Within the past month, the topic of pornography has come into the public eye with the state of Utah declaring it a public health crisis. For some this came as a shock and offense but to me it was only a matter of time. I have experienced first hand the effects of how pornography use before and sporadically during a relationship negatively affects the relationship. From this I can tell you that when I knew my significant other had viewed porn it hurt me, my self-esteem, my sense of security, and I even led me to question my worth. In recent years more people like me and my significant other have come forward with similar stories. As well as research has been done that links use of pornography to things like decreased satisfaction in relationships,
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One such stimulus is a neurotransmitter and one neurotransmitter that many people are familiar with is dopamine. Dopamine is the chemical in the brain that aids the feeling of pleasure. In a typical healthy person, dopamine is released in many ways like a reward to your brain in response to things like roller-coasters, junk food, and exercise. However, this rush that people feel can become addicting. This is similar to what occurs when someone views pornography, there is an outside stimulus— nowadays typically a video or photography on a screen— a reaction to this stimulus, and a release of dopamine common with sexual activity. Over time this process of stimulus, reaction, and release can lead to the brain forming new neural pathways that associate arousal with images and videos over an actual person (“Porn Changes the Brain”). Much like a drug user, once a viewer of pornography gets used to the level of stimulation that one type of video or image provides, they do not register arousal to that type of material anymore. Then they may start viewing material that is more violent or novel in some way to achieve the same rush due to having acclimated to a certain level of dopamine in their brain (“Porn Changes the
One such stimulus is a neurotransmitter and one neurotransmitter that many people are familiar with is dopamine. Dopamine is the chemical in the brain that aids the feeling of pleasure. In a typical healthy person, dopamine is released in many ways like a reward to your brain in response to things like roller-coasters, junk food, and exercise. However, this rush that people feel can become addicting. This is similar to what occurs when someone views pornography, there is an outside stimulus— nowadays typically a video or photography on a screen— a reaction to this stimulus, and a release of dopamine common with sexual activity. Over time this process of stimulus, reaction, and release can lead to the brain forming new neural pathways that associate arousal with images and videos over an actual person (“Porn Changes the Brain”). Much like a drug user, once a viewer of pornography gets used to the level of stimulation that one type of video or image provides, they do not register arousal to that type of material anymore. Then they may start viewing material that is more violent or novel in some way to achieve the same rush due to having acclimated to a certain level of dopamine in their brain (“Porn Changes the