Gary Wilson raised the question with his book Your Brain on Porn about the harmful effects of porn in the internet age. A former physiology teacher who stumbled upon this research and who donates all the profits of his book YBOP to charity. With Utah legislature attempting to pass legislation that will allow individuals to sue the adult industry for damages similar to the tobacco industry. The evidence is clear that porn can have some very harmful effects.
What inspired you to research porn addiction?
That’s an odd question (laughs). I was an anatomy, physiology, pathology teacher and it sort of started about sixteen years ago when I met my wife. She had a website and it was about relationships. I started investigating further into the neurobiology of love and bonding and sex and we put over the years several articles on her website that had keywords like sex, ejaculation, orgasam, dopamine addiction because addiction hijacks the mechanisms for love and bonding sort of. So about 2006 these men started showing up on her forum and this forum had nothing to do with porn or addiction and my wife was like “what are you doing here” and they started posting “hey my dick isn’t working do you think it could have something to do with porn.” A couple years later it was a porn recovery site. By 2011 I had made a separate site, did a Tedx Talk. It was one of those things which I wanted nothing to do with but it was such a big gap between the science and what people were experiencing with the negative effects of porn use. We saw many people suffering and wanted to give them the information.
What are some of the negative effects of porn use?
I think its pretty broad. Looking at your dads Playboy which I did has relatively little effects but watching real people have real sex and being able to click video to video and its all hardcore now and doing so for years prior to your first kiss or sexual encounter for is unique in human history so were not dealing with looking at naked pictures. If you think about the effects you can list out all the correlations such as sexist attitudes, aggression, poor physical health, poor mental health, poor relationship, poor relationship satisfaction, and even poor performance in school. The stuff that I monitor is mostly on men and the effects on their sexual functioning.
How do you know if your addicted to porn?
Just like any addiction you try to stop. If you see withdrawal symptoms or you start having cravings both of those are signs you have an addiction. In the press you don’t see withdrawal symptoms associated with quitting behavioral addictions like gambling or overeating or internet addiction but there are. We have catalogued severe withdrawal symptoms in men who try to quit porn. One of the most interesting withdrawal symptoms is men experience complete loss of libido or sexual desire, there penis can feel cold or numb. And this can go on for years, especially in young men.
You’ve spoken about men experiencing porn addiction. Can women become addicted to porn?
We definitely see women say they are addicted to porn. We see women say its messed up there sexuality, we see womwomen see they can only get off to hardcore rape porn because they have escalated it occurs in women but young men almost universally use porn. So the numbers statistically for men will be higher but porn addiction for women is on the rise.
What is next for Gary Wilson?
My career prior to the creation of YBOP was teaching anatomy, physiology and pathology. In essence I am retired and currently devote time everything associated with YBOP and this subject. How long I continue to explore this subject I do not know.
by Ryan Glover – January 26, 2017
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