The Science of Sex is a podcast that seeks to explore the depths of human sexuality using the tools of science in order to uncover the fascinating worlds of human desire and sexual health. Hosted by Joe Duncan from Sexography and The Science of Sex.
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Our conversation spans many different topics, from personal stories about non-monogamy and monogamy to overviews of the stories found in the book, which span countless cultures across many countries on many continents.
Note: there were some audio issues with the recording of this episode, so after many hours of working tirelessly to clean up the audio, I’ve finally got it ready to go. Toward the end, Jonathan’s voice cuts out a little bit, but it’s still intelligible.
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Disclosure: this podcast contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Affiliate, I make a small commission from any sales of Jonathan’s book, A World Beyond Monogamy, which can be found here on Amazon.
New Battles in the Modern War on Sex With Dr. David Ley, Ph.D.
mardi 27 juin 2023 • Durée 01:47:24
In this one hour and forty five minute talk, Dr. David Ley, Ph.D. and I talk about how the current war on sexuality came to be, how the myth of porn and sex addiction get started, and how we can view sexuality in a healthier way. One theme I took from this interview is the importance of self-forgiveness and self-love in loving—and having sex with—other people.A note about the interview is this: though science has firmly rejected the ideas of sex and porn addiction, some therapists still treat it. There’s an abundance of therapists and counselors out there not following the science, but following internet trends instead.
If you haven’t seen my interview with Dr. Nicole Prause, Ph.D., we discussed the myth of porn addiction. Dr. Prause is the only researcher in the world with a hands-on lab who studies people watching pornography. She says definitively that porn addiction does not exist, though we didn’t discuss sex addiction much, if at all.
When it comes to sex addiction, David Ley, Ph.D. actually knows a thing or two about it. He literally wrote the book on the subject. Dr. Ley wrote The Myth of Sex Addictionwhich can be found on Amazon here.
He also wrote Insatiable Wives: Women Who Stray and the Men Who Love Them (available here) and Ethical Porn for Dicks (available here).
Dr. Ley brings a lot of research to the table in this interview along with his experience as a psychologist who specializes in sex therapy. We discuss much more than just the anti-sex forces among us and Dr. Ley leaves us with quite a bit of advice about how we can best approach our romantic relationships.
You can read a lot of David’s work here on Psychology Today where he’s regularly featured and visit his official website for more.
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Debunking Myths About Porn Addiction
mardi 27 juin 2023 • Durée 01:19:20
The Science of Sex had an interview with Dr. Nicole Prause, Ph.D. of UCLA and founder of Liberos, an independent research facility that seeks to explore the health benefits of sexual touch. Liberos is the only lab that allows “hands on” self-stimulation and partner-touch in respect to pornography, observing people while they watch pornography as they normally would.
You can follow Dr. Prause on Twitter here, her handle is @NicoleRPrause.
We mention an abundance of research in this interview, which can be found here:
In this solo episode, Joe Duncan discusses the ins-and-outs of threesomes, what it means to love someone in the Aristotelian sense, caring for someone on their terms vs your own terms, and covers some practical tips for engaging in the threesome of your dreams. He talks about some advice given by Dr. Jenn Mann and offers personal experiences that will help you navigate the difficult terrain of the threesome.
Jealousy happens. It doesn’t always happen, but it happens enough that you want to be prepared for it.
All music composed and performed by Joe Duncan, writer and owner of The Science of Sex, editor of Sexography, the largest sexual health and education publication on Medium. All recording, production, and narration by Joe Duncan.
Our subscribers keep us going. Join thousands of people and subscribe so you don’t miss a beat and you can help us spread the word so people can have safer, healthier, happier, and more enjoyable sex and relationships.
Thank you for listening.
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Sex & Weed: How Does Marijuana Impact My Sex Life?
mercredi 15 février 2023 • Durée 20:02
I’ll never forget the first time I smoked marijuana.
It was about 3 PM after high school had let out. A few friends and I had taken to the park next door to the high school. It's where all the bad kids would hang out after school. We would smoke cigarettes, talk about our latest teenage crushes, and make fun of one another—usual kid stuff.
Strolling through the park, I came upon some old friends I hadn't seen in a while. They were standing in a circle. I nudged my way into the circle and asked what they were doing. I quickly found out they were smoking a blunt. I’d been friends with one of the guys for years, and he asked if I wanted to partake.
Feeling wild and never passing up the opportunity to try something new, I decided to give it a shot.
I took this earthy-smelling firestick up to my lips and inhaled as deeply as possible. They insisted: take more, feel free. So I did. I took several puffs before the world started to spin uncontrollably.
After a few minutes, it all became too much. I bolted, leaving the circle without even saying where I was going. I ran across the park to the bathroom, where I promptly dry-heaved for a few hours straight. When I left the bathroom, it was starting to get dark out, the very beginnings of sunset. I made my way home, and still, I felt sick. I was incredibly nauseous all day long.
Needless to say, my first encounter with this strange plant was anything but superb.
Skip forward into adulthood, and after working a plethora of odd jobs, I wound up working in politics. A few friends got me various political gigs, and it stuck. From environmental activism to legislation and working for Senators, Congresspersons, and even political parties, I weaved my way through the murky underbelly of professional politics.
First, some disclosures:
During my tenure, I would go on to be a part of several teams fighting for marijuana legalization on ten different occasions across the United States. I worked on Prop 64 in California, the law that legalized marijuana for recreational use. It had been approved for medicinal use in California since the mid-1990s. I worked the Florida push to legalize medical marijuana twice, the one that failed in 2014 and the one that succeeded later in 2017. I worked to pass marijuana laws in Denver, Colorado, Arizona, and a small town called Jurupa Valley, California, just outside Riverside.
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No, the Top 10% of Men Don't Take All the Women. Stop Saying This.
mercredi 9 novembre 2022 • Durée 11:25
No, the top 10% of men don’t take all the women at the expense of the other 90%. It’s time we stop repeating this flagrantly untrue trope and kill it where it stands.
One of the most prominent divisive figures to arise out of the social media era is undoubtedly Jordan Peterson.
His unorthodox views on relationships resonate with millions of single men out there. Peterson has a very diverse group of followers, but it’s inarguable that his message has been stitched together in such a way as to appeal to single or frustrated men.
He’s become widely popular as an anti-woke hero and self-help author.
And it’s no wonder why.
He speaks with unshakable confidence. He’s an academic sticking up for the uneducated poor and middle classes. He stands up for forgotten men at a time when society has turned a blind eye to their pain.
As a former professor, people readily assume he enters into his debates with figures, percentages, and data points to back up his convictions. He’s viewed as a guru and an intellectual powerhouse.
And yet, he’s almost always wrong — at least when he speaks about the human sexes, sex itself, and human relationships. Let me explain.
A View of Human Relationships
Jordan Peterson talks a lot about relationships. He’ll tell you casual sex is destroying the world. He says or implies that feminism is to blame for offsetting the “natural” power balance between men and women, giving women all the power while most men have none.
The cherry on top is the idea that if women are given the power to choose whomever they want, and monogamy is not strictly enforced, the top 10% of most desirable men take all the women, leaving the other 90% of men single, lonely, and frustrated.
Eventually, these men will turn violent.
The Pareto Principle
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Debunking Myths and Disinformation About Pornography and Sex
samedi 5 novembre 2022 • Durée 19:43
ICYMI: Here’s a post from April about pornography’s effects on people and the massive anti-porn propaganda network masquerading as science, filling the internet with baseless lies or distorted claims.
Before the piece from April, I’m going to discuss this a bit further so people can understand my perspective a bit better. My criticisms of the anti-porn movement don’t mean I’m pro-porn industry.
In today’s world, people, especially activists, demand you take a black-and-white view of every subject. It’s part of the group mentality that dominates the social media space, including Google and YouTube. If you’re not sufficiently with a certain group that’s against another group, you represent a threat to that group’s cohesion when that group is operating under group-think principles.
One problem is that reality is never black and white.
Another problem is that disliking someone doesn’t give me a pass to do whatever I want.
I might strongly disagree with something someone does. But that doesn’t mean I believe we should lie about what that person does wrong in order to make them look worse.
This is exactly what’s happening with the porn discussion. On the one hand, let’s face it, a lot of porn is kinda gross for a lot of people. It’s terrible that some people feel like they have to compete with porn for attention. Worst of all, I’m bothered by the unashamed and cartoonish commodification of sexuality and attraction.
But that doesn’t mean I’m going to automatically believe every lie piled up in front of me that goes against the porn industry. That’s not what honesty is all about.
Honesty is about checking your personal biases at the door the best you can.
It’s also crucial that whenever we talk about sex, we separate genuine moral harm (ie, child predation, sex trafficking rings, etc.) from the “ick” factor that too often accompanies sexual things.
We must ask ourselves, “Who’s being hurt by this activity?” If you think someone is, but they themselves don’t know it, and that person isn’t a child or being threatened by another person somehow, it’s really tough to justify that belief.
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Who Are Women Having Casual Sex With? Science Explores the Question.
dimanche 30 octobre 2022 • Durée 09:59
In one of thet famous quotes in cinematic history, Tony Montana said, in Scarface, “First you get the money. Then you get the power. Then you get the women.” In the 39 years since Scarface was released, generations of men have taken this quote to heart as gospel.
It was a line that foreshadowed the manosphere, a scene that painted women as money-hungry and incapable of affection outside of a transactional dynamic.
But, it was the movies. And the movies aren’t real.
Besides, even if it was true to life, taking romantic advice from drug-addicted kingpins (with miserable wives) who lived a life of crime isn’t a great idea.
Movies portray fictional characters compellingly. The goal is to entertain, not inform.
The money-power-respect line is so far removed from the thoughts and feelings of everyday women, and it’s sad that countless men don’t realize it.
They walk around, oblivious and frustrated.
They think that figures like Tony Montana and other gurus in the manosphere have the answers to their deepest questions about women.
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The Problem With Socially Enforced Monogamy
lundi 17 octobre 2022 • Durée 58:36
Note: This is the audio version of the video, which is available for paid subscribers here. The video features my narration in the beginning before we watch the video of Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson discussing socially enforced monogamy.
Additional reading material here on The Science of Sex:
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If you like what we’re doing here, subscribe to The Science of Sex on Substack. Every subscription helps us keep going, fighting disinformation as we trudge to a better understanding of sexual health and human sexuality.
I moved on to the push for the legalization of marijuana in Florida three times, working three different pushes to legalize it. Cannabis legalization wasn’t the only political cause I cared about, nor was it the majority of my work, but I took every opportunity I could to legalize it.
I also worked as a volunteer petitioning to legalize hallucinogenic psilocybin mushrooms in California, but that’s a story for another day.
I can’t tell you how many countless times I would be engaging voters on marijuana legalization issues, and they’d stop and invite me to take a break and smoke with them. The trouble is, I don’t smoke marijuana. Not after that first experience.
Nonetheless, I’ve always felt it’s my duty to legalize it for the good of those who do smoke it simply because it’s the right thing to do.
I list my marijuana resume, so you understand my positions on marijuana aren’t whimsical fancies. They are convictions forged in blood, sweat, and labor, working on the front lines of politics, engaging voters, and dealing with the who’s who of the political underworld.
Because of all this, I occupy a unique space to talk about marijuana honestly and without bias. I don’t smoke it but I’m also an activist who’s fought strongly for its legalization all over the United States.
Marijuana’s History
When it comes to sex, the science is mixed on how marijuana impacts us. It makes sense. There are as many conflicting scientific findings as there are strains of marijuana available to users.
Marijuana has reported therapeutic effects, but also some health risks which are not clearly defined.
Marijuana has been used since antiquity and has been assumed to possess immense potential as a medicine. Since ancient times, humans have known about its potential to stop seizures, helping epileptics; it's been used for pain relief, depression, and much more. And yet, during all of that time, it was barely researched.
Even during the chemistry boom of the late 19th-century, people largely ignored marijuana while investigating new compounds for medicine, poison, you name it.
Until the 1960s. Once peace, love, and the Hippie movement brought new attention to weed, everything changed. In the early 1960s, scientists knew next to nothing about this dreamy little plant.
A young chemist in his 30s at Israel's Weizmann Institute of Science, Raphael Mechoulam, saw a curious gap in knowledge when he went looking for natural products. The Smithsonian tells Mechoulam’s story in detail in their article The Scientific History of Cannabinoids.
It was only by a stroke of pure luck that Mechoulam was able to study it and discover much of what we know about the plant today.
It was illegal at the time. And it just so happened that the administrative head of his research institute knew a local cop pretty well and put the two in touch. They got together and Mechoulam pitched the police officer his idea—he wanted to study pot. The officer heard him out and agreed, allowing him access to the marijuana the police had confiscated from smugglers. He was given 5 whole kilos to explore.
With that, he was able to determine what THC and CBD were.
The discovery of the chemical composition of cannabis by Mechoulam and his colleagues ignited research on the plant, resulting in over 140 active compounds being identified. Additionally, they uncovered the fact that humans have their own natural forms of similar chemicals, known as endocannabinoids, which influence our mood and personality. Subsequent advances in science have led to the creation of hundreds of synthetic cannabinoids, which are far more potent than those found in nature.
What is Weed?
Let’s talk about what marijuana actually is…
Marijuana, hash, hemp, cannabis, THC, and CBD are all terms related to cannabis, but they all refer to different aspects of the plant. Here is an explanation of each:
* Cannabis – Cannabis is the umbrella term for the genus of flower-bearing plants that includes both marijuana and hemp. Although hemp and marijuana are both varieties of cannabis, they are quite different in terms of their level of THC and other cannabinoids.
* Marijuana – Marijuana is the dried leaves, flowers, stems and seeds of the cannabis plant. It contains THC, the chemical responsible for the psychoactive effects of marijuana.
* Hash – Hash is a concentrated cannabis product that is made by compressing the plant’s resin glands into a ball. It usually has high levels of THC but can also contain other cannabinoids like CBD.
* THC – THC (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol) is the chemical compound in marijuana that is responsible for the plant’s psychoactive effects. THC is generally found in higher concentrations in marijuana than in hemp.
* CBD – CBD (Cannabidiol) is the second most abundant cannabinoid, and it is largely responsible for the therapeutic effects of cannabis. CBD is found in higher concentrations in hemp than in marijuana.
* Hemp – Hemp is a variety of the cannabis plant that contains very low levels of THC. Hemp is used to make paper, textiles, rope, food, and other industrial products. Hemp is mostly high in CBD, not THC.
Cannabis has been used for centuries for a variety of reasons, from suppressing anxiety or pain to spurring appetite and preventing seizures. Epidiolex, a cannabis-derived medicine consisting of purified CBD, was approved in 2018 for the treatment of seizures in some patients. Some people, like those with schizophrenia, OCD, Parkinson's, and cancer, use cannabis to get rid of their symptoms.
But what about those who use it for sex?
Sex on Weed
As I said before, the research is mixed. But the biggest theme cutting across swaths of research seems to be this: for women, marijuana has a positive effect on sexual pleasure, making orgasms more intense and satisfying. However, many men find it more difficult to reach an erection or have difficulty maintaining it.
First, the good news…
A 2019 study published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine explored how cannabis alters the human sexual experience. They issued a survey to both men and women. 216 people reported using marijuana with sex.
Almost half of the people who responded to the survey said they used cannabis to change their sexual experience. Most said that sex was better, either in some ways, or in all ways, when using cannabis. Most also said that cannabis increased their desire for sex, satisfaction, sensitivity to touch, and intensity of orgasm. Additionally, many reported being able to relax more and be better able to focus while using cannabis. 28 people reported having difficulty reaching orgasm without cannabis use. About half of the people who had trouble reaching orgasm while not using cannabis said that it was easier to reach orgasm while using cannabis, but only 10 said that sex was better.
Researchers concluded:
Many participants in our study found that cannabis helped them relax, heightened their sensitivity to touch, and increased intensity of feelings, thus enhancing their sexual experience, while others found that cannabis interfered by making them sleepy and less focused or had no effect on their sexual experience.
The same year, another study was performed and published in Sexual Medicine.
A survey was issued over the course of a year in a medical practice specializing in gynecology and obstetrics. Patients were asked to fill out a questionnaire after their visit and the results were kept anonymous. The main focus was how satisfaction in sexual experiences (like drive, orgasm, lubrication, and pain during sex) was affected by marijuana use.
Out of 373 participants, 127 said they had used marijuana for their sexual activities. Most reported an increase in sex drive, an improvement in orgasm, and a decrease in pain, but there wasn't a change in lubrication. After accounting for race, women who did use marijuana before sex had 2.13 times higher odds of reporting satisfactory orgasms than those who hadn't. Additionally, women who frequently used marijuana (regardless of use before sex or not) had 2.10 times higher odds of reporting satisfactory orgasms than those who did not.
Researchers concluded:
Marijuana appears to improve satisfaction with orgasm. A better understanding of the role of the endocannabinoid system in women is important, because there is a paucity of literature, and it could help lead to development of treatments for female sexual dysfunction.
Yet, for men, research has shown quite a bit of trouble.
In 2011, a team of researchers looked into marijuana’s impacts on men’s sexual health. They looked at existing studies, but found that the results are contradictory and confusing. Recent animal and laboratory studies suggest that cannabis may have some negative effects on erection and other sexual functions. They concluded that more research is needed to find out how it really affects men's sexual health.
A 2019 study further investigated the relationship between marijuana use and erection problems.
The review looked at the prevalence of one of those risks, erectile dysfunction, in cannabis users compared to non-users. The results showed that cannabis users have almost four times the chances of having erectile dysfunction than non-users. However, more research needs to be done to see if there is a relationship between cannabis use and erectile dysfunction.
Aside from physical effects, marijuana also appears to have a psychological impact on individuals’ sexual experiences. People who use marijuana before sex tend to report increased feelings of relaxation and pleasure, as well as improved sexual confidence. This can lead to better sex, but it can also result in decreased inhibition and risky sexual behaviors.
But even this research isn’t very concrete.
A 2018 study looked at whether marijuana increased sexual risk and whether people's expectations about the effects of marijuana on their sexual behavior had an influence. To do this, 126 heterosexual marijuana users were given marijuana or a placebo and then asked to imagine themselves in sexual situations and estimate the likelihood they would use condoms. The results showed that while marijuana itself did not increase sexual risk, expectations about marijuana and sex did influence decision-making. Men given the placebo expected increased sexual risk with a new partner and women expected increased sexual risk with a steady partner.
So while the marijuana itself didn’t increase sexual riskiness, the thought of having sex while high made people more likely to want to engage in risky sex.
I’ve got to say, the bulk of the research has been conducted with minuscule sample sizes. There are also a ton of selection biases. But the issues we see in men are likely not mere noise, static in the data that will fizzle out as more research is done. Such massive increases in erectile dysfunction are suspect and worth further investigating.
The scientific research on the effects of marijuana on sex is inconclusive and hopefully much more research will be done. In the meanwhile, each person knows how they’ll react to marijuana and should use their better judgment with these products becoming more widespread and legal.
Me? I know I’ll be the last guy on earth to touch the stuff.
But I’ll still continue to fight for everyone else’s right to enjoy it.
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It’s an adaptation of the Pareto Principle that says that 80% of the consequences come from 20% of the causes.
* When investing, 20% of your investments will pay big, and 80% will fail.
* In business, 20% of your employees will drive your business and profits, while 80% will be dead weight.
Pro-tip: whenever you hear obviously neatly rounded numbers like this, it’s a huge red flag. People who really know what they’re talking about can give you exact numbers and specific details.
Socially Enforced Monogamy
To remedy this, Peterson is an adamant proponent of socially enforced monogamy. He believes straying from strict monogamy will lead to social decline, destruction, misery, and ultimately “ultra-violence” (his words, not mine).
He often frames casual sex and relationships outside the bonds of long-term commitment or marriage as deviant and decadent.
He portrays any sex that isn’t the “escalator relationship” that leads to marriage, children, and a typical suburban life as being devoid of connection and any sense of responsibility.
I’ll give Jordan credit where credit is due. There’s one place where his 10% rule applies — Tinder.
On Tinder, studies have shown that men swipe right on more than 60% of the women’s profiles they encounter. Women swipe right on 4% of the profiles they encounter. Huge disparity.
But Tinder is an unnatural environment. The scales are artificially tipped in women’s favor by exploiting a basic function of biology — on a whole, women are more choosy, and men are more eager to date and mate.
By design, Tinder incentivizes women’s willingness to forgo dating someone they aren’t super interested in, and it exacerbates men’s eagerness. When the next person is just a swipe away, women conserve time and effort, and men splurge in hopes of hitting the jackpot.
That’s why Tinder is a heavily biased sample.
Tinder appeals to certain people looking for specific things. All dating sites do. They cater to certain crowds, just like SUVs and subcompact electric cars cater to different drivers.
When we step out of the world of Tinder, Jordan’s idea falls apart.
If 10% of the men took all the women, you’d expect roughly 90% of men to be single.
Surprisingly, singlehood is divided equally between the sexes.
* 31% of men are single
* 31% of women are single
The difference?
51% of men under 30 are single. This is the largest age group for single men. For women, it’s the older crowd who are most often single. 49% of women over 65 are single. Younger men and older women tend to be single.
The explanation you’ll get from Peterson’s supporters, and possibly Peterson himself, goes something like this:
Women chase resources, men chase healthy, good-looking, fertile women, so women date older rich men leaving younger men single. Older men date hot, young women until they get older, then trade them in for younger models.
Not true.
Two factors explain why older women and younger men are single:
* The fact that men marry later than women — whether they’re single or sleeping around, men tend to marry older, and women tend to marry younger.
This is nothing new. It has nothing to do with the sexual revolution.
Since 1890, men have married older and women younger. This is because women have always been more likely to assume the role of housekeeper while men pursued careers and postponed marriage.
In fact, the gap has narrowed as women have entered the workforce.
Now, here comes the kicker.
What truly destroys the idea that younger women chase older, wealthier men, and vice versa, is the simple fact that the 2nd largest age bracket of single women is women under 30.
If the top 10% of wealthy, older men were stealing all the young, “fertile” women, you’d expect to see women all the women under 30 taken. But it’s the second-largest age bracket of single women.
* A full 32% of women under 30 are single.
* 31% of ALL American men are single.
* There’s no shortage of single women under 30.
INCELs, people in the Manosphere (a sexist, hypermasculine part of the internet that worships Jordan Peterson like a god), and other disgruntled lads will tell you that men can’t get dates because women aren’t being forced into marriage anymore.
But there are more single women under 30 than the American average.
There’s an abundance of single women under 30 — they just don’t want to date angry, entitled jerks.
Let’s Talk Desire
One last piece of data truly deals the death blow to Peterson’s warped views of sex and dating.
How many people want to be single?
The same Pew Research shows that a full half of single people, both men, and women, don’t want to date anyone.
They have other priorities. This is why it’s so hard for single people to find a date. Most people are taken — but they’re not by the top 10% of men.
They’re taken by the other 69% of non-single people.
Only 15.5% of people in America are single and looking for a partner.
This is far from the “casual sex is taking over” panic it’s been portrayed as. There are so many settled people that it’s hard to find other single people.
And the “top 10% of men steal all the hot women” jargon is unscientific, discredited nonsense. It’s time we stop saying it.
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The trouble is some groups exist strictly to manufacture moral transgressions about certain groups and individuals because they have an “ick” factor against that group.
You see this happen with racial and sexual minorities all the time.
A racist person might use the N-word, or they might present “facts” from dubious information sources that were carefully selected to make the target race look bad.
The intent is the same.
Here’s the thing. I don’t believe that religions that have spent literally centuries punishing sex, sometimes legally, oftentimes with the death penalty, should have anything to say whatsoever about sexual health.
The following piece took me months to research, day in and day out. I didn’t find a single anti-porn organization that I couldn’t trace back to the Church (big name, big budget churches, not your local pastor).
There wasn’t a single bit of “research” claims that weren’t easily debunked in a few hours of research or claims that were wholly manufactured (lies) by the (mostly Mormon) Church because they understand that sexual liberty threatens their belief systems’ very existence.
Big Porn and Big Church are having a very public feud.
When asked to pick a side, I refuse. I vote neither (though I can’t prove that porn is actually harmful—the Church has been obviously very harmful for centuries).
Anyways, here’s the piece. I hope you read on with all of this in mind.
Porn is a touchy subject.
On one hand, people love it. It feels like it’s everywhere. Porn companies rake in billions more than some of our largest corporations (household names, might I add). PornHub is only a click away, and our porn viewing habits are something we talk about openly. Our sexuality has never been freer.
On the other hand, many people feel discomfort or shame when pornography enters the picture. And if you don’t like porn, you don’t like porn, the ease of access can feel suffocating. It can feel like you’re forced to measure up to performers who go to extreme lengths to create the final product.
On top of this, porn is a habit we carry into new relationships with us. One partner may find porn perfectly acceptable, while the other partner considers porn an uninvited guest.
How porn affects our sex lives depends on the person in question.
But what does science have to say about all of this?
The Pornography Epidemic?
First, let’s tackle the elephant in the living room.
Numerous sites exist solely to scare you into believing there’s a porn epidemic. All of these sites try to sell you something or get you to pay them money, so they can “cure” the porn problem.
We’re in the middle of a “sex panic,” where aggressive institutions attempt to convince the public that sex is bad in hopes they’ll adopt conservative social views. They claim that pornography is rampant.
Make no mistake: these are conservative and religious organizations masquerading as unbiased academics.
CovenantEyes doesn’t hide its religious undertones--it’s right there in the name. The very popular site Fight the New Drug is more covert, pretending to be an unbiased site trying to give you the facts.
But they’re really a non-profit based in Utah with deep, ambiguous connections to the Mormon Church. The group’s founders claim to be acting out of sincere concern for public well-being, but the group’s leadership has consistently fought to repeal anti-LGBTQ legislation.
The leaders of these organizations (not the organizations themselves) aren’t just anti-porn, they’re anti-sex…or, at least, they’re against any kind of sex that isn’t religious and for procreation. Not exactly the epitome of intellectual rigor.
Internal literature from the church proves that its mission is moral, not scientific.
They don't hide being propagandists.
One woman frequently featured on Fight the New Drug even went as far as to say that women who watch porn are increasing their likelihood of being raped (the article below explains in detail).
A lot of people don’t realize that the organizations driving a lot of the anti-porn disinformation aren’t harmless and unbiased non-profits but Think Tanks steeped in religious zealotry and social conservatism.
One site claims that 30% of the internet is porn. They also claim that porn sites enjoy more daily users than Amazon, Netflix, and Twitter combined. They also say that 88% of porn is violence against women.
Science tells a very different story.
First off, the 30% number is totally bunk. This has been disproven time and again.
An excellent book called A Billion Wicked Thoughts: What the Internet Tells Us About Sexual Relationships dove headfirst into the labyrinthine questions that relatively new technologies like internet porn have manifested. In 2012, researchers scanned billions of data points to find out what makes us tick when we think no one’s looking--when we’re searching for internet porn.
The study found that only 4% of websites are pornographic, contrary to the 30% claim.
Furthermore, very few web searches are for porn. Considering that one user could conduct hundreds or thousands of different pornographic searches, all fetching roughly the same sites, we can expect the number of total searches to be higher than the number of sites catering to those searches.
13% of web searchers from the browser and 20% of mobile searches are for porn.
This chart from Statista shows the prevalence of porn online, confirming that research.
In the 1990s, a substantial percentage of internet searches were for porn (up to 40% in 1999). That’s not because we’re porn-hungry, but because so few people had internet access and those who didn’t have many choices.
YouTube didn’t exist. Social media didn’t exist. Even sites like eBay and Amazon were in their infancy. You could look up stock prices, news, porn, and not too much else.
Since those sites became popular, the percentage of porn searches sank to between 4% and 10% in the 2000s. Twenty years ago.
We have tools like Google Trends available to us. And if these overblown claims were indeed true, we’d likely see porn dominating the trending searches all the time. But that’s not the case.
I often conduct research into the best-performing searches, and I’ve never seen a pornographic search top the list. Usually, it’s pop culture news and sports, especially soccer.
All these organizations have to do is conduct the necessary research, but their purpose isn’t to inform but to misinform and scare.
What’s the Problem?
The problem is these organizations are politically and religiously motivated, and they’re deflecting away from some uncomfortable truths.
In a stroke of pure irony, Fight the New Drug even cites research that’s shown that it’s not pornography that’s an issue in itself, but religious affiliation and conservative views about sex that cause internal conflicts in porn viewers.
This is what leads people to constantly feel like their porn-viewing habits are “unhealthy” because when your goal is zero then any amount more than that is too much. It’s what tragically inspired the mass shooting at a massage parlor in Atlanta in 2020.
For the claim that 88% of porn depicts violence against women, the organization cited a single study that was initially published in a journal called Violence Against Women, and it included all forms of consensual aggression as violence against women.
In other words, pretty much any consensual BDSM porn video would automatically hit such a low bar.
Most rational people don’t consider consensual light spanking as violence against women.
The claims about the potential dangers of porn are clearly overblown. The work of Nicole Prause at UCLA has shown that a lot of the “neuroscience” published claiming to show porn is addictive like a drug is pseudoscience. Time and again, studies have shown that the idea that porn is addictive are disinformation.
A brand-new study published at Oxford says that porn doesn’t fit the public health definitions of a crisis.
It’s the oldest trick in the book, convince people they have a problem and that you’re the solution. Then sell them the solution. Donald L. Hilton, M.D., one of the prominent members of the movement and neurosurgeon who produces bunk research regularly that’s indistinguishable from quality science, published a book about how Jesus can rescue you from sex and porn.
Is Porn Harmless?
Porn may not be as harmful as some people say, but does that mean it’s utterly harmless? Well, not exactly. These websites and activist movements are successful because they speak to people’s fears and traumas. Their statistics might be lies, but they resonate with people’s pain. That pain is real.
And just because someone’s emotional traumas don’t bend to the cold, hard rigor of logic doesn’t mean they aren’t real and don’t deserve to be respected.
The truth is that porn can be harmful to some people—people with lingering sexual trauma. Whether that trauma is from sexual assault, a strict religious upbringing, or just conflicting beliefs about sexual morality, lingering trauma can trigger intense feelings of pain, fear, insecurity, or worry in many people when they’re exposed to pornography.
In a perfect world, we’d all be able to snap our fingers and overcome our lingering sexual hangups overnight. But we don’t live in a perfect world. We live in an ugly, messy world with partners who are living, breathing human beings, complete with complex emotions.
And even when trauma isn’t present, studies have shown that when a partner uses pornography as a substitute for partnered sex, our partners tend to suffer. Porn isn’t a replacement for sex, it’s a component that helps those who consume it to better explore and express their sexual selves.
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I’d like to take a moment to recommend checking out Michael Castleman, M.A., whose writings on this subject have been immensely informative. David Ley, Ph.D. has also conducted a lot of crucial research on the subject.
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