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Naomi Wolf, porn and the misuse of dopamine amarcnn | July 11, 2011 at 2:22 pm | Categories: Sex | URL: http://wp.me/p1bJgh-25J

Editor's Note: Vaughan Bell is a research psychologist working for Médecins sans Frontières as mental health coordinator. This piece is republished from Mindhacks.com with the permission of the author.

By Vaughan Bell

'Is pornography driving men crazy?' asks campaigner Naomi Wolf in an article that contains a spectacular misunderstanding of neuroscience applied to a shaky moral conclusion.

Wolf asks suggests that the widespread availability and consumption of pornography is "rewiring the male brain" and "causing them to have more difficulty controlling their impulses".

According to her article, pornography causes "rapid desensitization" to sexual stimulation which is "desensitizing healthy young men to the erotic appeal of their own partners" and means "ordinary sexual images eventually lose their power, leading consumers to need images that break other taboos in other kinds of ways, in order to feel as good."

Moreover, she says "some men (and women) have a "dopamine hole" – their brains' reward systems are less efficient – making them more likely to become addicted to more extreme porn more easily."

Wolf cites the function of dopamine to back up her argument and says this provides "an increasing body of scientific evidence" to support her ideas.

It does not, and unfortunately, Wolf clearly does not understand either the function or the relevance of the dopamine system to this process, but we'll get onto that in the moment. Read more of this post

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