Is pornography okay? Well, today we're going to answer that question. I'm Dr. Rena Malek,
Urologist and Pelvic Surgeon and if you're new here I make content weekly on sexual health,
bladder health, urologic health, and so much more. If you like what you see,
make sure you subscribe and share this channel with your friends.
before i get started i want to be a hundred percent clear i strongly believe that no one
should be shamed for their sexual behaviors as long as they're not damaging themselves
or damaging others and quite frankly pornography is everywhere people are gonna get exposed to it
and maybe even have problems with it so let's take a deep dive into the scientific research
about pornography so first off who uses it well depending on the study up to 70 to 80 percent of
men have used pornography or use it regularly and up to 32 percent of women interestingly traffic to
pornography sites increased by 11 percent during the coven pandemic and people use pornography for
a number of different reasons to increase sexual desire to satisfy their curiosities about sex and
sadly to learn about anatomy because let's face it sexual education is limited if not mediocre
at best is pornography black or white good or bad well there's not one right answer for every person
so i'm gonna ask each of you to please watch this video in its entirety to learn the pros and cons
of pornography before you make your decision on the positive side people have shown that
pornography users have a more positive attitudes towards sex they may be willing to experiment more
with their partners and have a more satisfied sexual life because of it and in the moment
some studies have shown particularly in women that watching pornography increases their sexual
satisfaction and libido and people who watch porn with a partner actually find that they're
more dedicated to their partner and more sexually satisfied and i know a lot of people worry about
watching abusive and damaging pornography and how that can cause maybe sexual violence but there has
been no linkage after looking at multiple studies with pornography and increases in sexual violence
rape or assault so when does pornography become a problem across multiple studies up to four to ten
percent of people find that they have a problem with porn use or may self-identify as having a
porn addiction medically porn addiction is not a classified disease what people in the medical
field call it is problematic pornography use so who is at risk for getting problematic pornography
use watching more pornography does put you at higher risk but doesn't in and of itself mean that
you have a problem also if you have depression or anxiety on top of watching a lot of pornography
that puts you at a higher risk as well if you find yourself having moral incongruence or feeling that
morally pornography is bad you're more likely to have a problem due to pornography use lastly
if you find yourself preferring masturbation to pornography than having sex with your partner
or a real person then that's also a sign that you may have a problem if you think you have a
problem you probably do so how does this actually happen let me explain how pornography affects
our brains and our behaviors our brains are often exposed to a neurochemical called dopamine
it makes us feel good and our brains are wired to look for things that give us dopamine and
those are usually things that help sustain our bodies and help sustain our species and sex
is one of those things because sex leads to fertility which leads to propagation of humankind
and when you watch pornography your brain releases the same chemicals that get released during sex
dopamine so watching pornography in people who develop this problematic pornography use
have up regulations in pathways in our brain that cause us to look for these dopamine pathways over
other things that we normally would do so your brain starts developing cravings for pornography
and even signs of things that may be similar to other addictive substances like drugs for example
you may develop a tolerance so you'll watch some pornography and you may need to find more novel
more aggressive or different types of pornography to get the same sort of enjoyment from watching
it you also get impulsivity and compulsivity what that means is you get strong sudden urges
to watch pornography and you compulsively do them you keep repeating it regardless of
the negative consequences that might occur and you get what's called a weakened executive function
what that means is your brain when it tells you to do things that are good for you so like go to work
take a shower pick up your kids from school just normal activities but when you have this pathway
upregulated you actually impair that executive function so you're less likely to do things
that you normally would do and lastly you can get dysphoria and so what that means is that you start
feeling very frustrated and unhappy in other parts of your life when you're not watching pornography
and this all of this taken together can really impact your willpower and willpower is actually
not the best way to get rid of these cravings and we'll talk about how to get rid of this problem
if you are finding yourself having problematic pornography use in a video to follow so when
all this is going on in your brain what happens to people in real life well you'll find yourself
avoiding doing normal daily activities spending time with family or friends rather than going
to work finding yourself watching pornography instead this can lead to social isolation feeling
very lonely and having very few connections it can lead to financial problems where you're spending
more and more money to use pornography and it can cause problems in your relationships more
than that people can find themselves getting signs of real mental health disorders like depression or
anxiety where you're feeling constant sadness or constant worry and what about your sex life here's
where some of the problems come in people are accessing pornography at younger and younger ages
in fact boys are accessing pornography as early as 10 years of age and in fact i'm gonna make a video
of how this could be detrimental to younger kids and how to talk to your kids about pornography
also coming up so make sure you subscribe to my channel and turn on that notification bell
so you can make sure you don't miss these new and upcoming videos so these younger children who are
watching pornography don't have fully developed brains and they have difficulty discerning what's
reality and what's fake and pornography if you're not aware is a fake product it is not real life
this is not how normal sexual encounters occur this is a highly edited product with lighting
with special effects and all sorts of things that can make sex seem like something very different
from what it really is and quite frankly a lot of pornography is aggressive abusive and doesn't
show you how you actually need to pleasure your partner these actors in pornography
are not average people they have above average length penises they have special effects to make
look that they have higher volumes of semen and they are immediately erect and women are
immediately lubricated which is not at all what happens in real life if you want to learn more
about how to pleasure women or about an anatomy of women please check out my previous videos i've
done some great interviews with lisa mungledass dr kelly casperson and dr lori mintz about
how to pleasure women and i've made a great video about female anatomy so you can understand exactly
how and women do derive pleasure based on their anatomy the real issue with this fake production
of pornography is people can start really having self-esteem issues so they start thinking like oh
am i good enough because i don't look like that or am i pleasuring my partner well enough because
they're not responding like the woman on the porno video did all of this taken together can lead to
performance anxiety and issues with erections so if you're having problematic pornography use or
you're finding yourself really comparing yourself to the things you're seeing on pornography this is
a sign that maybe you should really investigate your pornography use and check out my next video
on how to reduce this problematic use i hope you all found this helpful please comment below and
let me know what you thought as always remember take care of yourself because you're worth it