Most Reports About Porn’s Effects on Your Sex Life Are Bulls**t

Fact or fornication?

August 22, 2016 9:00 am

There is no shortage of things we encounter in our daily lives trying to kill us.

The sun, mosquitoes, mothers-in-law, etc.

But porn isn’t one of them, even if a big important news media company tells you the contrary.

Last week, The BBC tapped a “top psychosexual therapist” to substantiate a claim that young men are increasingly suffering from erectile dysfunction and other sexual problems thanks to watching (and often becoming addicted to) internet pornography. But they couched that claim with the addendum that there are “no official figures yet” regarding the matter … a rather important addendum when making gross generalizations about human behavior, if you ask us.

As one Spectator scribe found, there are actually numerous studies that suggest quite the contrary (i.e., that porn has no impact on your sexual health), including this review that addresses the public’s tendency to let personal judgments take precedence over actual, viable research.

Some studies — like this one from Denmark — even go so far as to report the incremental positive effects of porn on sexual health; another study from 2012, meanwhile, found a small negative correlation between porn consumption and health in men, but a net positive effect on women. And two other, larger studies, one evaluating 4,000 men and one with 20,000 total participants, both found that a very small number of men with suffer lower sexual desire and/or erectile dysfunction cause by porn use.

All in all, with porn, you can love it or leave it. But should you fall into the latter sect, don’t let a few pitchfork toting pieces of media make you a softie.

Via Spectator Health

The InsideHook Newsletter.

News, advice and insights for the most interesting person in the room.