“Sex is more exciting on the screen and between the pages than between the sheets,” said Andy Warhol. It seems America agrees: adult entertainment is an estimated $10 billion dollar industry in the U.S., though the ethics of capturing and manufacturing sexual desire on screen have been debated for decades. Criticisms abound, ranging in tone and degree of plausibility from you'll go blind! to larger questions of whether watching porn is linked to violent behavior, sexism, or a lack of self-actualization. ("He's just not that into anyone," quipped a New York Magazine article on the supposedly low libido of the Internet generation).
But what really goes on in a brain-on-porn? In a recent study conducted at the University of Groningen Medical Center performed PET scans on the brains of 12 pre-menopausal women, measuring differences in regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) in the primary visual cortex as the women watched three videos. One video was a documentary on Caribbean marine life, and the other two were "women-friendly" porn films depicting foreplay, manual stimulation, oral sex, and vaginal intercourse.
The researchers found that viewing pornography lead to a decrease in the amount of blood sent to the visual cortex, the part of the brain that processes visual stimuli. This is, of course, the exact opposite of what happens when we watch television or read a blog. Unlike with the blog or the TV show, the brain doesn't take in all of the visual details of a sex scene, and the more explicit the video, the less blood is sent to the visual cortex. (Looks like there's something to the "you'll go blind" threat, afterall.)
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