- Study assessed porn habits and sexual activity of men in Denmark and Belgium
- Found 35 per cent of men are more aroused by porn than having sex themselves
- Nine out of ten men admit to skipping through videos to the most erotic parts
Men who watch a lot of porn are at increased risk of developing erectile dysfunction when having sex with a partner, a new study shows.
The blame is being pointed at easy access to adult films which are desensitising men so they are not aroused when engaging in intercourse themselves.
A study assessed porn habits of men in Denmark and Belgium and compared this with their sexual habits.
It found more than a third of men (35 per cent) are more stimulated by watching other people have sex on a screen than they are having it themselves.
Researchers asked 3,267 over-16s in Belgium and Denmark to answer 118 questions about masturbation, frequency of porn watching and sexual activity.
Lead author Professor Gunter de Win said: ‘There was a highly significant relationship between time spent watching porn and increasing difficulty with erectile function with a partner.’
The questionnaire also discovered that 90 per cent of men skip through to the most erotic parts of an adult movie when indulging in some alone time.
However, the frequency of bouts of self love is on the rise, they found.
Of the men quizzed, the average amount of weekly porn watched was around 70 minutes, with most engaging in individual bouts of between five and 15 minutes.
Professor de Win does point out that some people watch less and some ‘much, much more’. than others.
One-in-forty-five respondents (2.2 per cent) watched more than seven hours a week, for example.
‘There is no doubt that porn conditions the way we view sex, he adds. ‘Only 65 per cent of men felt sex with a partner was more exciting than watching porn.
‘In addition, 20 per cent felt they needed to watch more extreme porn to get the same level of arousal as previously.
‘We believe the erectile dysfunction problems associated with porn stem from this lack of arousal.’
The study presented at an European Association of Urology virtual congress found almost one-in-four (23 per cent) of under-35s had some level of erectile dysfunction.
The researchers say this figure was higher than they had anticipated.
A separate 2016 study found that for under-40s the average amount of men struggling with erectile dysfunction is around 14 per cent.
Professor de Win, of the University of Antwerp, Belgium, said: ‘This figure was higher than we expected.’
Pornography has been increasingly available via the internet since around 2007 – leading to a rapid uptake in use.
But there is little information on how it might affect erectile function, said Professor de Win.
His research focused on men who had had sex within the previous four weeks, enabling them to relate porn’s effect.
Professor de Win said: ‘The work was designed to unpick any relationship between porn and erectile dysfunction, and given the large sample size we can be pretty confident about the findings.
‘Our next step is to identify which factors lead to erectile dysfunction, and to conduct a similar study on the effects of porn on women.
‘In the meantime, we believe that doctors dealing with erectile dysfunction should also be asking about watching pornography.’
Professor Maarten Albersen, of the University of Leuven, Belgium, who was not involved in the study, said porn may lead to impaired erectile function or sexual satisfaction or confidence during partner-sex.
He added: ‘As Professor De Win says, the running hypothesis is the type of porn watched may come more explicit over time and partner-sex may not lead to the same level of arousal as the pornographic material does.
‘The study contributes to an ongoing debate on the topic; experts have highlighted porn may have both positive and negative effects, and could for example be used as an aid in the treatment of sexual dysfunctions, so this is a controversial area and the last words have not been said on this topic.’
Original article
Another article about this research with more details:
More Porn, Worse Erectile Function
[Bonus article from the same page]
Google and Facebook are tracking users as they watch PORN
Google and Facebook like to watch, it seems, with the tech firms tracking visitors to 74 per cent and 10 per cent of porn websites, respectively, experts have found.
US researchers from Microsoft and the universities of Pennsylvania and Carnegie Mellon scanned 22,484 adult-themed site to find where they were sending user data.
Their analysis revealed that 93 per cent of these pornography websites send data on to an average of seven domains owned by third-party companies.
Researchers also found that only 17 per cent of the adult sites they scanned had any form of encryption — leaving user data on the rest vulnerable to leaking.
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