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Full Version: More porn use by men, worse erectile function + Say goodbye to menstruation?
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No one has to get their period anymore
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/arch...ve/614350/

EXCERPT: . . . amenorrhea -- the abnormal absence of periods -- has historically been linked with misfortune. [...] But some doctors today offer amenorrhea to patients as young as age 14 or 15: Menstruation has now become an elective bodily process. “Once your periods are established, we can turn them off,” Sophia Yen, a pediatrics professor ... “We now have the technology to make periods optional.” Few are as passionate as Yen about the possibility of a world with far less cyclical bleeding. “It’s my crusade,” said Yen ... “This is my moonshot.”

People who have periods spend an average of 2,300 days of their lives menstruating. If more people chose to silence their period -- or even just dial down the volume -- that would mean a decrease in iron deficiency ... even fewer plastic tampon applicators littering landfills. Yen envisions the period of periods soon coming to an end. But even though menstruation is often messy, painful, and expensive, it’s a meaningful fixture of adulthood for some, and one that can be hard to let go of. [...] For more than a decade, associations of obstetricians and gynecologists have assured doctors that it is safe for patients to try to reduce or eliminate menstrual bleeding -- for personal or medical reasons -- with hormonal contraception. There is far less certainty about how often that’s actually happening.

[..] One key reason people will continue to opt in is the persistent, deep-set discomfort about not having your period. Last October, a group of researchers ... reported that ... “most found the idea of not menstruating strange, unhealthy, and worrisome.” In a small, 2016 experiment ... a majority of the participants were suspicious of ads that presented the pharmaceutical suppression of cycles as a lifestyle choice... ... Patients tend to have a lot of questions about what not menstruating means for their reproductive health, says Margaret Nachtigall ... And that confusion makes sense, because amenorrhea can be a symptom of medical conditions such as eating disorders, pituitary or thyroid disease, and hepatitis. ... Yen fields similar concerns from her patients. “I tell them, ‘It’s okay to bleed less,’” she said. “The reason people feel like it’s, quote, ‘unnatural’ is that so many of us have had one every month for so long.” (MORE - details)



More porn, worse erectile function
https://www.urotoday.com/conference-high...ction.html

RELEASE: A study has shown that the amount of porn a man watches is linked to worse erectile function. Watching porn is also associated with greater dissatisfaction with "normal" sex, with only 65% of respondents rating sex with a partner to be more stimulating than porn. This work is presented at the EAU virtual Congress.

Pornography has been increasingly available via the internet since around 2007. This has led to a rapid uptake in use, but there is little information on how increasing porn use might affect erectile function. Researchers from Belgium, Denmark and the UK established an online questionnaire, which was advertised mainly to men in Belgium and Denmark through social media, posters and flyers. 3267 men replied to the 118 questions, answering questions about masturbation, frequency of porn watching, and sexual activity with partners. The questionnaire concentrated on men who had had sex within the previous 4 weeks, which allowed the team to relate the effect of porn watching on sexual activity. The questionnaire incorporated questions from standard erectile function and sexual health surveys (see notes).

Head researcher, Professor Gunter de Win (University of Antwerp and University Hospital Antwerp) said: "We found that there was a big range of responses. In our sample, men watch quite a lot of porn, on average around 70 minutes per week, normally for between 5 and 15 minutes per time, with obviously some watching very little and some watching much, much more". They also found that around 23% of men under-35 who responded to the survey had some level of erectile dysfunction when having sex with a partner.

Professor de Win commented: "This figure was higher than we expected. We found that there was a highly significant relationship between time spent watching porn and increasing difficulty with erectile function with a partner, as indicated by the erectile function and sexual health scores. People who watch more porn also scored high on porn addiction scales. We need to keep understand what this work means and doesn't mean. It is a questionnaire rather than a clinical trial, and it could be that the people who have responded are not completely representative of the whole male population. However, the work was designed to unpick any relationship between porn and erectile dysfunction, and given the large sample size we can be pretty confident about the findings".

We found that 90% of men fast-forward to watch the most arousing pornographic scenes. There's no doubt that porn conditions the way we view sex; in our survey only 65% of men felt that sex with a partner was more exciting than watching porn. In addition, 20% felt that they needed to watch more extreme porn to get the same level of arousal as previously. We believe that the erectile dysfunction problems associated with porn stem from this lack of arousal.

Our next step in this research to identify which factors lead to erectile dysfunction, and to conduct a similar study on the effects of porn on women. In the meantime, we believe that doctors dealing with erectile dysfunction should also be asking about watching pornography". Commenting, Professor Maarten Albersen (University of Leuven, Belgium) said:

"This is an interesting study by prof. De Win and colleagues. The sample consisted mainly of younger men recruited via (social) media and posters, which may result in a sample biased towards higher online porn consumption rates". All-in-all, the study raises interesting insights in the fact that porn consumption by men may lead to impaired erectile function and/or sexual satisfaction or confidence during partner-sex. As Professor De Win says, the running hypothesis is that the type of porn watched may come more explicit over time and partner-sex may not lead to the same level of arousal as the pornographic material does. The study contributes to an ongoing debate on the topic; experts have highlighted that porn may have both positive and negative effects, and could for example be used as an aid in the treatment of sexual dysfunctions, so this is a controversial area and the last words have not been said on this topic".

Professor Albersen was not involved in this work, this is an independent comment.
Well, Europeans do tend to be pretty limp.
I wonder how arousing a porn survey is?

“Hey hon, I just got this porn watching survey. Can you do it for me?”

Or

Porn actors don’t watch porn. Perverts, rapists, Catholic priests are less likely to watch porn?

Or

If your GF sexts you some naked pics of herself then you should wear a blindfold before viewing.