is pornography okay well today we're going to answer that question i'm dr reena malik urologist and pelvic surgeon and if you're new here i make content weekly on sexual health bladder health urologic health and so much more if you like what you see make sure you subscribe and share this channel with your friends Before I get started, I want to be 100% clear. I strongly believe that no one should be shamed for their sexual behaviors as long as they're not damaging themselves or damaging others. And quite frankly, pornography is everywhere.
People are going to get exposed to it and maybe even have problems with it. So let's take a deep dive into the scientific research about pornography. So first off, who uses it? Well, depending on the study, up to 70 to 80% of men have used pornography or use it regularly, and up to 32% of women.
Interestingly, traffic to pornography sites increased by 11% during the COVID pandemic. And people use pornography for a number of different reasons. To increase sexual desire, to satisfy their curiosities about sex, and sadly, to learn about anatomy.
Because let's face it, sexual education is limited, if not mediocre at best. Is pornography black or white, good or bad? Well, there's not one right answer for every person. So I'm going to ask each of you to please watch this video in its entirety.
entirety to learn the pros and cons of pornography before you make your decision on the positive side people have shown that pornography users have a more positive attitudes towards sex they may be willing to experiment more with their partners and have a more satisfied sexual life because of it and in the moment watching pornography usually causes people to feel good and lastly some studies have shown particularly in women that watching pornography increases their sexual satisfaction and libido and people who watch porn with a partner actually find that they're more dedicated to their partner and more sexually satisfied. And I know a lot of people worry about watching abusive and damaging pornography and how that can cause maybe sexual violence, but there has been no linkage after looking at multiple studies with pornography and increases in sexual violence, rape, or assault. So when does pornography become a problem?
Across multiple studies, up to 4 to 10% of people find that they have a problem with porn use or may see it as a problem. self-identify as having a porn addiction. Medically, porn addiction is not a classified disease. What people in the medical field call it is problematic pornography use. So who is at risk for getting problematic pornography use?
Watching more pornography does put you at higher risk, but doesn't in and of itself mean that you have a problem. Also, if you have depression or anxiety on top of watching a lot of pornography, that puts you at a higher risk as well. If you find yourself having moral incongruence or feeling that morally porn pornography is bad, you're more likely to have a problem due to pornography use.
Lastly, if you find yourself preferring masturbation to pornography than having sex with your partner or a real person, then that's also a sign that you may have a problem. If you think you have a problem, you probably do. So how does this actually happen?
Let me explain how pornography affects our brains and our behaviors. Our brains are often exposed to a neurochemical called dopamine. It makes us feel good and our brains are wired to look f***ed.
for things that give us dopamine. And those are usually things that help sustain our bodies and help sustain our species. And sex is one of those things because sex leads to fertility, which leads to propagation of humankind.
And when you watch pornography, your brain releases the same chemicals that get released during sex, dopamine. So watching pornography and people who develop this problematic pornography use have upregulations in pathways in our brain that cause us to look for these dopamine pathways over other things that we normally would do so your brain starts developing cravings for pornography and even signs of things that may be similar to other addictive substances like drugs for example you may develop a tolerance so you'll watch some pornography and you may need to find more novel more aggressive or different types of pornography to get the same sort of enjoyment from watching it you also get impulsivity and compulsivity what that means is you get strong sudden urges to watch pornography and you you compulsively do them, you keep repeating it regardless of the negative consequences that might occur. And you get what's called a weakened executive function.
What that means is your brain, when it tells you to do things that are good for you, so like go to work, take a shower, pick up your kids from school, just normal activities, but when you have this pathway upregulated, you actually impair that executive function, so you're less likely to do things that you normally would do. And lastly, you can get dysphoria. And so what that means is that you start start feeling very frustrated and unhappy in other parts of your life when you're not watching pornography. And this, all of this taken together can really impact your Willpower and willpower is actually not the best way to get rid of these cravings and we'll talk about how to get rid of this problem if you are finding yourself having problematic pornography use in a video to follow. So when all this is going on in your brain, what happens to people in real life?
Well, you'll find yourself avoiding doing normal daily activities, spending time with family or friends rather than going to work, finding yourself watching pornography instead. This can lead to social isolation, feeling very lonely and having very few connections. It can lead to financial problems where you're spending more and more money to use pornography, and it can cause problems.
problems in your relationships. More than that, people can find themselves getting signs of real mental health disorders like depression or anxiety where you're feeling constant sadness or constant worry. And what about your sex life? Here's where some of the problems come in.
People are accessing pornography at younger and younger ages. In fact, boys are accessing pornography as early as 10 years of age. And in fact, I'm going to make a video of how this could be detrimental to younger kids and how to talk to your kids about pornography. also coming up so make sure you subscribe to my channel and turn on that notification bell so you can make sure you don't miss these new and upcoming videos so these younger children who are watching pornography don't have fully developed brains and they have difficulty discerning what's reality and what's fake and pornography if you're not aware is a fake product it is not real life this is not how normal sexual encounters occur this is a highly edited product with lighting with special effects and and all sorts of things that can make sex seem like something very different from what it really is.
And quite frankly, a lot of pornography is aggressive, abusive, and doesn't show you how you actually need to pleasure your partner. These actors in pornography are not average people. They have above average length penises. They have special effects to make it look like they have higher volumes of semen.
And they are immediately erect and women are immediately lubricated, which is not at all what happens in real life. If you wanna. learn more about how to pleasure women or about an anatomy of women please check out my previous videos i've done some great interviews with lisa mangel das dr kelly casperson and dr laurie mintz about how to pleasure women and i made a great video about female anatomy so you can understand exactly how and women do derive pleasure based on their anatomy the real issue with this fake production of pornography is people can start really having self-esteem issues so they start thinking like oh am i good enough because i don't look like that that? Or am I pleasuring my partner well enough because they're not responding like the woman on the porno video did?
All of this taken together can lead to performance anxiety and issues with erections. So if you're having problematic pornography use or you're finding yourself really comparing yourself to the things you're seeing on pornography, this is a sign that maybe you should really investigate your pornography use and check out my next video on how to reduce this problematic use. I hope you all found this helpful.
Please comment below. and let me know what you thought as always remember take care of yourself because you're worth it