Are you addicted to the new drug called Porn?

“Sexual tastes are moulded by an individual’s experiences and their culture. These tastes are acquired and then wired into the brain. We are unable to distinguish our ‘second nature’ from our ‘original nature’ because our neuroplastic brains, once rewired, develop a new nature every bit as biological as our original.” -
Dr. Norman Doidge

There is a very interesting scene in 'Tudor' - a series on Netflix, about Henry The VIII, The King of England.  When the king beds Anne of Cleves on wedding night, he finds her unappealing and doesn't like her. Evidently because she was very naive and less responsive being a virgin and inexperienced as compared to the king who had immensely deviant and abnormal sexual appetite. Notwithstanding his innumerable flings and indiscretions, the king had married six times, out of which two were executed for infidelity, two marriages annulled, one died during child birth and one outlived him by one year ultimately to perish.

It has been observed that generally, there is abnormal upsurge in sexual appetite due to constant, perverse sexual experiences and excessive exposure to preternatural acts of enticement, and seduction. Not all females believe in physical proximity to be part of day to day communication and wouldn't be interested in luring and flirting a man. Therefore, men with such upsurge have receded attraction to maiden physical attributes and develop liking for a partner who lures and seduces.

Of all our human instincts, sexuality is perhaps the most flexible which has deviated from its primary aim, the reproduction and moved to the most divergent streaks laced with sexual aggression, aberrant and pervert behaviour to fulfill the sexual fantasies in form of porn.

Pornography or porn is the portrayal of sexual subject matter for the exclusive purpose of sexual arousal. Pornography is presented in a variety of media, including books, magazines, postcards, photographs, sculpture, drawing, painting, animation, sound recording, phone calls, writing, film, video, and video games. 

Porn is as old as time, but, before influx of internet age, its accessibility was restricted in form of magazines,  periodicals, books, and paintings. With easy accessibility to the vast and varied resources available on the internet there is all time increase in porn watching.

As per 2015 data, after the US and UK, Porn-hub's third highest Android traffic comes from India.

• Eleven is the average age a child is first exposed to porn.
• 94% of kids will see porn by age 14.
• 30 percent of Internet content is porn.
• 88 percent of porn contains violence against women.
• From 2005 to 2013, searches for “teen porn” tripled to 500,000 a day. 
• 47.5 per cent of Indians log on to the porn website from their desktops.(2015)
• 49.9 per cent use their mobile phones.(2015)

 During 2016, there has been phenomenal increase in porn watching which has been attributed to “inexpensive and unlimited cellular plans.” With Reliance Jio offering 1 GB data for Rs 50, the biggest increase in mobile traffic has happened in recent years, jumping up over 121% from 2013 to 2017 and it was noted that the viewing of adult content in India spiked 75% nine months after Jio’s launch.

Now the question is that why people watch porn?
The most common reasons for engaging in online sexual behaviors are :—

• 94.4 percent of users seeking sexual satisfaction.
• 87.2 percent seeking arousal.
• 86.5 percent seeking orgasm.
• 73.8 percent of users hoping to alleviate stress.
• 70.8 percent trying to assuage boredom.
• 53 percent wanting to forget their daily problems.

I found this quote on the internet about why porn is irresistible for some. 

"The power of porn also lies in the story it tells and promises exciting life to us—or at least something we’ve defined as life's essential need. We buy into those false promises and get hooked on the fantasy world."

As per Dr. Gregory Bottaro, procreation is a really important aspect of human survival. We reproduce, that's why we survive. It's a biological process with many component to it and one of the most important is a very delicate system of chemical reward feedback. Attraction, motivation, emotion, and drive are all wrapped up in this system. It is delicate because individual experiences can profoundly affect the way this system operates in an individual brain. 

This system works the way it is supposed to work when you’re having sex with your spouse. Together you can experience a high, an alertness of sexual pleasure, and the deep calm afterwards (Nor-epinephrine, Endorphins, and Serotonin). With each sexual embrace you are emotionally bonding to this person (Oxycontin and Vasopressin). Over a period of time, craving for sex is transformed into a desire for one another (dopamine).

When you are sexually aroused, the porn stuff which might be otherwise repulsive to you, seems exciting and entertaining. This gives the brain an unnatural sexual high, after sometime, the brain gets tired and dopamine production stops, leaving you wanting for more and still unable to reach level of satisfaction. This leads to less excitement through normal sexual experiences with a partner as the brain of a porn viewer, instead of forming deep bond of love to a person, forms this bond to a pornographic experience. As the time passes, the viewer gets more and more addicted and seeks out more novel and intense porn experience to get the same high as before.

In addition to reporting the same fundamental brain changes as seen in substance addicts, a few studies also reported greater porn use is associated with erectile dysfunction, delayed ejaculation, decreased libido, and reduced neural response to images of vanilla porn.(Part content courtesy - http://yourbrainonporn.com).

In 2014, a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, (JAMA Psychiatry) found that men who regularly consumed porn had smaller brain volume and fewer connections in the striatum, a brain region tied to reward processing, compared with those who didn't view porn.

Cambridge Neuropsychiatrist Valerie Voon was featured last year in the UK documentary Porn on the Brain. Her research demonstrates that the brains of habitual porn users show great similarity to the brains of alcoholics. The pleasure pathways in the porn viewer “light up” after watching porn in the same way when an alcoholic sees a picture of a drink.

The social media groups which were earlier used to connect with old friends and classmates, have become porn supply groups. Even if someone in the group objects to such posts, that sole sane voice is shouted down by majority of bullying, addict voices.

Most of the marital discord cases which come to me for therapy have a deep rooted problem due to one of the partners watching porn. In their hearts of heart though, not many women like their partners to watch porn, but, they have to tolerate, accept it and gulp it. If someone objects then there is a ready excuse that 'everyone does it.' Comparison of real partner to the porn stars and their peculiar activities pose a gigantic problem to couples' intimacy. What was at one time exciting becomes boring. The never-ending quest to find more and more stimulating porn takes over the brain’s sexual response. Real sex with a real person also gets dragged into this quest, and ultimately dies an unnatural death.

Sexual tastes are a personal choice and they change as per the input we give to our brain over the course of our individual lives. Sometimes a person may not appeal at the first meeting, but as we interact further, the inner qualities and charm 'reveals' itself and we feel such pleasure in their presence. To develop such relations one needs maturity, patience and wisdom to see beyond the facade. Many successful monogamous couples, who love and still feel attraction towards each other slowly get used to each other's sexual tastes and accept ageing and sexual decline together with grace and love over the decades.

Ran Gavrieli from Tel Aviv, writes and lectures about emotional and physical safe sex; porn and porn-influenced cultural damages; gender and power relations; and sex and intimacy. He gave a very honest, informative and heart touching talk on TEDx. Here is the video ...