Your Brain on Porn (9 page)

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As a man with genetic depression, being porn free has done more for me than any drugs I

have ever had to take. It is as if this makes me more alert, attentive, and happier than
Wellbutrin, Zoloft or the other drugs I was cycled through.

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I finally have energy again! I haven't felt this good since secondary school. It's not like

I'm Hulk or anything, but I finally have extra energy to DO stuff. I spent most of my early 20's
in a state of low energy and mild depression. I attribute like 80% of it to the fact that I was
using porn twice a day. Now that I've stopped, I've been exercising, being more social, and
generally enjoying life.

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Before I had anxiety, depression, was always lazy. It was a struggle to get out and face the

day. Avoided a lot of social situations unless I was drunk. Now, I have tons of energy. When I
look in the mirror I feel like my skin has a glow to it. I joined a gym and started lifting
weights, my lifts have been progressing like crazy. I run at least 2k a day right when I wake

up. Social situations are a breeze. When walking around in public I feel so powerful, like I
can talk to anyone and do anything. I have noticed girls checking me out.

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Quitting isn't a cure all for your life problems – but it's the foundation, a ploughed field

in which you can sow seeds for a new future that isn't bedevilled by the secrecy and shame
that comes with falling into the seemingly inescapable pit of porn-related despair that so
many of us know. A life of hope and strength – not jizzy tissues, jealousy, bitterness, self-hatred, resentment and unfulfilled dreams.

In the light of this vast, informal experiment, it seems clear that the widely held view of clinicians that pornography, specifically online pornography, is harmless should be reconsidered as a matter of urgency. We can’t be sure that the thousands of people describing their recovery from excessive porn use are mistaken.

As we'll see next, it is quite plausible that the symptoms they describe are real, that online pornography use causes them, and that behavioural change can bring significant benefits. In any case, porn users suffering from the kinds of symptoms outlined above have little to lose from cutting out internet porn for a few months to see if their symptoms resolve.

2: Wanting Run Amok

Choice is a subtle form of disease.
Don DeLillo,
Running Dog

Ever heard of the Coolidge effect? It's a graphic example of how unrelentingly sexual novelty can drive behaviour. The effect shows up in mammals ranging from rams to rats, and here's how it works: Drop a male rat into a cage with a receptive female rat. First, you see a frenzy of copulation. Then, progressively, the male tires of that particular female. Even if she wants more, he has had enough.

However, replace the original female with a fresh one, and the male immediately revives and gallantly struggles to fertilize
her
. You can repeat this process with fresh females until he is completely wiped out. Reproduction, after all, is genes' top priority. Just ask Australia's mouse-like antechinus, which engages in such a furious mating frenzy that it destroys its own immune system and drops dead.

Obviously, human mating is generally more complex. For one thing we're among the peculiar 3 to

5 percent of mammals with the capacity for long-term bonds. Yet sexual novelty can enthral us too.

The Coolidge effect itself gets its name from US President Calvin Coolidge. He and his wife were touring a farm. While the president was elsewhere, the farmer proudly showed Mrs. Coolidge a rooster that could copulate with hens all day long, day after day. Mrs. Coolidge coyly suggested that the farmer tell that to Mr. Coolidge, which he did. The president thought for a moment and then enquired, ‘With the same hen?’

‘No, sir,’ replied the farmer.

‘Tell that to Mrs. Coolidge,’ retorted the president.

An appreciation for a fine novel partner helps propel internet porn use. At its most fundamental

level, this impulse is evolution's way of discouraging inbreeding and keeping the gene pool as fresh as possible. What powers the lure of novelty at the physical level? Dopamine.

Primitive circuits in the brain govern emotions, drives, impulses, and subconscious decision-making
.[39]
They do their jobs so efficiently that evolution hasn't seen the need to change them much since before humans were human
.[40]
The desire and motivation to pursue sex arises from a neurochemical called dopamine
.[41]
Dopamine amps up the centrepiece of a primitive part of the brain known as the reward circuitry. It’s where you experience cravings and pleasure
and
where you get addicted.

This ancient reward circuitry compels you to do things that further your survival and pass on your genes. At the top of our human reward list are food
,[42]
sex,
[43]
love,
[44]
friendship, and novelty.

[45]
These are called ‘natural reinforcers,’ as contrasted with addictive chemicals (which can hijack this same circuitry).

The evolutionary purpose of dopamine is to motivate you to do what serves your genes.
[46]
The bigger the squirt the more you want something. No dopamine and you just ignore it. High-calorie chocolate cake and ice cream – a big blast. Celery – not so much. Dopamine surges are the barometer by which you determine the value of any experience. They tell you what to approach or avoid, and where to put your attention. Further, dopamine tells you what to remember by helping to rewire your brain
.[47]
Sexual stimulation and orgasm add up to the biggest natural blast of dopamine available to your reward circuitry.

Although dopamine is sometimes referred to as the ‘pleasure molecule’, it's is actually about seeking and searchin
g[48]
for pleasure,
not
pleasure itself. Thus dopamine rises with anticipation.
[49]
It's your motivation and drive
to pursue
potential pleasure or
long term goals.
[50]

The pleasure of climax appears to arise from opioids, so think of dopamine as
wanting
and opioids as
liking
.
[51]
As psychologist Susan Weinschenk explained,
[52]
‘dopamine causes us to want, desire, seek out, and search’. Yet ‘the dopamine system is stronger than the opioid system. We seek more than we are satisfied. ... Seeking is more likely to keep us alive than sitting around in a satisfied stupor.’

Addiction may be thought of as
wanting
run amok
.[53]

Novelty, Novelty, More Novelty

Dopamine surges for novelty
.[54]
A new vehicle, just-released film, the latest gadget…we are all hooked on dopamine. As with everything new the thrill fades away as dopamine plummets. So, as in

the example above, the rat’s reward circuitry is squirting less and less dopamine with respect to the current female, but produces a big dopamine surge for a new female.

Does this sound familiar? When Australian researchers displayed the same erotic film repeatedly,

test subjects' penises and subjective reports both revealed a progressive decrease in sexual arousal.

[55]
The ‘same old same old’ just gets boring. Habituation indicates declining dopamine. After 18

viewings – just as the test subjects were nodding off – researchers introduced novel erotica for the 19th and 20th viewings. Bingo! The subjects and their penises sprang to attention. (Yes, women showed similar effects
.[56])

Internet porn is especially enticing to the reward circuitry because novelty is always just a click away. It could be a novel ‘mate’, unusual scene, strange sexual act, or – you fill in the blank. And the most popular sites – the so-called tube sites – build this pursuit of novelty into their layout. Every page presents dozens of different clips and genres to choose from. They are engrossing precisely because they offer what seems like inexhaustible novelty:

I always opened several windows in my browser, each one with many, many tabs. The main

thing that arouses me is novelty. New faces, new bodies, new ‘choices’. I very rarely even
watched a whole porn scene, and can't remember when I saw an entire movie. Too boring. I

always wanted NEW stuff.

With multiple tabs open and clicking for hours, you can 'experience' more novel sex partners every ten minutes than your hunter-gatherer ancestors experienced in a lifetime. Of course the reality is different. What feels like a cornucopia of riches is only countless hours spent in front of a screen, seeking a reality that exists elsewhere.

Supernormal Stimulus

Erotic words, pictures and videos have been around a long time –as has the neurochemical rush

from novel mates. So what makes today's porn uniquely compelling? Not just its unending novelty.

Dopamine fires up for other emotions and stimuli too, all of which often feature prominently in internet porn:

- Surprise,
[57]
shock (What
isn't
shocking in today's porn?)

- Anxiet
y[58]
(Using porn that isn't consistent with your values or sexuality.

- Seekin
g[59]
and searching (Wanting, anticipating)

In fact, internet porn looks very much like what scientists call a supernormal stimulus.
[60]
Years ago, Nobel laureate Nikolaas Tinbergen discovered that birds, butterflies, and other animals could be duped into preferring fake eggs and mates. Female birds, for example, struggled to sit on Tinbergen's larger-than-life, vividly spotted plaster eggs while their own pale, dappled eggs perished untended.

Male jewel beetles will ignore real mates in favour of futile efforts to copulate with the dimpled brown bottoms of beer bottles
.[61]
To a beetle, a beer bottle lying on the ground looks like the biggest, most beautiful, sexiest female he has ever seen.

In other words, instead of the instinctive response stopping at a ‘sweet spot’ where it doesn't lure the animal out of the mating game entirely, this innate programming continues to trigger enthusiastic responses to unrealistic, synthetic stimuli. Tinbergen dubbed such deceptions ‘supranormal stimuli,’

although they are now often referred to simply as 'supernormal stimuli'.

Supernormal stimuli are exaggerated versions of normal stimuli that we falsely perceive as valuable. Interestingly, although it's unlikely a monkey would choose images over real mates, monkeys will ‘pay’ (forego juice rewards) to view images of female monkey bottoms.
[62]
Perhaps it's not so surprising that today's porn can hijack our instincts.