It's official! Online porn is damaging men's health, according to a leading sexual health expert. Angela Gregory, who is a psychosexual therapist at Nottingham University Hospital, has revealed in her new study that sexual health problems among young men are on the rise.
Porn addiction has increased over the years, mainly due to the easy access that men now have to the Internet, either via their smartphones or laptops, watching it has never been easier.
Sputnik spoke to psychosexual therapist Kate Moyle, who said that watching too much porn can impact a man's health because it becomes compulsive, and combined with masturbation, means that the user can train themselves via this repetitive pattern of sexual arousal.
If the person is watching pornography on their own, they are in control of this situation. They choose what they like to watch, and if they are also masturbating they are using a style of touch that they prefer, so they are completely in control.
When having sex with another person that control isn't there, a partner may touch them differently or look different to what they have been watching on screen, and this then doesn't match up with the arousal profile or template that they have set for themselves and repeated numerous times when they are on their own.
"This can mean that men may struggle to become aroused more easily, and because of the stigma around the subject of sex and masturbation, they may not be able to describe why to their partner. This can create anxiety which can completely interrupt the arousal circuit, making getting and maintaining an erection more difficult," Kate Moyle told Sputnik.
As the results from Angela Gregory's research show, watching too much porn can lead to health problems such as erectile dysfunction. According to Moyle, providing there is no medical reason for the erectile dysfunction, the key problem is that it can start a cycle of performance anxiety around getting or maintaining erections.
"The more anxious the man is, the more difficult it is for him to relax and get an erection and the lack of erection increases the anxiety and the anxiety increases the likelihood of lack of erection," Moyle said.
For some men the difficulty in ending porn addiction can be a hard one, their minds are wired towards watching it and as a result this can lead to various problems.
"Gary Wilson, [in his] YouTube videos 'Your Brain on Porn', argues that the brain is wired towards novelty. In pornography use and masturbation this is often paired with the release of dopamine at orgasm, which is a neurotransmitter releasing feel good behaviors."
"Compulsive pornography use offers almost unending novelty; the choices of video content are endless and having sex with therefore, for example, one or the same partner, just feels like it cannot compete."
"But this does not mean that these men are broken, it just means that they need to re-adjust the way that they have sex and receive sexual pleasure. This is often about introducing other elements and enhancing the use of sensuality when with a partner or in self-pleasuring. Compulsive pornography use can often be a quick, or hard and fast route to orgasm, and often men need to re-learn how to, and explore other routes to pleasure," Moyle told Sputnik.
So, are there any solutions to the problem of porn addiction that will help men and thus lead to less health problems?
Kate Moyle said that better education about pornography use and sex education in general would be a great start. Teens often turn to pornography as it is the easiest way for them to learn about sex, and so if this is their first experience they have nothing to compare it to.
"If we as a culture were more able to have these open conversations then there would be less shame around the subject and it would become less taboo, and those who therefore feel they need help would be able to ask for it.
"Psychosexual therapy offers many a safe place to discuss how they feel about their compulsive pornography use, and a route to changing their behavior and there are now group programs that are available to help with change, which also have programs available for partners," Moyle said.
