Alexander Rhodes, the founder of a comprehensive secular sexual health platform named NoFap that specializes in pornography recovery support forums, recently appeared on The Doctors TV show to share the harms of pornography.
Alexander stated: “I first got a hold of [Internet porn] around age 11 or 12. I’m in that first generation of kids who grew up going through puberty and having access to high-speed digital porn online, and that’s totally different from what our grandparents had with the Playboys…it went from an innocent curiosity about the female form to an out of control compulsion.”
Watch the clip from The Doctors episode here:
Rhodes goes on to comment about how pornography impacted his ability to engage sexually with a real-life person because his sexual template became wired to “pixels on a screen instead of a real partner.”
He is not the first to raise concerns about this harm of pornography.
A 2015 study of online sexual activities among males found 20.3% reported that “one motive for their porn use was to maintain arousal with their partner.” It also found that pornography use was linked to higher sexual desire, but lower overall sexual satisfaction, and lower erectile function.
Other research has correlated pornography use with “negative effects on partnered sex, decreased enjoyment of sexual intimacy, less sexual and relationship satisfaction.”
Further, on the aforementioned The Doctors episode, clinical sexologist Dr. Robert Weiss argued that porn addiction should be a diagnosable disorder and suggested that those struggling with pornography seek out professional help from therapists who take this issue seriously.
In fact, the research is clear that there is a wide variety of public health harms of pornography – from sexual function to mental health, to sexual violence, and more. You can review a research summary with nearly 100 studies on the public health harms of pornography here.
Every voice that is raised about research on the harms of pornography is vital, and we are glad to see this important issue getting the national attention it deserves!
