In recent years, two problems have become increasingly common among young men: an unhealthy love of porn and erectile dysfunction. The researchers decided to find out if there is a relationship between these two trends.
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The results of the study, scientists from the University of Antwerp (Belgium) published in the journal JMIR Public Health and Surveillance. They proved that men with porn addiction are more likely to have erection problems.
The authors of the scientific work conducted an online survey, which was attended by almost three and a half thousand men aged 18 to 35 years. Respondents had to answer 118 questions regarding sexual preferences, frequency of masturbation and porn viewing, and erection problems.
It turned out that 99% of participants regularly masturbate while watching porn on the network. On average, they watch porn videos about 39 minutes a week. At the same time, approximately 21% of respondents during the four weeks preceding the survey, to one degree or another, experienced erectile dysfunction during an attempt to have a real sexual intercourse.
Analysis of the collected data showed that there is a direct relationship between problems with potency and addiction to porn. The higher the participants scored on the porn addiction scale, the more likely they were to have erectile dysfunction.
At the same time, those who scored the maximum number of points on this scale agreed with such statements as: “I prefer viewing porn sites to communication with a partner or family”, “I tried to stop watching porn on the network, but nothing worked out for me”, “ I go to porn sites even when it is absolutely not necessary to do so.
However, the researchers found that the earlier young people start watching porn, the higher their risk of developing problems in the sexual sphere. Thus, more than half of the respondents who became interested in videos “for adults” under the age of ten scored the maximum points on the scale of porn addiction.
However, it remains unclear what is the root cause: whether painful craving for porn leads to difficulties with erection during actual sexual contact, or, on the contrary, the presence of sexual dysfunction leads to porn addiction.