Can’t perform? Don’t blame porn

WATCHING porn will not affect a young man’s sexual performance, according to a European study.

But some South African clinical sexologists warn that if people become addicted to watching porn, or it stokes anxiety, men’s sex lives can be impaired.

The online study, conducted in Croatia, Norway and Portugal and published in the May issue of the Journal of Sexual Medicine, is the first cross-cultural research to examine the relationship between porn use and sexual disturbances among straight men under the age of 40.

Overall, it found no link, said coauthor Dr Aleksandar Štulhofer of Zagreb University in Croatia.

Porn fans were more likely to have signed up for the online study, but porn consumption worldwide is common.

Erectile dysfunction among younger men is high in the study countries, as well as Italy, Brazil and Switzerland.

The researchers suggest that the reasons for sexual difficulties were more likely to be due to “unhealthy lifestyles, substance abuse, stress, depression, intimacy deficit, and misinformation about sexuality”, than to porn.

Štulhofer said sexologists and urologists did not generally support the view that porn caused sexual difficulties.

“Most recent studies show that online pornography is used by substantial proportions of both adult and adolescent men and women,” he said.

Men use porn more than women, and more frequently.

Johannesburg clinical sexologist Professor Elna McIntosh said young men often had performance anxiety because of porn. “They feel inadequate because of the penis size and even the volume of semen in porn,” said McIntosh.

The feats of porn stars also make them sensitive about premature ejaculation.

Usually when she treats erectile dysfunction among younger men they are body builders taking steroids, but she has been referred a case of “porn-induced erectile dysfunction”.

Another clinical sexologist in Gauteng, Dr Elna Rudolph, said she had never diagnosed erectile dysfunction due to porn use. “Men just compare themselves to porn stars and then think they have a problem, but they don’t,” she said.

Sexologist Babalwa Funda kaMabhoza said it was uncommon to see problems related to porn addiction. “Women usually complain about porn . . . and then when I ask if their partners are not interested in sex, they are. They are sexually active.”

The link between obsessive porn consumption and erectile dysfunction got raised every day in a US forum dealing with sex addiction, said Dr Leandie Buys, a sex addiction therapist in Port Elizabeth.

The pleasure centres of the brain got hijacked and rewired by excessive porn consumption, said Buys. “I see young guys with erectile dysfunction in relationships who, on their own, have no problems. I see a link between porn and difficulties.”

The accessibility, anonymity and affordability of cyberporn put young people at risk, Buys said.

The US net forum NoFap has attracted more than 80 000 followers who have pledged to abstain from porn and masturbation in a bid to “recover from porn-induced sexual dysfunction”.

Men just compare themselves to porn stars and then think they have a problem