Cyber porn is known as the crack cocaine of sex addiction.
Internet pornography is easy to get hooked on and hard to kick. Of the more than 20 million people who are sex addicts in this country roughly 71% act out their addiction on the internet. This takes the form not only of viewing pornographic imagery but increasingly provides a venue for exhibitionism/voyeurism, access to sexual chat rooms, prostitutes, “hook-ups” (finding others who are immediately available for anonymous sex in real life) and selling or trading of pornographic photos and videos. Not only is the internet is a place for cheap, easy access to sexually addictive material and behaviors, it is a significant gateway drug for young people. The average first time contact with internet porn is age 11. The largest consumers of internet porn are the 12 to 17 year old group.
Cyber porn is the great accelerator.
Sometimes it goes the other way. A person prone to sexual acting out behavior discovers new kinds of imagery and behavior that they never thought of consciously before and quickly becomes compulsively fixated on these new scenarios, ultimately seeking to act them out in their life. It is thought that this takes place because the new imagery acts to trigger something unconscious, something forgotten but not gone, in the psychosexual history of the person. This is sometimes referred to as “accessing the unresolved”. People see things they may have once seen fleetingly at an early age and enter a trance-like state in which these images stick. Whether it comes before or after other kinds of sexually addictive behavior, the internet leads to rapid escalation and acceleration of sex addiction.
The chemistry of internet porn addiction.
Your brain on internet porn is getting a release of dopamine which activates the reward/pleasure centers. This is addictive in itself (see Sex Addiction is a Drug.) If accompanied by masturbation there are even more rewarding chemicals released. People then use this drug as a reward, as an escape or as a relief from boredom or agitation. Like any drug, the web can then become the person’s best friend causing “relational regression” i.e. the tendency to withdraw and replace the real with the digital. This not only causes the person to become mentally withdrawn but may interfere with the ability to make any real human connections. The person’s internet experience becomes their “perfect” reality. As one patient put it “Miss January is always there for me, she always wants me.” Intimate contact in reality spoils this fantasy. There is a correlation between internet porn use and loneliness such that isolation is not only a result but a cause of cyber porn addiction.
Living in the cyber porn bubble.
I would add one other warning label to the whole cyber porn issue (aside from the obvious and growing danger of getting in trouble with the law for various internet related behaviors) and that is that internet pornography users find it extremely easy to sweep their behavior under the rug. They can deny that it is a problem more easily than other sexual acting out behaviors because it seems to hurt no one. They can argue that everyone does it, or that everyone wants to. They can say that it doesn’t cost anything (forget that U.S. internet porn revenue exceeds revenues of ABC, CBS, and NBC combined), and they can say that it is not compulsive, even as it takes over more of their lives. So your brain on porn is also an increasingly delusional brain, which feeds the vicious circle and makes it the growing epidemic that it is.
3 Comments
This article unfortunately makes a lot of sense particularly:
“There is a correlation between internet porn use and loneliness such that isolation is not only a result but a cause of cyber porn addiction” AND ” So your brain on porn is also an increasingly delusional brain, which feeds the vicious circle and makes it the growing epidemic that it is”.
[…] Sexual acting out behavior is usually categorized into one of three types depending on the desired end state. (1) Arousal created by high-risk behaviors or high drama relationships, for example, act like cocaine and amphetamines (2) numbing created by behaviors such as compulsive masturbation mimics the effects of heroin or alcohol, and (3) fantasy or a trance-like state is achieved by behaviors such as obsession with internet pornography or fantasy charged situations which resembles sedation. Further, when the sex addict refrains from sex a predictable set of withdrawal symptoms arise. For more see This is Your Brain on Cyber Porn. […]
[…] or addictive is that they serve the function of a drug in the person’s life. See the blogs “This is your brain on cyberporn” and “Sex Addiction as a pathological relationship with a Drug” for more information on […]