A Clinical Psychologist Talks About the Effects of Porn

The Porn Pandemic

Today, pornography is as much a part of the human experience as other high consumption media like Netflix, YouTube, and online gaming. In fact, some of the fastest growing online sites are the “adult websites”, with millions of users seeking them out daily, and in ever growing numbers too. According to one estimate, adult websites have more daily unique (new) visitors than Netflix, Twitter, and Amazon combined, with some researchers suggesting that three fundamental features are responsible for pornography’s rise in popularity: its accessibility, affordability, and anonymity (Kühn and Galliant, 2014).

The purpose of this article, then, is to highlight the effects of prolonged pornography use, including, more specifically, the effects of pornography on more vulnerable populations, namely teenagers and pre-teens.

When pornography consumption becomes problematic

The problem with frequent pornography usage, as we shall see, is that it lays down a cascade of potent, long-lasting effects in the mind (including, most pertinently, the unconscious mind), the effects of which are often rendered undetectable to the user themselves, and which, after some time, when the effects do eventually emerge in a symptom cluster (e.g., erectile dysfunction, distorted thoughts about sex, one’s body etc.), leave the individual too ashamed to come forward for counselling. What’s also important to note here is that there is often no “silent alarm” to be heard until such time that the symptoms begin to spontaneously appear.

So, what’s happening in the brain during repeated pornography exposure?

It is important to have some understanding of how the effects of prolonged pornography exposure slowly lodged themselves and take shape in the brain.

To call attention to the specifics of what is happening in the brain of the pornography user, I need you to do a little thought experiment with me: Imagine a typical pornographic scene for a moment; now, if you imagine splicing up the scene into 20 different parts (as if you were editing the video), each one representing their own “data point”, pick any one of them and use that snippet (that specific data point) to compare and contrast the degree to which it deviates from other activities, impressions, sensations, or experiences that one might reasonably expect to encounter on any given day. Unless you are a pornographic actor yourself, the answer will likely be that it represents a sharp and dramatic deviation from what your brain might ordinarily expect to encounter. Herein lies the potent influence and allure of pornography.

By comparison, there’s not much exhilaration to be found in the act of smoking cigarettes (other than perhaps lighting up for your first drag, i.e., it’s physically addictive properties); you have to go outside to smoke, fork out your hard-earned money to purchase them, deal with the constant threat and reminder of physical disease, and you do not – these days anyway – see or hear of the act of smoking glorified by anyone other than a fellow smoker. One redeeming feature of smoking, though, and this is important, is that, to its credit, you can smoke in groups. In other words, it remains more or less a socially acceptable activity (despite the aforementioned deterrents), which keeps the practice of smoking cigarettes “above board” and out in the open. On the contrary, with something like pornography, one does not get to acquaint themselves with the feelings and experiences associated with its usage in quite the same way as one might do with cigarettes, as I have just described. This invariably drives the effects underground, as it were, into ever deeper levels of shame and reclusiveness. You wouldn’t expect, for example, as you walk past your work colleague in your open-plan office to stop by his desk and ask him if he wants to quickly go watch some porn with you on the company balcony! This speaks volumes of both the quality and placement of how pornography is ensconced in society, as well as in the mind of the individual user.

When taking these effects in unison, one will struggle to find a sequence of data points that could compete with the allure of “the pornographic” in the brain. Driven by the appeal of constant novelty, anonymity, and the intense and immediate activation of the aforementioned excitatory effects in the brain, makes for an irresistibly thrilling (if not terrifying, depending on index age of exposure) experience for the human mind.

When a “new normal” sets in

After repetitive pornography use, the brain begins to learn via a process of surreptitious acclimation to anticipate (i.e., predict) these effects as the “new normal” after which time it has become increasingly more accustomed (and desensitized) to the distorted “feedback loops” it is using as its arousal reference points. At this point, any deviation from this exhilarating new normal (albeit with diminishing returns, ultimately), rather than simply being the exciting “outlier” it once was, presents your brain (and your body) with a problem; namely, the a priori, normative, and otherwise pleasurable human act of sexual intercourse between two consenting people has become “high-jacked” and superseded by a new “pornographic norm” that can only be sustained in fantasy and with repetitive use. This is why, today, pornography addiction is so frequently cast alongside other more commonly held addictions, like gambling, alcohol, and nicotine. With sustained use, it is just a matter of time before other negative states like depression, anxiety, shame, and anger, begin to manifest themselves clinically. More often than not, this is when a person is most likely to first seek counselling from a clinical psychologist (or other healthcare professional) for their usage patterns.

How do concerns related to pornography present in the consulting room?

As a clinical psychologist, I have observed in both men and women alike, the waves of effect that pornography has started to have on the life of the mind. Here are some common ways in which problems associated with pornography usage first present in the consulting room.

1. Complaints/concerns expressed by the client regarding the manner in which pornography usage has subtly wedged its way between a couple’s sex life, causing emotional fallout between them, after it has succeeded in coaxing one party away from the mutuality gratifying sexual experiences once held together, and into a fantasy world of his/her own (isolated) inhabitation.

2. Another presentation concerns the manner in which pornography has meddled in, or undermined thus, the sanctity of a client’s innermost thoughts and feelings about themselves and about the world, leaving the client with distorted views about their sexuality, their body, or sex more generally, which they then struggle to redefine.

3. Another complaint hinges on the client’s inability to stop (or even decrease) consuming pornography once the reward-seeking mechanisms in the brain have acclimated themselves to the influence of sexually explicit stimuli associated with continued pornography use.

4. Body-dysmorphic symptoms. Through regular contact with explicit pornographic stimuli, one is disproportionately exposing one’s mind to the physical form and genitalia of others. This naturally begins to distort the image of (a) what my body ought to look like and (b) what your (the other’s) body ought to look like, and, importantly, (c) how our bodies are supposed to perform under conditions of stimulation or arousal. The cumulative and cascading effects of these cognitive distortions over time mean that it becomes very difficult for the user to gauge how far their mental representations and beliefs about (a), (b), and (c) have deviated from their a priori expectations in these regards, which have hitherto conformed (i.e., prior to pornography exposure) to a shared, mutuality satisfying reality. (I have observed these effects occur equally for men and women, contrary to popular belief that men are more affected by such influences.)

5. Distortions in how we relate to the other sexually. Closely maligned with the point above, one is also being exposed to how pornographic actors relate to and treat each other, constellated only around the sexual act itself (as it’s only goal), which can insidiously transmute the manner in which I might begin to treat my sexual partner in reality. To an impressionable and unsuspecting teenage mind, profound and potentially unrestrained shifts in what is to be reasonably expected in life with regards to one’s sexual conduct, can come to present an enormously convoluted and confusing stumbling block for one’s subsequent psycho-social development to have to unlearn.

6. Increased anxiety regarding one’s sexual orientation. Recurrent exposure to same-sex genitalia can distort, conflate, and undermine the stability of the internal “image” of oneself, including, principally, the intricacies and complexities of the very structure of one’s sexual orientation. This is particularly true for teenagers, because they, given their age profile, and after repeated pornography exposure, find such conflicting and contradictory thoughts about themselves and their desires to be particularly threatening to their emergent sexual identities as they are still in the process of being consolidated. Such effects, therefore, if sufficiently pronounced, are likely to drive states of significant anxiety and shame, leading to further distress.

7. Physical symptoms related to heightened performance anxiety. This is particularly true for young men, who, upon repeated and direct exposure to pornography find it difficult to relax and “let go” during sexual intercourse, for they are now filled with preoccupations adhering to the aforementioned anxieties. They struggle as a result to “be in the moment,” which often results in the symptom of erectile dysfunction under the weight of psychological expectation.

Reference:

Kühn S, Gallinat J. Brain Structure and Functional Connectivity Associated with Pornography Consumption: The Brain on Porn. JAMA Psychiatry. 2014;71(7)

Bryn O’Reilly is a South African-born clinical psychologist living in the Central Algarve, Portugal. It is from there that he runs his private practice, offering both in-person and online services. Should you wish to contact Bryn, please click here