Sex Researcher Dr Debra Soh and Joe Rogan Discuss Porn Addiction

You don't have any problem at all with porn. You think porn is fine and porn is recreational. A lot of people would push back against that. And a lot of people would push back and they would say that it's damaging to young women, that it objectifies women in a harmful way, and that it changes the way young people and particularly look at sex. That they mirror and model themselves after these very unrealistic scenarios that are depicted in these films. What do you think about that? Right. I've never said that I have no issue with porn. I would just say I'm not anti-porn. I think that pornography has a time and place. I think if you're an adult, in terms of sex more broadly, whatever is consensual, that's your business. I do think, for especially young children, I don't think that's good for their development. I don't think that that's a way that people should learn about what sex is going to be like because pornography is not indicative of what real life sex is. And I think for people who are concerned that pornography is, I mean, there's so many different angles in terms of the criticism support. I'd say one common criticism is that pornography makes men interested in things that are potentially degrading to women. I do think there is some pornography that is not very nice in the way it depicts women, for sure. But I don't think viewing that is what makes men misogynistic or disrespectful of their partners. I think that's something that is inherent in them. And again, as someone who's worked with sex offenders, antisociality is more predictive of someone's behavior and their views of women. It's not about being exposed to porn because I think most pro-social men, if they see something that's very degrading and awful to women, they're going to say, that's horrible and I don't want to look at that. I think the issue is not really with porn as much as the issue is with human beings. I think that porn is in a lot of ways like many things, like alcohol, for instance. You can have a drink every now and then, or you can drink all day long and ruin your life. What is the problem? Is the problem the alcohol or is it your behavior? Is it the human being? I think it's the human being. And human beings' obsessive, compulsive behavior and people's addiction to things, the addiction to pornography seems to be an issue. And so some people's ideas, well, you should ban pornography. Well, that's sort of the same argument for banning alcohol, but it doesn't really work. Like you can't really tell people what to do if some people don't have a problem with it. Like there's some people that enjoy porn every now and then. They watch porn. They'd rather masturbate than have a relationship or whatever. Maybe they just don't want to deal with people but they're horny. I don't know, for whatever reason. But there's nothing wrong with that. But there is something wrong for them with the action of watching porn all day and disassociating and being weird. But again, I don't think it's a porn problem. I think it's a human problem. It's the same thing as gambling. There's a lot of things that people get really obsessed with and they get addicted to. I don't think the problem is the individual thing. This has always been my take on porn or really on a lot of what we call vices. I don't think the problem is the things themselves. And not just respect, I support individual choices. I love the fact that we have freedom. You can do whatever you want. I think you should be able to do anything. As long as people aren't getting hurt by it. I wonder why we have this perspective on porn though that we don't have on other things. Because porn in many ways should be just people having sex. People and filming it. People obviously like sex. So why is it such a big deal to film it? Why is it such a big deal to show it to other people? It's a very strange aspect of being a human being. That this one thing that so many people are obsessed with and literally go out of their way to be successful so they can get more sex. Like that is like if you ask men, like if men could not have sex, how many men would be driving Ferraris and taking selfies in front of private jets? How about zero? This is why they're doing it. They're signaling that they have wealth. They're trying to make themselves attractive. Why are they trying to do that? For status. For what? Well maybe to show off to other men but more likely to show off to whoever they're attracted to whether it's the opposite sex or the same sex. They're trying to get sex. So why is it that filming sex is so taboo? Well, okay. To go back to your point about porn addiction, number one, there's no evidence for pornography addiction in that people who have- I need to introduce you to some of my friends. You don't know what you're talking about. I don't- I'll give you evidence. I don't doubt that there is. I don't doubt that for some people porn is a problem for sure. And like you're saying there's some people who watch for hours. You know in the research I was doing before, there's some people I would talk to who literally sit and watch pornography eight, 12 hours a day and it's affecting work. They're up super late. You know they can't get up in the morning. It's affecting their relationships. That is not, that's not healthy. That's definitely excessive. I don't deny that that exists, but that's not porn. That's not addiction. That's usually procrastination. It's procrastination. Oh wow. That's a weird point of view. I think they're addicted to it. They're obsessed with it. If you're obsessed with something, don't you think that that's an addiction? I mean are we splitting hairs here? I guess it depends on what- if you're meaning addiction as in like a colloquial use of the word, maybe. But in terms of if you're talking about drug and alcohol addiction, it's not because drug and alcohol addiction is characterized by tolerance and withdrawal. So people who- people, some people will argue like I said with pornography that if they watch it and they start watching more extreme versions of it, they're saying that this is my tolerance. But if you actually sit and have a conversation with those people, they'll say actually this is what I've liked all along. It's just it took me a while to accept that. So it's not, there's no tolerance and you don't see people having withdrawal when they stop looking for- They might not have physical withdrawal, but they do get obsessed with it and they do have a compulsion to look at it. I know people that if they take a day from porn, they think about it all the time and they can't wait to get a loan to watch it. I think it is an addiction and I think it is similar to a drug addiction the same way gambling is similar to a drug addiction. There's an internal drug. There's something that's going on in your mind that you are getting addicted to. The excitement, the endorphins that you get from gambling. I think there's many people that get those same excitement and that same excitement or similar endorphins from watching pornography and masturbating. Well, I mean, yeah, it's rewarding, but I think for a lot of people it's a coping strategy. And if you give them different coping strategies, suddenly they're not reliant on pornography to better deal stress. But isn't that a strategy for getting over addiction? Like you would admit there's an addiction to gambling? I think it is recognized now, I believe. But don't you think that that's a similar situation because there is no withdrawal and it's not like you reach a certain point where you need more to get you off because I mean, or I guess it is really, right? Because they gamble bigger and bigger numbers. What I'm saying is you don't really develop a tolerance to gambling, right? But it is a gambling addiction. So the thing is with people with so-called pornography addiction, if you, and research has shown this, if you give them other coping skills and ways to deal stress in their life, or you teach them, say they give them assertiveness training so that they are able to speak up about what's bothering them instead of turning to pornography as a way to feel better, it actually cuts down on how much they're viewing time and how much they rely on it. That's interesting. And I wonder if you get healthy user bias because if you're getting someone that is willing to admit and accept the fact that they do have some sort of a sex or pornography addiction, that's not the average person. I think there's a lot of people out there that are addicted to porn, but you never hear from them because there's so much shame attached to it. Right. But I think someone who is spending eight to 12 hours a day, that's a lot of time. That's pretty far in terms of severity. I don't think that for everyone who uses porn as a coping strategy, it's necessarily going to be that extreme. But I just, my issue is that this has been portrayed as something that is definitive and that we should treat it. I think it was maybe two years ago, everyone was talking about porn addiction and within the field, people who work with people with problems with pornography in a therapeutic context will say that it's not an addiction. There are other things usually going on in someone's life. And those are the things that you need to talk about when you sit down with a therapist. That's interesting. Yeah, I mean, I guess I would agree that for a lot of people, probably is procrastination. And there's probably a lot of other factors as well. But then again, people get horny. So even if you find all these other coping mechanisms where you get horny, you're probably going to watch porn again. So you slide right back into it. Well, there's no solution. I don't know. I mean, it's a weird thing as opposed to gambling, right? Like you're not going to get horny for gambling, right? There's not like an equivalent thing where you like you build up this thing inside your body that needs to take a risk, right? But whereas with pornography, like it's particularly with men, you do sort of build up this need to release. Right. And then it becomes a question of can they integrate this back into their life in a healthy way without it becoming destructive again? Yeah. So why do you think it is that we have this this weird take on sex? Because it is. It's a weird thing that it seems to be. There's no problem with sex, but filming sex and showing sex is where things get strange. Because sex is still considered stigmatized and it's taboo. Even when you're a sex scientist, there's so much stigma around that. You know, you would think that as a scientist, that there would be some sort of removal of that perception. But no, so I think, you know, I write a lot about sex positivity. Also, I think if we were to decrease the stigma around human sexuality, that would help in so many ways.