Sexual taste varies from one person to the other but with the current pornography epidemic as some call it, one has to wonder how this may affect our desires and perception of sexuality, more over how does it affect our sex life.
Pornography constitutes about 25% of all search engine requests and it is the 4th most common reason people give for going on the internet.
The truth is pornography has changed over time Ultimately moulding our tastes and desires. The not so shocking truth is that pornography has profound consequences for the brain and acts in many ways like a drug with prolonged exposure your tolerance is increased and many often find themselves addicted, though it's not a physical substance, it leads to the same general loss of control, the compulsiveness to seek out the activity despite the negative consequences and withdraw when it goes away much like that of gambling or running for example.
The issue is that continued exposure can cause long term or even life long neuroplastic change in the brain. Dopamine is released as a reward when ever we accomplish something whether it be eating to sustain life or sexual activity to produce future life and this dopamine consolidates neural connections in order to drive us to perform the same activity in the future. In order words,it alters and forms the brain cells to motivate certain actions.
IT REWIRES YOUR BRAIN.
The national institute of health measured drug addictiveness by testing rats. The rat is trained to press a button in order to get a drug and the harder it works demonstrates how addictive the substance is. It turns out that the more addictive a drug is the more dopamine we see released. Well, while it is unfortunate that there is no rat porn that we can give to the rats, we do know that dopamine is also released during sexual excitement which pornography plays right into.
The more time you spend doing it the more dopamine gets released which reenforces the behavior and which not only makes you desire more in the future but require it and as you begin to imagine those images even when away from your phone, computer or while having sex they become more reenforced.
Further more, each orgasm releases even more dopamine which consolidates the connection made during the session, it's a feed back loop that becomes harder to escape and just like a drug, your tolerance for visual simulation has now compounded therefore making it more difficult to be turned on by reality.
Pornography addiction can lead to finding your mate less attractive.
The Good News is, it doesn't have to be permanent. Usually when people understand the mechanism and realized it's affecting their relationships they can stop.
The brain is often described as the use it or loose it system because the neural connections you stimulate grow stronger and desire to be activated while the one you ignore become weakened, much like your muscles which if still all day itches for activity but after prolonged non use they become complaisant.
Luckily because of this use it OR loose it system, the same neuroplastic brain that proliferate these habits can also be used to acquire healthier ones.