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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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.
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