#55 Dr. Nicole Prause- Trauma, Healing, and Sexual Reframing

Candice welcomes Dr. Nicole Prause, a neuroscientist researching human sexual behavior, addiction, and the physiology of sexual response. We talk all things sex: porn, “addiction”, women who watch porn, and how sex and porn can benefit people in more ways than we can imagine.

Sex & Porn Addiction

There’s no doubt that some people are more addicted to sex and porn than others, but the question as a clinician is to ask: “How do I treat this?”. One model could be addiction and some of the things that are required to call some things as an addiction would be developing tolerance around the stimulus or behavior, Curie activity, having negative consequences as a result of the behavior. Each of these will be undergone and have disproven some aspects of them in science, called falsification. An addiction has to fulfill all criteria otherwise it’s not an addiction. Having shame because of conservative upbringings, having a high sex drive and not being able to complete everyday tasks and relationships, leading up to impulsive and compulsive disorders are not the same as addiction. In the field of science, no scientist has labelled porn as addictive and most of this stigma is around public perception.

Women Who Watch Porn 

Women are the biggest spenders in OnlyFans and women who watch porn are seen to have positive effects such as improved sexual satisfaction, increased orgasm consistency, and higher relationship satisfaction. The big gender difference is that in sex clinics, the most common problem women report is low desire which has been going on for 40 years and watching pornography could be one of the ways to spark drive. 

Sex Research on Trauma Healing and Sexual Reframing

PTSD is affective dampening, which is when a person shuts their emotions off because of the fear that their traumatic experience will happen again. Through orgasm meditation, the idea is if there’s a way to get victims to have intense emotional experiences that are safe where they can start to experience feelings of intensity again in a way that isn’t frightening so they can do exposures. This allows them to feel high intensity but a positive, pleasurable thing which can make their affective range broaden out again. CPT is one of the most common form of therapies for PTSD victims

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