Recently, for a talk in Chicago to parents of high school boys, I had to update my knowledge based on a 2009 review of the effects of pornography.
On this issue the world has changed a lot in less than ten years: the use of pornography has escalated and the effects are alarming.
The most telling effect, I think, is the epidemic of erectile dysfunction (ED) among men.
For all of human history this was mainly an older man’s problem.
As recently as 2002 the rate of ED for men aged 40–80 was about 13% in Europe. By 2011 rates reached 28% for men aged 18–40.
As reported above, a 2014 cross-sectional study of active duty, relatively healthy, 21–40 old males in the US military, found that one third (33.2%) suffered from ED.
Unaware of these changes, for the last year or so I had thought that the drop in high school students’ rate of sexual intercourse was good news and that, since 2007, abstinence ideas were winning, but given the above data, all of the causes may not be good news.
Increased pornography use among teenage boys, resulting in decreased interest in girls, may be the cause.
This also serves to put in context a disturbing experience I had a few weeks ago while driving through a wealthy Washington D.C. suburb during rush hour: I noticed (as must several other drivers waiting for the traffic lights to change) a 12-year-old moving along the sidewalk, intently looking at his smartphone in one hand while his other hand was engaged in self-abuse.
I had not yet reviewed the new research on the prevalence of pornography viewing and was quite taken aback.
No longer.
At age 12 he was already so addicted to porn and had no shame.
The average age of a boy’s first viewing of pornography has dropped to 10 years of age. Fathers be aware.
- 75 percent of porn-watching is done on smart phones.
- 25 percent of all internet searches are for pornography.
- Tablets and computers make up the rest, computers being the smallest percentage.
- The average length of stay on a porn site is about 10 minutes.
- 70 percent of US college students watch porn — alone, with others, or in couples.
- 45 percent of women now accept it in their relationships.
- 10 percent of women refuse to view it themselves but accept it in their husbands or partners.
A decade ago women viewed pornography at about one sixth the rate of men.
Today, depending on the country, it varies from only one third the rate of men (US) to one half (the Philippines and Brazil).
Estimates of production range up to 4.2 million websites (12 percent of the total sites worldwide) with 420 million web pages.
Every single day, worldwide, there are more than 68 million search engine requests for pornography (which is 25 percent of all search requests).
What are the negative effects for those who become habituated and especially for those who become addicted?
Changes in brain size (diminished); the younger boys start the greater the effects on their brain, and the more difficult to overcome the addiction; men see women as sex objects not as persons, have greater interest in pornography than in the company of women or girlfriends.
They suffer increasingly from erectile dysfunction, become more aggressive in their relationships with spouses or partners, are more likely to believe the “rape myth” (that women enjoy being sexually abused), and progress to more and more deviant pornography to attain sexual arousal, leading in turn to greater sexual deviancy.
Teenagers will be more likely to engage in same-sex sexual activities. Continue reading