what causes porn addiction and how harmful is it?

Question

I see nothing wrong with porn addiction unless you are married and it affects your sex life

Answer 1

The term "sexual addiction" is being pushed by religious organizations but is not recognized by the American Psychiatric Association. These religious groups are against everything that has to do with sex. Not only do they not like adult material but they don't like marital aids either even when used only by husbands and wives in committed and loving relationships.

Viewing erotic material is not a problem unless you are doing it in preference to having real sex with your wife or perhaps a live-in girlfriend. Although, it isn't as simple as that. If your wife criticizes you everytime you have sex then your avoidance would be understandable. Only genuine sexual therapy (like Masters and Johnson) would fix this type of problem. All healthy adults experience feelings of sexual desire and when a partner is not available, many (men and women) relieve this by masturbating in some fashion. This is perfectly normal.

Someone posted a link to the Wikipedia article and this gives a link so a supposed sexual addiction test here http://www.no-porn.com/test.html

So, now I guess I'll have to comment on this. This test is flawed as almost all of these tend to be. Someone (typically with a religious background) approaches the subject just as you would alcohol abuse and writes very similar questions. However, these topics are not related and the same questions don't work. For example, if you ask if you feel guilty about drinking this is a very good question because people drink on tv and in the movies and in magazines. You can go to wine tastings and have a drink with your dinner at a restaurant so there is no reason to feel guilty. Guilt would be an indication of a problem. However, people do not typically talk about sex and most consider it to be very private. Asking if you feel guilty about sex is not a good question because at times even perfectly normal adults can feel guilty about what they do in the bedroom or what they fantasize about.

The above test has 27 questions. Of these 27 questions only 6 of them are valid. The six good questions are:

1. Do you fail to meet commitments or fail to carry out responsibilities because of your involvement with pornography?

2. Do you spend more money than you can afford to spend on pornography?

3. Do you have two standards of fidelity -- one for yourself and one for your spouse or partner?

4. Do you risk legal problems in order to view pornography?

5. When you have child care responsibilities, do you put a higher priority on masturbating or being sexual than you do on the welfare of the child(ren) in your care?

6. Do you look at pornography or masturbate while driving?

Other questions have problems, for example: "Do you dig through other people's garbage to find pornography?"

This question is valid if you are 18 or older because you can easily buy adult magazines at many stores and there would be no reason to pick through garbage. However, this would not be a valid question for someone below the age of 18 as it becomes a matter of curiousity and opportunity.

Other questions with problems: "Have you replaced a collection of pornographic material after destroying one collection and vowing never to purchase pornography again?"

The above scenario could easily happen if you started a serious relationship with someone who objected to the material and then later broke up with that person. However, simply feeling embarassed or guilty about adult material is not unusual.

One question that tends to give away the religious bias of the author is this one: "Do your sexual thoughts and/or behaviors interfere with your spiritual or religious life? Do your sexual thoughts and/or behaviors cause you to believe that you don't deserve to have a religious or spiritual life?"

I noticed that the best questions are missing from this test. For example:

If you are in a relationship with a partner whom you love and enjoy having sex with do you find that you view erotic material and masturbate in preference to having sex with your partner when it is offered?

They specifically do not ask that type of question. Why? The reason is that they want to suggest that if you have a regular sex life but that you also masturbate when sex is not available that you still have a problem. In fact, their definitions typically include that you have a problem if you masturbate or view adult material at all or if you have sex at all outside of marriage.

At any rate, with only 6 good questions out of 27 what do you think the likelihood is that this is a good test? You will tend to find similar low quality tests at websites that claim to help with sexual addiction. However, none of them actually diagnose a real problem or offer any real help.

Answer 2

Well, porn addiction can lead to depression. After masturbating so much, sex eventually becomes boring and even gross after awhile. You don't know what to do with yourself. And then, eventually you start to lose interest in everything in your life. Everything becomes blah. You realize you become depressed. Sometimes it can last for as much as 2 weeks even though you stopped watching porn.

Answer 3

You asked two questions. Since I am only going to get 2 points, I will only answer one.

Watching porn raises the dopamine hormone level in the brain. This hormone makes you feel good. There are other ways to raise the level of this hormone. Playing video games is another way.

Answer 4

This is a very good website about porn addiction. I think it is pretty unbiased and it has alot of info.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pornography_addiction
My personal opinion is that if you are addicted to ANYTHING then you are not really living your life to the full.

Answer 5

Porn is not real life. The more time you spend obsessing about porn, the more your view of what real life is and your image of what women are really like and what they really gets warped.

Toodles.

Answer 6

hi, any addiction is unhealthy, just as fags and booze are, but porn is really unhealthy as you are ashamed to admit it, and you go around hiding everything in your house so people dont find out.a little is ok now and again, but dont let it take over your life.

Answer 7

its immoral and disgusting.