For the fourth time that day, you’re at it — computer screen and monitor transformed into a veritable pornoplex: seven different windows featuring seven increasingly sordid scenes. While your daily allowance of adult entertainment continues to pique your interest, everything else in life seems so… vanilla.
Related: Doctor Explains Why You’re Addicted To Grindr
Take sex with actual people, for example. All those humdrum relationships and snoozy Grindr dates. You suppose the men were nominally attractive — in a funky, not-on-your-computer-screen sort of way — but none of them ever really get you going, and one thing you can’t fake is an erection. Midway through sex, all you ever want to do is run home and check in on your Pornhub “Favorites.”
Related: Man Who Slept With 400 People Refuses To Be Slut Shamed, Says There’s No Such Thing As Too Much Sex
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
If this scenario sounds at all familiar, you’re not alone. A leading psychosexual therapist claims adult entertainment’s abundance and availability is slowly poisoning men’s sex drives, causing a host of heath problems, both physical and psychological.
According to Angela Gregory, more and more men in their late teens and twenties are dealing with erectile dysfunction.
Related: Five Ways To Reclaim Your Sex Life After Booze, Meth And Other Substances
Pink News reports that Gregory is absolutely certain the problem stems from pornography.
Talking to BBC Newsbeat, she says, “What I’ve seen over the last 16 years, particularly the last five years, is an increase in the amount of younger men being referred.”
Our experience is that historically men that were referred to our clinic with problems with erectile dysfunction were older men whose issues were related to diabetes, MS, cardio vascular disease.”
“These younger men do not have organic disease, they’ve already been tested by their GP and everything is fine.”
“So one of the first assessment questions I’d always ask now is about pornography and masturbatory habit because that can be the cause of their issues about maintaining an erection with a partner.”
What do you think? Can an increased dependence on pornography wreak havoc on your sex drive and personal relationships? Weigh in in the comments below.
Stache
Bla bla bla. Porns ruined my life. Lol First world problems. Talk to the shrink.
Kangol
Based on this, it sounds like bringing back public and private live sex venues would be a good option for these young OF AGE men. Seeing others have consensual sex live, and being encouraged to do it yourself a few times consensually will usually light the spark.
barkomatic
I didn’t see an actual study referenced but perhaps I missed it. So far, all I’ve read is one doctor’s assertion that watching excessive porn is linked to erectile dysfunction. She *may* be right, but is it really porn causing this or simply more guys seeking treatment who would have been more ashamed in the past?
It’s probably worth a closer look, but I don’t think a guy who watches a video or two a couple times a week has anything to worry about.
Ken A.
Its just Queerty’s way to gain attention. The headline is catchy only to read poor journalism. They do not back it up with their own research or question sources, they google and then paraphrase other sources and call it their own, without of course citations.
cutterq
Society and religion always like to blame porn for physical and mental problems. The real culprit is the lack of physical interaction between two people when engaging in intimacy. Reading text messages or watching porn while engaging in intimacy is not the way to get mentally and physically involved in have sex and being erect. Our minds create intimacy and performance, not a visual representation. Instead of getting hard right away, its important to know something about the other persons mind and body, likes and dislikes. I have great sex and no performance anxiety because there is something more than just a hard penis. However, it take a little more effort than just getting of right away. If you want to get off quickly just masterbate, only you will know if you have performance problems. Great sex is in the mind.
Hermes
Nope, don’t believe it. DO believe however that drug abuse, and pot, are doing exactly this. They were starting to when I was a kid – I never partook, and over the years after some of my friends started doing so – my sex drive stayed very high and theirs’ … diminished a bit. The old excuse “Well if this is what my sex drive is like on pot I wouldn’t want to be without it” – is just that, an excuse. I had straight friends at 16 who couldn’t keep it up – because they spent too much time stoned. We make a bigger deal of sex now, and its legit, and it is much more embarrassing when you can’t perform – so of COURSE its more public, more discussed and for this particular therapist, a slam dunk – which does not prevent her from being wrong.
seaguy
For starters people need to remember that porn is entertainment not education. But also stop blaming anything and everything but the real person to blame yourself. Maybe these guys having trouble getting hard need to put down the smart phone and turn off the TV and computer and try some good old fashioned face to face interactions with others. instead of blaming porn, that is pathetic like the GOP did.
QJ201
Another damn TV “therapist” who thinks her clients issues affect all of us.
Show me the research honey and not your biased sample of patients
everybodywinsyay
Anyone who doesn’t think porn for young adults and kids isn’t harming them is in denial and on the side of depravity. It’s a drug and it affects people’s lives. But based on the comments here, the community is probably deep in its sickness and will lash out at anyone who dares tell the truth.
Josh447
everybodywinsyay
You sound extremist. Some people can handle porn and some people can’t, nor is this article about kids. You’ll never ever get rid of porn so stop trying. It’s not porn that’s the problem if someone is obsessed with it. It’s fear, judgement boredom etc of some sort that has them going for anesthetics. Chocolate and food are just as addicting. Let’s get off the porn blame wagon and really look at the underlying causes of porn obsession, which more than not can be religious sexual guilt that needs to be nuked out of the mass consciousness mentality. And then there is sex abuse. That is a huge issue especially with gay people and being accepted. It causes a lot if anxiety.
It’s all about addressing one’s own mental health, the rest will fall in line if that is shored up. Deal with that, then you’re dealing with the cause, then you’re really onto something. The symptoms are never the cause, that’s backward thinking. Best atya.
jdboston617
I think this is interesting. I see it less of a too-much-porn-angle and more the potential hazards of living in a virtual world and unable to get out of it. When virtual becomes real, real becomes boring/unreal perhaps?
This type of problem IS occurring world-wide. Look at the gaming industry in the US and Asia for example, so I don’t see why it won’t affect sex lives.
MSMiller
I’ve got news for you: if you can get hard for porn, but you can’t maintain an erection with a live human, you don’t have erectile disfunction; you’re just a lousy lover.
Franklin
I’ve seen some examples of this myself as well in my clini, and I don’t understand why people are getting so defensive about it. I love porn just as much as the next guy, but sex is mostly mental, so is it really that hard to believe that repeated viewing of pornography can overtime have an effect on people’s minds? I seem to remember an article on queerty not too long ago talking about how a lot of young gay men learn about gay sex through pornography. Back when I saw my first porn, porn was something that was harder to get. In fact, the first porn I ever saw featured men that weren’t even that good looking by today’s standards, but because I was seeing naked men for the first time, it turned me on regardless. Now you have people who can imerse themselves, with very little effort, in numerous live action videos of flawless, chiseled, muscled, men with girthy erection. They’ll watch these mean engaged in heavily edited marathon sex sessions over and over. So, what happens if reality stops living up to fantasy? You know a good portion of the population aren’t Sean Cody models, and people do get older.
Mmmrrrggglll
Erectile dysfunction? Multiple masturbatory sessions a day? That is an oxymoron.