A German study suggests that watching porn may be linked to reduced activity in certain areas of the brain
by Coleen Singer at Sssh.com
This morning while cruising the headlines on CNN’s website, I spotted that rather large HEADLINE screaming out about how a newly published article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) concluded that watching porn (or at least too MUCH porn) was somehow rotting our brains. These sort of studies come out a few times a year, and are generally supported by either the sex-addiction clinical treatment industry, or conservative groups that just don’t like porn and figure some empirical research stats might help in stamping out this scourge on humanity.
The German study, conducted by Simone Kühn, PhD; Jürgen Gallinat, PhD was published in JAMA Psychiatry on May 28th. 2014, and analyzed a relatively small sample, provides the first evidence which could lead to establishing a link between pornography consumption and brain size. However, it did not determine whether watching porn leads to the decreased volume and activity, or if people born with certain brain characteristics watch more porn.
The study’s researchers questioned 64 healthy German men aged 21 to 45 about their porn watching habits at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, Germany. They also examined how their brains reacted to pornographic images and took images of their brains in order to measure volume.
The results also show that the brain region activated when people view sexual stimuli is less active in men who watch a lot of pornography. It also shows the part of the brain associated with processing rewards is smaller in men who view pornography more often.
That was about it for anything on the internet news sites, so being a dutiful cub porn industry reporter, clicked on over the the JAMA site to find the full study. After a bit of sticker shock that JAMA wanted to charge me $30 for 24 hour access to the full text, I buckled down, took out the credit card and ponied up the money so I could read the entire thing. I figured that with all the bitching I do about consumers watching too much free porn, it was the least I could do to be responsible and respectful of the value of intellectual property!
The study was long! Used a LOT of big words and medical terminology that went WAY over my head, but after a few reads and a few google machine searches for definitions of some important terms, I generally got the gist of it all.
In their abstract, the study states: “Since pornography appeared on the Internet, the accessibility, affordability, and anonymity of consuming visual sexual stimuli have increased and attracted millions of users. Based on the assumption that pornography consumption bears resemblance with reward-seeking behavior, novelty-seeking behavior, and addictive behavior, we hypothesized alterations of the frontostriatal network in frequent users.
Results We found a significant negative association between reported pornography hours per week and gray matter volume in the right caudate (P < .001, corrected for multiple comparisons) as well as with functional activity during a sexual cue–reactivity paradigm in the left putamen (P < .001). Functional connectivity of the right caudate to the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex was negatively associated with hours of pornography consumption.
Conclusions and Relevance The negative association of self-reported pornography consumption with the right striatum (caudate) volume, left striatum (putamen) activation during cue reactivity, and lower functional connectivity of the right caudate to the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex could reflect change in neural plasticity as a consequence of an intense stimulation of the reward system, together with a lower top-down modulation of prefrontal cortical areas. Alternatively, it could be a precondition that makes pornography consumption more rewarding.”
The study’s authors go on to provide a bit of sociological context, saying: ” Depictions of sexual content in films, music videos, and the Internet have increased in recent years. Because the Internet is not subject to regulations, it has emerged as a vehicle for circulation of pornography. Pornographic images are available for consumption in the privacy of one’s home via the Internet rather than in public adult bookstores or movie theaters. Therefore, the accessibility, affordability, and anonymity have attracted a wider audience. Research in the United States has shown that 66% of men and 41% of women consume pornography on a monthly basis. An estimated 50% of all Internet traffic is related to sex. These percentages illustrate that pornography is no longer an issue of minority populations but a mass phenomenon that influences our society. Interestingly, the phenomenon is not restricted to humans; a recent study found that male macaque monkeys gave up juice rewards to watch pictures of female monkeys’ bottoms.
Female monkey bottoms???
Okay. I suspect that might have been the Germans adding a little touch of humor to the otherwise thick and technical study to spice it up a bit!
I do have a few observations and conclusions of my own to add to all of this:
1. As the study was done in Germany, one can only assume the 67 subjects were watching German Porn. That would explain a lot of it. Have you ever SEEN German Porn? It’s not the cool and cutting edge stuff coming out of the USA, or the highly stylized and artistic content being produced in Spain, France, Australia and the Czech Republic. It’s primarily old-school, “wham, bam, danke schön ma’am” fare, with the majority of spoken words by the female performers being “OOOOOF!” and “Ach, du lieber!”. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I do suspect an overdose of it might risk some neurological effects. (Next time you are in Germany in a hotel room, flip through the channels and you’ll pretty quickly get the idea!).
2. As one of the methods used in the study was to administer the test subjects called the “Internet Sex Screening Test”, it’s interesting to note that this is a self-administered test provided by http://www.sexhelp.com/. Seeing this as one of the study’s methods, I took the 6 minutes needed to take this test. No surprise that, as I watch, edit or review porn as part of my job 7 days a week, I scored OFF THE CHART for having a horrid case of Sex Addiction! Also interesting to note that with the results, came a dire warning and recommendation to seek treatment immediately at one of the many fine sex addiction treatment facilities that advertise on their site. (I suspect health care insurance does not cover this sort of treatment, and can only imagine the cost of a 30-day in-patient stay at one of these fine facilities.)
3. The number of test subjects was only 67. All German and from Berlin. That seems like a rather small sampling to get any statistical significance, and as all subjects were male Berliners, their shrinking brains might also be caused by too much Strudel or Schnapps?
At the end of the day on these sort of “scientific studies”, I tend to always be pretty wary of them. Not just for the possibly shoddy research methodology, but also the motivation of why the study was even conducted. Often, it’s yet another ploy by the anti-pornography advocates to push through censorship, scare people, and, in some cases, ramp up some clinical treatment revenues.
As this article was a bit dry, I’ll leave you with a cute little joke that’s been around for decades:
A researcher conducting a study on spider behavior first teaches his spider how to jump on verbal command.
Baseline: “Jump, spider, Jump” command to spider with six legs results in spider jumping six inches.
The researcher then pulls off one of the spiders legs, and repeats the command.
Result: “Jump, spider, Jump” command to spider with five legs results in spider jumping five inches.
One by one, the scientist pulls off one more leg at a time, each one resulting in the spider jumping one inch less.
Finally, the researcher pulls off the last leg.
Result: “Jump, spider, Jump” command. Spider does not jump.
Retry: “Jump, spider, Jump” command. Spider does not jump.
Conclusion: Spiders with no legs are deaf.