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[00:00:02] The most complicated organ in the body is responsible for our arousal and sexual interest. You might be surprised to learn that action below the belt doesn't even compare to what's going on upstairs. Never underestimate the importance of the human brain when it comes to desire and happiness. Welcome to the Sexually Speaking podcast with sex educator and therapist Melanie Ramey.
Melanie Ramey: [00:00:29] If you've been listening to these podcasts, you know that we deal with the whole gamut of our sexuality as it is the core of what makes us human. Sexuality is who we are. Sex is what we do. Most often, people have the idea that sex has to do with what is below the waist. Nothing could be further from the truth. Sex has to do with what is in our heads, our brains. Now, for example, we know that the brain is made up of 100 billion cells. That's right, 100 billion. And they connect with 7000 other cells throughout the body. The brain is the most complicated object in the known universe. The desire and consummation, for example, of a sexual act, occurs in three phases in different parts of the brain. With such a complex object, the research on the brain is also very complicated. We are just beginning to learn how addictions are caused by specific areas in the brain being stimulated. That includes alcoholism, gambling, iPhones and maybe pornography. The jury is still out, according to some, as to whether or not porn is an addiction or not. However, it is clear that porn is a problem for some people. They are doing fascinating work at the University of West Virginia, where they are using lasers to alter specific areas of the brain for people with drug addictions. And as the technology for using MRIs, lasers and other technological approaches develop, we will undoubtedly get a more definitive answer. However, an addiction expert, Robert Taibbi, has demonstrated how excessive porn use rewires the brain, causing sexual problems.
Melanie Ramey: [00:03:03] Taibbi points out that there are many 20 year olds with a porn addiction, evidenced by excessive use, who have to take Viagra on a regular basis because their midbrains have been dysregulated, affecting their ability to get aroused. I will cite one of his articles on the Facebook page, so you can benefit from his experience in working with people who are addicted. But on the other hand, some proponents say that erotica can enhance their sexual experiences and are a safe recreational outlet. In a 2002 study by the Kinsey Institute at the University of Indiana, 86% of those responding thought porn could be educational, 72% thought it was a harmless outlet for fantasies. 80% of those using porn felt that it was okay. 9% of those using said they had tried unsuccessfully to stop. Men and women report different responses to using porn. Clearly, many people use porn without a problem. How and when it becomes an addiction is still a question in search of a definitive answer. I will post some more references on the Facebook page if you're interested in reading some of the other studies. Whether it is an addiction, it is clear that those who use porn regularly have intense urgings or cravings for sex. They turned to porn when they are anxious. They struggle at home, they struggle at work, so they turn to porn. Some expert believes that there is a link between porn and dissatisfaction with relationships, but there is wide agreement that if porn is getting in the way of your day to day functioning, it's a problem and you need some help dealing with it.
Melanie Ramey: [00:05:35] Some signs of that are that if porn becomes a central part of your life, you stop doing things you enjoy so you can see more porn. You neglect personal care. You always say, well, I'm going to go out and buy new clothes tomorrow or whatever, but you don't. You stay home and watch porn. You lose interest in other activities. You lose interest in social encounters and it changes your relationships with other people. You are watching it at places that are inappropriate, like at school or at your workplace, and your sex life starts to be unfulfilling, even if it does exist. You can't stop looking at porn even when you try. And if you have been watching porn compulsively for six months or more, you have a problem and you need some help. Regardless of one's opinion about pornography for adults, there is no equivocation among those with working brain cells that it's a very negative influence on children. The American College of Pediatricians has published a lengthy research article, updated in 2024, with the most recent findings with regard to children and women. I will put these on Facebook so that you can read them for yourselves. Now, I will digress here to say that I always recommend that you read studies yourself. When you see a study referred to in a newspaper article, it is often colored by the knowledge or lack thereof of the person extrapolating the article, and may be incorrect or inconclusive. One of my sisters was a scientist and she was always exhorting her students and others to read the studies. You may discover, for example, that it's based on interviews of six people in a broom closet or other information that makes it highly questionable. When I give a study reference on the Facebook page for this podcast, I have read them.
Melanie Ramey: [00:08:07] But let's fast forward the study in 2002, the Kinsey Institute to today. In the last decade, the last ten years, there has been a tremendous increase in pornographic material that is available to both adults and children. Its use has gotten more common because of three reasons: it's accessible, it's affordable, and it's anonymous. It takes just a few keystrokes and the privacy of one's home to access it, and there is plenty of free stuff available. In 2019, the cybersecurity firm Webroot stated that 35% of all digital downloads were pornography and that every second $3,075 is spent on pornography. The global
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revenue is $100 billion, with 13 billion coming from the US. A 2022 survey of teens and pornography revealed that 54% of teens had seen porn by the time they were 13 years old and 15% prior to being 11 years old. 39% of boys, 25% of girls had seen scenes of sexual bondage online. 15% of boys and 9% of girls had seen images of child pornography online, and another study revealed that 85% of adolescents, males, and 50% of adolescent females had been exposed to pornographic material.
Melanie Ramey: [00:10:20] Grade school aged children are most often exposed by accidentally discovering it on the internet, or by seeing a parent or other adults' porn. Sexual predators purposefully exposed children to porn in order to get them for sexual exploitation. I have previously mentioned that there is dysregulation that occurs in the midbrain of young people. And of course, the younger you are, the worse this dysregulation is. Dysregulation is the interference with one's emotional response. This can cause mood swings, overreactions, and generally poor control of one's emotions. When the dysregulated brain is stimulated by porn, a variety of negative emotions can result and be impossible for the person to control without some help. 16 states have now passed resolutions citing the availability of porn to children and young people to be a public health crisis. So it's really, really important for parents to be aware of the internet sites that their children and adolescents are accessing. Before porn became so available, older adolescents and adults use sex workers for sexual experiences. Now, sex workers will be discussed in another podcast, but we're not going to discuss them further here. Unfortunately, history is replete with accounts of children, both male and female, being exploited for sex. Sex is really both a physical and emotional reaction to a stimulus such as porn and as such can be and should be controlled. Now, the ability to control one's emotions is absolutely essential for people to function in the world.
Melanie Ramey: [00:12:48] Now this includes anger, frustration, fear, shame, sadness. If a person tells him or herself that they don't want to experience that emotion and try to get rid of it, they can use some negative way in order to do that. Like instead of dealing with the emotion, they go compulsive shopping or they take drugs or they go watch some porn. And so this could include alcohol, drugs, any of the compulsive addictive behaviors. No one wants to go around feeling a lot of emotional pain. However, when you reject or repress your emotions, it only makes things worse. So if you're feeling sad, why are you feeling sad? Deal with what is causing you to feel the way you are. If you're angry, what are you angry about? Is it realistic that you should have an anger response? If you have some sort of emotional outburst to the work in the workplace, for example, what caused that? What triggered that? Understand your emotions so that you can
control them to your own benefit, so that you don't go around having these emotional outbursts and causing people to wonder what's wrong with you? We see this in all sorts of ways. For example, some people report they have bosses who shout and throw things and so forth. This is really bizarre behavior for a person in a professional position. What would be causing a person to shout at their employees and to throw things? Something's wrong with that person's emotions and emotions actually really serve various useful purposes.
Melanie Ramey: [00:14:50] This includes, of course, providing helpful information about the world around you. They are also clues to your mental health and your wellbeing. But trying to ignore these emotions, people push away important information that actually can be helpful to them. An alternative to pushing away your emotions is learning to accept them. Obviously, some of the things we just talked about, people yelling at employees or employees yelling at each other and throwing things, et cetera, et cetera, you know, people end up getting fired. People end up, you know, having all kinds of problems. What is underneath that is what should be considered and should be able to be dealt with so that people don't act in this way, in public places or to other people. So some of the signs then, of poor emotional control really are that they are, these people are sort of oblivious to other people's feelings. They behave insensitively insensitively, they blame others for their problems. And we've all known people like that. Regardless of what happens or what they may be causing, they always try to put it off on somebody else. They have poor coping skills, they have emotional outbursts, they struggle with relationships. For example, people who have these sorts of reactions to their emotions, people are very cautious about getting in relationships with them because you never can tell when they may erupt, or they may act inappropriately.
Melanie Ramey: [00:16:49] And then they usually, if you're having a conversation with them, turn the conversation toward themselves and they won't talk about themselves or what they've done or how mistreated they've been or something. So these things are really signs that people have very poor emotional control. So it's really important, as children grow, that they learn to understand their emotions and accept them. This process changes as children mature. If it gets short circuited along the way, it can result in adults acting childish with emotional outbursts, as we've talked about, in the workplace or in the actions with each other or other signs that we just talked about. You know, it's true that some foolish adults have used porn to allegedly educate children about sex. This is absolutely wrong. For adolescents and young people, pornography is a false narrative about how men and women form healthy relationships. It simply objectifies the body, absent any understanding of a person's personality, intelligence, or humanity. It does not provide anything helpful for children and young people. In my experience in working with men in particular, I and others have had them tell us various reasons that they use porn. One is really the appearance of the actors they see in porn films. Well, the porn actors are usually young with enhancing makeup and little clothing. They compare these people to their partners, who may have had several children and are no longer young with young skin. I must say, these men seem to have also missed the point that neither are they.
Melanie Ramey: [00:19:14] But they also say their partner is not willing to try new sexual experiences. And it's true that some men and women have been taught and brought up to believe that there are only certain kinds of sexual activities that are normal, and that any other type, rather than which they have heard about, are actually abnormal or even sinful, depending upon one's religious upbringing. The fact is that whatever the couple mutually enjoy is normal. This is where being able to discuss your sexual preferences, your sexual comfort, your feeling of safety is really vital. But this podcast can actually be quite helpful with some of these issues. I will put on the Facebook a reference to a Sex Position Coloring Book, which is also subtitled Playtime For Couples. I think you will be able, if you use this coloring book, to give up going to the gym, and if you use it, you may also qualify for a gymnastics team. So I hope you enjoy it. And I would also like to conclude with a word of caution about trying to replicate what you see in pornographic films. Now, in telling this, I may not be able to stop laughing because it sort of cracks me up every time I think about it, but through the years, I have had a number of students who have worked for me, and I have been educated, informed, and sometimes entertained by their experiences. One young man who worked for me had a part time job also on the weekends, working as a desk clerk at a hotel.
Melanie Ramey: [00:21:19] So one Friday night, late, when he was there, the security guard called him and said, come quickly to the fifth floor. There's some problem. The maid is called me and there's some terrible going on. So the clerk jumped up, of course, and met the security guard on the fifth floor. And as they stopped outside a room where the maid was, they could hear noises of some kind coming from inside, but they couldn't make out what they were. So the security guard knocked on the door and they got no response, just some more noises and they couldn't distinguish them. So the security guard decided to open the door. So they opened the door, entered the room. The first thing they saw was a woman spread eagle nude on the bed, with her arms and legs tied to the bed and a covering over her mouth. Well, the clerk rushed in and grabbed the duvet and pulled it up and covered the woman and then took the, was taking the covering off her mouth when the security guard had been hearing noises from this freestanding closet that was also in the room, and it had two doors on it, and in one of the doors was a key, and there was strange banging from there. So he went over and turned the key, opened the door and out fell a man dressed as Superman. Well, as you can imagine, the people were mortified.
Melanie Ramey: [00:23:02] And it turned out that this couple had seen a pornographic film where the man got up on top of a piece of furniture, dive bombed onto the bed where the woman was tied up, and this was a thing they were going to replicate. The problem was when the man got on top of this freestanding closet, the top of it was made out of plywood or something flimsy, and he fell in, only to discover that the door was locked on the outside and he couldn't get out. And so the woman was tied up trying to call for help, and he was stuck in the closet. Well, obviously this experience provided a great deal of humor for the guard and the desk clerk at the rest of the time they worked together. When they would greet each other, they would say, how are you doing today? Are you feeling super? And the other would respond, they were feeling super and then they'd burst out laughing. Well, this is a cautionary tale about trying to duplicate something you see in a film, whether it's pornographic or not, or on TikTok or wherever. You don't have a prop team or assistants to check out everything before you try it. So I would advise against it. Until the next time, though, do think some about your emotions. How in touch are you with they and do you understand them and do you need some help coping with them in a healthy way? Do stay safe and well.
[00:24:48] You've been listening to Sexually Speaking with sex educator and therapist Melanie Ramey. Join Melanie again for more fascinating topics about sexuality. Please visit Sexually Speaking with Melanie Ramey on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.