Week-End Sex in the News: Top Headlines – Internet Pornography, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Child Pornography

My news alerts usually consist of a seemingly endless stream of stories about people being arrested on porn charges or other scintillating stories relating to sex and sex addiction such as: “New Brunswick Nearly Leads Canada for the Crime of Stalking” or “Sex Offenders go AWOL in Scotland”.

Today, however there were a few that were both sensational and in some way relevant.  Here they are in no particular order with my comments.

1.   Internet pornography ‘destroying men’s ability to perform with real women’

October 22, 2011 – 5:32 pm by News Desk | Permalink | Print This Article |

London, Oct 22 (ANI): Internet pornography is destroying men’s ability to perform with real women and creating a generation of young men who are hopeless in the bedroom, according to a new research.  Exposure to lurid images and films in the new media is de-sensitising so many young people that they are increasingly unable to become excited by ordinary sexual encounters, the report said.

The result of this over exposure is that impotence is no longer a problem associated with middle-aged men of poor health but is afflicting men in the prime of their lives.  The report explains that the loss of libido 30 years early is caused by continuous over-stimulation of dopamine, the neurotransmitter that activates the body’s reaction to sexual pleasure, by repeatedly viewing pornography on the Internet.

A ‘paradoxical effect’ is created whereby with each new thrill, or “dopamine spike”, the brain loses its ability to respond to dopamine signals, meaning that porn-users demand increasingly extreme experiences to become sexually aroused.

“Erotic words, pictures, and videos have been around a long while, but the Internet makes possible a never-ending stream of dopamine spikes,” the Daily Mail quoted Marnia Robinson, the author of the report as saying.  “Today’s users can force its release by watching porn in multiple windows, searching endlessly, fast-forwarding to the bits they find hottest, switching to live sex chat, viewing constant novelty, firing up their mirror neurons with video action and cam-2-cam, or escalating to extreme genres and anxiety-producing material.

“It’s all free, easy to access, available within seconds, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

“In some porn users, the response to dopamine is dropping so low that they can’t achieve an erection without constant hits of dopamine via the internet,” she added. (ANI)

My Take:  This is a really important report and suggests the need for further study.  It is important for two reasons:

(1) Because it deals with the brain chemistry associated with bombarding oneself with internet pornography and sexualized imagery in general

(2) Because it points to the fact that use of sexual or pornographic imagery as a drug is creating a “tolerance” for the experience, much like the tolerance for narcotics, such that we require greater and greater amounts (or greater intensity of experience)

2. Gwyneth Paltrow rolls in the hay at former N.Y. stables for sex-freak role in ‘Thanks for Sharing’

GATECRASHER

Gwyneth Paltrow appears to be taking it off for the cameras again. A source tells us the actress shot some racy scenes for the film “Thanks for Sharing” on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday at Carriage House, a former stable at 159 W. 24th St. that’s been converted into condominium apartments. The movie is reportedly about three people who undergo a 12-step treatment for sex addiction. An insider tells us that in one of the scenes, Paltrow performs a “striptease via Skype” for co-star Mark Ruffalo, who wasn’t on the set. Hubba hubba. We wonder if Paltrow and her husband, Coldplay front man Chris Martin, ever engage in similar video chats. A spokesman for Paltrow didn’t get back to us by deadline.

My Take: So I confess that I think it’s great that there are movies being made about sex addiction. Even bad movies, movies that glamorize it, or portray the sufferers or their treatment in misleading ways.  As long as the film does not use the concept as exploitation and makes a stab at some kind of relevance, it will at least get the problem out there into the public dialogue more.  A great example was the movie “Choke” with Sam Rockwell which came out a few years ago.  I have not seen “Shame” yet…

3.  Anonymous Takes Down Massive Child Pornography Server, Leaks Usernames

by Max Eddy | 11:00 am, October 23rd, 2011

In a move that we can all get behind, hacker group Anonymous has announced that they have taken down a huge cache of child pornography and released 1,589 usernames of the website’s patrons. The action came as part of Operation Darknet, which targets illicit websites that are part of an unindexed and therefore unsearchable corner of the Internet.

The server in question is owned by Freedom Hosting, and apparently services over 40 child pornography websites. The largest of these, disturbingly called Lolita City, was said to contain over 100gb of child pornography.

Interestingly, the Anonymous hack is extremely well documented. In two separate Pastebin posts, the hackers involved provide a timeline of events, as well as some of the methodologies they used in tracking and taking down the servers…

My Take: Hackers doing what they do best and judging by the comments, people are cheering.  However, what everyone seems to want to know is now what?  Will law enforcement actually do something with the information?  And for those of us on the treatment end of things, what will happen to the suspects, when they are finally run to ground?  Maybe the next hacking enterprise could deal with collecting some data that would help with addiction research.  Call me, we’ll talk.

 

 

 

 

What is Healthy Sex for a Sex Addict?

I can’t tell you how many people in sex addiction programs are baffled about the issue of healthy sex.  They are pretty clear on what they need to not do, but they are at a loss to envision what a healthy sex life would look like for them.  Many addicts have never had the experience of what they see as “normal” sex with anyone. For example, they may have experienced their sexuality only in the two dimensional fantasy world of pornography, or they may have experienced sexual arousal only in very alienated or risky situations with strangers, illicit situations etc.  In other words, for most sex addicts in early to mid recovery strong sexual feelings have never been integrated in any way into their life and relationships.  Therefore, they have trouble seeing how they could ever feel intense sexual interest and gratification in the absence of their “acting out” behaviors.  They know it exists, but for them it is an empty concept.  The problem is further complicated if the addict is married or in a long term relationship in which they have been leading a double life.  Chances are that they have periods of aversion to sex with their partner and/or that they have a sex life with their partner in which they find ways to bring their addictive behaviors into the mix such as being lost in their addictive fantasies during sex, bringing other people into the situation somehow, etc.

What has been written about healthy sex may or may not help enlighten the addict in early sexual recovery.  Dr. Patrick Carnes’ writing is read by many recovering addicts and he has defined 12 dimensions of healthy sexuality which mostly have to do with the overall emotional maturity and relationship skills of the individuals in question.  Such things as the ability to nurture and be nurtured, a clear sense of self and good boundaries, comfort with sex in general, the capacity for genital and non genital sex with a partner and so on.  While these may be a necessary foundation for a sexually healthy person, they don’t help flesh out the concept of the sex life itself.  Likewise, most addicts at some time come across the saying that “intensity is not intimacy”.  Dr. Carnes spells this difference out in terms of ten different domains of functioning, e.g. high drama vs. problem resolution, or fear and arousal vs. passion and vulnerability.  So although a person may be aware that fear or drama are what escalate their arousal, they have no model in their mind for how to achieve that level of arousal any other way.  The awareness is important, but they would like to know where it’s all going.

So when we ask a sex addict to believe that he or she will be able at some point to enjoy the rewards of healthy sex are we able to offer any proof?  Are we simply saying that they should clap their hands to show they believe in Tinkerbell?  Well, in a way, yes.  We already know that the willingness to embark on any journey of recovery involves a leap of faith.  So sex addicts need to take it on faith that they will like what they get when they get there. But they also need to recognize some other realities about a healthy sex life with a committed partner.

First and foremost I think that addicts need to realize that healthy sex in the context of a good relationship may have a high degree of passion, variety and deep gratification, but it will not involve the same kind of hyper-arousal, the blast of instantaneous intensity that comes with acting out situations and fantasies.  The good news is that the need for that kind of “hit” dissipates in the fullness of recovery.  In other words you won’t have what you once had but it won’t matter as much as you think it will.

By the same token, addictive sexual behaviors tend to be the same every time.  The addict controls the script and the outcome, even to the point of building in the risk or fear to heighten the “fuel mix”.  The healthy sexual relationship has more room for the unexpected to happen, so that even though the context is one of comfort and safety, there is the possibility of genuine discovery.

Second, people tend to be unclear on the role of fantasy in their sexual life with a partner.  Although this is an individual matter, generally speaking sexual thoughts and images can and should be part of healthy sex as long as they do not remove you from the present situation.  Any kind of sexual fantasy may enhance your experience with a partner (or in masturbation for that matter) but it should be one that allows you to be more engaged in the real, physical experience at the time rather than less.  Fantasy as a means to check out, numb out or escape is likely to set up a pattern that is not conducive to healthy sex.

Another way to look at this trade off in recovery is to put it in terms of what the AA book entitled Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions calls “the sacrificial spirit”.  We sacrifice something to get something more worthy.  In this case we sacrifice the need to focus only on ourselves and our own most perfect gratification and we behave in ways that have to do with the overall benefit to our lives and the lives of everyone around us.  As addicts change, they will likely come to see that addictive sex is a drug they want to put down and that it was only their most important need because it was an addiction.

Finally, an inescapable reality of intimate relationships is that they require some attention in order to be maintained.  So in terms of a healthy sex life the addict and their partner need to nurture all aspects of their relationship life, including the sexual.  Planning to have sex, setting up a time to have sex may seem like anathema to sex addicts starting out in relationship recovery because, again, it’s not the impulsive or mindless escape into the “hit” or the oblivion of acting out.  Sure, sometimes sex with a spouse or partner can be spontaneous and free and that’s great.  But taking care to have time to have sex is going to be part of taking care of your relationship, just like expressing affection, problem solving, negotiating, and guarding each others’ solitude.