What we expose our minds to can literally alter our reality. Every movie you watch, every book you read, and every song you listen to shapes your perception, and thus the way you perceive your reality. So, if you’re watching porn, how do you think that affects your psyche and your overall human experience?

What does that do to your expectations surrounding your sex life and how does it shape sex culture as a whole? To start, let’s take a look at Pornhub’s 4th annual Year in Review report, which outlines just how much porn we watch.

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The ‘Dirty Details’ of Pornhub’s 2016 Year in Review Report

For the fourth year in a row, online porn giant Pornhub has dug deep and consolidated their data to help us understand how much porn the world watches. On Pornhub alone, online users collectively watched 91,980,225,000 pornographic videos. That translates to 64 million videos watched per day or 44,000 videos watched per minute. If you were to stretch the number of hours it would take to watch all of that across a timeline, it’s 5,246 centuries worth of hours.

Not surprisingly, the U.S. had the highest number of views per capita and the highest level of traffic. This could be seen across some of the topics that trended during 2016 on Pornhub. For example, following election day in the U.S., Pornhub experienced an 874% increase in the number of searches for President Donald Trump. His daughter, Tiffany, experienced an even greater leap, as her number of searches was up by 2,548%, and future First Lady Melania jumped up by 1,538%.

The report goes on to list the most popular search items, categories, times to watch videos, porn stars, and more. You can check out the full report here.

Clearly, the amount of porn we watch is increasing and it has been for quite a few years. I say ‘we’ because even if you don’t watch porn or aren’t a frequent user, it’s still affecting the collective consciousness. This becomes clearer when you actually consider our current sex culture and the way society views and experiences sex.

So, What Does Watching Porn Do To Us?

If you’ve never considered what the issue is with watching porn, that’s completely understandable. We live in a society where sex is devalued, and at the same time it’s encouraged and normalized. It’s commonplace to have sex with multiple partners and to masturbate while watching porn. We live in a system that further perpetuates this type of sex culture, which ultimately further disconnects us from one another.

To understand this concept, check out the following excerpt from an article written by Brett and Kate McKay called “The Problem With Porn“:

Pornography is such a polarizing issue, that it’s easy for people to take extreme sides when approaching it. Oftentimes, religious people, while very sincere in their beliefs, brand porn as vile filth that turns good men into sexual perverts and unclean lepers. I’ve sat through plenty of church sermons where porn is approached this way. However, such a approach hardly helps men rationally think through the issue. Rather it transforms porn into an even more desirable forbidden fruit, pushes porn consumption into a secretive underground fetish, and prevents men from being honest in their need for help. The other extreme sees porn as just a healthy expression of sexuality. Pornography is heartily encouraged in order to help people discover what pleases them sexually, no matter how graphic or violent the material is. The people in this camp will argue that as long as consenting adults are involved and no one gets hurt, then anything goes. However, this approach fails to recognize the detrimental effects porn can have on an individual, on women, and on society.

We live in a dualistic world, so it makes sense for many people to have polarizing beliefs that are considered ‘opposite sides of the spectrum.’ We went from one end, suppressing our natural instincts and sexual nature, to the complete opposite, running wild and sleeping with many partners. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this; in fact, this makes perfect sense. Living in a dualistic world, it’s completely understandable that we’d create these polar opposites when it comes to our views on sex.

When religion was running the show and governed what was considered socially acceptable, sex was frowned upon, especially if you were unmarried. However, when these beliefs were overthrown (at least somewhat) and people started to exercise greater freedom, society started to shift their comfort levels with sexuality.

We began to rebel and to explore our sexual desires in ways we hadn’t before, especially around the time of the Women’s Rights movement. Then, corporations decided to capitalize on this opportunity, so porn was born and we started to see more sex in films, in music, and in the media. TV shows and movies tell us that it’s completely normal for us to have sex with multiple partners with “no attachments,” and we’ve clearly listened.

Since porn is a form of entertainment, it needs to be enjoyable to watch. As a result, the porn stars and the sexual acts filmed are far from what’s considered normal. However, since so many people’s first sexual experiences happen directly through porn, it creates unrealistic (and often unhealthy) expectations for them. This can continue to affect people throughout their lives, even while they’re having sex in real life. Many people who watch porn regularly state that it completely alters their sexual experiences, as they have difficulty staying present in the moment while having sex.

There’s no shortage of issues within the porn industry: child pornography, violence, associating pain with pleasure, rape, pedophilia, disconnection, objectification, and more. Even the U.S. government has recognized the addictive nature of porn and the issues associated with watching it. The state of Utah tried to issue a bill in response to these concerns, stating pornography is “a public health hazard leading to a broad spectrum of individual and public health impacts and societal harms.” You can read more about that in our CE article here.

Porn is clearly addictive, but why? What is it in our lives that so many people feel they’re lacking and need to use pornography to replace? I would argue that it’s connection and love, and that people falsely associate sex with these things. Yes, sex can be a way to connect with people, but it’s not the only way. Sex also isn’t the only way for people to find love; looking for love through a romantic relationship isn’t always the answer. You can find that exact same love within yourself, which perhaps many porn addicts are missing.

When it all comes down to it, sex is an activity we have the free will to partake in for a reason. Yes, that reason may be because it allows us to reproduce, but I also believe there is a much deeper meaning behind sex, one that many of us have forgotten because the porn industry and sex culture are blinding us from it. Sex can be an extremely spiritual and fun experience if you allow it to be, and I believe it’s intended to be through tantric sex.

Energetic Implications of Having Sex

Have you ever discussed a certain subject with a friend and felt badly for them? Perhaps you got angry for them, felt sadness because of their situation, or simply felt empathetic? From an energetic perspective, this is because you’re vulnerable to their frequencies. It is said that you should choose your five closest friends wisely for this reason, because their vibration will affect your own. I would argue that you should exercise caution when choosing your sexual partners for this exact same reason.

If you’re having sex with someone, an act that physically connects you in the deepest way possible, it makes sense that their energy would be imposed on you. Furthermore, it is said that when you have sex with someone, their aura leaves an imprint on you that is difficult to energetically cleanse yourself from. So, if you’re sleeping with someone who has slept with ten people in the past, and that individual hasn’t cleansed themselves from their former partners’ energies before, you may be susceptible to eleven people’s energies.

Despite this, I still believe it is healthy to have sex, especially if you’re cleansing yourself energetically (check out this CE article here). I also think sex can be used as a tool to deepen our inherent love and connection to one another through practicing tantra. Tantra is the Sanskrit word for ‘woven together,’ and through the study and practice of it you can come to understand yourself better on a spiritual level. After all, by exploring yourself sexually, whether that’s on your own or with a partner, you’re ultimately just learning more about yourself, and thus more about Source.

Porn teaches us that sex is only physical, but in reality it’s so much more than that. Sex isn’t about what it looks like, it’s about the feeling you get, the energetic shift you experience, and the intimacy you share with your partner. We are so much more than our physical bodies, and believe it or not, sex can actually teach us that! So, I challenge you to explore your sexuality without the use of porn. Who knows, maybe in searching for a more connective sex life, you’ll end up finding yourself along the way.

Related CE Articles:

Why This Man Stopped Watching Porn Gives Us All Something To Consider

Porn vs Tantra – Disturbing Facts About Modern Day Sex We Should All Consider

The Science Of Pornography Addiction & What It Can Do To Your Brain

Tantra Is The Opposite Of Porn – Learning How To Actually Be Intimate

How To Unlock Deeper & More Connected Sex In 5 Minutes