TED Talk – The Great Porn Experiment
Makes me wonder if any of my friends have internet porn addictions? Not something I really remember worry about back in the day when I was on the dating scene, but no doubt something that will become more and more of an issue as we raise internet savvy but socially ill-adept young people.
It reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend a few years ago. She was about 25 at the time, and had recently spent the night with a young man she had been keen on for quite a while. I think he was about 22 or 23, very attractive, seemingly intelligent, cheeky and extremely confident. But what I remember most about this conversation, and by extension this guy, was that my friend told me after she had spent an intimate evening with him that “it was obvious he has watched way too much porn.” I didn’t ask her to elaborate on that remark it was a bit TMI for me at the time and I really didn’t need the nasty details.
But now I’ve just watched that TED talk and it seems to confirm my parental nightmares about the free and oh so easy access to hard core pornography that the internet provides. I’ve long been worried that excessive pornography such as that which is readily available in the safety and comfort in your own living room, even when you’re not looking for it, is damaging the psyches of young people being continuously being exposed to it. My biggest concern was that it created unrealistic expectations what normal sexual intimacy is between consenting adults… but now, after watching this talk based on these studies, I’m worried about the long term detrimental effects of neurological pathways being formed during a young person’s formative years and the subsequently desensitization and conditioning that occurs in the the brains that men consumers are only able respond to ever increasing quantities and of novel and abhorrent hard corn pornography. Scary stuff.
The scariest bit… you ask most men and they’ll tell you most porn is pretty harmless.
