How Many Pictures of Dick Do I Have to Look at Before I Stop Wanting to Look at Pictures of Dicks?: A Diary of Gay Porn Addiction
Perzine, Dave Cave
Everybody Moon Jump author Dave Cave defines addiction as “a self-destructive habit you would love to stop, but can’t.” For him, that’s porn. In this diary of a daily struggle against falling into the “portex” (porn vortex) for hours on end, Dave Cave gets pretty intimate about his sexual routines and how they intersect with his sense of self, social anxiety, and struggle against suicidal thoughts.
It’s clear from the start that this zine is a personal project, and exists as a monument to his success after a month of being clean. Given its (legitimate) self-concern, there is a lot of “I went to work today and” or “I woke up at this time and” moments, but well, sometimes diaries are boring like that.
The zine, handwritten on graph paper with a few diagrams drawn in for good measure, is a fitting read for anyone interested in addiction, more so than for somebody interested in porn itself. Dave Cave makes no judgement about porn in general, and seeks not to project his experience of sexuality onto anybody else. This is the zine’s strength: it doesn’t claim to be anything it’s not. Rather, it is one person’s story about one struggle among many. (Jonathan Valelly)