Porn Movies in Our Minds | Jesse Bering — Transcript

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1. 0:00The evolutionary argument that we are
2. 0:02or that men are ejaculating because
3. 0:05they're making room for better quality
4. 0:07sperm cells, fresher sperm cells, and
5. 0:09getting rid of the old
6. 0:10does have a lot of currency, I think.
7. 0:12But, it also poses a bit of a a problem
8. 0:15from an adaptive perspective across
9. 0:17species because we do seem to be the
10. 0:19most masturbatory species of them all.
11. 0:21We masturbate much more than other
12. 0:24animals. That's not to say that other
13. 0:26animals don't, you know, play with
14. 0:27themselves or dogs don't, you know,
15. 0:29mount people's legs. But, we seem to be
16. 0:31unique in the sense of
17. 0:33using our manual appendages to actually
18. 0:36arrive at orgasm. So, masturbation to
19. 0:38completion seems to be the the key here
20. 0:40in terms of a a possible unique aspect
21. 0:43of human sexual behavior.
22. 0:46What I argue in the book is that this is
23. 0:49The reason this is unique to human
24. 0:50beings is because we have a fairly
25. 0:52advanced social cognitive system that
26. 0:54allows us to basically play back scenes
27. 0:57in our heads like a a dirty movie
28. 0:59theater where, you know, we're going
29. 1:01through things that we experienced,
30. 1:03you know, in the course of our our daily
31. 1:04lives or
32. 1:06pornographic images that we saw on the
33. 1:07internet or something like that. I
34. 1:08really don't think there's anything too
35. 1:10outrageous in terms of what you can
36. 1:12concoct in your head
37. 1:14for the purposes of masturbation, at
38. 1:15least. That is something that
39. 1:18maybe I don't know if we should take
40. 1:19pride in that, but it is something that
41. 1:21does seem to be special to to human
42. 1:23beings. Not only are we
43. 1:26visualizing these erotic scenes when
44. 1:28we're masturbating, but we also use our
45. 1:30imagination in this way when we're, you
46. 1:32know, actually having sex with other
47. 1:34people, especially people that we're not
48. 1:36particularly attracted to or we're not
49. 1:38as aroused by them as we would like to
50. 1:39be. Often times we introduce a whole
51. 1:42roster of other players in our heads as
52. 1:44we're having sex with that person just
53. 1:46to bring us to orgasm. Lots of people
54. 1:48have sex without the lights on. It's not
55. 1:51that hard to do, really.
56. 1:53But,
57. 1:54it's certainly something that most
58. 1:55people acknowledge doing at least at
59. 1:57some point in their lives, especially
60. 1:59the longer you get into a marriage. The
61. 2:00sort of
62. 2:01romantic erotic fatigue inevitably
63. 2:03occurs. We don't often times share that
64. 2:06with the partner in terms of what we're
65. 2:08imagining in our heads as we're having
66. 2:09sex. But, chances are they're they're
67. 2:12probably doing the same thing with us.
68. 2:13So, I don't think that they should, you
69. 2:14know, we should really take it too
70. 2:15personally. A lot of people who have
71. 2:17paraphilias use this type of mechanism
72. 2:19as well to somehow escape the
73. 2:22the very limited type of stimulus or
74. 2:25arousal erotic target that attracts
75. 2:27them. If they're only attracted to
76. 2:29horses, for example, well, maybe they
77. 2:31can be in a successful marriage if
78. 2:32they're thinking about horses as they're
79. 2:33having sex with their wives. Sure, the
80. 2:35wife wouldn't really want to hear that,
81. 2:36but from an evolutionary perspective, at
82. 2:37least, can get them to obtain an orgasm
83. 2:39and to perpetuate their genes.