I have many friends who claim porn is “bad for your brain.” What does this mean? Can casual porn viewing negatively impact your body?
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Watching too much porn, like most addcitions, will cause your brain to release increasing amounts of dopamine. High dopamine levels for extended periods of time will deteriorate the shape and size of your brain and will also desensitize you from its effect, making you seek more extreme content to recreate the sensation of the first times you watched it.
We have very little evidence that it is bad for your brain. The view that it does mostly comes from research on obviously violent/misogynistic porn, like one where the man is clearly abusing the woman. This line of research is, not coincidentally, funded by religious affiliated organizations that are anti-porn because of religious reasons. That’s fair for them as religious organizations, but that obviously biases the research they’re pushing and funding.
COULD non-violent pornography be bad for you? Unclear. We don’t have enough evidence to really say. All we can really see in society is that pornography availability (internet) has coincided with an increase in loneliness in young adults, and a decline in sexual activity / long-term partnership. But this is just correlational. There are a lot of social changes happening at the same time (e.g., declining economic prospects for young adults compared to previous generations, overall technological change, cultural changes).
But let’s say we find out it is bad for you: theoretically, what could *cause* this? Repeated exposure to anything changes stuff in your brain. These changes are literally what learning is. So essentially, you’d be learning *something*. For example, you may develop a learned association between “wanting intimacy” and pornography. Maybe in the past, that was essential to pushing us to seek out relationships, and now we’re instead learning to associate the drive with pornography, and this overall makes us less connected to others. We know social connection is a big deal for physical and mental health. So sure, this could be a problem.
It’s also unclear if the expectations young people develop from porn actually interfere with their behavior with real people. People have *always* had weird expectations about sex and relationship. Before internet porn, it came from society telling us what romance and sex are supposed to be like, and from other media (e.g., books). Is porn essentially different from that? Probably not, I’d guess.
But like I said, it’s unclear when/if this happens.
Oh right, I should add, this is separate from consuming abnormal amounts of pornography. I’d consider addiction and other behavioral issues separately. Because it’s also unclear if addictive tendencies toward pornography are unique or just another form of addictive behavior. E.g., would these people have just found something else to be addicted to or did the pornography actually cause the problem?
In general, no. There’s a huge movement online based on nothing more than frankly infantile attitudes that wants to vilify anything and everything that isn’t suitable for infants to use. But there is nothing inherently wrong with viewing images and videos of consenting adults engaging in happy fun time with each other.
But like with anything, there are exceptions and caveats. First off, anything can be bad if you use it to such an extent that it interferes with your daily life. Look at hand washing. It’s an objectively positive practice that has saved literally millions – possibly billions – of lives. But there are people whose brains latch onto that and trap them in an endless cycle of handwashing, so much so that it actually damages their skin and causes them to bleed from cracked, dried-out skin. In the same way, if you’re so motivated to consume more that it disrupts your life, this can be damaging. It’s not very common, but it can happen with anything that interacts with the motivation/feedback cycles of the brain.
Second off, some porn ‘scenes’ present highly unrealistic scenarios and niche experiences that, in many cases, are not enjoyed by most people. If the viewer doesn’t have sufficient grounding in actual experience, they can develop unhealthy attitudes and expectations. For example, most women don’t really relish the idea of “backdoor” experiences, but most performers have done at least a few scenes with that action and it’s not uncommon to see that kind of activity just casually inserted in the middle of a scene with little preamble. That doesn’t really happen in the real world.
Third, and related to the above, porn is above all a piece of fantasy narrative. It’s scripted and built with a specific goal in mind, and often “consent” is seen as a detriment to the flow of the scene. Not that porn showcases rape (though thanks to rule 34, of course there is a niche for that), but rather that the consent is implied by the action, and the idea of someone not being willing at the moment just doesn’t exist in porn. Which makes sense, after all. You can’t make a porn if one performer propositions the other, he or she says, “Sorry, I’m just not in the mood right now,” and then scene over. The rest of the scene can’t happen unless everyone wants to go along with it, so it’s easy for an inexperienced person to form the idea that sex is an always-available, always-wanted thing.
Finally, most porn is created from and for the benefit of an implicit male gaze. If you don’t know better, it’s very easy to pick up distorted views of female sexuality by watching porn, which, again, is not going to go over well in the real world.
But in general – as long as you don’t watch so much that it ruins your life, and so long as you’re not using it to replace human connection or trying to emulate what you see without full and enthusiastic consent from your partnrs, there’s little harm in a little skin flick.
Differences in the brain between people who frequently view pornography and people who do not have been observed and reported in scientific literature. However, it is unclear if frequent viewing causes these differences, or if the differences pre-dispose someone to frequent viewing.
Several studies have reported negative effects of frequent porn viewing, including difficulty in maintaining romantic relationships, lack of sexual satisfaction, increases in infidelity, etc. There are also reports of behavior common among addicts, including feeling out of control, lying about viewing, and “habituation”.
“Effects of Pornography on Relationships”[https://extension.usu.edu/relationships/research/effects-of-pornography-on-relationships](https://extension.usu.edu/relationships/research/effects-of-pornography-on-relationships)
“Is Porn Bad For You?”[https://www.sciencefocus.com/the-human-body/is-pornography-harmful/](https://www.sciencefocus.com/the-human-body/is-pornography-harmful/)
“Brain Structure and Functional Connectivity Associated With Pornography Consumption” [[https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/1874574]](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/1874574]) ([https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/1874574](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/1874574))
“Prevalence, Patterns and Self-Perceived Effects of Pornographyt Consumption..”[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6571756/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6571756/)
There is a lot of uninformed commentary about this, so you have to be careful what you read. Unfortunately, there also isn’t a lot of scientific literature on the subject.
I’m a sex addict with 2 1/2 years in recovery.
ELI5: Hostess cupcakes are really good. You can go to the store and get a whole bunch of them. But you know what else is good? Getting flour, and sugar, and and eggs and chocolate and making your own cupcakes with your friends.
Non ELI5: Taking out the sexual content, on the whole, it’s an objective power play. The woman’s needs are secondary, and it plays to the gratification of the viewer.
In that sense it’s sorta like watching Fox News all the time. You’re basically going to hear a lot of what you want to hear that makes you feel good.
Like Fox News, you end up in a weird echo chamber that reinforces this world view.
Pornography is almost universally across the board the first step for sex addicts. Often leading to what’s called a “horde.” What’s interesting is as an addict, you’ll actually form an emotional attachment to your horde. Why resolve that difficult conflict with your partner, when you can get a simulacrum of your emotional needs met by your horde.
Back to the cupcake analogy… it takes more work making them from scratch, but there’s opportunities to make connections with other people, it’ll likely taste better, be customized more for your and healthier.
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