Porn Is Just A Symptom—The REAL Relationship & Dating Crisis (And Where We Go From Here)

The Liz Moody Podcast

Liz Moody

Health & Fitness, Self-improvement, Education, Mental Health

4.8 • 2.9K Ratings

🗓️ 17 September 2025

⏱️ 108 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

I sit down with Dr. Alok Kanojia (Dr. K), Harvard-trained psychiatrist and founder of Healthy Gamer, to explore why there’s an increase in porn addiction and why dating and relationships feel harder than ever before. We dive into exactly what’s creating these widespread mental health struggles, especially in men, and what we can and should be doing to protect ourselves, our partners, and the world at large. This episode blends neuroscience, psychology, and timeless wisdom to help you understand your inner wiring. We discuss tools to amp up our distress tolerance, curb addictions, limit our use of technology, increase social connections, and own our agency to help create a better world. Plus, we discuss a ton of juicy information and opinions around porn usage. We get into: The rise of erectile dysfunction in men Porn’s impact on your sex life If porn is bad and exactly how and when to use it Porn’s surprising use for things other than masturbation Addictions and how to stop them Dopamine engineering Distress tolerance Declining birth rates Why there’s less dateable men (and what to do about it) And so much more For more from Dr. K, find him on YouTube @HealthyGamerGG, online at https://www.healthygamer.gg/, or check out Dr. K’s Guide to Mental Health. Ready to uplevel every part of your life? Order Liz’s book 100 Ways to Change Your Life: The Science of Leveling Up Health, Happiness, Relationships & Success now! Connect with Liz on Instagram @lizmoody or online at www.lizmoody.com. Subscribe to the substack by visiting https://lizmoody.substack.com/welcome. Buy our cute sweatshirts, conversation cards, and more at https://shop.lizmoody.com/. Use our discount codes from our highly vetted and tested brand partners by visiting https://www.lizmoody.com/codes. To join The Liz Moody Podcast Club Facebook group, go to www.facebook.com/groups/thelizmoodypodcast. This episode is brought to you completely free thanks to the following podcast sponsors: Osmia SkinCare: head to OsmiaSkincare.com and use code LIZMOODY2025 for 20% off your first order. LMNT: go to DrinkLMNT.com/LizMoody to get a free LMNT sample pack with any order. Masterclass: visit MasterClass.com/lizmoody for 15% off annual membership. Evlo: head to EvloFitness.com and use code LIZMOODY for 6 weeks for free. The Liz Moody Podcast cover art by Zack. The Liz Moody Podcast music by Alex Ruimy. Formerly the Healthier Together Podcast. This podcast and website represents the opinions of Liz Moody and her guests to the show. The content here should not be taken as medical advice. The content here is for information purposes only, and because each person is so unique, please consult your healthcare professional for any medical questions. The Liz Moody Podcast Episode 365. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	What role do porn and technology play in the current mating and dating crisis?
0:06.1	Oh my God. So big. What we're starting to see is a huge impact of pornography on the dating
0:13.0	world. So one of the really scary statistics is it used to be that the rate of erectile dysfunction
0:18.0	in men under the age of 30 was about 5%.
0:21.0	It's close to like 20 to 25%, according to some studies out of Europe now.
0:25.6	Guys are having a hard time getting hard.
0:28.4	And my friends are attributing it to porn because they're seeing this very different vision of what sex is in porn.
0:34.4	And then that doesn't line up with what sex is like in life.
0:37.4	But it is a thing that my girlfriends are talking about quite a bit. They're absolutely seeing it. That makes sense. That's what the statistics show. I think the reason is a little bit different. The reason that I wanted to do this episode wasn't just to help people who may be dealing with porn addiction in their life. I feel like there's this greater
0:54.9	cultural thing happening. Now I'm wondering, is it possible to even engage with porn in a way that's
0:59.8	not addictive? My name is Alok Kanoja. I'm a Harvard trained psychiatrist. I run a YouTube channel
1:05.1	called Healthy Gamer, where we talk to about 10 to 15 million people every month about the modern
1:10.4	mental health challenges of the world we live in.
1:12.8	The reason that I wanted to do this episode wasn't just to help people who may be dealing with
1:19.6	porn addiction in their life, but it was because I feel like there's this greater cultural thing
1:24.4	happening. So in two facets. One, I think there's some pretty serious things happening
1:29.1	with men and with male and female relationships, which we can get back to in a second. But also,
1:34.8	my views on porn have changed a lot recently. I used to think like, oh, it's pretty innocuous.
1:40.6	People can use it. They cannot use it. It's a different path for people to explore pleasure. And I feel
1:46.1	like porn has been overtaken by the same algorithms that we have on social media with infinite
1:51.9	scrolling and variable rewards and auto play. And on top of that, I think what we're seeing is getting
1:57.9	more and more extreme on porn because you need more and more hits to get that dopamine surge. And so now I'm wondering, is it possible to even engage with porn
	...

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