Excellent work on a topic that is becoming dominated by folk wisdom and pseudoscience very quickly.
I worked with sex offenders for years and well remember the claims in the 1980s of what the effects of pornography were. I recall a presenter in the 80s being asked in the Q&A if he thought that pornography increased the likelihood of reoffending. He shrugged and said, "Well, maybe. But I'd give one of my patients a stack of Playboys before I let him have a glass of beer."
I'd be super curious to hear your experiences with porn use in that population. We're too puritanical to really study this stuff. For all we know, there could be uses of porn that make some populations *less* likely to offend.
I retired from the hospital a few years ago, and from working with DSOs 20 years ago, though there were always a few sprinkled in my population. I know of no research about possible benefits. But it's not puritanism that we don't study it. People working with or researching DSO's are about the least sexually reserved people you can imagine, and it is easy to get funding for topics relatedd to sex. Your model may be out of date by decades. No "puritans" left. (And the puritans get a bad rap on this, BTW, but that's another story.)
What prevents good research is often that the conflict between the desire to punish and the desire to treat takes up all the oxygen in the room. I come from the third camp, which gets no love, that protection of society trumps either punishment or treatment. Therefore, containment and accountability are the whole show. Everyone agrees with that gushingly in theory, then goes back to punishing or treating. I don't think either of those helps much.
Nov 5, 2022·edited Nov 5, 2022Liked by Stuart Ritchie
When we come across a passage like this, should we revise our view of the author/text in question?
I wrote "seems implausible" next to this sentence in my copy of Perry's book, so I guess I can say I have a good nose for this sort of thing. But I rather liked the book in general. Can I just say "well that was a momentary and understandable lapse" and continue to appreciate the book? I suspect the answer is yes. In fact I think it might be an unrealistic standard to expect the author of a popular and wide-ranging polemic not to contain any oversights, errors, or indulgences in wishful-thinking.
This is a very good question, and I was talking to a pal about exactly this earlier today. I think I would now take her numerical claims with a pinch of salt, and just double-check the sources. To be honest, it's a bit of an editorial lapse to let an author away with a straight-up numerical claim (and in this case a very striking one!) without citing a primary source, or at least something more solid than a Guardian lifestyle piece.
Do we really have time to double-check the sources, though? I mean, obviously you did here, so thanks! But the opportunity costs of double checking the facts in a book are high. It takes a long time, and it seems responsible to suppose that a professional would have done it for us. That should be part of the process of producing the book!
Agreed, definitely take her numerical claims with a pinch of salt. But maybe we should be doing that already? I guess I'm inclined to think that if our evaluation of a book or argument hinges too closely on a few numbers or facts therein that's already a problem.
On the other hand maybe I'm letting Perry off the hook too easily---surely she (and others) can and should do better than to use such dubious numbers.
Nov 7, 2022·edited Nov 7, 2022Liked by Stuart Ritchie
This does incline me towards checking the footnotes of social science books, at least for claims that are particularly important to the thesis or that will be important to my own writing and/or thinking. I also might be more likely to check the footnotes for books written by journalists rather than experts in a field. That's annoying, because it seems like authors and especially reputable book editors ought to ensure adequate fact-checking in the book publishing process.
Just my experience, but the only place I've had dedicated fact-checking (i.e. a specific person goes through all numerical/factual claims I've made and checks they match up with a source) is for American magazines, e.g. when I've written a couple of things for The Atlantic. When I was quoted for a New Yorker piece a fact-checker called me up to read my quote back to me and make sure it was definitely what I'd said to the journalist.
This doesn't happen at all for UK publications in my experience, and it only happens with books to the extent that editors want to spend time looking stuff up - and they've got plenty of other things to do...!
Lastly, I've learned that it's prudent to do my own fact checking when possible on statements that strongly confirm my priors. Confirmation bias is powerful!
I was surprised to find that I was sympathetic to Perry's thesis. It cuts against most of my "priors", and it made me wonder whether, at age 56, I've gained wisdom or just lost testosterone (and whether those two are the same thing). ;)
But yes, it's probably best to take it as social commentary rather than science and to thus forgive its "technical" errors.
I think in this case as in many others we need to distinguish a lapse from a pattern. If I found that Perry has repeatedly made factual statements without adequate evidentiary support, I'd be inclined to give my time to other authors instead. But given this is a single lapse (that I know of), and balancing that against the strengths of the book (well argued, timely, good evidence marshaled elsewhere), my impression of the book and of the author has not changed much.
I have been checking book sources more often and with greater attention to detail and it absolutely colors how I view the author.
The low standard of research and evidence is ultimately on the author.
This year I have read nonfiction books that have incorrectly claimed Britain has fewer than 100 harvests left, that Fascism was a left wing movement, that a school curriculum advocated for a counter genocide against Christians, and that gun crime boomed after a national ban when in reality the way crime was measured had changed.
I wonder how many mistakes I have missed in these and other books. Hopefully greater attention to the problem can lead to an improvement in factchecking and cautious behaviour.
I know studies are important. And I’m not saying the claims made by the anti-porn advocates are 100% true. I think this is one of the situations where anecdotes outweigh scientific studies. I’ve talked about this with a bunch of my friends and read about in forums like Reddit. Everyone I speak to admits that watching porn regularly at the very least desensitize them to sex and makes them less interested in real sex. In one day I can see more images of naked women than my grandfather seen in his entire life. Our brains aren’t designed to see dozens or hundreds of naked women a day. Now does that mean it increases ED? I don’t know, but I know watching porn doesn’t help with ED. It’s common sense to me. The less porn you watch, the less times you ejaculate, the more “excited” you’ll be when you’re with a real partner and the less likely you’ll be to have ED. Though that common sense doesn’t excuse the people you mentioned in the article who pull statistics out of their ass.
I don't think people's porn concerns are baseless even if they don't have a sophisticated theory about why it is a problem for them. There are other reasons people may struggle with porn besides ED.
My (anecdotal) experience helping people with this is that excessive porn use is often part of an avoidant coping pattern. Think about chronic procrastinators. Really engaging stimuli like porn or social media are powerful negative reinforcers for them. So giving up a negative reinforcer for a month can help disrupt a maladaptive way of escaping unpleasant emotions.
There is definitely something a bit "question-begging" about saying "well, it's only a problem if your porn use is problematic"! So I think there's a fair amount more work to be done in working out the cause/consequence story here.
But Phillip, although your comment makes perfect sense, so does the other way around: you have problems with real partners (because of some pre-existing physical or emotional problem) and then end up using pornography way more because it's just you and there's nobody else to be embarrassed in front of. Probably it works both ways for different people.
My own porn addiction makes the causal connection to impotence undeniable. By my early 30s, viewing ordinary nudes stopped producing erections and I had to find increasingly graphic material that hit my fetishes precisely. At the same time, I had increasingly frequent bouts of impotence with women in flesh space. Eventually I couldn't sport a full erection without Cialis. After years of needing that medication, I quit porn, which took just a little less willpower than when I had quit cigs ten years earlier. That was a month before my wedding. My libido initially crashed, but it surged six to eight weeks later. At that point I discovered I was able to get rock-hard erections without medication. And ordinary-looking women (who weren't fat) were sexually interesting.
So your laudable impulse toward skepticism of media narratives has led you astray here. Porn does cause impotence. That Swiss study is proof. No way 30% of men age 18-24 are experiencing erectile dysfunction unless they've deadened themselves to sexual stimulation through overexposure to porn.
1) You claim "porn addiction" when no such thing is defined herein or in any larger scientific sense.
2) You claim that your experience is universal for all men. This is not science, this is narcissism.
3) Correlation is not causation.
4) "Porn does cause impotence" is merely your assertion, not a fact. Does looking at one picture of a nude body prevent me from getting an erection for the rest of my natural life? Your excitement about your own changing lifestyle does NOT amount to any sort of broadly applicable insight for other men.
Oh, so some members of the media/academia have ejaculated prematurely of the evidence? Thank you for clearing that up!! (Sorry) Seriously, a good read...gripping, even. (Sorry)
I suspect there may be more to death grip thing than ED stuff because I’ve noticed people posting that on Reddit - that they had an issue with ejaculation during normal penetrative sex when went away when they masturbated less. Usually in response to someone worrying about ejaculation during sex.
All anecdotal of course but it sounds plausible to me.
If someone could figure out if it’s true it might help some people with there relationships too.
I agree that the “science” of no-nut November is ridiculous, but it’s an interesting question why there’s a seemingly universal tendency to stigmatize masturbation. It would be strange if it didn’t have any logic to it. I would guess that, even if porn doesn’t give you ED, it satiates a desire you should ideally get from elsewhere. If masturbating two times a day makes you 10% less likely to approach an attractive woman you might want a relationship with because why bother, it could have disastrous long term consequences for a man’s life.
For men, porn 100% causes a progressive loss in sensitivity to sensual stimuli. Large studies are irrelevant for it, because all that matters here is a self study of 1. For men, fapping is not the problem, but fapping to any porn is the problem. If you are a man suffering from ED without a good medical reason, do an experiment of avoiding porn altogether, and you will see results within a month. It's really not as difficult as it seems.
So here's a weird thing: i have a podcast app called podcastguru that i have subscribed to your podcast in. This comes up as the first episode in the feed but of course when I try to download it, it won't download. It took me a while to realise that it's because the podcast feed includes titles of non-podcast material like this. The first one that actually plays has 'audio version" in the title, which should probably have been a giveaway!
Yours is the only podcast that does this out of probably about a hundred I have tried over the years. It. Looks like maybe the feed is configured wrong and this might be off-putting for casual listeners, who might just think the whole podcast is cream-crackered.
Anyway, thought you'd like to know but obviously if you already do then no worries.
This is just a small announcement to say that I am presently preparing and will be doing a post on Friday on the subject of pornography.
Paul wrote, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” When we believe in Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord, over time our life is meant to be transformed, so that we can be like Christ. However, the sad reality is that pornography has a vice-like grip on us.
59% of pastors said that married men seek their help for porn use.
57% of pastors say porn addiction is the most damaging issue in their congregation. 69% say porn has adversely impacted the church.
May I suggest these figures are on the low side, as members are too ashamed to come forward for help and pastors don’t want to say that their church is being impacted.
However, the Good News of Jesus Christ, the gospel message for us today, is that we can find freedom from the bondage of pornography.
I will be repeating this announcement on Wednesday.
I hope you will find the post worthwhile. God bless you and have a great day. Robert
I see a logical hole in this piece, as well as in the discussion thread.
There is discussion about "porn use." What is really being discussed here however is masturbation. "Excessive porn use" is a euphemism for "excessive" masturbation. As with so many other social science issues, "excessive" is a nebulous relative term, with no fixed definition universally applied.
Studies and research into such issues are essentially meaningless because the basic terms are not objectively defined. The "replication crisis" in social science research is real, fully understood by those not on a grant payroll, and has the end result of leaving such issues fully misunderstood.
Very well researched and written. There is a growing body of evidence that porn does not have a causative relationship with ED.
A 2015 study in the Journal of Sexual Medicine concluded that “We found little evidence of the association between pornography use and male sexual health disturbances. Contrary to raising public concerns, pornography does not seem to be a significant risk factor for younger men’s desire, erectile, or orgasmic difficulties.”
A cross-sectional study published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine4 found “no evidence of causal links between any pornography variables and ED.”
A 2014 study found that “VSS [porn] use within the range of hours tested is unlikely to negatively impact sexual functioning, given that responses actually were stronger in those who viewed more VSS.”
A 2019 research review found that “there is little or no evidence on a causal relationship between erectile dysfunction and frequency of pornography use.”
The International Society for Sexual Medicine says, “The notion that masturbation causes erectile dysfunction (ED) is a myth.”
Excellent work on a topic that is becoming dominated by folk wisdom and pseudoscience very quickly.
I worked with sex offenders for years and well remember the claims in the 1980s of what the effects of pornography were. I recall a presenter in the 80s being asked in the Q&A if he thought that pornography increased the likelihood of reoffending. He shrugged and said, "Well, maybe. But I'd give one of my patients a stack of Playboys before I let him have a glass of beer."
I'd be super curious to hear your experiences with porn use in that population. We're too puritanical to really study this stuff. For all we know, there could be uses of porn that make some populations *less* likely to offend.
I retired from the hospital a few years ago, and from working with DSOs 20 years ago, though there were always a few sprinkled in my population. I know of no research about possible benefits. But it's not puritanism that we don't study it. People working with or researching DSO's are about the least sexually reserved people you can imagine, and it is easy to get funding for topics relatedd to sex. Your model may be out of date by decades. No "puritans" left. (And the puritans get a bad rap on this, BTW, but that's another story.)
What prevents good research is often that the conflict between the desire to punish and the desire to treat takes up all the oxygen in the room. I come from the third camp, which gets no love, that protection of society trumps either punishment or treatment. Therefore, containment and accountability are the whole show. Everyone agrees with that gushingly in theory, then goes back to punishing or treating. I don't think either of those helps much.
Very helpful perspective; thanks!
When we come across a passage like this, should we revise our view of the author/text in question?
I wrote "seems implausible" next to this sentence in my copy of Perry's book, so I guess I can say I have a good nose for this sort of thing. But I rather liked the book in general. Can I just say "well that was a momentary and understandable lapse" and continue to appreciate the book? I suspect the answer is yes. In fact I think it might be an unrealistic standard to expect the author of a popular and wide-ranging polemic not to contain any oversights, errors, or indulgences in wishful-thinking.
This is a very good question, and I was talking to a pal about exactly this earlier today. I think I would now take her numerical claims with a pinch of salt, and just double-check the sources. To be honest, it's a bit of an editorial lapse to let an author away with a straight-up numerical claim (and in this case a very striking one!) without citing a primary source, or at least something more solid than a Guardian lifestyle piece.
Do we really have time to double-check the sources, though? I mean, obviously you did here, so thanks! But the opportunity costs of double checking the facts in a book are high. It takes a long time, and it seems responsible to suppose that a professional would have done it for us. That should be part of the process of producing the book!
Agreed, definitely take her numerical claims with a pinch of salt. But maybe we should be doing that already? I guess I'm inclined to think that if our evaluation of a book or argument hinges too closely on a few numbers or facts therein that's already a problem.
On the other hand maybe I'm letting Perry off the hook too easily---surely she (and others) can and should do better than to use such dubious numbers.
This does incline me towards checking the footnotes of social science books, at least for claims that are particularly important to the thesis or that will be important to my own writing and/or thinking. I also might be more likely to check the footnotes for books written by journalists rather than experts in a field. That's annoying, because it seems like authors and especially reputable book editors ought to ensure adequate fact-checking in the book publishing process.
Just my experience, but the only place I've had dedicated fact-checking (i.e. a specific person goes through all numerical/factual claims I've made and checks they match up with a source) is for American magazines, e.g. when I've written a couple of things for The Atlantic. When I was quoted for a New Yorker piece a fact-checker called me up to read my quote back to me and make sure it was definitely what I'd said to the journalist.
This doesn't happen at all for UK publications in my experience, and it only happens with books to the extent that editors want to spend time looking stuff up - and they've got plenty of other things to do...!
Lastly, I've learned that it's prudent to do my own fact checking when possible on statements that strongly confirm my priors. Confirmation bias is powerful!
I was surprised to find that I was sympathetic to Perry's thesis. It cuts against most of my "priors", and it made me wonder whether, at age 56, I've gained wisdom or just lost testosterone (and whether those two are the same thing). ;)
But yes, it's probably best to take it as social commentary rather than science and to thus forgive its "technical" errors.
I think in this case as in many others we need to distinguish a lapse from a pattern. If I found that Perry has repeatedly made factual statements without adequate evidentiary support, I'd be inclined to give my time to other authors instead. But given this is a single lapse (that I know of), and balancing that against the strengths of the book (well argued, timely, good evidence marshaled elsewhere), my impression of the book and of the author has not changed much.
I have been checking book sources more often and with greater attention to detail and it absolutely colors how I view the author.
The low standard of research and evidence is ultimately on the author.
This year I have read nonfiction books that have incorrectly claimed Britain has fewer than 100 harvests left, that Fascism was a left wing movement, that a school curriculum advocated for a counter genocide against Christians, and that gun crime boomed after a national ban when in reality the way crime was measured had changed.
I wonder how many mistakes I have missed in these and other books. Hopefully greater attention to the problem can lead to an improvement in factchecking and cautious behaviour.
I know studies are important. And I’m not saying the claims made by the anti-porn advocates are 100% true. I think this is one of the situations where anecdotes outweigh scientific studies. I’ve talked about this with a bunch of my friends and read about in forums like Reddit. Everyone I speak to admits that watching porn regularly at the very least desensitize them to sex and makes them less interested in real sex. In one day I can see more images of naked women than my grandfather seen in his entire life. Our brains aren’t designed to see dozens or hundreds of naked women a day. Now does that mean it increases ED? I don’t know, but I know watching porn doesn’t help with ED. It’s common sense to me. The less porn you watch, the less times you ejaculate, the more “excited” you’ll be when you’re with a real partner and the less likely you’ll be to have ED. Though that common sense doesn’t excuse the people you mentioned in the article who pull statistics out of their ass.
I don't think people's porn concerns are baseless even if they don't have a sophisticated theory about why it is a problem for them. There are other reasons people may struggle with porn besides ED.
My (anecdotal) experience helping people with this is that excessive porn use is often part of an avoidant coping pattern. Think about chronic procrastinators. Really engaging stimuli like porn or social media are powerful negative reinforcers for them. So giving up a negative reinforcer for a month can help disrupt a maladaptive way of escaping unpleasant emotions.
There is definitely something a bit "question-begging" about saying "well, it's only a problem if your porn use is problematic"! So I think there's a fair amount more work to be done in working out the cause/consequence story here.
But Phillip, although your comment makes perfect sense, so does the other way around: you have problems with real partners (because of some pre-existing physical or emotional problem) and then end up using pornography way more because it's just you and there's nobody else to be embarrassed in front of. Probably it works both ways for different people.
My own porn addiction makes the causal connection to impotence undeniable. By my early 30s, viewing ordinary nudes stopped producing erections and I had to find increasingly graphic material that hit my fetishes precisely. At the same time, I had increasingly frequent bouts of impotence with women in flesh space. Eventually I couldn't sport a full erection without Cialis. After years of needing that medication, I quit porn, which took just a little less willpower than when I had quit cigs ten years earlier. That was a month before my wedding. My libido initially crashed, but it surged six to eight weeks later. At that point I discovered I was able to get rock-hard erections without medication. And ordinary-looking women (who weren't fat) were sexually interesting.
So your laudable impulse toward skepticism of media narratives has led you astray here. Porn does cause impotence. That Swiss study is proof. No way 30% of men age 18-24 are experiencing erectile dysfunction unless they've deadened themselves to sexual stimulation through overexposure to porn.
A few points:
1) You claim "porn addiction" when no such thing is defined herein or in any larger scientific sense.
2) You claim that your experience is universal for all men. This is not science, this is narcissism.
3) Correlation is not causation.
4) "Porn does cause impotence" is merely your assertion, not a fact. Does looking at one picture of a nude body prevent me from getting an erection for the rest of my natural life? Your excitement about your own changing lifestyle does NOT amount to any sort of broadly applicable insight for other men.
Oh, so some members of the media/academia have ejaculated prematurely of the evidence? Thank you for clearing that up!! (Sorry) Seriously, a good read...gripping, even. (Sorry)
an exercise in synonyms : )
great post. I hope you do other posts about negative effects of porn soon!
How strong is evidence for death grip syndrome?
I noticed that was in the Perry book as well - I bet it's something that has zero scientific studies, but I'm willing to look into it!
I suspect there may be more to death grip thing than ED stuff because I’ve noticed people posting that on Reddit - that they had an issue with ejaculation during normal penetrative sex when went away when they masturbated less. Usually in response to someone worrying about ejaculation during sex.
All anecdotal of course but it sounds plausible to me.
If someone could figure out if it’s true it might help some people with there relationships too.
I agree that the “science” of no-nut November is ridiculous, but it’s an interesting question why there’s a seemingly universal tendency to stigmatize masturbation. It would be strange if it didn’t have any logic to it. I would guess that, even if porn doesn’t give you ED, it satiates a desire you should ideally get from elsewhere. If masturbating two times a day makes you 10% less likely to approach an attractive woman you might want a relationship with because why bother, it could have disastrous long term consequences for a man’s life.
Is it universally stigmatized? Feels to me like an anglosphere thing. Half our swear words in English are references to sex.
For men, porn 100% causes a progressive loss in sensitivity to sensual stimuli. Large studies are irrelevant for it, because all that matters here is a self study of 1. For men, fapping is not the problem, but fapping to any porn is the problem. If you are a man suffering from ED without a good medical reason, do an experiment of avoiding porn altogether, and you will see results within a month. It's really not as difficult as it seems.
Your personal experience cannot be logically extrapolated to all men. Your personal experience is only that.
So here's a weird thing: i have a podcast app called podcastguru that i have subscribed to your podcast in. This comes up as the first episode in the feed but of course when I try to download it, it won't download. It took me a while to realise that it's because the podcast feed includes titles of non-podcast material like this. The first one that actually plays has 'audio version" in the title, which should probably have been a giveaway!
Yours is the only podcast that does this out of probably about a hundred I have tried over the years. It. Looks like maybe the feed is configured wrong and this might be off-putting for casual listeners, who might just think the whole podcast is cream-crackered.
Anyway, thought you'd like to know but obviously if you already do then no worries.
This is just a small announcement to say that I am presently preparing and will be doing a post on Friday on the subject of pornography.
Paul wrote, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” When we believe in Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord, over time our life is meant to be transformed, so that we can be like Christ. However, the sad reality is that pornography has a vice-like grip on us.
59% of pastors said that married men seek their help for porn use.
57% of pastors say porn addiction is the most damaging issue in their congregation. 69% say porn has adversely impacted the church.
May I suggest these figures are on the low side, as members are too ashamed to come forward for help and pastors don’t want to say that their church is being impacted.
However, the Good News of Jesus Christ, the gospel message for us today, is that we can find freedom from the bondage of pornography.
I will be repeating this announcement on Wednesday.
I hope you will find the post worthwhile. God bless you and have a great day. Robert
I see a logical hole in this piece, as well as in the discussion thread.
There is discussion about "porn use." What is really being discussed here however is masturbation. "Excessive porn use" is a euphemism for "excessive" masturbation. As with so many other social science issues, "excessive" is a nebulous relative term, with no fixed definition universally applied.
Studies and research into such issues are essentially meaningless because the basic terms are not objectively defined. The "replication crisis" in social science research is real, fully understood by those not on a grant payroll, and has the end result of leaving such issues fully misunderstood.
Lastly, correlation does not equal causation.
Very well researched and written. There is a growing body of evidence that porn does not have a causative relationship with ED.
A 2015 study in the Journal of Sexual Medicine concluded that “We found little evidence of the association between pornography use and male sexual health disturbances. Contrary to raising public concerns, pornography does not seem to be a significant risk factor for younger men’s desire, erectile, or orgasmic difficulties.”
A cross-sectional study published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine4 found “no evidence of causal links between any pornography variables and ED.”
A 2014 study found that “VSS [porn] use within the range of hours tested is unlikely to negatively impact sexual functioning, given that responses actually were stronger in those who viewed more VSS.”
A 2019 research review found that “there is little or no evidence on a causal relationship between erectile dysfunction and frequency of pornography use.”
The International Society for Sexual Medicine says, “The notion that masturbation causes erectile dysfunction (ED) is a myth.”
https://www.americanscientist.org/blog/macroscope/the-dangerous-resurgence-in-race-science
The origin of the picture is from 1967 Spider-Man TV show. It's when Spider bites Peter Parker.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5e_UHPKICKE
Now you know!
Not that it matters, but I did a bit of internet searching and it seems the image is of Peter Parker from Spider-Man, the 1967 TV series.