Internet pornography addicts may be setting themselves up for sexual dysfunction, according to at least two Western studies.
Marnia Robinson, author of “Cupid’s Poisoned Arrow,” said a growing number of otherwise healthy young men who were, however, Internet porn addicts developed an inability to be turned on by real partners.
“Desperate young men from various cultures, with different levels of education, religiosity, attitudes, values, diets, marijuana use, and personalities are seeking help. They have only two things in common: heavy use of today’s Internet porn and increasing need for more extreme material,” she said in an article posted on Psychology Today.
Yet she said most men are astonished to learn that pornography use can be a source of sexual performance problems.
“They are amazed that heavy porn use can affect them adversely, that no one told them it could affect them, and that humans have actually masturbated without porn. There is almost total ignorance about the significance for porn users of the recent discoveries of addiction science,” she said.
Robinson said many have previously been to doctors, undergone various tests, and been declared “just fine” physically.
The final diagnosis was generally “performance anxiety,” she said.
Robinson cited a past survey by Italian urologists that noted a link between erectile dysfunction and porn use.
She said urologist Carlo Foresta, head of the Italian Society of Andrology and Sexual Medicine and professor at the University of Padua, mentioned that 70 percent of the young men seeking clinical help for sexual performance problems admit to using Internet pornography habitually.
Recovery appears to take six to 12 weeks, and among those who recover, “progression is surprisingly similar,” she said.
Porn ‘overstimultion’
Robinson said the cause appears to be physiological, not psychological.
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