Disclaimer: Anyone under the age of consent should not read this
The subject that occupies millions of people’s lives, yet everyone is afraid to talk about it. It is the thing everyone watches, yet no one questions. It has become the norm. Never before in the history of the world have people watched as much porn as they do now.
In 2016 alone, (Pornhub) one specific website got 23 BILLION visits. That’s 729 people a second, or 64 million a day—nearly equal to the population of the United Kingdom.
This is due to the rise in internet pornography, this has facilitated the access to it. Our society has become obsessed with fulfilling our desires for love and intimacy, with fake versions of what love is. We settle for watching violent, abuse or perverse scenes online,as oppose to seeking meaningful connections with other human beings.
The problems of pornography are multifaceted. It goes beyond the impact on the individual and their brain. Social interactions, and society at large are affected.
Starting on the individual layer. When people watch porn, it causes secretion of the neurotransmitters dopamine (high/excited), serotonin (peaceful), vasopressin and oxytocin (love hormone). These are all naturally secreted when we feel love or spend time with loved ones. While watching porn there is an initial high, upon primary exposure. The sensation, creates a longing for more, so the behaviour is repeated. It is impossible to reach the initial high, so more extreme, perverse or abusive forms of porn are needed to trigger the same response.
Over time this can lead to a dependency. Therefore, a porn addiction, is like any other one and must be treated in a way that addresses the underlying causes. Many times people become obsessed with it, because of an intense feeling of loneliness, and out of their desire for connection, they become hooked on something that gives them momentary happiness. The concern is that porn cannot replace real love. Therefore it will always leave the viewer unsatisfied.
There is a strong correlation between depression, low self esteem and frequent porn exposure. Children, nowadays as young as 11 are exposed to it. In the under 18 category, 22% of the viewers are under 11. Due to the developing brain they have, this can lead to an elevated risk of addiction.
Secondly, porn skews the view of reality. When people equate love with pornographic scenes, their values become distorted. Porn was never intended to be an accurate representation of what a loving, kind relationship looks like. Love and touch are basic human needs and help us grow. Porn does not make a better lover. In reality, it makes people more critical of appearance and less able to perform sexually. Furthermore, it increases the infidelity rate by 300%.
People seek new and exciting relationships and are no longer dedicated to one person. This has also lead to our ‘smash and dash’ culture. Due to the violence depicted in pornography, there has been an increase in brutality and domestic abuse in the home. It impacts how and who we love. Sensuality and mutual consent are swallowed by the false messages porn instills in our societies youth. The amount of time people spend dedicated to watching it could be spent doing more productive, constructive activities.
Enough porn was watched in 2016 on this one website (pornhub) that all the data would fill 194,000,000 USB sticks. If you put the USB sticks end to end, they’d wrap all the way around the moon.
On a global scale, the porn industry is responsible for basic human rights violations. Human trafficking is intrinsically connected to porn. This means by watching porn, human trafficking and abuses are perpetrated.
Some people go as far as saying that porn is ‘rape for profit’. This statement is debatable but it is known that the actors in pornographic films are frequently abused and suffer from diverse physical and mental illnesses. These include substance abuse, acquisition of STD’s and even suicide. Pornography can be seen as filmed prostitution. The only difference being that prostitutes are paid to have sex and porn stars are paid to act. There is a shocking rise in the demand for child pornography and more abstract, alterations of sex.
No previous generation has faced the issue of pornography the way our world does. We must be aware of its potential effects. In 2009 a non-profit anti-porn movement was started by the organisation ‘fight the new drug’. They believe that ‘porn kills love’.I hope anyone who reads this will reconsider what they watch, because everything we take in shapes us in profound ways.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and are not necessarily endorsed by The Update. We encourage anyone who would like to send an opinion piece to sign up in the ‘About Us’ section of the website.
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It’s quite a bit of a reach suggesting that Pornography promotes violations of human rights such as human trafficking, it isn’t necessarily a correlation/causation relationship as much as a possibly spurious correlation
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An incredibly one-sided and misinformed article which relies on dubious “new wave” bullshit articles which cited “research papers” sponsored by religious organizations. The questionable statistics obviously play into the author’s conservative beliefs, which are used in a very loose, and poorly articulated cause and effect argument
“Furthermore, it increases the infidelity rate by 300%.” It is widely accepted that infidelity is caused by more liberal social standards and the progressive feminist movement (greater sexual freedoms for women), just cause porn exists, does not mean it is the cause of infidelity.
The bullshit relationship between domestic abuse and porn; If you compare domestic abuse rates now and a century ago, there is a stark contrast, courtesy of the feminist movement domestic abuse is gradually decreasing, and I don’t remember Pornhub being a thing in Victorian England.
The argument about human trafficking and the whole STD substance abuse bullshit; the vast majority of porn watched is legally produced by reputable organizations and is, in fact, an incredibly well developed and rigid industry, all actors/actresses practice strict work ethic and are consenting adults,all tested for STD’s (look at pornhubs statement on this, the greatest provider of porn). So just cause there is an underbelly of illegal porn, does not make the entire industry unethical.
So overall, look like the author simply mangled and misrepresented data in lieu with their moral/religious beliefs.
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It’s not hard to find credible sources. Just search for pornography at scholar.google.com. You’ll find that the author’s conclusions showing the negative impact of pornography are generally correct. I noticed that you were free with your criticism but didn’t offer any credible resarch to back it up. Do the research and you’ll see that porn is no longer just a religious or moral issue; there are real, scientifically proven negative consequences.
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With the staggering amount of people visiting porn websites, the promotion of pornographic content is only being magnified. That alone should be a viable reason for why porn is bad and has negative repercussions as it is shown online ; such is an unequivocal point. I don’t know whether you’re replying solely to this article or, more broadly, actually defending porn. One can find contradicting statistics online about domestic abuse, etc… but porn is undeniably being absorbed by the minds of adolescents and giving them a false, and rather dangerous, idea of a number of things
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Another resource to consider adding to your list of resources to help people overcome porn habits is the book Power Over Pornography. Its method is based upon cognitive behavior theory and seems to work well.
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Right so seems like you completely misread my argument and haven’t re buted any of my points, simply pointing out the fact that I didn’t provide contradicting research data. Dw I’ll provide research data in a response article 🙂
So basically, lemme make it simple:
-you are basically saying (and please refer above) “that porn is bad”, no mention of what porn, what scale of porn viewing, circumstance and context. To me that sounds simply as bias which overclouds your logical flow of argument (ie more people watching porn-more porn promoted-therefore porn is bad).
-big difference between porn consumption and porn addiction, a distinction you failed to draw (convinetly so). How can you expect to form a just conclusion on the entire topic of “porn” simply drawing your conclusions from the data of those addicted to porn, sounds again, like bias to me.
-I mainly attacked your use of dubious research data and their methods of collections, and how both you, and the researchers drew conclusions form vague cause and affect relationships. Simply reading the papers “abstract” is not reading a research paper.
-no data has been provided for the STD and abuse part of of your article. Looks like this was more of a personal opinion.
As I will mention in the upcoming article, in no way is porn entirely healthy, but your extreme focus on the most negetive sides of porn, and the omission of the benefits of porn, just resulted in a poorly argued opinion.
And btw, I’m replying both to your article and defending porn.
Go porn go!
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1. I didn’t write this article, just to clarify.
To broaden upon my original, and admittedly vague, point about ‘porn being bad’. As you can imagine, there could be essays and essays debating the morality and magnitude at which porn is watched. Me simply saying porn is bad, is a simple point of view, that I am perplexed everyone doesn’t share, that concludes that the overall viewing of pornographic material is more detrimental to a human (teenage in particular)’s lifestyle and habits than it is beneficiary.
Your other points seemed to respond to the data presented in the article, which I didn’t write. I agree about your points referring to the inconsistency of the data drawn compared to the issue; porn is too much of a broad topic.
As for the STD and domestic abuse argument, I haven’t done any adequate research to provide a competent refutation to your point (not that I am looking for one (: ).
However, with the cargo of teenagers visiting these sights everyday, and a number that is still ever-growing, the cognitive development of the plethora of people ‘exploring’ or ‘searching for fun’ is being damaged. A young and undeveloped brain is inept when it comes to filtering information. This isn’t to say we are mindless and unable to control our brain from what we perceive as bad, but we ARE unable to differentiate between our subconscious. (This is probably straying further into the porn addiction field).
Nevertheless, I’m keen to see your response to this – whether you are able to supply sufficient evidence to back up your claims that porn has beneficiary outcomes that compete with the negative ones – or you’re fabricating what you think are facts to justify your surge of hormones.
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Also, am a different user than the Goodwins guy
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