Porn Addiction?

Porn absolutely can be and is addictive for many people, but we also view it in a skewed way in the Church. Just like social drinking by responsible users isn’t a clinical addiction, neither is occasional viewing of porn. The industry is vile and truly evil, in the aggregate, but, at the individual level, not all use is addiction.

I have a harsh view of therapeutic approaches that diagnose and label anything that does not meet clinical diagnostic disorder measurements. There is a lot of money in non-clinical treatment, and even well-meaning, sincere people can do a lot of damage if they don’t know what they are doing and end up requiring unique therapy for all actions.

There’s definitely an unhealthy obsession with pornography in the church. Porn is a real problem, but the church’s methods are not helpful. We seem to spend a lot more time scaring people away from it instead of how to move on from it if you’ve already used it (which many, perhaps most, have). This just creates shame. If after using it a few times you are already labeled an addict, unclean, unworthy of dating/marriage, unable to take sacrament, etc, then you might as well give up and keep doing it. Labeling someone an addict can send the message that they are incapable of stopping, which is not a helpful way to view things.

This really frustrates me because like many people my age, I struggle at times with pornography. But there seems to be little acknowledgement that shame and addiction language often only make things worse. I need to be feel like I can move on from my mistakes, not that I will be trapped by them. Treating porn as a chemical addiction also makes it easy to overlook reasons behind the behavior like shame, loneliness, and hopelessless, which some of the rhetoric at church can exacerbate. Honestly the message I need is that I can simply move on and put things behind me, not that I am some seriously damaged person who needs to go through a lengthy rehab program to have any hope of changing.

Thanks SamBee. My next question is: how pervasive is it?

(I am really showing my ignorance on this topic.)

What does a life destroying sexual addiction mean? I don’t want to sound silly about this. I really want to know.

I once read a book about sexual addictions. My takeaway from the book is that engaging in risky or self-destructive behavior in pursuit of the addiction is a hallmark. One case study was of a man employed as an executive in an office with a private bathroom. He was reprimanded for looking at porn from his office computer. Then later his secretary complained that he spent an inordinate amount of time in his office bathroom. Turns out he was looking at porn on his device (blackberry?). He lost his job and his wife left him. He still spends multiple hours every day alone in his studio apartment consuming porn. In this case, pursuit of the porn addiction was more important than keeping his job. Whatever, part of the brain that performs impulse control and says, “Hang on! Let’s be reasonable about this! We can look at porn after work!” was not functioning correctly. The book dealt with extreme cases of clinical sexual addiction. Lack of moderation. Lack of boundaries. Lack of impulse control.

Addiction is a persistent, compulsive dependence on a behavior or substance … despite harmful consequence.

This is why I love the approach used in the “naked people on your iPod” article I linked to earlier. It compares urges to look at naked people to urges to eat bacon or doughnuts. They can satisfy a desire but are not really good for you. Empty Calories? Moderation and boundaries are important but do not freak out – we are talking about eating a doughnut and not about handling nuclear waste.

Porn absolutely can be and is addictive for many people, but we also view it in a skewed way in the Church. Just like social drinking by responsible users isn’t a clinical addiction, neither is occasional viewing of porn.

Yes. From what I have read from the people making the case that Porn is habit forming and addictive, they say that it is similar in this way to other behavioral addictions such as gambling, overeating, or shopping. All of those things can deliver elevated dopamine levels and can lead to real clinical addictions in some people and in some circumstances (the casino where I work has signs posted giving information to problem gamblers that want help for just this reason). But just like not everyone who gambles (or even gambles a lot), overeats (or even overeats frequently), or shops (or even shops to excess) is an addict – people that consume pornography with moderation and boundaries are probably not addicts.

My major concern is for my children. The bishop’s counselor that I spoke to said in the SS meeting and to me later that he doesn’t ask the boys if they have seen pornography because everyone has at one time or another – He instead asks them when was the last time that they saw pornography. 😯 :wtf: 😯 :wtf: This concerns me. I do not know the context of his statement or in what situations he might ask this question … but I would really prefer that he never ask my son about pornography … ever. How can I push back against this without seeming like I am justifying and condoning pornography use? I do not want my children to feel that sexuality and arousal are sinful, corrupt, or evil. Sexuality, puberty, and hormones can be messy. Growing up can be hard enough without shaming.

I don’t want to give the green light on bacon or doughnuts. We try really hard to model a healthy food relationship in my house. We are all about portion control and plenty of fruits and vegetables and energy to live and jump and explore. But we do also enjoy the occasional BLT or celebratory doughnut with extra spinkles. It is just part of life.

I have always been a bit uncomfortable using the term “addiction” to describe porn use. It forces the issue into a “black and white” conceptualization (you’re either addicted or you’re not addicted). This is why a member of the Church casually viewing Victoria’s Secrets website may be described as “addicted to porn.” Is this really what we mean? I’m not for one moment suggesting that viewing such a website is okay but these problems are definitely on a continuum.

If you look at pictures of naked individuals, say, once a week, is this a problem? Well, it may have spiritual ramifications that need to be considered but is probably not something that requires an intense intervention (but may need an intervention nonetheless). If you are viewing hard porn sites to the point that you can neither hold down a job nor maintain a relationship, is this a problem? Definitely! And it will probably require an intense intervention (what that might be I leave to the experts). What about the individual who is holding down a job and interacting with family and friends but spends a couple of hours each night on computer and phone viewing inappropriate sites? This person is somewhere in between and needs an intervention of some kind. The point is that each of these hypothetical examples can be classified as a “porn problem” but vary greatly in terms of expression and consequences. Is the term “addiction” truly useful? I suggest it is a term so emotionally loaded that it’s no wonder people work hard to hide their problems OR use it as an excuse for their compulsive behavior.

Finally, I believe that very few people have “porn problems.” They have “life problems” and they use porn to temporarily mute their pain and suffering. It may be that if you can address THOSE issues underlying the compulsive behavior that the behavior itself will go away. But our culture (while better than it used to be) is such that the social consequences for an individual whose porn use is made public are dire indeed. If we can help and support our brothers and sisters in a way that appropriately addresses their struggles without shaming them into silence, that would put ALL of us one step closer to living a Christlike life.

I agree, but I think that’s where the whole idea of addiction to porn comes from – the highlighted part is the same reason people turn to drugs and alcohol.

Yes, I agree that individuals can use porn to numb stress and life pain in similar ways than other “self medication”. I also agree that this has some things in common with individuals with gambling, gaming, or overeating problems. It can become a coping mechanism and not an especially healthy one.

There is a correlation between porn use and loneliness. The following quote is from the first article that Minyan Man shared:

Pornography use begets loneliness, and loneliness begets pornography use. In Pornography Use and Loneliness: A Bidirectional Recursive Model and Pilot Investigation, Butler, Pereyra, Drap, Leonhardt, and Skinner (2018) surveyed 1,247 participants in English-speaking countries around the world to develop a sophisticated statistical model of how various factors related to loneliness and pornography use. Overall, they found that porn use was significantly associated with loneliness. In addition, loneliness was significantly associated with pornography use, suggesting a two-way relationship. In fact, for each “unit” of porn use, loneliness increased significantly by a factor of 0.20. For each unit of loneliness, porn used increased by a factor of 0.16. In addition, as shown in prior research, pornography use was greater for men and was lower for married people. Greater religiousness reduced pornography use, and higher educational level was associated with reduced loneliness. The authors discuss that pornography use is associated with relationship distress, disrupted attachment, and strain on pair bonding. Harm to relationships is due to pornography’s “sexual script, consisting of eroticism, objectification, promiscuity, and misogyny [which] is on its face antithetical to secure attachment… conceptually linked to loneliness”—a perspective supported by the analysis of Pornhub videos’ depictions of sexuality.

Butler and colleagues go on to describe pornography addiction as arising from maladaptive efforts to use porn to alleviate loneliness and other negative feelings. In this view, pornography use is a two-phase process of arousal and euphoria during sexual stimulation, followed by relief and comfort after completion. Pornography provides temporary relief, but ultimately induces greater feelings of loneliness and isolation, disrupting normal attachment behavior, leading to greater difficulty forming stable, satisfying relationships, and further increasing the likelihood of using pornography as a substitute for intimacy with close others.

However, I believe that shaming individuals and/or calling them addicts is not helping matters. I am especially concerned with warping young people’s views of sexuality because of our demonizing and fear of the subject.

What a great Counselor. That to me, is the definition of what a Counselor should do.