Not sure if you remember me, but I am the subject of your column “Deep Frustration“. I want thank you again for writing that response, I really did appreciate it. I had always intended to write back to you, so I hope I’m not asking to much for you to respond again. Over the past three years my ED has gone through sporadic improvements mainly due to living a more healthy lifestyle, proper diet, exercise, abstaining from alcohol etc. I relapse into my shitty habits again and again, and what little progress I make is undone, but I usually manage to claw my way back. I didn’t mention that I’m an alcoholic in my original email, but its interesting that during 2015 I went four months without alcohol and testicles literally grew in size, then I relapsed and they began to shrink again. My porn use has pretty much stayed the same; I’ve had several unsuccessful attempts to simply quit porn but I always relapse with really sick extreme porn. I recently went to an FBSM girl because my ED would prevent me from enjoying full service, but even that was a disaster; I spent most of the time staring at a spot on the ceiling, and every part of my body was tense and stiff…except for my penis! I felt sorry for the poor girl have to try engage with such a non cooperative person, but I simply could not be present. I really enjoyed looking at this woman’s pics in her advertisement, I even jacked myself off to them whilst imagining how great it would be, and when I actually get it I feel not one iota of lust. My number one sexual goal is total abstinence from porn and masturbation; I want to banish fantasy and live with both feet in reality. I’m confident that with enough time on Nofap I’ll be all the better for it. I want more experiences so I continue to learn the truth about myself, whatever than is and where it leads, rather than remaining steeped in the childish, delusional fantasy world of porn.
Oh yes, I remember; every time I’ve run across that column for one reason or another I’ve thought about you and wondered how your situation had developed. The extra information you’ve given me here helps me to give you a little more advice; I really hope you take it, because I don’t think your situation is in any way hopeless. First of all, you absolutely need to get off the booze; though it’s legal, alcohol is actually one of the hardest and most damaging of drugs, and heavy drinking has a host of negative effects of which your chronic “whiskey dick” condition is probably the least serious. You haven’t mentioned what you do for a living, and I don’t know what kind of health insurance you have; I suggest you research your local mental health resources, find out what programs you can afford and enroll without delay. Note that I said “resources”, plural; I don’t think drinking is your only problem, though it’s a major one. I’m not a mental health professional, but it seems obvious to me that your problems are more serious than you can solve alone; you need the help of a caring person who will listen to you without judging and help you get to the bottom of this. You wrote “I want…to learn the truth about myself, whatever than is and where it leads”, and I think that’s a great philosophy to have; a good therapist can help you to accomplish that. But remember, the therapist is only a guide; he can’t “fix” you or “cure” you, because you have to do that yourself. And let me tell you, it’s not a quest for the faint of heart; I can tell you from painful personal experience that it’s terrifying, humiliating and excruciating. But when you at last win through to the truth, it will be as though a weight has been lifted off of your shoulders; it won’t happen all at once, but once it starts you’ll know and you’ll be encouraged to continue through to the end.
I do want to address one thing in your letter directly, though; I can understand why you might want to quit watching porn, because you’ve developed a kind of love-hate relationship with it and that’s not healthy. The problem isn’t the porn itself, but rather your relationship with the porn, which you seem to be using as a barrier between you and some sexual issues you are uncomfortable with confronting directly. However, I honestly don’t think you need to stop masturbating; there’s nothing harmful about it, no matter what the “NoFap” cultists preach. If you’re uncomfortable with porn, stop watching it for now, but denying yourself the release of masturbation when you feel the need for it isn’t going to help you; it will simply increase your frustration, driving you back into fantasies you find distressing and perpetuating what has become a highly destructive cycle.
(Have a question of your own? Please consult this page to see if I’ve answered it in a previous column, and if not just click here to ask me via email.)
I believe porn and masturbation are maladaptive behaviors for men. If nothing else, they consume time and efforts that are better spent interacting with women, but there is a lot of evidence that the harm can be much deeper. There are too many anecdotes of impotence and other serious problems to dismiss. I think porn addiction can be a real problem, and it is important to point out that this isn’t some sort of “sex addiction” — which is a totally bullshit concept — but a different kind of maladaptive behavior that hijacks a man’s sexual responses and turns him into a miserable asexual person. How much of it is a true addiction with real brain damage and how much is just overindulgence is beside the point when it makes you miserable. Men are happier when they don’t masturbate and don’t look at porn, and advising them otherwise is not in their best interests.
People had these dysfunctions long before porn existed. Their ”addiction” to porn is a symptom of their problems, not the cause. There are billions of socially and sexually active people who enjoy porn.
Porn consumption can sometime be difficult to control, but that is true of all internet media. Unlike traditional interactions, Internet gives us unlimited pleasure 24/7 without asking anything in return and people have not completely adapted to that yet.
How do you know that erectile dysfunction used to be just as common? Obviously some or even most men can enjoy porn without problems, but that does not prove it can’t be addictive. Most people can drink responsibly too, but that doesn’t mean there is no such thing as alcoholism.
I am not buying the claim that the specific problem of impotence with women and NOT with porn is a symptom of some other psychological dysfunction. When a man can’t maintain an erection with the very same women that he masturbates to images of, then that is a pretty clear indication that the porn itself is the problem. Also, how do you explain the vast improvements reported by men who quit masturbating and looking at porn?
Reality check ED rates in young men. All studies assessing young male sexuality since 2010 report historic levels of sexual dysfunctions, and startling rates of a new scourge: low libido. All documented in this article – http://pornstudycritiques.com/research-confirms-sharp-rise-in-youthful-sexual-dysfunctions/
Erectile dysfunction rates ranged from 27 to 33%, while rates for low libido (hypo-sexuality) ranged from 16% to 37%. The lower ranges are taken from studies involving teens and men 25 and under, while the higher ranges are from studies involving men 40 and under.
Prior to the advent of free streaming porn, cross-sectional studies and meta-analysis consistently reported erectile dysfunction rates of 2-5% in men under 40. That’s nearly a 1000% increase in youthful ED rates in the last 20 years. What variable has changed in the last 20 years that could account for this astronomical rise?
Environmental estrogens.
If it were environmental estrogens the rates would have increased in men over 40. They have not. In addition, hormonal mimickers have been around since world war 2. Here are a few studies relating porn use to ED:
1) ) “Adolescents and web porn: a new era of sexuality (2015)” – An Italian study that analyzed the effects of Internet porn on high school seniors, co-authored by urology professor Carlo Foresta, president of the Italian Society of Reproductive Pathophysiology. The most interesting finding is that 16% of those who consume porn more than once a week report abnormally low sexual desire compared with 0% in non-consumers (and 6% for those who consume less than once a week).
2) “Neural Correlates of Sexual Cue Reactivity in Individuals with and without Compulsive Sexual Behaviours (2014)” – This fMRI study by Cambridge University found sensitization in porn addicts which mirrored sensitization in drug addicts. It also found that porn addicts fit the accepted addiction model of wanting “it” more, but not liking “it” more. The researchers also reported that 60% of subjects (average age: 25) had difficulty achieving erections/arousal with real partners, yet could achieve erections with porn. From the study:
– “CSB subjects reported that as a result of excessive use of sexually explicit materials….. experienced diminished libido or erectile function specifically in physical relationships with women (although not in relationship to the sexually explicit material)”
– “Compared to healthy volunteers, CSB subjects had greater subjective sexual desire or wanting to explicit cues and had greater liking scores to erotic cues, thus demonstrating a dissociation between wanting and liking. CSB subjects also had greater impairments of sexual arousal and erectile difficulties in intimate relationships but not with sexually explicit materials highlighting that the enhanced desire scores were specific to the explicit cues and not generalized heightened sexual desire.”
3) “Brain Structure and Functional Connectivity Associated With Pornography Consumption: The Brain on Porn (2014)” – A Max Planck study which found 3 significant addiction-related brain changes correlating with the amount of porn consumed. It also found that the more porn consumed correlated with less reward circuit activity in response to brief exposure (.530 second) to vanilla porn.
Lead author Simone Kühn said –
– “That could mean that regular consumption of pornography more or less wears out your reward system.” Simone
Kühn continued:
– “We assume that subjects with a high porn consumption need increasing stimulation to receive the same amount of reward.”
Kühn says existing psychological, scientific literature suggests consumers of porn will seek material with novel and more extreme sex games:
– “That would fit perfectly the hypothesis that their reward systems need growing stimulation.”
4) “Patient Characteristics by Type of Hypersexuality Referral: A Quantitative Chart Review of 115 Consecutive Male Cases (2015)” – Study on men (average age 41.5) with hypersexuality disorders, such as paraphilias and chronic masturbation or adultery. 27 were classified as “avoidant masturbators,” meaning they masturbated (typically with porn use) one or more hours per day or more than 7 hours per week. 71% reported sexual functioning problems, with 33% reporting delayed ejaculation.
5) “Erectile Dysfunction, Boredom, and Hypersexuality among Coupled Men from Two European Countries (2015)” – Survey reported a strong correlation between erectile dysfunction and measures of hypersexuality. The study omitted correlation data between erectile functioning and pornography use.
6) (not peer-reviewed) Here’s an article about an extensive analysis of comments and questions posted on MedHelp concerning erectile dysfunction. What’s shocking is that 58% of the men asking for help were 24 or younger. Many suspected that internet porn could be involved as described in the results from the study – http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2016/01/07/erectile-dysfunction-internet-forums-flag-up-interesting-findings-about-living-with-the-condition_n_8928544.html
EXCERPT: The most common phrase is “erectile dysfunction” – which is mentioned more than three times as often as any other phrase – followed by “internet porn,” “performance anxiety,” and “watching porn.” Clearly, porn is a frequently discussed subject: “I have been viewing internet pornography frequently (4 to 5 times a week) for the past 6 years,” one man writes. “I am in my mid-20s and have had a problem getting and maintaining an erection with sexual partners since my late teens when I first started looking at internet porn.”
Repeat after me: “Correlation is not causation”. This is a beginner’s mistake when trying to understand scientific results. All you have is correlation and some non-scientific comments. Yet correlation does not even mean these things are causing each other, or one causes the other, there could well be a third thing that causes both.
An example, as Maggie points out quite rightfully, are environmental estrogens. Your “over 40” argument is flawed, as these have been steadily increasing over time, have changed in nature and delivery-vector, and there may well be threshold-effects.
I never said correlation = causation. However, the men in the Cambridge study stated that porn use caused their porn-induced ED.
When someone uses this pat phrase as an argument it makes doubt their basic understanding of science or research. When it comes to psychological and medical studies little research is causation. For example, all studies on the relationship between lung cancer and cigarette smoking are correlative.
When it comes to porn use, nearly every study published is correlative. To show causation you would have to do one of two things:
1) Have two large groups of identical twins separated at birth. Make sure one group never watches porn; make sure the other group watches the exact same type of porn, for exact same hours, and the exact same age. Continue fro 30 years – and assess the differences.
2) Remove the variable. Specifically, have porn users stop, and assess the changes months (years?) later. This is exactly what is occurring as thousands of young men stop porn use a cure chronic erectile dysfunction.
To this date only three studies have removed porn and observed the results. One of those studies had compulsive porn users with severe sexual dysfunction and low libido abstain from porn, which healed his sexual problems. Porn was the cause according to the study.
1) “Trading Later Rewards for Current Pleasure: Pornography Consumption and Delay Discounting (2015)” http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26305628#
– It reported that greater porn use was correlated with less ability to delay gratification. But then the researchers followed porn users and found that continued porn use correlated with less ability to delay gratification. Finally they divide subjects into 2 groups: Half tried to abstain from their favorite food,; half tried to abstain from porn. The ones who tired to abstain from porn saw big changes – they scored much better on their ability to delay gratification. The study said:
“The finding suggests that Internet pornography is a sexual reward that contributes to delay discounting differently than other natural rewards. It is therefore important to treat pornography as a unique stimulus in reward, impulsivity, and addiction studies and to apply this accordingly in individual as well as relational treatment.”
2) “A Love That Doesn’t Last: Pornography Consumption and Weakened Commitment to One’s Romantic Partner (20120” http://guilfordjournals.com/doi/abs/10.1521/jscp.2012.31.4.410
– The study had subjects try to abstain from porn use for 3 weeks. Comparing the two groups, those who continued using pornography reported lower levels of commitment than control participants.
3) Unusual masturbatory practice as an etiological factor in the diagnosis and treatment of sexual dysfunction in young men (2014).http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24674621#
– One of the 4 case studies in this article reports on a man with porn-induced sexual problems (low libido, fetishes, anorgasmia). The sexual intervention called for a 6-week abstinence from porn and masturbation. After 8 months the man reported increased sexual desire, successful sex and orgasm, and enjoying “good sexual practices.”
You seem to have quite a few absolute truths here that do now mesh with what other people observe. You also have cause-effect inversions, a typical staple of anti-scientific propaganda. Or to put it differently: You are full of it.
“Brain damage” from masturbation and/or porn? Seriously? What is this, the dark ages?
On these particular topics you are in a long tradition of people that deeply desire control over others in order to tell them how to live, what to think and what to enjoy or not. That makes you at the very least an evil influence and probably something much, much worse.
Our culture clings to the truism that masturbation is always harmless with about the same tenacity as the idea that underage sex is always harmful, neither of which is true. When so many men report that porn and masturbation mess up their sex life, I think we should take them seriously. I don’t know how much of the negative effect is brain damage and how much is just plain overindulgence that can be reversed, but in any case it is wise to quit using porn and masturbating when it makes you impotent.
I have no desire to control anyone’s behavior; I just want the honest truth about the effects of porn. Everyone should be free to use porn or drugs or whatever as long as they only harm themselves, but it is good to know the effects and not be told lies. You are the one being anti-scientific when you assume you know the truth without looking at the evidence.
Awesome! You managed to link underage sex with masterbation!
Next, can you link terrorism with masterbation?
Seeing that our culture is able to hold insane beliefs about underage sex, why can’t the same be true about masturbation? Not every change is progress. It could be that we have gained some harmful taboos (against underage sex) and lost others that were actually beneficial (about masturbation).
Our culture is indeed able to hold insane beliefs about many things. But the taboo against masturbation is rooted in a desire to control people’s sexuality (just take a look at what the bible says about various sexual practices).
I am sorry, but that description is totally wrong for the support groups I have seen for men with porn-related ED. They are just trying to heal and understand what is wrong with them, not control anyone’s sexual practices.
They approach the issue much like people deal with nicotine addiction — as a pure health matter devoid of any shameful aspects. There is no need to psychoanalyze why one has problems with real sex after using lots of porn any more than one should look for deeper causes of smoking. Just stay away from the bad stuff and you will be much healthier.
Please keep in mind when…when…crap, I can’t remember the name. When God got angry at “him” for spilling his seed, it wasn’t because of masturbation. He was supposed to impregnate a woman and he pulled out to keep it from happening. Most of the sex “rules” in the Bible are actually pretty common sense ideas, like no incest. A lot of the crap that has come out of churches (sex is only for procreation!!!!) is not based on the Bible.
It’s Onan (hence onanism). It’s also the name of a the dog in the novel Dodger from Terry Pratchett
Document. If you truly are this dedicated to the idea masturbation is bad, you’re on the Internet. Document.
When something you are doing is obviously making you unhappy, do you need wait for randomized, controlled trials to prove that it is bad? Those trials may never come in your lifetime, because it is hard to find a control group that does not use porn these days. It is just common sense to do what works, and that is the extent of my dedication to this matter. I am not on a crusade to convince everybody, just reacting to misguided advice.
Any man who has felt the invigorating power of nofap knows what I am talking about, and the rest can believe whatever they want.
When a man can’t maintain an erection with the very same women that he masturbates to images of, then that is a pretty clear indication that the porn itself is the problem.
Sorry Eiviand, that’s total BS. There are other reasons, including performance anxiety, that could come in to play. For example, over the years I’ve had issues with medications causing ED. I could take care of myself just find, but being with someone was an issue. I finally figured out that “it” needed 100% attention, or flat she’d go. Masturbating is pretty much 100% hands on. Being in the sack isn’t always…
This gentleman seems to have more of an issue with accepting himself and what he’s in to. I’m wondering if he has the same lust/hate relationship with women in general…and that’s why he “tenses up” when he’s with them.
I can agree with you that sometimes porn can be harmful. But not always, and not in this case.
Anti-sex types previously used blindness as a side-effect. That was untrue.
Then it was said to cause men to turn into ravenous monsters. Another falsehood.
So now they use ED, which curious indeed. Neo-feminists suddenly care about male sexual performance when previously they saw it as something completely negative.
I am just going to combine a bunch of replie in a single post for ease of consumption:
”How do you know that erectile dysfunction used to be just as common?”
Charlatans have been selling magic potency cures since the dawn of time. There is nothing to suggest an increase in ED either. Given the explosion of porn accessibility in the last few decades we should expect the human race to become extint any day now.
”Obviously some or even most men can enjoy porn without problems, but that does not prove it can’t be addictive. Most people can drink responsibly too…”
That’s not what you said in your original post; the statements were a lot more absolute. Your comparison with alcohol is not right, because either you drink alcohol or you don’t, whereas masturbation and sex with a woman are both sex acts. This is totally different from getting addicted to a poison. You claim that masturbation is a bad sex act that negatively affects your good sex acts, while most psychologists today would say it can actually improve it.
”When a man can’t maintain an erection with the very same women that he masturbates to images of, then that is a pretty clear indication that the porn itself is the problem.”
Seriously, this comment shows a poor understanding of sex. This discrepency is nothing unusual. Looking at a picture is pure fantasy and is really not the same as interacting with the person. There’s the person’s attitude, demeanor, smell; how much she puts you at ease; a millions little details you don’t control that might turn you off or turn you on in a completely different way than simply looking at her picture. And there’s performance anxiety, which I think is likely part of the problem for that guy who wrote to Maggie..
There’s nothing wrong with porn, but there is often something wrong with people’s expectation and how they think about sex. Shooting target practice doesn’t prepare you for an encounter with a magnificent stag or a charging rhino.
”Also, how do you explain the vast improvements reported by men who quit masturbating and looking at porn?”
The same way I would explain a spiel from someone who says he found Jesus. The problem with these porn addiction therapies is that they do not focus on the real source of the person’s problems. The compulsive behavior is simply shifted to a new activity, the program itself.
”When so many men report that porn and masturbation mess up their sex life…”
As with sex work and gay sex, the mess-up usually comes from guilt and stigma associated to the act, not the act itself.
I never said porn leads to ED 100% of the time. I said it was maladaptive, with negative effects ranging from wasted time to a complete inability to have sex with women in real life. Some men are more prone to these problems than others, just like some people get addicted to drugs that others can use recreationally.
You simply take it as an article of faith that there is nothing wrong with porn and masturbation. I used to believe so myself for the first 30 years of my life, but I now find the evidence to the contrary convincing. Whether porn is harmful to a man’s sexual function is an empirical question, not something you can simply assert because it sounds good to you. Moralism doesn’t enter into it, and the fact that some moralists also condemn masturbation is a red herring. The people who link porn with ED actually strike me as some of the least moralistic people around. They don’t claim prostitution or promiscuity or homosexuality is bad for you, for example, so they don’t fit this stereotype.
I am well aware of performance anxiety, which may account for some of the 2-5% of young men who experienced ED before the porn epidemic. But it doesn’t explain the 1000% increase in recent years. Environmental estrogens are also an unconvincing explanation for all of this, though I am open to learning more about their effects. Porn is the elephant in the room that a lot of you want to dismiss for dogmatic reasons without even studying how it works, and that is not a rational position.
When it comes to research about porn and masturbation I will take my cue from psychologist and real sex therapists, not the media or random people on discussion boards. There is no peer-reviewed study showing a link between porn and ED.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/women-who-stray/201308/erectile-dysfunction-myth
Porn can be used improperly just like anything, but it’s not intrinsically harmful. In the words of Dr Marty Klein ”the solution is to make love consciously, and to watch porn consciously. That helps to keep the two activities separate, which is the key to enjoying both.”
https://sexualintelligence.wordpress.com/2014/11/11/want-to-watch-a-lot-of-porn-and-have-good-sex/
Nice links. In particular, the first one is fascinating. Clears up a lot, in particular that ED may not actually have become more widespread among the young, but that they now dare to admit the problem and seek help, when earlier they did not.
Francois – “There is no peer-reviewed study showing a link between porn and ED.”
This is false: Here are a few studies relating porn use to ED:
1) ) “Adolescents and web porn: a new era of sexuality (2015)” – An Italian study that analyzed the effects of Internet porn on high school seniors, co-authored by urology professor Carlo Foresta, president of the Italian Society of Reproductive Pathophysiology. The most interesting finding is that 16% of those who consume porn more than once a week report abnormally low sexual desire compared with 0% in non-consumers (and 6% for those who consume less than once a week).
2) “Neural Correlates of Sexual Cue Reactivity in Individuals with and without Compulsive Sexual Behaviours (2014)” – This fMRI study by Cambridge University found sensitization in porn addicts which mirrored sensitization in drug addicts. It also found that porn addicts fit the accepted addiction model of wanting “it” more, but not liking “it” more. The researchers also reported that 60% of subjects (average age: 25) had difficulty achieving erections/arousal with real partners, yet could achieve erections with porn. THE MEN SAID PORN CAUSED THIER ED. From the study:
– “CSB subjects reported that as a result of excessive use of sexually explicit materials….. experienced diminished libido or erectile function specifically in physical relationships with women (although not in relationship to the sexually explicit material)”
– “Compared to healthy volunteers, CSB subjects had greater subjective sexual desire or wanting to explicit cues and had greater liking scores to erotic cues, thus demonstrating a dissociation between wanting and liking. CSB subjects also had greater impairments of sexual arousal and erectile difficulties in intimate relationships but not with sexually explicit materials highlighting that the enhanced desire scores were specific to the explicit cues and not generalized heightened sexual desire.”
3) “Unusual masturbatory practice as an etiological factor in the diagnosis and treatment of sexual dysfunction in young men (2014)” CAUSATION STUDY.
– One of the 4 case studies in this article reports on a man with porn-induced sexual problems (low libido, fetishes, anorgasmia). The sexual intervention called for a 6-week abstinence from porn and masturbation. After 8 months the man reported increased sexual desire, successful sex and orgasm, and enjoying “good sexual practices.”
4) This study linked porn with less brain activation to sexual images (not ED).
“Brain Structure and Functional Connectivity Associated With Pornography Consumption: The Brain on Porn (2014)”
– A Max Planck study which found 3 significant addiction-related brain changes correlating with the amount of porn consumed. It also found that the more porn consumed correlated with less reward circuit activity in response to brief exposure (.530 second) to vanilla porn.
Lead author Simone Kühn said –
– “That could mean that regular consumption of pornography more or less wears out your reward system.” Simone
Kühn continued:
– “We assume that subjects with a high porn consumption need increasing stimulation to receive the same amount of reward.”
Kühn says existing psychological, scientific literature suggests consumers of porn will seek material with novel and more extreme sex games:
– “That would fit perfectly the hypothesis that their reward systems need growing stimulation.”
4) “Patient Characteristics by Type of Hypersexuality Referral: A Quantitative Chart Review of 115 Consecutive Male Cases (2015)” – Study on men (average age 41.5) with hypersexuality disorders, such as paraphilias and chronic masturbation or adultery. 27 were classified as “avoidant masturbators,” meaning they masturbated to porn one or more hours per day or more than 7 hours per week. 71% of the compulsive porn users reported sexual functioning problems, with 33% reporting delayed ejaculation.
I think you misinterpret many of your citations. For example the case studies of 4 guy who have *unusual* masturbation practice. This has nothing to do with masturbation/porn causing ED, but how masturbation behaviors of people who have serious problems can be important factors to consider during evaluation of their cases. You can’t take these very specific pathological cases and conclude that any healthy person who stop masturbating would feel better. Other citations rely on questionnaires where people and kids ‘’self diagnose’’ addiction or other problems.
Also, you can’t just cherry pick the ones that support your opinion. There are scientific studies that show no difference between porn consumers and control, or even increased responsiveness:
Viewing Sexual Stimuli Associated with Greater Sexual Responsiveness, Not Erectile Dysfunction (2015) Sexual Medicine. Volume 3, Issue 2, pages 90–98, June 2015
Is Pornography Use Associated with Sexual Difficulties and Dysfunctions among Younger Heterosexual Men? The Journal of Sexual Medicine Volume 12, Issue 5, pages 1136–1139, May 2015
Honestly I don’t have the qualifications in that field to judge the scientific merits of each paper. So I rely on the consensus among psychiatrists, which is that there is no link.
No I didn’t misinterpret anything. I have the full study, and I described one of the 4 cases accurately. Porn cause anorgsmia, loss of libido and fetishises that did not match his original tastes. . removing porn fro 8 months reversed all those conditions.
As for “Viewing Sexual Stimuli Associated with Greater Sexual Responsiveness, Not Erectile Dysfunction (2015) Sexual Medicine.”
None of the data from the Prause & Pfaus (2015) paper matched the four earlier studies. The discrepancies were not small and have not been explained. A comment by researcher Richard A. Isenberg MD, published in Sexual Medicine Open Access, points out several (but not all) of the discrepancies, errors, and unsupported claims. see – http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/sm2.71/full
See a second lay critique that provides even more details. -http://www.rebootnation.org/forum/index.php?page=Prause_ED_Study_Critique
It should be known that the paper wasn’t a study at all. Instead Prause & Pfaus claimed to have gathered data from four of her earlier studies, none of which had anything to do with erectile dysfunction. The four underlying papers claimed to have assessed hours of porn use in the last month. Even when asked for – the data was not supplied for hours of use as related to IIEF scores.
Contrary to claism the Prause & Pfaus paper did not assess erection quality in the lab or erections”. Remember this was data from 4 earlier papers – none of which reported physiological assessment of erections in lab. The papers only asked guys to rate their “arousal,” after briefly viewing porn (not to rate their erectile function). An excerpt from Prause & Pfaus (2015) clearly states that no genital responses were included:
“No physiological genital response data were included to support men’s self-reported experience.”
As Dr. Isenberg wondered, how is it possible for Prause & Pfaus to have compared different subject’s arousal levels when three different types of sexual stimuli were used in the 4 underlying studies: Two studies used a 3-minute film, one study used a 20-second film, and one study used still images. It’s well established that films are far more arousing than photos. What’s shocking is that in this paper Prause & Pfaus claim that all 4 studies used sexual films:
“The VSS presented in the studies were all films.”
Yet this was not the case.
Dr. Isenberg also asked how Prause & Pfaus compared different subject’s arousal levels when only 1 of the 4 underlying studies used a 1 to 9 scale. One used a 0 to 7 scale, one used a 1 to 7 scale, and one study did not report sexual arousal ratings. Once again Prause & Pfaus inaccurately claim that:
“men were asked to indicate their level of “sexual arousal” ranging from 1 “not at all” to 9 “extremely.”
Yet this was not the case.
============================
As for “Is Pornography Use Associated with Sexual Difficulties and Dysfunctions among Younger Heterosexual Men?” it to has been formally criticized in a peer-reviewed journal here . http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25974236
It has been analyzed here also – http://www.yourbrainonporn.com/study-young-men-ed-rates-31-low-libido-37-it-cant-be-porn
Farncois – There is nothing to suggest an increase in ED either
Absolutely false.
Reality check on ED rates in young men. All studies assessing young male sexuality since 2010 report historic levels of sexual dysfunctions, and startling rates of a new scourge: low libido. All documented in this article – http://pornstudycritiques.com/research-confirms-sharp-rise-in-youthful-sexual-dysfunctions/
Erectile dysfunction rates ranged from 27 to 33%, while rates for low libido (hypo-sexuality) ranged from 16% to 37%. The lower ranges are taken from studies involving teens and men 25 and under, while the higher ranges are from studies involving men 40 and under.
Prior to the advent of free streaming porn, cross-sectional studies and meta-analysis consistently reported erectile dysfunction rates of 2-5% in men under 40. That’s nearly a 1000% increase in youthful ED rates in the last 20 years. What variable has changed in the last 20 years that could account for this astronomical rise?
”What variable has changed in the last 20 years that could account for this astronomical rise?”
One word: viagra.
An increase in reports of ED doesn’t mean there is an actual increase in cases. ED used to be a big stigma to manhood and people did not talk so much openly about their sex problems. Now we have viagra and it creates a big incentive for men to tell their doctor about their problems. Even worse, many men tell their doctors they have ED to get viagra even if they are perfectly normal.
The fact that many young men report ED simply mean the past assumption that young men can get it up anytime was wrong. In fact a lot of the ”problems” are actually pretty normal and people often have unrealistic expectation about how easily they should get an erection.
The problem is not _new_ studies. The problem is lack of reliable _old_ studies. But I see you are struggling with the basic idea of how do do historic comparisons. That would explain the complete nonsense you are posting.
To the letter writer:
Quite frankly, I think alcohol is killing you slowly and the other things will mostly or completely be side-effects of that. Alcohol is a viscous killer when abused, much more so than many other drugs that get are illegal and get demonized.
Get help to get away from the alcohol and only then re-evaluate what is left from your other problems.
Francois – “One word: viagra.”
That’s Funny. ED Rates have increased over 1000% since the advent of Internet porn. Fact. Your claim about ED rates has been refuted. It would be great to say “I was wrong”.
You don’t seem to understand. This was not men going to the doctor for ED. The data came from studies using anonymous standardized questionnaires where men rate the quality of their erections and arousal during sex.
More refuting data – during this same time, men over 50 did not report increases in ED or low libido. If Viagra caused ED as you cl;aim, older men would surely see skyrocketing rates. In one meta-study, young men had greater rates of ED than men 50-80. Same questionnaire, same European countries.
More refuting data – A 2014 study on Canadian adolescents reported that 53.5% of males aged 16-21 have symptoms indicative of a sexual problem. Erectile dysfunction was the most common (27%), followed by low sexual desire (24%), and problems with orgasm (11%). The authors were baffled why rates were so high, and were surprised that sexual dysfunction rates for males surpassed females, unlike in earlier published literature. It’s ludicrous to suggest that teenage guys develop ED due to Viagra commercials.
More – Using the IIEF-5, a 2012 cross-sectional study of Swiss men aged 18-24 found ED rates of 30%, Once again, the historical rates are 2% for this age group.
Finally – there’s no empirical support for Viagra causing ED.
I never said viagra causes ED. I said the advent of viagra was a shift in how people think about ED. Now that there’s an easy way to fix some ED, people have a lot of incentive to talk about it instead of being ashamed. What was previously a taboo is now a obsession. The situation has even shifted to the point where people are more likely to self-diagnose problems when they are perfectly normal.
I’ll say it again: a 10-fold increase in reports of ED does not mean an increase in actual cases. When there is strong stigma, people lie to questionaires as well as withold info to their doctors. For example a few years after Sweden criminalized the buying of sex, studies showed that the number of people who admit to ever buying sex decreased dramatically (even though the new law does not erase past behavior and should not change the statistics in just a few years).
A 10 fold increase means that you were incorrect in your claims that ED rates have not changed. It aligns perfectly with the increase in streaming free videos (porn tube sites that started in 2006), and this increased asses to internet porn aligns perfectly with the increase in youthful sexual dysfunctions.
What we also have is many urologists, urology professors, psychiatrists psychologists, abd sexologist claiming that they are seeing men with porn-induced ED, See this very long list of articles/videos by experts (several urology professors) who have treated porn-induced ED – http://www.yourbrainonporn.com/porn-induced-ed-media
On that same page the first ten links go to studies that found relationships n between Internet porn and ED, low libido, declining brain responses to sexual images, and altered brain structure/functioning.
On this page you will find 23 neuroscience-based studies on porn users. http://pornstudycritiques.com/current-list-of-brain-studies-on-porn-users/
So far, the results of every “brain study” (MRI, fMRI, EEG, neuropsychological, hormonal) offer support for the concept of porn addiction. In addition to reporting the same fundamental brain changes as seen in substance addicts, a few studies also reported greater porn use is associated with erectile dysfunction, decreased libido, and reduced neural response to images of vanilla porn. Clicking on the name of the study leads to the original paper.
In summary:
1) we have studies correlating porn use with low libido, ED, and less neural response to sexual stimuli,
2) we have experts who say that porn causes sexual dysfunctions
3) We have thousands of young otherwise healthy men who have recovered from sexual dysfunction by eliminating porn use
4) we have a 1000% increase in youthful ED rates in the last 20 years
5) we have brain studies that show the same brain changes in porn users as occur in drug addicts
Yes, the evidence linking porn use to ED is overwhelming. On the other side in this debate we have seen one fraudulent study and a bunch of convoluted alternative explanations that border on the absurd and certainly don’t survive an application of Occam’s razor. We are to believe that a tenfold increase in reported ED in young men down to their teens is due to the availability of Viagra, and then when thousands of them are cured by giving up porn it is due to pure coincidence or placebo. I feel like I am arguing with a Creationist or similarly dogmatic person.
What is really happening is that getting aroused by pixels is a maladaptive byproduct of the male sex drive that evolution failed to account for, unfortunately. Masturbation was always a possibility, but without porn it wasn’t compelling enough to derail our sex drive. If Internet porn had been present in our ancestral environment, we would have have developed an extra adaptation to distinguish it from real women so as to not let it hijack our reproductive efforts. It is a case of evolutionarily novel stimuli having twisted, noxious effects. So we must use our intelligence to resist it — if we can get past the religiously held cultural belief that porn can’t possibly be harmful.
The good news is that when we do manage to avoid the noxious stimuli of porn, our healthy sex drive tends to get restored, along with healthy erectile function. This is why Maggie’s advice that one should masturbate to relieve frustration is spectacularly wrong. The restlessness you feel when not masturbating is not really frustration at all, but rather your healthy instincts kicking in and not only telling you, but enabling you to meet women because it makes you feel powerful and confident.
I see you still have not grasped the mechanisms of “cause” and “effect”. That may be the reason why you draw invalid conclusions and are unable to understand counter-arguments to the nonsense you are presenting here.
I can only advise anybody to completely disregard anything you say and to run the other way when you approach them. Your influence is toxic.
Interesting comments battle. Here are a few responses:
ED was only truly acknowledged in the 90-‘s, after the advent of Viagra. The higher rates of admitted ED since then, are due to the decreased shame in acknowledging it. The anxiety felt by men attempting to have sex with a woman affects their performance, in a way that relaxed masturbation to porn does not trigger. Watching porn, our minds are in a passive mode, same when watching television. In sex, we must be more active, and this triggers greater anxiety and interference with erectile function. I recently had the opportunity to interview Isaac Abel, who famously wrote a few popular pieces on Porn-Related ED. Two years later, he’s still not watching porn, but still struggles with ED, which he now relates to anxiety and morality conflicts.
The attempt to distinguish porn addiction from sex addiction is a common trope in believers of porn addiction. Unfortunately, their real argument is that it is masturbation to porn which is addictive – the overwhelming majority of porn consumption involves masturbation. Thus, to separate the idea of porn addiction requires the demonstration that masturbation to porn is neurologically distinct from masturbation without. No such research exists. So, porn addiction is really relabeled “masturbation addiction,” a la Kellog – get out your spiked cock cages and strap them on to prevent masculinity from being weakened by masturbation.
The brain studies on porn effect are interesting. What they really seem to demonstrate is that people with higher libido and higher sensation-seeking gravitate towards greater porn use, as a result of pre-existing neurological characteristics. No causality has been demonstrated, indicating that porn causes any brain changes, certainly none which are distinct from other forms of entertainment such as television or pro-sports. I agree, watching lots of porn, television or sports IS likely to affect your brain. This is called “learning.” If you want to ban activities which change your brain, I wish you the best of luck. Perhaps you can start with the brain changes caused by conservativism.
Men and women do need to be mindful, and responsible, in their use of porn. I believe we too often use porn without thinking about what role we want it to play in our lives, in our coping, sexuality, and relationships. I encourage all people to do an assessment of their porn use, and evaluate what it means and says about them as a person, compared to how and who they want to be. But, the problem is in them, not in the porn.
I’m as sex-positive as one can be and I don’t have anything against porn in general, but I KNOW that watching porn can be harmful to a fulfilled sex life. I noticed it myself when I went through phases of watching more porn than usually (and my porn consumption is hardly excessive, probably only a faction of what the average guy watches). I noticed desensitization. Touching, feeling, smelling, and being in a sexual situation, didn’t turn me on as much as it would normally, and the only situation I got really wet was while watching porn.
I suspect some of my clients (mostly younger ones) watch too much porn. They restlessly change positions (as is the norm in many porn clips), seem mechanical as if they’ve lost sensuality or never really learned to “feel sex”.
Not rocket science; if a guy masturbates a lot, it’s going to diminish his libido responses. Those endocrines take time to regenerate, matey. That’s just biology.
I’ve had struggles sometimes to ejaculate, regardless of what I’m doing to bring that about, and how frustrated I feel psychologically by not being able to salve that frustration.
One thing that often works is : take a breather, relax, and try in a few minutes; in other words, let the endocrine pathway restore its balance a tad.
Interval between sexual activity (of any description) is as important as not going too long without it. They’re both required for your wellbeing, and the balance between them is personal to *you*. Nobody else should be telling you, listen to yourself, as it were.
Anxiety doesn’t help at all. It is,in fact, a moodkiller: the endocrines released by an anxious brain actively block the pathway that allows sexual release. The need is blocking the solution, as it were.
I get what you’re going through. You’re by no means alone in it.