Does Porn Have a Place in a Meaningful Life? A Neuroscientist's Perspective

Pat welcomes Dr. Nicole Prause, a neuroscientist and sexual psychophysiologist whose groundbreaking research challenges some of the most deeply held beliefs about pornography, addiction, and shame. In a world full of noise, judgment, and moral panic, Dr. Prause offers a data-driven lens on desire, compulsion, and the role of sexuality in a values-based life. Together, they explore the complexities of pleasure, the impact of guilt, and what it really means to grow up in relationship to our bodies and choices. It’s a conversation about embracing nuance, letting go of shame, and aligning our behavior with our deeper purpose.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why the idea of porn “addiction” doesn’t hold up under neuroscience
• How shame—not porn—may be the real source of suffering
• The difference between impulsive vs. compulsive behavior, and why it matters
• How to reconcile pleasure with purpose in a values-driven life
• The surprising overlap between sexual arousal and meditative states
• What the data actually says about porn, connection, and meaningful relationships

Social Media:

• After Peter Pan Podcast: 
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • YouTube
• Nicole Prause:
  • LinkedIn 
  • Today Show Segment - Studying the Healing Power of Sex
  • TedTalk

Transcript

Nikky (00:02)
I think people absolutely struggle with pornography sometimes. They watch it more than they mean to. They find it to be problematic.

in their life, but it doesn't look like an addiction and that's important for treatment. So we're not saying it's nothing, but it doesn't look like other addictions.

Pat Tenneriello (00:15)
consumption as a couple, what does the research show?

Nikky (00:19)
it depends on if you're hiding it or not. So people who co-view, it has a positive effect.

Pat Tenneriello (00:23)
that's interesting.

Nikky (00:29)
If they look at it apart and they hide it from their partner, it is negative. The more they view it and hide it, the less sexually satisfied the reporter being.

Pat Tenneriello (00:36)
Welcome to After Peter Pan, the podcast about growing up and finding deeper purpose. I'm your host Pat Tenneriello and today I'm joined by Dr. Nicole Prause a neuroscientist and sexual psychologist who's challenging some of the most controversial narratives around porn, addiction and sexual behaviour. If you've ever wrestled with guilt or shame around porn use or questioned how it fits into a meaningful values driven life, this episode is for you.

Nicole brings science to a conversation that is often ruled by fear and judgement, offering surprising insights about pleasure, intimacy and what really drives so-called compulsive behaviour. This conversation is about moving beyond black and white thinking, unpacking the beliefs we inherit about sex and self-worth, and discovering a more honest, nuanced path to connection and integrity. Enjoy the episode.

Pat Tenneriello (01:23)
for listeners unfamiliar with your work. Can you briefly summarize your background and how you became involved in researching sexuality and pornography?

Nikky (01:31)
I'm a sexual psychophysiologist and there are lots of paths to that. The psycho is the psychology aspect and the physiology is that we put sensors on people. So we ask them how they feel and then we see how that relates to what their body's doing. And my actual PhD is in clinical science.

Lots of different ways you could take that. In my case, it's stats and neuroscience focus. So I was looking at, you know, kind of brains and psychology and happened to be at Indiana University. Did not go there for this. Needed a lab credit and saw the Kinsey Institute, offered lab credits and the Kinsey Institute is kind of known in the States. It's a research for research in sex, gender and reproduction. It's really unique in the United States.

So I just thought I'd do it because it was cool and was really surprised that you could study sexuality in kind of a more objective way than just asking. Your surveys are important. We want to know how people feel. But we should also check and see if their bodies are actually doing what they say they are.

Pat Tenneriello (02:29)
How do you feel like this work is having an impact?

Nikky (02:32)
between sex and money, two of the areas that are kind of like widely discussed, but not for real. We have lots of jokes and kind of topical feelings and moralizing about various aspects of sex in particular in my case. And it's difficult to have a deeper conversation about it when you don't know what the...

base rate is, you you don't really know how something works. You don't, you're not sure what it is that you're asking about or for or why. So I think the science should be helpful in kind of pointing those conversations and trying to figure out what is it exactly that we're asking for? What is it that we do and don't know?

And that impacts certainly romantic relationships. I think that's the one people most obviously think about, but more broadly, it's connection. It's another way of connecting people in the world.

Pat Tenneriello (03:20)
Can you just broadly walk us through the types of research that you're focused on?

Nikky (03:25)
Mm-hmm. It's...

come and gone over the years for various topics. I started out in female sexuality and methods development. So was publishing in engineering journals, wavelet decompositions, which is a way of cleaning body signals. So people are messy. They're not like the lucky engineers who work on concrete and have like super regular signals. People wiggle and they blink and they do all kinds of things to mess this up. So a lot of my early work was very methodologically focused, very mathy.

And I had a graduate student who was interested in the pornography issue and did his dissertation on that topic. So thanks, Cameron. You really dragged me into that space, ⁓ looking at brain responses there. So currently, I'm glazing over some of the older projects, but currently, I still do work on pornography effects.

Pat Tenneriello (04:06)
Mm-hmm.

Nikky (04:15)
We've just started doing data collection for a very large study of male orgasm and kind of its health effects, relationship with post-orgasmic illness syndrome, and then also do some work on kind of the manosphere. So over COVID, a lot of our labs closed. Mine certainly did because we have lots of biohazards associated with collecting physiological data.

And so I started doing more of that online work because I couldn't collect data like I normally did. So we would do online surveys and time tasks and things that we can administer online instead looking at, in particular, the group called NoFap, which is an anti-masturbation movement. And now they're anti-PMO, so poor and masturbation orgasm, and kind of like making claims about cures related to that. so, you know, as soon as someone makes a clinical cure, we want to investigate that.

Pat Tenneriello (04:55)
you

Nikky (05:04)
So that part I think I have still a couple more papers for, but we're really shifting now back heavily into kind of orgasm physiology and still doing work in pornography

space.

Pat Tenneriello (05:14)
Well, that's just the conversation I'm hoping to have today is the effects of pornography use consumption. and I, I've been researching a lot and a couple things looking at your work. One is when I listened to your Ted talk, became apparent that it's a bit controversial what you do and not everyone likes the work that you do. why do you think that is?

Nikky (05:21)
you

Pat Tenneriello (05:37)
like they tried to shut you down. You give some allusions to that in some of your talks. So what is it that people are, you know, having a hard time with the work that you do?

Nikky (05:46)
Yeah, I got a death threat just a week ago for on my phone. My phone number is still posted online on one of these anti porn sites. So it's not as difficult to find as I would like. But it is kind of constant. People definitely don't like the work that's continued this entire time. The female sex stuff didn't seem to ruffle any feathers. It was really tied to the pornography work. It seems to be exclusively that.

Pat Tenneriello (05:50)
cheese.

Nikky (06:12)
And I think it's kind of related to these three groups. wrote this paper I think is

important a few years back about this collaboration between church groups and feminists opposing pornography because I think normally feminists and church groups do not work together. They do not see eye to eye on most things. But there's a some feminists and many church groups who dislike pornography and want to see it banned. And so they had started working together on this particular issue. But now this third group has moved in that's

Pat Tenneriello (06:25)
Okay.

Nikky (06:42)
making money off of those claims. So they'll say, you know, porn's ruining your brain, porn's destroying men.

come to me and I'll help you quit." And so I think the opposition to it is partially financial. That is, my research doesn't support the claims that they're making, so they want to be able to make money by telling men that porn is doing something to them that it's not doing. So that, of course, upsets people. And then the religious folks.

Pat Tenneriello (07:04)
Okay.

Nikky (07:07)
I obviously don't like anything I do because we stimulate people sexually in the lab. That by itself is a problem for them. And some of the feminists love what I do. I've gotten lots of support, but then also some of that pushback.

Pat Tenneriello (07:21)
What a female.

Nikky (07:21)
So I have several talks where people call me a female neuroscientist as though like that makes it much worse. Not just a neuroscientist, but a female neuroscientist. Yeah.

Pat Tenneriello (07:31)
Gotta call that out.

Nikky (07:32)
Just the qualification. So yeah, I think it's just the convergence of a lot of groups that hate it for various reasons.

Pat Tenneriello (07:35)
Got it.

Much of your work challenges the concept of porn addiction. What first led you to question that model?

Nikky (07:47)
That student is Cameron's fault. yeah, so he had an interest and it was interesting. The school I was at in the time was in Idaho, which is heavily Latter Day Saints. let the LDS run a lot of kind of porn recovery programs even at that time. So there was a lot of interest in the community.

Pat Tenneriello (07:50)
Cameron Hick.

Nikky (08:08)
And we happened to be the first neuroscience test of kind of a key biomarker of addiction. And we didn't find evidence for it. And what I found was a lot of people misunderstood the findings of that study. You they would say like, you're, dare you invalidate our experience? How dare you say we're not hurting? Which is not at all what we found then or now. That is, I think people absolutely struggle with pornography sometimes. They watch it more than they mean to. They find it to be problematic.

in their life, but it doesn't look like an addiction and that's important for treatment. So we're not saying it's nothing, but it doesn't look like other addictions.

Pat Tenneriello (08:43)
the critics who argue the other way, would suggest that porn can hijack the brain's reward system in the same way addictive substances do. You're not saying that. Why do you disagree with the classification of pornography as addictive?

Nikky (08:58)
So when you wanna call something an addiction, there are kind of a list of things it must meet and yeah, it's science. So there's some disagreement about this list of criteria.

But in general, there are some things we agree on. One of them is the presence of this enhanced biomarker that's not present for pornography. It is present, interestingly, for gambling. So that makes it different and distinct. Another is the transition from having the stimulus. So if it's a drug, you originally take the drug, it feels great, you feel very pleasurable.

And over time, you end up needing the substance just to feel normal. So they would say, like, just to get rid of the negative. So it transitions from impulsive to compulsive use. And we don't have that data for pornography. So even in people who've been heavy users who think they're compulsive, they still have an impulsive type response in the brain that's not consistent with addiction. There are withdrawal symptoms. That one's a little more debated of a criteria for addiction.

But people will say, like if you ask them directly if they feel they have withdrawal symptoms, they will say yes. They will absolutely report them. But if you follow people over time, the longitudinal studies show that's not the case. They're actually not elevated.

So we're not sure why they're reporting that, but we've seen that now in a number of studies where like people report, you know, porn did something to them, but then we can't document it or like we find the opposite when we actually try and follow it up. So it's again, it's not that it's nothing, but the addiction model is not the right model. And that, uh, the American psychiatric association publishes the Diagnosticance Disc Manual. The World Health Organization publishes the International Classification of Disorders and both agreed that it does not fit addiction models and kept

both diagnostic manuals.

Pat Tenneriello (10:40)
And what about

– so is there a distinction to be made between sex addiction and porn addiction or both would be not considered addictions based on what you're saying?

Nikky (10:52)
Exactly. So as far as we know, both are not considered addictions. They don't look that way. The challenge is it's very easy to test porn in the lab. we just, yeah, there's this set of pictures that are used internationally. Like all over the world, neuroscientists who study emotion use this set of images that has pornography in it.

And so chronography is actually really, really well studied. Sometimes I see people say, it's brand new. It's not new. It's definitely like, we have lots of data on that. We can show people films pretty easily. We do that in the lab to provoke a sexual response to look at genital arousal.

It's more difficult to study actual

Pat Tenneriello (11:28)
.

Nikky (11:29)
sex in the lab. So we have done some of that. We've had partners come in and do genital stroking of the other person. We only had it unidirectional. So we had someone usually male, but could be any gender stroking the side of a clitoris for 15 minutes. But as you can imagine, like those kind of protocols are almost non-existent. It took us moving mountains. ⁓

Pat Tenneriello (11:37)
Hmm.

Were you the first to do something like

that or?

Nikky (11:54)
It was definitely by far the largest, definitely the most systematic, but there are instances here and there where there's one lab that used to study orgasm and that functional magnetic resonance imaging, and they allowed them to have partners stimulate them.

But then they didn't record anything about the partner or like, you know, what else was going on. So I never want to say first ever, it never existed before. There are those little efforts here and there at Masters and Johnson. Certainly had a reputation for watching some of that happen. But ours is easily the largest, most systematic, and we recorded from both partners too.

Pat Tenneriello (12:32)
And again, the outcome of that study suggested, can you just repeat that again?

Nikky (12:37)
yeah, so the one with the partners, we looked at people's pornography viewing history, because I know a lot of people, that's what they care the most about with porn, is they're like, this going to mess me up? That I can't have a relationship, that I can't be with my partner. And very commonly they think, well, I won't want humans anymore. Like I'll just, I condition to the screen or, you know, to the pixels. And we actually found people who viewed more pornography outside of the space.

Pat Tenneriello (12:50)
Yeah.

Nikky (13:04)
actually experienced more desire and response to the person in the intimate instance that we were studying. So it's definitely not dampening it. We think that porn is just a marker of drive. It's like, if you like to porn, you watch a lot of porn, like, you also probably use a vibrator. You also probably have more sex partners. You tend to seek this stuff out because it's fun and pleasurable to you. So it definitely didn't kill that.

in terms of the partnered experience. And now we're doing a follow-up analysis looking at the brain response. So we had them actually view pornographic images before that genital stimulation and after that genital stimulation. And we're not done with it yet, but I'll give you a preview. You can see if it bears out. So what we're finding so far is once someone has been sexually stimulated by a partner, it kind of just wipes out all the differentiation between these.

Pat Tenneriello (13:43)
Mm-hmm.

Nikky (13:57)
like viewing different emotional images that is when you become so aroused, we think in this state like by a partner, that you just aren't as reactive to these kind of emotional images anymore.

And that makes, if this holds, that makes a lot of sense for people that might use sex to help de-stress, take your mind off things. Like, yeah, so these people didn't have orgasms, they just got aroused. But man, that's a great way to capture your attention, get something amped up in a very positive space where you're having pleasure. And so when you come back, I'm like...

see things, see images that are both positive, negative and neutral. You just kind of aren't as responsive to these anymore. It's like, there's an image. Like obviously I see it, my brain still works, but it just seems to, and I don't want to say dampen because I'm not sure that's actually like what we're looking at right now, as if it just kind of wiped out the differentiation or if it actually impinged kind of on responsivity generally. It's difficult to do because

when people interact sexually like that, they move. So it's a simple issue of like when you wiggle or someone moans, it opens their jaw, which activates these masseters, which impacts our brainwave measures. And so we don't know how easily we can directly compare.

a task they did before this to a task they did after it because their head, know, their brainwave measurement equipment, the electron cephalography moves a little bit. So that's kind of what we're working on now is like just making sure that those are really equivalent.

Pat Tenneriello (15:35)
does the brain differentiate between self-stimulation and simulation from another?

Nikky (15:40)
to some extent in certain ways. I think the two coolest examples I know of that I think are also cool because they're not different by gender. If you're masturbating, one thing you cannot do is activate these ciafran fibers.

stroke someone's hairy skin somewhere, like if you do it real fast like a coach, know, attaboy, get them kind of thing, doesn't activate them. If you do it super slow, it's just, you know, can almost be itchy, you know, like that's uncomfortable, that's weird, but if you stroke at a moderate frequency on hairy skin, it activates these things called ciafra fibers and most people recognize that as erotic touch. That's why.

Pat Tenneriello (16:05)
Okay, yeah.

Nikky (16:16)
because these are highly tuned to that exact stroking frequency. They're only activated by another human hand that is not covered by a glove. They even tested that. So it's a super highly specific thing that you can't activate by yourself. It's really unique to partner stimulation.

And then the psychological end of that, if you ask men and women and kind of look at these as predictors, what kind of best predicts your satisfaction with a partner, with an individual sexual experience? And when studies ask, the best predictor tends to be feeling desired. I think the other person wanted me, you I feel good because I was desired. I felt sexy because they were attracted to me.

Pat Tenneriello (16:48)
.

Nikky (16:56)
You can't get that by yourself. So I think there are definitely some distinctions, but the same kind of areas of the brain tend to be activated, albeit to a far lesser extent with masturbation than with partners.

Pat Tenneriello (17:11)
Any evidence on mental health like for someone, like in terms of loneliness or depression from if it's just like tied to masturbation versus having sex with someone.

Nikky (17:21)
So there are no direct comparisons. We did look at, in that partnered study, we asked about feelings of connection before and afterwards. And just by chance, this study, we allowed people who are not current romantic partners to volunteer together.

So as long as they had done something like this before, and we actually compared, does it matter if you're current partners or not when you do this sexual practice together? And we actually found the people who are not sexually partnered, not romantically partnered, had a greater increase in their feeling of connection with that person after this genital stroking practice. And they don't talk, they don't move, like it's nothing about time.

Pat Tenneriello (18:00)
Did they and they didn't know each

other before the before

Nikky (18:03)
No, they had to know each other before. That's a consent issue. But it's the context is kind of the question. So there's this idea sometimes with one time partners, short term relationships, like, well, why do people do that? What do they get out of it? so there was some research showing if you look at

I can't remember the exact term they used for it, but it was like a affiliative behaviors that are not purely sexual. So eye gazing, hugging, cuddling, things like that.

We kind of assume those don't happen in one-time partners, but they actually do at a really high rate. And so their argument in their study was one-time partners are not this cold, know, slam-bam, thank you ma'am, you know, no other contact. It's friendly often and it is connective. so what we, that's consistent with what we found looking in this laboratory approach, that is people who weren't partnered.

had a greater increase in this feeling of connection. And we looked and it's like, well, they came in with a lower feeling to begin with because they're single. They're not partnered. That totally made sense in hindsight. We had no idea starting the study that we were going to get so many people who weren't romantic partners. So we got lucky being able to analyze that. But it makes sense that the

Pat Tenneriello (19:07)
Mm-hmm.

Nikky (19:22)
sex, think it's important to realize it can have good connective features. There are ways of doing it that seem to be good for mental health or ways of experiencing that can facilitate that. You know, don't have to be cold and avoid all contact, not look at somebody's eyes just because it happens to possibly be a one-time partner.

Pat Tenneriello (19:41)
Hmm.

You're touching on a few things that kind of make me reflect on my own life and kind of the previous version of myself, which was one of sing, you know, I was a single guy. would sometimes have hookups or, you know, short, you know, one night stands and that sort of thing. and yeah, in, in the moment, I think there could be some tenderness and some of that, that you're discussing.

albeit typically there was some alcohol involved. so the, memory of the following day of that wasn't, you know, you know, I didn't remember it, but I do agree that, it doesn't always have to be just, you know, the opposite of that. but I do know that when I, when I wouldn't see that person again, you know, after it was over, I did kind of feel cheap or I felt like I kind of like, I had like,

Yeah, I felt cheap, potentially used, I felt, even though I was, you know, very consensual and wanting it in the moment, the next day, kind of felt a bit of regret. have there been any, any, yeah, anything in your, in your research that suggests kind of after the fact that there's, there could be some of those more negative emotions tied to it?

Nikky (20:46)
So I happen to be a licensed psychologist also, so I won't go through, you were my patient, I'd be asking where those feelings came from, where you think you got the messaging that that might be cheap. But there are people who study sexual regret, and this would be part of that.

So it's like, what about features of a sexual interaction can make you feel afterwards like, I shouldn't have done that. Maybe I kind of don't want to do that again. And some of the predictors I can recall from these are alcohol involvement is one. So I didn't intend to do that. I don't feel good about something I did in the interaction. But it's a whole field of research, kind of looking at what are predictors of when people experience regret versus not, even when they're consensual.

And relatedly, there's a really cool area of research where they look at consensual but unwanted sex. And what I love about that is this is the wife that says, you know, if you take out the garbage, I'll give you a blowjob. You know, like she doesn't necessarily have internal motivation to engage in sexual behavior, but then it gets a little gray, right? Because you're like, well, okay, but if she doesn't want to do it, should she not do it or...

But it's consensual, like she said she would, no, I don't know, right? So it becomes this really gray kind of continuum now where it's not so clear, you know, she certainly can consent to that. Is that a bad thing? I don't know. You know, if it provides connection and makes otherwise discrepant desire levels more similar, you know, or have someone feel more fulfilled. I think all those questions, yeah, they're more like sociological and it's...

that's important to a lot of folks, clearly.

Pat Tenneriello (22:27)
And where does the work that you do in the lab intersect with that more psychological, some of that other work? Does it intersect or do they kind of live in separate worlds?

Nikky (22:38)
The.

Main difference in those types of studies in mine is the types of validity. So if I can get a little boring measurement aside, laboratory research has high what we call internal validity and survey work kind of stuff has high external validity. So we know exactly what people do because they are sitting right in front of us. We hook them up to sensors. So people doing surveys, we have no idea ultimately what they're thinking about, where they're filling these things out, what the context is.

is,

is somebody looking at what they're doing, you lose a lot of that control. On the other side, we often don't know how well the findings in the laboratory reflect real-world behaviors.

So that's poor external validity. Now we have done some work to try and support our external validity. My favorite one was we looked at brain responsiveness to pornography in the laboratory and stimulated people's brains using transcranial magnetic stimulation. And then we looked if we could predict the following weekend. So we'd test them on a Friday and we'd see if we could predict how many orgasms they would have in the coming weekend because we said, well, we don't want to

say partners because like they might just not have partner access. you know like is our measure of their brain sensitivity in the labs that actually reflect real world behavior and we were able to predict from a brain measure how many orgasms they would have in the coming weekend.

So there is some connection between the stuff we're measuring in real world sexual behaviors, but it's not direct and by any means. And some studies we focus more on that external validity issue than others.

Pat Tenneriello (24:10)
Interesting. other thing you talked about earlier that made me reflect a bit is this idea that the evidence that you've seen is that consuming porn doesn't necessarily diminish your appetite for sex. In fact, it shows a healthy sexual drive potentially. When I think about my own life, if I consume porn,

and I masturbate, then I feel like later that day I'm not going to have an appetite for sex with my wife. there a distinction there to be made between if sex is an energy and I spend that energy in porn, then I'm not going to be spending it in the bedroom with my wife. If I take a longer term view, well, maybe it's a healthy sex drive that's in the long term going to keep my sex.

keep me sexually active? Do you make a distinction between that short term sexual energy being spent versus the long term sexual health?

Nikky (25:03)
Yeah, think it made me think of a few different things I'll try to walk through. I talk about sex drive also, but properly speaking, sex isn't a drive because it can't be depleted. So as you stop having sex, like when you initially stop the first day, two days, three days, drive tends to kind of recover and come back up. But pretty quickly, like within a week, it'll start to fall off. And ultimately, if you don't

experience any sexual stimulation, orgasm.

the drive goes away. So our sleep drive doesn't do that. Our hunger drive doesn't do that. We gotta sleep, we gotta eat. So sex properly isn't a drive. We talk about it in science as an incentive motivation. So it's something we do because it's fun, it's pleasurable, we like it. so when you're talking about like, do I, how do these things work with timing? And so we say, well, if you're sexually active, you know, you're having sex every so often, whatever that may be. If certainly if you're right in the

refractory period, that's always going to suppress the ability to respond. That's very well characterized. There have been a few studies looking at genital responses in men. So we have different ways of measuring erections and we present men with pornography and we can look at how long since they last experienced a climax and look at how sensitive they are to stimulation in the lab. That's been done mainly with pornographic films, but also with vibratory stimulation, which men respond perfectly well to in the lab.

just FYI. So it's kind of interesting, like there is a sweet spot. So if you just orgasm, of course, responsivity is going to be dampened. And sometimes we see people who view a lot of pornography say like, oh, I have erectile dysfunction. I have inhibited ejaculation because I watch so much porn.

Pat Tenneriello (26:52)
you

Nikky (26:53)
It was, well, in some cases,

it may be the main use of pornography is for masturbation. People aren't sitting there with popcorn watching this stuff. They're masturbating to it. And in many cases, we need to think about, you still in your refractory period? And that refractory period, we're not positive how long it lasts. So there hasn't been like.

There have been some studies related to reproduction. So like how quickly spermatic factors recover following a period of not being sexually active. And they need that because they're having men donate for fertility reasons. So that work has been done, but.

that kind of looking at the window of responsiveness related to kind of erectile function, we're guessing a little bit. You know, like when we say, oh, you you're gonna have a refractory period and it varies. How much does it vary? How does that tend? We know it gets longer as you get older. We're pretty sure of that. But what else might affect that? And when do you know? So like if you just masturbated to pornography, like how long?

Pat Tenneriello (27:49)
Yep.

Nikky (27:57)
should you expect that to still be in effect? I can make an educated guess. We have some data, but it's not as good as it could be.

Pat Tenneriello (28:03)
I mean, a lot of your work, you very clearly talk about that the main motivator for people to have sex is pleasure. And I feel like my porn consumption at its peak was when I was in that pleasure mode of my life where I was looking for just looking for pleasure. more short-term gratification mode and not thinking about the long-term. But when I made that switch,

Nikky (28:10)
Yes.

Pat Tenneriello (28:27)
I feel like my porn consumption went down and it kind of went down on its own. And now I feel like I've gone a step further, which is I would rather get that gratification from my wife. I feel like from an intimacy perspective, I would rather eliminate porn altogether. That's really a goal of mine. It's been a year and a half now and it's a goal, but I, you know,

let's just say I fall short. And the reason for that is, there may be months where, you know, my wife had a miscarriage not long ago and so we were having sex for a while and that sort of thing. But I think through this experience, it's not so much about giving up porn. It's about aiming at an ideal, but then having open and honest communication with my partner about that and not sneaking around and feeling like I'm doing something that maybe I feel guilty about.

Nikky (29:11)
Mm-hmm.

Pat Tenneriello (29:19)
So that's kind of where I'm at in my own personal life with porn. I strive and aim to eliminate it. I've heard you talk about how that could be problematic. Usually it's not the porn use that's problematic. It's more the guilt and shame from someone who's trying to aim at something like eliminating a cold turkey and then falling short and feeling really, really shitty about themselves. you speak a little bit to that?

Nikky (29:44)
Absolutely, the thing what I like about what you're describing is, you know, this is kind of my goal. I understand why I'm doing it. I kind of have reasons when it fluctuates. kind of have got some understanding why. And it doesn't sound like you have this strict abstinence.

go to the point that it's, you if I do this, I believe I failed as a human being, as a man, as a person, as a partner. So what a lot of these abstinence treatments do is they kind of wrap up all of that shame in with the failure. So it's not just like, you know, I intended to use less or more commonly, my partner doesn't like it. So I'm trying to reduce because, I want to

Be respectful, but I also still masturbate sometimes, very common. And so sometimes they'll wrap it up in this, if you view pornography, you're abusing women. If you view pornography, it's the same as abusing your children. And I was like, none of that is true.

some of the things that get wrapped up in the meaning of viewing pornography, masturbating to porn, go into those abstinence goals. And so if you're someone that you've had the communication and it's reasonable with your partners to do that, there's nothing wrong with it. It's not gonna hurt anything. You don't need to watch porn in your life. There's nothing it helps, especially that I know of. So...

Usually the problems more commonly arise in the context of relationships where there is some disagreement. And so we'll have more often in heterosexual relationships where someone, often the wife will say, I don't agree with that. I don't want you to do that because I just don't like it. I think it's abusing women. I don't think women can consent. I've put on weight and I don't like you looking at those women. Because then I feel insecure about our relationship.

Pat Tenneriello (31:25)
Hmm.

Nikky (31:29)
And so rather than having a conversation about like, is the meaning of porn to you? Kind of where is this coming from? You how can we address that? Sometimes women will demand, you know, you must stop. If you don't stop, I'm going to leave you, blow us up, you know, drag you to therapy. And so guys will say, okay, okay, I'll quit. And then they don't, you know, they like have a free weekend. She's sick for a couple of weeks and they, you know,

think that's a reasonable justification and she didn't agree. So this is where we end up with a lot of conflict because it's, you someone's not being clear about what the actual meaning of the behavior is to address the actual underlying concern.

Someone else has agreed to something they really don't agree to that's not reasonable for them. Or if it's not pornography, they need some kind of masturbatory outlet. Let's talk about what that is that makes sense. Is that boudoir photos for your partner to be able to look at those? And well, if you're looking at me, that's fine. That works. There are so many compromises people can have, but they often get caught in this really shaming, you shouldn't do that.

Pat Tenneriello (32:26)
Thank

Nikky (32:34)
I demand that you do it this way because what I'm not going to tell you is I'm worried you're going to leave me. I'm worried you're not happy with me. I'm worried you're not attracted to me. I would so much rather people have that hard conversation about their fears, underlying self-esteem issues, rather than putting it on.

and saying, just stop porn and it'll be fine. It's like, no, there's something under that usually. Like if you think if a partner is making that demand, there's a discussion, I would rather know kind of what underlies that and how can we help support that goal.

Pat Tenneriello (33:04)
Some really good points you just made. makes a lot of sense and often that difficult conversation, it's hard to have and a lot of people just don't bother having it so they end up acquiescing to things that they may not necessarily think through or agree with and then that doesn't lead to the outcomes that anybody wants. Coming back, if pornography isn't addictive in a clinical sense, I think you made the case for that.

Nikky (33:12)
100%.

Pat Tenneriello (33:26)
What would be a more accurate way to describe compulsive or problematic use? How would you define problematic use?

Nikky (33:34)
So I'll, well, I guess, yeah, it's two questions. So what is problematic and then what do you do if you think it is? there's not a cutoff. A few people have tried to find some kind of a cutoff, like what is too much, trying to look by minutes viewing per week. Others have looked at total sexual outlets. So like how many times do orgasm to porn per week or per month?

None of these are stable. People aren't able to replicate those. And so I don't think anyone's really doing that anymore. If you ask scientists, what's the max or minimum number of hours, I don't think you'll ever get a good answer. So often, we talk about distress. Are you distressed by the pornography that you're viewing, like the content, or by the pornography because of the amount of time that it's taking?

And so if we think about the pornography problem is that, like, I'm upset by my viewing. I'm doing it more than I mean to, or I'm looking at stuff that is not congruent with the way I think of myself or who I am. It's possibly that it's a disagreement with your personal values. And there have been a few studies now looking at this thing called acceptance and commitment therapy, or ACT.

Pat Tenneriello (34:36)
Mm-hmm.

Nikky (34:42)
for pornography and the summary of that approach is it's a discussion typically about like what are your values

around sex, pornography viewing, and can you bring your viewing behavior if you want to continue viewing in line with your personal values. So if you say it's really important to me to be a good dad and I know that I'm sneaking off and masturbating for an hour to kind of get out of some child care because I find it stressful and I don't think I'm a competent or good parent, you say, yeah that makes

sense. See why you might be worried about your porn viewing because you're really concerned about this value you have of being a good parent and you feel you're shirking by engaging in anything other than being a good parent. In this case it happens to be porn. But that ACT intervention, the goal is not to decrease or eliminate your porn viewing. It's just to bring your behavior in line with your personal values. And the study we're doing now I think is

likely the case for a lot of folks. That is, when we think about major depressive disorder, we almost always assume someone with major depression, if they have any effect on their sex drive, it's gonna be to decrease it. And that is the most common presentation. People who are depressed say, I don't want sex or want sex as much.

Pat Tenneriello (35:52)
Hmm.

Nikky (35:52)
But there is a subset

of folks in a few studies where when they get stressed out, they're more likely to seek out sexual stimulation and they become more easily aroused in laboratory studies. So what that tells us is, I don't know if you ever look at these depression questions, but like one of the common ones is have you gained or lost weight? And obviously, if you gain or lose weight and either of those be a symptom of depression, why couldn't you gain or

sex drive? Like is that not also just a symptom with depression that we could say this person has depression and in their case their desire for sex has gone up because they're using it to mitigate those feelings of sadness, hopelessness, rumination because sex is great at getting attention. It'll help disrupt the rumination. So the studies we're doing now, all these studies have kind of been reporting that people who say they have these sex or porn issues

Pat Tenneriello (36:19)
Hmm.

Nikky (36:46)
tend to have overlap with depression. In fact, there was one large study that found 92 % of people who said they had porn problems actually met criteria for depression. And I was like, are we not just talking about depression? Like, is that what we're actually doing? And so that's my current take is a lot of folks who think they have this issue. I think they do, you know, they are upset about it.

Pat Tenneriello (36:47)
Hm.

Nikky (37:07)
But I think they may be depressed. They may benefit from treatments related to depression and say, in your case, for whatever reason, your drive has gone up with your depression instead of down. You're eating more instead of less.

Pat Tenneriello (37:18)
when we think about people who have other addictions?

We don't necessarily count how much they're consuming of one thing. It's just more, it getting in the way of their life, of their lifestyle, of their love? that, is that like more the way of thinking about it? Like you gave the example of a father who sneaks off because he's stressed and from his, you know, from his kids and he sneaks off to master. And maybe he feels guilty cause that's an hour he could have had with his kids and his wife when he's already working, you nine hours a day or whatever. So is it more if, if someone feels like it's, getting in the way.

of things that matter to them then perhaps that could be considered problematic am i framing that correctly.

Nikky (37:54)
Well, there's not a correct frame. We're all still debating this, so don't worry about that. yeah, so some of the distress could, if you think of the source of the distress, it could come from lots of different places, right? So it could be something that doesn't necessarily make a lot of sense if you were raised very religious, for example, and you think any pornography viewing could make you go to hell.

My goodness, well, that's not like something I would diagnose. That's something that's very important to you. And you're not behaving in line with those values and you are distressed. Like that's real. So I don't think it's similar to drugs in that sense. And we also, some people have been looking for tolerance effects in pornography and that would be like needing more and more either in time.

So needing to view pornography for longer lengths of time, or in terms of content, like going to things that are more intense or colloquially perverted over time. And we don't see evidence for that, like when we look longitudinally. People will look, if they normally look at of Penile Vaginal Intercourse, they'll watch BDSM for a little while, but then they tend to go back to Penile Vaginal Intercourse. It's still the most popular porn category.

Pat Tenneriello (38:45)
Yeah

Yeah, that's really interesting to me because I've heard a lot of people say the opposite of what you're saying. I feel like you have a contrarian view here where they talk about porn as like a super natural stimulus, kind of like hyper palatable foods or drugs, the impact on dopamine, you need that novelty kick and you need something stronger.

Nikky (39:05)
Mm-hmm.

Thank

Pat Tenneriello (39:25)
But the neuroscience actually shows that that's not the case.

Nikky (39:28)
Right, that super stimulus idea is very easily disproven with porn. The super stimulus, I think, got started. There's an LDS church elder who was claiming that for a long time. That seems to have gotten very popular. But there's a way you can test that, and none of the tests hold up.

I don't think there's any evidence to call it a super stimulus. And part of my reason for that is, again, like the second you touch yourself, your dopaminergic response during masturbatory stimulation, even just vibratory stimulation.

like you're viewing a pornography film and we turn a vibrator on the genitals or we have someone start stimulating themselves. The scale of the response is not even close to viewing pornography. It's so much higher. So when they say, well, porn is a super stimulus. How, how, what? No, it's not the intensity, the bold signal from magnetic resonance imaging is not higher. The dopaminergic response is not at all higher.

the EEG response, that's more what I do, that's not higher. Like there's just no evidence for it. But again, just because it's not a super stimulus doesn't mean it's not compelling, doesn't mean it can't become a problem.

Pat Tenneriello (40:35)
people who use porn for masturbation, if they stop the porn, any evidence that they can't reach orgasm, like they can't masturbate without it.

Nikky (40:45)
You know, it's funny, I think I have the only case study I know of that. So I had somebody published a paper that's like, this can never be studied, you it's impossible. And I was like, I have just the lab for this. So I had a case where someone had masturbated exclusively to pornography, never masturbated without it for 20 some odd years. And so I was like, do think you could go without? He's like, I just never tried. I assume I could. And so I said, well, don't.

don't do it without me. Like, let's come in the lab and let me measure when you do this. So this is one person that is not a proper scientific study, but we published the case report. And so for at least that person, you would think, you know, if it really conditions in that way, he shouldn't have been able.

to do this. And it's funny, the study we've just started includes male masturbation, so they provide the stimulation to climax. We're just using audio erotica because they have to keep their eyes closed for a variety of reasons, but they have to keep their eyes closed through the whole study, including while they're masturbating, so we can only play them sounds. And a lot of these guys, it's going to be the same deal, like they've been masturbating consistently with pornography for who knows how long, you know, we're assessing that.

Pat Tenneriello (41:35)
Mm-hmm.

Nikky (41:52)
And I don't expect to have any problem. I wouldn't test them that way if I thought it was gonna be a problem. again, it's not, I always say like you can get used to anything. the comparison I like to make is vaginas do differ. All vaginas aren't the same, all gloves aren't the same. And so if you're having sex with someone who has a particular type of vagina and you change partners,

Sometimes the new partner feels a little different, you know, or they bear down a little bit different and sex is a little weird at first because you're kind of trying to figure each other out. You know, it's like, what is this person? How do they structure it a little differently? You know, this person feels like they get less wet. That one gets more wet. It changes friction, it changes dynamics. You have to get used to any new sexual situation. So for me, it's like the...

Yes, if you're used to masturbating to porn, is that anything to think is bad or wrong or going to take something to uncondition? For me, it has to overcome kind of that comparison. It's like, is it any different than just being used to anything? And if someone says, well, you know, I have a new partner and they have this kind of characteristic, you they want things really super slow and it's really difficult for me to go slowly.

that totally makes sense. And I would say, that's not an addiction. That's not a problem. It's just new stimulus, you know, and you can probably adjust to it. It probably won't be an issue. But a lot of that is more speculative. We just don't have great data on like actual sexual interaction.

Pat Tenneriello (43:15)
Got it. Some have argued that porn use promotes hedonistic pleasure. I'm coming back to this because this is kind of the theme of the podcast.

without responsibility and undermines the development of long-term relationships. It's so accessible that the impetus to get into a relationship is diminished. think about these stats, I don't know the specific number, but something like young people are having a lot less sex than the prior generation. I think about why that is. I hear people talk about, it's like a man will see more hyper beautiful women in one day than most men on the earth have seen in their

their lifetimes. It's just so accessible that there's just no impetus to want to get into a relationship which is complicated and messy and difficult. Do you have any hypothesis on why young people are having less sex and do you subscribe to that idea that porn promotes hedonistic pleasure?

Nikky (43:52)
Mm-hmm.

I think porn is hedonistic. I don't think there's any doubt that from a, we can look at all the brain structures related to pleasure. That is why we use it in the lab. It is very good at provoking pleasure responses. That is a characteristic of it. Now that said, like what you're talking about, I think the context is important. I think in some cases that may be more challenging or problematic for someone.

and others that can be useful. So when I first heard about the decline in sex over time, know, first always skeptics had like,

Is it really, who's asking, what was the nature of the question? I believe the data now. was like that, I actually think there is a good decrease. I think it's well replicated and where is that happening? And just like you described, I think it's primarily young men who seem to be putting off intercourse, putting off partners. And at first it kind of made me laugh because it's like, isn't this exactly what we've been trying to do for 30 years? Like we want young people to delay sex and to be more selective with their partners, you know, to be safe.

Pat Tenneriello (45:05)
Okay.

Nikky (45:07)
both emotionally and physically. So I would say on the one hand, know, if porn and masturbation are replacing you going to the bar and getting blackout drunk and hooking up with someone or being coercive and assaulting someone, well, that's an obvious case, then it's a great thing. You know, yeah, let's not do that. Use this instead, for sure.

However, if it's you're someone who's already introverted or maybe depressed,

And you're saying, you know, I'd rather just not have to do this. don't like the rejection and this is easier. can get my needs met this way. I would say, well, you know, in general, you'd probably benefit from going out and having some more social skills developed. So I don't think it's a clear cut, like win or loss. It kind of depends to

Pat Tenneriello (45:39)
Okay.

Nikky (45:56)
the extent that it has that porn and masturbation have displaced and reduced some of the risk taking behavior that we see.

Seems like a great thing, but if it's something for some individuals that helps them avoid social interactions because they're socially anxious or avoidant or depressed and you have trouble getting motivated to get rejected again, I totally get that. I think that's a problem that we therapists can potentially help with.

Pat Tenneriello (46:08)
you

That makes sense. Some argue that excessive porn use is tied to lust, but to a lack of meaning or purpose. Do you agree that meaninglessness is a major variable in compulsive behavior?

Nikky (46:35)
I haven't seen any looking at like meaningfulness per se. But the general idea, like of compulsive sex is I'm just using it to reduce my negative feelings. And that's it. I'm not getting pleasure from it anymore.

People definitely report doing that. They'll say, engaged in this for that reason. But we have trouble documenting that in the lab. So we bring those same people in and they say, I have compulsive use. And we try and document that they don't.

actually get pleasure, you know, that it's really about the reduction and negative affect. They're more responsive still, like they have more of a pleasure response than people who don't say they're compulsive and view pornography less. So that story doesn't totally make sense to me, but it's also like, again, that's part of a sociological explanation potentially. Like if you believe...

that that is what it means for you. It could be self-fulfilling. If you think I view pornography because I can't find a partner, nobody wants me, I'm not worth love, I'm not gonna be in a relationship, I'm never gonna have kids, wherever that goes in your mind. Of course that could become, well, this is what I'm stuck with. This is just where I am.

And I absolutely could see where that could kind of cycle back on itself and say like, you know, this is, it's got to be meaningless. Why else would I be doing this? Yeah, just kind of guessing there. Cause I can't think of any data that looked at that specifically.

Pat Tenneriello (47:59)
Okay, and you talked earlier in the conversation about the movements like NoFap that promote abstinence in order to gain clarity, purpose and discipline. Even if porn isn't addictive, do you see value in this kind of abstention as a personal growth tool?

Nikky (48:13)
No, so part of what we looked at in the series of studies we did, there are support groups, obviously, for a variety of things online, including alcohol abuse, including depression. And when we look at people who are involved in those abstinence communities, as compared to these other support communities, they're doing worse. The more involved they are, they tend to report more depression symptoms, more anxiety symptoms. So.

you know, it's not causal for certain, but they're saying that's what caused it. So if somebody is going for support online, we want them to get better over time. And if they don't, we'd it's probably not a support forum. But the bigger concern for me in those data were a subset of folks. said, OK, if you say, you what's a relapse? Their forums are like filled with people, is this a relapse? They're very obsessed with like this relapse idea. And they define it differently. You know, some people say,

It's a relapse to masturbate ever. Some say it's only a relapse if you masturbate while viewing pornography. There's a whole bunch of variance there, but we say, okay, just think about the last time you relapsed, whatever that definition is for you. How did you feel afterwards? We have them rate this standardized set of emotions, and we also asked about suicidality. Like, did you want to kill yourself? To what extent?

And there was actually a subset of folks who said, when I last relapsed, I wanted to kill myself. And they said, extremely. Like they became suicidal because they had this belief that whatever sexual behavior they just engaged in was worth killing themselves over. And no one, I think, should be in a community.

that has that kind of mindset or that promotes that idea. in our study, we had to do the best we could to remove youth from our data set. It's tough when they're on Reddit, because they don't necessarily post their age. And Reddit allows 13 years old and up. So we had adults as best we could. But those forums are often kids. It's a lot of youth. I do not want youth getting that message that if you masturbate, you've destroyed your brain, you might as well end it. And that's a lot of the kind of rhetoric they have.

Pat Tenneriello (50:12)
Hmm.

Nikky (50:12)
So

I don't think the idea in general, like you mentioned, you're kind of just chipping away, you'd rather not view it, it's just not in line with what you want in your life. That totally makes sense to me. But a lot of these groups are really stuck on this complete abstinence or you've destroyed yourself, just the rhetoric that is unmoored from science that really doesn't make sense.

Pat Tenneriello (50:36)
Hmm.

Nikky (50:36)
I worry a lot

about that and like we're working on a paper right now about conspiracies in that group. So there's a lot of posts about women trying to trick men to masturbate, trying to trick them to orgasm to keep them weak.

That's kind of their overarching conspiracy. And so it's not present in every single post, but it's a lot of them. And I don't think we want sending men into a situation where they're taught to like think women are tricksters and trying to get them to do stuff and they're all evil. so there's a lot of talk in there about like, you know, I...

I was able to have sex. was like, okay, but are you happy? Like, was she nice to you? it like, where's the rest of that relationship in there guys? But they're really focused on just, you know.

we're not gonna let women do this to us, we're not gonna let the porn performers take advantage of us, where they'll say like the porn industry's after us. I like, don't even think the porn industry knows they exist. So it's really filled with this conspiratorial thinking that doesn't seem useful. It mixes adults and kids, which is not allowed.

We would absolutely lose our license if we did that. And, you know, it just doesn't seem to make people better. So I think there are lots of reasons not to engage with those groups.

Pat Tenneriello (51:43)
Right.

Nikky (51:47)
But if you are struggling, I think it would be useful to know kind of the underlying nature of that struggle. Like if it is depression related, there are great resources for depression. You've got kind of very well defined. If it's religious and you're in that person's particular case, it may be talking with a pastor to get some guidance like.

this is how I'm thinking about it, is it really that bad? Or if the pastor is saying, hopefully they would never say you should kill yourself, that seems antithetical to most religions, but get multiple opinions. Like if someone sharing your values doesn't seem on, don't feel shy to talk to other folks. Again, having those deeper conversations, we always talk, we say we talk about sex all the time, but we don't really talk very deeply about it, like meaning and the desire.

Pat Tenneriello (52:26)
Right.

You brought up youth. ⁓ I'm curious, any research around exposure to porn at a young age and the effect that that might have versus consuming porn as an adult, especially since the brain is elastic. What's the word? Not elastic. It's a lot more plastic, I guess, when you're really young. So any research there?

Nikky (52:32)
Mm-hmm.

Well, I appreciate you say plastic because there was a time when people say, their brain hasn't developed yet. It's already there.

So that the bottom line with youth is we can't know because to do that study, we would have to randomly assign children to view porn or not view porn and that would put that person, scientist in jail. So we will never be able to randomly assign kids. And the reason I mentioned that specifically is you used a word that I always pick up on because you say kids are exposed.

Most of the viewing that occurs of pornography by youth is intentional. That is, youth seek it out to masturbate just like adults do when we ask them retrospectively. So when they're adults, we say, when you first found that, what was the context? Who showed it to you? Those kind of questions. Did you continue to view? How are you using it? Youth are slightly more likely than adults to say they use it for educational purposes, like to see something. What is anal sex?

Pat Tenneriello (53:22)
Hmm.

Nikky (53:42)
You know, what is...

how big are big boobies, you know, these kind of things kids look into. But by and large, they're not being exposed. It's not like they're just walking down the sidewalk and, you know, someone throws a Mac in their face.

computer in their face. in general, they may initially see it through a friend, right, an unintentional exposure, but they tend to seek it out for masturbation purposes later. And of course, it's important for kids to know they're not allowed to do that. It is illegal for them to do that. More importantly, you know, if they're taking images of themselves or receiving images of others, that's a huge concern, obviously, like we need to be talking to kids about that.

Pat Tenneriello (54:06)
you

Nikky (54:19)
So I'm not even getting into the consensual, non-consensual sharing of child images here. So the bottom line is we can't know, but one of the best predictors of when youth start

to view pornography is the onset of puberty. So it really seems to be tied to sexual interest.

Pat Tenneriello (54:30)
Okay.

Nikky (54:36)
So

obviously not every time, but a lot of it is them seeking it out. And I think part of this concern about youth is a general discomfort in the public of the idea that we don't just suddenly develop a sex drive at age 18. It started way before then, sometimes 11, 12, 13. And it's hard to think of your little 10, 11 year old as becoming a sexual person, my God, like they're in...

little soccer and baseball and flag football, like what's going on? But it starts early and it doesn't mean they need to be looking at porn, but it means they're gonna have an interest and they may be seeking the stuff out. So a number of scientists have developed programs they call porn literacy programs that are meant to facilitate these talks with youth about what exactly is pornography, how should we think about it, and it's balanced. So it's not.

Pat Tenneriello (55:08)
you

Nikky (55:27)
It's gonna ruin

your brain. If you ever look at it, you're done. It's like, you know, it's not legal for you to look, but if you look, you should know some things.

Pat Tenneriello (55:36)
Yeah. Yeah. What do you think is one major public misunderstanding or maybe multiple misunderstandings about porn and the brain that you wish you could clear up? And I've heard you talk about this in other interviews where you're like, this is common knowledge in my field, but it seems like it just never makes it out to the public.

What would be some of those like kind of glaring examples?

Nikky (55:57)
well, if I can pick up on like earlier, you mentioned porn hijacking. I see that word hijack all the time. Like porn is doing exactly what it's supposed to do in the brain. It works on emotion systems, just like, you know, being highly upset, being very excited. It's the same emotion circuits in the brain. It's not hijacking them. It's working exactly like it's supposed to. We don't see that as problematic. In fact, it's used to,

test responsivity. So if we think someone is struggling with under reactivity to pleasure, for whatever reason, Bob, because they're depressed, if they don't respond to porn in the lab, that's seen as a problem. That's evidence that you have a problem. So I think this idea that porn is sneaking in the brain to do something, it's not. It's working exactly how it's supposed to work, what sexual stimuli should do. I think another common one is like,

People often talk about, well, I'll start with a simpler, like, so sometimes people say, oh, you know, there's a dopamine flood, it's worse than cocaine. Well, that study's definitely never been done. You'd have to give people cocaine and show them porn in the same study. That's never happened. But to the best we can compare across different studies, not remotely close in scale, pornography does increase activity in dopaminergic systems, no doubt.

It is nowhere near partnered stimulation as far as the few spec studies we have of that that actually can look at dopamine.

Pat Tenneriello (57:23)
That's an important

point. saying that the dopaminergic reaction with couples is always greater than the amount you would get from watching porn.

Nikky (57:34)
Yes, I don't know why people say like this is gonna see people say they blow out your dopamine receptors. I was like, how? That's not even then you would blow out your dopamine every time you have sex. I don't understand. So yeah, I think it's just this idea that's been like I always say, you these a lot of these church organizations have multimillion dollar, you know, PR budgets and we have zero. We don't do this professionally. ⁓

Pat Tenneriello (57:37)
That is shocking to me. Yeah.

But it's not

just the church, right? Like, cause a lot of these people online that have a lot of clout, know, uh, Andrew Huberman, he's done a bunch around porn and this guy's, know, he's, he's not a dumb guy and he, know, he, know, what he's a lot of what he says is, you know, he backs it up with research and, uh, Jordan Peterson, some, know, some of these guys that people really listen to your position is quite contrary to what they're saying. What, what do make of that?

Nikky (58:07)
Yes.

I've contacted Dr. Huberman. think he is a real neuroscientist. He is good at many of the things that he talks about, I think are excellent science communication, but he's wrong on this one.

One of the things I've heard him say is that, know, orgasm is a flood of dopamine. It's exactly the opposite. Orgasm shuts down dopamine. There are number of reasons for that, but it makes sense, right? Dopamine is kind of this reinforcement. It's not the source of pleasure. It's kind of what gets us motivated to go, searching, we're discovering, we're doing novel things. When the sexual episode is over, of course it's gonna drop.

Like we want to just pass out or eat a sandwich maybe, you know? So it doesn't do that. And he has just gotten that wrong multiple times. And I'm not sure why he thinks that's the case. My guess is just, you know, we're a tiny, tiny field. There's only a few studies that showed that that's the case. There are a lot more in rodents, but in humans I'm talking about.

And so I gave him the benefit of the doubt. said, he probably just hasn't read our stuff. We're tiny. And so I sent him those things. And I don't know if he read them or not. I'm sure he's overwhelmed. But it's very frustrating when folks who have a big platform like that, who are real scientists and otherwise quite good in some other spaces. Yeah, he blew it on that one. That was not great. And it is.

Pat Tenneriello (59:41)
So what's he referencing?

He's referencing some of the insects or rodents animal studies rather than human studies that you're doing.

Nikky (59:48)
We couldn't

be referencing anything because it doesn't happen.

I mean, if you want to take that kind of example, this is not a proper study, so please don't, I don't want to misinterpret. But you know, like in the, you see these examples in the zoos where they show the pandas pornography to kind of promote their mating behavior in the pens. I thought that was really fascinating. I was like, that's kind of funny, panda porn. But it makes sense. It kind of stimulates their drive and like, you know, I don't know how pandas work, but.

It's an interesting idea. And so sometimes these kind of salient stories, I think, we generalize and say, well, if that's true, then this other thing is probably true. But it's not always. And I think that's why it's so important to actually bring people into the lab and look at people interacting sexually, because we assume that when we show people porn, we're seeing some representation of how sex is, what sex does to the brain.

Pat Tenneriello (1:00:41)
Yeah.

Nikky (1:00:42)
But the fact is, like pornography is a secondary stimulus, a secondary reinforcer. so I don't know you took old psychology classes, but if you remember primary and secondary reinforcer. So secondary reinforcer is like money. So I was like, I give you money and you like getting it, but not because it's money. You you can't like do anything with it. Maybe set it on fire. You go and you get the primary reward. I'm going go buy a cupcake. Yeah, I'm going to.

Pat Tenneriello (1:00:52)
Long time ago.

Right. Yep.

Nikky (1:01:08)
I buy a massage and the massage and the cupcake is what is the primary reward. And porn is the same way. It's you're viewing it and like, yeah, I like it. I like having it. Looks fun, but it makes me want to go do the primary reward. I want to masturbate. I want to be with a partner. Yeah, I'm going to go do something else that that actually engages the primary reward system. And those are two, they are separable in the brain. Like the primary and secondary reinforcers are not identical circuitry.

So those are, I should say, they overlap a lot, but they are easily distinguished. And think that's important to keep in mind, like these aren't kind of radical. We have to think of what are the distinctions and when are they important? And again, like I love Huberman. don't want to go say he's not real or doesn't know the brain, but he doesn't know the brain on porn.

Pat Tenneriello (1:02:00)
I was reminded of your Ted talk where you, because you just talked a little bit about some of the content there where you were saying how it's not

It's not the orgasm that's the motivation, but it's the, what's the word that you use? It's the, the reward that comes from the higher arousal state. And then the orgasm actually shuts that down or brings it back to a normal level. And then you talked about how if we, now that we know that, it could be applicable to like, to work, meditation, or akin to meditation. I'm an avid meditator.

I practice zazen. so when you, when I heard that, thought that was really fascinating. Have you done any work in that field?

Nikky (1:02:36)
trying. So I, we love this idea. The, so my collaborator, Greg Siegel has done a lot of work on meditation, has a lot of data on meditators.

And when we started seeing these data, he's the one who actually brought that. He's like, this is like meditate. These are meditating brains. You he's not a sex researcher per se. He is now. tell him. But, but, know, we look at these brains and high arousal states. He's like, they're just, it's like the same kind of thing. So we, it's difficult. In science, we're usually looking for differences. And so in this case, we're trying to make the argument that they're reasonably similar.

that meditating brains and highly sexually aroused brains are actually reasonably equivalent to one another. And we keep meaning to do that analysis because he has data from hundreds of folks and then our study has hundreds of folks in high arousal states. So we have not done that comparison yet, but qualitatively, I think the argument is there.

And one way to think about it is that high arousal state we're talking about is when you first start to get sexually aroused, you're really engaging in effort. You're trying to direct your arousal. You're trying to become more aroused. You're trying to respond to a partner potentially. It requires focus. It requires efforts. But then when you want to start to approach climax, those things switch really remarkably. So the amount of effort.

drops, the focus and concentration reduces. And we think that happens because to have a climax, which we still don't know how climax is triggered, but to have a climax, it's essentially a global synchronous firing across the brain, not identical to a seizure, but very similar to a seizure. So you don't want your brain to slipping into this state. You know, when it's not anticipated, you need to be prepared and ready for your body to have that

So we think it's that brain state is unique in just preceding orgasm. So it's not just being aroused. It's something that's kind of unique from that, but that most people pass through on their way to climax. So if we can figure out exactly kind of like what that state is, we have some better idea of like that it's actually started when you start to try to have a climax.

But how, you know, and does that differ like some, just with meditation, you know, some people can get into that state easier, people who are really practiced get into that brain state more easily. It makes sense that that might happen with sex too, but a lot of that's speculative at this point.

Pat Tenneriello (1:04:56)
And when you say that state, like, do you guys have a way that you define that state?

Nikky (1:05:01)
So what we found that's most remarkable are two indices. So we have a measure called galvanic skin response, which is another measure of sympathetic nervous system activity generally. You can actually measure this yourself. The iPhone has the essence things you can buy. They just go on the middle to flange the finger. You have to keep your hands still, but that's really the only thing for getting a good recording.

And the galvanic skin response really will increase initially because you're engaged in effort. This is, kind of an SNS, the sympathetic tone index. But when you start trying to climax, it will drop precipitously. And because it's a single line, it's very easy to see in the lab. Like, we just watch them go up. say, OK, now try. And it just goes straight down. We're like, that's crazy. Like, we don't get signals that clean usually.

The other signal we see is in the brain waves. There's alpha brain waves that are typically from 8 to 12 hertz. That's usually the band people are working on when they're doing biofeedback and stuff. It's something you can train yourself to manipulate.

And so alpha, when you initially start to get aroused, is strongly suppressed, which is characteristic of that effortful engagement, concentration, focus. And then when you get closer to climax or try to climax, it goes up pretty remarkably. And so we think those, at least those two things, probably other stuff we haven't measured too, but at least those change pretty remarkably for that state. And those both seem to be true of meditative states also.

Pat Tenneriello (1:06:27)
Very interesting. Yeah. Now I know why I love meditation so much, I guess.

Nikky (1:06:27)
Crazy.

It does, like I can imagine, you know, it's kind of the state of, I mean, Zen is the right word.

Pat Tenneriello (1:06:37)
there any other major public misunderstandings you wanted to cover before I moved on from that question? think you brought up some interesting ones.

Nikky (1:06:44)
Yeah, I know. mean, some of the ones that I've touched on, which is there's no evidence that porn destroys your brain. I don't worry if you've been viewing a lot because you've been solo for whatever reason. Masturbation was more convenient for a while.

We don't have any evidence that you've ruined yourself. Even these brain studies that look at pornography and fMRI and things, they're just associative. They're not causal. So, you people that say, you know, their brain's more active when they view more pornography in this space. Difference is not disorder. Having something in your brain that is different does not mean that you have a problem.

just means your brain looks a little bit different. And that could have been there before and been part of what led you to do more pornography in the first place. So I wouldn't, I would love for people not to worry so much, especially kiddos who think just by virtue of having looked at this stuff that they've done some permanent damage to themselves, that they're never going to recover, they're never going have a partner. Like, you know, we go through phases. Sometimes it may be more convenient or interesting. You're experimenting. It's totally fine to try something sexually and then decide

you don't like it. mean, that doesn't mean you were addicted or disordered. I would love if people were less stressed about their kind of consumption and worries about, especially the abstinence goals. I worry a lot about that with kiddos.

Pat Tenneriello (1:08:07)
Have you done any research around the evolution of the porn that's out there?

Nikky (1:08:14)
Well, it makes me think if people are interested in the history of like Shira Tarant is a scholar who's written some about the changes over time. And probably the most remarkable is just this me interpreting her. the, you know, 20, 30 years ago, there were a few production houses. They hired girls that all look the same, boobs, same vulva, same hairstyling. And they really determined what bodies looked like.

Now we have OnlyFans and there may be mixed things about these types of approaches, but one thing it did do is democratize the representation of bodies. So we have porn performers now where the actors have small penises and women want them and they get the girl and it's a mix, more so bodies. So, you know, with that can come good and bad things, right? It's, you may be able to...

Pat Tenneriello (1:08:55)
Right. Yeah.

Nikky (1:09:03)
look at more options, maybe the next clip is gonna be the best clip. And so now you spend more time than you intended to because at least before there was the barrier of fast forwarding the VHS. Like a little more effort or flipping the tape out. Those kind of things.

Pat Tenneriello (1:09:15)
Hahaha.

Is

it still the case that men are more visual so they're more stimulated by porn, women tend to consume more terms of reading, erotic material? Is that a misnomer or is that still the case?

Nikky (1:09:38)
So there's one thing that's true in there and one thing that's not. So the idea that men are more visual, it's not men, it's sex drive. So women who have a high sex drive react just as much to visual stimulation as men who have like a comparable sex drive. It's just on average, you know, don't...

come at me, but on average, men tend to have a higher sex drive than women. So it's, men are more visual. It's like, no, no, no, they respond to everything more. Like, it's just, it's also visual. But a high drive woman looks similar in the brain. But as you mentioned, if you look at the nature of the sexual stimuli, yes, women are far more likely to read sexual stories, to listen to audio erotica.

There may be lots of reasons for that, but at least one study suggested it's partially because they don't like some of the visual representations or they worry about consent issues. Was that a grimace? Is she in pain? And so by reading these things or by just listening to them, they can kind of interpret the visual as they like.

and make it into something they enjoy more. I've seen that as one interpretation of that difference in preference by gender for the type of erotic stimulus that makes sense, seems like a good reason.

Pat Tenneriello (1:10:48)
And the impact on the couple specifically in porn consumption as a couple, what does the research show?

Nikky (1:10:56)
That's so funny, it depends on if you're hiding it or not. So people who co-view, it has a positive effect. Couples who look at pornography together tends to report higher sexual satisfaction, higher relationship satisfaction. If they look at it apart and they tell each other and they're like aware of what's going on, it seems to be fine or positive. So like neutral or positive.

Pat Tenneriello (1:11:00)
that's interesting.

Nikky (1:11:21)
If they look at it apart and they hide it from their partner, it is negative. The more they view it and hide it, the less sexually satisfied the reporter being. So I think it's largely my guess is, you the people who aren't telling, it's because they're upset at their partner. They're like, you won't have sex with me or I'm not attracted to you anymore and I'm caught in this relationship and I don't like it. I don't think I should have to be masturbating and here I am, you know, doing this thing. So that's my guess, more clinical.

Pat Tenneriello (1:11:48)
Could it be also that

they're getting something from the porn that they wish they could be getting from their partner? Some kick?

Nikky (1:11:55)
Sure. I mean, in that case, though, you could imagine that might as well be positive, right? So, like, if your partners are discrepant, like, one really likes feet and the other one can't stand to have their feet touched. Please, God, go look at porn for a feet. Don't bother me. know, like, I don't mind you doing that, but don't touch my feet. I don't like it. So, in that case, it would be positive. But if it's something that it's...

I have to look at feet and I don't like sex if I can't look at feet and you won't let me and so now I have to go to this point well then it would be negative. So it does seem like kind of a context issue there.

Pat Tenneriello (1:12:27)
listeners who do feel genuinely distressed about their porn use. touched now on ACT therapy. You mentioned maybe talking to a pastor or something could be a good thing. What other advice generally might you have for someone who's looking to address their porn use in one way or another?

Nikky (1:12:45)
recognize a lot of folks aren't going to have, you know, especially in the U S financial resources necessarily to go see a therapist all the time. I get that. And if you're trying to do any work yourself, I would think about the nature of the problem.

Like when you feel upset, is that happening because your partner caught you and they don't want you looking? You don't necessarily feel so bad, but your partner is upset. Well, it's more of a couples therapy, marital therapy kind of concern. it, know, every time I look, I feel like I'm hurting someone. I feel like I'm disappointing God.

Sounds like a religious conflict, you know, that's a tie. And so I can come up with lots of examples like this, but I would just encourage people to think more deeply about that. So not just, I look at porn and porn makes me feel bad and therefore porn is bad and I should stop porn.

To me, that is very surface level. That is not getting at whatever is actually bothering you most likely. So if there's anything to think about, it's like, where is this coming from? Like, where is my discomfort with this? And where is it actually? So I feel bad. Is that really me internally driven? Is that message I received from where? Or if it's external, is it my culture? Is it my partner? Where is that coming from? And that's

These aren't necessarily solutions, right? So if your partner is the one making you feel bad, you can't say, go change your mind. There's a chance they won't change their mind. But I think just in general, I think we're thinking in a very shallow way when we say, porn, just eradicate the porn. It's like, no, it's like, what's concerning you about the porn? What underlies that?

I would love if folks could think more deeply, even if they can't afford to go to a therapist to kind of help them unpack that, that's generally what a therapist is doing, you know, is trying to figure out like, what is the nature of this problem? So I would love if folks thought a more deeply about the nature of that problem.

Pat Tenneriello (1:14:38)
Fair enough. I end every interview with this question. This podcast is all about growing up. Growing up means something different to every person. Everyone has their own growing up story. When I say growing up, what does that mean to you?

Nikky (1:14:52)
Hmm. I mean, I'll do in this context. So like when you see folks who were concerned about sex as adults, you know, like this has become a thing for them. It's often the opposite problem. Like they feel like sex is supposed to be serious and it's got to be this way and it has to have these components.

And man, sex is play. Like this is the time you get to be a kid as an adult when you can do things that are just fun, that are just for pleasure. And

kind of growing up or maturing is figuring out how you can still have that joy, playfulness, that kind of freedom that you might feel has been more of a childhood experience and not feel bad about it. It's not like I'm not being serious enough. I'm not being responsible. Like, man, this is playtime and this is where it belongs. This is fun.

Pat Tenneriello (1:15:38)
Great.

Nikky (1:15:39)
So don't know, that may be against all your message. No, this is, you should be serious about saying, we want people safe and all of that.

Pat Tenneriello (1:15:43)
Well, I-

I really like that message around PlayFund within the container of

Like I think that, I think that if, if, if sex is just about playing fun, then it can, it can take on a short-term view, right? Like if that's what it is for you forever, then it may not help you achieve what you really want to out of life, right? Like if that means you want to have, you want to have a foundation and a family and children, and, then you may need to look beyond that. But like, if I think about that in the context of my, my, my marriage,

Nikky (1:16:12)
They've actually got some.

Pat Tenneriello (1:16:18)
I think that message is wonderful. Like that's where the play is. That's where the fun is. Like, and I want that in my, it with my wife, you know what I mean? So I love that message. But if I think about it as a single guy who's just looking to have fun and having one night, like I just, then I, I think, well, maybe that's good for a time, but you you got to take a step back and ask yourself, what do you really want out of sex?

Nikky (1:16:37)
Yeah,

I think so that's good. I'm glad you brought this up because I think I can absolutely imagine

thinking about like short term versus long term, like there are date offices, the kind of the ability to express sexual preferences, desires. Sometimes people think like, well, short term, then I don't care about him or her, so I'll tell him whatever, but that ends up not being the case. Like the people we tell our, you know, deep dark secret desires to tends to be that long term person. And we get them tuned just the way we like them. And you know, I've seen some great comedians on this, you know, I like, I can't break up with them. Like we've got a perfect, you know, sexist

This has all worked out finally. I don't want to have to restart. And there is absolutely some data behind that. So when we say it's play time, I don't see anything wrong. Like if you're an adult and it's consistent with your values to have some short-term partnerships, I don't think it makes you a bad person. It doesn't mean you're not grown up.

But long term, if you want to have sex that it's like really free, satisfying, supportive, you feel desired, someone else desires you and you know that and feel secure in that, long term is gonna be a lot easier to do that in. In general, I think the data are clear there.

Pat Tenneriello (1:17:47)
Right. And

isn't the data clear that, people, the people who have the most sex are married couples in monogamous relationships. that the case?

Nikky (1:17:55)
Yes, everyone loves to these data. So

yes, it is. And that's pretty well replicated. And if you think about it, is just, you know, if you have to like put in the effort of going to find a new sexual partner every time you want to have sex, my God, why would someone, you know, I'll just masturbate. This is too much or cost too much. Yes. In general, people who have a long-term partner will ultimately have more frequent sex.

Pat Tenneriello (1:18:18)
And sat more satisfying

sex or just frequent sex?

Nikky (1:18:21)
it's, I think it depends kind of how you break it up and generally, yes, generally more satisfying. I think that's fair. some people debate, like if you look at the presence or absence of an orgasm, which some people think that's important for satisfying sex, others say it doesn't matter as long as you think it's satisfying. Who cares if a climax happened or not.

So that's why I'm equivocating a bit. But in general, if you just ask people about satisfaction, then yes, longer term is generally they report higher satisfaction sexually and in relationships in short term.

Pat Tenneriello (1:18:49)
And so you opened up and now my brain's going any, any research around, in marriage versus like polyamory. I've got people that I know that are, that seems to be a topic that I just feel like I'm coming, across a lot more frequently. seems to be less taboo. People are more open-minded polyamory versus monogamy. Any research there with sex.

Nikky (1:18:52)
I'm sorry.

yeah.

I mean,

there is increasing research there, but what I always think is funny, and I love to poke, I have a good colleague who does a lot of work in poly, is there is a lot more conversation. I think your experience is dead on with what we see in the data as well, but the actual people practicing hasn't really gone up.

So people still tend to be monogamous. They still tend not to do this poly thing. It's complicated, man. I don't know if you know, like Venice, California has some of the highest density of polyamorous relationships in the country. So we always joke, like, if you date in Venice here, you gotta ask, you know, am I primary? Am I secondary? Like, what's it worth?

Pat Tenneriello (1:19:42)
Is that where you're based by the

way? Okay.

Nikky (1:19:45)
I'm not in Venice, but

close enough that we have these conversations and it is a different market. It makes things complicated. And if it's complicated with two, it's more complicated with three. But the things people usually study are related to risk behavior because they're worried about like.

sexually transmitted infection and to their credit poly couples tend to have very good sexual communication. tend to have very low risk sexual behaviors. They're well tested, you know, they kind of manage those risks really well. So I don't think it's there's evidence that it's a bad thing per se, but I also think it's a lot of talk and not a lot of walk. There's not a lot of people actually any more people actually doing it these days than I think have historically.

Pat Tenneriello (1:20:27)
seems to be more not tolerated, but just less taboo people seem to be more open.

Nikky (1:20:31)
Yeah,

people talking about that seems great. Like I love that people chat about it. And I so wish if you're thinking about infidelity, I wish they would not do that and have that conversation first. You know, if you think you might want another partner, let's see if we can figure out something before I, I choose to, to sneak and do it a different way.

It's tough conversations. Every time I bring that up, people are like, my wife would kill me. I get it. I get it. it's those conversations are tough.

Pat Tenneriello (1:20:59)
Nikki, thank you so much for coming onto the show and taking the time to speak with me today. there anything that I didn't get the chance to anything you wanted to share that we didn't get a chance to touch on before we finish up?

Nikky (1:21:10)
No, just

literally tomorrow are running like our first full on subject, this male orgasm protocol. So if I have anything fun, I'm happy to circle back if we have anything interesting in the future. But I'm so glad you're open to challenging some of these ideas too. I could hear you struggling a little bit with them. So I appreciate that.

Pat Tenneriello (1:21:27)
Yeah, you know, it wasn't my vision. My vision for the episode was I'd have someone on who was like a recovering porn addict or someone who took the position that I, in my mind, I'd want them to have. And you, and you weren't that, but you know what? I really appreciated that because it challenged some of my views. And I also feel like I learned a lot and, and learned a lot, a lot, a lot about the research and what the data is showing. And at the end of the day, I think that that matters, you know, so I appreciate you coming on and,

Nikky (1:21:34)
Thank

Pat Tenneriello (1:21:55)
I really appreciate the work that you do. And if there's anything you want me to put in the description of the episode, like links to some of the work that you did or the research, I'd be happy to do that.

Nikky (1:22:04)
Yeah, I can definitely share the research links. So if people want to see papers, if they need something to fall asleep to two at night, I can definitely

Pat Tenneriello (1:22:09)
Hahaha

Sounds good.

Pat Tenneriello (1:22:11)
Well, that's a wrap on this episode of the After Peter Pan podcast. If you found it insightful, please drop us a rating or give us a like. It really helps to widen our audience. Thank you again for tuning in and I'll see you in a few weeks. Bye bye.