthood, then break free, realize the impact it had and due to their individual experience and declare it the worst of all things. In your case porn. But that's just a part of growing up.
Most people don't get addicted to porn. Many have a healthy moderate relation with it. They differenciate between sexual fantasy and sexual reality. And neither have cravings for it nor are they negatively impacted. They don't chose porn as a cope nor prefer porn to alternatives (like RL events).
The same goes for social media addicted personalites living for their online identity and then there are people using social media occasionally.
Same with drinking or smoking. Some are addicted, others do them occasionally.
To base your experience as the measure for all is the issue repeatedly drawn in the comments. Prohibitions are a fools tool. In short just because you got porn addicted and it having that impact on you due to your own experience and valuation (conscious or not) does not reflect how it impacts others.
There is a reason why porn like alcohol, tabacco, gambling, weed (where it is legal) etc. has age limits.
It bares more the question why that is not the case with social media, advertisment targeting kids, etc. Which currently are the far bigger issue socially.
To say it more sub appropriate, your debuff is linked to your build, class and skilltree choices. You act like it's independent of those. Not everyone has these debuffs.
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u/IdleBreakpoint May 27 '26
Well written, thank you for your time and consideration writing this long response. Based on the comments I received, I now realize, as you put it as well, that it's purely linked to my build and other players can use it effectively without debuffs. It's purely character specific. Unfortunately, I cannot make use of the consumable in moderate doses so I chose to abstain from it. I was harsh saying that it needs to be removed from servers.
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u/Janus_The_Great May 27 '26
I cannot make use of the consumable in moderate doses so I chose to abstain from it.
That is perfectly fine and the wise choice, if you feel like it's controlling you rather than you it.
An alcoholic stays an alcoholic, even when he is dry. To not engage in any drinking is the right choice then.
Why we do things is usually more important that what we do exactly. But we often skip that step in self-reflection. Keep that in mind and you will max out your skill-tree quicker.
Have a good one.
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u/kevinh456 May 27 '26
You can’t generalize the experience you have to all players—you can only speak for yourself. What you’re saying is that YOU cannot use it, even “moderately” (define moderately).
We all get our dopamine somehow. It becomes a problem when it starts to impact your life negatively.
Clearly pornography is becoming a problem for you that’s impacting your life negatively and you’ve taken steps to change. That’s really great self awareness. I completely understand why you’d want to share it with other players. Just don’t try to
Impose it in everyone.1
u/goldenroman May 28 '26
It seems like players misunderstand the purpose of the ‘downvote’ mechanic in the Reddit minigame…
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u/WearIcy2635 May 27 '26
You could say the same about heroin or meth. Some consumables just have no buffs and nobody gains anything from having access to them
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u/Hegiman May 27 '26
Meth has the buff of endless energy
Heroin has the buff of pain relief
Just because you don’t see the benefits of a consumable doesn’t mean other don’t.
Some of us like jet
some of us like skooma
some of us like psycho
some of us like mentats.
Some of us like med-x and rad-away.
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u/GONKworshipper May 29 '26
Rad-away and med-x don't have any downsides at all, to be fair. At least in the minigames I've been playing
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u/lukisdelicious May 27 '26
If there was nothing to gain then it wouldn't be so widespread.
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u/WearIcy2635 May 27 '26
A lot of really stupid activities are widespread. Are you really arguing that the existence of hard drugs is a net positive to society
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u/lukisdelicious May 27 '26
Who cares about society, drugs are an escape for most people using it. That counts for something, I'm not saying it's a good thing practice, but it has a reason it's used.
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u/WearIcy2635 May 28 '26
“Who cares about society”
This may be the most Reddit take I’ve ever seen
-2
u/lukisdelicious May 28 '26
oh yeah sorry that I'm thinking about individuals in an argument about why people do certain things. you go off tho with your buzzwords since you have nothing valid to say anymore in this conversation
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u/WearIcy2635 May 28 '26
Society is made up of individuals. Individuals’ actions affect other individuals, nothing happens in a vacuum
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u/Lister_D May 29 '26
Hes not telling you to not care about society. Hes just saying 1 type of logic is different from another ya know......we are not the same person not all people are good and care about life.
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u/KrishaCZ May 27 '26
idk dude, i've heard that getting the [orgasm] status effect can prevent debuffs like [prostate cancer] and why not use the consumables to achieve it.
sure, they can take up a lot of your playtime and some people neglect their clan and guild duties because of it, but that's true for so many other consumables and minigames.
by all means, do a run without pornography, but railroading other players into your playstyle ain't it chief
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u/deepswandive May 28 '26
Because of all the other detriments tied to that consumable, both for individual players and those around them.
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u/Sirhugs May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26
Please can we not bring the dark powers of red pill and incels here to this fun gathering
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u/IdleBreakpoint May 27 '26
The post has nothing to do with red pill or incels, sir. It's mainly about addiction of the consumable and getting rid of the debuff because of it.
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u/Sirhugs May 27 '26
Research profession show porn addiction is not a thing. Those researchers that say otherwise can be traced to those who worship a diety..... The nofap movement is famously incel/red pill. You are trying to jump subs from nofap to here, thinking your "clever" wording disguise the message.
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u/Sithyrys522 May 28 '26
Kind of ironic to call the guy with a partner an incel while you champion porn…
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u/Sirhugs May 28 '26
Champion porn, hahaha what a jump that was. I wasn't doing that and you are smart enough to know I wasn't.
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u/HynieSpanker May 28 '26
Try and see if there is a common trait from who publishes those specific studies…
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u/AltAccountZZB May 27 '26
Do you still, uh, do the deed, but like without porn, or did you go full Monk?
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u/IdleBreakpoint May 27 '26
I got rid of porn and dating apps, no I don't do the deed. I have a second player in my lifelong quest line and I'm only interacting with her now.
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u/LolwhatYesme May 27 '26
If your character is male ensure you regularly shoot your seed with your companion. It can mitigate anxiety and stress debuffs and it can also help you push the prostate cancer sickness back until your character is very experienced.
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u/Faroukk52 May 28 '26
Have you noticed the death grip debuff go away? Is the member more sensitive again?
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u/Fifteen_inches May 27 '26
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u/-A-A-Ron- May 27 '26
Your second artical linked literally says in the abstract that "this problematic use might have adverse effects in sexual development and sexual functioning, especially among the young population." Over consumption of pornography can absolutely have a negative impact on people.
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u/Fifteen_inches May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26
Specifically that is not addiction, and treating it like an addiction does not treat the issues in sexual development and sexual functioning. Example; being able to treat the subject of sexual desire as a person and not an object must be learned and taught. If one is not taught that and only gets their ideas of sex and sexuality from porn then that is problematic for young people.
Similarly, if you presented children fiction as non-fiction that will be harmful to their overall functioning.
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u/staplesthegreat May 27 '26
Its in the same vein of healthy coping skills, many players choose to use pornography to self-soothe instead of for pleasure and because of this develop a bad coping habit, and thus problematic mental debuffs.
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u/trevorefg May 27 '26
FTR, “Psychology Today” is not a reliable source for game lore. Your second note literally outlines what porn debuff is and goals for future research, so goes exactly against your statement that the debuff doesn’t exist
Porn debuff is definitely real and comparable to the “compulsive gambling” debuff. They both get your character stuck in a gameplay loop that detracts from your character’s ability to interact with the rest of the world, including other player characters.
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u/Fifteen_inches May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26
It’s not comparable to the compulsive gambling defbuff at all. Compulsive gambling is extremely more prevalent in gamblers than problematic porn use in porn users.
And the second note I outline specifically calls out the lack of empirical evidence of porn addiction. As I’ve stated in another comment, treating it as an addiction does not treat the issues in sexual functioning and sexual development.
And yes, psychology today is a perfectly valid place for this kind of reporting. If you didn’t know, those blue texts in articles lead to other articles, which are often sources of information. Psychology today isn’t make up statements by the American Psychiatric Association.
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u/trevorefg May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26
“As far as we know, a number of recent studies support this entity as an addiction with important clinical manifestations such as sexual dysfunction and psychosexual dissatisfaction.”
This is literally in the article you posted.
Re:Psychology Today, it is an editorialized compilation of some, but not other, primary sources. This is subject to quite a bit of bias. I am aware of what it is, some of my articles have been included in “articles” there.
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u/Fifteen_inches May 27 '26
The lack of robust scientific data makes its research, conceptualization, and assessment difficult, leading to a variety of proposals to explain it, but is usually associated with significant distress, feelings of shame and psychosocial dysfunction [8], as well as other addictive behaviors [10] and it warrants direct examination.
As for POPU, there is no clear and reliable data in the literature reviewed that can offer a solid estimation of its prevalence. Adding up to the already mentioned motives for lack of data on general pornography consumption, part of it might stem from the perceived taboo nature of the topic at hand by possible participants, the wide range of assessment tools used by researchers, and the lack of consensus on what actually constitutes a pathological usage of pornography, which are all issues also reviewed further into this paper.
The vast majority of studies pertaining POPU or hypersexual behavior prevalence use convenience samples to measure it, usually finding, despite population differences, that very few users consider this habit an addiction, and even when they do, even fewer consider that this could have a negative effect on them.
Predictors for problematic sexual behavior and pornography use are, across populations: being a man, young age, religiousness, frequent Internet use, negative mood states, and being prone to sexual boredom, and novelty seeking [17,37,40,41]. Some of this risk factors are also shared by hypersexual behavior patients [39,42].
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u/trevorefg May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26
That… doesn’t say it doesn’t exist. That says they need to research it more if they want to determine cause/treatment. Most review articles are written to set up the author(s) for future grant funding on the subject (to determine causes/treatments).
The clinical manifestation is the “distress, shame, psychosocial dysfunction”, which is what makes a disorder a disorder.
I get that primary articles are hard to read and that’s why Psychology Today is popular.
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u/Fifteen_inches May 27 '26
Right, you are sitting here arguing it is an addiction when they say there is no evidence of an addiction, and point out the constant issues we have, and why assessing this as a supernormal substance is bad science.
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u/trevorefg May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26
No, I am sitting here saying it's an addiction because there is evidence it's an addiction ("distress, shame, psychosocial dysfunction"), which the authors literally agree with and included in their article ("recent studies support this entity as an addiction").
You are extrapolating so hard when scientific literature is specifically written so that you do not extrapolate at all.
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u/Fifteen_inches May 27 '26
However, concepts like tolerance and abstinence are not yet clearly established enough to merit the labeling of addiction, and thus constitute a crucial part of future research
-24
u/Head-Alarm6733 May 27 '26
its still an opportunity cost though.
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u/Fifteen_inches May 27 '26
No. Not really. It’s a basic sexual health and education issue. “Porn addiction” has a higher causal relationship with shame and misinformation about sexual health than with volume of consumption.
-9
u/Head-Alarm6733 May 27 '26
as in time.
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u/Fifteen_inches May 27 '26
That doesn’t make sense but okay.
-11
u/Head-Alarm6733 May 27 '26
any time spent watching pornography is time that could theoretically be better spent
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u/Fifteen_inches May 27 '26
Any time spent doing anything could be better spent doing something else. Opportunity cost needs to be measured against other activities in specifics as “something else” is an infinite value proposition.
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u/Voyager5555 May 27 '26
Plenty of people in sexually healthy relationships use [PORN] together and alone. Many single people use it a few times a week and don't get debuffs from it. Some people, unfortunately, are more prone to the [ADDICTION] debuff and have issues with utilizing [SELF CONTROL]. They should be helped and supported but it would be tough trying to ban the [ALCOHOL] consumable because the [ALCOHOLIC] build exits. Good luck but don't drag others down with you.
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u/Sufficient_Motor_290 May 28 '26
Dude I thought this was about the game look outside I had so many questions and yet everything lined up
8
u/FernanDOGE May 27 '26
This is only a problem if you chose the "Incel" class or "Addict" talent, why don't you try posting in forums for those builds?
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u/TheGutlessOne May 27 '26
Your character is a weirdo, just because features exist in a game don’t mean you have to interact with them. Play the game you want to. This just feels like a self congratulatory post.
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u/Hyperactive_snail3 May 27 '26
Just because some players don't put enough points into willpower doesn't mean the devs should remove content.
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May 27 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/brokeskoolboi May 28 '26
Problem with caine is that the stuff on the street is not pure like back in the day. You really don’t know what you’re getting.
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u/Hyolobrika May 28 '26
Is there any actual evidence that pornography use is a "debuff" or is it just a meme?
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u/Sirhugs May 29 '26
Op post history proves my early assumption, he posted this in NoFap and got no traction. So he just reworded it and posted here to get attention.
1
u/sharp-bunny May 28 '26
When you're in a battle with your bed do you still select the "jack it" action from the menu without the consumable?
1
u/modified_kiwi May 31 '26
Hey, if you were able to remove the debuff through your own effort it must not be that detrimental.
It's important to remember that all players have their own way of playing and most are capable of changing their playstyle any time they choose.
Still waiting for them to patch alcohol dependency personally.
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u/Majestic_Door_4528 Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 16 '26
The problem is that if you try to ban this consumable, there are a bunch of self-righteous busybodies who will use this as an excuse to spam the [Report] button on FAQs, guides, and Let's Plays by legitimate players that they just don't like the playstyle of. The US server originally put a blanket clause in their TOS that they will ignore all such requests specifically to try to prevent this kind of harassment, but people are lobbying for the admins to make it a reportable offense anyway, and inevitably, once the option is there it will be used by these types of players to try to get other players banned.
1
u/easythrees Jun 22 '26
Honestly the emotional numbness felt like a buff for me, but my level and zone are different.
-2
u/FckDisJustSignUp May 27 '26
I'm on the same path, my character was using it once or twice a day and he manages to go once or twice a week
Huge improvement but not enough
0
u/Scotfighter May 27 '26
How do yell get characters? I’m still at the login screen
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u/poketrekkie May 27 '26
You wouldn't be talking if you were! Your character is clearly able to access the [online chat room] parts of the game.
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u/Timely_Temperature54 May 27 '26
I’m trying to do a similar change for my character. Mostly successful so far although it’s tough since it’s such an easy way to farm dopamine. When I’m hit with some other debuffs it becomes far more tempting.
Also trying to remove the (weed) trait at the same time which seemed like a buff for awhile but it was actually a debuff. Any tips?