'Extreme porn' may affect your performance in bed, says neuroscientist

Watching extreme pornography can affect a person's ability to perform in the bedroom, warns Dr. Andrew Huberman, a neuroscientist and professor at Stanford University.

This is not the first time that a scientist has warned people of the negative effects pornography might have on our brains.

"There are good data to support the idea that if your brain learns to be aroused by watching other people have sex it is not necessarily going to carry over to the ability to get aroused when you're one-on-one with someone else," said Dr. Huberman on Chris Williamson's podcast Modern Wisdom earlier this year.

He said that the "high" one gets from watching porn is similar to what we experience while indulging in activities like bungee-cord jumping.

"The higher the dopamine peak, the bigger the drop afterwards," he said. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that regulates the brain's reward and pleasure centres. It makes people feel good with its release.

A number of studies have shown that watching porn can give people unrealistic expectations of sex, and may even put some people off the act. A study conducted in 2017 said porn can lead to erectile dysfunction in men, but doesn't affect the sexual lives of women.

In 2014, a study by researchers at Cambridge University revealed that pornography gives sex addicts the same feelings of euphoria as an addict getting high on drugs.

Another study by researchers at the University of Quebec at Montreal revealed that watching porn gives men the unrealistic expectation that it is easy for women to reach an orgasm. Dr. Huberman says that people who watch porn regularly might not be able to enjoy the real experience as much.

Previous studies have shown that one in every 25 adults is affected by compulsive sexual behaviour—an obsession with sexual thoughts, feelings, and behaviours that they are powerless to control. However, researchers say there is scant evidence to show that pornography, per se, is addictive.