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Escalation, tolerance and habituation
studies reporting escalation to more extreme material, tolerance and habituation.
According to the compilation at yourbrainonporn.com.
Evidence
The evidence library
Hundreds of studies grouped by topic. The compilation is not ours: it is the curation of yourbrainonporn.com, and we say so on every card so you can audit it.
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Sexual problems
studies linking use to sexual dysfunctions and lower satisfaction.
According to the compilation at yourbrainonporn.com.
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Mental health and cognition
studies linking it to poorer mental health and worse cognitive outcomes.
According to the compilation at yourbrainonporn.com.
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Adolescents
studies on the effects of consumption on adolescents.
According to the compilation at yourbrainonporn.com.
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Attitudes and sexual aggression
studies relating it to problematic sexual attitudes and aggression.
According to the compilation at yourbrainonporn.com.
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Causality by elimination
studies where quitting reverses dysfunctions — the most direct causal evidence.
According to the compilation at yourbrainonporn.com.
Two meta-analyses with a name of their own
These are not lone studies: each one synthesizes dozens of published papers.
135 studies
Media and Sexualization: State of Empirical Research, 1995–2015
A review synthesizing 135 studies from two decades on media and sexualization.
22 studies · 7 countries
Meta-analysis (2015): pornography consumption and acts of sexual aggression
Aggregates 22 studies from 7 countries associating consumption with acts of sexual aggression.
The studies we cite on this page
- Voon et al., 2014
correlationalUniversity of Cambridge, published in PLOS ONE: brain responses to sexual material in people with compulsive sexual behavior versus controls.
- Kühn & Gallinat, 2014
correlationalJAMA Psychiatry: associates more hours of consumption with differences in brain structure and connectivity — an association, not proof of cause.
- Park et al., 2016
case seriesBehavioral Sciences: a review with a clinical case series of sexual dysfunctions associated with internet pornography.
To be honest: the YBOP compilation is the work of a science communicator — Gary Wilson, author of “Your Brain on Porn” (2014) — not a scientific institution, and the science is still debated. Review it yourself: