Bad habits are hard to break. That’s part of what makes them so enjoyable. Well, that and the fun of watching other people’s faces when you indulge in your favorite bad habit in public. I quit smoking a few years ago (Noom’s fault) and while I seldom have a burning desire to light up again for the nicotine fix, whenever I see one of those anti-smoking nazis waving their hand in the air in disgust I really wish I had a Marlboro so I could blow a big cloud of smoke their way. Instead I just get to laugh at their overwhelming fear of second hand smoke killing them when we all know that 50 pounds of extra blubber they’re carrying will do the job much faster. But then I laugh at fat people who order a diet coke at McDonalds too. Which I guess also counts as a bad habit.

The scientific community is big on conducting studies on what they considered to be bad habits. It makes you wonder why so many right wing evangelical nut jobs don’t think science and religion can exists in harmony. Finding fault with other people’s enjoyment is a favorite pastime of both groups. Fortunately most people just roll their eyes and scoff at whatever either group comes up with. Because actually paying attention to either is a bad habit in itself.

Nonetheless when researchers get busy earning their governmental grant funding their often erroneous results tend to make the news. And the latest study out of Germany is a perfect example. They say that men who watch a lot of porn tend to have less gray matter volume, as well as less activity in the region of the brain linked to rewards. My response to them is: go play with yourself (only because I’m trying to quit my bad habit of swearing so fucking much).

Yup, according to the folk who brought you Dr. Mengele, it’s not that you are stupid, it’s that you watch too much porn. Which you’d probably already know if you weren’t so busy watching porn. The study’s researchers questioned 64 men between the ages of 21 to 45 about their porn watching habits. They also examined how their brains reacted to pornographic images and took images of their brains in order to measure volume.

The study’s results showed that the brain region activated when people view sexual stimuli is less active in men who watch a lot of pornography. It also shows the part of the brain associated with processing rewards is smaller in men who view pornography more often. But then watching porn is rewarding in its own right.

The research results, published in the JAMA Psychiatry, claim there is a link between pornography consumption and brain size. However, it failed to mention the correlation between reading JAMA Psychiatry and the urge to masturbate instead. The scientists also did not determine whether watching porn leads to the decreased volume and brain activity, or if people born with certain characteristics watch more porn. Assuming one of those characteristics is a penis, I’m guessing it’s the latter.

Since the scientific community never seems to agree on whether specific bad habits are good or bad for you, like caffeine and booze – one year it’s a thumbs up, the next thumbs down – I wouldn’t go swearing off your porn habit just quite yet. Unless you can’t control yourself and have taken to watching porn on your cellphone while riding the BTS. (Hint: exaggerate those hand movements to look like someone’s second hand smoke is bothering you and no one will ever notice.) Because even slow-witted people deserve a happy ending.

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