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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?
Published in General
Why Porn can be good for you
Really? Seeing women as objects is a good thing? Losing objectivity about the whole person in favor of the singularity of being a sex object is desirable?
Nope. Life is not always a spectator sport. Somethings are best handled without recourse to a computer or adult videos. Somethings are best handled in a keen relationship with one’s spouse who is the mother of one’s children. Amazing. Love and sex going hand in hand.
I’m not quite sure how we ended up discussing porn in marriage, but I think the 200 word limit is damaging some of the discussion.
The goal should be healthy marriages in all components: social, sexual, familial, et cetera. I should think both porn and trashy romance novels occupy similar places – maybe a step below making comparisons (even innocuous ones) of your spouse to someone else and a step above actually stepping out on him or her. Regardless of where it sits on the spectrum, though, all of it damages the relationship.
It doesn’t matter who started it. Except for the autopsy, how the infection started is irrelevant -curing it is the priority. Everyone wants to talk about whether the wife drove her husband to porn in the earlier example. This is not important. It ended in divorce, which is like cutting off an arm because the bone was broken. However many provocations came before, divorce is an extreme measure -and repairing the damage is always preferable -the same way that setting the bone is preferable to amputation. Sometimes, the physical separation is necessary. It is always regrettable.
The porn is a footnote in the coroner’s report.
Not everyone who drinks, not even everyone who drinks heavily, experiences physiological addiction, the neurological changes that manifest in true addiction. The same is probably true of arousal addiction, though we don’t really know since there isn’t a control group. Just because neither has a 100% efficacy in creating addiction is not an argument against the addiction’s existence. Just because the addiction does exist is not an argument for absolute prohibition either. True liberty (even in this) is in each deciding for himself which is the better course. For me, I don’t drink because my family has a predilection to developing physiological alcoholism. Those inherently prone to the binge mechanism of addiction might consider avoiding anything that triggers it, though it’s not mine or the government’s place to command it.
” dittoheadadt I’d say it’s all the worse when all women are held blameless always. Women say “no” to sex far more often than men do. They have absolute power. Absolute power corrupts.”
Women have sexual needs also, Ditto. I don’t know if women say “no” to sex more than men, but has been mentioned in another post, perhaps the men aren’t approaching them in the right way. If men are taking women absolutely for granted all the time, making no effort to show them love, surely it can’t be expected that they women will respond to sexual requests happily. This works both ways, of course.
If two people, a man and a woman, learn how the other works, and behaves lovingly in a way guaranteed to turn the other on, I can guarantee they will have no problems. Works for me! :-)
Wow.
Give it time, though. Sex sells…
Not even close! ·40 minutes ago
Men need sex to feel connected to their wives. Women need communication to feel connected to their husbands.
Without sufficient sex, men seek from porn (or cheating) thephysicalgratification that they used to get from the physicallyandemotionally gratifying sex with the women they love, and perhaps curtail spousal communication in retaliation.
Without sufficient communication, women seek from (you women will have to fill in this section, because I don’t know what you use as a substitute for the communication you need, but don’t get, from your husbands…but when you don’t get that communication, you assuredly DO seek a substitute) the emotional gratification they used to get from communicating with the men they love, and perhaps curtail spousal sex in retaliation.
Porn use doesn’t seem to have been proved to be a black-and-white blight on humanity. ·10 hours ago
You’ve got it, Ditto! LOVE this blog!
Women substitute their woman friends to find sufficient communication, but, you know, that is not really what they want. They want a man who will talk to them, one on one, as an equal and friend.
Vows go both ways, and CH may be saying (and if not, then I am) that sometimes porn is a husband’s last resort short of cheating. Remember, the person who says “no” wields all the power over sex. Sometimes that person does so out of revenge or as a weapon or for any number of illegitimate reasons. A guy who resorts to porn may very well have already been the one vow-violated first by his spouse.
Sorry, but blaming the spouse is a cop-out.
As a man, I don’t buy the idea that men’s sexual desires must be satisfied at all costs. It’s that very philosophy that leads us to porn addiction, cheating, and worse behaviors. Sure, it’s hard if your wife won’t have sex with you, but you need counseling for that, not porn.
One of the things that helped me overcome my addiction was finally accepting the idea that I didn’t have to release my sexual urges. I’m a human, not a mere animal. The fact is, for years I used the idea that I couldn’t help myself as an excuse for doing what felt good.
So true, and knowledge is never too late learned. :-)
My women friends are all quite open about sex. I could tell you who likes sex, and who hasn’t had too happy an experience with it. Plus lots of other things that I won’t share here. :-)
Healthy discussion, like we are having here, is always good, to my mind. Sex education in schools ought to include a little about the different approaches between males and females to sex, rather than just the mere physiological details. The stress could be laid on how important is a loving relationship to the whole process.
Chris, thank you for clearly articulating what I was floundering to say.
-E
Back in the real world…just as an example…
If your son owns this small business (below,) are you proud? Is he just one more good hard-working American entrepreneur?
I don’t really know if porn is poison for the brain, the video suggests it is. But I am reasonably confident it is not harmless.
Also, shouldn’t this entire post be encapsulated in brackets?
There was an article in New York Magazine that indicated that americas slutty teenage daughters are putting the honest hardworking porn actor/actress out of business.
Chris, both members in the marriage have to work on the issues that each has to deal with. They are different issues — that’s the important first piece of wisdom. A man will need help in all aspects of his life but this particular one is unique in that this drive is placed in men for a good reason. It is a power he is given but it is a beast that needs to be tamed. It won’t happen overnight. It takes self discipline and maturity. But, the love and understanding from a good wife can make the difference between success and failure. It’s that close a thing.
As Mona Charen says: “It’s not marriage that civilizes men — it’s women.” But, not just her presence, either. She must do her part. She must show her man the way.
It is Lunch time and I see the moralizing is on full display:
Edited 53 minutes ago
Cheating is a subjective matter. Is a man married to two women cheating on one of them when he has sex with the other? What about a married couple that jointly decides to have an open marriage? Are they cheating. They would say them are not. What about a man that is married and has fantasies about another woman? What about a woman that reads a romance novel?
“Cheating” is not a word to use when you are trying to make an argument from the point of view of science. In fact, it says to me that the real argument being made is “I don’t like porn, I think it is a sin, and now I have science to back me up!”
If your son owns this small business (below,) are you proud? Is he just one more good hard-working American entrepreneur? ·1 minute ago
Edited 0 minutes ago
Of course not. Nor would I want my daughter to work in porn. Nor would I work in porn. Ugh. Nor do I want them to smoke, or work to shill for a tobacco company. I am very much a ardent non-smoker. However, if people want to smoke they can smoke. Not my business.
If people want to use porn, who am I to condemn? That is what this thread is really about: Condemning porn. Isn’t it interesting how un- libertarian we can all be about some areas. For me it is hard core drugs.
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?
The idea that most married guys use porn as an outlet for their “sexual frustration” is extremely demeaning to women. Most guys that indulge in porn do so irrespective of how good their sex lives are, and when the quality of their sex lives inevitably degrade they use that as an excuse for their continued use. It’s a selfish, evil practice, and it’s all the worse when it’s blamed on women.
I’d say it’s all the worse when all women are held blameless always. Women say “no” to sex far more often than men do. They have absolute power. Absolute power corrupts.
There is definitely a problem for women nowadays. They are being fed such rubbish about what marriage ought to be, and how the man ought to behave like a woman and love babies and young children and look after them willingly. Add to that the romantic expectations and there is a recipe for disaster. Young women ought to be encouraged to see them as they are, not the unreal inhabitants of a dream utopia.
Bryan: Because 13 million American men and women are cohabitating. Twenty years ago, less than three million Americans lived in cohabitational relationships. If there’s no marriage at the beginning of a relationship, there will be no divorce at its end.
. . .
Wow. So, porn is the cause of cohabitation now?
There are problems with marriage, but there are lots of things to blame before we blame porn.
You’re putting words in my mouth. You implied that divorce rates have improved and asked how to explain that in the era of Internet pornography.
I made one very straightforward point: your suggestion that lower divorce rates means that the relations between men and women have improved is simply wrong. In fact, the relations between men and women are much weaker because millions of people enter into fragile cohabitation relationships instead of marrying.
That was my only point, and it was in direct response to your assertion.
Both porn and cohabitation are bad for society. I did not say that there is any causal relationship between them.
“Cheating” is not a word to use when you are trying to make an argument from the point of view of science. In fact, it says to me that the real argument being made is “I don’t like porn, I think it is a sin, and now I have science to back me up!”
First of all, the science is pretty well established. I can invoke it but I don’t have to thenceforth ignore all other aspects (such as relational aspects– cheating falls under this category).
Second, making moral judgements is not necessarily wrong. “Moralizing” is the derogatory term for it when you disagree with the particular judgement, but we do it all the time, even those that decry “moralizing.”
Some may have an agreement with their spouse that porn is allowed. I doubt most women operate under this understanding in their marriage. Why would we hide it from them if it were not morally questionable to them?
Chris you said Porn=Cheating. You cannot back that up with science. You cannot back that up with anything objective.
Over and over in this thread, people have argued it is about science and effects on the brain. Once you start talking about things being morally questionable, you are getting into judgement calls. We started talking about science.
Are we now moving from calls from effects on the brain to sin? That is a different argument.
The fact is, if you take the moral/religious/etc. aspect out of it, for most women, porn feels like cheating. It’s part of the relationship dynamic. Among other things, women want to feel admired and desired, for their beauty and attractiveness.
Regardless of how it feels to the man, whether he views it as cheating or not, she feels severely undercut by the thought of him admiring and desiring other women in the way she hopes her man reserves for her alone.
In the end, even if she consents, it’s usually quite a turn-off for her. That is why we instinctually know that we have to hide it from our partners.
There is definitely a problem for women nowadays. They are being fed such rubbish about what marriage ought to be, and how the man ought to behave like a woman and love babies and young children and look after them willingly. Add to that the romantic expectations and there is a recipe for disaster. Young women ought to be encouraged to see them as they are, not the unreal inhabitants of a dream utopia. ·10 minutes ago
Just to be cheeky: Maybe men hide their porn use because they know the women in their lives will overreact because the women have been taught a bunch of rubbish about how “bad” porn is.
Speaking of hiding behaviors, is that what makes it cheating, the hiding part?
Is a woman cheating on her husband when she confides in a friend something she won’t tell her husband?
The two are not necessarily exclusive or contradictory.
Again, once I invoke science am I therefore barred from mentioning anything non-scientific?
The science is that porn tends to be very addictive, and it has negative psychological and relational effects.
The relational aspect is that it is cheating on your spouse. No, science doesn’t say anything about the definition of cheating, etc. but that does not invalidate any of the above.
This has been a fascinating thread. Different people have very different opinions on whether pornography has negative impacts on marriage and families.
I do not claim a superior opinion based on any work I’ve done, but I have read the summaries of a broad range of social research on the effects of pornography on marriage and children that I cited and linked to in post no. 16.
Based on that information, I have concluded that pornography is a plague, that it is much worse than in the past, that it can be addictive, and that it has destroyed marriages and will continue to do so.
I think the studies are convincing. Others may have different points of view. That’s fine with me. But I suggest that before we base an opinion on instinct it behooves all of us take advantage of the insights from actual empirical studies. If there are things wrong with the studies, point them out.
Shouting past each other raises the decibel level without increasing anyone’s knowledge.
Just to be cheeky: Maybe men hide their porn use because they know the women in their lives will overreact because the women have been taught a bunch of rubbish about how “bad” porn is.
Speaking of hiding behaviors, is that what makes it cheating, the hiding part?
No, the hiding is a result, not a cause. We hide it because we know our wives wouldn’t like it.
Women don’t need to be taught “rubbish” about porn to know instinctually that it competes with them for their man’s attentions, and that it makes them feel undesired and unloved by their partner. And we also instinctually know that they won’t like it. See comment #229…
Try to make your case without taking the argument personally, or changing the subject, or saying “why don’t you care about problem X?” or blaming it on the woman, or saying it’s not as bad as addiction Y, etc. These are standard evasionary tactics.
Let’s see if this does it:
Men need sex to feel connected to their wives. Women need communication to feel connected to their husbands.
Without sufficient sex, men seek from porn (or cheating) the physical gratification that they used to get from the physically and emotionally gratifying sex with the women they love, and perhaps curtail spousal communication in retaliation.
Without sufficient communication, women seek from (you women will have to fill in this section, because I don’t know what you use as a substitute for the communication you need, but don’t get, from your husbands…but when you don’t get that communication, you assuredly DO seek a substitute) the emotional gratification they used to get from communicating with the men they love, and perhaps curtail spousal sex in retaliation.
Porn use doesn’t seem to have been proved to be a black-and-white blight on humanity.
I don’t agree with your interpretation of the data, based on reasons given. Labwork does not equal what happens in real world, quite often, when it comes to psychology.
I don’t agree with how you define “cheating”.
No one has presented data from the past 10 years to show the massive increase in porn is the cause of some problem. If porn were that bad, we should have seen a huge impact on behavior that we have not seen.
You cannot really convince me that looking at porn in cheating on your spouse.
I say knowing using porn is “wrong” is cultural, as much as people knowing the smoking is “wrong”. Neither of us can prove that one way or the other, can we?
And, you refuse to address women’s use of porn at all. Thus far, only men have the problem.
Is reading a romance novel cheating? Is having a friend you confide in cheating? If not, then we are apply different rules to male sexuality than female sexuality.
Vows go both ways, and CH may be saying (and if not, then I am) that sometimes porn is a husband’s last resort short of cheating. Remember, the person who says “no” wields all the power over sex. Sometimes that person does so out of revenge or as a weapon or for any number of illegitimate reasons. A guy who resorts to porn may very well have already been the one vow-violated first by his spouse.
Sorry, but blaming the spouse is a cop-out.
As a man, I don’t buy the idea that men’s sexual desires must be satisfied at all costs…but you need counseling for that, not porn.
Except when the spouse actually IS to blame. Which actually does happen sometimes. That is, sometimes the wife is to blame (for whatever the problem is). Maybe she refused counseling, or refused its recommendations.
Or are you suggesting that the wives of men who use porn are all angels?
“As a man, I don’t buy the idea that men’s sexual desires must be satisfied at all costs.”
Straw man. No one here made that argument.
And, you refuse to address women’s use of porn at all. Thus far, only men have the problem.
Is reading a romance novel cheating? Is having a friend you confide in cheating? If not, then we are apply different rules to male sexuality than female sexuality.
1. I’ve addressed women’s porn (visual or romantic) briefly and said it’s not good. I’m not a woman so I can’t say much more. Red Feline says something about it in comment #226.
2. The addiction to Internet porn, primarily a male phenomenon, is the topic at hand, so that is off topic and diversionary.
3. How many times do I have to say this?
You cannot really convince me that looking at porn in cheating on your spouse.
I say knowing using porn is “wrong” is cultural, as much as people knowing the smoking is “wrong”. Neither of us can prove that one way or the other, can we?
If a man and his wife agree that he can watch porn, that’s one thing.
Most wives won’t, and view it as cheating. I’ve explained why above.
No one has presented data from the past 10 years to show the massive increase in porn is the cause of some problem. If porn were that bad, we should have seen a huge impact on behavior that we have not seen.
I still get the feeling you haven’t watched the video, and/or are out of touch with the relational problems that especially the younger generation of men is encountering as a direct result of porn.