Pornography Essay-Porn And The Brain

Porn and the Brain “Consuming pornography does not lead to more sex, it leads to more porn. Much like eating McDonalds everyday will accustom you to food that (although enjoyable) is essentially not food, pornography conditions the consumer to being satisfied with an impression of extreme sex rather than the real.” -Virginie Despentes. Pornography is not a force that is relatively new, but new enough that in today’s world of modern medicine, and medical advances, we are seeing effects and by-products of pornography not formerly seen. Researches such as Dr. Valerie Voon, Jim Faust, and researches at Cambridge University have added legitimacy behind the claims that pornography is a harmful, such as addictive substance like nicotine, alcohol,

“Pornographers promote healthy pleasure and relief from sexual tension, but what they often deliver is an addiction, tolerance, and an eventual decrease in pleasure” — Norman Doidge, MD. It is common to believe that for something to be addictive, it has to be a substance that we put into our bodies such as alcohol or cigarettes or drugs. However once we get a glimpse into the brain we see that they are all alike, they allow the brain to release dopamine which makes them addictive, and porn does the exact same thing. “Porn is basically sexual junk food. When a person is looking at porn, their brain thinks they’re seeing a potential mating opportunity, and pumps the brain full of dopamine. And unlike healthy sexual relationships that build up over time with an actual person, porn offers an endless stream of hyper-sexual images that flood the brain with high levels of dopamine every time the user clicks to a new image.” (Claire Easley) Eventually your brain will begin to fight back by cutting down on its dopamine receptors — the brain’s sort of dream catcher that takes the dopamine once it’s been released. Eventually the user’s brain will become acclimated to the overload of dopamine, and users find that they can’t feel like their normal selves without the dopamine high. Regular things in life that would once make the user happy like seeing their dog, or playing sports, or being with their partner, cannot compete in their

We also see how that leads to porn being addictive, because our brains build up a tolerance to these ridiculously high levels of chemicals. We are about to see how these factors play into my statement: Porn changes your behavior. Due to the high level of dopamine released during pornography consumption as well as the rewiring that happens due to the protein iFosB we begin to see how a users very behavior such as, morals, ideas, thoughts and opinions change due to the porn the user is consuming. A few years ago researcher, Jim Faust did an experiment with rats wherein he paired virgin male rats in cages with female rats. The twist is he sprayed the female rats with the stench of a dead, rotting rat. Instinctively the rats are to run away from this smell, but as it turned out, the male rat’s drive to mate was more powerful than the instinct to avoid the smell. Eventually the male rats learned to associate the smell of death, with the though of reproduction. Faust began soaking towels and objects in the smell of death and putting the male rats in cages with these objects. Consistently the male rats would play with the objects as if they were soaked in something that they loved. The mystery behind why rats retrained themselves to be partial to the smell of death is dopamine! Like humans, the rats too have the same reward pathway in their brain, and their preferences were rewired the same way a