According to activist and feminist writer, Naomi Wolf, “porn is addicting and desensitizing”.
Upon conducting research for her latest book Vagina, Wolf heard that a lot of women were “complaining that men raised on watching porn have lost sexual skills with women”. She coined it “the kink spiral” – the way pornography leads the viewer to become desensitized and unsatisfied with what they are viewing, or what they’re experiencing.
“What turned you on a month ago isn’t arousing anymore so you need more and more extreme images,” Wolf said. “An ordinary woman in your bed can’t duplicate that novelty effect of clicking through multiple images.”
In her article for the Daily Mail, Wolf explains the neuroscience behind watching porn.
“Watching porn causes sharp spikes in the activation of dopamine, a neurotransmitter in the brain, which makes people feel focused, confident and good.”
Wolf says that short-term pleasure actually has long-term consequences. First, it desensitizes you from what you used to find erotic. Then, the viewer starts to crave something more extreme to reach the same level of excitement. Over the long term, this causes the greater likelihood of sexual dysfunction.
This explains – as Wolf puts it – “why images that were seen as fetishistic, taboo or violent ten years ago are now mainstream fare on porn sites”.
She also points out another problem that stems from pornography – men start to see their own partners as less attractive, and less able to arouse them with ordinary sexual behavior.
Sadly, pornography doesn’t only affect a man’s sense of arousal, but the woman’s too. If a woman feels uneasy about her partner’s use of porn, the stress of her resentment and anger can affect her own ability to become aroused.
“If you understand the neuroscience of female arousal, women need to have their autonomic nervous systems (heart rate, breathing, blood circulation) highly activated to get turned on. Emotions such as stress,anger, a sense of threat and resentment can function like throwing a bucket of freezing water on the female system.”
Wolf believes that men can make an effort to end their addiction, and it comes with great benefits too. She says that men who have done so reportedly have a greater sense of psychological control, and heightened arousal with their wives or girlfriends.
