Why Is Watching Porn Bad?

With easy access to porn it’s easy to think that it is harmless. However watching porn can have a very negative impact on your mental health, quality of life and your sex life in particular. 

Porn has been around for hundreds of years, previously depicted in blue novels and hand drawn pictures of ladies showing their ankles, the world has porn has grown and developed to the point where now you can immerse yourself in a raunchy virtual reality that not only blurs the line between real life and imagination but also what is acceptable and expected between the sheets. 

Porn has been labelled as a public health concern in some areas due to the adverse effects it can have this can include; addiction, risk desensitization to sexual violence, relationship issues or breakdowns and skewed beliefs towards the opposite sex. 

Many researchers have studied the effects of porn since the 1970’s and although many can be divided on opinion there is a consensus that porn can negatively impact your life if you watch it too much or engaged in watching videos that involve sexual violence, rape or hard core acts. 

There is research into how watching porn can reduce areas of the brain, in particular the striatum which makes up our internal reward system, the study highlighted that men who watched porn had smaller striatums meaning they needed to watch more graphic porn to reach arousal. This  could explain why men (and some women) become addicted to watching more hard core videos and are unable to be satisfied with real life sexual relationships. 

Before you hover over that play button, think about whether it’s really worth the risk.