The Science of Pornography Addiction????

[les]

                



                



                

[uberbear01]

Thank you for sharing this. It's something I've struggled with for years. Really interesting video, scary frankly.

[Ph0enixAsh]

Gizmodo posted an update to their original story (where I first saw this, and where I believe les may have found it), giving a professional's reasoning for why this may not actually be quite accurate:

Update: Sex researcher and friend of Gizmodo Debby Herbenick writes in to tell us that all of this is simply not true, and that "many of the professional who think it can be treated are selling treatment programs for porn/sex addiction." She writes:

Most sex researchers don't recognize "porn addiction" as a true addiction (nor do most of us recognize "sex addiction" as a true addiction). This is a common topic of conversation among scientists in my field. The video is mostly speculation; empirical data to back up the statements in the video are enormously lacking.

If you'd like to discuss with anyone who studies this area, I'd be happy to refer you to colleagues who study related issues. I wouldn't have written if I didn't think it was important to set the record straight, but I've seen far too many people hurt personally or relationally by these unsupported claims.

You should take her opinion over most, for what it's worth.

Interesting discussion topic either way.

[SexualChoc]

I couldeasily get into a very Long debate about this
to argue FOR porn

1) notice the video itself links using porn with... running???
don't usually see people forming arguments against getting addicted to running... hmmm

2) almost all studies on porn are done on people who Orgasm.. not those who are into denial!
frankly we are to weird/unusual and just not included in studies

and lastly
IF
this site is in fact interfering with your job, or
causing so much trouble at home so your partner is threatening divorce
or causing you to skip meals..
you very well may have an addiction!

[diddums]

In the days of Shakespeare, the word "addiction" meant the same as our contemporary word "preference." It's in Hamlet, among other plays.
The medicalised use of the word came to prominence alongside the long struggle to get tobacco companies to admit the health damage caused by smoking.
The first suggestions of so- called sex addiction are even more recent than that. They're certainly more recent than Ronald Regan's Moral Majority, and mainstream feminism.
So- called sex addiction has never claimed a life. It's never put anyone in hospital. If this is a genuine medical condition, it's one without any medical symptoms.
Sex is pleasurable for very good evolutionary reasons. There would be more reason to suspect a medical problem in someone who cannot enjoy sex than there ever would be in someone who merely enjoys sex to an extent some third party deems inappropriate.
There has long been a political opposition to pornography, this has sometimes been extreme and violent in nature. When I was young, sex shops were regularly vandalised, and on one occasion I can remember in my home town, fire- bombed. There are people out there who hate porn. I've no doubt that some hate it enough to create fictitious conditions like "porn addiction" as a part of their campaigning. Just as some in the past have claimed, quite falsely, that masturbation makes you deaf, or is it blind, makes you a weakling, makes you mad, etc. etc.

[diddums]

This video is not science. Science starts with a question and proceeds to enquire into answers. This video starts with the answer; its proposition that porn is addictive and harmful. Having already told us, in the first seconds, what its message is, it cannot pursue further enquiry. It can only say over and over again, in different ways, that porn is addictive and harmful. It treats the viewer not as an intelligent adult whose mind is open, but as a credulous child in need of being put straight about their naughtiness.
Science never claims to know the whole truth about anything. But there is another form of expression, which always does.
Propaganda.

[LipstickLover]

I think some of you are missing the point. Rather than argue over just how scientifically valid this video is, it's more productive to acknowledge the fact that people do in fact have an addiction to pornography, and that it really does affect peoples' sex lives. It doesn't do much good to try and discredit this video, because the sad truth is a lot of people spend too much time masturbating on the internet rather than actually going outside and possibly meeting some really cool people!

Also, people have most definitely gone to the hospital as a result of a sex or pornography addiction. There are countless people who have gone to the ER due to some household object being lodged up their ass and them not being able to retrieve it, just to name one type of example. Overall, while this video may not be 100% scientifically sound, it brings up an important issue in today's society with the ease of access to whatever type of pornography one may so choose to indulge in. Too much of something is usually a bad thing, and this definitely applies to pornography.

[jackstock]

Porn is a real addiction, and it will take away from your sex life.
I like being a player, and cutting down on porn has allowed me to get a lot more girls...
It also helps with productivity. That being said, cutting down on lots of other things will also help your daily productivity as well.

Dont be afraid to take a legit break every now and then. Go a week, or a month, even.

[janmb]

Whether or not it can or should be directly compared to and aligned with physiological addictions, such as to drugs, I'm far from sure. And it isn't really very relevant or important either.

The important part is what porn actually does over time. I agree that while empirical data is very much missing in these type of videos and discussions, I can definitely say I recognize a lot of the aspects it points at, such as altered tolerances and changes in my real world tastes and preferences.

The most simple example of this is bush vs. shaved pussy. Before I got into porn, I wouldn't give that two seconds thought what so ever, and these days I find bush more or less directly repulsive. A pussy should be shaven or at least trimmed, and that's a preference I'm sure porn has more or less created or at least made me aware of, and one that I will likely never change for the rest of my live.

So, the next question naturally is: Is that a problem? Is it negative?

In that particular example I don't think so, because it is a preference it is fairly easy to meet and live with. Most girls in my part of the world shave or trim these days anyway so it's not a practical problem for me or my partners at all. But if my preference would been something less common and harder to impose on partners, then sure, I could very well imagine it being not only negative, but outright damaging to my own sex life.

The other example I'd like to discuss is T&D vs. vanilla sex. Or any fetish vs. vanilla for that matter. A vast majority of people have vanilla sex lives, know nothing else and are perfectly happy with that. And why shouldn't they be? At the same time, after having discovered T&D, submission, and a lot of other fetishes I'm more or less into, I can help but feel a kind of sadness thinking of how much they are missing out on. Sure, far from everyone would be into any non-vanilla aspect of sex at all, hell, many people think it's a very scary step to even consider a new position or turning the light on, but even so, I'm sure a lot of people would been into fetishes more or less and could have had much more complex and rewarding sex lives all together.

So that is another thing this particular porn/sex oriented site has done to me: Make me embrace and love the many different aspects of sexuality, and at the same time more or less hate the idea of vanilla sex lives.

[tcml82s]

Although I'm sure there are a number of people who actually have porn and/or sex addiction, I'm also pretty sure the numbers have been greatly exaggerated by instances that benefit from the exaggeration of the victims; researchers, people who sell 7 day courses to heal yourself, political conservatives, and what have you. This exaggeration, in my opinion, hurts the real addictive people even more than undermining the addiction and telling there is no such addiction.

For some reason we live in a society where everything possible has to be made into a threat, and that threat made into a big deal. I don't know why that is, but perhaps we have a sociologist or someone who could open this way of thought to us. I myself would be very interested to hear the ways of a large community working in this way, and I'm too lazy to google it right now

To the video, I'm sure it has some points, but how harmful they really are, I'll leave for more competitive people to decide. I've personally not run into any of the claims stated in the video, although I watch a LOT of porn. But that's just subjective, so it has no value as an argument.