Pornography is everywhere, literally at the tips of your fingers at all times. And, in 2017, porn is even viewed as morally acceptable by a record high 36 percent of the population, according to new Gallup polling.
But how has this influx of porn affected us?
On Friday, researchers at the annual Scientific Meeting of the American Urological Association discussed their growing concern about the negative connection between porn viewing and a man’s sex life and, more broadly, his ability to have a healthy, intimate relationship with a woman.
Due to new research, scientists believe viewing pornography “could be affecting men’s libido’s and putting them at risk of sexual dysfunction,” notes The Independent.
Researchers at the convention, under the leadership of Naval Medical Center’s program director for pediatric urology, Dr. Matthew Christman, explained that the more men viewed pornography via readily available free sites, such as PornHub, “the less likely they are to be able to connect with a real-life partner in the bedroom.”
Unable to foster an intimate relationship with their partner in the bedroom, their relationships with women are suffering.
Newsweek reports:
Through surveys administered to 312 male patients of the same age group (also mostly white, married and heterosexual), the researchers found a close correlation between excessive pornography use and sexual dysfunction. Roughly 20 percent of men reported using porn three to five times weekly. Nearly 4 percent of men reported they preferred masturbating to pornography over having sexual intercourse with a partner. The researchers also recognized a correlation between men who used pornography frequently and those who reported lack of sexual desire and intercourse satisfaction, as well as erectile dysfunction.
Women’s sex lives, on the contrary, were only shown to have been “trivially” affected by viewing porn.