Why Porn Is Bad for Your Brain and how it affects childen
In honor of “banned books week” aka- encourage kids to read porn in school week, we put together this article on how porn actually affects a person’s brain and what it does to children in particular.
There are more than 28,000 people watching pornography this very second as you are reading these words.
That’s according to the software cybersecurity company Webroot, and there are plenty of statistics showing the alarming amount of people who watch porn. Webroot also found that around 200,000 Americans are considered to be addicted to porn, 40 million regularly go to porn sites and 35% of all Internet searches involve porn.
Even more disturbing is that nearly three-quarters of teens have said they watched porn, and 15% said they had watched porn before they reached the age of 11, according to a report from Common Sense Media. Nearly 60% said they came across upon porn accidentally, and 31% disturbingly said they watched porn while they were at school.
There is also an appalling push to lure children into watching porn at a young age, as a report from the UK Children’s Commissioner stated “that children aged six to 12 are disproportionately exposed to pornography sites hosting non-photographic pornographic content featuring cartoons likely to appeal to children,” including cartoons of “of popular superheroes, Disney characters and children’s characters such as My Little Pony. There are very serious implications in the role of non-photographic pornography in grooming and child sexual abuse.”
The danger of porn––especially for minors––is that there is plenty of research to indicate that porn is addictive. Sexual gratification results in a surge of a hormone called dopamine that the Cleveland Clinic describes as providing “a sense of pleasure.” Naturally, human beings will seek out activities providing them with that spike of dopamine, whether it be eating sugary foods or sex. The danger with porn is that, as Neuroscience News explains, “habituated porn users instinctively reach for their phones and laptops when desire comes calling” rather than a spouse or partner. Naturally, the effect is worse on adolescents as their developing brains release more dopamine, and thus are more susceptible to becoming addicted to porn. The problem, of course, is that excessive amounts of dopamine naturally result in depression or anxiety. It’s no wonder that a 2013 study from Cambridge University found that a porn addict’s brain resembles that of an alcoholic or gambling addict.
The predictable result is that, according to a 2018 study, avid consumers of porn are more likely to feel lonely, and the converse is true as well. The study concluded that watching porn acts as “a self-soothing, autoerotic narcosis from real-life circumstances, an experience that mirrors a drug-like intoxication” but ignores the true cause of an individual’s loneliness, thus developing a vicious cycle in which porn and loneliness feed each other.
The same study also found that porn can drive a wedge in relationships. There is plenty of research highlighted by the parental control app Canopy to suggest that couples who watch porn tend to have lower relationship satisfaction and it ignites conflict within the relationship, ultimately making it more likely that couples break up or get divorced.
And that of course has a detrimental effect on children, who naturally are inflicted with emotional trauma by their parents’ divorce. Children in households where at least one parent consumes porn “increases the risk of children being exposed to sexually graphic images” and may result in these kids experiencing “anxiety, fear, obsession with sexuality, sleep disturbances, and behavioral issues,” according to a Family Research Council (FRC) report.
The UK Children’s Commissioner report noted that research shows that watching porn makes it more likely that people “hold harmful attitudes towards women and girls, including attitudes supportive of violence,” more likely to exhibit sexual aggression and engage in “risky sex.” The report also notes that a person’s “sexual script” is usually finalized at the age of 18, and so “the impact on young adults’ attitudes and behaviour are likely to be minor in comparison to pornography’s effect on a child.”
The FRC noted that children at an elementary school age “are potentially exposed to as many as 80,000 sexualized portrayals of girls in the span of one year” and that “research indicates that girls who are exposed to sexualized portrayals of young women show increased rates of anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and low self-esteem.”
This is why here at Libs of TikTok we believe so strongly in keeping porn away from children––whether it’s in school or elsewhere––as it is absolutely crucial to protecting kids from being brainwashed by porn and forming self-destructive habits.
The reality is that the pornographic and smutty books that the Left claims are being "banned" aren't being banned. The debate is simply which books will make it into school libraries and curricula, and who gets to make that decision, parents or administrators. There’s no tenet of free expression that requires state schools to push sexually explicit content, or books that feature transgender characters or problematize whiteness. Excluding such books doesn’t constitute “censorship” or a “ban,” it’s called prudence and curation.
https://www.euphoricrecall.net/p/the-truth-about-the-book-ban-controversies
It never seemed so threatening when it was in the back room of the video store. The internet changed porn and the porn changed people. David Cronenberg portrayed this in "Videodrome." What a prescient film, in retrospect. Watch it again now. James Woods's torso in the third act = autogynephila. AGP in adult men is almost always correlated with extreme porn consumption.