This Is Your Brain On Porn

My dear Vocal audience, I think we’re close enough now—so let’s talk about porn.

I think it’s fair to say that in a lot of ways, porn gets a bad rap—and honestly, it’s for some pretty valid reasons.

Of course, I’m not talking about any typical conservative reasons, like: porn is bad because sex before marriage is bad, or porn is bad because watching it is degenerate and shameful, as sex is meant to be. Hey—it’s not.

It’s for more valid reasons, like:

• Porn is objectifying

• Porn can warp the mind

• Porn is addicting

These things are true for a lot of people. Porn is a strange taboo. So many people consume it, yet so many people rail against it, too.

Porn can be so thrilling, so sexy and fun. But it can also be scary, embarrassing, and even dehumanizing.

There is no right or wrong way to live, but I thought it would be interesting to answer some pretty harrowing questions about porn and how I personally see it, because why not?

Let us begin!

Is pornography inherently bad for you?

Yeah, probably.

I’m no expert on the impact of porn on our brains, but I know this: just like doing drugs or drinking alcohol, watching porn releases dopamine, and anything that releases dopamine can be addictive. Even if we don’t develop an explicit addiction to pornography, the way our brains process it can still make us chemically reliant on it, and that’s not great.

With too much porn rattling around in our brains, this can also severely affect the way we react to sex, intimacy, and pleasure in our real lives. Porn addiction has been known to cause erectile dysfunction or premature ejaculation in a lot of men, since consuming too much of it skews our minds and impacts the way we think and engage in sexual activity. Women, too, can develop unrealistic standards about sex from porn, but since most porn mainly targets men, men are often the victims of its impact.

It can also make things more difficult or confusing to navigate in actual sexual relationships. Real sex can be funny, awkward, and perfectly imperfect; this doesn’t make it any less fun. Under no circumstances should porn be replacing your current/future partner or your sex life. It just isn’t healthy, if that’s the case.

Remember: porn is not a sexual relationship. You do not know any of these people in these videos. They are portraying characters; they are not real.

When does porn usage turn “bad”?

I’d say porn usage may turn bad when you start to wonder about if your porn usage is bad.

Always listen to your gut. It’s okay to not make excuses for yourself. If you compulsively watch porn, compulsively masturbate, or compulsively engage in sexual content/conduct by yourself that you aren’t proud of and you think you have a problem—admit it, or at least be brave enough to question it.

Porn addiction is still addiction. It may feel embarrassing, but every addiction is a constant battle—it’s incredibly hard to conquer. Don’t be afraid or ashamed to reach out and get the help you need, for your own happiness. And remember: you are so, so not alone.

If you know you aren’t addicted but just think you’ve been watching it too much as of late—congratulations, we’ve all been there. We’ve all been lonely and sad and desperate. Again—erase your shame. Porn is meant to be addictive. Don’t beat yourself up for succumbing to your own desires too much, there’s no use in that at all. Instead, try to do something about it.

If you feel too reliant on pornography, try watching less of it and see how you feel—even if it’s cutting it down by just one video a day. Each person is different, and the way our brains react to this stuff is vastly different too.

Shame sucks, but it can always motivate us to be better—remember that!

How reliant are we on pornography?

This is an important thing to consider. Ask yourself: would I be fine without porn?

It’s okay to see life without ever consuming porn again as a little bleak, a little disappointing, like life without getting drunk or high, without that good old hit of dopamine to fuel us through this accursed world.

But if we feel a panic towards the thought, a desperation that would render us unsure how to exist without pornography, perhaps we should reflect on our relationship with porn and try to change how reliant we are on it.

Women in STEM porn—how to balance gender expectations and shame

It’s definitely more taboo to discuss porn as a woman—or, at least, that’s how it feels. It’s always felt that way to me.

Boys are expected to watch porn growing up; girls are not. Boys are allowed and even encouraged to be watching raunchy and dirty things by their friends; girls are expected by theirs to be disgusted by them, and by sex in general. Girls are expected to be purer, more wholesome, less degenerate, less… horny. Less human, in a way.

It sounds ridiculous, but it’s true—think about it. Virginity in men is shamed, while virginity in women is celebrated. In order for guys to not be virgins and losers, they have to sleep with women; yet once a woman sleeps with a man, she loses her value. Make it make sense, guys. Your misogyny is baseless.

Of course, this is a very stupid outlook, as well as a heavily heteronormative one, but it still persists.

Female pleasure is not seen as necessary in a lot of porn. It’s often about the man, catering to its widely male audience through the male gaze. So it’s no wonder a lot of girls don’t watch porn; for a lot of them, there’s very little in it for them. In fact, there’s been a phenomenon within the past two decades of women finding and creating their own “porn” content in the world of fanfiction—which is a whole different article, with a whole different set of pros and problems. Someone, remind me to write that.

But this idea that female pleasure is secondary in pornography, or just a non-factor, doesn’t just impact young women. Because weirdly, a lot of guys, and not even all young guys, are so disillusioned that they don’t even think women masturbate—and hey, some of them don’t, because they can’t. Male orgasms are deemed necessary and normal, while plenty of women grow up not even knowing or experiencing an orgasm, without having the slightest clue how to have one.

My fellow middle schoolers of the male gender were always shocked to hear that I, just like them, watched pornography when we were growing up. I don’t know whether it was my open bisexuality or my openness about porn/masturbation when the topic arose that struck them the most, but I always found it interesting how jarring it was—that women could do the same thing they were doing, but it would be perceived so differently. I was either seen as super cool or super weird for it by my male friends/acquaintances, even though we were doing the same exact thing.

Of course, we were all so young, arguably way too young to be watching any of that stuff, but alas. I don’t blame them at all for reacting this way, since it’s a societal response to the way women are often seen and understood by men—which is not at all.

Women are allowed to be horny. We’re allowed to think about sex. We’re allowed to watch porn, and we’re allowed to like it. We’re allowed to masturbate, have sex, and not stay virgins (the entire concept of virginity is a whole different debacle, of course, especially concerning that pesky heteronormativity I mentioned, but you get the idea) until marriage unless we want to.

Hey, call me progressive.

Women in STEM porn—but the bad parts this time

For a lot of women, porn is dehumanizing.

Most porn we see online is made for the male gaze. Unfortunately, this means many women in porn are these caricatures of the “perfect” sexual partner—usually over-performing, usually submissive, and usually completely at the mercy of a man.

This has led to a complete disregard for women sexually that, I’d argue, has become widespread in our society—maybe not due to pornography, but even so, it is certainly encouraged and egged on by it.

Instead of seeing women as sexual partners, women are seen by many men as objects for their own pleasure. They want the opportunity to do things to a woman rather than to do things with her.

Make no mistake—this is utter misogyny and objectification. Porn thrives on it.

A lot of porn is brutal. It’s violent. It promotes roughness to the point of near abuse, and consent is very rarely stressed or shown or even mentioned. A lot of porn also thrives on rape culture, on pushing limits in this way. Do not think it isn’t purposeful, because it is.

Porn is like any industry—it’s not perfect. It is far, far from it. Acknowledging the misogyny in the industry and staying aware of it is essential.

There’s an uncomfortable reality of age-related content and mentions in porn—does porn care about children?

No. Sadly, it does not.

Because a lot of the porn industry is fueled by pedophilia.

How many times have you seen a pornographic title advertising a video starring an eighteen year old girl? In many of these videos, the pornstars are actually over eighteen. Yet they are still advertised as eighteen, as young as they can possibly be legally. Why?

We know why.

Yes, eighteen is an adult under the law. However, porn uses young women, as young as they can get, to sexualize and objectify them as soon as they can. Don’t think for even a second that a lot of these porn industries, and porn consumers, wouldn’t capitalize on or indulge in even younger women if they could—of course they would. And that’s not exclusive to just young women, either.

Pedophilia is rampant online; we know this. People are on a constant hunt to sexualize children. This calls for a demand for porn with young people, as young as they can be. The big porn industries use people’s attraction to very young girls and boys to push boundaries and to make money.

There is so much underage pornography on porn sites online; this cannot go ignored. Famously, a few years ago, thousands of unverified users had videos taken off of PornHub. This was because all of these videos, every last one, featured people under the age of eighteen.

I cannot stress how repulsive and disgusting it is that those videos were allowed on that site for so long. Videos featuring children, featuring rape. That is child sex abuse material, and the perpetrators deserve to rot in prison for the rest of their lives.

If you are ever going to town in Hornyville and you happen to come across a person in a video that looks suspiciously young—please, pause for just a moment, actually look at and into what you are consuming, and report it if your suspicions are strong enough, just to be sure. Because you just never know.

There is absolutely a dark side to the world of pornography, and it simply cannot be disregarded. Whether we consume porn or not, we have to keep these things in mind—always be aware.

Porn in relationships—yay or nay?

It totally depends—but it’s always good to be on the same page with your partner.

My boyfriend and I have a mutual agreement and understanding that within the bounds of our relationship, we both occasionally consume pornography. We are both okay with that fact. We don’t consume it to an unhealthy extent, and consuming it is not a detriment—and is almost completely unrelated—to our sexual relationship. It’s even helped to spice things up, as some things we have discussed or indulged in sexually have been inspired by pornography, but are brought to life only by one another.

I am very sexually attracted to my boyfriend, and he is very sexually attracted to me. But I don’t see my boyfriend as a sex object because I respect him; he, in turn, offers me that same respect. That doesn’t mean we don’t slip up sometimes, or that we have this absolutely perfect, ideal sex life; I don’t think anyone does. But hey—porn or no porn, things are pretty great.

I understand that when people watch a lot of porn, this cannot stay the case. If you’re watching pornstars all day and all the time who are literally meant to look and act perfectly for an audience, and that’s all you’re consuming, average looking people become hard to be and stay attracted to, and average sex can become dull and boring within the mind. Porn can absolutely warp the mind into wanting and desiring unrealistic sexual partners, and unrealistic sex.

Guys, this is a very slippery slope—no pun intended.

While there is an understanding and an acknowledgment of the role of occasional pornography in my relationship, there is an even greater acknowledgment by my boyfriend and myself of this very essential fact: porn is fake. It’s acting. That is all it is.

Please don’t lie to yourselves, guys. Don’t convince yourself that your dream porn girlfriend/boyfriend is out there who will satiate your every want, need, and desire. Porn is pure marketability. It is meant to stimulate you sexually, not emotionally.

These people in your favorite porn videos are not realistic sexual partners, and they’re not supposed to be. They aren’t your dream sex partners—their pleasure is heavily exaggerated or flat out faked, because porn is just like television—it’s acting. The sooner you realize that, the more easy it is to interact with it in a casual way.

Also—for the love of God, do not use porn as an excuse to expect things from your partner, or to convince them to do anything they do not want to do. My pet peeve is when I see men in particularly treating anal sex like a must in a relationship. It is such a dumb, ignorant, porn-brain thing to expect from your significant other. How about you bend over, sir? If it’s so easy to expect, why don’t you try it?

If you want to try something sexually, bring it up to your partner in a light and open way. Don’t blindly expect it just because it turns you on; that makes you, quite frankly, a pathetic fool. Consent is so important.

Is porn cheating?

I am twenty-two years old. In my relationship of six years, watching porn is not considered cheating, not even remotely. This is because neither I nor my boyfriend have any vested interest in the people in the pornography we see. Porn cannot and does not replace my boyfriend, and I wouldn’t want it to.

We love and appreciate you, our beautiful and hardworking sex workers, but the appreciation ends there.

However, someone may have very different views on this—different standards, a different level of exposure to the Internet. They may be coming from different mindset, lifestyle, be a different age, or have a different cultural background. All of these things may make them feel much differently about it than I do, and their opinions are no less valid than mine.

If your partner feels that watching porn in your relationship feels like cheating, or like deception, please respect them, hear them out, and have an open and honest conversation about it.

Underlying insecurity and trust issues are probably at the root of their belief, and you can’t blame them. Unless you are a specific kind of person, it can be easy to feel horrible to think of the person you love drooling over another man or woman’s body. We’re all human. Always think about it from their perspective; think what it would be like for you in their shoes.

If your love and faith in your significant other is strong, I’m sure a beautiful conclusion on one side or the other, or in the middle, can and will be found.

Can one maintain a healthy relationship with porn?

I honestly don’t know.

As someone who does occasionally watch porn, I feel that I’m currently working towards a healthy relationship with it, or as healthy as I can make it. I feel good as I am right now with porn. I don’t feel like I need it, like I’m desperately reliant on it. But it hasn’t always been that way.

Porn has a way of pushing your limits. You constantly seek more bodies, more women, more men, more kinks, more thrills, more intensity. This can lead to consuming content you feel ashamed of, which is what happened for me. I hated myself for some of the things that aroused me, for what I started to seek out. They made me feel dirty and perverted and pathetic.

I don’t think I was ever addicted to porn, as I could have definitely lived without it, but at a point, I certainly had to kind of reel it in a bit and unpack that shame that came from porn consumption. I wanted to change the way I was used to seeing and viewing women and sex, and I set out to do so.

I think for my generation (Gen Z), right off the bat, the amount of pornography we are exposed to is definitely unnatural and unhealthy. Young kids have the entire Internet at their fingertips. We were never meant to be exposed to so much pornography, especially not in our preteen and early teenage years. This can easily impact our brains and the way we view sex, women, pleasure, and what is “normal”. It’s easy to feel ashamed of our fetishes, but really, porn raised us in a weird way.

So my answer is—maybe, or perhaps only sometimes. I think that porn will definitely have at least some kind of toxic impact on most people, but so do a lot og things. It’s not all bad, it’s not all as serious as we think, and it’s not beyond our control what we consume.

I really think the answer to the question depends on the kind of person you are. If you have an an addictive personality, or if you are not easily satisfied, your porn use might end up slipping beyond your control. Otherwise, I say go to town with some (ethical) porn and have fun!

All in all, I hope this was interesting and entertaining to read! I’d love to answer more questions or hear some opinions about pornography in the comments.

Until next time! ♥️