长安区五星街道:色情让男人失控？

作者 ：纳奥米·沃尔夫（Naomi Wolf）

2011-06-30

2011年6月30日

NEW YORK – It is hard to ignore how many highly visible men in recent years (indeed, months) have behaved in sexually self-destructive ways. Some powerful men have long been sexually voracious; unlike today, though, they were far more discreet and generally used much better judgment in order to cover their tracks.

（纽约）- 近年来（其实是过去数月），有太多行事高调的男人做出了自毁性的性行为 ，让人实在难以忽视。其实，一些位高权重的男人“性” 致勃勃也不是最近才有的事，只不过他们比今日的男人更为收敛一些，一般也能做出较好的判断而不至于留下蛛丝马迹。

Of course, the heightened technological ability nowadays to expose private behavior is part of the reason for this change. But that is precisely the point: so many of the men caught up in sex-tinged scandals of late have exposed themselves – sometimes literally – through their own willing embrace of text messages, Twitter, and other indiscreet media.

当然，造成这一改变的部分原因是因为今日科技发达，能够揭露个人隐私的行为。不过，这也正是要点：被卷入性丑闻的很多男人很多时候都是因为自己对短信、推特（Twitter）和其他类似媒体轻率使用而暴露了自己，这一点也不夸张。  

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?

是什么导致他们做出如此反常的决定？是因为近年来普遍可轻易获取的色情消费改造了男人的大脑，从而影响了他们对性的判断而导致他们更难以控制心中那股冲动吗？  

 目前有越来越多科学证据证明了这一点。六年前，我写了一篇名为《色情的神话》的文章。文中提及治疗师和“性辅导员”根据实际案例做出的总结，他们认为有越来越多年轻男性因为沉迷于色情而导致不举和早泄，而这些健康的年轻男性在生理或心理上都没有可干扰其正常性功能的病原。

专家做出这样的假设，认为沉迷于色情导致这些男士的“性敏感度”逐渐减退。的确，重口味的“硬色情”对降低性敏感的迅速效应，也经常被实习医生和军队用以处理一些很惊人或敏感的情况。

Given the desensitization effect on most male subjects, researchers found that they quickly required higher levels of stimulation to achieve the same level of arousal. The experts I interviewed at the time were speculating that porn use was desensitizing healthy young men to the erotic appeal of their own partners.

研究人员发现，由于这种“失敏效应”，这些男性研究对象很快便需要更强力的刺激来引发同样程度的“性”致。我当时采访过的一些专家推测，沉迷于色情使健康的年轻男士对其伴侣失去“性趣”。

Since then, a great deal of data on the brain’s reward system has accumulated to explain this rewiring more concretely. We now know that porn delivers rewards to the male brain in the form of a short-term dopamine boost, which, for an hour or two afterwards, lifts men’s mood and makes them feel good in general. The neural circuitry is identical to that for other addictive triggers, such as gambling or cocaine.

至今，有大量有关我们大脑奖励机制的数据可更具体地解释沉迷于色情如何改造我们的大脑。我们现在知道，男人沉迷于色情可以使他们在短期内提振多巴胺，作为一种奖励传输到他们的大脑，使之在接下来的一、两个小时可以提振心情，让他们一般感觉良好。这种神经回路和其他让人上瘾的刺激物如赌博或可卡因是一样的。

The addictive potential is also identical: just as gamblers and cocaine users can become compulsive, needing to gamble or snort more and more to get the same dopamine boost, so can men consuming pornography become hooked. As with these other reward triggers, after the dopamine burst wears off, the consumer feels a letdown – irritable, anxious, and longing for the next fix. (There is some new evidence, uncovered by Jim Pfaus at Concordia University in Canada, that desensitization may be affecting women consumers of pornography as well.)

赌博和可卡因可以让人变成病态赌徒和吸毒者，赌博的需要越赌越大、吸毒的需要越吸越多以便获取和之前同样等量的多巴胺。沉迷于色情也一样可以让人上瘾，并且同样也是越沉迷了瘾头也就变得越大，而且像其他作为奖励的激发物一样，等到多巴胺的效应失效了，上瘾者就会觉得心烦气躁和焦虑不安，渴望再次提振多巴胺。（加拿大康卡地亚大学的Jim Pfaus 发现一些新证据，表明女人和男人一样可能因沉迷于色情而导致“性失敏” ）。

This dopamine effect explains why pornography tends to become more and more extreme over time: ordinary sexual images eventually lose their power, leading consumers to need images that break other taboos in other kinds of ways, in order to feel as good. Moreover, 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.

这种多巴胺效应可说明为什么长时间沉迷于色情的人会变得越来越极端。一般不雅图片最终将变得无效，上瘾者也需要借用以其他方式打破常规的不雅图片来得到同样的快感。此外，有些男人（和女人）因为大脑奖励机制功能较低而出现“多巴胺漏洞”，使他们较有可能也较为容易对极端色情上瘾。

As with any addiction, it is very difficult, for neurochemical reasons, for an addict to stop doing things – even very self-destructive things – that enable him to get that next hit of dopamine. Could this be why men who in the past could take time-delayed steps to conduct affairs behind closed doors now can’t resist the impulse to send a self-incriminating text message? If so, such men might not be demons or moral ciphers, but rather addicts who are no longer entirely in control of themselves.

由于神经化学原因，上瘾者很难戒掉那些可让他提振多巴胺的事情，即使这些事情带有自毁性。是因为这个原因导致男人无法像从前那样延迟行动并私下解决，变得现在无法抑制冲动而迫不及待发出自陷于罪的短信吗？照这样看，这些男人或许也不是什么魔鬼或道德论亡之徒，他们只不过是一些欲罢不能的上瘾者。

当然，这并不表示他们无需为自己的行为负责。不过我认为这是一种不一样的责任。 他们有责任去了解沉迷色情足以让人严重上瘾，并且一旦发现色情瘾头开始影响到伴侣、家庭、专业生涯或判断能力，则需要去寻求辅导和药物治疗。

By now, 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. Understanding how pornography affects the brain and wreaks havoc on male virility permits people to make better-informed choices – rather than engage in pointless self-loathing or reactive collective judgments – in a world that has become more and more addictively hardcore.

现在，我们有了一个有效并且仔细的模式可帮助沉迷于色情的男人脱瘾，以恢复较为平衡的精神状态而免受冲动左右。在一个成瘾情况变得越来越严重的世界里，了解色情嗜好是如何影响大脑和危害男性雄风可帮助人们作出明智的决定，这总好过去进行无谓的自我厌恶或作出集体批判的反应。

Naomi Wolf is a political activist and social critic whose most recent book is Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries.

纳奥米·沃尔夫（Naomi Wolf）是一名政治活跃分子和社会评论家，其最新著作是《给我自由：美洲革命者首先》

Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2011.

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