Research Ties Incidences of Erectile Dysfunction in Young Men to Using Pornography

A report connecting erectile dysfunction in young men to pornography addiction was unveiled by Italian researchers earlier this year. According to the study’s author, University of Padua urologist Carlo Foresta, roughly 70% of men in their 20′s who requested medical assistance for ED during the study admitted to habitual use of online pornography. Further data collected from the test subjects implies that this issue could be a lot more prevalent than first assumed.

In the words of a young man who took part in the study, “Guys will never openly discuss this with friends or co-workers, for fear of getting laughed out of town. But when someone tells their story on a health forum, there are always at least 50 or 100 replies from other guys who struggle with the same thing.” These types of admissions were common from the test subjects, and along with additional findings by Dr. Foresta and his team, they seem to suggest that ED has turned into a silent epidemic among the younger generation.

How Can Pornography Addiction Lead to ED?

The opinion of the Italian research team is that excessive use of internet pornography produces “hyper-stimulation” of young men’s sexual sensibilities and a “desensitization” of the brain’s mesolimbic dopamine pathway (in common terms, the brain’s pleasure centers). In his interview, one young subject concluded, “Lots of guys, in their 20s or so, can’t get an erection anymore with a real girl”, mainly because normal sexual encounters fail to produce the same degree of excitement as the explicit liaisons depicted in erotic movies. An especially distressing side note to this problem, was that doctors further discovered that young men affected by ED were also much more likely not to wear condoms before having intercourse.

Findings from the research study conclusively showed that the episodes of erectile dysfunction in young men nearly always followed stretches of increasingly heavy pornography use – in terms of both the amount and graphic nature of the material watched. This basic fact, along with the withdrawal symptoms displayed by individuals after their direct exposure to the material terminated (most important among them, strong cravings and a total loss of interest in sex), further strengthened the theory that the occurrences of impotence were connected to the pornography addiction.

How is this Type of ED Treated?

Dr. Foresta’s team concluded that occurrences of impotence triggered by pornography addiction are completely reversible – but the course of action is not quick.

Indeed, the most-effective road to treatment requires a withdrawal period of one to three months through which the patient avoids strong sexual stimulation such as masturbation.

Consistently, however, this technique did allow the test participants to regain full erectile health (typically within two months), including a normal sex drive, and the capability of enjoying fulfilling intercourse with a partner. The highest degree of success was among men who, when previously consulting with doctors, had been told that there was “nothing wrong” with them physiologically. To sum it up, it looks as if the cure for erectile dysfunction in young men, at least in cases related to excessive use of pornography, is abstinence.

Darin Mendanor is an authority on erectile dysfunction in young men and erectile dysfunction symptoms in men of all ages. He is a regular contributor to this site.