The internet has been a major contributor to the growth of problematic porn use, PIED, and similar issues. But, here at PornHelp, we think another factor has been equally, and perhaps even more, significant: virtually unlimited amounts of porn on the internet are available for free. As much as the internet made it possible to avoid the social stigma of being seen in public buying porn, free porn has enabled overuse and abuse by removing financial breakwaters to accessing vast oceans of porn videos. Speaking from personal experience, we believe there’s a direct correlation between the ever-expanding availability of free porn on the internet and the intensification of a porn use problem, particularly among people too young to have a credit card or PayPal account.
Still, we’ve always wondered: why is porn available for free? The bulk of porn (even so-called “amateur” porn) is produced as a commercial product. It costs money to make even a low quality porn video, and that cost has to be recouped somehow. So, how is it that enough porn is available to make it possible to binge on porn for years without ever spending a penny? And, is there any hope of that changing? Two posts on Quora, here and here, provide fascinating responses to those questions. (Trigger warning: these Quora posts name porn sites and generally acknowledge the nature of porn content.) One, written by Garion Hall, the owner of a popular porn site, explains trends in the industry at large. The other, written by Sabrina Deep, a popular adult performer and writer, discusses what it really means for porn to be “free”. Their conclusion, to paraphrase Milton Friedman, is that there’s no such thing as free porn…almost. To set the stage, we find it helpful to compare the porn industry to the music industry, which is in a period of massive transition brought on by internet connectivity and evolving methods of sharing digital media. The music business has been very aggressive in tackling digital copying and sharing. Yes, illegal sharing of music online continues to be a problem, but today it’s pretty hard to download a popular album from the internet “for free” without, at the very least, knowing you’re doing something you shouldn’t. The music industry’s clampdown on digital sharing has managed to be pretty effective among average consumers because music distribution has historically been concentrated in the hands of a few large, well-financed players. The same is also true of the tv and movie industries, which have also pursued aggressive anti-piracy campaigns. In contrast, according to Hall and Deep, porn has historically been an industry of small producers who were not able, or willing, to mount an effective, coordinated response when digital sharing exploded and their content began appearing everywhere on the internet. The industry has started to consolidate, notably in the form of the most popular “tube” sites coming under the control of the company Mindgeek. But, says Hall, for the moment Mindgeek’s business model is itself based upon exploiting the weakness and lack of coordination among small porn producers A significant portion of Mindgeek’s “tube” content consists of stolen videos, which it takes down only when asked. Mindgeek’s idea, it seems, is to establish a dominant position as an online porn distributor, so that eventually any producer who wants adult content to reach a large market must pay Mindgeek for access to a “tube” site. Deep also points out that Mindgeek controls two large porn production houses, making it “vertically integrated" and allowing it to promote its own content. The upshot: someone is paying for that "free" porn, and it's probably the small-time porn producers whose videos are being pirated. Ok, sure, you may be saying, that’s all well and good, but porn is still free for consumers, right? That depends on what you mean by free, says Deep. To begin with, pirating increases the costs of paid porn for anyone who opens their wallets to buy adult content. But that's not all. Porn sites - not just the “tubes,” all of them - earn revenues by bombarding users with advertising and mining users’ personal information. Sites install cookies on consumers’ computers, and sell the information to aggregators and advertisers. So, porn is “free” only in the sense that users are not forking over hard currency in exchange for pictures and videos. But, those consumers are still parting with substitute currencies - namely, their attention spans and information about their erotic tastes, viewing patterns and buying habits. The same goes for porn found on social media platforms (which, if anything, have far more advanced analytics available to them, and more well-heeled customers lining up to buy their data). And, of course, once porn users start moving away from “mainstream” porn and social media sites to more obscure corners of the internet, they risk malware infections and other nastiness. So, says Deep, porn isn’t as “free” as it appears. Deep and Hall predict more changes in store for the porn industry as digital sharing and a cumbersome digital copyright enforcement system continue to decimate the business model for small producers. In time and in some ways, the porn industry seems likely to mature and come to resemble the music and film businesses. At that point, perhaps producers and large distributors like Mindgeek will find a reliable way to charge for porn and prevent most users' access to pirated "free" content. That development would certainly help prevent some problematic porn use, particularly in young people. And yet, there is already an infinite catalog of porn out there, available for download by anyone comfortable with parting with their personal information and/or risking a malware infection (which is to say, just about any teenage boy alive). The digital rights to all that porn are so widely dispersed, and its commercial value is so minimal, that it seems impossible the porn industry will ever want, much less manage, to retake control of it. So, unfortunately, even if the porn industry installs effective controls on future porn videos, it seems unlikely the industry will ever rebuild financial barriers to accessing existing porn sufficient to make a meaningful dent in the growth of problematic porn use.
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In our most recent post, we picked apart the dictionary definition of “addiction.” Our conclusion: people use the word “addiction” to say so many things in so many contexts that the word has become practically meaningless. The sentence “John is addicted to slot machines” could mean John really enjoys slot machines, or that John has a debilitating gambling problem, or both. Confusion reigns.
That seems, to us, like a problem worth addressing. “Addiction” is one of the most prominent concepts in social discourse today. Shouldn’t we all at least try to get on the same page about what it means? In this post, we look at a definition of addiction that we all might rally around. It’s a definition of “addiction” developed by experts in the field of addiction medicine. And, it has some fascinating implications for coming to grips with how some of us used, and abused, porn. The American Society of Addiction Medicine defines “addiction” this way: "Addiction is a primary, chronic disease of brain reward, motivation, memory and related circuitry. Dysfunction in these circuits leads to characteristic biological, psychological, social and spiritual manifestations. This is reflected in an individual pathologically pursuing reward and/or relief by substance use and other behaviors. Addiction is characterized by inability to consistently abstain, impairment in behavioral control, craving, diminished recognition of significant problems with one’s behaviors and interpersonal relationships, and a dysfunctional emotional response. Like other chronic diseases, addiction often involves cycles of relapse and remission. Without treatment or engagement in recovery activities, addiction is progressive and can result in disability or premature death." Now, that’s a lot to chew on, so let’s break it down. First, and most prominently, addiction is called a “disease” (which, interestingly, is the same word 12-step programs have used to describe “addiction” for decades). It’s a disease that’s “primary” (meaning it arises spontaneously, not as a result of some other disease, injury or event) and “chronic” (meaning it’s long-lasting). And it’s a disease affecting the brain’s circuitry for “reward” (the brain telling you something feels good), “motivation” (the brain telling you to do something) and “memory.” Next, according to the ASAM definition, this disease of addiction has certain characteristic “manifestations”, or traits, summed up with the mnemonic device “ABCDE”: “Inability to consistently Abstain, impairment in Behavioral control, Craving, Diminished recognition of significant problems with one’s behaviors and interpersonal relationships, and a dysfunctional Emotional response.” Finally, this disease of addiction is reflected in behaviors, namely “pathologically pursuing reward and/or relief by substance use and other behaviors.” What’s so fascinating about this final element the ASAM definition of “addiction” is that these behaviors - doing drugs, binge drinking, etc. - are what we commonly think of as “being addicted.” But, according to the ASAM, that’s not quite accurate. The behaviors aren’t “addiction” themselves, but rather, they are actions signifying the presence of a brain disease called “addiction” - a disease that exists independent of those actions. To put it another way, the ASAM definition of “addiction” suggests that the problem might not be that the sentence “John is addicted to slot machines” has multiple potential meanings. Instead, the problem could be that “John is addicted to slot machines” misuses the word “addiction” altogether. If the ASAM definition holds true, John isn’t addicted to anything. Instead, the accurate way to describe John’s condition would be “John has a brain disease called addiction. In John, that disease shows up in the way he can’t control himself around slot machines.” And, if that’s the case, then addiction could show up in lots of other ways, too, such as compulsively binging on porn. The ASAM definition has the potential to change the way we use the word “addiction.” It also raises complex and challenging issues for another day, like “if addiction is a disease, how does a person contract it?” and “if my compulsive, destructive actions are the result of my having a brain disease called addiction, what responsibility do I have for them, and for seeking treatment?” It also bears noting that the “addiction as disease” concept does not enjoy universal acceptance. One commentator, for instance, recently posited that addiction isn’t a disease but, instead, it’s a learning disorder. For our part, we find the ASAM definition of “addiction” somewhat comforting. For many of us, the awful experience of compulsively binging on porn, despising what it was doing to our lives, and trying to stop but repeatedly failing, led to enormous confusion. Why was this happening? What the hell was wrong with us? Perhaps the answer to those questions was “addiction” in the ASAM sense, a dysfunction in our brain’s reward, motivation and memory circuitry that led to the behavior we so hated, but could just as easily have led to some other equally destructive actions, like runaway drug use or problem gambling. Gaining that perspective on our porn use problem eased the shame we felt about our vexing, embarrassing failures, and offered us a tangible, identifiable problem to tackle once and for all. Even so, it also occurs to us that perhaps we’re asking the term “addiction” to do too much work in the lives of people struggling with problematic behaviors. Maybe the many afflictions we refer to as “addiction” exhibit too many causes and variations to be captured in a single word. Instead, maybe it's better to focus on making sure people have access to resources for helping them stop destructive behaviors, whatever we call those behaviors. After all, for people stuck in a downward spiral of porn abuse, often the most important thing is simply knowing that they’re not alone and that there is hope for finding a way out. There is a national discussion raging around the topic of “addiction,” be it “porn addiction,” “opioid addiction,” or “addiction to Game of Thrones.” But, what, exactly, does the word “addiction” mean? To ask the question is to confront a thicket of conflicting and confusing answers. Today, we thought it would be useful to pick up our proverbial machete and start bushwhacking through the definitional undergrowth in hopes of finding some clarity.
In this blog post, we tackle the common, everyday (which is to say, non-clinical) usage of the word “addiction.” This seems like a worthwhile place to start, considering how frequently people claim to be “addicted” to something-or-other these days. The casually expansive use of the word “addiction” in everyday speech leads us to ask: are we all using the word “addiction” the same way, or is “addiction” losing its meaning even as it surges as a topic of national conversation? Unfortunately, we don’t have the time or resources here at PornHelp to conduct a broad survey of the usage of “addiction” in everyday English. So, as a shorthand proxy for that kind of study, we’ve decided to examine the definition of “addiction” published by Miriam Webster, the vaunted dictionary company. If we are going to find a reasonably reliable “everyday” definition of addiction, we figure, Merriam Webster should be as good a place as any to suss it out. Merriam Webster offers two definitions of “addiction”, one “simple” and one “full”,” and they’re revealing. The “simple” definition of “addiction” reads:
In contrast, the “full” definition of addiction offers these alternative meanings: (1) “the quality or state of being addicted;” (2) “compulsive need for and use of a habit-forming substance (as heroin, nicotine, or alcohol) characterized by tolerance and by well-defined physiological symptoms upon withdrawal; broadly: persistent compulsive use of a substance known by the user to be harmful.” Got that? No? Good, because neither do we. What’s going on here? Merriam Webster's “simple” and “full” definitions of “addiction” seem at odds with one another. On one hand, the “simple” definition of “addiction” covers a swath of behavior that’s so broad as to be almost meaningless. Defined as it is, an “addiction” may or may not cause psychological distress, may or may not require therapeutic intervention, and may or may not destroy lives. The “simple” definition reduces the word “addiction” to a subjective statement about the quantity or enjoyment of a behavior, so that a sentence like “I am addicted to playing slot machines” becomes utterly ambiguous. It’s this usage of the word "addiction" that inspires oft-seen newspaper headlines to ask things like “Can You Really Be Addicted to [name your substance/behavior]?,” falsely implying that the word “really” supplies definitional clarity. On the other hand, Merriam Webster’s “full” definition whittles the meaning of “addiction” down to the precision of a dirty needle point. To paraphrase that formulation, “addiction” means the state of being hooked on drugs or alcohol, characterized by physical tolerance, withdrawal, and (perhaps) a recognition by the user that the “substance” in question is harmful. This definition, in other words, reduces “addiction” to a wholly negative and necessarily physical status. Only drunks and junkies occupy the realm of “addiction” under this definition. It suggests a need for medical care, and that the condition may be a moral failing. But, despite its seeming clarity, this definition also makes the statement “I’m addicted to playing slot machines” impossible, which in turn conflicts with the accepted recognition of problem gambling as an addictive disorder. So, there you have it. According to Merriam Webster, the everyday English meaning of “addiction” is either entirely subjective and potentially meaningless, or rigorously objective and fatally restrictive. In other words, parsing the dictionary definition of “addiction’ doesn’t get us very far in clarifying what people mean when they say the word “addiction” in non-clinical settings. But, the exercise wasn't for naught. By illustrating just how ambiguous our everyday use of the word “addiction” has become, we're reminded that we should try to take care in how we deploy the word “addiction” so that confusion doesn’t creep in. And, we can appreciate the dry irony of the fact that in everyday speech, at least, the word “addiction” seemingly defies overuse and abuse. It seems so clear in retrospect. Life got difficult. Job stress. Marital strain. Loneliness. Things just didn’t feel right. During those moments, a switch flipped in our heads. We wanted those negative feelings to go away. We wanted the world to leave us alone. And there it was, the place where we could find some respite: the porn cave. Dark, inviting, enveloping. A place many of us had first discovered as awkward adolescents stumbling through the social pain of middle and high school. A place that had only grown deeper and darker and more enticing as we (and the internet) aged.
Again, and again, and again, we returned to the porn cave to escape from our lives. Sometimes we told ourselves we’d just duck in for a minute or two, but we almost always ended up staying for hours. Often, stopping by the porn cave became an automatic ritual at the end of a long day. Over time, our resistance to the sudden urge to escape to the porn cave weakened to a hair-trigger. We even found ourselves heading for the porn cave when we felt happy about something. The porn cave was our refuge. When we disappeared inside, the chaos of life didn’t feel so overwhelming. In its darkness, stress and tension and sadness and anger seemed to disappear. But outside the cave, those feelings kept roaring back. It didn’t help that long nights in the porn cave left us feeling physically and mentally spent, unable to give our all to our work, families, and lives. We made things worse by breaking repeated promises to ourselves that we’d stop going into the porn cave, hating our inability to keep those commitments. To soothe our anger with ourselves, where would we go? Back to the porn cave, of course. Where else? New research, described in this Psychology Today post, confirms something that many of us already know from long and ugly experience. “[W]ith porn there is a clear link between repeated attempts at mood regulation and problematic usage.” Translation: many problem porn users head for the porn cave to avoid bad feelings, only to create a destructive feedback loop; escaping from life’s problems into the porn cave causes negative consequences, which in turn strengthens the desire to take refuge in the porn cave. Yes, it all seems so obvious now. The porn cave was a dive bar by another name. A drug den. A raid on the refrigerator. An all-night blackjack game. Many of us were too young or caught up in our busy lives to recognize our growing dependence on the cave’s destructive isolation. We finally woke up to the reality. Hiding in the cave, flooding our brains with dopamine, had become the only way we knew to quiet our minds, but our dependence on the cave was only making our problems worse. It took confronting the painful emotions we had suppressed with porn and, with help from others, developing new ways to cope with them, to keep ourselves out of the cave for good. Here at PornHelp, we like our exercise. Last Sunday, we planned to meet some friends for a run on a popular local running trail. We got there first and soon noticed something amiss. Clustered in groups of two or three were young-ish looking men and women scurrying this way and that on the running path, their phones held at eye level. Many were making excited, clipped comments to each other and grinning. But their eyes never left their phones, even when they nearly collided with joggers and bikers.
What the hell? Were these giggling zombies on some kind of scavenger hunt? Had we stumbled into an obtuse flash mob? Well, almost, as it turns out. This was our first experience with Pokemon GO, the gaming app that is apparently so popular that it is rumored to have overtaken “porn” as the top Google search (temporarily, no doubt). Yesterday we read this Psychology Today post, which explains what Pokemon GO is, and discusses its potential merits and harms. In the merits category: therapeutic benefits, including help with social anxiety, mood enhancement and physical activity. In the harms camp (aside from blocking running paths): addiction. Another post, which appeared today, also raises the specter of addiction. And then there’s this story about two men who fell off of a cliff while playing Pokemon GO. Now, we’re not saying the Pokemon GO zombies we encountered were necessarily addicted to the game. We’re hopeless optimists, and as such believe that most people can keep their tech use under control. Most Pokemon GO players will avoid hurting themselves chasing virtual monsters, just as most people will ignore their GPS when it tells them to drive into a lake. That being said, the speed with which experts started warning about addiction, and the fact that some players have already, dramatically, put their safety at risk while playing, are perhaps signs that problematic Pokemon use is something new to monitor. At the least, the Pokemon GO craze might serve as a reminder of the powerful influence digital images can exert over people, particularly those susceptible to obsessive or compulsive behavior. For our part, however, we are grateful for the Pokemon GO players we (almost) ran into, because their frenetic wandering recalled, for us, our experience of what it was like to live with an internet porn addiction. Here, pacing our running path, were people relying on digital images to “augment” reality while losing awareness of, well, actual reality. Their apparent need to see something occur in a virtual world supplanted the instinct to take care of themselves in the physical one. They were, quite literally, walking in circles chasing ephemeral rewards despite the potentially negative consequences. Face to face with this uncanny enactment of addiction behavior, we knew what we had to do. We found our friends and, basking in the beautiful weather, we ran. The Republican Party has approved a platform plank declaring pornography a “public health crisis”. This mirrors the passage earlier this year of a non-binding declaration by the Utah legislature to the same effect. The “is porn a public health crisis or isn’t it” question has been widely debated in the media, so we’ll avoid rehashing it here. But we do think it’s worth reflecting on what the insertion of pornography policy into a major party political platform could mean for those of us hoping for growth in research into pornography’s physical, behavioral, spiritual, and societal effects, and into effective methods of treatment. In short, it’s not good.
There is no secret that we are living in one of the most polarized political climates in decades. The absurdly low favorability ratings of both parties’ presumptive presidential nominees all but assure that come next January we will have a President who roughly fifty percent of the country despises, and with whom Congress may have even a harder time working than it has with President Obama. The prospect of continued gridlock in Washington amplifies the risks and consequences of either party adopting a platform relative to pornography, because it channels the ongoing discussion about porn into the stifling confines of right versus left politics, with all of the vitriol and idiocy that follows from that myopic perspective. If we are not careful, soon we will see accusations flying that Republicans are “anti-porn” and Democrats are “pro-porn”. That Republicans hate sexual freedom, and Democrats love sexual exploitation. The race will be on to see who can be faster to accuse so-and-so of being a hypocrite, a deviant, or both. Lost in that tumult will be the fact that people who struggle with problem porn use cannot be conveniently lumped into simple categories. While some research supports the notion that the more religious a person is, the more likely he is to perceive himself as addicted to pornography, there is no data (at least, none we are aware of) that supports the idea that problem pornography use only affects people of one political persuasion. Indeed, in our personal experience, people who struggle to rid their lives of porn have widely divergent political views, and want to quit porn for a variety of reasons, most having nothing to do with politics. And, of course, questions about porn - which is, if anything, a multi-faceted topic - do not just touch upon over-consumption. Arguments have been advanced that porn promotes sex trafficking, misogyny, and violence against women, among other social ills. A person’s political leanings should not determine whether he or she supports research into these claims, and appropriate policy action if they are accurate. We hope (naively perhaps, but sincerely nonetheless) that both major political parties will take care against politicizing the complicated question of pornography’s role in our lives and culture, and instead focus on funding quality research into porn’s effects, addressing any soundly demonstrated problems porn causes, and finding effective means of treatment for those for whom porn has become a debilitating problem. It would be a loss to everyone interested in tackling issues related to pornography if the discussion were to fall victim to the dysfunction of our current political climate. Last night, we followed with interest an exchange on Twitter between the founder of NoFap.com, Alexander Rhodes, and two scholars who - among those who pay attention to such things - are known as oft-quoted skeptics of the “existence” of sex and porn addiction. The discussion started when one of those academics, the psychologist David Ley, Ph.D., re-tweeted a recent New York Times interview with Rhodes along with a comment suggesting that Rhodes had started NoFap.com as a “joke”. Nicole R. Prause, Ph.D., the other scholar and a neuroscientist, chimed in with a meme likening Rhodes to a “neckbeard on the internet”. Then Rhodes, never a shrinking violet, tweeted a response suggesting that the two doctors stick to doing their “science” (his quotation marks) instead of trying to tear down someone trying to help others. The whole discussion can be found by clicking around the links above.
Then things took an unexpected turn. Ley persisted in needling Rhodes for a few tweets, but ultimately the two reached a detente by agreeing they shared the same desire to help people, albeit in distinct ways. Prause took a different tack. When Rhodes asked (in earnest, so far as we can tell) why Prause seemed to reject the validity of a body of published neuroscience research that is collected and reviewed on the website www.yourbrainonporn.com, Prause issued a broadside against the administrator of that site, Gary Wilson, referring to him as an “unemployed blogger who has a police report threatening my lab and no-contact order for harassment.” Rhodes responded that he didn’t know anything about that, but in any event that wasn’t a response to the actual research posted on Wilson’s site. Prause responded by posting a link to a chapter she co-authored in a 2015 book called “New Views on Pornography,” describing it as “documented” proof of her claim about Wilson. Prause then instructed Rhodes, twice, not to contact her again (which seemed odd since it was Prause who had joined the discussion mocking Rhodes in the first place, but whatever). And then, to top it all off, Wilson tweeted that Prause's claims were false and linked to a page on YBoP that recites detailed allegations of harassment by Prause and others against Wilson. We’ve read the book chapter Prause sent Rhodes, which is titled “The Science and Politics of Sex Addiction Research.” It consists mostly of a discussion of the appropriate “model” for understanding compulsive pornography use, arguing that the addiction "construct” is not supported by the authors’ research. The article then concludes with an account of what Prause and her co-author describe as a pattern of harassment by “proaddiction, antipornography groups,” including “religious groups, treatment clinics, and bloggers,” in response to the publication of their research. Elements of these groups, according to the authors, spread lies about the research, sent repeated unsolicited emails to one of the authors (resulting, apparently, in a police complaint being filed) and engaged in the sort of internet-based aggression and misogyny often deployed by anonymous trolls against female celebrities. The book chapter does not specify which of these actions Prause attributes to Wilson - neither he nor his website appear by name in the text or footnotes. Prause’s tweets to Rhodes, however, implied that Wilson was the person about whom a police report had been filed relating to unsolicited emails, and, possibly, that Wilson was the “blogger” who, according to the chapter, stole “personal photographs” of Prause and posted them on “Web blogs with sexist diatribes against her person.” If accurate, these allegations are no laughing matter. Then again, nor are the allegations about the harassment Wilson says Prause and her allies perpetrated against him. We do not know Gary Wilson or Nicole Prause personally, and cannot comment on what appears to be a longstanding and acrimonious dispute between them. Nor do we wish to rehash or (God forbid) reanimate that dispute here (which is a warning to anyone thinking of using the comments section to do so - you will be deleted). But we do think it's important to highlight the apparent tension in their statements as an illustration of the secular context in which a lot of discussion around sex and porn addiction seems to be happening. It reminds us, sadly, of the South Park episode where religion is replaced by science, only to result in science becoming a religion. Different vocabulary, same passions. Speaking from our perspective as spectators (albeit with an admittedly vested interest in helping people deal with porn problems), we can say that we’ve come to rely on Wilson’s site, www.yourbrainonporn.com, as an invaluable and uniquely comprehensive collection of research on compulsive porn use and its collateral effects. YBoP undeniably takes firm positions on the scientific implications of the research posted there, and does not mince words in criticizing Prause’s and Ley’s methods and conclusions. But, the site also links to the full-text of most of the research it discusses (including that of Prause and Ley), enabling readers to delve into the minutiae and reach their own conclusions. It is a refreshing source of primary material in an often barren internet landscape, particularly in this age when much important research is hidden behind academic journal paywalls. Which is to say, wherever the truth lies in the Prause-Wilson dustup, we are grateful to Gary Wilson for his diligence in making so much important scientific research available to the public. The same cannot be said, at the moment, of our views of Prause and Ley. In their Twitter discussion with Rhodes, the two scientists exhibited a regrettable tendency to mock non-academics who offer opinions about the use and abuse of pornography. We would be inclined to dismiss their mindset as an understandable, if somewhat crass, pride in one’s own scholarly achievement were it not for Prause and Ley’s equally regrettable tendency to give quotes to decidedly non-academic publications that write uncritical and reductive articles questioning whether sexual addiction is "real” without so much as acknowledging the complexity of that question. Whether purposefully or not, through their statements, Ley and Prause leave the public with the impression that they’re perfectly willing to tell non-credentialed ignoramuses what to think about the science of compulsive sexual behavior, so long as we don’t ask any questions. And here, we think, is where the tension highlighted in last night’s Twitter discussion might take root. To us, Ley and Prause come off as blithely dismissive of the very real, painful experiences of those struggling with the sort of problem porn use documented on the discussion boards of sites like NoFap.com and YBoP. We ground our perspective in the shared experience of those for whom compulsive porn use has exacted an enormous toll on life, relationships, and physical and mental health. People struggling with porn live in a waking nightmare of behavior that they return to over and over, despite the negative consequences and repeated, failed attempts to stop. For many, porn use has escalated over time to the point where they crave porn at all hours of the day, have an unceasing, overwhelming obsession with finding a “perfect,” but ever-elusive, picture or video, “lose time” over the course of night-long binge sessions, and experience physical and psychological torment when they try to stop. These people call their condition an "addiction” because that is the only word in the popular lexicon that describes the agony they are living. And when those poor souls read articles in trashy magazines quoting Prause and Ley in support of the claim that their suffering isn't "real," or that they’re just repressed because of their (often non-existent) religious beliefs, or that viewing porn has actually been good for them…well, not only does that seem maddeningly obtuse, it also just plain hurts. Of course, being hurt by words is no excuse for harassment. Commentary about scientific research should stick to facts and methods, and never devolve into ad hominem attacks or worse. But, discussions - particularly those in the realm of the human sexual experience - should also welcome critical questions from all corners, whether or not those questions come from someone with a Ph.D. after his or her name. Ph.D.'s are not the exclusive purveyors of insight about sexuality or anything else, nor should they fail to recognize the inherent limitations they face when exploring real world problems in artificial research settings. In some way or another, all of us are limited in our ability to tackle the very complex question of why some people compulsively use porn despite destructive consequences, but that doesn't warrant any of us being shushed. We hope, for the sake of fostering open and important discussion, that Wilson will continue to update YBoP, and that Ley and Prause will try to ensure that their public comments reflect the empathy and compassion they no doubt share for anyone whose porn use is causing severe distress. Because, the thing is, we need Prause and Ley to participate in this discussion. Their research and theories point to factors other than the content of pornographic images as the source of porn users' distress, and that certainly merits analysis. Sure, we strongly disagree with Ley’s theory that normative societal pressures are the predominant source of psychological upset over porn use, and with Prause’s challenge to the “addiction model” (such as it is) as a framework of analysis of compulsive porn use, but that's not a reason to ignore them. Research may indeed conclude that porn (however one defines it) is not inherently harmful like, say, methamphetamine is, and that certain societal norms make suffering more acute. But, perhaps reasonable minds will also conclude that it is better to address porn like alcohol - harmless (even beneficial) for some people, at some ages, in some forms, in some quantities, and in some contexts - but also a vector for debilitating overuse in a way that can - and does - destroy health, relationships, families, careers, and lives in the same manner as so many other tragic addictions. |
AuthorLonger-form writing from the PornHelp team on current topics relating to problem porn use and recovery. Archives
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