Harvard Crimson
… Hilton also said that this trend detrimentally affects masculinity by desensitizing males to “appreciate female beauty” and perpetuating pornography addiction, which he defined as compulsive pornography use and compared to physical substance abuses.
Hilton argued that excessively viewing pornography results in neuromodulation of human brains, a process that influences the organ’s structure, making it are similar to “gambling, drugs, Sadomasochism and pedophilia,” which he claimed were also addictions. Through the brain’s pleasure center, pornography consumption is rewarded by the provision of dopamine, similar to physical sexual contact, and therefore can be addicting, he said.
The lecture elicited mixed audience reaction.
Taras B. Dreszer ’14 said that he found the talk to be overly moralistic.
“I came to the talk because I was interested in a neuroscience perspective, and I was disappointed by the fact that his points were only loosely backed by science,” Dreszer said.