‘The widespread use of internet porn is one of the fastest-moving global experiments ever unconsciously conducted,’ the U.S. science writer Gary Wilson told a TEDx audience in 2012. For the first time ever, Wilson explained, we can track how ever-growing exposure to pornography affects sexual practices, appetites and trends. Wilson – who is neither a scientist nor a professor – is the founder of Your Brain On Porn, a site that popularises anti-pornography research. In his talk, he reiterated the site’s main conclusions: when we have pornography freely available at our fingertips, the brain’s reward circuits go into overdrive as they’re exposed to what he terms ‘extreme versions of natural events’. Instead of one or two possible sexual partners, now there are dozens, hundreds, all readily accessible in a single click. Like any addiction, Wilson says, the result is a numbed response to pleasure, from lack of interest in real women to erectile dysfunction. Ubiquitous pornography undermines natural sexuality.
The actual effects of pornography on attitudes, behaviour, life and relationship satisfaction are difficult to study, and for many years most data have remained purely correlational or anecdotal. But early on, there emerged suggestive inklings that those who vocally opposed pornography’s spread might be motivated more by emotion than any tangible proof.
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