Think of how little you would know about some of your most absolutely basic urges if you DIDN’T have access to the things that conjure these feelings in a safe, controlled environment. People are complex, sex is completely normal and exploring yourself is within society’s best interests.
Pro tip: there is no science backing up “porn addiction” as a legitimate concern
I got convinced I had it once. Turns out, I was still viewing things based on a catholic upbringing.
I replied someone with the question "is porn addiction even real?" and they answered something along the lines of "if it becomes a problem in your life, yes". that's kind of questionable, since the definition of "problems with porn addiction" is kinda vague.
That's what's weirding me out. I know scientifically it's not a thing. And know lots of people who either make or watch a LOT of porn and none of them show anything resembling addiction. But the guys crusading about porn addiction are time and again outed with behaviours that fit the description...
{ suppression leads to disregulation. they see porn as a bad thing, but they're still, y'know, human. so they very much still crave sexual satisfaction. and when they're not, Allowed to indulge in it... dude that's like an entire genre of kink, of course they're down bad lmao }
In fact, analysis of the research suggests that problems with porn are because some people's misguided senses of morality are bullshit
I think this is sooo fascinating thank you for linking this. it makes so much sense now to see why governments are pushing for anti porn laws so hard (in the US)
If Redditors saw this post they’d get VERY mad because they will downvote you if you’re sex-positive in any way
Alternative take: there is nothing wrong with pornography, but people CAN still become addicted to it. The issue lies not with the activity, but the person engaging with it in an unhealthy manner. Dismissing it out of hand makes it more difficult for those folks to recognize the issue and seek help.
The problem is that we've found that people who say they are addicted to porn tend to consume it at the exact same rate as their peers. That's not to say it is impossible. But it certainly isn't as big a deal as it is made out to be.
Seems like it'd be Morley likely a sec-addiction where they are engaging (porn or not) multiple times a day to an extent where it's interfering with their real life. Idk how many people actually have that tho
Generally speaking, it's not that, but people who feel guilty for engaging with it. The problem isn't pornography, but rather the religious mindset (whether or not one is actually religious) that it's bad that's at fault.
Precisely this. While obviously it can be a problem, it's not nearly as common as the other "main" addictions people face.
I believe whether someone can become addicted to porn and whether "porn addiction" is real are two separate questions. Findings like these are pointing to how many cases of people thinking their addicted are suffering from induced guilt of normal use, not actual addiction
Oh, I 100% agree, we are a society absolutely riddled with needless guilt when it comes to all things sexually. That's why someone who thinks they might be addicted to porn should always seek out a trained therapist for help finding the actual root of the problem, rather that self-help grifters.
In theory a person can become unhealthily obsessed with any kind of activity. eating, exercise, shopping, cleaning, thrill seeking, esc. but this describes people struggling with their own issues rather then the material having some inherent addictive quality
nor is it not a Public Heath Crisis as Politicians say. That I find Total BS. But still Everything in moderation as everything else.
also to add to this I keep saying this I find it so odd that Gruesome Violence and over the top Gore is very acceptable than just Sex even "Vanilla sex" in general. Still Boggles my mind.
The only 'but' I would say about that is that gruesome violence (although it exists), it's not done by most of the population (gladly) while sex it is.
We're talking about porn, here? Well, here's the thing: it's fictional. Imaginary. Not real.
i think it's a form of psychological conditioning. to possibly train people for war and violence, and use people as cannon fodder when it happens. i think the most evident example I can give is Julia from 1984 explaining that when people repress sexual desire, violence replaces it. all for war.
Yeah but this apocalyptic street preacher with a labcoat said
I think some confusion with this stance is its not the idea that a person cant become addicted to porn, people can become addicted to anything, but whether that thing has legitimate means of contributing to addiction, like drugs or gambling have more strongly
I understand what you mean, but I think its important to push back against this colloquial use of "addiction" as well. Addiction is a specific chemical process, you can build compulsions and reliance surrounding anything but unless it alters your brain, its merely the outlet of an underlying issue
A person with OCD is not "addicted" to handwashing or hoarding, its the OCD! Which is actually relevant here, with how much of this concern around people thinking they're "addicted" to porn often fits an OCD cycle
99% of the people who report porn addiction dont even look at porn that much, they just feel REALLY guilty about the amounts they do look at. And if someone does legitimately spend all their free time looking at porn to the detriment of their life, its not the porn, its the mental illness
Porn just happened to be their outlet, because its nice to look at, but it could easily be any entertaining activity. Meanwhile, you consume enough of an addictive drug and your body will build a physical and neurological reliance on it, regardless of mental health factors
Important to highlight as one of porn detractors bigger talking points is claiming the dopamine porn/masturbation can give you can build up a tolerance and force you to more extreme measures, but its really not moreso then anything else you can deride basic pleasure from
Yes, absolutely! I think this idea specially is one that is easy to pass off as real science and have people who otherwise disagree with porn bans still repeat as common knowledge nuance, its happening in the replies to OP all over and I don't think people understand this should be challenged too
I struggle with social media in this way. I have too many hours wasted on scrolling through pointless, boring posts looking for that next hit of interesting conversation.
Wait, how true is this? I feel like I constantly keep hearing people talk about it
They talk, yeah, but that doesn't make it real. Addiction is a specific thing (and one that's a bit contested, even!), so the question "is porn addictive" can have a real answer to it. That answer is, effectively: No. Here's a fairly in depth article: www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/wome...
Now with that said, there are definitely people out there who describe their relationship with porn as "addictive" and that relationship can actually cause them harm. However, that does not come from addiction and treating it like addiction does not help those people. (More in that article.)
In MY OPINION (not from the article), there are people out there who hate porn and want to ban it. However, they don't have enough justification (not in The West and not for everything, at least) so they harm themselves and others to generate a justification for their agenda.
In contrast to porn not being harmful in and of itself, abstinence from porn, masturbation, and sex is associated with harm. For example, Reddit's r/nofap engages in lots of violent rhetoric and misogyny. www.researchgate.net/publication/...
That's another distinction from traditional addictions, though a little hazy. You won't be harmed by abstaining from alcohol or gambling. The less you do the better off you are. That's not true of something like porn. which in and of itself is neutral.
"Porn addiction" has never been a legitimate psychiatric problem. The idea came out of the self-help model, which was advanced by social conservatives in the 1980s and 1990s. This is why, whenever a youth pastor gets exposed as a predator, they blame porn addiction.
Studies have found that identification with the "porn addicted" label doesn't correlate with how much porn they consume, nor whether it has a negative effect on other parts of their lives; it correlates only with anti-porn beliefs (particularly religious ones)
That's to say most so-called porn addicts have pretty normal relationships to pornography, aside from the fact that they think pornography is evil and that the correct relationship to have to it is one of pure abstinence
it's like when fat people are accused of having a "food addiction". often they're just fat because their body is inclined to be so, or, as in my case, because the medication i'm on greatly increases my appetite. eating food and wanting to be full is like...normal?
It's a bit of a semantic matter, because you don't deem something an addiction if it's not a chemical dependency. Ergo, any behaviour that proves debilitating to the obsessed individual earns a "well actually".
well no, addiction has a broader meaning than chemical dependency even in clinical contexts it's just that the root cause of most bad debilitating relationships with porn come less from actual consumption patterns and more from having negative beliefs about porn
Not sure what to do about the latter. Beliefs are pretty hard to change + it's controversial to suggest doing so. It'd be nice to live in a world where people aware of their excessive behaviours, in the former case, could talk about them without the grief such a topic brings (as seen in my replies.)
We *can* change beliefs that cause you grief and pain for no good reason. it's called therapy.
And is there a handy word that means what 'addicition' does colloquially, that is contextually suitable to describe the diverse hows and whys of people's difficulty with predictable and unconstructive behaviour? Compulsion seems too specific to OCD, so I'm carefully not just putting it down to that.
I think addiction is a fine word to use for the idea that's being communicated (overconsumption leading to negative outcomes) it's just that porn addiction doesn't happen as often as people think because 99% of cases are of people with perfectly healthy consumption patterns who believe they're sick.
They obviously have a pretty different issue to the one I find relatable myself, where severe time/ effort/ money goes down a hole and takes over one's downtime. Agreed that what you describe would be a problem, but I don't know why everyone's trying to shut out the other outcome from consideration.
Sadly because the insane prevalence of these false cases of porn addiction is being deliberately fabricated and weaponized by the worst people alive to further narratives that do nothing to help the people we should be actually concerned with here but do make the world worse
Like we can't have a reasonable conversation about people who are actually addicted to porn to the extent they exist while we can't even agree there *are* healthy ways to consume porn besides complete abstinence and while the most common solution proposed is porn bans
How to help people with toxic beliefs, who didn't ask for deprogramming, sounds like a pretty difficult topic, as I said before. Would be interested in the conventional wisdom on it, but I'd also think it's a very different part of psychological concern to be working on?
it's incredibly different, yes. but it's closely related because some very bad people have made sure to hijack the issue you're concerned with and deliberately misinform the public to make the thing I'm talking about and the thing you're talking about be one and the same as far as discourse goes.
link.springer.com/article/10.1... The four on this study have been historically neutral to accepting of porn addiction, study concludes that porn addiction doesn't exist, but negative self-value behavior does exist from its use ie. "Only sinners watch porn, I watch porn, ergo I'm bad"
this is a one off example, but a close friend who thought he had a porn addiction was diagnosed with OCD and the porn was a compulsory habit, not an actual addiction to the porn itself.
That does sound like he had a problem with his consumption though. So apart from the word 'addicition' it'd be a case for both sides of the argument here? (I've talked about it before on here, I think I've had similar.)
You might be able to have a conversation about unhealthy consumption habits on lots of topics, but "addiction" is a serious word with a particular meaning and a LOT of cultural baggage, so the distinction is extremely important.
no, compulsions arent formed by consuming wrong. you should read into ocd, it is more specific it often sounds
than it often sounds, even
I'm not sure what you mean by consuming wrong? And I definitely didn't say it causes OCD type compulsion, to engage in any activity. Can you elaborate on this one?
did u miss the mention of ocd in the post u responded to? understandable if so, i blank out on words all the time
No, I was agreeing with OCD as a plausible source for a pornography fixation, and saying that 'addicition' is an overly colloquial term for what would nonetheless be a tough spot for that person, wrt mental health.
okidoki. i read your response as suggesting it's actually pretty much the same as addiction. glad thats cleared up
What I object to is people saying "porn addiction is fake", and the meat of their argument is that the label is scientifically inaccurate, but the claim they're getting at is that the problem a person is facing is thus also some kind of fraudulent claim beyond the matter of labelling.
in his case he didn't believe it was porn itself that was to blame. and once he was able to get some tools from therapy to help he was able to move on from it better. i'm inclined to believe it is less addiction.
If they cared about people's health and addiction they would not allow sports betting to be advertised so heavily and the sports betting apps would be fucking illegal because gambling is the addiction with the highest mortality rate.
People made fun of right wing Christianity when backlash to Nas X brought "spiritual warfare" into mainstream scrutiny and the Atlanta spa shooter did so with "sex addiction" And I need more people to realize That they're fundamentally speaking a different language than the rest of us
When the people who coined the term say "porn addiction" they absolutely mean it in the same sense that Immortan Joe warns you not to get addicted to water
That is an astoundingly good way to put that.
I fully agree with your forst statement on expressing the positive and healthy aspects for oneself through smut. But even if there s no science thesis or other backing the addiction thing, maybe bc there hasn't been enough/serious searches, I know quite a few ppl whose irl sex life was ruined (+)
by porn overconsumption. The body will need progressively more extreme content to reach the stimulation it needs to "get there" and when irl happens and sex is mostly simple at first, they can't get anywhere. The brain isn't stimuated enough. Cutting porn and back to roots helped reset that issue.
Porn addiction can be a thing. But it's no more harmful than social media addiction or video game addiction. It's also less harmful than gambling addiction, alcoholism or nicotine addiction. Porn is fine. Just be conscious when you're consuming it and know porn≠sex
Actually, no, it's not a thing: www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/wome...
Literally anything can be an addiction. Porn addiction is not an epidemic, but it can be abused and people can be addicted to is, in the same way they can be addicted to video games, smart phones, social media, shopping, or anything which can cause that dopamine loop. While not an addiction in the
Sense of a chemical dependency (alcohol, cocaine, meth, etc). They can still cause psychological or social distress. Saying porn cannot cause social or psychological problems due to its overuse/psychological dependence. I believe properly they're considered compulsions and not addictions, when
There isnt a chemical dependency, but we're not talking about this in a clinical sense, we're talking in general language, and people don't refer to things as a shopping/porn compulsion, they do as a shopping/porn addiction. Porn, shopping, gambling, social media are all harmless and benign most of
The time. It doesn't mean they can't cause problems in people's lives.
one of the biggest psyops in human history its not addiction its called having a normal function of the human body not to say it can’t get out of control, but people never use the term right with this