Porn is an ever increasing, multi-billion dollar industry. With such a huge porn industry that is so easily accessible it makes logical sense for people to become increasingly dependent on it. Over 30 thousand dollars are spent on porn every 10 seconds in the US. This staggering amount highlights just how huge the industry truly is
How Porn is Affecting Sexual Ideals
The issue with modern day pornography is not the multitude of it, but how it trivializes hardcore sex, often with the females involved being the victims of violence and objectification. Almost 90% of porn videos feature physical violence and almost half contain verbal aggression. Combined with the huge volume of young persons watching porn regularly, this promotes an unhealthy depiction of sex before some teenagers even begin to engage in sexual activity.
It is not uncommon for young people the age of 15 to be regularly seeking sexual gratification from pornographic content. Considering the average age in the US for people to lose their virginity is 17 this means a multitude of teenagers are indulging in unrealistic sexual ideals years before they even experience sex for the first time.
Statistically, 70% of young people under 18 have been exposed to pornographic content, and as high as 90% of males this age. Alarmingly, those most at risk of developing porn addictions are males aged 12-17. This highlights how easily accessible, explicit content can negatively affect a young person’s mental development.
Porn Addiction
Porn addiction is not a medically recognized condition, however suffering with such an affliction can have a seriously negative impact on a person’s life in multiple aspects. Porn addiction has parallels with drug and alcohol dependency, with symptoms such as building up a tolerance to the affliction requiring a higher demand to achieve satisfaction, and the addiction negatively impacting a person’s social life, work and intimate aspects of their life.
Intimacy issues are a huge side effect of porn addiction. Libido rapidly diminishes and a natural desire to have sex is subsided by a dependency on gratification through pornography. More worryingly, sexual impotence, and more widely sexual dysfunction, is also a symptom of porn addiction. As a person becomes dependent on pornograhic images or videos they become less inclined to partake in a healthy sex life with another person as they cannot achieve the same ‘high’ in doing so.
This dependency can be treated by means of therapy. One of these methods is CBT (Cognitive Based Therapy) which is based on the concept that a person’s thoughts, emotions and their behavior is all related. It goes deeper than tackling the addiction but goes into the reasons why a person may have developed it – such as thoughts of self-loathing or anger towards others. By doing so this tackles the route cause of the addiction and helps a person work through these issues to counteract the need for release. Another method that is more focused on group recovery is 12 step programs that act in a similar manner to Alcoholics Anonymous groups. Individuals will come together to talk about their experiences and act as a support mechanism for one another.
As there is no FDA approved medication for porn addiction these therapy sessions are crucial in treating a person as they must work through the issue without any medical aids.
By Cerys May