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Feb. 21, 2015 - Louder with Crowder
29:12
PORN! Is it Actually Good For You? || Louder With Crowder
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We are back.
Thank you for joining us.
I'm incredibly excited for the next guest, especially in this culture.
We've talked about this, where you have kids online.
There's such a generational gap in the access of information, and it's never been more apparent than with pornography.
This guy has actually talked about it, written the book on it, Your Brain on Porn, yourbrainonporn.com.
Mr.
Gary Wilson, thank you so much for coming on.
Hey, it's my pleasure.
Gary, firstly, explain to us what was it that got you into studying porn or getting this message out there?
It seems like there's got to be a story behind that.
There's a story, but it's rather strange.
I was an anatomy and physiology teacher for many years.
I met my wife, and we started to write books about the neurobiology of sex, love, and bonding.
And that was about 15 years ago and she had a website and we had articles up there which had the words orgasm, ejaculation, dopamine, addiction, because those are related to bonding and love and sex.
Now, about nine years ago, maybe it was ten years ago, guys started showing up on her website, Forum, which had nothing to do with porn.
It was about relationships.
And started to post and say, hey, I'm addicted to porn and my penis doesn't work.
Can you help us?
And she's like, what are you doing here?
Well, Google, as it is, put the words in those articles together, which brought them there and then put the posts that they had, put those out there and brought more guys there.
And then over the next few years, it became sort of a porn recovery for them.
And these were older guys.
When I say older guys, they were in their 30s, 40s, and they had high-speed internet before anyone else, but they were complaining about sexual dysfunction.
Well, around 2009, we started to write articles on Psychology Today about these amazing benefits that they started to experience because we tried to get the word out because it seems like there was a huge gap between what was really happening and what was going on in these guys' lives.
So that brought a whole lot more guides, and my wife said, you've got to create a separate website.
I created yourbrainonporn.com about four years ago, and then that blew up, and I followed all the links to it back to the original post, and I saw how big the problem was.
Let me ask you real quick.
Is your background, I guess, at all sort of psychology or psychiatry, or was it just something that you fell in accidentally?
Physiology.
Physiology teacher.
Okay.
So no psychology.
Okay.
So this is just something you came into because, like, I guess, business owners in a lot of ways, you saw a need and were meeting a demand.
Now, right away, before your critics come out and say, this is just, you know, they've always said this to people who've ever been dissenters of the pornography industry, this is just some crazy right-wing Christian extremist who's trying to scare your kids.
That's not really the case here.
No, I'm a very far left liberal who's not religious and never been a Christian, neither has my wife or my parents or my grandparents.
So nope, I wanted nothing to do with this.
And we just felt compelled because there was this blind spot.
And when you have guys writing you and telling you that they're suicidal because their penises don't work and they're not getting good information and the urologists are saying, you know, just take some Viagra.
There's nothing we can do.
We felt compelled.
So we did write about it.
Right.
No, it's incredible.
And there are a few things that I've seen you mention before in other interviews and obviously in your book.
One of them was you talked about, which to me was just fascinating.
I don't have the exact number, so I'm sure you've got this.
You're like the computer wore tennis shoes.
I've seen your interviews and TED Talks.
there's a generation of young men who have had a certain amount of sexual experiences.
You've said, you've numbered it in the thousands, you know, sexual experiences who for the first time have had all of these experiences without any actual sexual interaction with another human being.
Right.
What was that number?
Well, I don't know that I put any number to it because there's no numbers to it in terms of, I read something, I could be misquoting it, where you talked about how there's a point now where you have kids who, I think it was a certain percentage, aren't even actually interested in real sexual interaction, and many of them have had certain sexual experiences based, you know, with pornography, but no actual sexual interaction, and there was a number in there that I remember just shocked me.
So I'm not pulling it out of nowhere, there was a number that shocked me.
No, no, no, I think what you're saying is, you're looking at Japan, so Japan...
36% of young men ages 16 to 19 had absolutely no interest in sex.
And that number doubled from 2008.
So we see a tremendous rise in Japanese young men who had technology ahead of the game, and they are okay with porn over there.
It's just unfathomable to me that a teenage guy would have no interest in that.
Yeah, to me either.
I mean, I'll tell you what, even as a Christian conservative, it was like a full-time job just thinking about it.
It was exhausting.
I always tell women when they go, is that all you guys think about, well, from about age 14 through, you know, 20?
Yes, literally.
It is pretty fascinating, again, that you're sort of a liberal, not interested in religion.
You really make the argument in the book, like you said, the physiological arguments, the arguments about dopamine receptors and the way neurochemistry is affected.
Have you met a lot of pushback?
Before we get into that, which we'll get into the next segment, have you gotten a lot of pushback from either the porn industry or other so-called progressives?
Gotten no pushback whatsoever from the porn industry.
Got some pushback from...
Some academic sexologists who don't like the idea that you can suggest that porn use may cause some problems.
So there's a small vocal group of sexologists and academic sexologists who do push back quite a bit.
Yeah.
Well, I even read something in The Atlantic where they talked about...
And we'll get into the studies just because we have to take a break relatively soon here.
And there's a lot of data to get into.
But I will say, I'm surprised that you say that about the adult film industry.
Because I have seen videos and posts online of people saying, you know, online porn is healthy and don't believe the fear mongers here who are trying to scare you out of it.
But maybe they're just not emailing you directly.
Well, I just think that comes from people who are progressive or...
Even Christians or whatever, and they just like to use porn, and they're mixing up what occurred in the 70s where you're looking at a still picture and you're a 14-year-old and you can use your imagination.
All you can think about is...
Hold on one second.
Hold that thought.
We have to go to this break, and we will be right back.
Lighter with Crowder.
We are back with Gary Wilson, author of Your Brain on Porn, or go to the website, yourbrainonporn.com.
It's not that kind of website.
Gary Wilson, thanks for being back.
Now, before we left...
You are about to get into some information here, which I also find fascinating.
Listen, I'm always pretty straightforward.
I'm a more right-leaning guy, and personally, I'm a Christian.
So obviously, Christians have talked about for a long time how pornography can be harmful to one's sex life, namely because it creates unrealistic expectations of sex, and Christians believe it's something that should be kept between a husband and a wife.
Now, I know that's not necessarily your contention with this book, but...
You do talk about how porn has changed in the landscape of the internet.
Like you said, at one point, the mild pornography required the use of your imagination, whereas now that's not the case.
And you even sort of draw some parallels, I remember, with Facebook and this sort of instant gratification addiction of the internet.
Tell us a bit about that.
I find it fascinating.
Well, you know, you think about it.
We've had pictures...
And words around for a long time, but all of a sudden you see this entire generation stuck with their iPhones clicking on pictures and words and videos.
So what makes it so fascinating is the delivery system, the internet.
And what the internet does is it takes advantage of innate mechanisms that are pretty much there in the reward centers of a mammal.
And the first one is novelty.
The reward center lights up with dopamine for such things as food and sex and achievement, but also for novelty.
Anything new grabs the attention and you get little bursts of dopamine that make you want to go for it.
Right.
So, of course, the internet, you can just click, click, click endlessly and keep your dopamine spiking forever.
But here's what's interesting, is not only with internet porn do we have endless novelty available, but we have Nature's highest reward of dopamine, which is sexual stimulation, and nature's number one priority, which is reproduction.
Then you combine it with other things that raise dopamine in animals, and that's such things as shock or surprise or even anxiety.
Those things also raise dopamine, and what's not shocking or surprising or even anxiety It's even shocking just reading the transcripts from Dick Morris' fetishes.
So I can imagine when you're actually seeing something that depraved on camera.
And I think you mentioned, too, I've heard you mention, I want to clarify for the listener, not only novelty, but specifically with dopamine, you know, novelty, you included the exceeding of expectations, you know, which basically happens all the time online, right?
If I say, hey, I want to research, I don't know, coffee mugs in World War II, boom!
There's more than I could ever read on coffee mugs in World War II in a lifetime, right?
And that causes a spike in dopamine, and you're combining that with sex.
Yeah, so what makes dopamine go up isn't necessarily food because you can keep eating and you're just like, oh, I don't want to eat anymore.
Right.
So that your dopamine is going down.
What makes it go up is violation of expectations.
There you go.
We use regular terms like shock, surprise, anxiety, the unexpected.
That's what makes bungee jumping or horror films exciting.
Sure.
Because they shock us.
That is set up in all mammals to raise dopamine, and that means that it's like, oh, this is more than what I expected.
This is more.
This is different than what I expected.
I was just looking for a guy and a girl having a good time, and it involves two midgets, a tricycle, and a parrot.
What happened here?
Or as the young guys describe when they're 12 years old, they're getting interested as the hormones come up and they put in boobs.
And not boobs come up, but my God, this crazy stuff that isn't even sex comes up.
And it's videos, which videos are far more engaging than pictures.
And the other thing to know about videos is they actually co-op and replace imagination in young men.
Right.
Well, one thing too, I will say this, you know, as someone who, I mean, people will be watching this interview right here on YouTube.
We do it terrestrially on radio.
We podcast, but we get it on YouTube, right?
So let me give you an idea here.
People watch my videos on average for over four minutes.
So the average retention rate is 62% because they have some longer videos, right?
That with YouTube is an incredible retention rate.
If you're keeping people past 30% or 40% of a video, it's considered amazing, and that allows you to get a premium advertising revenue.
I'm getting a little technical here, but the reason I say that is because my living depends on creating things that are quick, interesting enough, and the rule of thumb is always shorter, shorter, shorter.
Because people's attention spans have noticeably – I mean they're measurably shorter than before.
And I know that applies to YouTube, right?
But I don't have the data or analytics.
Does that apply to pornography sites?
Do they have to create more bang for your buck in the shortest amount of time, which would seem to lend itself to, like you said, a little more shocking in a little less time, right?
Yeah, absolutely.
So if you look at what changed, everything changed in 2006 with the invention of YouTube, and then that created two sites.
And often, you have in the sidebars on a porn site, you have little three-minute clips.
And so you can just go from three-minute clip to three-minute clip.
But most guys describe that they can't even laugh through a three-minute clip.
They're bored, so they'll go to the next one and the next one.
And then eventually what came up were compilation videos where you just have four or five seconds of a bunch of orgasms and ejaculations lined up and people just watch those end on end.
Gosh.
I don't know if we can say that on air.
Just be careful because the FCC does monitor this.
But I think it's medical, so we'll clear it.
It's medical.
I'm a physiology teacher.
Just wear your lab coat and it's fine.
Sorry, I didn't want to interrupt your point, but I was going, oh gosh, I don't know which words we can't...
I think this is uncharted territory.
It's the same reason a lot of people are afraid of talking about this on traditional content.
So there you go.
There's the irony, right?
The problem comes with new media and the problem comes with the internet and instant gratification.
But on the flip side, you also have a form and you get to bypass the media filters who might not necessarily agree with your viewpoint.
Right.
You know, and here's the thing about when you're watching something.
So people talk about dopamine and I talk about dopamine and how it's raised, but what's the end result of dopamine?
Dopamine's there to wire into your brain so that you will repeat that behavior because it thinks that behavior is further your survival or the survival of your genes.
So it thinks that in some level that you're actually impregnating a real person.
But it's wiring in all the associations with that experience while you're watching porn.
So what does that mean to a young guy?
That means to a young guy that it's wiring in not touch and being touched and real interaction, but it's wiring in sitting, being a voyeur, Clicking from scene to scene, controlling your dopamine with a mouse, shock, surprise, multiple tabs.
That's what you're training your brain to become sexually aroused to because that's what dopamine is telling.
Be aroused to this so that you will repeat this.
It's like a Hitchcock film.
You're breeding a bunch of kids who are sitting there with binoculars going, I'm looking at you through the window.
Put your foot in his mouth, literally.
It's fascinating that you talk about that.
I'm sure there was some of that, right?
Even when people were looking at a dirty magazine.
I don't know.
We didn't have the same data, though.
It's the same reason we talk about this right now.
You're really talking about an evolution of human consumption of information since 2006.
I mean, that's the number you just threw.
How fascinating is that, that everything has changed since 2006?
We don't really have, and that's the criticism I've seen sort of leveled against you, is people say, well, a lot of it is hypothetical because we don't really have enough numbers back yet because the generation who grew up on instant porn as much as they want, they're not really adults with families of their own yet, a lot of them.
Well, here's the deal.
So let's look at the actual data.
So there are 95 brain studies on internet addiction brain studies.
All 95 show the same brain changes as seen in drug addicts.
What does that tell us?
That tells us that audio-visual stimulation, when done in excess, can cause the same brain changes as drug addiction.
So that's not arguable.
Now, in the last year, there's been three brain studies on porn users.
Guess what those three found?
The same brain changes that occur with those who have drug addiction.
It also found in both of those studies that the more porn used, the less arousal to sexual images.
And in one of the studies, 60% of the subjects who were porn addicted had trouble getting erections with real people, but not with porn.
So that's three for three.
So in fact, all of the actual hard evidence is pointing in one direction.
Hard evidence.
It's ironic because there is none.
Listen, I'm sorry.
Come on.
You walked right into it.
You're the physiologist.
I'm the comic hack.
That is fascinating to me.
And I know you make the argument that it's almost a public health issue.
I don't necessarily want to get into the legislative component of this because I'm more so interested in just the physiological ramifications.
So let me ask you this, okay?
What's the endgame for laymans out there?
For someone's brain, right, who's grown up, let's say, from they were 12 in 2006 when all of this porn became instantaneous, right, just completely readily available.
What's the endgame in their brain where they end up if they're watching porn and click, click, click every day versus someone from the previous generation who didn't have access to that?
Well, that's a hard question to answer for an individual, but there's two things that go on in the brain that you don't even have to have addiction with, and that's sexual conditioning.
You can look at sexual conditioning in two ways.
One, as a young man, you're conditioning your sexual arousal to sitting and clicking and being a voyeur.
Or, as a young man, you're conditioning your sexual arousal to certain acts.
So those acts you may want to replay out in real life because that's what you've masturbated to for the last five years before you actually had a date with a girl.
So those two things are occurring.
One study was done and it found a tremendous increase in anal sex and when it asked these young people, 16 to 18, why they were doing it, neither the males nor the females were sure except they both pointed to porn and they also Neither the males nor the females enjoyed it, but they felt compelled to do it because they thought that's what they were supposed to do.
That's sexual conditioning to ask.
Wow.
So it's almost like, you know, hey, smoke the cigarette, Johnny.
It'll make you cool.
Only it's, hey, let's do page 85 of this weird sex book or page 56 of PornTube.
It's almost like a cyber peer pressure that people aren't even realizing.
Yes, because, you know, the guys are exchanging videos, they're exchanging stuff at school, they're talking about it, and they're watching it, and they think it's normal, because they're watching real people have real sex and supposedly real orgasms, And they think that this is the way it's done because this is all they know.
This is what they do for years.
Wow.
That is pretty...
And I know I keep saying this.
It's insane to really think about.
That's going to be an entire generation of young men.
I mean, what's that going to cause in the workplace?
What's that going to cause?
I mean, think about this.
In the year 20...
I don't know, 42.
The guy who's running for president had access to all of this porn.
And you know most likely was at the very least dabbling unless he was in a church youth group.
Think about that.
These people are going to be building our planes and leading our countries.
That's messed up.
Well, you know, here's another thing.
You know, you're talking about what's it like for young guys.
Well, here's a little...
A lot of the guys only stop when they have porn-induced erectile dysfunction.
And what we've seen is that the older guys in their 40s and 50s can often recover erectile functioning.
Hey, Gary, can I hold you on for the next segment?
Because I know that's going to take a little bit of time, and I've read that part in your book.
It's fascinating.
Gary Wilson, we'll be right back, louder with Crowder.
Right back in, wasting no time because right before the break, the last word was erectile dysfunction.
Bam!
Gary Wilson of YourBrainOnPorn.com is back with us.
Gary, please finish the thought that you had before I so rudely had to take us to break.
Yeah, so what I was trying to say is that the older man who developed erectile dysfunction, it's an interesting thing.
First, most of them had no problems.
They've been using porn for 30 years, but they didn't develop erectile dysfunction until after the advent of tube sites.
They said that was a big game changer.
Then they would heal in about six to eight weeks.
They'd be back functioning fine, strong as ever.
Now, over the last two to four years, we've seen young guys showing up in their twenties, sometimes in their teens, with chronic erectile dysfunction.
And it's taking them from six to 12 months, sometimes two years to recover.
And even when they're recovered, they're still not completely solid.
So it's taking them So much longer, even though they're younger, healthier, have more testosterone, and just have better everything, yet it's taking them longer.
This shows you the power of conditioning your sexual response during adolescence when the brain is highly malleable and when you're pruning down all these nerve connections to rewire yourself to your sexual environment.
And that's what they're doing, and their sexual environment is sitting and watching porn.
Okay, let me ask you this, because, again, you said you've not gotten pushback from the adult film industry.
I've seen some online.
I have, I have.
Maybe they're just not emailing you, or maybe you have them on block because you have an incredible spam filter that filters out anything porny.
But they argue, right, that this is fear-mongering, that it's perfectly fine and porn can and should be used in a healthful way.
Now, I know where I line up on that.
But you, as someone who does not have, I guess, a moral dog in the fight, you know, do you think there is a way for porn to be used healthily?
Should that be encouraged?
Or do you think it's just something that should be avoided for young men?
Well, you know, first you have to say what type of porn.
I mean, if young guys are looking at nude pictures or something like that, occasionally that might not be a problem.
But when you start watching videos, it could be a problem.
But here's the deal.
I mean, this is a hard subject and it's hard for me to describe what's really going on.
It's so much different now with the advent of the internet.
Even with nude pictures, we've had young guys who developed erectile dysfunction while using nude pictures, but they would go through about a thousand or two thousand of them in one masturbation session.
So you can't match that type of novelty in real life or in using magazines.
So the problem becomes you're training your brain to be a voyeur.
Now your question was, can it be used healthfully?
I don't know if it can be used healthfully, but I guess it's about what are your goals.
If your goals are to become really excited with a real partner, then perhaps you want to avoid porn.
If your goal is to just become really excited no matter what, then you could use porn and become excited as that.
My goal is to become excited with a real partner.
How dare you?
I know.
How dare you pass judgment on this generation?
You're like that old man who just yells at the kids in the street, Turn down your boombox!
It's not real music!
So that's what you've become.
Yes, and I walked a mile to school in the snow, which is a reality show.
Right.
You walked a mile in the snow to school both ways, and when you got to school, there was an actual physical naked lady.
How dare you?
Now, it is, you know, and this is where it comes from.
Listen, you know, as Christians, which I am, there are certain spiritual truths which we hold to be self-evident, which a lot of times you see manifesting itself in a way physically here.
You know, for example, there are a lot of things.
You know, you probably shouldn't eat a ton of shellfish before.
You know, watching a lot of porn and having a lot of promiscuous sex could probably be bad for you.
And I don't think anyone argues with it.
So I think there are a lot of ways for people to find common ground.
I had no idea that you were a liberal, Mr.
Wilson.
You know, next time, now that I know this...
I'm a severe liberal.
Oh, you're a beer liberal.
Well, you know, actually...
No, severe, severe.
I'm at the opposite end of you.
Right.
Well, you know, we had an actual terrorist on this show, if you've followed anything that we've done, Imam Shoudhury.
So, at least you got that going for you.
You're not quite a terrorist.
It's good that you're correlating terrorists with liberals.
I like that.
Right, Gary?
There have been a lot of people, more so, we would say, you know, on the right, a lot of Christians who have talked about this and maybe haven't necessarily had the same data to back it up.
But I see you agreeing with a lot of those people, even though you come in at opposite sides of the political spectrum.
So there are issues like this where I think people can just look at...
We can agree.
This is something I don't necessarily know through legislation, but we should be joining hands here and making people aware of a real problem.
Now, do you actually go as far as considering this a public health issue that would require some kind of government intervention, or is your goal just to build awareness on a personal level?
My goal is to build awareness.
I don't like government intervention, so we can agree on that.
Well, then how are you a liberal?
Get out of here!
Yeah, nice try.
And so I think what needs to be done is we always talk about education, but then people talk about sex education.
If we look at sex education, you know, whatever it is, what's missing in sex education is education about neuroplasticity, about the reward circuit and how it is Very vulnerable to overstimulation and how you can actually alter perhaps your sexual trajectory,
your sexual taste, your sexual desires by overstimulating it with a new stimulus that never existed before, high-speed internet porn.
That's what I think should be in the sex education that isn't in there today.
You know what you're going to hate to hear?
You know who's going to be immune to this?
Are those gun-toting rednecks out in the boonies because they're still dealing with dial-up.
So they're the only people who will be immune to this absolute plague of high-speed pornography.
How's that for irony, Mr.
Wilson?
And guess what?
what, I don't mind people owning guns.
I know.
Well, you know, listen, I think I truly believe, listen, that we agree on more than we disagree.
We just had Lear Keith on last week, who you may or may not know.
We both share a disdain for vegans, but she also believes that humans are, you know, a plague on the earth and that we need to reduce population.
And, you know, the animals should rule all kind of deal.
Very, very sweet lady.
But listen, we agree on a lot.
And I find your book fascinating.
Your writing is incredible on this subject.
And actually, I found you through Brett McKay over there at Art of Manliness.
I think he used you as a reference.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, and he's actually, you know, again, he would be on a different side of the political spectrum than either of us, much more of a moderate, you know, I'm to the right of Attila the Hun, I'm sure, to someone like you.
Where can people go to find out more about you?
And then I want you to have the last word here, Gary.
What is the big takeaway you want for people if they're hearing this interview?
Well, you can just put in yourbrainonporn.com.
You'll go to my site.
It's a free site.
It has lots of stuff on it.
It has some videos.
And you can buy a book if you want to.
And the proceeds of the book are earmarked towards education and research.
And the takeaway from this is that a lot of young men do not know that they're affected, that a lot of old men do not know they're affected until they remove porn use.
Take it away for a couple of months, maybe three months, and then see if it changes for you.
See if you have more sexual arousals with real partners, your outlook changes, maybe social anxiety goes away, maybe depression lessens.
Take a vacation from porn use And then make the judgment about whether porn is affecting you.
That would be my challenge to your listeners.
And a perfectly sensible challenge that I think is easier said than done for many of the sticky, disgusting 14-year-olds listening to this on their podcast catcher.
But Gary Wilson, thank you so much, brother.
And really, we hope to have you back, liberal or not.
Okay.
It was a pleasure.
Thanks.
You have a good one.
Hope you enjoyed that video and learned something.
I know I'm going to cancel my order for the left-handed mouse.
And if you want to, watch this video next to me or subscribe.
It's free.
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