by Chris Bodenner
Vaughan Bell fisks Naomi Wolf's latest broadside against pornography, finding her grasp of neuroscience limited:
Wolf is accidentally right when she says that porn ‘rewires the brain’ but as everything rewires the brain, this tells us nothing. With regard to dopamine, it is indeed involved in sexual response, but this is not identical to the systems involved with gambling or cocaine as different rewards rely on different circuits in the brain – although doesn’t it sound great to lump those vices together?
Porn is portrayed as a dangerous addictive drug that hooks naive users and leads them into sexual depravity and dysfunction. The trouble is, if this is true (which by the way, it isn’t, research suggests both males and females find porn generally enhances their sex lives, it does not effect emotional closeness and it is not linked to risky sexual behaviours) it would also be true for sex itself which relies on, unsurprisingly, a remarkably similar dopamine reward system.
It sounds like Wolf has more in common with Michele Bachmann than she would care to admit.
The Dish 