Mr. Bean, Porn and Fishing Videos

A new study is shedding light on how exposure to pornographic images lead to erections in men.

Lead researcher Harold Mouras, at University of Picardie Jules Verne in Amiens, France, believes that mirror neurons, a special class of brain cell that fires both when people perform an action and when they observe it being performed may a crucial role in controlling erection response.

For the study, Mouras’ team recruited young men, who were asked to view three types of video clips. They were shown late night fishing documentaries and snippets of Mr Bean along with erotic videos of men stroking naked women, enjoying fellatio and engaging in intercourse.

With the help of functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI), the researchers also studied their brains, while they watched the watched the videos.

The team also kept a track of tumescence of the other target organ, using a hand-crafted "penile plethysmograph," essentially an airtight tube in which the enlarging penis causes measurable pressure changes.

They found that all the participants got erections and many parts of the brain also lit up.

The volume of the erections was linked to strength of activation in a part of the brain called the pars opercularis, known to display mirror neuron activity.

Moreover, the brain activation came before the penile response.

"The mirror neurons are like the command. The activation comes before the erection." New Scientist quoted Mouras, as saying.

Vilayanur Ramachandran, at the University of California at San Diego, who also studies mirror neurons, calls it a "bold" study into men’s sexual physiology.

He said that it is perfectly plausible that mirror neurons play a role in how porn turns us on, however suggested more research in understanding the role.

The study appears in journal NeuroImage.

jordan wrote on June 19th 08 at 12:58PM

wow thats just great craig.

Now that you have got this info, why dont you tell people how to get rid of these images in these jacked brains so we wont have erections anymore?

by the way im working on a book about porn i need to find out about pornographies psychological link to homosexuality, rape, and
how it effects the chilld's mind.

can you email back with statsticis and what you found?

jordan

my email: gothetica-7@hotmail.com

Suricou Raven wrote on June 19th 08 at 01:45PM

Are you seeking to determine if link exist, or are you trying to find evidence for links you already believe exist? If the latter, you are not fit to be a researcher or a writer.

Either way, you are going to have a very hard time seperating the good research from the moral panics and scare stories. This isn't something you can just stick into google, as most of what you find will be editorials hyping up how dangerous porn is - people who have a conclusion to reach, and seek evidence to lead them there.

This article looks interesting - and it's published in Monitor, a professional magazine (*Not* a journal, important distinction) run by the APA, so it should be respectable: http://www.apa.org/monitor/nov07/webporn.html

Searching the site for 'pornographic' provides nearly four thousand hits... enjoy your trawl. If you want to find real research, and not merely editorials commenting on research, then you are going to have to learn to search and read scientific journals. It's a long, boring, unrewarding task - but it's part of what seperates the real academics from the fakes.

bo wrote on June 20th 08 at 12:18PM

Wait, so you are saying that someone put a giant tube over a man's naked penis and showed him porn? And...the men got erections? shocking.

Suricou Raven wrote on June 20th 08 at 01:04PM

Bo: Yep. But the important discovery is that the erections corresponded to activity in a specific area of the brain. That's quite a discovery! I can imagine a few practical applications:

- Poke around further, discover drugs to treat sexual dysfunction. If people are having relationship problems due to a lack of interest in sex, this might lead to a way to aid them.

- Poke around further, discover drugs or physical means to impair the functioning - and thus a new option for treating persistant sex offenders. Some human right's issues, but it's less infringing than a life sentence.

- Market research: "If we use this color scheme and shape our test subject's brain lights up. This is going to be a good design for advertising."

- TMS it. No idea what this would do, but it would be fun to try. I'm guessing either instant arousal or instant de-arousal. Don't worry, TMS has no lasting effects.

Oh, and I imagine they will have some way to compensate for any effect of the tube - perhaps just leave the man watching fishing until he forgets it's fitted. Interesting means of measurement though - all the erection-measuring devices I have heard of before used either variable-resistance bands or strain gauges.

Micah wrote on June 25th 08 at 09:24PM

I think that it is awesome that you guys are researching stuff like this. You guys are doing awesome things that help many people! Thanks for all the work you put in to give people the help we need ! Keep doing what God's called you to do!