On this page, you’ll find a glossary of porn addiction words, phrases, and abbreviations used on this site, along with their meanings. This page is constantly being updated and expanded. Expect better organisation in the future.
PMO – Porn, Masturbation, Orgasm. The most common process people follow before considering it a relapse.
Here, an individual will start the process of relapse by looking at porn (P). That then leads to masturbation (M), and finally to orgasm (O).
After orgasm, the Porn Demon has temporarily released its grip on you and you come back to consciousness. It’s this snapping back to reality that causes people to realise they just relapsed.
Reboot – The process of recovering from a porn addiction, often over the course of 90 days. A ‘reboot’ is your brain repairing itself and its sensitized pathways.
Relapse – Having fallen back to old ways after a time of abstaining and improvement. Watching porn after a streak of being porn-free.
Streak – A period of time in which one abstains from pornography and/or masturbation.
90 day reset – Going 90 days while abstaining from pornography to help your brain reset and weaken the power of the addiction. This is the time it takes for many to fully recover.
The Porn Demon – That voice in your head that tempts you towards porn. The personification of your cravings and desires for porn. The devil on your shoulder that whispers in your ear any variation of “it can’t be that bad…”, “just one peak…”, or “you’ve done so well, you deserve it…”. The Porn Demon is fueled and strengthened whenever you watch porn. It gets weaker the longer you abstain.
Easy mode – Easy mode is doing a 90 day reset while allowing yourself to masturbate and have sex
Hard mode – Doing a 90 day reset while not allowing yourself to masturbate or have sex
Brain fog – Lack of mental clarity and a hazy mind. Often understood as literal cloudiness in the mind; brain fog.