Naomi Wolf wrongly dresses up her opinions as scientific facts
It’s always distressing when a smart writer makes a mess of a science story. Tough reporters who can’t be conned by the wiliest of politicians often seem to produce nonsense when they try to write about science.
The latest example of this sad phenomenon comes from the smart and influential feminist writer Naomi Wolf, in a post on CNN’s Global Public Square entitled “Is pornography driving men crazy?” She begins by noting “how many highly visible men in recent years (indeed, months) have behaved in sexually self-destructive ways.”
She goes on, in the third graf, to lay out her hypothesis:
What is driving this weirdly disinhibited decision-making? Could the widespread availability and consumption of pornography in recent years actually be rewiring the male brain, affecting men’s judgment about sex and causing them to have more difficulty controlling their impulses?
Note the use of questions, which are a rhetorical way of almost saying something is true while maintaining deniability. Hey, I didn’t say porn was rewiring the brain–I was just asking!
That’s the last time Wolf uses questions to make her point. She answers her own question in the next graf: “There is an increasing body of scientific evidence to support this idea.”
The first piece of evidence: “Therapists and sexual counselors” are “anecdotally connecting the rise in pornography consumption among young men with an increase in impotence and premature ejaculation among the same population.” There are three problems in that short sentence. First: Anecdotes aren’t scientific evidence. Second: Impotence and premature ejaculation are not the same thing as evidence of men having more difficulty controlling their impulses (whatever Wolf means by that; she doesn’t say). And third: Don’t impotence and premature ejaculation seem like opposite problems? How can porn cause both of them? I’m not making a scientific point here; I’m just asking.
Is Wolf saying that former Congressman Anthony Weiner tweeted photos of his crotch because he was impotent or prone to premature ejaculation? We know far more than we might like to know about Weiner’s personal life, but I don’t think we know whether he was impotent or a premature ejaculator. Nor can we make the further connection that any of this had to do with consumption of pornography, or whether Weiner consumed it.
Four grafs in to this post, and we’re already on very shaky ground.
A few grafs further down, Wolf writes that unnamed experts she interviewed six years ago “were speculating that porn use was desensitizing healthy young men to the erotic appeal of their own partners.”
Note the use of the verb “speculating.” Yet in the very next sentence, she takes this speculation as fact: “Since then, a great deal of data on the brain’s reward system has accumulated to explain this rewiring more concretely.”
We have yet to see any reference to back this up–no researchers or studies have been named or mentioned. And suddenly we’re blinded by a blizzard of scientific “facts” with no way to know whether any of them are true: Porn delivers to the male brain “a short-term dopamine boost.” The “neural circuitry” involved in pornography’s reward “is identical to that for other addictive triggers, such as gambling or cocaine.” The addictive potential of pornography “is also identical.” When the dopamine subsides, men feel “irritable, anxious, and longing for the next fix.”
It continues, and I’ll let Wolf speak for herself:
This dopamine effect explains why pornography tends to become more and more extreme over time
…some men (and women) have a “dopamine hole” – their brains’ reward systems are less efficient – making them more likely to become addicted to more extreme porn more easily
…there is an effective and detailed model for weaning porn-addicted men and restoring them to a more balanced mental state, one less at the mercy of their compulsions.
None of this is referenced or sourced.
The post ends with the familiar disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are solely those of Naomi Wolf.
And that’s the problem. These points I’ve plucked from the post are not “views.” We are not entitled to opinions on whether there is a “dopamine hole” in the brain. There is one, or there isn’t. We’re not entitled to a “view” that pornography addiction is identical to gambling or cocaine addictions (or whether they are identical to each other).
Whether the wide availability of pornography on the Internet is adversely affecting society and relationships is an important question. We ought to ask it, and researchers ought to do careful studies to find out.
Treating opinions or views as scientific facts does not help us answer that question. Nor does it help Wolf. Her argument would be far more persuasive and credible if she supported her views with scientific findings. If Wolf wants her opinions to matter, she ought to do the reporting.
Wolf is one of the most influential thinkers in what’s sometimes called third-wave feminism. She owes us much better than this.
- Paul Raeburn
[Thanks to vaughnbell at Mind Hacks and to Ed Yong for calling my attention to Wolf's post.]
