How addictive is porn?
Surely, everyone has heard of the term “porn addiction,” which states that people who watch porn can get hooked on it just like drug addicts. However, as technology and science-based therapy advance, scientists say we may have rushed into the whole “porn is addictive” thing a bit too rapidly without any actual scientific evidence. And when I say scientific evidence, I do mean studying the brain carefully when it comes to porn and neurologically proving that brain on porn behaves like other well-documented addictions.
That said, tests like such have been done now, and they state that porn cannot officially be regarded as an addiction. At least not in the sense that it makes people neurologically behave like those addicted to heroin when they see their drug of choice.
So can we say porn is more habitually addictive rather than neurologically? If that’s the case, it would mean that people who like watching porn can simply control themselves and lower their porn consumption, where it is purely for fun and pleasure instead of “ruining their life” as some claim. Let see what science and psychology say.
The notion of porn addiction
The narrative that porn is addictive is supported by numerous therapists that treat porn consumption on an addiction model instead of taking a different approach of which we’ll be talking about later in the text. There are also many religious groups invested in maintaining a concept of “porn addiction” because that is their source of income.
However, the research undermines the clinical language they used in their approach to the controversial medium. But conclusive evidence for “sex addiction” and “porn addiction” continues to prove elusive.
A new study proving otherwise
A team of researchers published a study in the Biological Psychology journal, further reaffirming that “porn addiction” and “sex addiction,” as we understand them, may not be real. This isn’t to say that people who develop addictive behavior are wrong about their feelings. It merely means that we have been developing a somewhat wrong approach to the whole situation, therefore, for the treatment as well.
Namely, this is to date the largest neuroscience investigation of porn addiction ever conducted. A team of UCLA researchers organized a questionnaire for 122 men and women who regularly watched porn and reported they felt they were addicted to some extent. They had to reveal how they felt about their relationship to porn while their “visual sexual stimuli” were scanned to determine if they experienced problems as a result of their porn usage.
For instance, while hooked up to an electroencephalogram (EEG), a device that measures electrical activity in the brain, each person was shown a series of images from neutral portraits to unpleasant photos of mutilated bodies and also various sexual images. Their reactions were monitored to see whether the subjects were “problem users” or not.
The outcome
At the end of the study, the researchers presented a large body of data showing that the people in the study who reported experiencing problems as a result of their pornography use did not display characteristically addictive brain activity when viewing sexual images. This finding was based on their late positive potential (LPP), a standard measure for the intensity of the brain’s emotional response at a given moment.
As a reference, a cocaine addict will experience “increased LLP to cocaine-related pictures”—one of the most precise indicators of psychological addiction. In contrast, people who claim they are porn addicts show no increase in this marker nor the same LLP pattern when viewing sexual images. Interestingly, they “showed decreased brain reactions when shown the sexual images, rather than heightened activity”—the opposite of what one would expect to find in an addict’s brain. So one could conclude that their brain is simply saturated with this type of content and isn’t as stimulated to it as others who don’t watch as often may be.
As said, this is not to say that people who describe themselves as “porn addicts” don’t experience legitimate problems as a result of their habits. Still, it only proves that neurologically speaking, they do not appear to have the same neurological relationship to porn as a substance addict has to their drug of choice. And most importantly, what scientists like to emphasize is that porn and sex addictions are probably not addictions in their true meaning, and treating them as such could deliver counter-productive results.
A large body of evidence
While it may have been the largest one so far, surely it isn’t the only study that has shown similar results when it comes to porn addiction. The authors of this study conclude, “This study appears to add to a list of studies that have not been able to identify pathology consistent with substance addiction models.”
Even the American Psychiatric Association (APA) has stated that the evidence proving of “sex addiction” isn’t as reliable and affirmative as the ones regarding other addictions, which is why they aren’t as supportive of the diagnoses for sex and porn addiction to be included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) either. In 2012 again, they rejected a proposal for a condition called “hypersexual disorder” for the DSM-5.
Faking it?
Scientists of this extensive study have said: “Many people have misinterpreted our research as saying that people are faking these problems, but we have never made that claim.”
All they ever wanted was to prove that these two addictions (porn and sex addiction) are not the same as the other ones, which are rightfully included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). They are hoping that with further research, therapists will be able to provide proper treatments that are “supported by research” and will actually yield results. For now, these “addictions” appear to be treated by the wrong model.
However, still to this date, there are therapists and large religious groups claiming porn to be addictive and saying that “brain scans show how the brain of a porn addict is no different than the brain of a drug addict.” Which then continue treating problems related to sex and pornography using an addiction-based approach.
Still, researchers argue that falsely claiming that there is such thing as porn addiction and is as addictive as drugs helps no one, especially those who genuinely want to change their relationship to porn.
“Labeling a person’s attempt to control urges a ‘sexual addiction’ may interfere with therapy approaches such as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) that can reduce distressing sexual behaviors,” said co-author and Idaho State University psychologist Cameron Stanley.
In contrast to an addiction recovery approach—which seeks to end problematic behavior—Prause tells The Daily Beast that an ACT approach might involve “reducing viewing over time, not necessarily eliminating it.”
“ACT also supports finding ways to be comfortable with negative feelings associated with viewing sex films, which ultimately might make a person enjoy lower consumption rates,” she says.
What is ACT?
ACT is a therapy developed on a premise of Acceptance and Commitment to one’s problems and eliminating them through acceptance and mindfulness strategies. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is a unique, empirically-based psychological intervention that teaches the person how to increase mental flexibility through commitment and behavior change strategies.
Utah State University has already conducted preliminary research that recommended ACT as an effective way to help those who claim to have an “Internet pornography addiction.” In this initial research, therapists treated six men with eight 90-minute sessions of ACT. After three months, the men were able to reduce their porn viewing of 85% without committing to any restrictions never to watch porn again.
They simply were able to reduce their porn usage, but they changed their habits and understood that they could watch this type of content without losing the ability to control their life and ruin their relationships.
ACT is the type of therapy that needs to be developed because it changes people’s habits without imposing restrictions and decreasing the quality of life.
After all, it looks as if sex and porn are somewhat habitual dependencies that have nothing to do with the rest of the addictions. This is why they have to be treated differently. But to yield success, we may have to stop calling them “addictions” first.
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