Is Porn Poison for the Brain?
Does porn actually damage the brain? Might sound far-fetched, but there is some very interesting research on this topic that might convince you that it does. This week, I plan to post each day on a different topic related to my new book, Sex & God at Yale. Chapter 2, entitled "The Great Porn Debate," details a rip-roaring Oxford-style porn debate starring porn performer Ron Jeremy, which was held in New Haven during my junior year.
Just this morning, a current Yale student sent me this fascinating TEDx video, featuring a talk by physiologist Gary Wilson, host of www.yourbrainonporn.com. According to the video description, Wilson's research "arose in response to a growing demand for solid scientific information by heavy Internet erotica users experiencing perplexing, unexpected effects: escalation to more extreme material, concentration difficulties, sexual performance problems, radical changes in sexual tastes, social anxiety, irritability, inability to stop, and obsessive-compulsive symptoms."
The video lasts about 15 min, but you can catch the main drift by watching only the first 5. Do so and I promise you'll learn something:
Fascinating stuff, huh? Especially considering how extreme and how universal porn has become among youth in the internet age. It has shaped an entire generation already.
So what do you think? Is porn harmless, or is it poison for the brain?
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Comments:
Jun '10
Re: Is Porn Poison for the Brain?
Personally, I think it's beyond unhealthy. I think it's evil. Anything that aids you in turning human beings into objects is evil. But if men need purely secular reasons to quit, those exist as well.
Jun '10
Re: Is Porn Poison for the Brain?
I posted some links to summaries of social research above. They make other points, but the two you mention are front and center. The problem is that no one knows if it's going to be "temporary' when they begin--and once in, it's very hard to get out.
A third aspect, that chronic pornography consumption is violation of the vow of fidelity, is critical. Many, perhaps most, wives who find out that their husbands have been viewing pornography regularly have almost precisely the same feelings as wives who find out their husbands have had an affair. In fact, many express it in precisely those terms.
If we don't care about loving, long-term relationships between husbands and wives, the stability of families, or the collateral damage to children, then pornography is just harmless entertainment. If we do care about those things, we should recognize that it inverts the virtues that make a civilization strong.
It's a huge issue that will only get worse.
Edited on September 3, 2012 at 9:59pmDec '10
Re: Is Porn Poison for the Brain?
Tom Lindholtz:
Yeah, but porn has to be a lot less enjoyable with a cool hand.
True enough.
[edited for CoC]
What I find so odd is how serious people are about porn.
For the most part, I find porn to be amusing rather than anything to be taken seriously.
Some porn is downright hilarious, sometimes unintentionally so, but hilarious none the less.
I think maybe some folks are just too serious for their own good.
Edited on September 4, 2012 at 2:34amJun '10
Re: Is Porn Poison for the Brain?
Robert E. Lee
Why in the last 20 years? Pornography has been around throughout recorded human history. In Pompeii they found pornographic paintings on the walls of bordellos, pornographic pictures have been around since the invention of the camera.
Sexuality is hardwired into us. There will always be some who take it to the extreme, take anything to the extreme. Just like there will always be those who want to criminalize the behavior of others who enjoy things they themselves don't like. ·
The only reason I limited it to twenty years is that the ubiquity of porn on the Internet has been a game-changer. It had to same problems before, but a man who would never be seen in a "dirty book store" or would never rent a porn video, no longer has those limitations placed upon him. A few clicks of the computer, and there it is.
Jan '11
Re: Is Porn Poison for the Brain?
We need to preserve the distinction between pornography and erotic art. It makes little sense to deny that the female figure is beautiful. Artistic renderings of beauty, including sexuality, are perfectly respectable, and may well be edifying in the correct sense.
But how can you tell the difference between erotic art and pornography?
This was the gospel at Mass yesterday
Seems like a practical answer, doesn't it?
Edited on September 3, 2012 at 10:10pmAug '11
Re: Is Porn Poison for the Brain?
I don't even want to give you 15 minutes of my evening to watch your selected porn. It's boring before it starts.
Dec '10
Re: Is Porn Poison for the Brain?
Another thing I'd like to ask the people who swear that porn in a marriage is exactly the same as infidelity: If the man were going to cheat, he'd have cheated. Instead he sought a less harmful outlet for his sexual frustration.
Everyone wants to pile on to the end result of him looking at porn and deride the guy as some kind of sicko, but nobody is addressing the actual cause of the porn use.
WHY is the guy looking at porn when he's married? Is his wife holding out on him perhaps? Or maybe dictating all the terms to him in a way that makes very unattractive?
Continued . . .
Edited on September 3, 2012 at 10:13pmDec '10
Re: Is Porn Poison for the Brain?
As they say, it takes two to tango, and I am very unwilling to simply accept as fact the idea that men just gravitate to porn for no reason, and that it then rips their otherwise perfect marriage asunder.
The reality is that for married men, porn is an escape or a release, and one has to ask the question of why the guy needs that escape.
Could be he's a tool box and there's nothing wrong with the wife. But could be that the wife has withheld sex for months or years in an effort to control the relationship.
Every case will be different, which is why these kinds of studies are almost always found to be FOS.
Edited on September 3, 2012 at 10:14pmApr '12
Re: Is Porn Poison for the Brain?
tabula rasa: ... . A third aspect, that chronic pornography consumption is violation of the vow of fidelity, is critical. Many, perhaps most, wives who find out that their husbands have been viewing pornography regularly have almost precisely the same feelings as wives who find out their husbands have had an affair. In fact, many express it in precisely those terms.
If we don't care about loving, long-term relationships between husbands and wives, the stability of families, or the collateral damage to children, then pornography is just harmless entertainment. If we do care about those things, we should recognize that it inverts the virtues that make a civilization strong.
Before the advent of the internet, I had a friend who accidentally discovered her husband's stash of porn. She divorced him, saying that he had violated her trust, and their relationship. She felt as if he had betrayed her, not with just one woman, but with many. She couldn't bear him, nor could she stay with him. She felt his mind was suffering from a dreadful sickness and she didn't want to be contaminated.
This is only one example, but it bears out what you are saying TR.
Jun '10
Re: Is Porn Poison for the Brain?
KC Mulville: We need to preserve the distinction between pornography and erotic art. It makes little sense to deny that the female figure is beautiful. Artistic renderings of beauty, including sexuality, are perfectly respectable, and may well be edifying in the correct sense.
But how can you tell the difference between erotic art and pornography?
This was the gospel at Mass yesterday
Seems like a practical answer, doesn't it?
Re: "Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person"
But people that don't want to get wet don't run outside to stand in a downpour either. Actions reveal what's on the inside.
Nov '10
Re: Is Porn Poison for the Brain?
CoolHand: As they say, it takes two to tango, and I am very unwilling to simply accept as fact the idea that men just gravitate to porn for no reason, and that it then rips their otherwise perfect marriage asunder.
The reality is that for married men, porn is an escape or a release, and one has to ask the question of why the guy needs that escape.
Could be he's a tool box and there's nothing wrong with the wife. But could be that the wife has withheld sex for months or years in an effort to control the relationship.
You're not married if I remember correctly, so those of us who are married will have to excuse your misunderstanding of how marriage works, but love and fidelity in marriage are not conditional vows. You don't vow to be faithful to someone "as long as I'm happy with our sex life" or even "as long as she/he loves me." The traditional vow is "as long as we both shall live."
Oct '11
Re: Is Porn Poison for the Brain?
While some in this thread have rightly pointed out that porn will always be with us, what seems new to me (other than the ease of access) is the expectation of non-judgment. I was at a luncheon recently, seated with younger guys who began talking proudly and in great detail about their porn predilections. I turned to the ringleader, a guy I’ve worked with often, and, paraphrasing Martin Amis, said “do you really think we all want to picture you on your back, strumming yourself like a Picasso guitar?”
This brought great laughter and successfully changed the subject, but my question was meant to introduce a healthy amount of shame to the proceedings. A little shame, after all, is needed in this shameless age. I resist government solutions, but, at minimum, I’d like to deprive pornography of its newfound social legitimacy. (Although this will likely offend some in this thread, I’d like to do the same to tattoos, which, unlike porn, are harmless.)
I’m not surprised to learn that porn is likely bad for one’s brain. I welcome the news as a way to chase porn back out the polite public square.
Jul '12
Re: Is Porn Poison for the Brain?
One libertarian tick that I find annoying is when they equate moral disgust with calls for government regulation.
I don't like it when people fart on the bus. I'm not calling for the government to regulate it.
Drug use along with pornography are potentially dangerous and corrupting. That doesn't mean government has any role in protecting people from themselves.
Apr '12
Re: Is Porn Poison for the Brain?
Human beings are primates, and as such, can't compare for beauty of body with, say, the cats. Most women find suspect any depiction of the naked, air-brushed female body as "art". Men rationalize it, but it is hard to believe that the pleasure they get is purely objective. Do they feel the same about the artistic depictions of the naked male body?
Women know that men are visual primates, and that is all right. The human race wouldn't have continued if this weren't so. But let's be honest about it. :-)
Jun '10
Re: Is Porn Poison for the Brain?
Yes.
Nov '11
Re: Is Porn Poison for the Brain?
Red Feline
Human beings are primates, and as such, can't compare for beauty of body with, say, the cats. Most women find suspect any depiction of the naked, air-brushed female body as "art". Men rationalize it, but it is hard to believe that the pleasure they get is purely objective. Do they feel the same about the artistic depictions of the naked male body? . . .
The ratio is said to be 1000/1:
Dec '10
Re: Is Porn Poison for the Brain?
Lucy Pevensie
You don't vow to be faithful to someone "as long as I'm happy with our sex life" or even "as long as she/he loves me." The traditional vow is "as long as we both shall live."
So, do you take that as a license to torture your husband by denying him sex for long periods of time, secure in the knowledge that he won't break his vows no matter how badly he's treated?
Would you be OK living the rest of your life in a relationship where your husband outright refused to be intimate with you (not just sex, but no intimacy at all)?
Vows are all well and good, but they are not a crutch that can hold together a dysfunctional relationship forever.
Something is causing the dysfunction, and unless it is addressed, you will both be miserable.
Porn is a symptom, not the disease.
Trying to do away with porn is like trying to treat a broken leg with Tylenol.
Yes, a major symptom has abated somewhat, but the actual cause of the problem remains unaddressed.
Jun '12
Re: Is Porn Poison for the Brain?
Everyone, everyone, everyone knows how bad and how pervasive the porn problem is in western civilization.
The video is extremely well done. The information is communicated scientifically, frankly but without crudity, and in utterly persuasive fashion. I give the speaker the highest marks. The most heart stopping sentence is that scientists ‘were unable to find a control group.’
Thank God for Nathan Harden. This is a conversation that must be driven and delivered by men, real men. And it appears that is beginning to happen. There is good news, after the catastrophic news. Men who have subjected themselves to this literal meat grinder of activity are voluntarily stopping by the tens of thousands, and they are speaking out and encouraging others to flee for their lives.
My plea to all: please do not avert your eyes. This is important.
I'm ordering Harden's book right now.
Dec '10
Re: Is Porn Poison for the Brain?
I don't have any problem with people going back to not talking about their porn habits in public. No problem at all (as was said, nobody wants to picture that).
The problem I have is that for a great many social conservatives, their go-to mechanism for making this happen is govt.
You can deny it all you like, but history is on my side with this one.
Libertarians are leery of your motives when you talk about this stuff because of the track record of how you've dealt with these "problems" in the past.
Dec '10
Re: Is Porn Poison for the Brain?
Astonishing
The ratio is said to be 1000/1
As my late grandfather would say, "That feller's fruit's out in the wind."