[JonDoe]

I hear this term used by others in conversation and on forums like this one more frequently. I recently heard a woman say this of her late husband. I knew this man very well, and he regularly confided in me that his wife was a prude (his words not mine). Personally, I think the women is a real BIATCH, which many people that know her would attest, but I digress.

First of all, why would she share such things soon after her husbands death? My reasoning is provided above, but let's move on to the real topic of this thread.

Perhaps more importantly, why do so many people, especially women, consider any use of porn to be an addiction? If a man or woman watches porn fewer times per week then they bathe, eat, take out the trash, or watch TV does that warrant the label of porn addict? I say no, definitely not. Of course, if they view porn to the point of ruining relationships, losing jobs, causing physical injury, and/or with reckless abandon, then there is a real problem.

Addiction is the continued repetition of a behavior despite adverse consequences, or a neurological impairment leading to such behaviors.

Addictions can include, but may not be limited to alcohol, drugs, gambling, exercise, sex, porn and food, yet we rarely call an obese person a food addict. Why? Let's be fair to all and call a spade a spade in every case, not just in selective cases. However, the Puritan cultural influences in the west lean towards labeling someone a porn addict if they enjoy watching a little porn.

Why not start calling people with low-desire and a propensity to reject their spouses sexual advances "Sex avoidance addicts"? If a woman turns down her husband more times per month than he watches porn, which spouse is an addict? I know how I would respond; what say you?

[DreamP346]

Great topic. The idea of porn addiction is over used in today's society. The reality is we don't even know if it exists. I read a recent scientific review that exams most existing studies on porn addiction and found them all to be poorly designed. Also, there is debate in whether it is an addiction or compulsive disorder.

I do believe it exists, we just don't understand it yet. Also, people do overuse the concept of porn addiction. A better term would be porn problem. If one partner's use of porn negatively impacts another partner and neither party will compromise on their stance, then it's a problem, regardless of whether it's addictive or not.

[rcoreyus]

The following is non-technical - I am not trying to distinguish a "compulsion" from an "addiction", I'm not competent to do so. To my (uneducated in this field) mind, those are very close concepts.

I'd think about a porn addiction the same way I'd think about a gambling addiction. Its an addiction if either 1) the addict is unable to stop watching porn even though they want to, or 2) The time or money spent on porn is adversely affecting the addict's life: loosing sleep, or spending work time watching, etc.

I would not characterize it as an addiction if their partner wants them to stop, and they decide not to. That said, I think it is fair to leave a relationship for any reason, so if someone is unhappy with their partner's watching of porn, they have every right to leave.

Beyond addiction, porn watching covers a wide range of behaviors. I have no problem with someone who uses porn as a masturbation aid when their partner isn't available. I have not problem with someone who watches porn with their partner. I do think that someone who chooses to masturbate to porn INSTEAD of being intimate with their partner should strongly reconsider their behavior. The have a "right" to do so, but I think they are making themselves less happy, and shouldn't be in an intimate relationship.

I would say the same thing about any other sort of sex toy.

By the same token, I don't think women should feel that they are being compared to porn or that men should feel that they are being compared to a vibrator of dildo - unless their partner has specifically made such a comparison.

Porn can desensitize people to less extreme intimacy - but then vibrators can desensitize people to less extreme physical stimulation.

[JonDoe]

It is total speculation on my part, but I venture to guess that more marriages suffer from lack of intimacy based on one spouse's own issues with body image and self-esteem than from the use of porn, yet porn still carries a stigma.

[atskitty2]

I have known of a man who couldn't function sexually without "his porn fix", as we jokingly referred to it. By this I mean, he couldn't masturbate without it, and rather than make love looking at his gf, he watched porn on the TV or computer screen while they had intercourse.
We can call it any number of things I suppose but it seems even the scientific community hasn't agreed on the best term
When it gets to a level like this, it's unhealthy and damages our relationships. I called it dependency...he was dependent on it to satisfy himself, just like I'm dependent on coffee in the morning to wake me up.

I have no adverse affects if I don't drink coffee REALLY, but if I don't get it my day just seems to be off. I don't even have a headache...

The guy in my example at least, could probably still get off without the additional stimulus from porn, after learning to find pleasure with less intense visual cues, but he'd conditioned himself to need it.

So, I don't think every man or woman who enjoys porn is an addict, dependent, compulsive or even problematic. It's like anything else, alcohol or chocolate, it can be good and even healthy but with the wrong use and attitude toward it, it can be unhealthy.

[rcoreyus]

I think the alcohol comparison is great. Some people sometimes enjoy a glass of wine with dinner. Some to to a bar some evenings and get drunk. Some drink rot-gut out of paper bags in alleys.

[ItsASecret]

I too believe the term porn addiction is used far too much. The definition of an addiction is far more than just using porn often, it is an obvious detrimental factor in their lives. More often it is a porn problem rather than a full out porn addiction. Problems from porn can be endless simply based on each person using it for different reasons. Could be an issue with one partner using porn as an absolute learning reference and thus has unrealistic expectations when it comes to real sex. Maybe an individual does not think their partner is visually appealing enough so off they go clicking away for what they want to look at more often. Maybe their partner does not want to have sex often and they go to porn as a release. Some feel a "need" to watch it to get going as mentioned. Some just cannot turn away from the fantasy appeal factor so they look to watch quite often. But an addiction? No. That needs to be more than just watching it a few times a week.

[kira]

Even the definition of an addiction is subjective and personal. Some people do lose sleep or miss work due to their hobbies. I talked with someone who said online games were their life and work and their paying job was just a way to do those things all other hours of the day to the exclusion of sleep when there were all night or other time zone events going on. An extreme example but is even that an addiction? They can stop whenever they want, they can get sleep if they want, they could prioritize work if they wanted... what they want is to expend every hour of the day and night playing games. Now what if it actually was your job to test and make games? Is losing sleep and giving up other activities for getting paid to do what you enjoy an addiction?

You can try to sum it up as if it does harm, if it impacts the rest of life, or if it ruins a relationship but so many other things do that are not considered an addiction. They are considered life choices and while sometimes people destroy relationships over them it's still not an addiction. It's a different set of priorities. Often times people will destroy many relationships until they find one that's worth giving up their other choices. Some may never choose relationships, eating well, or sleeping well over the huge variety of other activities they could do.

We often call something an addiction when we simply don't agree with someone else's life or priorities.

[jen1447]

Great topic. The idea of porn addiction is over used in today's society. The reality is we don't even know if it exists. I read a recent scientific review that exams most existing studies on porn addiction and found them all to be poorly designed. Also, there is debate in whether it is an addiction or compulsive disorder.

I do believe it exists, we just don't understand it yet. Also, people do overuse the concept of porn addiction. A better term would be porn problem. If one partner's use of porn negatively impacts another partner and neither party will compromise on their stance, then it's a problem, regardless of whether it's addictive or not.

To echo what others have said, I think the distinction is very important and that it's a bit reckless to throw around terms like addiction when we don't really know if it is. Addiction has come to include things like gambling (rather curiously), but traditionally it required the component of a drug dependency. I think it still should, as while problems with gambling etc. are serious and compulsive, they lack that important element of outside influence, which only muddies the waters as far as definitions go.

Frankly I'd still consider gambling problems a compulsive disorder rather than an addiction myself. Likewise porn when it becomes a problem, tho I also agree that it's used as a boogeyman to categorize a type of behavior as a 'problem' when it isn't necessarily so, for the sake and benefit of those who want to see the negative behavior of spouses or lovers as something other than what it really is, more often than not. If your husband or wife watches porn instead of being intimate with you, that to me suggests marital or relationship issues, not an automatic behavior that is out of their control, and especially not one where some outside drug is being introduced (unless we consider naturally occurring chemicals like oxytocin a drug).

When we make bad conclusions based on bad info, that doesn't really help anybody even if it makes us feel better in the short term. e.g., blaming porn for there being a wall between you and your spouse isn't going to really help the issues between you and your spouse if porn is not the real issue. Pretty simple.

[a_dub]

A lot of people probably aren't addicted to porn in the sense of a drug like coke and just use it because there is some wider issue in their relationship.

However, my personal opinion is that porn can indeed be addictive. I think there have been PET scans of the brain that show it lighting up to a porn addict when he sees porn the exact same way a crackhead's brain lights up when he takes that first line.

My friends think I'm addicted to porn, and I actually agree with them, although I generally don't come out and admit it. For the most part, I would rather watch porn than go out and try and talk to a real girl. Although thats more to do with the fact that good looking girls are so rare, and the ones that are either already in a relationship, or wouldn't be interested if they were single. The thing is a part of me really does want to go out and meet women, but I always think to myself "you're only n years old, you have plenty of time to find a woman later, for now just enjoy some porn."

Am I really addicted? I don't know, but I do feel a very strong urge to watch it almost every day unless I have something else more important and exciting planned. But porn is my default leisure activity...if I'm not doing anything else, I'm most likely watching porn that night.

A couple friends of mine are trying to get me to quit, but I refuse, lol. One of their arguments was that porn usage causes male orgasm problems - I wouldn't know because its been years since I've gotten some. Another was that porn addicts need a higher dose to ovecome the tolerance they've developed. That is, they need to watch more and more extreme videos to get off. I disagreed on both points saying I cum easily everytime I masturbate and that I watch the same genres of porn I watched when I first started. I abhor the extreme stuff. I told my buddies that I only watch "normal" things like DP, anal, and guy-girl and or MFM videos. My buddy then told me, quite to my surprise, that DP and MFM aren't that "normal" and the fact that I would say it was was proof of how warped my sense of sex had become.

Obviously, I don't know since I haven't had sex since I've started watching porn at age 25.