Source: uintacountyherald.com 6/19/24
Most people recognize the harm and dangers of drugs, alcohol and nicotine addiction, but porn addiction is often overlooked and not recognized due to the taboo nature of the subject. Most people don’t want to think about it, let alone talk about it. Porn addiction often begins at a young age due to technology and the internet making it more available than ever before.
Gary Wilson, teacher of anatomy and physiology in Scotland and author of “Your Brain on Porn,” wrote, “The neurological impact of frequent exposure to porn content, can reshape the brain’s reward systems and sexual response similar to other addictions. Troubling patterns develop leading to sexual dysfunction, escalating desires for extreme content and decreased satisfaction with real partners.”
The brain undergoes drastic changes during porn addiction; the hormonal balance in the brain is altered. The human brain consists of neurons that are activated by various types of stimuli from senses. The chemical dopamine, which is released by the brain, is a function of the stimuli. Dopamine is responsible for the feelings of excitement, happiness and rewarding experiences.
Pornography causes an intense chemical imbalance in the brain similar to what happens when using the drugs cocaine, heroin or ecstasy. The more time one spends watching porn, the more the need to increase the dopamine rush takes over.
According to an article in the Psychreg Journal from February 2023, Porn addicts will seek far more deviant content in videos to find the initial high once again, until they find themselves watching videos that they would have earlier viewed as appalling. This contributes to a porn addicts’ low self-esteem, depression, self-isolation, sexual dysfunction and a lack of real relationships.
Growing public concern about the sexual exploitation of children across the U.S. led Congress to pass the Protection of Children Against Sexual Exploitation Act of 1977. Because officials believed child pornography was funded and operated by highly-organized and wealthy groups, this legislation targeted the commercial production of visual and print depictions of obscenity involving minors.
In 1984, Congress established the U.S. Sentencing Commission with the mandate to establish sentencing policies and practices that consider the purposes of sentencing to avoid disparities. In 2005, the Supreme Court ruled the Sentencing Guidelines as “advisory,” giving more discretion to district courts. The goal is a sentence that is sufficient, but not greater than necessary.
The harsh sentencing for child pornography offenses reflects a moral panic and is fundamentally based on a presumption that anyone involved in child pornography, even a possessor or distributor (but not a producer) is an undetected child molester.
Those judges who enact lesser sentences may blame the defendant’s pornography obsession on depression or compulsive behavior caused by the ease and addictive quality of internet searching; or the defendant’s need to increase the level of deviance may be a result of their own childhood sexual abuse.
What is the answer — continued monitoring of social network sites, stiffer and longer sentences for offenders, all of the above, or a new approach? Recent studies among psychologists and mental health workers suggest a new approach, which could save lives and resources.
Why even post this pseudoscientific, thinly veiled religious fundamentalist propaganda here? It’s complete B.S.
I have a hard time buying any of this. I’ve said as much in the stupid “treatment” group that also pushed the narrative that watching porn makes it more likely that registrants will commit another sex offense. And yet, they can’t explain or even theorize how there hasn’t been an increase in sex crime (by registrants or otherwise) despite the exponential increase in porn consumption since the internet came about. Indeed, at any given time, 4 or 5 of the top 10 most visited sites will be porn sites. The usual reaction to that will be either leaning on an estimated (read: made up) number of unreported offenses or to equate porn with child porn. Neither argument has any basis in fact.
I’m sure many people are addicted to porn. Despite any harm it may bring to the individual, I don’t see what harm it does to society. Even this article says that porn addicts aren’t sexually satisfied by real world encounters. So shouldn’t it then follow that porn addicts are the least likely to commit an actual, physical sex offense?
Even if said addiction morphs into CP viewing, someone please explain how a person who views said media irreparably destroys the depicted victims lives despite (in all likelihood) never communicating with or being within 1000 miles of said victims. And while you’re at it, figure out why there is no effort whatsoever to find or do anything about the producers of CP (who, according to classic government logic, apparently do no harm at all to the victims in their products). Or the distributors, FBI and ICAC included.
Porn addiction is how I caught my CP offense. I was using porn regularly for years. This was pre internet. I was buying a plethora of magazines and they were not giving me the same rush they used to. Then the internet came along, I started surfing and looking at the endless amounts of porn available and I kept looking for something new and stimulating like the magazines used to be. I was only on the internet for about a year or so and discovered a few links that sent me to other countries and the models were younger, adolescent…. I say models because the sights were definitely professionally done, similar to the old Penthouse but with adolescent girls. The shock I got from seeing this was what kept me going back. I couldn’t believe that something like this existed, and so professionally done. I just became compelled. Well, it didn’t take long, maybe a year till I had a visit from the feds. And my life as I knew it ended then. It has been nearly 20 years of an uphill struggle to rebuild my life and try to get some normalcy back. I wish I would have thrown my computer in the trash the first time I saw that stuff. But such is the addiction I just kept lying to myself saying one more time and I will never go there again. I had never been in trouble before and haven’t been since, buy I am now a leper in society, scorned and reviled even by the lowliest drug dealer and armed robber, all because I was just meandering around on this new marvel called the internet.
Porn addiction, starting at a young age in the early days of AOL chat rooms, is the root of my problems that got me where I am today. Unsupervised and unrestricted access to internet chats during the “wild west” days of the internet were not a good combination for a young boy of 13. The article is absolutely correct, as the addiction takes hold, we find ourselves seeking more and more extreme content to feel that “excitement”. We don’t start out in the realm of illegal, and most of us have zero interest in carrying out anything in the content we end up consuming. Yet our current system treats us all as if we were ticking time bombs just waiting to go off and offend against minors, so they put us in the highest tier, over people who have actually offended against minors. Sure, there has been talk about changing this, but my level of hope is very very slim.
” Therapy can make a difference in a registrant’s life” All this time we’re told that registrants can’t be cured and can never change, but only if they have government mandated treatment. I’m all for therapy but not with a government stooge.
It’s an addiction just like every other addiction. Don’t factor in “mental health” just to oversell the “sense of urgency” the media loves to segue into.
Is collecting bottle caps a mental health issue? Please.
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More like Politicians & Bad Laws are more of a serious mental health problem in this Country then Porn, its funny how these fools make a natural feeling a bad thing and lock up 1 million Men in 52 states for trash laws then retroactivity apply a broken registry on over 200,000 men in this Country. Most of these cases get pinned on 90% who get a witch hunt trial. Over 80% convicted of a crime with a minor involved they ,have no time, no day, no witness. Even in a lot of cases not even no evidence except maybe internet pictures on a computer. They have made these laws to need nothing more then a finger pointing event and your convicted and guilty. If you look at adult conviction numbers then look at underage convictions numbers, you will see the truth 60% to 70% less convictions with adults then minors……. why???? Because you need EVIDENCE in adult conviction cases not with underage cases. The Laws are Broken. The Politicians fear monger the public, then the advocate groups support them with the corrupt money. The People pay the price for this. “Young Men” mostly.
American Justice System 100% failure !
People also Suck ! They allow this B.S and believe what ever their little Minds read on social media or in the media. That is why registries are PUNITIVE to those FORCED on them.
Pornography makes more money each year than the NFL and it is very addictive. It stimulates all the sexual excitement areas of the brain and has stimulated many people to do or are doing things they normally wouldn’t had they not been watching it. It also cheapens sex to be nothing more than a lustful interaction between two people who really could care less about each other.
Couldn’t one argue sex being an addiction especially when one never learned about the birds and the bees?
@ Athena: I would bet money that 99% of those arrested for CP possession are a result of long term pornography use and/or hoarding (addiction). It’s what happen to me and thousands of others. Police discovered three CP files in my nearly 2TB hoard of legal porn. Early exposure to pornography, under the age of 10, is known to exponentially increase the likelihood of that person struggling with it in their adult life. I stumbled upon my dads stash of Playboy, Penthouse, and Hustler magazines when I was like 6 or 7. I had no idea what I was looking at, I was too young, but I was quickly drawn to it and it has haunted me ever since. For me, pornography had very little to do with sex. I had become addicted to the chemicals that my body/brain would produce when I used (dopamine, serotonin, etc), the feel good drugs. When I was sad, lonely, stressed, scared, almost any negative emotion, I could count on porn to make me feel a little less bad. For me, porn was the “solution” rather than the problem and it began in my childhood. Had I not discovered porn at such an early age, I would have likely found some other substance (drugs, alcohol, etc) to numb my emotions when they were just too much to bear. For me, pornography wasn’t the “problem”, it was an attempt to solve a problem(s). To get to the root cause of the porn struggle, I highly recommend both you and your son dive a bit into the world of “trauma”. Some keywords to maybe search for: “Big T” trauma, “Little T” trauma, HSP, psychologist and author Gabor Mate. Start with short video found at this link: YouTube: How Childhood Trauma Leads to Addiction – Gabor Maté
I know this forum shouldn’t be political however, when a political party believes “porn should be outlawed, The people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned. Educators and public librarians who purvey in it should be registered. ” I’m sorry but that sends shivers down my spine because when people tell you who they are believe them.
I finally “ended my drinking problem”, only after I accepted that I don’t have a drinking problem….I have a living my life problem, and a drinking solution! Later, I augmented my solution with, pictures. Both created fantasy worlds, I could escape to, which I thought I needed to do.
People find the right, “Substance” for them… whatever provides the “magic fix” that makes the problems “go away”. Porn, much like Social Media, is just a new kind of “virtual substance” for some. Take porn away, these people will find a different “magic fix”… because they are certain that’s the only way to make the problems, “go away”.
How many Americans who get caught up in porn have other underlying mental health issues? Stop the stigma and give citizens the resources they need to peel open their onion. I’d rather be on a couch than in being involved in the criminal justice, which adds more problems.
“The Emperor Has No Clothes: A Review of the ‘Pornography Addiction’ Model by David Ley & Nicole Prause & Peter Finn” https://sci-hub.ru/10.1007/s11930-014-0016-8
There are often unresolved issues that lead to porn usage and eventually addiction. Mine was a covertly sexually abusive mother along with frequent uprooting of residences throughout my childhood. This caused me to have few childhood friendships that in turn lead to isolation , mistrust and a feeling of low self worth. A breeding ground for the porn addict. While it took multiple failed adult relationships ( I was told by one that I would die alone ) and my conviction to force me into a place of acknowledging and having to actually trust my therapist, I have been able to shed that weight and thereby create a healthier life for myself.