Multiple countries are trying to force porn sites to have an efficient age verification. With frightening numbers like half of 12 year old boys go monthly to porn sites.
Sure for an adult who remember the time where at best one kid would have brought a magazine to school, it feels concerning. However, it’s been easily 20 years that every household has high speed internet which is full of porn. So the kids under 30 (let’s call them Gen-Z) had a massive access to porn while growing up.
Is there any “sociologicial” studies about how it impacted these young adults ? Are they sexually more fucked-up than the millennials ?
Here’s a long-form interview between a sex researcher and a urologist (MD) about how porn really effects us; both on an individual level; and in aggregate as a society. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEqe5dHuQYE
TLDR: Porn is a bit of an over-stimulation on the brain, but the scale of the effect is similar to caffeine or nicotine. Far less impactful than that of any hard drug like cocaine or heroine. And unlike a chemical stimulant, it’s impossible to overdoes. Some people have excessive reactions to watching porn and having it readily available, so things like porn addiction are real and shouldn’t be dismissed. But the frequency of this is low (far lower than nicotine, gambling, or alcohol as comparison points) and the severity of such addictions are often minor (addicts skip other social interactions, but are unlikely to go into debt or lose jobs except in the most extreme cases).
There is no strong evidence that early exposure to porn via the internet has significant adverse effects. There are worse effects from exposure to violent content (including violent porn) than pornography in general.
This makes sense as from an evolutionary standpoint seeing other naked humans is expected. It’s only recently (in evolutionary time frames) that we’d not expect children to see other naked humans regularly or be unexposed to sex at all until an adult age. From a biological standpoint it makes perfect sense that our brain can handle seeing other people engaged in sexual activity.
I’m curious if you’ve seen this TED talk and what you think of it. It’s an interesting argument that while our brains can handle porn, excessive use can cause behavioral changes such as preferring porn over a real partner.
https://youtu.be/wSF82AwSDiU
I’ve not seen it before, I’ll check it out. Thanks!