Brain on Porn (Social #1) by DeYtH Banger (ereader android .TXT) đ
- Author: DeYtH Banger
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Rather, Kerner argued, excessive porn viewing often presents as a comorbidity with another health issue, like anxiety, depression or bipolar disorder.
âWhen people get depressed, they may get lonely and tend to masturbate,â he said. âIf theyâre having anxiety, the problem occurs when the only way you know how to calm yourself is with masturbation ⊠in those cases, porn is the symptom, not the problem.â
In fact, in Kernerâs experience, ethical, so-called feminist pornography â which often features storylines, and always contracted, paid adults having consensual sex â can enhance couplesâ sexual experiences by helping partners get warmed up and be creative in the bedroom.
Perhaps counterintuitively, watching porn may also help keep some relationships intact, he said.
âI know a lot of men who travel and are happy to masturbate to porn rather than potentially pursue infidelity,â Kerner said. âWhen there are natural libido gaps in a relationship â maybe one partner is interested in sex more than the other partner, maybe one just had a baby and canât have sex, or maybe illness is involved â porn is actually a really positive way to smooth over those libido gaps.â
As for adolescents consuming porn, the Virginia legislators argue that the average age of exposure to porn is 11 to 12 â a stat that certainly would scare any responsible parent, yet one which Kerner argued, if true, suggests a deeper issue for discussion.
âIf kids are learning about sex through porn, well, thatâs not a problem with porn â thatâs a problem with a lack of proper sex education,â he argued. âIf we live in a country that teaches abstinence only, the problem is thereâs no competing script to porn.â
What donât we know about porn?
And yet, experts like Struthers argue that basic psychological science suggests frequent exposure to something like porn may indeed lead to normalization of harmful behaviors.
âThe more youâre exposed to something, the more you tend to see it as acceptable, whether itâs violence, gambling or sexuality,â Struthers said.
His concern, however, is the psychological effect that frequent exposure may have on developing brains.
âI think the questions we really need to be asking are, âWhat are the secondary effects that porn has, not in what they do for a personâs sexual behavior, but does viewing porn influence our ability to detect nonverbal nonconsensual sexual cues, or instrument objectivity?ââ
Wright, the professor at Indiana University, who has conducted research on pornâs potential influence on youthsâ behavior, speculated that most scientists in this area and at this level of debate would agree with some of the lawmakersâ claims yet disagree with others.
But he said one thing most would agree on is that more can be done.
âIs there enough suggestive evidence of harm in terms of compulsive use and socialization toward attitudes and behaviors that most people perceive as antisocial that scientists should support policy efforts calling for further research, community and school education programs, and programs aimed at the prevention of harmful effects?â Wright said in an email. âI think the majority of scientists familiar with the research in this area would say, âYes.ââ
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How Porn Changes The Brain
Rewire itself. It triggers the brain to pump out chemicals and form new nerve pathways, leading to profound and lasting changes in the brain.
Believe it or not, studies show that those who consume pornography more frequently have brains that are less connected, less active, and even smaller in some areas. [1]
To be fair, the studies only show that thereâs a correlation between porn consumption and smaller, less active brains, but they raise the question: Can porn literally change your brain?
Scientists used to believe that once you finished childhood, your brain lost the ability to grow. [2] They thought that nothing except illness or injury could physically alter an adult brain. Now we know that the brain goes on changing throughout life, [3] constantly rewiring itself and laying down new nerve connections, and that this is particularly true in our youth. [4]
See, the brain is made up of about 100 billion special nerves called neurons, [5] that carry electrical signals back and forth between parts of the brain and out to the rest of the body. Imagine youâre learning to play an E chord on the guitar: your brain sends a signal to your hand telling it what to do. As that signal zips along from neuron to neuron, those activated nerve cells start to form connections because âneurons that fire together, wire together.â Those newly-connected neurons form whatâs called a âneuronal pathway.â [6]
Think of a neuronal pathway like a trail in the woods. Every time someone uses the trail, it gets a little wider and more permanent. Similarly, every time a message travels down a neuronal pathway, the pathway gets stronger. [7] With enough repetitions, your neuronal pathway will get so strong youâll be strumming that E chord without even thinking about it. That process of building better, faster neuronal pathways is how we learn any new skill, whether itâs memorizing math formulas or driving a car. Practice makes perfect.
But thereâs a catch. Your brain is a very hungry organ. It may only weigh 2% of your body weight, but it eats up 20% of your energy and oxygen, [8] so resources are scarce up there in your head. Thereâs some pretty fierce competition between brain pathways, and those that donât get used enough will likely be replaced. [9] Use it or lose it, as they say. Only the strong survive.
Thatâs where porn comes in.
Porn happens to be fantastic at forming new, long-lasting pathways in the brain. In fact, porn is such a ferocious competitor that hardly any other activity can compete with it, including actual sex with a real partner. [10] Thatâs right, porn can actually overpower the brainâs natural ability to have real sex! Why? As Dr. Norman Doidge, a researcher at Columbia University, explains, porn creates the perfect conditions and triggers the release of the right chemicals to make lasting changes in the brain. [11]
Conditions
The ideal conditions for forming strong neuronal pathways are when youâre in what scientists call âflow.â Flow is âa deeply satisfying state of focused attention.â [12] When youâre in flow, you get so deep into what youâre doing that nothing else seems to matter. [13] Youâve probably experienced it before, playing a game or having a conversation with friends or reading a great book. You were so focused on what you were doing that you lost track of time, and everything around you disappeared. You wanted it to keep going forever. Thatâs flow.
When youâre in flow, itâs like you have superhuman abilities. Athletes call it being âin the zone,â when you seem to do everything right. Your focus is intense. Your memory is phenomenal. Years later, youâll still recall exact words of the conversation or details of what you read.
Now imagine someone sitting in front of the computer at 3:00 in the morning, looking at porn. That person is so absorbed in his or her porn trance that nothing else can compete for the consumerâs attention, not even sleep. This person is in the ideal condition for forming neuronal pathways, and thatâs what they are doing. Clicking from page to page in search of the perfect image, not realizing that every image seen is reinforcing the pathways the consumer is forging in his or her brain. By now, those images are burned so deeply into their mind that they will remember them for a long time to come, maybe the entirety of their life.
Chemicals
Like other addictive substances and behaviors, porn activates the part of the brain called the reward center, [14] triggering the release of a cocktail of chemicals that give you a temporary buzz. [15] (See How Porn Affects The Brain Like a Drug.) One of the chemicals in that cocktail is a protein called DeltaFosB. [16]
Remember when we said that building neuronal pathways is like making a trail in the woods? Well, DeltaFosB is like a troop of mountaineers out there with picks and shovels, working like beavers to groom the trail. With DeltaFosB floating around, the brain is primed to make strong mental connections between the porn being consumed by individuals and the pleasure they feel while consuming. [17] Basically, the DeltaFosB is saying, âThis feels good. Letâs be sure to remember it so we can do it again.â
DeltaFosB is important for learning any kind of new skills, but it can also lead to addictive/compulsive behaviors, [18] especially in adolescents. [19] DeltaFosB is referred to as âthe molecular switch for addiction,â [20] because if it builds up enough in the brain, it switches on genes that create long-term cravings, driving the user back for more. [21] And once it has been released, DeltaFosB sticks around in the brain for weeks or months, which is why porn consumers may feel strong cravings for porn long after theyâve stopped the habit. [22]
The good news is, neuroplasticity works both ways. If porn pathways arenât reinforced, theyâll eventually disappear, so the same brain mechanisms that lay down pathways for porn can replace them with something else. [23] If the time has come for you or someone you love to begin that healing process, learn more about how to get help.
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Many porn consumers find themselves getting aroused by things that used to disgust them or things that they might have previously considered to be inappropriate or unethical. As individuals consume more extreme and dangerous sex acts, they gradually begin to feel that those behaviors are more common and acceptable than they really are.
As youâd probably guess, rats donât like the smell of death.
But a researcher named Jim Faust wondered whether that instinct could be changed, so he sprayed female rats with a liquid that smelled like a dead, rotting rat. When he put them in cages with virgin male rats, a strange thing happened. The drive to mate was so powerful that it overcame the instinct to avoid the smell, and the rats hit it off. Actually, thatâs not so strange. The strange part was what happened next.
Once the male rats had learned to associate sex with the smell of death, Faust put them in cages with different objects to play with. The male rats actually preferred to play with the object that smelled like death, as if it were soaked in something they loved! [1]
We know what youâre thinking: âNow I know what I should have done for my science fair project!â No, seriously, thatâs pretty gross, right? Youâre probably wondering how rats could possibly be trained to go against such a powerful natural instinct. Well, hereâs how:
Rats, humans, and all mammals have something in their brain called a âreward center.â [2] Part of the reward centerâs job is to promote healthy living by rewarding you when you do something that either keeps you alive (e.g., eating) or creates a new life (e.g., sex), or enriches your life (e.g. building satisfying relationships). [3] The way it rewards you is by pumping a cocktail of âpleasure chemicalsâ through your brain. [4] (See How Porn Changes The Brain.)
Those chemicals do more than make you feel great. While youâre enjoying that good feeling, your brain is also building new nerve pathways to connect the pleasure youâre feeling to the activity youâre doing. [5] Itâs the brainâs way of making sure that whatever youâre doing, youâll come back to it again. The association between the activity and the ârewardâ happens automatically, even if you donât intend it, because âneurons that fire together, wire together.â [6] (See How Porn Affects The Brain Like A Drug.)
The reward center is usually a pretty great thing, even if it didnât work out so well for those poor rats. Normally our brain attracts us to healthy behaviors and encourages us to form life-supporting habits. [7] But when those reward chemicals get connected to something harmful, it has the opposite effect.
The same process that rewired those ratsâ preferencesâconnecting
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