5 Reasons to Stop (Or At Least Cut Back On) Watching Porn

My freshman year at Stanford, I took a human biology class called "Adolescent Sexuality" -- and for it, I wrote a term paper about the negative effects of pornography on a young woman's sexual experience. 

Which is kind of ridiculous and adorable, since I had zero sexual experience of my own and had never "looked at" (I didn't know it was something you "watched") porn. Nevertheless, I recognized some of the potential harmful effects porn could have on my generation -- the very first to grow up with free, unrestricted access to porn. 

Since then, several studies and books have come out with similarly sad and shocking conclusions. Inspired by Dr. Philip Zimbardo's new book, Man Interrupted: Why Young Men Are Struggling & What We Can Do About It

I decided to take a break from blogging about playfulness to write about something I swore I would never write about again:

​Pornography.

The TL;DR is that it isn't very good for you. Personally, I tell the guys I date that I don't want to be with them if they use porn -- if they want to be with me, they should be with only me. If they want to have weird internet sex with women on the internet, then maybe it's best to part ways.

(Go ahead and call me naive -- you're wrong, though. I don't date guys who are dishonest, and I feel bad for people who can't fathom a sincere, honest relationship with a dude who isn't addicted to porn.)

But I suppose I'm extreme in that regard. Dr. Zimbardo -- who designed the Stanford Prison Experiment and happens to be one of the most famous psychologists of all time -- says that porn is okay in moderation. 

The problem is, lots of guys -- especially millennials -- don't really use it in moderation. Today's young men watch an average of about two hours of porn per week. And that is a problem for the following reasons:

1. It causes erectile dysfunction.

Porn isn't like real life in many ways. One of which is that, in real life, there isn't an unlimited number of sexy, naked women who are willing to do anything and everything with you.

Nothing is ever the same. The scene, the acts, the women -- they are constantly changing. Which is why, according to the heartbreaking documentary Hot Girls Wanted (you can watch it streaming on Netflix):

"The shelf life of a girl really depends on like how she markets herself. Worst case scenario? One to three months. Alright scenario? Three to six. Best case scenario if she doesn't catch on to the game? A year, tops. TOPS."

But we'll discuss this further in a moment.

The point here is that, sexually, porn is very overstimulating. And one thing our brains are great at is adapting to overstimulation.

Meaning that guys who consume a lot of porn become addicted to that novelty, to that type of stimulation. And, for many, it becomes impossible to get an erection under, you know, normal circumstances. The kind where it's real life. And you have a partner.

Not to mention that leading a sedentary lifestyle contributes to obesity, which leads to decreased testosterone levels, which makes erectile dysfunction even worse. Or the fact that

2. It causes performance anxiety (which makes ED issues worse)  

I'll say it again: porn isn't like real life. In porn, everyone is objectified (especially women, but also men). Size is everything. And everything is a performance. 

To be more specific, porn is full of huge dicks. According to Man Interrupted, you rarely see a penis smaller than seven inches in porn, even though the average penis size is 5.2 inches. And it's pretty common to see penises in the 10- to 11-inch range.

Moreover, penises in porn instantly get hard, if they don't start out that way. And they stay hard for ten, or twenty, or more minutes of thrusting in every imaginable position.

Oh, and also, the woman is screaming in ecstasy the entire time.

Or, at least, that's what appears to happen. What actually happens is that there are "fluffers" on set to keep everyone aroused. The actors take breaks. The crew rearranges things. And then the film editor makes it look like everything happened seamlessly and continuously.

This causes performance anxiety -- especially in younger guys, who have little or no sexual experience of their own. It causes insecurities -- especially in guys whose brains have adapted to sexual overstimulation. 

But there's no anxiety associated with watching sex. It's a horrible cycle.

​And it affects women, too. A common complaint from blogs like Everyday Feminism is that men don't care about female pleasure -- and that those who do often only care because they want the woman to "perform" her pleasure. 

I disagree with the first part of this. Many (most?) men do care about female pleasure -- if a woman isn't getting what she wants sexually, she shouldn't blame the patriarchy. She should learn how to have bodily autonomy and communicate with her partner.

But the second part is definitely true. A lot of women feel expected to "perform" their pleasure. One Cosmo survey even found that 32% of women who struggled to orgasm with a partner cited "I'm too in my own head or focused on how I look" as the main reason why.

And the thing is -- it's easy to be like, Girl, just don't worry about how you look. Just be you. But if your enjoyment is quiet, the guy might feel like he's doing something wrong -- or, worse, he won't find it as sexy as if you "performed" like the girls in porn.

Because when you watch a lot of porn,

3. It changes what we want and expect, sexually.

One of the things I did for that Adolescent Sexuality project was to compare descriptions of sex in erotica (which is typically written for women) to descriptions of sex in internet pornography. (Call me a bad scientist, I was too squeamish to watch any porn myself.)

It came as no surprise that the way women imagine sexy sex didn't really match up with what was happening in porn sex. Which is too bad, according to distinguished researcher Dolf Zillmann. 

Zillmann's work contributed to the exemplification theory: the idea that, consciously or unconsciously, men regard sex acts portrayed in pornography as ideal -- and will later try to emulate these acts in their own sex lives.

And with the huge availability of online porn, directors know that their videos need to be a little raunchier, a little racier, than their competitors'. Often this translates to more degrading or dehumanizing towards the women in the videos.

Which is probably why, as Nancy Joe Sales notes in her recent book, American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers, porn often implies a certain amount of force. "Pussies" getting "crushed," "pounded," and "destroyed." (Not to mention genres like bukkake, gang bang and, um, other stuff.)  

And then there's the whole, "anal is the new oral" thing -- the thing where oral sex has become an expectation (because every porn ever has blowjobs in it -- but how often does the guy go down on the girl?), and anal is the new "will she do it?" activity. 

Apparently, almost half  of high school girls have been propositioned for anal sex, and college girls are starting to show up at the infirmary with anal fissures caused from anal sex. 

Personally, I find it hard to understand why either party would want to do anal stuff. But the fact is, people are doing it at unprecedented rates, and it's at least a little due to porn. It sets up certain expectations. And... it kills eroticism. In order to do something that feels a little naughty -- a little taboo -- people are having to try more extreme forms of sex. 

Further, in a 1966 study by Rachman and Hodgson, men were repeatedly shown pictures of naked women paired with pictures of boots. Eventually, the men would become aroused by pictures of the footwear alone, affirming that men, in a manner oddly similar to Pavlov’s dogs, can be “trained” to find one thing or another arousing.

So is it really any wonder that people want to try what they see in porn in real life? Even though it's not necessarily pleasurable for their partner?

And then there's my next point:

4. Porn is exploitative and coercive. 

It is hard for me to understand how you can, in good conscience, indulge in porn. Unless you're browsing r/GoneWild, a sub-Reddit where users upload sexy photos of themselves. 

What I like about GoneWild is that people aren't compensated. People aren't posting photos on there because they desperately need money to feed their kid or pay their bills. They do it because it turns them on. Some people are totally into that, and that's fine.

Meanwhile, other kinds of porn are pretty exploitative. 

Recall the earlier quote from Hot Girls Wanted, in which a porn producer suggested that the average "shelf life" of a porn worker was 1-3 months. 

That really sucks. And (spoiler alert) -- although in the beginning of the documentary, the girls feel all excited to be getting on an airplane for the first time and making more money than they've ever seen before ($300 here, $200 there), by the end, they have nothing.

They spend most of the money they "make" on lingerie, doctor visits, flights, accommodations and other "business expenses."

It's really sad to see all these girls who just turned eighteen trying to escape a rural town, a dead end job or a low socioeconomic status... basically for nothing.

Like, at least if they were prostitutes, they could quit after one or four of six months and be done with it. Millions of people all over the world aren't going to recognize them from porn. Meanwhile, there are endless accounts of girls showing up in porn (or even just the Girls Gone Wild videos)... and having it follow them for the rest of their lives.

Their parents find out. They have to switch schools or careers. They get all the stigma, without any of the fame or fortune. (And, sure, some people would argue that there "shouldn't" be a stigma attached to sex workers. That doesn't change the fact that there is. Facts are facts, even if you don't like them.)

There's only a tiny chance their "career" will last more than a year. They're not going to get rich from doing it...

And part of the reason so many girls quit so early on is that after their first "fresh face" video, getting roles becomes increasingly difficult. You're old news. The roles they do get offered -- especially if they are women of color -- are typically more extreme or degrading.

In one scene from Hot Girls Wanted, a Latina woman named Jade finally lands a role... in a facial abuse/Latina abuse shoot. In it, racism is sexualized. She is called derogatory names, like "puta." She is forced to vomit... and then she is forced to "slurp it up." 

The documentary notes, "In 2014, abuse porn sites averaged over 60 million hits per month. More hits than NFL.com, NBA.com, hotwire.com, CBS.com, fortune.com, disney.com," and a host of others.

Another young woman, Tressa, returns to her shared apartment one afternoon with a giant dildo, explaining, "A producer gave this to me. He wanted me to stick only half of it in me for $1,000. He wants me to keep practicing and trying."   ​

It was clear that none of the girls in the video liked being in porn -- and it was really sad listening to them talk about their experience.

Here's the other thing about porn.

I am all for capitalism and free markets. I am all about artists getting compensated for their work. But when it comes to compensating people for certain kinds of services, it is important to consider whether you are being fair... or coercive. 

For example. I recently wrote Playfulness Isn't a Trait - It's a Skill. And If You're a Millennial, You Probably Never Learned It. In it, I discussed my own human subjects research. 

All I wanted to do to my human subjects was ask them a couple of questions about their play behavior -- how they played, why they played, why they didn't play. "Play" isn't innuendo. I literally mean like soccer and Uno and stuff. Nothing that seemed even remotely personal or harmful.

Even so, I had to go through an institutional review board to make sure every little part of my study was ethical and confidential. The amount of compensation I could offer my participants was very strictly capped at $5. 

This seemed dumb to me, but one of my professors explained, Look. What if it's against someone's religion to participate in psychology surveys? What if it is against their moral or religious principles to give body fluid samples to scientists? What if there is an experimental treatment that could seriously hurt them -- but they do it anyway, because they are strapped for cash?

When you offer people too much money for something, you make it difficult for them to say no. Especially when they're struggling financially and see no other options. 

I'm not equating pornography to science research. 

People should get absolutely get paid for their work.

But. Just because the women in porn are compensated, doesn't make it ethical. Doesn't mean it's not coercive. 

I don't have a good solution to this problem. It just makes me uneasy -- especially after watching how much porn messed up these girls' lives.

​The industry is almost completely unregulated. Actors have to be over 18. Some states require STD testing or condom use. But that's it. 

This should give you pause when it come to watching porn.

5. It stunts social skills.

Playfulness is a skill. Flirting is a skill. Sexiness is a skill. Communication with another human -- especially in a sexual situation -- is a skill. Even charisma is a skill.

But when boys and men can have a digital sexual experience, alone, without leaving their room... they don't learn social skills. They don't learn how to talk to women. They don't learn how not to be creepy or shy. 

Teens and adults, who, in a previous generation, would have been masculine and virile, ad instead shy, awkward and increasingly isolated. 

The shut-in economy, which makes everything available on demand, is killing us. It's killing our bodies and it's killing our souls, and it is killing our social skills. See also: Get Up! Why Your Chair is Killing You and What You Can Do About It. 

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Honestly, I'm not sure how much of a difference this post will make. Dudes love porn. But maybe, just maybe, one of you reading this will become a little more mindful of your porn habits, and how it is affecting your body, soul and mind.