Porn on the Brain
For men, the cues are mostly visual
They often enjoy seeing women orgasm.
Women are more complex. They place a high
importance on feeling desired. Men generally
don’t need to feel desire to be roused.
With countless genres of porn images, videos and erotic stories available online, men and women are able to figure out for themselves what they like. What’s interesting is the way the sexes view adult content differently.
What women are viewing and reading is usually not what men are searching for. Combine web searches, personal search histories, websites, and classified ads with insights from brain science and you discover precisely how different women are from men when it comes to the erotic.
Just as we’re all born with taste cues [sweet, salty, savory, spicy, bitter] men and women’s brains are wired with sexual cues.
For men, the cues are predominantly visual, and aimed at the partner; they often enjoy seeing women achieve orgasm. But women are more complex. They place a high importance on feeling desired, for example, whereas it appears men generally don’t need to feel desired at all in order to feel aroused.
Is homosexuality a factor? The authors compared gay and straight male sexuality, and found they were strikingly similar. The differences: gay men like men, and are more likely to be aroused by the submissive role in sex than straight men.
Lesbians are far more complicated. Researchers don’t think they have enough information to make any definitive comparisons about it.
A minority of women do watch visual porn. Based on analyses of user profiles on a porn website, these women tend to be more socially aggressive, comfortable taking risks, and open to bisexual experiences, researchers said. They also tend to have a higher sex drive.
Another difference: Men’s sexual interests are pretty solid by age 25, the researchers say. Women, on the other hand, have much more flexible and dynamic interests during a lifetime.
Women are sexually complex in other ways. If a man is physically turned on, he’s also psychologically turned on, which is why medications for erectile dysfunction can deliver fairly straightforward results.
But a woman can be physically turned on and mentally turned off at the very same time, making efforts toward a treatment for low female sexual desire all the more complicated.
The female sexual brain is also like a “detective agency” that investigates a man’s many qualities before deciding whether he’s worth her attention. In terms of evolution, that makes sense.
In the earliest days of humans, females who mated with the first males they encountered would not have fared as well as those who took the time to investigate their partners a little more.
The “detective agency” would make sure that the chosen male would not be cruel, unfaithful or sneaky, and would protect the woman and her child.
More important than evolution, though, is the “software” of the sexual brain.
Again, men are simple: The male brain is designed so that any stimulus can trigger arousal. For some, a single cue is necessary and sufficient, which is what makes a fetish, well, a fetish.
For instance, some men get turned on in the presence of attractive shoes or feet, and need to see that in order to feel stimulated. On the other hand, fetishes are extremely rare among women.
The male sexual brain is like a single toggle switch, whereas the female sexual brain is like the cockpit of an F1 fighter jet. There are tons of dials and instruments, and there’s sophisticated calibration going on.
Girls Watch Porn
I enjoy watching porn, so I get turned on
by seeing women spread.
When I masturbate my legs spread a little
and I like the ache my thighs feel.
I’ve noticed my boyfriend likes to bring my
legs together. We haven’t talked much about
our preferences.
I mentioned it once and he said it
feels better when they’re together.
He thought it must feel bad for guys in porn
since visually it’s better if her legs are spread.
I understand that it must be tighter for him,
but it feels sexier/dirtier for me to be spread.
Positive Porn
1. The wide availability of porn has caused a drastic decline in sexual abuse toward women. As porn’s accessibility has exploded (from 1990 or so), sexual assault rates have gone down by 55% in the last 20 years.
2. Porn encourages masturbation, a healthy activity. It increases fertility, and can even make us better partners because people who masturbate are taking care of their own sexual needs.
3. Masturbation relieves sexual tension, reduces stress, helps you sleep better, improves your self-esteem and body image, helps treat sexual problems, eases menstrual cramps and muscle tension, and strengthens muscle tone in your pelvic and anal areas