Here we are again, its 4am. It’s a good thing I don’t have to be up for anything important in the morning. What freedom! What fun! Searching for hours on end for the one perfect scene, the one perfect woman, the one perfect face and series of movements, sounds and rhythms, that one perfect moment in which I’ll complete my nightly quest and finally fall asleep “satisfied”.

But then you can’t sleep. And if you do, you’re plagued with the now disgusting images you’ve just spent the last couple of hours searching out and lusting after. Now though, their reprehensible, disturbing your sleep and thoughts. Just minutes earlier, they were your favorite thing in the world, your eternal goal. But now, they’ve become a hindrance to your rest and the guilt is starting to set in. You’re annoyed and frustrated with yourself and you’ve only got a few more hours until the sun rises and you have to remember what you did the night before. Every time you yawn at your desk, your heavy eyes close briefly, you’ll remember the reason for your unrest.

I’ve never seen anything else do this to anyone. I have things I would say I’m obsessed with. I love watching movies, Dexter, writing, cleaning and organizing, Instagram, Simpsons Tapped Out. But do I stay up until all hours of the night and morning occupying my mind fully with these things? Well, maybe Simpsons Tapped Out. But none of these things I enjoy and can immerse myself in to relax eat up hours upon hours of my night, let alone leave me with the guilty feeling that porn does. And the wonderful world wide web has been kind enough to provide us with a literal endless amount of smut to browse through.

What is it about pornography that does this to us? What can’t we deny about it that time and time again makes us keep searching? The feeling of finding something new, of doing something you’re not supposed to, of “rewarding” yourself for having not done it for awhile, even nostalgia can be a factor in your porn search. I’ve had friends tell me that they didn’t even necessarily feel the need or desire to watch porn, they just wanted to find a clip that they had seen years ago that they remember loving at the time. How silly is that? Porn nostalgia? But I get it! And that all goes back to the eternal search.

You watched some clip of porn when you were 17 and now you want to see it again  years later. The funny thing is, more often that not when you do find that clip, you wonder why you liked it so much. It has lost its appeal because you’ve seen so much stuff since then and that original scene or woman no longer gets you off. Like any obsession to gain more, you’ll never be satisfied.

Searching for porn almost makes you think you’ll miss out on something good if you tap out too early. That’s what makes you search all night long. It’s the strangest concept but it’s blatantly apparent and overwhelmingly strong at 3am. Porn addiction can rob you of so many things and the least of these is sleep, but the snowball has to start somewhere.