And obviously “making use” of it. Daily? Weekly? Twice X month?
When it affects work or personal relationships.
Boss makes a billion
While I’m just a wage slave
That’s why WFH
Is done in a goon caveOr bathing and self care
IMO personal relationships kind of depend. Some people have unrealistic beliefs and expectations such that any consumption of pornography would be perceived as harmful. That’s pretty often the case with people that are religious fundamentalists.
I mean, I don’t usually talk about my porn viewing with friends. There’s only a handful of people I would talk about it with. As far as fundamentalists goes, while I do have friends who identify as Christian, I would have a hard time being around someone under the fundamentalist label. For reasons that don’t specifically have anything to do with porn.
Therapists often use this term ADLs, Activities of Daily Living, when accessing the impact of a person’s behaviors. Things like bathing, dressing yourself, feeding yourself, cleaning your living space, getting to work and maintaining relationships are all ADLs. Basically, activities and behaviors that help you meet Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
Your question is a bit vague. “Too much” is nebulous. Are you worried that you look at more porn than average? I’m not sure what’s average. I also don’t think it really matters. I think if your porn use is impacting your ability to complete your ADLs, that’s a problem regardless of frequency.
If you’re meeting your ADLs but looking at porn 15 times a day, I’m not sure if it’s truly harmful. There’s something to be said about how porn can create unrealistic expectations of sex and how people interact, but I think if you’re otherwise thriving, your porn usage is largely irrelevant.
If you’re concerned you’re looking at too much porn, that’s worth examining. It might be helpful to do some introspection into why you think that, come up with a metric that helps you evaluate that, and use that to make a judgement.
Edit: Sorry, I’m not a therapist, ADLs don’t include social behaviors. These would fall under IADLs, or Instrumental Activities of Daily Living, which would also include stuff like managing money or preparing meals for yourself. Though, I think if your behaviors impact those, that should still be concerning.
The general measures of things like this are: is it causing a negative effect on you or others?
In a similar vein to pooping some people do every day, some twice or more, some a couple times per week. There’s a range of normal. If it’s not bothering you or anyone else it’s probably fine. (Though see your Dr if you only poop once a week, something’s weird there).
I’m gonna go with the blanket statement of:
If it’s getting in the way of your executive functions then it’s too much. If it takes any precedent over other things that you deem are your responsibility, then you need to take a step back.
If you’re thinking about it when you don’t have it, then it’s an addiction and it’s too much. If you reach the point of trying to watch it in places you shouldn’t be, it’s probably crossed that threshold.
If it’s interfering with other parts of your life like working, bathing, eating or paying bills most definitely a problem. A few times a day, week, month I don’t see a problem, however I like watching porn so there’s that.