Gary Bruce Wilson (1956–2021) was an American anti-pornography campaigner.

Biography

Wilson was an author who lived in Ashland, Oregon.[1][2] He was formerly an adjunct professor of biology at Southern Oregon University and also taught at vocational schools.[3][4] Together with his wife, Marnia Robinson, he was an instructor of karezza, and the couple shared an antipathy towards orgasms.[5][6][7][8] He became widely known from his 2012 TEDx talk entitled "The Great Porn Experiment" in which he argued exposure to pornography changes brain chemistry.[9] The talk has been viewed over 16 million times.[10]

Wilson started the website YourBrainOnPorn.com with his wife which argues that pornography is an addiction the same as overeating or compulsive gambling.[11] Four years after the site's launch, he published the book Your Brain On Porn: Internet Pornography and the Emerging Science of Addiction, on the same topic and had it translated into Arabic, Dutch, German, Hungarian, Japanese, and Russian.[2]

Wilson argued, counter to relevant experts in the subject, that porn addiction is a public health issue,[10] and said it led to negative effects such as depression and erectile dysfunction.[12] Wilson's material prominently undergirds the internet fads "NoFap" and "No Nut November",[13] with his TED-X talk often linked in relevant fora in spite of the note posted by TED at the top of the recording: “This talk contains several assertions that are not supported by academically respected studies in medicine and psychology. While some viewers might find advice provided in this talk to be helpful, please do not look to this talk for medical advice.”[9] According to historian Brian M. Watson, Wilson "with no scientific training or background ...has made a career peddling pseudoscience."[14]

This gist of his argument is the Coolidge effect (desensitization due to seeing many new naked bodies), but scholars have expressed doubts that it applies to humans.[15]

Wilson died on May 20, 2021, after years of illness.[16]

References

  1. ↑ West, Perry (Jul 15, 2018). "As study claims benefits to porn, atheist author raises questions on methodology". CRUX.
  2. 1 2 "Best-selling author of Your Brain on Porn, Gary Wilson, has passed away". AP. May 26, 2021.
  3. ↑ Luscombe, Belinda (March 31, 2016). "Porn and the Threat to Virility". Time.
  4. ↑ Cowell, Tom (September 17, 2013). "No fapping, please, it's making us ill". The Telegraph.
  5. ↑ Donaldson James, Susan (9 July 2012). "Karezza: Men Say Best Sex Comes Without Orgasm". ABC News. Retrieved 14 August 2021.
  6. ↑ Hamilton, Jill (30 September 2015). "From "kosher sex" to love maps, 5 tips for keeping your sex life hot". Salon. Retrieved 15 August 2021.
  7. ↑ "Sex & Relationships: The truth about orgasms - ABC7 New York - ABC7 New York". ABC7 New York. 26 August 2009. Retrieved 15 August 2021.
  8. ↑ Robinson, Marnia (16 October 2009). "Another Way To Make Love". HuffPost. Retrieved 15 August 2021.
  9. 1 2 Manavis, Sarah. "No Nut November: the insidious internet challenge encouraging men not to masturbate. What may appear to be just another weird and bizarre internet challenge is underpinned by extreme misogyny and threats of violence.". New Statesman. November 13, 2018.
  10. 1 2 Van Boom, Daniel (Dec. 1 2020). "Porn addiction is ruining lives, but scientists aren't convinced it's real". CNET.
  11. ↑ Isaac Abel (June 7, 2013). "Was I Actually 'Addicted' to Internet Pornography?". The Atlantic.
  12. ↑ Rockett, Darcel (Apr 03, 2018). "'I was absorbed in pornography for hours and hours’: How porn is affecting kids". Chicago Tribune.
  13. ↑ Hartmann, Marlene (28 June 2020). "The totalizing meritocracy of heterosex: Subjectivity in NoFap". Sexualities. SAGE Publications. 24 (3): 409–430. doi:10.1177/1363460720932387. ISSN 1363-4607. S2CID 225765798. The most influential account of the causal relationship between PMO and the emergence of masturbatory subjectivity, which I mainly refer to in the following, is given by Gary Wilson ... Nevertheless, Wilson's talk is of vital importance to NoFap.
  14. ↑ Watson, Brian (2020). "The New Censorship: Anti-sexuality Groups and Library Freedom". Journal of Intellectual Freedom and Privacy. 4 (4): 19–28. doi:10.5860/jifp.v4i4.7177. hdl:2022/25773. S2CID 238069109.
  15. ↑ Staehler, Tanja; Kozin, Alexander (December 2017). "Between Platonic Love and Internet Pornography". Sexuality & Culture. 21 (4): 1120–1139. doi:10.1007/s12119-017-9440-z. S2CID 255507715.
  16. ↑ "The National Center on Sexual Exploitation Remembers Gary Wilson". National Center on Sexual Exploitation. May 25, 2021.
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