Dr Var­ma Deyals­ingh

In light of re­cent rev­e­la­tions that On­ly­Fans users in Trinidad and To­ba­go spent US$1.57 mil­lion in 2025 view­ing pornog­ra­phy, I was asked to com­ment by an­oth­er news­pa­per.

Glob­al­ly, gov­ern­ments bal­ance pri­va­cy, free­dom of ex­pres­sion, child pro­tec­tion, pub­lic moral­i­ty and pub­lic safe­ty dif­fer­ent­ly.

Coun­tries with strong free-speech pro­tec­tions, such as the Unit­ed States, gen­er­al­ly al­low adults the le­gal right to ac­cess pornog­ra­phy pri­vate­ly. Oth­ers heav­i­ly re­strict or ban pornog­ra­phy through In­ter­net fil­ter­ing, crim­i­nal law, or na­tion­al fire­walls, such as Sau­di Ara­bia, Iran, and, his­tor­i­cal­ly, parts of Chi­na’s In­ter­net sys­tem.

If a gov­ern­ment be­lieves it has a moral du­ty to curb pornog­ra­phy or re­duce for­eign ex­change out­flows, then the bal­ance be­tween re­li­gious or moral stan­dards, pub­lic health con­cerns, con­sti­tu­tion­al rights, adult au­ton­o­my and pri­va­cy rights, the risk of cen­sor­ship ex­pand­ing be­yond pornog­ra­phy, en­force­ment chal­lenges, and the courts’ views on pornog­ra­phy and pri­va­cy all come in­to play.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, key por­tions of my cau­tion­ary com­ments to the news­pa­per were omit­ted from the pub­lished piece, re­sult­ing in an in­com­plete rep­re­sen­ta­tion of my views.

I do not en­dorse harm­ful or ad­dic­tive pornog­ra­phy use, but I re­spect in­di­vid­u­als’ pri­va­cy rights where it does not vi­o­late ex­ist­ing laws. I be­lieve it is im­por­tant to clar­i­fy my orig­i­nal pro­fes­sion­al po­si­tion. For ac­cu­ra­cy, I am shar­ing my orig­i­nal, unedit­ed re­sponse be­low.

“The num­bers from On­ly­Fans and ear­li­er da­ta we had on fre­quent views to Porn­hub sug­gest that pornog­ra­phy is no longer a fringe ac­tiv­i­ty but has be­come main­stream. Sex­u­al­i­ty is in­creas­ing­ly com­mer­cialised and digi­tised. Sex­u­al con­tent is be­ing nor­malised through easy ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty and our so­cial me­dia cul­ture.

“At the out­set, I think that no one should be shamed for their sex­u­al be­hav­iours, as long as they are not harm­ing them­selves or oth­ers. Pornog­ra­phy use ex­ists on a spec­trum, and overuse is def­i­nite­ly a cause for con­cern. For a mi­nor­i­ty, porn overuse is sim­i­lar to ad­dic­tion, where in­di­vid­u­als be­come so ob­sessed with pornog­ra­phy that it can con­sume their time. This ‘prob­lem­at­ic pornog­ra­phy use’ be­comes com­pul­sive, emo­tion­al­ly dys­reg­u­lat­ing, and dif­fi­cult to con­trol de­spite neg­a­tive con­se­quences. About 4% to 10 per cent of peo­ple ex­pe­ri­ence this prob­lem.

“Sim­i­lar to drug use, pornog­ra­phy can trig­ger high surges of dopamine—the brain’s plea­sure and re­ward neu­ro­trans­mit­ter. Sex­u­al stim­u­la­tion ac­ti­vates the brain’s re­ward sys­tem. Over time, some users may ex­pe­ri­ence:

• stronger crav­ings,

• in­creased nov­el­ty-seek­ing,

• com­pul­sive use,

• emo­tion­al de­pen­den­cy, or

• re­duced mo­ti­va­tion for or­di­nary ac­tiv­i­ties.

Vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty in­creas­es when pornog­ra­phy be­comes a cop­ing mech­a­nism for:

• stress,

• bore­dom,

• lone­li­ness,

• anx­i­ety,

• de­pres­sion,

• emo­tion­al sup­pres­sion, or

• so­cial iso­la­tion.

“Glob­al trends show that younger peo­ple are hav­ing less sex than pre­vi­ous gen­er­a­tions. So­cial me­dia has been re­plac­ing in-per­son in­ter­ac­tion. Eco­nom­ic hard­ship (such as the in­abil­i­ty to af­ford dates), fear of re­jec­tion, eas­i­er ac­cess to in­stant dig­i­tal stim­u­la­tion, lack of emo­tion­al vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty in re­la­tion­ships, and con­cerns about sex­u­al­ly trans­mit­ted in­fec­tions (STIs)—which our Min­is­ter of Health re­cent­ly high­light­ed—are all con­tribut­ing fac­tors.

“Many adults con­sume pornog­ra­phy oc­ca­sion­al­ly with­out ma­jor dis­rup­tion to their lives or re­la­tion­ships. Re­search does not sup­port the idea that every per­son who watch­es porn be­comes vi­o­lent, dys­func­tion­al, or ad­dict­ed.

“In 2019, Arch­bish­op Ja­son Gor­don pub­licly warned about chil­dren’s ex­po­sure to pornog­ra­phy. This is a ma­jor con­cern, as chil­dren and young peo­ple ex­posed to pornog­ra­phy may be­come nor­malised to vi­o­lent con­tent. This is a sep­a­rate and se­ri­ous is­sue, and we should speak out against it.

“Porno­graph­ic con­sump­tion de­pends on fre­quen­cy, pur­pose, age of ex­po­sure, emo­tion­al health, and whether it en­hances or re­places re­al hu­man con­nec­tion. For some, pornog­ra­phy re­mains oc­ca­sion­al en­ter­tain­ment with lit­tle neg­a­tive ef­fect. For oth­ers, es­pe­cial­ly when used to es­cape stress, lone­li­ness, bore­dom, anx­i­ety, or emo­tion­al pain, it can be­come com­pul­sive and be­gin af­fect­ing mo­ti­va­tion, re­la­tion­ships, self-es­teem, in­ti­ma­cy, and men­tal well-be­ing.

“There is no need for moral pan­ic over this rev­e­la­tion. A health­i­er pub­lic dis­cus­sion must fo­cus on bal­ance, ed­u­ca­tion, men­tal health, per­son­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, emo­tion­al aware­ness, and main­tain­ing the abil­i­ty to form mean­ing­ful hu­man con­nec­tions of­fline.”