The Science of Porn

[Brad Fox]



Romans 12:2  Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind...

He could not have known. 

When the Apostle Paul wrote these words, the science of neurobiology was a distant future, thousands of years ahead.  How then could a Jewish theologian, writing two millenia ago be able to predict the plasticity of the human brain?  I think it is because he was inspired by the One who designed that brain; the One who stands not only in the past and present, but also in the future.  When you read this article, think about what God has envisioned for our learning and our brains, and how He has a greater view of our potential than we could have ever hoped for.

Norman Doidge, M.D., wrote a book called The Brain That Changes Itself.  It is a marvelous book about brain plasticity; that is, how the human brain can remodel and/or repair itself due to injury or environmental stimulation.  One of his chapters deals with how the brain changes with respect to exposure to pornography.  He begins with writing that pornography can be just as much an addiction as can drugs, alcohol, running or gambling.  He lays out a sequence of addiction passing from initial loss of control, to compulsive acquisition of the addictive substance, and decreasing sensitivity to ever increasing levels of the substance. 

Doidge says “all addiction involves long-term, sometimes lifelong, plastic changes of the brain.”  He notes that most addicts can’t moderate their use of an addictive substance or activity; they must avoid it completely if they wish to avoid behaviors that control them.

One of the “culprits” of addiction is the brain neurotransmitter, dopamine.  This natural body hormone causes the brain to feel excitement and pleasure at the climax of a pleasurable activity or in response to an addictive substance.  Dopamine is responsible for the “rush” of pleasure one feels when completing an arduous physical or mental victory, or the response to drug use.  This “reward” chemistry of the brain is a considerable obstacle to overcome, but the real damage is done by how dopamine rewires the nerve cells responsible for addictive behaviors.  This natural brain neurotransmitter actually reinforces the nerve circuits that develop around the pleasurable viewing of pornography.  Nerve networks that view sexual content simultaneously with networks experiencing orgasm become “wired” together. So as these circuits view porn and the cells of the circuits are stimulated by dopamine, they are strengthened and consolidated to seek this type of stimulation.  Sexual images are then able to summon the physical pleasure of orgasm.  So the brain seeks the pornographic images that make it feel pleasure.

Doidge relates that pornography is promoted as a healthy normal activity that even relieves unhealthy sexual tension.  But he warns that the pornography providers actually seek to addict people while building a tolerance to their product that can only be satisfied by viewing more and more porn.  Doidge says an unfortunate clinical side effect that is commonly observed in porn addicts is that they become so insensitive to sexual images that they can no longer get high on the images that once turned them on and may eventually even develop a distaste for them.  All the while this is happening in secret, a porn addict’s personal relationships may suffer as well.

Interestingly, while pornographers say they are performing a valuable service by releasing excessive sexual tension, they also boast “that they are pushing the envelope by introducing new, harder themes.  What they don’t say is that they must (develop these themes) because their customers are building up a tolerance to their (current content).”

Doidge has more bad news:  there is a secondary neurotransmitter that extends the effect of dopamine.  He describes dopamine as being a neurotransmitter that rewards “appetitive” pleasures.  In other words, it rewards the imaginary pleasures we experience in anticipation of fulfilling our sexual, eating, or some other appetite.  But a second “pleasure system” that is satisfied only by the consummation or fulfillment of a desire for an addictive substance is fueled by endorphins. 

The effect of these two pleasure systems, anticipative and consumptive, is that it keeps porn addicts constantly seeking to reinforce and reward existing neural “porn” networks, or to develop new, more sensitive networks with harder core images.

Statistics of Porn:

·         Pornography accounts for 25% of video rentals

·         Porn is the fourth most common reason people give for going online

·         An MSNBC.com survey of viewers in 2001 found that 80% felt they were spending so much time on pornographic sites that they were putting their relationships or jobs at risk.

Something that men who are addicted to porn need to consider is that their viewing habits are continuously being monitored by the porn industry.  Technology is being used to track those images or videos that are being accessed most frequently.  As a porn producer sees certain images appeal to his audience, he must constantly add new women subjects as his images (the brain is most strongly attracted to novel images).  So pornography producers must be constantly on the prowl to add new victims to their repetoire of degrading pictures.  Often they will pick out girls who are socially or morally weak due to substance abuse, or family neglect.

When pornographers are on the prowl, no young girl is safe.  We owe it to the precious women and girls in our lives to protect them from men who want to subject them to acts of sub-human depravity.