Is There a Relationship Between Personal Athletic Performance and Porn?
How Porn Affects Athletic Performance
As the internet continues to change our cultural landscape, more people are speaking out about porn’s harmful effects.¹ One group in particular wants to draw attention to how it specifically affects them — athletes.
Many people have publicly shared their experiences about how porn has affected them, including how it’s affected them athletically. Porn isn’t just a harmless pastime, but one that can have long-lasting and far-reaching consequences that trickle down — even to sports-related achievements.
Keep reading to find out:
- How mental strength is required for athletic success
- How porn can affect an athlete’s brain
- What big-time athletes have said about how quitting porn has upped their game
- Why sports ethics and porn don’t play well together
The Mental Component of Athletic Success
As many NBA players agree, to be able to perform at their level, mental strength is everything. Going up against other pros requires mental strength, and the power of the mind often makes the difference between good players and great players. Many athletes know they have to prepare their minds in addition to their bodies when going up against the best and working to get an edge.
Here’s a video of various NBA players explaining in their own words the mental component of athletic success.²
High-performing players seem to exhibit a variety of qualities that distinguish them from the rest. The first of these qualities is self-regulation. This affects the choices the players make every day, including in sports. Other qualities good athletes often possess include high levels of self-monitoring, self-evaluation, and self-satisfaction.³
All of these qualities offer better strategizing, planning, and reflecting, all of which are required to be the best athlete you can be, regardless of inherent talent.
The Brain’s Role
The prefrontal cortex (located in the front of the brain) houses the brain’s self-regulatory function and manages some specific, high-level mental skills.⁴ Such skills include being able to:
- Anticipate events
- Remain attentive
- Reason well
- Make decisions
- Predict consequences
- Control impulses
- Manage emotional reactions
These skills are fundamental to every person who wants to understand and relate to the world around them. The prefrontal cortex also allows people to develop their own personalities, attitudes, and motivations.
Dopamine, the “reward chemical,” is also linked to athletic performance. In fact, one 2021 study that explored the connection between aerobic fitness and enhanced cognitive function found that dopamine regulation helped mediate this connection.⁵
A Neuroscientist’s Perspective
From a neuroscientific perspective, research shows that problematic hypersexual behavior such as compulsive porn consumption is associated with poorer decision-making and problem-solving,⁶ greater impulsivity,⁷ impaired emotional regulation,⁸ and even deficits in gray matter volume in the brain.⁹
Considering how important each of these skills can be to an athlete striving for peak performance, it’s understandable that many great athletes try to stay away from porn.
In the video below, Dr. Simone Kühn — a Neuroscientist & Psychologist at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development — mentions that when people watch a lot of porn, their brain’s prefrontal cortex often isn’t able to control activity in the reward region as well.¹⁰ In other words, porn can weaken the logical part of our brain that helps us weigh consequences and make healthy decisions.
How Porn Can Affect an Athlete’s Brain
When talking about the skills the prefrontal cortex enables (anticipating events, controlling impulses, predicting consequences, etc.), it’s easy to understand how these brain processes play into the ability to be successful at sports. Athletes consistently use these skills when calling plays, competing against opponents, and getting the timing right to take a shot. Dopamine then flows to reward the player with happy feelings when their team scores.
Unfortunately, these otherwise healthy brain functions can be hijacked, so to speak, by porn. In other words, instead of the reward center responding to healthy behaviors, like working as a team or getting a good workout, the reward center can become hyper-focused on porn and its associated rewards.¹¹ And the more the craving is rewarded, the hungrier a person can get for it.¹² Additionally, research shows that porn consumption is associated with lower self-esteem, poorer mental health, negative body image, and lower life satisfaction.¹³
What Big-Time Athletes Have to Say About Porn’s Effects
There are many athletes who have discovered for themselves how porn has played a negative part in their sports careers. They’ve had raw personal experiences that have taught tough lessons. But they have learned from them and come out on the other side stronger than ever.
Here are a few of their inspirational stories.
The Kansas City Royals MLB Team
It’s not uncommon for Major League baseball teams to hold “growth seminars’’ for their players and staff during spring training season. What is unusual is for the topic of a growth seminar to be pornography and how it can impact productivity, work performance, and personal image.
Many who attended the seminar expressed deep gratitude for bringing this issue to light. One of those was Strength and Conditioning Coach Austin Womack who spoke of his own battle against pornography addiction and his continuing journey to recovery using Fortify.¹⁴ Despite some who initially felt skeptical about a growth seminar on pornography, the topic resonated with many people who had experienced porn’s negative effects in their own lives.
Former NBA Star Lamar Odom
In 2019, Lamar Odom told TMZ Sports that he has officially given up porn after admitting to having a sex addiction.¹⁵ He stated that he’s “trying to be better” as an athlete and partner by cutting out porn from his life.¹⁶ This has helped him live a healthier lifestyle both outside in the world and inside the bedroom with his significant other, Sabrina Parr, a personal trainer. “It’s improved our intimacy,” said Parr, “it’s just us now”.¹⁷
Philanthropist, public speaker, and friend of Lamar, Eli Nash posted his support for Odom, saying, “Many people, myself included, find porn to be incredibly destructive. For Lamar to use his platform to share some hope around this is inspiring to say the least.”¹⁸
Former NFL Player Terry Crews
Terry Crews has become an advocate for Fight the New Drug and its message about the potential dangers of pornography ever since he posted Facebook Live confessional videos called “Dirty Little Secret” back in 2014.¹⁹ He has over 60k reactions and 11k comments from the first video alone, most of which show support and appreciation from those who have also experienced porn’s detrimental effects. The story was so major it was picked up by CNN and other major media outlets around the world.²⁰
In addition to writing his book called Manhood: How to Be a Better Man-or Just Live with One,²¹ Terry also appeared on Fight the New Drug’s podcast Consider Before Consuming,²² and is often seen proudly wearing his Porn Kills Love shirts in his social media posts.²³
Olympic Runner Nick Willis
After admitting on Facebook to his long-running pornography addiction, New Zealand’s Olympic runner Nick Willis was surprised by how much interest and support he received from others.²⁴ His response was that “Breaking the silence is worth it if even only one person succeeds in winning his/her battle.”²⁵
He attributes his success to realizing “the true implications [porn addiction] had on my marriage, and the ability to father.”²⁵
Pittsburgh Steelers Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger
On Father’s Day 2020, Ben Roethlisberger attended a virtual conference called ManUp Pittsburgh. During the interview, he revealed that at one point in his life, he was “addicted to pornography,” which affected his ability to be the best husband and father.²⁶
Sports Ethics: Sexuality and Gender Perspectives
A statement made by Australia’s Clearinghouse for Sport says, in part:
“Discrimination that is based upon gender and/or sexual identity affects the fundamental integrity of sports and is often linked to other integrity issues such as violence, harassment or abuse.”²⁷
What does gender/sexual discrimination in sport have to do with porn? A lot, actually. Much of the content on porn sites use stereotypical, discriminatory, and derogatory depictions as part of their plotlines. What’s worse is that porn’s depictions of violence against women, racial minorities, those in the LGBTQ+ community, and other marginalized groups can leak into the lives of real-life consumers.²⁸ Porn teaches objectification instead of humanism.²⁹
Australia’s Clearinghouse for Sport has made it clear that violence, harassment, or abuse have no place in the athletics industry. What would the world look like if other professional sports leagues made the same commitment?
Give Yourself Mental Strength for Achieving Athletic Greatness
The incredible ambition it takes to propel athletes forward in their endeavors can’t afford to let anything hold it back, but porn does just that. The temporary thrill isn’t a worthwhile trade-off for long-term negative effects. Both research and countless people’s personal experiences agree — the risks of pornography aren’t worth it.³⁰
If succeeding athletically is part of your full, passionate life, then consider the possible negative effects before feeding your brain porn. Practice self-regulation, self-monitoring, self-evaluation, and self-satisfaction instead, as these are some of the most important qualities that can help an athlete achieve greatness.
REFERENCES:
[1] https://fightthenewdrug.org/10-fighters-who-embody-how-change-begins-with-one/
[2] https://youtu.be/_MqVd8XlShM
[3] [https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10413200252907761
[4] https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/psychpedia/prefrontal-cortex
[6] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5330407/
[7] https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/cyber.2016.0582?journalCode=cyber
[8] https://www.jsm.jsexmed.org/article/S1743-6095%2816%2900111-9/fulltext, https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/7/5/493/htm
[9] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29421186/
[10] https://vimeo.com/190633253
[11] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4600144/
[12] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10720162.2016.1151390?journalCode=usac20
[13] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25838755/, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28433892/, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10720162.2012.660431, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00224499.2017.1368977
[14] https://www.instagram.com/p/Bf4yye1F9LD/?utm_source=ig_embed
https://www.joinfortify.com/?utm_campaign=ftnd&utm_medium=affiliate_link&utm_source=affiliate_id_4
[15] https://www.tmz.com/2019/08/19/lamar-odom-giving-up-porn/
[16] https://fightthenewdrug.org/why-lamar-odom-says-he-quit-watching-porn/
[17] https://nypost.com/2019/08/19/lamar-odom-says-hes-giving-up-porn-trying-to-be-better/
[18] https://www.instagram.com/p/B1WsgHMlzVm/?utm_source=ig_embed
[19] https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?v=1083942814959410&ref=watch_permalink
[20] https://www.cnn.com/2016/02/24/entertainment/terry-crews-porn-addition-feat/index.html
[21] https://www.amazon.com/Manhood-Better-Man-Just-Live/dp/0804178054
[23] https://store.fightthenewdrug.org/products/porn-kills-love-tee?variant=43027743631
https://www.instagram.com/p/B97q7_cgzDt/
[24] https://www.facebook.com/nickwillisnz/posts/10106238691389263
[26] https://fanbuzz.com/nfl/ben-roethlisberger-porn-addiction/
[27] https://www.clearinghouseforsport.gov.au/kb/sexuality-and-gender-perspectives-on-sports-ethics
[28] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00224499.2016.1143441?src=recsys, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jcom.12201, https://fightthenewdrug.org/porn-fetishizes-marginalized-people/
[29] https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2016-32271-001
[30] https://truthaboutporn.org/, https://fightthenewdrug.org/even-if, porn-didnt-have-addiction-potential-would-it-still-be-harmful/
