Like most kids of my era, the closest I got to porn was the bare-breasted women of Samoa and Amazonia who graced the pages of National Geographic. Quaint as it must seem to youths of today, these images fueled my revved-up hormones quite as much as Deep Throat did 20 years later (seen in that racy center of depravity, Blaine WA, whose movie theater, just yards south of the 49 parallel of latitude, catered almost exclusively to Canucks; crossing the border back then was so much easier than now).

National Geo has been catering to the desires of horny teenagers since November 1, 1896, the first issue to depict bare breasts. (National Geographic, public domain)

How times have changed. Starting about 10 years ago, high-speed online porn, in all its graphic and eclectic glory, has been available to any kid with a computer or smartphone. According to the Huffington Post, porn sites get more visitors each month than Netflix, Amazon and Twitter combined, accounting for one third of all internet traffic.

For better or for worse. Predictions of porn bringing an epidemic of rape and violence against women not only not have materialized, but rape is at an all-time low (in this country at least) and domestic violence is way down (from 13.5 annual victimizations per 1,000 people in 1994 to 5 per 1,000 in 2012). Despite the ubiquitous depictions of women being used as sexual objects in porn movies, those abusive images haven’t bled over into real life.

Frequency of female rape in the U.S. is at an all time low, according to this chart prepared by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, National Crime Victimization Survey.

(One commentator in The Atlantic noted that pornography is unavailable in prisons, which house “the most debased sexual culture in the United States today” and where inmate rape is commonplace.)

So it’s hard to blame porn for rape and sexual violence. But what porn may be responsible for—there’s a lively debate going on which I’ve been following it in the online magazine eSkeptic—is a loss of virility in young men. On one side of the debate are Philip Zimbardo and Gary Wilson, who claim that “all studies assessing young male sexuality since 2010 report historic levels of sexual dysfunctions…” “Prior to the advent of free streaming online porn,” they write, “cross-sectional studies and meta-analyses consistently reported ED [erectile dysfunction] rates of 2 to 3 percent in men under 40.” That rate is now around 30 percent, “a 1,000 percent increase in youthful ED rates in the last 20 years.”

According to Zimbardo and Wilson, several dozen studies “find associations between solo porn use and.diminished libido or erectile dysfunction, negative effects on partnered sex, decreased enjoyment of sexual intimacy, less sexual and relationship satisfaction, a preference for using internet pornography to achieve and maintain arousal over having sex with a partner…”

Rebutting their assertions, Marty Klein argues that porn is having little effect on young men’s sexual performance—that is, male teens always had erection problems, always thought everyone else was getting more sex than they were, and always worried about low sexual desire. Klein cites one study that showed that porn, far from causing ED or low desire, actually increased sexual desire for one’s partner; and another which “found that neither frequency of porn viewing nor changes in the frequency of use were related to erectile problems.” (Zimbardo and Wilson’s rebuttal to Klein’s rebuttal is here.)

(Zimbardo is host of the PBS series Discovering Psychology, while Wilson is host of the website Your Brain on Porn. Klein is a long-time Marriage and Family Therapist and author of seven books on sex and porn.)

On balance, my reading of the two points of view (based on the number and strength of the research cited) favors Zimbardo and Wilson. That is, easy and free access to porn coincides with, and is probably responsible for, increasing reports of virility problems in young men.

I have no moral issues with porn (if I did, I’d be living in shame), but I wonder how much mystery and magic easy porn access has affected relationships among young people these days. What might have been a quick and furtive copping a feel of a breast (over clothes!) when I was a kid is, I’m told, equivalent to a quick blowjob in our current era of easy and casual sex. Whatever happened to the build-up, the ecstasy of anticipation, the sweet agony of wondering if I might get to second base this evening? My introduction to French kissing, on a moonlit summer night standing on a bridge over the River Medway in Kent, England, was probably the most exciting moment of my life.

“Lesbian” wins! (Pornhub.com/insights)

One thing sounds familiar to this old geezer, I’m happy to report. According to the huge porn site Pornhub, the most popular search term is “Lesbian.” Some things never change.

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Barry Evans gave the best years of his life to civil engineering, and what thanks did he get? In his dotage, he travels, kayaks, meditates and writes for the Journal and the Humboldt Historian. He sucks at 8 Ball. Buy his Field Notes anthologies at any local bookstore. Please.