Excerpt from Porn and the Pandemic (Shea): Interview with Francesa Palazzolo, Researcher in Sydney

excerpt -- 

Francesca Palazzolo, Researcher, Sydney

The Coronavirus pandemic has changed the world we live in. Since city-after-city in country-after-country began to introduce strict social-distancing laws, including stay-at-home directives, most of us have been stuck at home whether we like it or not.

One concern attached to this global pandemic is Internet pornography use. Already, prior to the pandemic, the prevalence of Internet porn use was incredibly high. Pornhub, one of the most famous tube sites boasted 42 billion hits in 2019 alone, up from 33.5 billion in 2018. And, in a stroke of publicity genius on March 24, 2020, Pornhub announced it would make its premium offering free for 30 days to help “flatten the curve” of the virus spread. Following this announcement, usage spiked across the world with Italy’s use increasing 61% after the announcement. However, prior to this broadcast, traffic was up anyhow, according to early research on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Internet porn usage.

As my own research has shown, excessive use of Internet porn has many detrimental effects on some users, many of whom reported increasing feelings of isolation, disconnection, and detachment from reality. This is not something they feel happy about; in fact, despair is a word I would use to more aptly describe what has been reported. Internet pornography addicts are already isolated enough. The act of engaging with porn is a solo act. Although some couples report using pornography as a sex aid, primarily it is a one-person show. Well, make that one person and the world of porn available for free at the click of a mouse. How could compelling large numbers of previously occupied people to stay at home, do anything other than encourage those who were casual users to increase their use out of boredom, anxiety, and/or loneliness? As for those who are trying to reduce or quit their reliance on porn, well according to anecdotal reports, the pandemic has made that a lot more difficult.

According to my study, Internet pornography users reported feeling uneasy about the sheer amount of time “wasted” on porn and masturbating rather than doing something more constructive or useful, or connecting meaningfully, authentically with others. We are not talking about the occasional user here or the once-in-a-while masturbator – but excessive and problematic use of porn to the exclusion of most other joy-enhancing activities that one can engage in when in isolation. Porn is a black hole which has the potential to suck the creativity, industry and motivation out of many users. Like any other addiction, and according to the latest and most reliable research it is most evidently like an addiction, it has the potential to slowly but surely take over a person’s life, both metaphorically as well as in actuality.

I have often wondered, what number of potential geniuses are we missing out on due to the other pandemic in our midst, the porn pandemic. Surely, almost anything is more useful than endless surfing, clicking, watching and playing with oneself for hours on end? However, the danger of the pandemic and forced isolation as I see it, made all the more obvious by Pornhub’s gleeful “public service” announcement, is its enticement to do nothing more productive with the extra time on your hands other than to use those hands to masturbate to an endless stream of porn. While the early data shows an overall increase in traffic over the time during the months of March and April, like the economic fallout of recent events, the full picture of what that will look like is yet to develop.

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