this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2023
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For the lazy:
HB 1181 would issue public health warnings including claims that porn use “increases the demand for prostitution, child exploitation, and child pornography.” Claims that are included in the health warnings laid out by the bill suggest that porn use is “potentially biologically addictive, is proven to harm human brain development, desensitizes brain reward circuits, increases conditioned responses, and weakens brain function.” Or, that exposure to porn “is associated with low self-esteem and body image eating disorders, impaired brain development, and other emotional and mental illnesses.” Note how they use the term “exposure” as if a person watching porn was exposed to a real disease.
All of that is backed up by actual evidence though. It’s not really disputed that porn affects self esteem and body issues or desensitizes reward circuits of the brain.
I’ll bite. Show us the evidence. Peer-reviewed, published studies in respectable journals.
From JAMA Psychiatry https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24871202/
The negative association of self-reported pornography consumption with the right striatum (caudate) volume, left striatum (putamen) activation during cue reactivity, and lower functional connectivity of the right caudate to the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex could reflect change in neural plasticity as a consequence of an intense stimulation of the reward system, together with a lower top-down modulation of prefrontal cortical areas. Alternatively, it could be a precondition that makes pornography consumption more rewarding.
As OP said constantly stimulating your reward pathway with instant gratification like porn does have lasting changes in your brain.
But fuck Texas also I don't support this bill
It could change your brain. Or it could not. They're just theorizing.
Interesting. The study seems to indicate a negative correlation between porn usage and gray matter. I’d love to see more research on this, perhaps over the course of several years. I’d also love to know what the r64 metric they kept using for correlation is.