WALK IN PURITYWhat it is
For a lot of men under thirty-five this is the thing that finally forces the issue: not conviction, not being caught, but a body that no longer responds to a real person. This 2016 paper in Behavioral Sciences is the citation to have. It documents a striking epidemiological shift — erectile dysfunction in young European men rising from negligible levels to somewhere between 14% and 28% within a decade, with some studies reporting 30% or more among men aged 18 to 24 — and proposes internet pornography as a contributing cause, working through the dopamine and reward-pathway mechanism by which endless novelty and easy escalation can condition arousal to a screen in a way that does not transfer to a partner. Three case reports of active-duty servicemen document the reversal after they stopped. Free and open access. It is written for researchers, so pair it with a plain-language version for anyone who is not going to read a journal article.
What it may help with
- I want to understand the science
- I'm struggling with porn or sexual sin
How to access it
Peer-reviewed open-access paper (Creative Commons) Free to read at mdpi.com