Was listening to Catholic Radio today (April 7, 2010 at around 1:00 to 1:30 for those of you who want to look up the source). Don’t know the name of the show, but the host was talking about a new neurological study that has come out describing the effects of porn on the brain. (Struthers, associate professor of psychology at Wheaton College, writes in Wired for Intimacy: How Pornography Hijacks the Male Brain.)
Basically, in layman’s terms, he described at least two major physical effects of porn on the brain.
- The brain becomes re-wired so that sexual stimulation becomes like a “super highway” of neural pathways. In other words, you start to look at many things, including harmless images of women or even their voices, in sexual terms. Why, because you have wired your brain to think that way. Every woman you come into contact with is objectified, undressed and evaluated as a willing (or unwilling) mental sexual partner.
- The brain releases powerful neuro chemicals when you view porn, aside from just the pure sexual pleasure. He didn’t say which while I was listening, but I imagine it’s dopamine and maybe some others.
So, there is a physical aspect of addictiveness to the porn.
Is that an excuse? NO!
But this makes fighting porn on all fronts even more imperitive.
Norman Doidge, a psychiatrist has said the same thing in his book “The Brain That Changes Itself”, and mentioned Oxytocin as a brain chemical that is affected by porn. Here is a very small excerpt from his book:
"The current porn epidemic gives a graphic demonstration that sexual tastes can be acquired. Pornography, delivered by high-speed Internet connections, satisfies every one of the prerequisites for neuroplastic change [forming new neural circuitry- a key piece in addiction].
Pornography seems, at first glance, to be a purely instinctual matter: sexually explicit pictures trigger instinctual responses, which are the product of millions of years of evolution. But if that were true, pornography would be unchanging. The same triggers, bodily parts and their proportions, that appealed to our ancestors would excite us. This is what pornographers would have us believe, for they claim they are battling sexual repression, taboo, and fear and that their goal is to liberate the natural, pent-up sexual instincts.
But in fact the content of pornography is a dynamic phenomenon that perfectly illustrates the progress of an acquired taste. Thirty years ago, “hardcore” pornography usually meant the explicit depiction of sexual intercourse between two aroused partners, displaying their genitals. “Softcore” meant pictures of women, mostly, on a bed, at their toilette, or in some semi-romantic setting, in various states of undress, breasts revealed.
Now hardcore has evolved and is increasingly dominated by the sadomasochistic themes…"
The fact that porn is getting more hardcore is worrisome for me; I wonder how this pornified culture will affect my kids over the long run. Porn has adversely affected their father, who is incapable of relating to women as anything but sex objects for his personal gratification.
