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Research

What the research shows

These numbers are not meant as a wagging finger. They are here because understanding what I was up against helped me — it was not just me being weak. Every source is linked so you can read it yourself.

How early they see it

By age 1015%
By age 1350%+
Ages 13–1773%

Among US teenagers, the share who have seen porn rises sharply with age.

Source: Common Sense Media (2023)
Age 13

is the average age when children first see porn. One in ten has seen it before turning nine.

Source: Children’s Commissioner (2023)
73%

of American teenagers aged 13 to 17 have seen porn online. More than half saw it before turning 13.

Source: Common Sense Media (2023)
15%

of teenagers first saw porn at age 10 or younger.

Source: Common Sense Media (2023)
79%

of young people have encountered violent porn — choking, hitting or degradation — before turning 18.

Source: Children’s Commissioner (2023)
88%

of scenes in the most-watched porn films contain physical aggression, almost always directed at women.

Source: Bridges et al. (2010)
50,000+

people across 50 studies: the more consumption, the lower the satisfaction in the relationship.

Source: Wright et al. (2017)

Research

What happens in the brain?

What convinced me was not moral arguments but the brain research: that what I called weak willpower looked like a reward system under pressure.

The reward system adapts to overstimulation

Brain scans of 64 men showed that more hours of porn per week correlated with lower striatal activity and volume — a core of the brain’s reward system — along with weaker connectivity to the prefrontal cortex, which governs impulse control. The study measures a correlation, not causation, but neuroscience indicates that neuroplasticity goes both ways: just as overstimulation wears on circuits, abstinence allows receptors and balance to recover.

Source: Kühn & Gallinat (2014), JAMA Psychiatry

The brain responds as it does in addiction

Cambridge researchers scanned people with compulsive porn use and found their brains responding to porn cues in the same regions — and in the same way — as the brains of drug users respond to their drug. Craving (“wanting”) grew without enjoyment (“liking”) keeping up: a hallmark of addiction.

Source: Voon et al. (2014), PLOS ONE

Read the numbers with open eyes

Research in this field often measures correlations, not proven causes. That consumption and distress go together does not always tell you which came first. I have only included numbers from peer-reviewed studies and official reports, and I link straight to them so you can judge for yourself.

The term “porn addiction” itself is also debated. The WHO’s diagnostic manual (ICD-11) includes a closely related diagnosis — compulsive sexual behaviour — but files it under impulse control, not addiction, and the American DSM-5 recognises no porn or sex addiction at all. I use the word the way people use it in everyday life, but experts disagree. Several of the brain studies also rest on small 2014 samples that have not been widely replicated since, and some of the figures on what the content shows come from older studies — from before the free tube sites dominated.