In this week’s eSkeptic:
About this week’s feature article
Is porn viewing really changing young brains, skewing our views of “normal” sexuality, causing sexual dysfunction, and undermining our ability to relate to real sex? In this week’s eSkeptic, certified sex therapist and one of the United States’ leading experts on pornography, Marty Klein, responds to the article we published last week by Philip Zimbardo, Gary Wilson, and Nikita Coulombe.
Dr. Marty Klein has been a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist and Certified Sex Therapist for over thirty years. Honored by groups such as the Society for the Scientific Study of Sex and the California Association of Marriage & Family Therapists, he is one of the country’s leading experts on pornography. He testifies on sexual issues in state, federal, and international courts, and is frequently quoted by The New York Times, National Public Radio, and other media. He is the author of seven books including: Sexual Intelligence: What We Really Want from Sex—and How to Get it, America’s War on Sex: The Continuing Attack on Law, Lust, and Liberty, His Porn, Her Pain: Confronting America’s PornPanic with Honest Talk about Sex, and the DVD Enhancing Porn Literacy in Young People. He recently gave two Congressional briefings on sex education.
Skeptical of the Porn Skeptics
by Marty Klein, Ph.D
In eSkeptic for April 13, 2016, Philip Zimbardo, Gary Wilson, and Nikita Coulombe outlined the many ways that they believe “porn is messing with your manhood.” I personally know Phil Zimbardo to be a compassionate and energetic man who is generally positive about sexuality (I don’t know his coauthor Mr. Wilson). And everyone knows that Dr. Zimbardo is a world-famous social scientist, but in my opinion this article is short on facts that are reliable and relevant. Before we get to that, however, let’s note that we agree on several things. Yes, a majority of adolescent American males look at pornography. Yes, some of them report sexual difficulties. And yes, some of them report a compulsive quality to their attachment to porn viewing. Finally, there’s plenty to be concerned about when an entire generation of young men get a substantial amount of their sex education from Internet porn.
However, Zimbardo, Wilson, and Coulombe hypothesize effects of porn that science does not support empirically. They describe epidemics that really affect only a small number of people; they blame these alleged epidemics on neurological processes that haven’t really been established; and they stitch together a few isolated studies to conclude that porn viewing is undermining a generation’s ability to relate to real sex.
One of the key foundations of Zimbardo, Wilson, and Coulombe’s article are the reports of high school and college students about their lack of “normal” sexual functioning. They cite studies of young guys reporting “low sexual desire” and “erection difficulties,” who blame their “condition” on porn. But obsession with “normal” sex is a hallmark of adolescence and young adulthood.1 Exactly what baseline are these 17-year-olds using to decide that their desire isn’t “normal”? Which 19-year-old actually understands enough about sexuality to gauge how much his peers desire sex, how much they enjoy it, how reliable their erections are, and how often they have sex?2
A Serpent’s Tale
MONSTERTALK EPISODE 103
Tales of enormous snakes have been a part of folklore for thousands of years. From myths to legends, to eyewitness testimony and photographs, these stories slither through our culture and seem inescapable. Prepare to recoil in horror as we talk about giant snakes with John C. Murphy, co-author of the fascinating book Tales of Giant Snakes. Do giant man-eating snakes lurk out there waiting to swallow the unwary? The answer is more complicated than you might suspect.
Get the MonsterTalk Podcast App and enjoy the science show about monsters on your handheld devices! Available for iOS, Android, and Windows 8 devices. Subscribe to MonsterTalk for free on iTunes. Follow the RSS feed.
OUR NEXT SCIENCE SALON: MAY 22
The Jazz of Physics: The Secret Link Between Music and the Structure of the Universe
Photo by Lendel Marshal
In The Jazz of Physics: The Secret Link Between Music and the Structure of the Universe, physicist and jazz saxophonist Dr. Stephon Alexander revisits the ancient realm where music, physics, and the cosmos were one. This cosmological journey accompanies Alexander’s own tale of struggling to reconcile his passion for music and physics, from taking music lessons as a boy in the Bronx to studying theoretical physics at Imperial College. […]
Call 1-626-794-3119 now to reserve.
MISSED THIS SCIENCE SALON?
The Serengeti Rules: The Quest to Discover How Life Works and Why It Matters
For those who could not make it to Pasadena, California for the Science Salon with award-winning biologist and author Sean B. Carroll, we have made a video recording of the event available to you. Watch it online for free.
HELP SUPPORT OUR EFFORTS
Donate via PayPal and eBay
Did you know that you can support the work of the Skeptics Society by donating to us via PayPal or eBay? You can make a donation to the Skeptics Society via the PayPal Giving Fund, or favourite us on eBay Giving Works, and specify the percentage of your eBay sales that you’d like to donate to us. Your donations directly support the work of your Skeptics Society.
