Britain has come a long way since 1986 when TV’s red triangle would warn of (what sounds to my Australian ear as) “sex wheel imagery”. Nowadays the most extreme hardcore pornography is just a few clicks away on the internet, freely available to adults, children, and cats walking across keyboards. In Porn on the Brain, former editor of Loaded magazine Martin Daubney looks at how this plethora of porn is affecting the lives of teenagers, with a particular focus on neuroscience.
I was a behind-the-scenes (unpaid) consultant for this show, which is to say I didn’t have any influence on the content beyond recommending some experts the producers should talk to, as well as some self-proclaimed gurus they should avoid. The result is intriguing if mixed in quality: an edgy blend of neuroscience, interviews with porn-addled teens, and opinions dressed up as facts.
The flagship of the programme is an impressive neuroscience study involving Channel 4 and Dr Valerie Voon from the University of Cambridge. In it, Voon conducts a functional MRI experiment to test whether a group of men who admit to being compulsive porn users show different patterns of brain activity to a control group. The study hasn’t yet been peer-reviewed, so caution is needed, but preliminary results reveal an interesting trend – compulsive users tend to show heightened responses to porn-related images within brain networks that mediate reward and motivation. These responses are, on the face of it, quite similar to those observed in people with drug or alcohol addictions.
Of course, showing a pattern of brain activity similar to that seen in substance dependence doesn’t make porn a drug, and it doesn’t mean compulsive porn users are “addicted” in the same way drug users can be. Here the programme (but not Voon herself) falls into the trap of claiming that a behaviour is somehow more real or objective because it can be linked to brain activity. As I watched Daubney declare that brain imaging provides “proof” of porn addiction, I could hear neuroscience stomping off in disgust.
Official bodies in psychiatry don’t recognise compulsive porn use as an addiction. That’s largely because the boundary conditions haven’t been mapped out, the prevalence is unknown, and crucially – unlike the case with drugs or gambling – it’s unclear to what extent (if any) compulsive use of porn harms lives. Professor Matt Field, a psychologist at the University of Liverpool, was interviewed as part of the programme. When I asked him what he thinks about compulsive porn use being framed as a separate addiction, he said: “Like anything people find pleasurable, whether it’s chocolate or running or playing video games, internet porn can be addictive. But whether there is anything particularly interesting or special about porn remains to be seen.”
For me, the low point of Porn on the Brain comes when discussing the link between porn and sexual violence. Here the show completely abandons the evidence, which supports at most a very weak association between porn and violent sexual attitudes, and doesn’t support at all the conclusion that sexual imagery causes aggression or sex offending. Daubney strives valiantly to extract clear answers from Professor Gail Dines, an anti-pornography campaigner, and Dr John Woods, a psychotherapist at the Portman clinic. But when asked directly whether violent porn causes violence toward women, Dines and Woods resort to anecdote and weasel words. At one point, Woods says: “We have a great difficulty in proving the connection between this violent imagery and violent behaviour, but clinically it’s clear that there is a connection.” Say again?
Because of these shortcomings, Porn on the Brain is bound to divide public opinion along established lines, fueling confirmation bias on both sides. Those in favour of porn will attack the multiplicity of flaws in arguing that porn provides a special or valid example of addiction, or that there is any causal link between legal porn and sex offending. Those against will take the anecdotes of Woods and Dines to reinforce moral objections – or, like Daubney, they’ll conclude that brain imaging provides much sought “proof” of pornography’s nefarious power.
Recommended Reading- In Which We Eat Gail Dines’ Lunch: Notes on Porn’s So-Called HIV Crisis
The truth probably lies somewhere in between. From what we know of impulse control disorders such as gambling addiction, it seems obvious that online porn, like anything that makes people feel good, might lead to compulsive behaviour, and that this compulsion might interfere negatively with people’s lives. But that doesn’t mean it will, and it doesn’t mean that online porn is generally harmful. As Voon told me, her results are neutral about non-compulsive porn use: “This is not dissimilar to the majority of the population who have tried legal (smoking/alcohol) or illegal drugs (cannabis, club drugs) but only a small proportion run into difficulties.”
For my part I agree with Voon and Field: as clichéd as it sounds, we simply need more research on porn use before leaping to ignorant conclusions about its addictive or harmful effects. What Porn on the Brain does best is get us all thinking about what sort of research that might be.
