this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2025
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We don't have a specific cordoned off section for meth and cocaine in our brains. Many things trigger those areas of the brain, including some pretty innocuous stuff.
Porn isn't physically addictive like meth and cocaine. It can be psychologically addictive though, but that goes for a lot of things out there.
Stuff like meth and cocaine can actually alter your brain, porn does not.
Anyone can develop an unhealthy relationship with porn, but that goes for just about anything out there.
This article is overly sensationalist/alarmist and doesn't match the study behind it.
This is the study they're referencing: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-328X/5/3/388
It primarily focuses on internet addiction and video game addiction. Pornography is mostly mentioned in passing as "likely similar".
In it, they review evidence that these things can be addictive, and that people experience pleasure doing them (this is the whole "same-areas-as-coke-and-meth" thing btw; the brain is happy playing video games, and it is also happy doing coke). However, they distinctly mention that behavioral addiction is not necessarily the same as substance addiction:
The exact quote about areas of the brain thing:
The brain rewards sexual behaviour. Makes perfect sense from an evolutionary point of view, so not exactly a shocking conclusion.
And regarding the "brain-altering" thing, the study also directly mentions that this is simply what happens when the brain is activated through its reward systems. This "altering" happens for everything that triggers some kind of dopamine hit. It's not the case that porn does something special here; a model train hobby for example would do the same to enthusiasts for example.
I remember this study actually, I've seen it before. It is frequently misquoted or represented in an extremely alarmist way, mostly by people with a dislike for pornography. But the study doesn't back up their assertions that porn is anything special when compared to any other behavioral addiction, it actually expressly doesn't.