Pornography

“Every second 30,000 people are watching porn. To meet that vast demand, a new porn video is produced every 39 minutes.  That’s according to YouTube channel All Time 10s, which has compiled 10 incredible facts about the porn industry. Among which are: 20 percent of men admit to accessing porn while at work. Also, 25 to 33 percent of the people who watch Internet porn are women… although only two percent of paying porn site subscribers are female (which may, ahem, say something about the differences in the way the sexes prioritize their money).

Porn makes up 30 percent of all the data transferred across the net”[i] –which means it is a HUGE industry.  In fact, the revenues from the porn industry are larger than the revenues of the top technology companies combined: Microsoft, Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo!, Apple, Netflix and EarthLink. Porn’s annual take also exceeds the combined revenues of ABC, CBS, and NBC (no bets on its relationship to FOX’s revenues, although according to Harvard researcher Ben Edelman, 8 of the top 10 porn-watching states voted Republican in the 2008 presidential election[ii]).  Clearly, porn is a huge part of our race consciousness.

Pornography is often viewed as a victimless crime, but it’s not.  The endorphins and encephalins released while viewing porn (particularly internet porn) make it more addictive than cocaine.  According to Dr. Jeffrey Satinover (and numerous other researchers) “Addiction to pornography is nearly identical to heroin addiction.”  Because of the neurological and biochemical changes porn produces, porn addiction is more likely to recidivate than any other addiction.

Studies that show porn causes an increase in aggression towards women and decreased satisfaction with one’s partner.  Click here to see a stunning video of how airbrushing changes reality. Porn is also a leading cause of erectile dysfunction.  As a result, young men in their 20s are now experiencing erectile dysfunction that is directly tied to their use of porn, particularly Internet porn.

According to the Director of Dartmouth College’s Parton Health Center, Dr. Mark Peluso, the last three years have witnessed an upsurge in the number of male students reporting erectile dysfunction and other sex-related problems. “They can’t get an erection or maintain an erection with a female partner,” Dr. Peluso said. “In the majority of cases, the patients were habitual viewers of pornography, and had no difficulty with sexual performance when they were by themselves.  The exact mechanism has yet to be determined, . . . but there may be neuroadaptive changes in the brain that impair sexual function in habitual pornography users.”[iii]

Porn-related ED isn’t just happening at Dartmouth. Similar results came out of a survey of 28,000 Italian men that was conducted by a group of medical experts affiliated with the Italian Society of Andrology and Sexual Medicine.  The head of the Society is Carlos Forsta. At Forsta’s clinic, 70 percent of the young men the clinic treated for sexual performance problems had been using Internet pornography heavily. . .

(t)here are “gradual but devastating” effects of repeated exposure to pornography over a long period of time . . . (According to) Forsta, the problem “starts with lower reactions to porn sites, then there is a general drop in libido and in the end it becomes impossible to get an erection.” 

So what accounts for the correlation between pornography and erectile dysfunction?  . . .  there is a detrimental feedback loop that can emerge between the brain and the penis when men rely heavily on pornographic images to masturbate (particularly internet porn).  Specifically, overstimulation brought on by viewing pornography can produce neurological changes—specifically, decreasing sensitivity to the pleasure seeking neurotransmitter dopamine—which can desensitize a person to actual sexual encounters with a partner.  These neurochemical changes not only contribute to a person becoming “addicted” to pornography but they can also make it incredibly difficult to abstain from viewing pornography entirely.

Men who rely excessively on pornography to reach orgasm will often complain of withdrawal-like symptoms when they decide to go cold-turkey.  Such men describe feeling “sexless,” leading many to become anxious and depressed about their diminished libido.  Evidence suggests, however, that libido does eventually return—usually within 2-6 weeks of continued abstinence—as evidenced by the gradual return of morning erections as well as spontaneous erections throughout the day.  “Recovery” is possible and many men have reported going on to experience extreme physical pleasure during intercourse with their partners after abstaining from pornography.[iv]

According to Forsta, Web porn “gives an imprinting devoid of real experiences and constructs a media-based and instinctive sexuality which takes no account of sensory experience or affection”. In addition, (t)he young men (in the study) took only “a few minutes” to ejaculate, the length of a typical Web porn video. “What emerges with striking force is the need to communicate to young people that this new form of sexuality leads to isolation, a distancing from real sex and an alteration of sexual timeframes,” said Forsta.[v]

A more detailed biochemical explanation can be found here http://yourbrainonporn.com/erectile-dysfunction-question

Click here to hear from a young man who gets it.

Click here to see statistics about Internet pornography usage.   icon-heart