There was one time that I wanted to send an email to the US President to give him a piece of my mind regarding some policy that he enacted. My intention was to access the whitehouse.gov website to do so. Instead, I keyed in “whitehouse.com”, and was quite shocked at what I saw. My facial expression was very much like that of this AI-created woman:
Oops.
Statistics on Internet Porn, from https://visual.ly/community/Infographics/other/internet-porn-statistics-infographic
- 12% of the websites on the Internet are pornographic. (They claim that is >24 million websites);
- Every second, >$3,000 US is being spent on pornography;
- 40 million Americans are regular viewers to porn sites;
- 1 in 3 pornography viewers are women, and 70% of men between the ages of 18 to 24 visit pornographic websites in a typical month;
- In the US, internet pornography pulls $2.84 billion per year. The entire worldwide industry is $4.9 billion;
- 25% of all search engine requests are pornography related. That translates to 68 million/day;
- 35% of all internet downloads are pornographic;
- There are 116,000 searches for “child pornography” every day;
- The least popular day for viewing pornography is Thanksgiving, while the most popular day of the week for viewing pornography is Sunday.
How did we get to this point?
Defining the term “pornography” and a brief summary of its history
The online dictionary, http://www.merriam-webster.com, offers 3 definitions of the term “pornography”:
1: the depiction of erotic behavior (as in pictures or writing) intended to cause sexual excitement
2: material (such as books or a photograph) that depicts erotic behavior and is intended to cause sexual excitement
3: the depiction of acts in a sensational manner so as to arouse a quick intense emotional reaction, as in ‘the pornography of violence’
Stephanie Pappas, in a 2010 article “The History of Pornography No More Prudish Than the Present”, states that “researchers generally define the genre (i.e. pornography) designed solely for sexual arousal, without further artistic merit.
If such is the case, then the first known erotic representations of humans might not be porn. Thirty thousand years ago, Paleolithic people carved large-breasted, thick-thighed figurines of pregnant women out of stone and wood. These “Venus figurines” were religious icons or fertility symbols, rather than intended for sexual arousal:
Venus of Willendorf figurine
There are examples of erotic art appearing in caves, like this one created around 7,000 BC and found in a cave in Algeria:
Ancient Greeks and Romans created public sculptures, frescos, and ceramic works depicting all kinds of sexual behaviors, including threesomes, fellatio and cunnilingus. The following is from a Grecian krater from around 500 BC:
We can also be discussing erotic literature. For example, the Kama Sutra from India abounds with erotic passages:
“A fire – that is what a woman is, Gautama.
Her firewood is the vulva,
her smoke is the pubic hair,
her flame is the vagina,
when one penetrates her, that is her embers,
and her sparks are the climax.
In that very fire the gods offer semen,
and from that offering springs a man.”
– Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 6.2.13, c. 700 BCE, Trans.: Patrick Olivelle
Pappas then states ‘in the 1800s, the idea of porn for porn’s sake began to spread’, and the development of the daguerreotype, a primitive form of photography, in 1839, led to a new venue for pornography.
Video followed later. By 1896, filmmakers in France were filming short silent clips, like “Le Coucher de la Marie”, ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpLbQY-aycE ) in which an actress performs a strip tease. “Stag films”, showing hard-core sex started to appear after 1900, but they were tame compared to today’s fare.
In the 1970’s, changing social mores allowed for public showing of explicit films. The internet and the invention of the digital camera made the production of films with pornographic content to be very inexpensive, and internet streaming facilitated the distribution of these products.
A 1994 Carnegie Mellon study of early porn on computer Bulletin Board Systems (a precursor to the World Wide Web) found that 48% of downloads were far outside the sexual mainstream, depicting bestiality, incest and pedophilia. Less than 5% of downloads depicted vaginal sex (Pappas, 2010).
de Alarcon, et. al. (2019) state that online pornography use is on the rise, with a potential for addiction considering the “triple A” influence (accessibility, affordability, anonymity). Whether the problematic use of online pornography (POPU) can be considered an actual addiction is under debate, since the physiological criteria relating to addiction, particularly tolerance and withdrawal, may not be present. Nonetheless, similar to addictions to psychoactive drugs, “there is impaired control (e.g. craving, unsuccessful attempts to reduce the behavior), impairment (e.g., narrowing of interests, neglect of other areas of life), and risky use (persisting intake despite awareness of damaging psychological effects.” One may add the necessity to lie in order to conceal the magnitude of the problem from family, friends, employers, and employees as a crucial element in addiction (DuPont, 1997).
Earlier in this blog, I mentioned that 1 in 3 pornography viewers are women. The typical risk factors for problematic sexual behavior and pornography use are: Being a man, young age, religiousness, frequent Internet use, negative mood states, and prone to sexual boredom, and novelty seeking. If such is the case, why are women consuming pornography?
In 2020, Dr. Kurt Smith published an article, Do Women Watch Porn? If so, why??, in which he suggests a number of reasons why women consume pornography:
- Accommodate the desires of the man in their life. Many women mistakenly put their own feelings and desires aside and accept watching porn to try to make their man happy. They view it as something they need to do in order to satisfy their man and prevent what they fear will happen next – him cheating . So, despite what many women describe as repulsion, they watch porn with their partner out of a sense of necessity.
- Understand why men watch porn. Men as a whole seem to have a fascination with and easy acceptance of pornography. And a lot of women really want to understand their man more, why he does what he does, why porn is so appealing to him, what he finds attractive, and if there are sexual acts that they need to perform to keep him happy. So, they’ll watch porn to try to find out.
- Peer pressure. Our culture has made watching porn normal and removed nearly all of the negative views that once surrounded it. Movies, music, and advertising have all incorporated pornographic images and references these days as a result. As a result, finding it distasteful and expressing a problem with these things can feel like you’re going against the grain and will be judged as a prude, unimaginative, or uncomfortable with sexuality. So, some women watch and accept porn because they feel like they have to in order to appear “normal.”
- Sexual pleasure. There are women who watch porn for the same reasons men do – visual stimulation, sexual arousal, and release. Both men and women respond to visual stimulation, but what they want to see and the reasons they want to see it can be quite different. While men want typically to see graphic sexual images, women tend to prefer more suggestive and sensual imagery. That being said, women who openly enjoy porn are still a minority.
- Lack of knowledge about the negative effects of porn brings with it. Porn can negatively affect both men and women. It’s not the harmless pastime that many men will claim. Porn distorts our thinking about sex, leading to unrealistic expectations, dissatisfaction in healthy sexual relationships, feelings of inadequacy, and, in some cases, abuse. Most people don’t know this or realize how damaging porn is to them, however.
- Unhealthy understanding of sex. Many women have had negative sexual experiences that have altered their view of sex. Some of them are aware of this, but many are not. An unhealthy view and understanding of sex can contribute to a desire to watch porn for both women and men, and make true intimacy nearly impossible.
I would like to add one more reason: A former student of mine admitted that she sometimes watches porn “in order to get inspired and to get new ideas.” Um, Ok.
What kind of disorder is it? The following is a quote from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pornography_addiction:
‘Diagnostic status
The status of pornography addiction as an addictive disorder, rather than simply a compulsivity, has been hotly contested.[unreliable medical source?][21][unreliable medical source?] Furthermore, research suggests that the use of a pornography addiction label may indicate a socially (as opposed to clinically) driven nosology.
It is worth considering whether the apparent epidemic of self-diagnosed pornography addicts seeking help today perhaps represents the ready uptake of a relatively new way to describe one’s problematic behaviour, and not the development of a modern disease entity whose description should dictate its treatment.
— Kris Taylor, Nosology and metaphor: How pornography viewers make sense of pornography addiction
In November 2016, the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists (AASECT) issued a position statement on sex/porn addiction which states that AASECT “does not find sufficient empirical evidence to support the classification of sex addiction or porn addiction as a mental health disorder, and does not find the sexual addiction training and treatment methods and educational pedagogies to be adequately informed by accurate human sexuality knowledge. Therefore, it is the position of AASECT that linking problems related to sexual urges, thoughts or behaviors to a porn/sexual addiction process cannot be advanced by AASECT as a standard of practice for sexuality education delivery, counseling or therapy.”
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) includes a new section for behavioral addictions, but includes only one disorder: pathological gambling. One other behavioral addiction, internet gaming disorder, appears in the conditions proposed for further study in DSM-5.[22] Psychiatrists cited a lack of research support for refusing to include other behavioral disorders at this time.
Porn addiction is not a diagnosis in DSM-5 (or any previous version). “Viewing pornography online” is mentioned verbatim in the DSM-5, but it is not considered a mental disorder either.’
What are the consequences of consuming pornography?
- It can induce poorer executive functioning, including:
- Impulsivity;
- Cognitive rigidity that impedes learning processes or the ability to shift attention;
- Poor judgment and decision making;
- Interference of working memory capacity;
- Deficits in emotion regulation;
- Excessive preoccupation with sex (de Alarcon, et. al., 2019).
- A list of 10 negative effects of porn is described at :https://fightthenewdrug.org/10-reasons-why-porn-is-unhealthy-for-consumers-and-society/
- Porn can negatively impact relationships: According to study that tracked couples over time, porn consumption was the second strongest indicator that a relationship would suffer. Plus, research consistently shows that porn consumers are twice as likely to later report experiencing a divorce or breakup—even after controlling for marital happiness, sexual satisfaction, and other relevant factors;
- Porn can become habit-forming: Many porn consumers are surprised to find that porn can be incredibly difficult to quit. While most porn consumers are not addicts in a clinically diagnosable sense, many experts agree that pornography consumption is a behavior that can, in fact, qualify as an addiction in serious cases;
- Porn can fuel violence and abuse: So we know that porn glorifies violence, but research also indicates that porn’s sexually violent narratives can bleed into consumers’ attitudes and behaviors. In fact, research indicates that porn consumers are more likely to sexually objectify and dehumanize others, more likely to express an intent to rape, less likely to intervene during a sexual assault, more likely to victim-blame survivors of sexual assault, more likely to support violence against women, more likely to forward sexts without consent, and more likely to commit actual acts of sexual violence;
- Porn perpetuates racism and toxic stereotypes;For an industry that is often culturally thought of as being allied with the LGBTQ+ community, the mainstream porn industry’s depictions of LGBTQ+ individuals and relationships suggest that they are less interested in accurate representation and more interested in profiting at the expense of LGBTQ+ people. Porn often fetishizes sexual orientation or gender identity, uses degrading terms to describe LGBTQ+ people, and misrepresents them through harmful and degrading stereotypes. Likewise, stereotypes are used in content with Black performers, and promotes the idea that multicultural/multiracial relationships are taboo or fetishized. Porn often fetishizes many different races and ethnic groups;
- Porn harms sexual function and makes people more sexually illiterate: Interestingly enough, porn often leads to less sex and less satisfying sex. Research routinely shows that compulsive pornography consumption is associated with sexual dysfunction for both men and women, difficulties with arousal and sexual performance, and decreased sexual satisfaction. So, perhaps the biggest lie porn sells is that its fantasy world is filled with sex positivity: sexual education, more sex, better sex, etc. What it doesn’t mention, however, is that the fantasy world it sells can warp sexual expectations in unhealthy ways. It’s no secret that porn is wildly unrealistic and often straight-up toxic, yet 1 in 4 young adults report believing that porn is the most helpful source to learn how to have sex, according to a 2021 study.Another study indicated that young people often reported trying to copy porn in their own sexual encounters, and that the pressure to imitate porn was often an aspect of unhealthy relationships;
- Porn can change a consumer’s brain: When we engage in an activity—particularly a pleasurable activity, and particularly if it involves repetition and intense focus—our brains alter themselves so that they’ll be better and more efficient at doing that activity the next time.
- But this brain process can also be overwhelmed by what’s referred to as a supernormal stimulus—an exaggerated form of what’s normal. Pornography, for example, can take our brains’ natural stimuli—our desire for intimacy and connection—and give us more quantity, more exaggerated, and more “supernormal” versions of that desire. Through the neuroplastic process, porn can change what we perceive as normal, warp what we find exciting, and make real intimacy seem less interesting by comparison. These changes in our expectations can have tremendous implications for how we view others and how we view relationships;
- Porn can normalize abuse: According to a study that analyzed porn titles alone, 1 out of every 8 titles suggested to first-time users on porn sites described acts of sexual violence. Research also suggests that as few as 1 in 3 and as many as 9 in 10 porn scenes contain physical violence or aggression. Even more concerning is that 95% of the time, the targets of violence and aggression in porn appear to respond either neutrally or with pleasure, sending the message that sexual aggression is normal or even desirable;
- Porn can fuel mental health issues: A number of peer-reviewed studies have found a link between pornography consumption and mental health outcomes like depression, anxiety, loneliness, lower life satisfaction, and poorer self-esteem and overall mental health. These studies have found that these links are particularly strong when pornography is consumed to try to escape negative emotions, and also when pornography consumption becomes heavy and compulsive. Quitting porn can help interrupt the unhealthy cycle of escapism and mental health issues;
- Porn companies profit from nonconsensual content: In the porn industry, there is virtually no way to guarantee that any piece of pornographic content is truly consensual, ethical, or even legal. The unfortunate truth is that the porn industry has an extensive history of profiting from nonconsensual content and abuse, even ignoring victims’ pleas to remove abusive content. Virtually every major porn site has had issues with nonconsensual content, abuse, or child sexual abuse material (aka “child porn”);
- Porn fuels sex trafficking: Sex trafficking shares a variety of symbiotic connections to pornography. Even in the production of mainstream porn, sex trafficking can still occur—and it happens more often than most people think. Trafficking is legally defined as a situation in which “a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such act has not attained 18 years of age.” Manipulation and coercion are unfortunately common in the porn industry, which legally qualifies as sex trafficking. Again, there’s no viable way for a consumer to guarantee that the porn they’re watching is truly consensual and free of abuse or coercion. As long as there’s a demand for porn—especially porn that is extreme, abusive, or degrading—the porn industry will continue to exploit vulnerable people to meet that demand.
P.S.: The J. Geils Band’s classic Centerfold — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqDjMZKf-wg
de Alarcon, R.; de la Iglesia, J.I.; Casado, N.M.; Montejo, A.L. (2019). Online Porn Addiction: What We Know and What We Don’t — A Systematic Review. Journal of Clinical Medicine, 8, 91; doi:10.3390/jcm8010091.
DuPont, R.L. (1997). The Selfish Brain. American Psychiatric Press.
Pappas, S. (2010). The History of Pornography No More Prudish Than the Present. Science News, October 13. 2010.
Smith, K. (2020). Do Women Watch Porn? If so, Why?? https://www.guystuffcounseling.com/counseling-men-blog/bid/77013/do-women-watch-porn-if-so-why
Addictions and Recovery 