Too Much Internet Porn May Cause Impotence. Urology professor Carlo Foresta (2011)

February, 2011

It may not make you go blind, but Italian scientists have identified a worrying side-effect of watching too much pornography.

Researchers said Thursday that young men who indulge in “excessive consumption” of Internet porn gradually become immune to explicit images, the ANSA news agency reported.

Over time, this can lead to a loss of libido, impotence and a notion of sex that is totally divorced from real-life relations.

“It starts with lower reactions to porn sites, then there is a general drop in libido and in the end it becomes impossible to get an erection,” said Carlo Foresta, head of the Italian Society of Andrology and Sexual Medicine (SIAMS).

His team drew their conclusions from a survey of 28,000 Italian men which revealed that many became hooked on porn as early as 14, exhibiting symptoms of so-called “sexual anorexia” by the time they reached their mid-twenties.

There was some good news, however, as the condition was not necessarily permanent. “With proper assistance recovery is possible within a few months,” Foresta said.

Other data presented at the SIAM’S annual conference in Rome suggested that Germans are the biggest consumers of online porn in Europe, with 34.5 percent of internet users logging on to watch smut.

France ranked second (33.6 percent), ahead of Spain (32.4 percent) and Italy (28.9 percent).

Link to article
Link to one of the original Italian articles on survey
Link to Italian blog on the survey where Dr. Carlo Foresta says that 70% of young men seeking medical treatment for declining libido and erectile dysfunction had been for years heavy porn users.

An Italian source included further statistics: Of the most frequent users, 73% were men. Some people, 3.9%, start before they turn 13, rising to 5.9% in the 14-18 age bracket, 22.1% in the 25-34 bracket and 25.4% between the ages of 35 and 44. This falls off to 20.1% between 45 and 54 and declines to 12% among the over-55s.

Links to other articles on the SIAMS survey:

UPDATES

Since Feburary 2011, Dr. Foresta continues to study the effects of porn on men’s sexuality and report his findings. For example, the two articles below this section were published in 2012. And we have the following:

Lecture describing upcoming studies – by Urology professor Carlo Foresta, president of the Italian Society of Reproductive Pathophysiology – The lecture contains the results of longitudinal and cross-sectional studies. One study involved a survey of high school teens (pages 52-53). The study reported that sexual dysfunction doubled between 2005 and 2013, with low sexual desire increasing 600%.

The percentage of teens that experienced alterations of their sexuality: 2004/05: 7.2%, 2012/13: 14.5%
The percentage of teens with low sexual desire: 2004/05: 1.7%, 2012/13: 10.3% (that’s a 600% increase in 8 years)

Foresta also describes his upcoming study, “Sexuality media and new forms of sexual pathology sample 125 young males, 19-25 years” (Italian name – “Sessualità mediatica e nuove forme di patologia sessuale Campione 125 giovani maschi“). The results from the study (pages 77-78), which used the International Index of Erectile Function Questionnaire, found that regular porn users scored 50% lower on sexual desire domain and 30% lower of the erectile functioning domain.

Study – Adolescents and web porn: a new era of sexuality (2015) – This Italian study analyzed the effects of Internet porn on high school seniors, co-authored by urology professor Carlo Foresta, president of the Italian Society of Reproductive Pathophysiology. The most interesting finding is that 16% of those who consume porn more than once a week report abnormally low sexual desire compared with 0% in non-consumers (and 6% for those who consume less than once a week). From the study:

“21.9% define it as habitual, 10% report that it reduces sexual interest towards potential real-life partners, and the remaining, 9.1% report a kind of addiction. In addition, 19% of overall pornography consumers report an abnormal sexual response, while the percentage rose to 25.1% among regular consumers.”

Pornographic sites, warning young people: Italian is a two-user to adjust

ROME – Sex on the web? This can result in disorders of the intimate sphere, fantasies and impulses obsessive-compulsive disorder. A risk a young man out of two, which usually imbambola front of pornographic sites. About 60% of teenagers between 19 and 25 years old approached by the project for the prevention of Andrology Androlife (4,000 on the whole Italian territory), organized by the Italian Society of Andrology and Sexual Medicine (Siams), has claimed to be a constant user of “hot site”. The data were disclosed to the X National Conference of Siams going to Lecce.

The widespread habit among children ranges from 2 times a month to several times a week, with an average stay of 16 minutes in front of the monitor. The working group led by Carlo Foresta, head of the Service for the Pathology of Human Reproduction of the Hospital University of Padova, showed that 75% of users of portals with explicit sex scenes finds them stimulants, 14% is a ‘habitual visitor of these sites and 3% complaint already an addiction. The team compared the Paduan real sexuality of these young users to porn sites with non-users.

What emerged was a different sexual behavior, in real life, between the two categories. The non-users 83% have a normal activity under the sheets, compared with only 70% of the users. Obvious differences in the loss of desire (13% vs 1% of the users of the other), the precocity of orgasm (13% of internet porn vs 9%). Among the most frequent visitors shows that 20% say multiple masturbatory activity even in the same day.

Addiction is not only visual, but going to take on the characteristics of sexual addiction real, caused by sexuality in the media. The young people who attend most internet sites have auto-eroticism more stringent, but less frequently seek forms of sexuality real. Sexuality media and behavioral consequences that can result from this new form of intimate relationships have been studied by the group led by Forest, who has analyzed the consequences of assiduous study of pornographic sites by comparing the habits of 2,000 adults aged between 20 and 35 with those of about 2,000 young 18 years.

Result: young people are more at risk of suffering the consequences of navigation red light on the Net. Analysis of data shows indeed a substantial difference of modes of behavior between adults and children. In adults, the study of sexuality media expresses a volunteer and stimulating sexual behavior, while in the young 18 year olds attendance is seen as routine and normal in 10% of cases reaching the traits of obsessive addiction. In young people frequenting pornography sites leads to a reduction of the search for real sexuality and a major activity of auto eroticism that in some cases assumes pathological features. Both young people and adults the excessive use of multimedia sexuality causes, compared to non-users, diseases of the sexual response in 25% of cases that occur with anorexia sex, orgasm disorders, erectile dysfunction.

17 November 2012 14:03 – Last Updated:

Online Sex: adolescents and women increasingly at risk addiction

Mariateresa Marino

More than seven million Italians who surf the sites and enjoying hard porn content: a number equal to 29 percent of total navigators.A fact that has seen an increase of 58 percent within five years.The Italian Society of Andrology Medical and Medicine of sexuality came from these numbers to make a specific investigation, monitoring between 2005 and 2010 a sample of 28 000 users, to analyze the impact that addiction has on porn sites sexual health.The study, led by Professor Charles Forest, President of the Siamsa and professor of Clinical Pathology at the University of Padua, was born, as the urologist says “the need to include a new clinical phenomenon, which involves mainly young people under 25 years: sexual anorexia “.

It appears from the Siamsa shows that the target of the navigation is in 73 percent of male cases in the remaining 27 percent female.The age group ‘involved is that between 24 and 44 years.”But the most worrying – Forest report – is that 10 percent of frequent online sex under 18 years. The initiation into the porn sites is already 14 years, the habit becomes very widespread from 25 to peaked between 35 and 44 years and then decline gradually. ”

“Of the 50 boys who have come to our clinics for diseases of sexuality, decreased libido and erectile dysfunction – continues Professor Forest – 70 percent for years had the habit of frequenting pornographic sites very driven. The use of such everyday slowed the ripening brain images of sexuality, freed sex from affectivity and, even worse, canceled the real interest in sexuality. ”

Sexuality on the Internet is cold and repetitive, kills fantasy and desire.”Sexual Anorexia – explains Professor Forest – is a disorder in which completely lacks sexual desire, but not only. The person who suffers from an addiction to porn virtual, is devoid of erotic fantasies and physical stimuli. This is even more serious when you are dealing with teenagers who already suffer from these disorders, since the maturation of sexuality and emotional brain undergoes a sudden stop and a block that is likely to continue for years. ”

Getting rid of the addiction?

“In our clinics we have experienced as a change in behavior of these young people had significant improvements: the complete abandonment of the sites hard, accompanied by the reading of books focusing on the relationship between sexuality, affectivity and imagination has contributed to the strengthening of a sexual healthy and responsible. ”

The study of Siamsa joins previous research studies conducted by the Centre on the new dependencies “Nostos” of Senigallia, on a sample of 500 people.”Very often in the scientific literature in Cybersex addiction, is also included in the pathological use of pornographic material online or Cyber-Porn Addiction – explains Lavenia, psychiatrist and head of the center Nostos – is important, however, to separate the two because sexual addiction In our opinion, the two antithetical phenomena have certain characteristics: interactivity in Cybersex, Cyber-Porn in liabilities. In the first case there is a preference for erotic chat, in the second users are attracted primarily by pornographic images. ”

“These two phenomena – Lavenia added – there are also gender differences. From our studies has always emerged more women in chat rooms and greater male interest in pornography. In particular, in the category Cybersex addiction, 60 percent of users are women between 27 and 36 years, heterosexual, married (68%), university students (37%). Cyberporn In the category, 80 percent are male between 17 and 46 years, married and, in most cases, professionals. In general, we can say that in recent years, the female sex-dependence on the network has grown by 10-15 percent. ”

One thing, this was also confirmed by a recent survey conducted by Quit Porn Addiction, a portal for those who abuse counseling in the pathological form of online porn.According to data from the UK site, including users who turn to the service, one in three are women, with an increasingly lower age threshold: teens, twenties, students and young workers.A subtle trap in which more and more women are likely to remain trapped.

NOTE: A few old blogs from 2011 continue to state that Dr. Foresta never existed, and that the first press release is a hoax. As you can see from the above updates, Foresta’s studies, and Dr Foresta’s 2014 published lecture, the aforementioned blog posts are a hoax. Dr. Carlo Foresta is real (see this pubmed search) as is the conference described in the 2011 articles. In addition, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe quoted and cited the 2011 survey in this motion for a resolution. Watch The Young Turks discuss this survey.

The Italian urologists are no longer alone as many other medical professionals are beginning to treat men who have porn-induced sexual dysfunction, see- Porn-Induced ED in the Media: Primarily Experts