Write Boldly Part Three: The X Rated Truth

This essay. This is the essay that has caused me to face so much persecution. This is the essay that started our three part series that is now coming to an end. Warning, this essay is somewhat graphic but totally factual. You may feel guilty, disgusted, angered, sadden, and surprised. I was all of the above while writing and researching this. It's nothing what I wanted it to be, but yet everything. Honestly it is the most eye opening thing I have ever written in my opinion. I really hope you take the time to carefully read this and research on your own. I may have wrote this essay for my chemistry class but after facing as much hatred as I did, it became more. So here it is, part three.

The X-Rated Truth

“It is as though we have devised a form of heroin … usable in the privacy of one’s own home and injected directly to the brain through the eyes,” U.S. Senate committee, Dr. Jeffrey Satinover of Princeton University said. Dr.Satinover wasn’t talking about a drug that is sold on the streets; he was speaking about pornography and how dangerous it actually is. As porn has become more accepted, more research on the effects has started to surface. Researches have found that porn actually changes the brain in many different ways; it similar to drug substances, can become and addiction, and changes the behavior of a person. Although many people believe pornography isn’t harmful, it is changing the brain for the worse.

The human brain can be divided into four major sections, which are categorized as; the frontal lobe, parietal lobe, occipital lobe, and temporal lobe. The frontal lobe is located at the front of the brain, and has the functions of; associating with reasoning, motor skills, higher lever cognition, and expressive language. The back of the frontal lobe contains the motor cortex. This area takes in information from different lobes of the brain and uses the given information to carry out to different parts of the body. The frontal lobe also controls sexual habits, socialization, attention, and risk-taking. The brain also contains neurons. A neuron can be defined as a specialized cell transmitting nerve impulses, or simply a nerve cell. When the brain cells become activated by something we see, hear, touch, or smell, they begin to release chemicals that help create a stronger bond between those neurons. An example of this would be when we smell or ingest one of our favorite foods; our brain releases the happy/feel good chemical called dopamine. Another example is when we are with someone we are attracted to or care about; our brain releases the chemical oxytocin. Oxytocin helps us bond with people to create a stronger relationship. With these chemicals our brain creates new pathways for everything we do, including looking at porn. Pornography floods the brain with a high concentrate of dopamine, over and over again. Since the brain isn’t used to the overload of chemicals that is linked with consistent porn use, it tries to “fight back”. The brain actually takes away some of its dopamine receptors. According to the Webster’s Dictionary, receptors are regions of tissue, or a molecule in a cell membrane, that responds specifically to a particular neurotransmitter, hormone, antigen, or other substance. In this case, they respond to the releasing of dopamine.  These receptors help the user feel the effects of dopamine, but with fewer receptors the person can’t feel the effects as much. The brain could still produce the same amount of dopamine with each use, but without the receptors, the porn that they were once looking at before, doesn’t seem arousing or exciting. This results in porn users to look at more pornography or more hardcore porn to try to get the effect the old porn used to give them. This can in turn lead to addiction, similar to drugs and alcohol.

“Pornographers promise healthy pleasure and relief from sexual tension, but what they often deliver is an addiction, tolerance, and eventual decrease in pleaser,” Norman Dodge, MD, The Brain that Changes Itself said. The definition of addiction, according to the American Society of Addiction Medicine is characterized by, the inability to consistently abstain, impairment in behavioral control, craving diminished recognition of significant problems with one’s behaviors and interpersonal relationships, and a dysfunction emotional response. Basically an addiction is a physical and mental dependent on a particular substance, and when somebody unable to stop taking a substance without incurring adverse effects. Although when we think of addictive substances we think of drugs, cigarettes, and alcohol, porn can easily fit into the category of addiction. Porn actually has very similar effects on the brain compared to alcohol and other drugs. According to a study at Cambridge University, compulsive users of porn showed the same signs of addiction in their brain as those addicted to alcohol or drugs. During their study, researchers hooked young men’s brains up to a scanner compare brain activity of healthy volunteers to consistent pornography user.  The brain scan showed more pronounced stimulation when watching X-rated material when compared to those not addicted. The area that was stimulated, the reward pathway, is the same part that is highly active among drug and alcohol users. 

 Later studies by Dr. Valerie Voon, a Cambridge University neuroscientist specializing in addictions, showed the difference between regular exciting images, like sports pictures, compared to sexual images. It turned out that men’s brains, which already had an addiction to porn, reacted less strongly when shown the sports pictures compared to sexual images. Men who were not addicted to porn were also tested, and similar results were found. Dr. Voon’s also found that a part of the brain that was lit up during porn usage was the ventral striatum. This is the same part of the brain that is active when a drug addict sees a dealer or when an alcoholic sees anything related to drinking.

Porn can become an addiction because of the need to feel the pleasure it can bring, and because it also effects the “reward pathway.” The “reward pathway” is a function of the brain that keeps a person motivated to do the functions that keeps you are your genes alive. This includes eating and having sex to produce offspring. The way this rewards you is by releasing dopamine into your brain. As the brain adapts to the consistent stream of dopamine, users begin to find that they are unable to feel normal without that dopamine high.

Also, when the chemical dopamine is released into the brain, the new pathway is helped build by a protein called “IFosB.” This proteins job is to help remember to do the activities that are important or make you feel good. Basically while watching porn, dopamine is motivating your brain and rewarding you, and IFosb is leaving markers in your brain to help you remember why you feel so good. Just like dopamine, IFosb begins to build up the more a person watches porn or uses drugs. The more somebody watches porn or uses drugs, more IFosB is used and build, which in turn makes its easier for the user to turn back to the behavior, whether they want to or not. IFosb can cause a genetic change that in turn causes irreversible changes in that can leave people more vulnerable to addiction. It is also know that with addiction, comes behavioral changes.

            Since we already know that porn directly affects the reward pathway by releasing high concentrates of dopamine and IFosB, we can conclude that the use pornography does change a person’s behavior. Not only does a person become addicted to the substance, but also they begin to become aroused by objects that used to disgust them or go against what they believed was right. The more a porn user watches extreme porn, the more normal those behaviors become to the user. A simple argument against this is, not all users watch “extreme” porn, but in fact most porn users change they type of porn they watch over time, especially if they are trying to feel dopamine like they used to. In survey done in 2012 of 1,500 men, 56% of those men said that they changed from watching “regular” porn to “ extreme or deviant” porn. As the brain continually wires what the user is seeing while feeling aroused, what “turns them on” can begin to change too. Researcher Jim Faust who experimented with rats proved this.

Faust began his experiment by putting virgin male rats in the same cages with female rats that had been sprayed with a liquid that smelled like rotting rat. To his surprise, the drive to mate was more powerful than the instinct to avoid the smell. He continued this process until the male rats learned to associate sex with the smell of death. He did this by putting towels soaked in the death smell in the cages with the male rats. He found that the male rats would “play” with the towels as thought it was another female rat or an object they loved. Faust later connected his experiment to the human brain. Both rats and humans release dopamine during sex. The rats’ brain made a pathway with dopamine that connected the smell of death to pleasure, just like our brains may be turned on by “rotten” objects after watching porn. This is just one of the behaviors that can be changed because of porn.

Porn doesn’t just leave a person to change their sexual behaviors; it can also leave a person to become more violent. X-rated films can easily turn to violence, but most people think they tend to stay away from them. A group of researchers looked at 50 of the most popular pornography videos and analyzed them to see how much violence was in them. Out of 304 different scenes, 88% contained physical violence, 49% contained verbal aggression. They also found that only one scene out of 10 didn’t contain any violence, but a typical scene averaged 12 physical or verbal attacks. The difference between regular violence, fight scenes in a Hollywood movie, compared to porn violence is, 95% of the victims of aggression in the porn scenes didn’t respond in a negative way but instead with pleasure. Like stated before, the more a person watches porn, the more desensitezed a person becomes, and the more acceptable they become to the things they once were against or disgusted them. Even if a user doesn’t watch violent porn, they are still more likely to support and promote abuse and sexual aggression to women and girls. This is because in most porn there is a strong male, sometimes even female, dominance over the other.

Porn changes our brains to tend to more violent actions after watching violent porn because of “mirror neurons,” or brain cells that fire when we do things ourselves and when we watch other people do things too. An example of another time we use our “mirror cells” is when we cry during movies or get emotionally involved while watching sports. While watching porn our brains are telling our body to become sexually aroused with whatever is popping up onto the screen, even if it is violence. If an actor on the pornography video were to be harmed while feeling aroused, the user watching this performance is going to begin associating that violence with being sexy. Even if the porn is not violent, users begin to see other people as sexual objects instead of human beings. Watching porn can also lead people to believe women want to be treated with harassment and think that all people like sexual aggression. In some cases porn has lead people to take on rapist tendencies. Other research has found that porn does not only change users sexual behavior and tendencies toward aggression, but also leave people feeling lonely and have less satisfying sex.

             Even though porn is becoming more accepted, people don’t realize how harmful it actually is. Porn not only changes the chemical makeup of a users brain through dopamine, oxytocin, and proteins, but it also changes the users behaviors. Although porn isn’t considered a drug, it has similar effects and can lead to a serious harmful addiction. Researchers are just beginning to scratch the surface on the affects of porn, and many are working hard on trying to show what porn actually does to the brain and body. Porn often promises pleasure but instead leaves the user for the worse.