Pornography and Cybersex Addiction: A Growing Concern

Pornography addiction

Pornography addiction invades the lives of people in all age groups, ethnic backgrounds, religious faiths, and social status. The largest consumers of pornography are the boys ages 12-17. The average age of first time contact of pornography among sex addicts is 11. By the data of National Coalition for the protection of Children & Families one in five children ages 10-17 have received a sexual solicitation over the Internet and one in four children who use the Internet are exposed to unwanted sexual material.

21 percent of teens say they have looked at something on the Internet that they wouldn’t want their parents to know. But porn addiction could appear among adult persons too. By Paul Strand calculations approximately 40 million people in the United States are sexually involved with the Internet. Internet pornography statistics shows that 25% of all search engine requests are pornography related - so sex is the number one topic searched on the internet. 47. 78 percent of families said pornography is a problem in their home.

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Cybersex addiction

Cybersex addiction was a major contributing factor to separation and divorces. In Jennifer P. Schneider’s (2000) survey 22. 3% of cybersex users were separated or divorced, and several others were seriously contemplating leaving. It’s interesting that rape statistics are proportionately higher in those states with higher pornography sales and lower in those states with lower pornography sales. Pornographs use effective technologies in porn business promotion.

They think “Yet porn is a business and it's as calculated and thought out as any form of marketing and impulse buying has ever been”.

ACLU president Nadine Strosser once said, "America has finally realized that it's just not one guy sitting in his basement consuming all this adult entertainment, it's citizens all over the country from every walk of life. " So every citizen of our country is a target and wanted client for porn industry marketing. Pornography addiction has four stages (fig. 1). The first stage is primary addiction effect.

Once involved in pornographic materials, porn customer (e. g. teenager) kept coming back for more and still more. The pornography provided very exciting and powerful imagery which they frequently recalled to mind and elaborated on in their fantasies. Once addicted, they could not throw off their dependence on the material by themselves, despite many negative consequences such as divorce, loss of family, and problems with the law (such as sexual assault, harassment or abuse of fellow employees).

Stage of escalation

On the second stage - stage of escalation, the addicted person required rougher, more explicit, more deviant sexual material to get their "highs" and "sexual turn-ons. " It was reminiscent of individuals afflicted with drug addictions. Over time there is nearly always an increasing need for more of the stimulant to get the same initial effect. Their addiction and escalation were mainly due to the powerful sexual imagery in their minds, implanted there by the exposure to pornography.

Desensitization phase

Later addicted will come to desensitization phase. Porn materials which was originally perceived as shocking, taboo-breaking, illegal, repulsive, or immoral, in time came to be seen as acceptable and commonplace. The sexual activity depicted in the pornography (no matter how anti-social or deviant) became legitimized. There was an increasing sense that "everybody does it" and this gave them permission to also do it, even though the activity was possibly illegal and contrary to their previous moral beliefs and personal standards.

The fourth and final phase of addiction is an increasing tendency to act out sexually the behaviors viewed in the pornography, including compulsive promiscuity, exhibitionism, group sex, voyeurism, frequenting massage parlors, pedophylia, sadomasochism and other perversion. This behavior frequently grew into a sexual addiction which they found themselves locked into and unable to change or reverse-no matter what the negative consequences were in their life. Female porn addiction

Some people believe that porn addiction is only male problem. There seems to be a certain stigma that women who are addicted to pornography assume. Shame is common among pornography addicts, but especially among those who are female. After all, they are supposed to be prim and proper with no propensity for illicit behavior. Pornographers have always depicted women as the object of desire. Women are supposed to be the sought after, not the seeker. Or so society silently says.

A lot of the pornography is produced by women

Sadly, but a lot of the pornography that is targeted toward women is produced by women - women who choose to victimize other women. Those producers understand the differences between the male and female brain and produce films and other pron materials with the female market in mind. They know that women normally look at sex through the filter of romance and relationship - both forms of communication. They enjoy hugging and kissing, as well as other forms of physical closeness while men are seduced by the visual imagery of the sex act itself (whatever form it takes).

Pornographers know that and have begun to produce porn films that include thinly veiled portrayals of relationships. Internet pornographers often use 'average looking' females as their subjects so that the female viewer can more easily relate by fantasizing or imagining herself playing the role. Likewise, they portray both the male and female pleasuring each other equally... In essence, the Internet pornographers have taken the successful 'soap opera/romance novel' genre and wrapped it around pornography in order to seduce the female viewer.