Ep. #40 How Internet Porn Can Damage Your Inner Game and Sexuality with Gary Wilson

[Gary Wilson]: [Laughs]

[Angel Donovan]: …something that I've read about from your site.

[Gary Wilson]: Okay. Now, the first picture that's on my site is showing rats and the Coolidge effect, and what the Coolidge effect is is the… well, here's what the experiment is. And this occurs with pretty much all mammals, so it's easier to do with a rat. You place the male rat with the female rat and they’ll copulate several times, but then they’ll get sort of bored. But if you put in a new female rat, it'll jump up and start doing her, and then put in a new female rat, it'll jump up and start doing her. So this is the brain getting all excited about sexual novelty. That's the key thing, sexual novelty.

And this is driven by dopamine. So what’s occurring is the rat is getting less and less dopamine in the reward circuit for the old rat, the old female, and now it gets a bigger blast for the new female. And us guys can just relate to this, just our heads turning over walking down the street seeing some new girl – it's sexual novelty.

[Angel Donovan]: Right, totally.

[Gary Wilson]: So we get a little jump of dopamine. Now, sexual novelty is very powerful because the purpose is to spread your genes, supposedly, for males, so we are very attracted to nature’s number one priority, novel mates, so we can spread our seed so we can continue into the future, at least our genes will.

[Angel Donovan]: Right. So you're saying that's an evolutionary kind of mechanism there and…

[Gary Wilson]: Yeah, it is.

[Angel Donovan]: …and that there are a bunch of experiments with animals. Obviously, they haven't done the same thing with people.

[Gary Wilson]: Yeah, they… Well, they sort of have, in terms of porn.

[Angel Donovan]: Okay.

[Gary Wilson]: They’ve used porn, and you watch the same picture and your arousal goes way down…

[Angel Donovan]: Hmm.

[Gary Wilson]: …then you view a new picture and all of a sudden your arousal and your excitation goes shooting up.

[Angel Donovan]: Right.

[Gary Wilson]: So yes, they’ve done this with porn with humans.

[Angel Donovan]: Okay, so is this just for guys or is this applicable to women as well?

[Gary Wilson]: They did an experiment just a few months ago and it is applicable to women with porn, and it is also applicable to mammals to a certain extent with females, but it's not quite as strong and it's a bit more complex. Female mammals, they get excited if they can control copulation.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Gary Wilson]: So it's a more complex thing. The male mammals just need to see a new female. That's all.

[Angel Donovan]: Right.

[Gary Wilson]: [Laughs]

[Angel Donovan]: It's a very simple reaction to it, a new female.

[Gary Wilson]: Yeah.

[Angel Donovan]: So I don't know, like anytime that we don’t feel very stimulated about life, if we take a walk down to the beach where there are lots of pretty ladies walking around, is that going to give us more stimulation in our lives? Is that kind of the lesson there?

[Gary Wilson]: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, the basic rule is that anything novel or new…

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah.

[Gary Wilson]: …shoots dopamine up. Now, you could find out something sexual which is almost universally appealing, and then that really shoots it up.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm. Great. So you mentioned dopamine a couple of times there.

[Gary Wilson]: Yeah.

[Angel Donovan]: Is this all about dopamine?

[Gary Wilson]: No, it's never all about dopamine. Dopamine’s the most well-studied neurochemical related to this. But it is a central player because it is the motivation.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Gary Wilson]: It is the motivation to go after a reward, whether it's food or sex or a new job. Without dopamine, there is no motivation.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Gary Wilson]: The dopamine isn't the real reward. Endorphins are the actual reward, like, “Aah, that really tastes good,” or “My, that was a great orgasm.”

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah.

[Gary Wilson]: They think that's mainly endorphins that do that.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm. Okay, so to explain to people who might not have read about dopamine before, dopamine is some kind of hormone in our bodies that motivates us to take action, is that how it works?

[Gary Wilson]: Yeah, it's a neurotransmitter and it's in the brain.

[Angel Donovan]: Uh-huh. Okay.

[Gary Wilson]: Not in the blood, really.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Gary Wilson]: And it's released to motivate us to do anything that continues the survival of us or our genes.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Gary Wilson]: So whether it's picking food, whether looking for novel things, whether going after a new attractive partner, even drinking water, dopamine rises to motivate us to do those things that provide us with survival, I guess is the best way to describe it.

[Angel Donovan]: Excellent.

[Gary Wilson]: And it's also like if you're… it's also long-term. For example, putting off certain rewards, let's say you're studying to get a degree, well, you're thinking about the long-term reward, and then dopamine rises to keep you focused on the long-term reward. So it's there for all motivations for everything.

[Angel Donovan]: Okay. So, you know, I noticed you brought out the long-term reward there. Is it involved in short-term reward as well? Because if we're talking about Internet porn, surely that's a very short-term kind of motivation stimulus. Are you saying it works for both?

[Gary Wilson]: Yeah, absolutely works for both.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Gary Wilson]: And it's always spiking up thousands of times during the day. Whenever you see something that’s interesting or novel or you want to go after, it's dopamine behind it. A good example would be you're getting hungry and you're driving around and you smell McDonald's, and all of a sudden your dopamine starts to soar. It's not because you're getting a reward. It says, “Could you stop at McDonald's and go eat a cheeseburger?” And so when you go get the cheeseburger and order it, your dopamine is still surging to get you to do it. When you take the first bite, it goes up high, but as you go through the cheeseburger and start to get full, dopamine drops, so you no longer feel the need to eat.

[Angel Donovan]: Right, excellent. So would you say that dopamine is the primary motivator? It sounds like it's the more impulsive one. Are there are other things going on or is dopamine really behind everything that kind of motivates us in life to take action?

[Gary Wilson]: It actually is behind everything in terms of motivation.

[Angel Donovan]: Hmm. Yeah.

[Gary Wilson]: If you block it in animals or humans, there's no motivation. The famous experiments are they block it in rats, and you can put food in front of a starving rat and it won't even have the motivation to eat it.

[Angel Donovan]: Wow. Wow, that's incredible.

[Gary Wilson]: They’ll simply die. So take dopamine away and you've got some problems.

[Angel Donovan]: Okay, right. So I know from stories that cocaine, I understand it, that it's dopamine that is behind the addiction with cocaine versus some other drugs. Could you explain a little bit about that? Because I'm sure people can relate to some of the drugs, the rock star… kind of like what all the rock stars go through and how addicted they get to those kind of drugs. What kind of relationship do those drugs have with dopamine compared to—and I think heroin isn't so dopamine-driven.

[Gary Wilson]: Yes, every single addiction is dopamine-driven. Every single drug that's addictive raises dopamine in a very specific part of the brain. I won't get too technical…

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

[Gary Wilson]: …but I’ll just say it's called the nucleus accumbens. That's what all addictive drugs share…

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Gary Wilson]: …and it's what all behavioral addictions share, is a rise in dopamine in a very specific part of the brain. But yes, whether it's nicotine or heroin or other drugs, they have other effects and they have other pathways, but the final resting place, the final domino that creates addiction is a rise in dopamine in a very small, specific part of the brain.

[Angel Donovan]: Okay.

[Gary Wilson]: Yes. And so if you have to of course chronically consume to cause this dopamine to rise over a period of time, and then you start getting the brain changes that lead to the cravings and the inability to control use.

[Angel Donovan]: Okay. Well, so you're saying that the use of Internet porn, that there's basically an abuse of it that's been going on and it's something that you've noticed, and that's why you built this site and so on kind of organically. And so would you say Internet porn addiction is the same as some of these other kind of drug addictions? And potentially, I mean, we've heard of sex addiction as well, is it the same or is it different to these other addictions? And if it's different, how is it different?

[Gary Wilson]: I think you want to say that they all share certain characteristics.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Gary Wilson]: Not only do they raise dopamine but research in the last couple of years has found that all addictions involve the accumulation over time of another chemical called Delta FosB, and Delta FosB turns on certain genes and starts to change the structure and functioning of the brain. It's real purpose is to cause cravings.

[Angel Donovan]: Wow.

[Gary Wilson]: So as this stimulation accumulates over time over chronic overconsumption of whether it's gambling or food or drugs, it causes the brain to crave the thing that you're overconsuming. And it's an ancient mechanism that's there for other purposes such… well, I won't get into those, but it is hijacked with addiction.

[Angel Donovan]: So you just said something that really perked my interest there, is you said there was a change in the structure of the brain. That sounds…

[Gary Wilson]: Yeah.

[Angel Donovan]: That sounds very significant.

[Gary Wilson]: Well, the brain is changing all the time, but these structural changes are very, very specific to addiction.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Gary Wilson]: And what it does is it rewires together nerve cells associated with that event. So if you're taking cocaine and you've been taking it for a long time and you become addicted, it rewires all the nerve cells associated with taking cocaine, whether it's powder on a mirror or the place you take it or the friends you take it with, so that whenever you get exposed to all those cues and triggers, it really blasts the reward circuit and raises dopamine and other neurochemicals really high to cause craving.

[Angel Donovan]: Right.

[Gary Wilson]: So that's what occurs in addiction, and that's what Delta FosB does, is it wires all these memories together so that you get craving. Now, interesting enough—let's take it the next step—what would Delta FosB there for in the first place? What do we have it for? It's to rewire al the memories associated with sex. Delta FosB’s original purpose is to condition us to all the cues around sex so that we'll get really excited about sex and go after a partner. So drugs are actually hijacking the innate mechanism that evolved to get us rewired and excited for sex. Isn't that amazing?

[Angel Donovan]: Well, that is. Would that be associated with the kind of passion we have at the beginning of a relationship when we first kind of, you know, we meet someone and we connect with them and… you know, the first stages of a relationship is normally quite passionate. Is that what’s going on there?

[Gary Wilson]: No, not exactly. They don’t think so. They’ve just done one experiment with little animals called Foals that bond and they wanted to find out, well, is it an addiction process? Because it certainly looks like an addiction process.

[Angel Donovan]: Right. Mm-hmm.

[Gary Wilson]: But evidently it's not exactly the same and it doesn’t involve Delta FosB, but it does involve high levels of dopamine in response to that one person.

[Angel Donovan]: Right.

[Gary Wilson]: So you train the brain, and they don’t understand the mechanism completely to really tie dopamine for the one you are attracted to. Now, that's called the honeymoon neurochemistry, and that takes about, if you really get into it, it can last for about two years, but it fades as all of our experiences.

[Angel Donovan]: Wow, exactly two years. I mean, that's longer than usual, right? Anyway, before we take it down another road, let's get back to… this is all interesting stuff, so yeah, I'd love to talk to you about all of this, but let's try and get focused here. So back to the Internet porn addiction, what would you classify as an Internet porn addiction? What I'm looking for is some way to kind of quantify it for the people at home to kind of understand it, you know, if they like Internet porn and they're using it quite frequently. How can they judge if it's bordering on an addiction or it's going that way versus no, it's not a problem for them? So what kind of signals can they see in their use or, you know, quantification in terms of like how much are they using it would tell them that maybe there's a problem coming up now?

[Gary Wilson]: Yeah, when I made Your Brain on Porn, I was very focused on porn addiction because it was clear that all the guys that were showing up on my website were addicted. They were older guys.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah.

[Gary Wilson]: Now, in terms of effects, I'm seeing that many of the younger guys who started out using Internet porn when they were 10, 11, 12, 13, they may not be becoming addicted, but they're rewiring their brain to pixels, to porn, and they're having negative effects like their sexual pace may be veering into weird places where they may not be able to get excited by real girls or boys as much as they used to. So I just want to put that out there that you may be having negative effects without the addiction process, the complete addiction process.

[Angel Donovan]: Okay, so when you say without the addiction, would that mean like maybe they're only doing it once a week, so there's not really that addictive element, or once a month? Can you give us some kind of reference point here?

[Gary Wilson]: Yeah.

[Angel Donovan]: Just, you know, to make it more real so that people have…

[Gary Wilson]: Yeah, I think it's important to understand with any addiction that it's not how much you use, it's how the brain changes. So we have heard of people who can drink like fish and they can stop and have no problems, but then there are people who may drink socially but eventually become addicted. So it's what happens in the brain.

So let's go back to your question. Yes, some guys, young guys who quit and say, “Oh man, it was easy to quit. I wasn’t addicted, and I only used it maybe three times a week,” but they're seeing other changes because they used it for years and years prior to very much sexual experience that they’ve trained their brain to need that kind of stimulus of clicking from video to video and being a voyeur in order to get excited.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Gary Wilson]: So you really have to go by the symptoms, and you go by the symptoms by quitting.

[Angel Donovan]: Uh-huh.

[Gary Wilson]: But to answer your question about addiction, the first thing, common thing with all addictions in terms of behavior is continued use in spite of adverse consequences.

[Angel Donovan]: Okay.

[Gary Wilson]: Another one is the compulsion to use, “Oh, I have to use, I have to use.” Another one is the inability to control use, “I can't stop even though I want to.” And then, finally, cravings that arise – when you'll be sitting there and, “Boy, I have to use.” So those put together are some of the signs that you may have an addiction to anything. Does that make sense?

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah, that does. I'm trying to give some kind of separation to make it practical… … I could imagine for people, you know, is this a craving, is this not a craving? It remains a little bit kind of abstract for them to… I mean, what do you find when you're talking to men, like do they naturally know that this is… I mean, obviously, like if they’ve searched for it and they’ve landed on your site, I think they already know. But perhaps in other situations like maybe where you've done presentations at more general events or something like that, are there more grounded in like the things that are actually going on in their lives, questions they can ask themselves to identify this? For me, like the obvious one would be like, you know, is this occurring six times per week or two times per week or once a month? What would you suggest…

[Gary Wilson]: Oh yeah. I mean, certainly you can look at how often you use as an indicator, but this is the problem with sex, isn't it? We are going to crave sex, aren't we?

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah, yeah. Of course.

[Gary Wilson]: So it's a natural reward.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Gary Wilson]: If it was something like food, we could tell that we're addicted to it if we've eaten to obesity and we can't stop, but sex is different.

[Angel Donovan]: Right. Mm-hmm.

[Gary Wilson]: And now that this generation believes that masturbation and Internet porn use are synonymous, they're the same thing, they often don’t see any symptoms or negative consequences until they remove the porn.

[Angel Donovan]: Uh-huh.

[Gary Wilson]: So this is what’s so tricky, is that you've spent your entire adolescence using porn, you don't know that it's affecting you until you stop. So that's why I'm giving this general answer.

[Angel Donovan]: Right.

[Gary Wilson]: But yes. Yes, the amount of use… if you're using only once a month, clearly you're not addicted.

[Angel Donovan]: Okay.

[Gary Wilson]: If you're using it three times a week, you may not be addicted. In fact, if you're using it every day, you may not be addicted.

[Angel Donovan]: Right.

[Gary Wilson]: It really comes down to if you remove the variable for many months, then you could see how it's affecting you. That really is the best answer.

[Angel Donovan]: Right. So you have to test.

[Gary Wilson]: You really do.

[Angel Donovan]: You have to do an experiment and say, “Okay, I stopped today for—” how long, one month? How long would it take you to kind of notice something.

[Gary Wilson]: Well, if you stop and you start having cravings to use again, that lets you know that there may be something going on. In terms of recovery, a lot of the young guys, the motivation for stopping is to get back sexual function. So they then use sexual desire or strong erection as their measurement of whether they're getting back to normal, and a lot of them take many, many months to get back to normal.

[Angel Donovan]: Right.

[Gary Wilson]: But if you quit for 60 days or 90 days and see a lot of improvement in maybe other areas of your life, maybe you have more confidence, maybe you're more outgoing, maybe you have more energy, maybe you have more motivation, then you can judge that perhaps using porn has affected you negatively and you'll have to decide what to do about that.

[Angel Donovan]: Correct. Right. Totally. Okay, well, so how much of a problem is this? Like how many people are we talking about like that are affected by this? I'm sure you probably don’t have any statistics. This would be pretty tough to get statistics on. But based on what you've seen so far, how prevalent do you think it is, and does that differ by age group or any other ways that it may differ across a population?

[Gary Wilson]: Yeah, there are not very many good studies on Internet porn in terms of use. One study, we got the headlines for it just a couple of days ago that said… it's from Sweden, and it's saying that a lot of more teenage boys are watching, and where some, they said that what’s going on is that they're watching a lot more. Studies tend to ask the wrong questions. So they’ll say, “Okay, are you using?”

[Angel Donovan]: Right.

[Gary Wilson]: But they don’t quantify a lot of times how much, and what these new studies are finding is that many guys, in one survey here they say 10% of 16-year-olds are watching every day. So these are kids that are in a home and may not have all that much access…

[Angel Donovan]: Sorry, is this like survey-based where they ask some questions or is this they're kind of spying to see…? Because, you know, there's often… I think in this area in particular, there's a bias to responses. You know, how many guys are actually going to say that they are using it?

[Gary Wilson]: This is a survey, and I think there is a bias where a lot of people won't answer a thing. Correct.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Gary Wilson]: But yeah, they're seeing a big upswing in use.

[Angel Donovan]: Right. So the trend is clear.

[Gary Wilson]: The trend is clear. And think about it, I mean, it's everywhere, and if you're a young 13-year-old and you're interested in sex, you're going to go searching. Now, that doesn’t mean you're going to become addicted, but it may affect you. Is it normal for a 12- or 13-year-old to sit and have 10 windows open, 10 tabs open, and click from three-minute video to three-minute video of the hardest core porn possible?

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Gary Wilson]: That didn't occur in my youth. We may have had a Playboy or two, but when you're watching a video, it really is shaping your sexuality. When you're looking at a single picture of a naked lady, that's great. You're just imagining maybe feeling her up or something. It's not shaping your sexuality.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah.

[Gary Wilson]: So I think it's really a different animal.

[Angel Donovan]: Okay. So I'm getting a sense that there are kind of different problems depending on where you came into porn, right? So you've spoken about the adolescent thing, which is very different because it's like our first experience, it's kind of setting us up for life, you know, this is our first learning experience, versus other guys that maybe started getting on it afterwards. And you've already kind of separated those that the addiction kind of takes place more with older guys. What kind of age groups have you been seeing like who had the addiction to porn?

[Gary Wilson]: Well, interesting enough, just in the last three years, we've seen a huge change in the demographics of many of the sites that link to Your Brain on Porn.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah.

[Gary Wilson]: It used to be almost all were above 30 six years ago, and they definitely said they were addicted and many had sexual problems.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Gary Wilson]: Then, in the last three years, up to 90% of the guys on these forums are 25 and under, and these forums are where they're quitting porn or having addiction problems or other problems associated with porn. So since they're growing up with it, they're having more problems. But neither of these really tell us the demographics or the statistics.

[Angel Donovan]: Right, right. Well, but you seem like you've got kind of… you know, there's a clear difference there. Are there differences in the types of issues they're struggling with? Like, so, for the guys who are 30-plus, what kind of issues have led them, what kind of problems in their lives that they’ve got from this have led them to try and find out more about it and take action?

[Gary Wilson]: Nearly all the guys who are 30 years or older decided to quit because of sexual issues, either erectile dysfunction, delayed ejaculation, or they were starting to get into porn that was really nasty and uncomfortable for them like rape porn or bestiality or transsexual porn, and that was the primary motivation. And when they quit, they could recover and get back to their normal sexuality much faster, usually within about two months, two or three months.

[Angel Donovan]: Alright.

[Gary Wilson]: Younger guys, however, it's taking much, much longer for them to return to their baseline.

[Angel Donovan]: Right, but it's similar symptoms?

[Gary Wilson]: Yeah. It's a similar motivation, because guys, they're just like, “Man, I would just continue to use porn except I'm starting to have problems.”

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Gary Wilson]: So yeah, sexual issues are a big one. Other guys are just, “My goodness, I'm spending my whole time just sitting in front of a computer and I'm not chasing real women. I think it's really affecting my motivation.”

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah. Well, I think what’s interesting about the younger crowd, I mean, you're saying that these guys, their first experience of sex is with porn itself, Internet porn. So, obviously, like the kind of sex depicted in porn is typically of a different nature to the usual sexual experience that you have when you're first dating when you're 17 or whatever. So does that affect the way they approach their first sexual relationships?

[Gary Wilson]: Yeah, it definitely does because there's a big movement out there to say all we need to do is educate young guys that, oh, porn isn't real, women don’t like to have ejaculate on their face, they don’t like to have double penetration, none of this is real. So if you just tell young guys it's not real, then they'll be okay.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Gary Wilson]: However, what they're doing is not only are they learning badly about real sex, they're also training their brain to crave this. Remember how we said that chemical Delta FosB rewires the brain, “Oh, this is how it's done, these are the sexual cues?” That they start craving some of these acts that may not have occurred if they never used porn. So even though they know it's not real, they're getting excited with maybe some acts or behaviors that aren't really appropriate for a girlfriend.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah, it might be harder to introduce to the relationship, and many girls may not like this kind of thing. I mean, there are always differences across a population that you may be a very specific type of girl that's into that kind of stimulation or sex, and it really would be a minority. So I could see how that would make it difficult for the guy to kind of be calibrated, in a sense, to make sure that the girl’s enjoying the processes as much as he is.

[Gary Wilson]: Yeah, that could be one problem. The other problem is guys would just get bored with one girl because they need the constant novelty of clicking from scene to scene to scene. So they're really training their brain for novelty, and that might affect the relationship, I think.

[Angel Donovan]: Right. So yeah, it would be harder for them to get involved in longer-term relationships, and it promotes promiscuity and motivation for that, which may not always lead to happiness. And I guess there are statistics. Do you know if there are statistics on increased promiscuity over time? Maybe it's potentially related to this?

[Gary Wilson]: Yeah, this is where it gets tricky. So they’ve done a few studies that correlated some sexual behaviors with Internet porn use like more promiscuity, less condom use, maybe group sex, but there's a real problem…

[Angel Donovan]: Right.

[Gary Wilson]: But it's a small correlation, and there's a real problem with it because most of the young guys that we are seeing are having problems with sex, porn has actually taken them out of the game. They don’t have the motivation.

[Angel Donovan]: Right.

[Gary Wilson]: They're still virgins. They're having sexual problems. So what you have in a study is you have one group which it may be causing more of these certain types of sexual behaviors or promiscuity,

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah.

[Gary Wilson]: …and then another large group that it’s taking them out of the game. So it's really hard to see the actual picture.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah, that's interesting, and that's actually something that we've spoken about before on the podcast, is that, you know, I mean this is also related… like one other thing sometimes we’ll say to guys is like, “You know, if you want to get more motivated, stop masturbating,” right? Because if you're doing that all the time, you're going to be less motivated to actually go out and meet real women to start dating, socializing, and so on. And of course, that connects directly to Internet porn use, which always—I'm going to say this because maybe this isn't the case does it always involve masturbation as well, is that right?

[Gary Wilson]: Well, I mean, it doesn’t always involve masturbation because now we have iPhones and we have people watching it on the bus, in libraries.

[Angel Donovan]: Okay. Alright.

[Gary Wilson]: So now we have it where people are just watching it for 15 minutes while they're taking a bus ride. So yes, at home it almost always involves masturbation, but now you're getting that kind of stimulation throughout the day.

[Angel Donovan]: Okay, that's interesting. So even without masturbation, this can cause symptoms, is that what you're saying?

[Gary Wilson]: Absolutely. I don’t see masturbation as the problem. I see porn use as the problem.

[Angel Donovan]: Okay.

[Gary Wilson]: You know, in my generation, we masturbated just fine and we didn't have these problems, and we still chased girls. That doesn’t mean that cutting down on masturbation might not be helpful, but the new entity in evolution in the last 50 years is high-speed Internet porn and watching all these videos and novelty. That's the new player, not masturbation.

[Angel Donovan]: Great, great. That's very clear. Would you say… you know, like I'm thinking from, like one of the things we try to get guys to do is to start taking action in their lives and to become more social and start taking control of their dating lives. So from that perspective, how could… because we've talked about masturbation a bit before just because in biological terms I think, you know, if you're masturbating a lot, it takes away that motivation, so there's an upside to getting you more involved and more active in your social life to making sure you're not masturbating too much, right? Could you tie this in with the Internet porn as well? Does this make sense to you?

[Gary Wilson]: Oh yeah. So one of the biggest positive effects that these thousands and thousands of guys experience are more motivation in every area of their life especially chasing sexual partners and more confidence.

[Angel Donovan]: Uh-huh.

[Gary Wilson]: In fact, some of them who have been diagnosed with social anxiety, it really lessens or disappears, some of them.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm. Interesting.

[Gary Wilson]: So that's one of the big motivations for many of the guys is to get more confidence and get more motivation, and on a place like No Fap Reddit they call it superpower, but in actually it's just feeling normal. Now, can this be explained neurologically? Well, we know that if you become addicted to anything, especially porn, you have a drop in dopamine and dopamine receptors, and of course that's behind motivation and sexual motivation. So maybe that plays a part, I don't know, but that's one of those benefits they often experience.

[Angel Donovan]: Yes, because I know… one of the things I saw on your site was, you know, some of the negative impacts in behaviors you talk about, and there was desensitization. So we're talking a little bit about that now, I guess…

[Gary Wilson]: Okay.

[Angel Donovan]: …where you're not as interested in some of the things that you were interested in before, which includes dating and relationships, and I guess in a way it's desensitized motivation, we could talk about that as well. So you're not as motivated to do all these different things in your life.

[Gary Wilson]: Yeah, so we use the term desensitization as somewhat of a medical term to describe an addiction process where you have chronically low dopamine and less sensitivity to dopamine in the reward circuit.

[Angel Donovan]: Uh-huh.

[Gary Wilson]: Now, this leads to less motivation. For example, what occurs is, like you were talking about a cocaine addict, if you take the cocaine away and they go through withdrawal, they have very little motivation because now they don’t have the dopamine. Well, if you're sitting there watching porn every daily for an hour or two, and you're playing video games and you're getting all of your stimulation through something that is very, very stimulating, you know, clicking from video to video or playing World of Warcraft, real life doesn’t really compare. It's just not as exciting. So just that simple model, without any brain chemistry involved, can be used to show that the screen could be more exciting than real life.

[Angel Donovan]: Right. Right, right. So…

[Gary Wilson]: But…oh, sorry. Go ahead.

[Angel Donovan]: Well, so this says to me that, you know, if you're feeling that you're not taking action on things that matter to you, you know, rationally thinking, you're thinking like, “Oh, I should be doing more with this,” then this is really something you should start thinking about. It's really important to take a look at this trend in Internet porn or even, as you said, like gaming or some other aspect of your life which is very stimulatory, this could be behind the reason that you're not acting on things that are really important to you in your life.

[Gary Wilson]: Yes, and I think everyone should try and experiment, I mean really try and experiment with food, diet, exercise, and many things in our life. I mean, just give it up for 90 days like a lot of these guys do and see what happens. You can always go back and make up for it, right?

[Angel Donovan]: Right, right, right. So the other area you talk about is sensitization. How does that differ from desensitization?

[Gary Wilson]: So desensitization is less response to everything in your life.

[Angel Donovan]: Uh-huh.

[Gary Wilson]: Food doesn’t taste so well. TV is boring. Sensitization is the excitement for your addiction. And so this is a double-edged sword where you're excited to take cocaine or you're excited to drink alcohol or you're excited to gamble, and it really buzzes the reward circuit and makes dopamine really explode. That's an addiction process. And then desensitization is like, “Oh my, nothing else is exciting.” So what occurs is the brain gets wired up in sensitization to get a big blast of dopamine for the one thing it's addicted to, and yet at the same time, because of all the stimulation over time, the brain has less dopamine for natural rewards and normal everyday life doesn't see any rise in activity.

[Angel Donovan]: Okay, excellent. The final one you note is hypofrontality, which sounds like a really complex term. Could you explain that for us?

[Gary Wilson]: Yeah, so you're describing some of the major effects that occur in all addiction…

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Gary Wilson]: …and hypo means low and frontality means the frontal cortex, and what they’ve seen is, over time, as some becomes addicted and their dopamine goes low, then the frontal cortex starts to function less efficiently and in fact can shrink a little bit. And what does the frontal cortex do? Well, it is the place that is most human. It’s the place that has our willpower, that has our motivation to go after bigger goals. It's about our memory. And what happens is if it weakens, then our impulse control weakens, and we give into our craving.

[Angel Donovan]: Right.

[Gary Wilson]: So it's one aspect that can occur with addiction, but the two first aspects that occur with addiction is, first, sensitization, which causes cravings for whatever you're addicted to, and desensitization, which means [00:36:20] things in your life aren't as exciting your addiction.

[Angel Donovan]: Right, right, totally. So you can how that would motivate or demotivate you. So the hypofrontality, is that generalized? Are you saying that's kind of like a change in the frontal cortex which isn't generalized or is it very specific to this… so willpower would be like, you know, say I make a promise to myself, “I'm not going to use Internet porn this week,” and I succumb to it, is that the lack of willpower just for that or is it also related to other things in your life?

[Gary Wilson]: Well, in terms of the frontal cortex, it seems to be very specific sections of the frontal part of the brain that are affected with addiction that are there to control our behavior and make sure that we [laughs] act like a normal human. But it's really the part of the frontal cortex that is the impulse control. It's like if you get mad at your boss, it's a part of the brain that prevents you from punching them.

[Angel Donovan]: Right.

[Gary Wilson]: Or if you get mad at yourself, it's the part of the brain that prevents you from screaming at him.

[Angel Donovan]: Right, right, right.

[Gary Wilson]: So it's a very specific part that seems to get affected so you have less impulse control.

[Angel Donovan]: Okay. But I'm saying, is that generalized in terms of… like the situations you just gave are like very different, right? It's not related to the Internet porn itself. It's related to other areas of your life.

[Gary Wilson]: Right. So it is generalized? And that's what they're still trying to study, is it definitely seems to be generalized when you get into severe drug addictions. The other behavioral addiction they’ve looked at is gambling, and [00:38:02] it's going to be somewhat more generalized but not as bad as the drug addiction.

[Angel Donovan]: Okay, okay. Okay. The reason I'm asking about this specifically is because something I've noticed over the years, like something we talk about in helping men to improve this area of their lives by dating women and so on, is intent, which is a part of inner game. It's kind of like the confidence and how you are as a person with self-esteem, but it's also intent. And intent is like, you know, if you think about when you achieve something in your career or business, you have an intent, and there are things that get in your way.

Also, there are always complications, problems come up, barriers, which kind of sap some of your willpower, like we were talking about. And if you don’t have a strong willpower or intent, then you kind of give up halfway through and you don’t make it, right? So I guess you can relate that to a lot of the kind of business advice and so on. Like with startups, for instance, is like you're going to have a hundred problems, you're going to have to like push over those. So it's all about persistence and so on.

But we talk about this also when it comes to dating because it's very usual to get rejections and so on in a dating sphere, and there are going to be a lot of failures as you learn and you just gain social skills and so on. So intent is also something that a girl, if you approach her, can feel. So if you don’t have a lot of intent, it's something that's like psychologically she tends to pick up on, and it's not going to do you any favor if you don’t have strong intent, so what we'd say is a strong inner game.

And so for me, this kind of connects potentially with that. I don't know if you have ideas on that or any feedback on that.

[Gary Wilson]: Well, you know, I think it's probably a bit more complex than to localize that to a specific part of the brain, but we do know that the frontal cortex is definitely the part that drives us towards goals, and when it's inhibited it's hard for us to reach our goals.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Gary Wilson]: So that part is known.

[Angel Donovan]: Okay, great. Yeah, so I want to touch in a little while on how strong the research is overall on this area about the stuff we're talking about, because I know science is always evolving and research is getting better, but there's only so far it can go in these kind of areas. So one thing I wanted to touch on is kind of objectification of women and if that's something that's related to Internet porn, and I've got a specific example I want to bring up afterwards, but just to get your first idea on that.

[Gary Wilson]: Well, you know, I'm 57.

[Angel Donovan]: Yup.

[Gary Wilson]: And so I'm reading all these descriptions by guys going through giving up porn on these forums, thousands upon thousands of guys, and my observation is that Internet porn does definitely increase objectification of women, and it's one of the benefits that many of the guys report once they give up Internet porn, is that they no longer see women as parts, they see them as people. They're looking into their eyes. They're noticing their smile. So that's reported again and again and again that once they give up Internet porn, it lessens the objectification.

[Angel Donovan]: Right, right, and like, actually, objectification is something that can really go against you when it comes to meeting women, so it's important beyond the fact that it's not good to society and so on. So I'm glad you said there that basically it can cause them to relate to parts of the women, because my example kind of brings up this. Many years ago, it was about 10 years ago, I was a dating coach, and I was training guys in nightclubs and daytime. Basically, I would take them out into live for a whole day and, you know, show them how to talk to women and, you know, kind of live, so it was practice session.

And one guy, he came from Switzerland, quite a long way to spend 12 hours with me doing this, and really from the beginning of the day it wasn’t going at all well for him. He would walk up to a girl, and within a minute basically be getting negative reactions. And it wasn’t that he was really bad-looking or anything like that, and it took me a little while to figure out… it took me about an hour to get what was going on. Actually, what was happening was that he'd approach them and start talking to them, and then just as a reaction he would look down at their boobs, and this was something that I saw, and the girl would notice it straight away…

[Gary Wilson]: Yeah.

[Angel Donovan]: …and she would get turned off. That's kind of creepy behavior.

[Gary Wilson]: [Laughs]

[Angel Donovan]: So she would get turned off and she'd be like, “Oh, I'm going to go,” or you know, whatever. She'd make some excuse and she'd leave. And when I saw this I was like, “You know you're doing this, right? Every time you approach, you look down at their boobs, and you know that's really creepy, right? So you really have to cut that out if you want to meet…” And he was interested in meeting girls, you know, a girlfriend. That's what his interest was.

And I didn't talk about it at the time, but actually for the rest of the day I tried to get him to stop this, but it was impossible for him. Every time he would just glance down, and it was like some subconscious reaction. And now having, you know, read a bit about your site and so on, I'm wondering if the actual problem behind that could have been the fact that he was watching a lot of Internet porn at home and he was getting all his stimulation from seeing boobs all the time, and now it was something that kind of triggered him in real life all the time.

[Gary Wilson]: Well, you know, it's impossible to say. It's normal for guys to look at parts. I mean, that's just the way guys are.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah.

[Gary Wilson]: It's interesting, one of the benefits that guys mention when they quit is they, “Oh my goodness, more women are starting to look at me!”

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Gary Wilson]: Now, is that really happening or is the behavior of the guys changing such that they, one, notice the women, or simply their attitudes and these little tiny behaviors are altering so that they are more attractive to women. I don't know, but this is reported over and over again.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah. No, I really think it makes a huge difference just from people I've spoken to and coached in this situation before and people I have spoken to about it. As I said before, one thing we tell guys to do is just to cut out the porn and the masturbation for a while, and it does make a… surprisingly makes a bit improvement, especially for the guys who really aren't taking any action.

[Gary Wilson]: Oh yeah.

[Angel Donovan]: Or they get immediate bad, bad reactions. Other guys who have very low energy, really very low energy, so if they're out just socially they just seem to have very, very low energy, it seems to make a big difference with those, just as some interesting points there.

[Gary Wilson]: Yeah, I mean, that's what we see reported over and over and over again, just what you said.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah. Well, that's great. I'm glad I'm relatively in touch with what you're saying…

[Gary Wilson]: No, and that's the primary motivation for many of the guys to quit, is to be able to chase real partners, and they notice that they can. So it's a big deal.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah. And like as I was just touching on the girlfriend aspect, if you'd want to kind of connect with someone, because a lot of the guys, you know, they start looking to dating advice and stuff because they want a girlfriend. That's really their motivation behind it.

[Gary Wilson]: Yeah.

[Angel Donovan]: But I think this kind of learnt objectification from watching a lot of stimulation all the time can get in the way of that. They don’t realize it. They don’t realize that they're kind of sabotaging that process of being able to connect with someone. Like you said before, now they can look in the eyes and they can kind of get to know the person and get to be more interested in the conversation with the person and so on, look at the deeper aspect of that relationship.

[Gary Wilson]: Yeah, I mean, that's what we see reported all the time, is, “Oh my goodness, real women look great. I now have the motivation to pursue them. I want a girlfriend rather than just body parts.” So we see these changes over and over again all the time.

[Angel Donovan]: Right, right. And I'm guessing they're much happier afterwards, which is the end goal.

[Gary Wilson]: Yes. Yes, absolutely. They are thrilled. As long… you know, again, part of them are having erectile dysfunction problems, so that of course plays into it too.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah.

[Gary Wilson]: And that's another story.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah. Right, right. Okay, so one thing we kind of missed out is I'm guessing this happens, is we talked a bit about guys who aren't in relationships, you know, and adolescents. How about guys who are in relationships, so potentially married and so on? Is this something that you've seen as quite prevalent amongst them as well? And if so, what kind of relationship problems are they dealing with? I mean, you've already discussed erectile dysfunction, which I guess affects anyone, but do you see a lot of people in relationships with this problem as well?

[Gary Wilson]: Well, yes, and that was the primary group early on. And they're doing it for many reasons. Some are doing it because maybe their wife found out. Some are doing it because like, “Oh my God, I'm just tired of spending all my sexual energy with the screen.” And what they find out consistently is that they have much more attraction to their real partner once they quit. Now, it may take weeks to months because often they go through a low period, but this is what they consistently say, and they're thrilled that, “Oh my goodness, I'm getting little flutters looking at my wife naked, and sex is so much better, and orgasms are so much better, and oh, this is great.” So this is what we see consistently also.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah, that sounds really amazing. So in practical terms, assuming someone thinks he has this problem, he has this issue, what should he do to fix this? How should he start going about fixing it?

[Gary Wilson]: Well, you know, that's a big question, because some people are truly severely addicted and they may have childhood issues and they may need therapy. However, a large portion seem to not be like that and they simply attempt to stop. Now, that can be hard if you're addicted, so they do what many people do with addiction. They employ support communities.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Gary Wilson]: They do exercise. They may take up meditation. They try to become more social. They take up hobbies. They do all those things to replace porn and also to make their brain feel much better so they can get through it.

[Angel Donovan]: Okay, so it sounds like a key part of that is finding something to replace that dopamine injection they're getting from porn.

[Gary Wilson]: Absolutely. Absolutely.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah.

[Gary Wilson]: Because you just can't white-knuckle it all the time. You have to replace porn with something or with many things, and that would be, what are you supposed to replace it with? Well, you're supposed to replace it with people and fun activities and exercise and goals. That's what life’s about.

[Angel Donovan]: Excellent. That sounds like a very healthy way to approach this. So for most people, is that enough? Like what percentage of people would you say that that works for?

[Gary Wilson]: You know, that's very hard to say. You know, we have what are called rebooting accounts where guys will finally write their whole story and it may be 90 days or six months or a year, and I look at those as like fossils. There's just a few that you'll find, you know, which represent so much more that went on. So it's hard for me to quantify, you know, really answer that question. I wish I could.

[Angel Donovan]: Okay. No, I'm glad you're candidly telling us exactly how it is. That's what we want here, the truth. Okay. So you gave some timelines out there.

[Gary Wilson]: Yeah.

[Angel Donovan]: Could you roughly estimate, I mean, what ranges does it normally take for people to get results and then to really kind of feel fully recovered from this and get pretty engaged with their life and so on, whatever kind of addiction it was, element, that had changed their behaviors and so on, it's gone and they're like getting on with their life and everything’s going great?

[Gary Wilson]: Well, you know, that's the hardest question to answer. So let's look at this. You know, some guys, like on No Fap Reddit, they start seeing benefits within a few days. So I consider, normally, when you stop an addiction, you start to feel worse. So these guys, I think, were just masturbating way too much for them and they're starting to see that they feel better when they cut down on the level of masturbation. Now, for those who are addicted, they often go through withdrawal symptoms or just feel pretty bad for several weeks, and then they can start feeling better in the second month and start to see benefits.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Gary Wilson]: However—I'm going to say this again—there seems to be a definitive difference between the older guys in their late 30s and 40s and 50s than the younger guys who grew up using Internet porn. And those younger guys who are quitting because they're having sexual issues, this can go on for several months to a year of feeling not so well, and this is very disconcerting to me.

[Angel Donovan]: So when you say feeling not so well, what does that mean? Does that mean that they’ve got these cravings or does it mean that they’ve got low energy and they feel sad and depressed, or what does that mean?

[Gary Wilson]: Yes to both of those. So there are two major effects. First, the cravings. Those can come and go. But there's something that we call the flatline, which is many, many guys report that they have a loss of libido and loss of sexual desire for maybe weeks to months, and sometimes it goes away and comes back. And that's not normal. I mean, that shows that something has changed because for a normal adult male to quit, let's say, masturbation or porn, they would generally become hornier and hornier.

[Angel Donovan]: Right.

[Gary Wilson]: So this is unique to people who overuse porn. So that's the thing when I talk about not feeling well, is they’ll go into this flatline, come out of it, and maybe go back into it again, and it's really hard to understand the mechanism behind this so-called flatline.

[Angel Donovan]: Wow. Okay. So, I mean, if you flatline, would it be kind of quick, like would it be within a few days of quitting Internet porn? Because maybe that could be another signal that it's a problem for you.

[Gary Wilson]: Yeah, this is why it's hard to understand, is that sometimes it'll happen a week after someone’s quit, sometimes two weeks, and it's really hard to say what the mechanism is, and it can last for a couple of weeks or it can last for a couple of months.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah. And that's difficult because…

[Gary Wilson]: It is.

[Angel Donovan]: I mean, because it's kind of a negative reward, right? You're saying like to get better, to get your sexuality and everything back to the norm, then you're going to have to quit porn, and then like a week later they get this negative spike and they feel 10 times worse, kind of like a withdrawal of a heroin addiction or something, and I bet they start reconsidering. They're like, “Oh, maybe this isn't the right thing to do.”

[Gary Wilson]: Oh yes, it scares the crap out of them and they definitely reconsider. And that's why we've written articles about it, because many guys show up and they go, “Well, I tried to quit and I started feeling worse and I lost my libido, so I know porn must be good for my libido.” And they don’t understand that their brain is imbalanced.

[Angel Donovan]: Right, right. So, I mean, does everyone recover from that or are there some specific cases that you've seen that will kind of like flatline for a long time? I just want to see how serious this can get.

[Gary Wilson]: Well, there are some guys who have ED who are taking a very long time, and I'm hoping that they can recover.

[Angel Donovan]: Right.

[Gary Wilson]: Or their ED may be caused by some medical condition that has yet to be identified.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Gary Wilson]: So some young guys are taking too long in my opinion, and I hope that they didn't mess themselves up with porn.

[Angel Donovan]: Right.

[Gary Wilson]: That's about all I can say at this point.

[Angel Donovan]: Okay, great. So that's clear there's a real issue there that needs to be acted on early. It sounds like the adolescent aspect to this, the younger guys, so you're saying under 25, is the more worrying trend at the moment for you.

[Gary Wilson]: Yeah, I don’t remember ever seeing someone who was over 30 who had a long flatline and couldn't get out of it.

[Angel Donovan]: Okay, great. Another thing I wanted to touch on because I guess it could be dangerous, have any of the guys kind of turned to drugs or, I don't know, like testosterone injections or any of these other like… basically jumping on the bandwagon of artificial fixes for this, and have you seen any negative experiences and have any warnings about that or anything like that?

[Gary Wilson]: I don’t remember seeing…

[Angel Donovan]: Okay.

[Gary Wilson]: …too many cases of that at all.

[Angel Donovan]: Okay.

[Gary Wilson]: Because once they read the information, they understand it's not about testosterone, and there's not too many other drugs. The only other drugs you could take are called dopamine agonists, which mimic dopamine…

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah.

[Gary Wilson]: …and those can cause some serious, serious problems.

[Angel Donovan]: Right. Right. So it's definitely something you shouldn't meddle with. The easiest thing is just to stop the porn and wait it out.

[Gary Wilson]: Yeah, and of course, actually get a medical checkup before you do this, and check to see if there are any other conditions which may be causing it.

[Angel Donovan]: Great, great. Thank you, Gary, for all of this. Now, last point, I mentioned this before, is just about the quality of research out there at the moment. So we've been talking about a lot of different aspects and you've been good and you've been really helpful because you've been candid about what we can say and what we can't say. Where would you say research is at the moment with this, it's going, and is there a lot more to do in it and is it going to be coming soon?

[Gary Wilson]: Yeah, well, that's a huge question. The research is very poor on this. There are virtually no brain studies on Internet porn. One supposedly came out about a month ago, but it was a joke.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Gary Wilson]: And the truth is, I'll be honest with you, what I've learned is that the people who are actually trying to do the research have an agenda to prove that neither porn or sex addictions exist and that it can't cause any problems, so there are a few lads out there which is… that's their goal. So, therefore, you can design any study any way you want to come up those results.

[Angel Donovan]: Right.

[Gary Wilson]: So just be aware the studies and where they come out from, and we blog about them so you can get another view of some of these studies.

[Angel Donovan]: Okay. So you've looked at the flaws of those studies and explained them in some of your blog posts, I guess.

[Gary Wilson]: Yes, we have.

[Angel Donovan]: Great.

[Gary Wilson]: But really, there are no studies come out yet about porn-induced ED or about it causing sexual taste to change or causing any sexual problems. Very little money goes to studies on such things, so it's really in its infancy, unfortunately.

[Angel Donovan]: Great, great. Well, Gary, this has been a great tour of the subject and we've got some great practical details here. If some of the guys want to learn more about this from you and what you're doing, what are the top three resources you would recommend that they check out?

[Gary Wilson]: Well, you can go to YourBrainonPorn.com and you can go to Rebooting, and that describes the whole process of rebooting, so we have the tabs across the top.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah.

[Gary Wilson]: You can go to ED and Porn tab if you have that problem, or you can go to Porn FAQs and it's many questions that guys have asked over the years that we've put answers to. A lot of people watch Your Brain on Porn six-part series. That's rather old. The best series out there now by me is the Adolescent Brain Meets High-Speed Porn. It's more up-to-date and it's actually a bit more entertaining. So it's up in the top right-hand corner, and that'll give you a quick rundown in about 30 minutes.

[Angel Donovan]: Excellent, excellent. I’ll link onto all those references in the show notes for the show. So Gary, is there anything else, you'd like… you know, we haven't like touched on that you think would be really helpful to our audience that we've potentially missed out?

[Gary Wilson]: No, not really. It's just that young guys need to understand that growing up watching porn is not the norm. We did not evolve with this.

[Angel Donovan]: Yup.

[Gary Wilson]: So it would behoove them to give it a break for a while to see if it has affected them.

[Angel Donovan]: That's great. Right. Thank you, Gary. This has been a tremendously interesting discussion, and I'm sure it's very useful for many of the guys out there. So thank you for coming in today and making your time available to us.

[Gary Wilson]: You bet. Thanks a lot.