Why aren’t young men having sex? Pt. 4
The new reality is being exposed. Young men are having sex at historically low rates. Virginity rates for men under 30 exploded from 7% in 2008 to 27% in 2018.1 An honest look at the previous blogs establishes pornography as the major factor behind these statistics.
Porn brings severe consequences to the heart and mind. One key consequence is the rewiring of the porn user’s brain and reshaping of their sexual preferences.
Consider musician John Mayer. People were shocked when in an interview, he admitted preferring fantasy and masturbation to sex with a woman. In the interview, he said that during sex, he masturbates in his mind and fantasizes about someone other than the person he is with.2 Through watching porn, he has unknowingly rewired his brain for what arouses him.
How can a famous musician who has the opportunity for actual sex with actual women prefer fantasy and masturbation? Let that sink in. Something doesn’t add up.
As we have seen in this blog series, there is a spectrum of results of how pornography impacts a person sexually; from Erectile Dysfunction to a preference for the violent or deviant to creating an appetite for more sex with more people. But the most common impact of pornography on the young mind is it conditions a person sexually towards screens and solo sex. The result of all this is that monogamous sex loses its appeal because of this rewiring of the brain. Thank you, porn.
Real Problems
Mayer is not alone in his preference for fantasy. Sociologist Dr. Mark Regnerus writes in his book “Cheap Sex” about a likely reason young men are having less sex,
“The quality of porn and masturbation may well have reached a level significant enough to satisfy many men, such that the pursuit of real sex with real women … seems no longer a benefit worth the costs of wooing … They may not declare virtual sex ‘great sex,’ but they may conclude that it’s good enough.”3
If a person’s predominant sexual activity is watching porn on a video screen and touching themself, then their sexual arousal is shaped by that, and real sex can feel foreign.
For many people, porn conditions their sexual preferences towards more porn, not towards actual sex. In some cases, it robs them of even the desire for actual sex.
Listen to this 25-year-old who started watching pornography at age 12,
“My sexual experience is very limited and the few times I’ve tried sex have been a total disappointment: no erection. Been trying to quit for 5 months now and finally have. I realize that I’ve been conditioned to the point where my sexual urges are deeply linked to a computer screen. Women don’t turn me on unless they are made 2-D and behind my glass monitor.”4
Eminent urologist Dr. Harry Fisch writes in his book, “New Naked,” “I can tell how much porn a man watches as soon as he starts talking candidly about any sexual dysfunction he has… A man who masturbates frequently can soon develop erection problems when he’s with his partner. Add porn to the mix, and he can become unable to have sex…A penis that has grown accustomed to a particular kind of sensation leading to rapid ejaculation will not work the same way when it’s aroused differently. Orgasm is delayed or doesn’t happen at all.”5
Fantasy’s Deception
It is not uncommon for porn users to have to recall or fantasize about pornography while they have intercourse so that they can be sexually excited enough for sex or to climax. Instead of being present and focused on his wife during lovemaking, a man negatively conditioned often has to fantasize about another woman. Talk about ruining sexual intimacy, but that is what porn is doing in so many cases. It promises sexual fulfillment but gives bondage and disappointment instead.
The timeline is important to understand. As we mentioned in the first blog of this series, before high-speed internet in 2006, most people were looking at photos of porn because videos took ‘forever’ to download with dial-up. But when videos started streaming in 2006, and that was delivered to the iPhone in July of 2007, it changed the game. One user shared the difference he experienced immediately:
“High-speed porn changed everything. I began masturbating more than once a day. I found myself looking at porn before sex with my wife because she just couldn’t do it for me anymore.”
2008 was the first full year that smartphones had the ability to stream porn, giving people their own private porn theater in their pocket or purse. According to the graph this was the beginning point of the skyrocketing rates of sexlessness among young men. The consequences of unleashing all this porn on young minds are varied and devastating.
The man with a negatively conditioned arousal template brings expectations into his marriage that can be unfair to his wife and leave him discontent with his own sex life. This is one of the main reasons why those who watch pornography have an increasingly less satisfying sex life. Many young men are having their sexual arousal templates set for them in a way that will rob them of the enjoyment of a healthy sex life in their marriage. Evidence of this is the shocking reality that 26 percent of married millennials reported problems with sexual desire in the past year. Think about this. These mostly millennial men are struggling with sexual desire when they should be at the peak of their sexual lives. Experts point to porn as the biggest reason.
Pornography’s conditioning of the adolescent brain, along with its convenience, has made it the preferred choice for many men over a real woman. Part of the convenience is no fear of rejection; the phone never says no. Also, consuming porn with all the oversized penises gives men a distorted view of reality and themselves. Pornography leads some men to “compulsively measure themselves over and over, avoid dating, practice home-enlargement techniques they see promoted on the internet, and even seek penis enlargement surgery,” according to sex therapist Stephen Snyder.
Guess what? If more and more young men avoid romantic encounters because they fear they don’t measure up or they fear performance issues like PIED, then a lot of people will have a lot less sex. Porn is convenient and what their brains have been conditioned to.
Quit Porn and Renew the Mind
If you want to enjoy a satisfying sex life in your marriage one day, it is so important to quit now before you are married so you can reset your brain. Sex is an incredible gift that God has given to be enjoyed in marriage, but pornography is a cheap substitute that actually undermines your ability to enjoy sex.
Look how the following porn user shares his experience,
“After years of masturbating five or more times a week to pornography, sex was embarrassing. Not only was there not enough friction but it felt like the wrong type of stimulation. Six months without porn and I now have no performance issues of any kind. Sex is now twenty times more fulfilling than masturbation.”
God planned for us to prefer sex according to His design: in marriage with your spouse – or future spouse. Porn will directly rob you of that gift. The good news is Jesus says in John 10:10, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” This means that God can renew your mind regardless of where your preferences lie now. But quitting porn is the first step, and the Freedom Fights 30-Day Challenge is a great place to start.
Endnotes
1 – Christopher Ingraham, Washington Post, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/03/29/share-americans-not-having-sex-has-reached-record-high/
2 – Playboy, Interview, John Mayer, February 10, 2010
3 – Mark Regnerus, Cheap Sex
4 – Gary Wilson, Your Brain on Porn, Pg. 70
5 – Harry Fisch, New Naked
