In the beginning, there is Life. Life is good.
Then, puberty happens. Suddenly, you have a new adventure: sexuality. This is also good. You figure out masturbation. You discover orgasms.
Masturbation may be cued by a glimpse of nudity or the intrusion of never-before-imagined fantasies. But, the porn aspect is missing. Orgasm usually leads to satiation. When it doesn't, you may masturbate again. But, the key point is you masturbate for the sake of the pleasure and the orgasm. Your hormone-fueled brain becomes ever-mindful of sexuality.
Then, you stumble upon pornography. Jack-fucking-pot. Your brain is craving sex; and, porn allows you to "experience" it better than your imagination does. You may not initiate a masturbatory session with porn; but, at least sometimes, porn becomes part of it. Things seem to be going pretty great.
At this point, a subtle change occurs. You may not even notice when it happens. But, increasingly, porn comes before masturbation. Porn, masturbation, and orgasm (PMO) start fusing together. You almost forget how to masturbate without visiting porn first.
This is a fucked fusion. Neurons that fire together wire together. Porn becomes central to masturbation and orgasm.
Worse, life increasingly has real responsibilities and stresses. Porn becomes a means of relieving stress. So, more time gets stuck in this loop. Masturbation and porn lead to hours of edging. Edging is the drug. Orgasm is just what you do when you get too tired. Time for life gets squeezed out.
Twenty years later, you will have wasted countless hours on an activity that is idle stimulation. There are layers and layers of damage. But, the most obvious: the following no longer seems to apply.
And that is a literal tragedy. Few things in this world are better than sex. And sex with meaning is better than sex in isolation. And, porn strips sex of meaning.