You may have heard that pornography rewires the brain. Or that it causes erectile dysfunction. Or that it is addictive. There is strong evidence to support all of these conclusions. 36 In this chapter, I invite you to join me as we explore pornography’s biological effects.
Porn Rewires the Brain
In recent years, one of the most interesting findings about the effects of pornography focuses on how pornographic images rewire the brain. Gaining an understanding of exactly how the brain can be rewired is important in order to have a full understanding of how viewing pornography can impact the behavior of those you love.
In an article about pornography and the male brain, Dr. William Struthers, author of Wired for Intimacy: How Pornography Hijacks the Male Brian, noted,
“The on-demand availability of robust sexual stimuli presents a unique problem for developing and maintaining a healthy sexuality. The ease of access, variety of images, and the vigorous sensory constitution of this media go beyond the strength of mental imagery and fantasy. People can see whatever they want, whenever they want, however they want. In doing so they can generate, serve, and satisfy their sensual nature. Pornography creates a world today where the consumer (usually men) has the ability to bring up at their whim graphic (and sometimes interactive) depictions of nudity and sexual encounters. Women are perpetually available for their pleasure with minimal immediate consequences. People become disposable.”37
Some of the most powerful studies of the brain and pornography come from investigating brain scans. In one experiment, the brains of men were scanned while they viewed porn. When neurologists looked at their brain imaging scans, men’s brains reacted to women as if they were objects, not people.38 This is important because it is the process of dehumanizing a person that makes violence against them much more acceptable.39
Research comparing the brains of people who are addicted to pornography versus those who are not has found that addicts like pornography just as much as others, but they desire it much more. So, when brain scans of men who are addicted to pornography are compared to non-addicts, they both respond the same way in their “liking centers” but respond differently in the “desire centers” of their brains. When addicted men were shown pornography while their brains were being scanned, their dorsal anterior cingulate, ventral striatum and amygdala were activated – showing a strong desire for the material, more so than other, non-addicted men. In short, all men tested liked pornography, addicted men felt like they had to have it.40 In an interesting twist, the men who were addicted to pornography had first seen porn much earlier in their lives than did the healthy men.
Gary Wilson has conducted a series of studies about pornography and the brain. Wilson is the author of the book Your Brain on Porn41 and the website of the same name. His research supports the conclusion that pornography retrains the brain. He found that the very maps that nerve cells travel through the brain become re-routed as people use more and more pornography. A main point to remember is “nerve cells that fire together, wire together” (Wilson, 2014, p. 68).
But how does this happen? If a person experiences sexual release through self-stimulation while watching pornography, their sexual desire becomes retrained from the pre-wired, God designed desire for sexual gratification achieved through interacting with another person, to the rewired desire for images on a screen. Furthermore, as men become less aroused by initial, more tame, images, they begin to seek novelty – often more violent images – to obtain the same level of physical and psychological arousal. This “novelty and habituation” effect has been shown experimentally. Specifically, men were shown the same explicit film repeatedly. After time, they found it less arousing (they habituated to it), but once exposed to a new film (novelty) their arousal increased to the same level as it was when first seeing the initial film. In short, the same old images become boring after awhile, so the body seeks new ones to keep its arousal up.42
This habituation rang true with Greg, a research participant for this book. Greg is a secondary school teacher in a private school and part-time graduate student who is about to turn 30. He comes across as charismatic, good looking, and thoughtful. Greg is a devout follower of Jesus. He also admits to a lifelong battle, indeed addiction, to pornography. He described some of his initial forays into pornography like this:
“At first watching people have sex disturbed me, I didn’t want to see it. But then slowly, it is totally a drug. I developed tolerance. So what shocked me became interesting and what used to interest me became boring. And it took more variety, more frequency to get the same effect. And the really wicked part about it is it gets more perverted. So I felt that happening and it terrified me. After a while I realized I was addicted and I needed to do anything it takes to get out of this.”
Greg is describing the rewiring of his brain. Much of this rewiring occurs because of a brain chemical called dopamine. As Wilson describes it, dopamine functions within the body to motivate you to do what is in the best interest of your genes. The more dopamine that is released in your body, the more you are drawn to a particular experience. The highest amount of dopamine is released when someone is sexually stimulated and experiences sexual release. Other researchers have described dopamine as essentially the glue that holds together the connection of nerves in our brain that lead us to repeat behaviors.43
We learn from neuroscience that dopamine works alongside opioids. Dopamine influences the desire for an experience; the opioid makes you like it. Internet porn provides unlimited sexual stimuli, stimulating dopamine to continuously release to a chemical level that is nearly impossible to match through natural human bodily experiences. Thus the brain becomes trained for a level of stimulation (to quickly and constantly available computer images) that can’t possibly be duplicated in real life.
When brain cells that fire together wire together,44 the brain is linking up the nerves for sexual excitement with the nerves that store memories of how the body got to that level of excitement. When a viewer opens up a porn site that is found satisfying, the dopamine level in the brain and connections between nerve cells bond in stronger and stronger ways.
In the process of using more and more pornography, the brain gets used to self-stimulation to porn and feeling a pleasurable release. What people don’t usually realize is that gradually, their brain starts to fight them. Professor Wilson found that when the brain keeps experiencing abnormally high levels of stimulation (such as with sexual release while watching porn), it moves into a protective mode of lowering the dopamine release, so that people will want less of the overly stimulating experience. So with less dopamine, the viewer becomes less satisfied with self-stimulating to the same old porn. The individual is then compelled to desperately seek stimulation that might elicit the same levels of a dopamine experienced previously. The brain changes, physically, and becomes desensitized to the images it saw before and needs more and more to reach the same levels of arousal. Just like the experience Greg just described. This greater need for stimulation is called tolerance. And tolerance is one of the key markers of addiction.
The process of rewiring the brain is also described by Dr. Struthers. The assertion that men are visual when it comes to sexuality is so commonly stated; few would argue that it has not made it into the everyday human vernacular. Noting this visual sensitivity, Dr. Struthers observed,
“The male brain seems to be built in such a way that visual cues that have sexual relevance (e.g., the naked female form, solicitous facial expressions) have a hypnotic effect on him. When these cues are detected, they trigger a cascade of neurological, chemical, and hormonal events. In some ways they are like the “hit” of a drug—there is a rush of sexual arousal and energy that accompanies it. How a man learns to deal with this energy and to form an appropriate response to it is part of becoming a mature adult. The psychological, behavioral, and emotional habits that form our sexual character will be based on the decisions we make. Whenever the sequence of arousal and response is activated, it forms a neurological memory that will influence future processing and response to sexual cues. As this pathway becomes activated and traveled, it becomes a preferred route—a mental journey—that is regularly trod. The consequences of this are far-reaching.”45
Erectile Dysfunction
This rewiring of the brain leads to several other ill effects. The most disturbing to many men is erectile dysfunction, specifically, the inability to obtain and maintain an erection. Many men who become addicted to pornography experience both erectile dysfunction and decreased attraction to live partners. In fact over half of porn addicts have one or the other of these two experiences.46 Building on this research, another set of neurologists found that if a man’s use of porn is ‘compulsive,’ there is a greater than 50% chance he will have difficulty achieving an erection with a real partner, but will have no trouble having erections with porn.47
These effects are a major concern Greg reported. He said,
“Based on my experience with it, it is an addiction, I know that dopamine is involved, neural pathways are involved. I have trained myself over the years through the use of pornography. I’ve just basically reversed the dopamine in my brain; my natural functions have rerouted. So I think that sex with a real person who would be my wife wouldn’t work like it should if I ever get married. Like it may not be stimulating to me. It makes me feel like I’ve ruined my life. But, I still have hope, I mean I can change, I hear. I’ve heard psychologists talk about neuroplasticity, that itself gives me hope, miracles aside.”
Neuroplasticity
Neurologists define neuroplasticity as the ability of the brain to build and rebuild connections. Due to this, after stopping pornography use, the brain is able to reboot itself, albeit slowly, to return to its normal way of functioning. This neuroplasticity effect is something that neurologists have found in the brains of people who stop using pornography, where their brain begins to reboot to its originally designed way of functioning. But it isn’t easy. Professor Wilson reports that several studies examining brain scans of pornography users (not addicts, but users) found that with increasing porn use comes a weaker brain, a reduced sense of reward from everyday activities, and weaker willpower. Therein lies one of the insidious elements of porn, it hooks a man and with more use, weakens his ability to leave it behind. After prolonged pornography use, the reward system in the brain simply wears out.
Professor Wilson also reports a wide variety of harms from porn including “depression, anxiety, stress, and social malfunctioning, as well as less sexual and relationship satisfaction and altered sexual tastes, poorer quality of life and health, and real-life intimacy problems.” (p. 20). Of course, none of this is desirable.
An addicted condition is not without hope, however. Professor Wilson notes that recovery from an addiction to pornography can occur thanks to the neuroplasticity of the brain. The process obviously necessitates abstinence from viewing pornography. This can take between two and six months, in a process called rebooting. So what is the process like within the brain when a person views pornography? Dr. William Struthers, noted in a recent article that,
“The human body consumes and digests food. In a similar way, we can think about the brain as a consumer of stimuli and information. When we eat, food is broken down by the digestive system and used to supply the body with the energy it needs to survive and thrive. Once it has been fully digested, whatever that is unusable (waste) is excreted. This helps to ensure the healthy functioning of the organism. If we take this analogy and extend it to the brain, the brain’s job is to consume and digest information. This information is taken in through the eyes and other senses and digested and stored with meaning and memories. Anything that might have strong emotional content or is highlighted as being important information is stored and used later. The brain doesn’t always get to decide what it wants to keep and what it doesn’t. Sexual images are inherently powerful and have emotional content. As such, pornography forces itself on the brain. Whether one consents or not, pornography becomes a part of the fabric of the mind.” He continued, “The plasticity of the beautiful, complex brain can be a blessing or a curse. While the brain is malleable, it typically follows a set of rules in performing its functions. These rules govern how connections are made, how images are processed, how behaviors are executed, and how emotions are triggered. It is here in some of these circuits that pornography seems to be exploiting one of the brain’s Achilles’ heels: the naked human form. There are few things in the world that can grab someone’s attention like the naked human body, and fewer still than naked bodies engaged in an intimate sexual act. One need look no further than prime time television, DVD sales, and the most frequently viewed websites to see that a great amount of time, energy, and resources take advantage of this fact of life. Sexuality and nakedness are used to entice us to watch, to buy, to follow, and to arouse us to any number of other actions. Our sexual nature provides a powerful impulse that tends to drive us. While it is true that not everyone who looks at sexually explicit images develops addictive or compulsive patterns of consumption and acting out, it is important to note that these images of nakedness and sexuality tap into a reflexive arousal response in many men, which can lead to devastating outcomes.”48
Porn Can Be Addictive
So all this leads to a question many men have. How do I know if I am addicted to pornography? Professor Wilson ascribes to the “3 C Theory” – craving, (loss of) control, and (negative) consequences. With craving, someone becomes focused on getting, using, or getting over the use of a substance or experience. As behavior becomes less under the control of the individual, they use the substance for longer periods of time and more frequently, largely due to their increased level of tolerance. They then experience the consequences that come with addiction – physical, interpersonal, work, financial, and psychological problems.49
Greg commented on his struggle with pornography addiction.
“It’s an addiction and it is the worst thing that has ever happened to me and definitely the hardest thing I’ve faced in my whole life; I have kind of faced it my whole life (long pause). But I have hope, because I know I’m not meant to be that way and I think it is a spiritual issue. I’m making a choice to allow myself to be exploited spiritually and economically by forces in Miami and in southern California and in New York, and I think there is something similar spiritual going on, that is what I am up against. On the other hand I have friends who love me and will accept me in spite of that with whom I can talk openly about things. And I think God wants me to be free from pornography and masturbation and I’ve seen him allow me to be. Whatever happens mysteriously with free will, his grace, and providence, freedom is possible and it happened this year; it was an encouraging time in the spring and it was very victorious and I’ve seen it and I know it can happen.”
Digging deeper into this brain phenomenon, a group of neurologists studied more brain scans of people who use pornography. They used an experimental design in order to demonstrate cause and effect. They found that people who use more pornography become less able to wait for gratification than people who use less pornography. Because Internet pornography supplies a never-ending supply of potential visual rewards and given that sexual rewards are so strongly reinforcing (due to dopamine), the brain becomes retrained to demand more rewards earlier, rather than waiting for better rewards later.50
Over time, there has been a great deal of controversy about whether pornography use can really be called an addiction.51 The answer from neurologists who study this phenomenon is clear: yes, pornography has the power to be addictive for some people.52 53 Additional studies have found that some of the people most likely to become addicted are those who try to use sexual activity to get themselves out of undesirable emotional states or to reduce stress.54
The group of researchers who are best known for trying hardest to argue that pornography addiction doesn’t exist is a small group of psychologists and a psychiatrist. Although they are not neurologists, they attempted a study looking at brain images, and try to argue that the brain scans they studied show that pornography is not addictive. However, when reviewed by neurologists, it turns out those brain images showed the opposite: pornography is addictive!55
A group led by Dr. Vaughn Steele makes the “pornography is not addictive” argument. Their perspective is that people who are diagnosed with an addiction to pornography actually just have higher sexual desire than most people.56 Their study looked at EEG images (brain scans) of about 50 people who believed they were viewing pornography too frequently. Based on the hypothesis that the participants were really experiencing high sexual desire, the researchers looked to demonstrate this conclusion by examining the brain waves their participants had while looking at pornography versus mundane images. When people’s brains responded in a way that made the EEGs looked odd, Dr. Steele thought that they must not be addicted to pornography but rather just had high sexual desire. When neurologists looked at the findings, they saw clearly that the brainwaves these people were experiencing were completely consistent with addiction.57 So when people who specialize in the brain’s function look at the brainwaves of the participants who were watching pornography, these neurologists confidently tell us that the participants were, in fact, addicted.
I had the chance to interview one of the authors of many studies about the addictive nature of pornography, Dr. Donald Hilton. He told me that his research on addiction has shown that it is “a continued engagement in a self-destructive behavior despite adverse consequence.” He added that we now know much more about how the brain operates with someone suffering from addiction. He said:
“I believe addiction is informed by increased understanding of how the synaptic transmission occurs and how it is modified with learning and particularly with reward learning. So now, addiction is more about neuronal receptor change as it is about behavior alone … … so in other words we need to consider not only what the behavior is doing but what is the brain doing. And now of course we know that whether it is a behavioral addiction or a substance addiction, very similar changes are occurring in the reward centers. It has been striking how that is then confirmed with numerous behavioral addictions and more pertinent to what we are talking about now, specifically with regard to pornography addiction within the last year.”
Further research looking at brain responses during an MRI, another method of imaging the brain, has found strong evidence of addiction by showing different responses to wanting and liking an image. Addicts tend to want it more than others, but like it just the same. The brains of addicts “fired up” in places where the same type of pattern occur with people addicted to drugs. Those who were not addicted to porn had different, normal responses.58
One research participant I interviewed for this book, Paul, had no trouble labeling his pornography use as an addiction. Paul is a very mature 19-year-old male with an athletic build and attractive features. He comes across as bright, sincere, and profoundly humble. When I met him, he was eager to tell his story of overcoming, yet still living with, a porn addiction. It has been two years since he has last seen pornography.
“I can distinctly remember coming out of the bathroom (after having self-stimulated to pornography like most days) and my Dad was napping and I was at my bottom, lowest, lowest point, I just went up to him, woke him up, and just said ‘I’m addicted to porn and I need help,’ and it just went from there. I recognized I was addicted around 16. I’m still addicted now. That is my big struggle, for me it is lust, it is like a constant battle because it is so hard to guard your eyes because society itself is so just full of sexual immorality and it is almost just the ok thing to do in society. I still struggle with it, but not as much as before. I have no way to see it at my computer or my phone.”
Paul’s Dad was a good source of support for him to turn to in his struggle. His father knew that struggle well from his own life. In fact, it caused him to lose his job working at a school. He knew the consequences this addiction can have in a painful way.
Another study of the brain that has just been released, according to Dr. Donald Hilton, is research showing that the more people watch pornography each week, the more their brains shrink. Related research has also shown that viewing pornography slows down the working memory of people who view it, in other words, your short-term memory.59 So yes, if you thought that porn makes you less intelligent, there is now evidence from neurologists to support that conclusion. Consistent with this line of research is another study that found decreased grey matter in the brain in the areas responsible for motivation and decision-making. This study, not on porn addicts but simply on male users of pornography, was among the first to find brain changes in those not addicted but who are using pornography.60
A Closing Thought
Essentially, pornography does a better job exciting the user than it does satisfying him. It affects the two pleasure centers in the brain differently. The excitement center fires up when one has an appetite for sex, food, or something similarly rewarding. The excitement center is primarily related to dopamine. The other system, the satisfaction center, deals with actually having sex, a meal, or something else similarly rewarding. Its most relevant brain chemical, also called a neurotransmitter, is natural endorphins, which are like the body’s opiates. Internet pornography provides an infinite number of sexual objects, thus stimulating the appetite system. The result of continued, addictive use of porn is that the plasticity in the brain alters their brain’s road maps, and they can’t help continuing to seek more and more extreme pornography, for more and more dopamine, even though they become less and less satisfying. This is the vicious cycle that devastates people who are addicted to pornography.61