Thaindian News

London, Oct 22 (IANS) If you have been one of those who have always enjoyed watching pornography, it’s time to stop. New research has found that online pornography is creating a generation of young men who are hopeless in the bedroom.

Exposure to lurid images and films in the new media is de-sensitising so many young individuals that they are increasingly unable to turn excited by ordinary sexual encounters, the Daily Mail quoted the report as stating.

Its result is that impotence is afflicting men in the prime of their lives instead of being a problem associated with middle-aged men of poor health, says the report published in Psychology Today, a respected US journal.

The report, titled ‘Porn-Induced Sexual Dysfunction is a Growing Problem’, explains that the loss of libido 30 years early is caused by continuous over-stimulation of dopamine, the neurotransmitter that activates the body’s reaction to sexual pleasure, by repeatedly viewing pornography on the internet.

A paradoxical effect is created whereby with each new thrill, or dopamine spike, the brain loses its ability to respond to dopamine signals. It means porn-users require increasingly extreme experiences to turn sexually aroused.

“Erotic words, pictures, and videos have been around a long while, but the internet makes possible a never-ending stream of dopamine spikes,’ said Marnia Robinson, the report’s author.

“In some porn users, the response to dopamine is dropping so low that they can’t achieve an erection without constant hits of dopamine via the internet,” she added.

Recovery was possible, however, over a period of months by giving the brain a chance to ‘reboot’ itself by shunning pornography completely, said Robinson.

While recovering, addicts were likely to experience a temporary loss of libido as well as ‘insomnia, irritability, panic, despair, concentration problems, and even flu-like symptoms’, she added.