“I realize I get into trouble when I don’t have the energy to do anything,” I said. “I don’t want to play football, I just want to be inside.

“But I get guilt and shame when we come, and no matter what I try, I can’t stay to watch.

“Dat na wen I know say something dey sup.”

While not everyone watches pornography and develops an unhealthy relationship, Shaun is not alone in my viewing habits.

The Ofcom Online Nation 2024 report suggests that 29% of UK adults are accessing online pornography by May 2024.

In addition, new research from an addiction treatment centre, UKAT, suggests that millions of Britons watch pornography regularly – with 1.8 million watching daily, some several times a day.

According to health care providers, more pipo dey seek help for problematic porn use.

Dr Paula Hall, a UKCP-accredited sex and relationship psychotherapist at The Laurel Centre, in London, specializes in helping people with sex and porn addiction.

“The number of clients seeking help with pornography problems for the Laurel Center has doubled in recent years, and our requests from health professionals for further training,” she told the BBC.

Dr Hall explains that they are also seeing a growing number of younger people seeking help.

“Ten years ago, the majority of our clients were married men in their 40s and 50s seeking help because their partner doesn’t use sex workers,” she says.

“However, increasingly our customers are dying in their 20s and 30s, many of whom are single, and they recognize the growing percentage of porn used in their lives and the ability to get or keep a relationship.”

Lee Fernandes, lead therapist for the UKAT Group, also says the number of treatments for problematic pornography has increased “significantly” in recent years.

They get several requests for help from Pipo we they struggle with using porn every day.

Before 2020, na one or two requests a week

Fernandes explains that advances in technology and the subsequent easy availability of pornography make it easy for pipo of all ages to access sexual content online.

I think say it contributes to an increase in pipo we they seek help from what I have experienced.

“It’s not that hard for someone to pull out their phone, go to a site and look at porn, we’re 12 years old or 60 years old,” I say. “It’s quite worrying.”

According to Fernandes, odd reasons for watching porn online include curiosity, boredom, stress relief and lack of sexual satisfaction.

While pornographic use of fit starts for different reasons, Fernandes describes me as “highly addictive”.

“E fulfill the dopamine reward system,” he explains. “Once you start, it’s pretty hard to stop.”

However, although problematic porn use fits mimic addiction, it is not diagnostically recognized as such.

Instead, they are categorized as problematic online pornography use (POPU) or compulsive behavior.

For pipo we develop a relationship with porn, the effects fit negative.

And for the youngest in society as we grow up with free, hardcore content at our fingertips, the effects of early overexposure fit overreach.

The Children’s Commissioner for England promotes and protects children’s rights.

New research from the dia office shows that by 2023, 10% of children are viewing pornography by the age of nine and 27% are viewing it by the age of 11.

“Young people tell me that exposure to pornography is widespread and normalized – the average age of children first viewing pornography is 13,” Dame Rachel de Souza, the current children’s commissioner, told the BBC.

“Pornography is no longer confined to dedicated adult websites – children say they are fine with seeing violent content depicting compulsive, degrading or painful sexual acts on social media.

“The implications of viewing the disc of material are great – my research shows that frequent users of pornography are more likely to engage in physically aggressive sexual acts.”

De Souza adds saying they are “important” for high-quality relationship and sex education to be given equally important subjects to help young pipo understand that pornography is unrealistic.

Silva Neves, a psychotherapist who specializes in the treatment of compulsive sexual behaviors, agrees saying that they will look at pornography at a young age and have a negative impact.

However, I emphasize that the lack of high-quality sex education for young people leads them to seek information elsewhere.

“They go and see hairless vulvas. They go and see 9in penises.

“They go and see a hard intercourse that lasts 30 minutes and suffocation and all the differences, and they think, ‘ok, so it’s not sex.’

“But it’s much easier to point the finger at porn and say porn with a problem.”

Courtney Daniella Boateng, 26, first started watching porn when she was in primary school.

For her, it was driven in part by the lack of proper sexuality education available to her. She explains that her classes for school focused on the biology of reproduction, rather than the experience of sex.

She says it’s a taboo that we seem to exist around and that makes it even more fascinating for me to try to understand it.

“I end up searching for sex videos,” she explains. “A very wide door we just blow open to a whole new world.”

Courtney starts watching full time, sometimes on weekends or sometimes at school. But it, she says, happens almost every day.

“Then I start to realize it’s having a negative effect on me because I’m doing it way too often,” she said.

Courtney lost her virginity when she was 18 – a moment she describes as “terrible”.

“It doesn’t feel like real life matches the hype…we become me from watching porn or masturbating,” she said.

Courtney eventually realizes that she is becoming unhealthy addicted to porn.

“I always find myself fighting when I feel like actually quitting and I literally just leave myself so powerless.”

She stops watching porn in her 20s and decides to become celibate. Together with their fiance, they commit to abstinence until after a wedding.

For Shaun, excessive porn habit leads me to get “tired” of masturbating.

“I play the part when the porn gets to play and say I’m messing with my self-esteem and giving me a dysmorphia around sex, or my body, or my penis,” I said.

But, sabi pipo says it is important to recognize says, for many pipo, it is possible to have a healthy relationship with porn. For some, e fit even has benefits.

For example, research by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) suggests that porn is a way for young people who are unsure of their sexuality to understand them better.

”We must remember that an unhealthy relationship with porn only occurs when an individual does not lose the possibility of choice; dem fit works normally for daily life without watching porn,” concludes Fernandes.

“We urge anyone who believes they fall into this category to seek professional help.”

“E dey left me with a lot of unlearning to do,” Courtney snapped. “I’m learning wet realistic sex.

“I’m learning to love my body and not compare it to the bodies of naughty women.

“I’m learning to love and not objectify pipo, men and women. And not just see them as sexual objects, but actually see them as pipo.

“If I fit back rewind di clock, I for no start is.”

For Shaun, giving up one of the “best decisions” eva makes.

“That addiction makes me lose connections and now I’m trying to connect with pipo wey that I generally love and I really care about,” e tok.

Additional reporting by Michelle Barratt and Fiona Paus.