Getting hooked on watching sex (like, so much you don’t leave the house) isn’t just a male problem.
Guys are traditionally stereotyped as the most avid porn watchers, and yeah, it’s definitely more of a dude hobby — but when it becomes more than a hobby and slips into addiction, both genders are equally susceptible.
New research from Duisburg-Essen University in Germany found that men and women who watch porn have the same risks of psychological dependency. In other words, they’re not talking about casual, “I watch it every once in a while” viewers. Think Joseph Gordon-Levitt in “Don Jon.”
The study involved 102 straight women — half of them regular porn viewers and half of them not. After they were all shown 100 pornographic pictures, cravings and arousal levels were higher among the porn users than nonusers.
According to Dr. Matthias Brand, the psychology professor who authored the study, “The results are in line with those reported for heterosexual males in previous studies.” Meaning the power of porn (which he calls the “new cocaine”) knows no gender boundaries. What’s more, factors like relationship status and number of sexual contacts didn’t have any effect on the results.
Researchers only studied women under the age of 30, so it’s unclear whether porn addiction is just a young-and-horny thing. They haven’t announced any plans to experiment with the middle-aged crowd, but c’mon, nobody needs to know that kind of stuff about their parents.
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