Recently at my school, we had a person come in and talk to us about healthy relationships - with a particular focus on the role of pornography in our current society....
That doesn't make it true though, does it? Just because someone is older or supposedly smarter
it doesn't necessarily make their idea right. I don't say this because of the above but due to the below where you took it to be true simply because some guy
told you it was. I don't think it's all that brazen to question his motives and intentions considering he goes around giving preaching about this topic.
Basically, it's becoming an addiction amongst our generation, because it's 1) accessible, 2) affordable and 3) anonymous (or supposedly anonymous).
Addiction is a strong and emotive word, we have to be careful with how we use it. It's very hard to nail down and unless this guy was a medical professional or scientist, i'd be weary of what he labels an "addiction" (especially considering a possible agenda).
We have to separate what is
normal and
an addiction and
what isn't (without being too narrow either).
It's clear things we do on a regular basis that are essential for survival like eating, drinking, sleeping and sex
aren't addictions within themselves. They make us feel happy and good, we crave them. This craving drives us
to do essential things because they are
pleasurable much in the same way that
pain drives us to
not do harmful things.
We see this in the lab with rats. How do you make a rat happy? For one, you can give him food. Our little rats dopamine (a chemical involved in pleasure & happiness) spikes up. You can also introduce a female rat and let them get their mojo on. This makes our rats dopamine spike up even more. Much the same happens in us but like i said above, these things are normal and it's important they're pleasurable and rewarding because they are crucial to survival (Incidentally,
heroin makes it shoot way, way up much more than an orgasm or eating, which is one of the reasons it is so addictive, because it's just that good).
I'm not convinced the accusation that it's addictive or bad is based on science rather than morality. If someone has sex with their partner a few times a week and their dopamine shoots up, you wouldn't say they're a junkie. Under the assumption pornography works in much the same way, if someone chooses to consume it a few times a week, i fail to see why its much different in any kind of chemical or psychological sense. I'm not totally convinced that this doesn't result from a narrow view of what might be normal or right, it wasn't that long ago that many people believed homosexuality was a mental disorder. Likewise, i think "internet addiction" is partially related to the fact the authors of these manuals were born in a different time.
I found it rather hard (even with all the resources uni gives me) to find many things on non-drug addiction, let alone this topic. I did manage to find a general framework
here, it goes like this:
In the case of behavioral addictions, it is important that patients be evaluated in the context of several other factors, including the extent to which their behavior (1) disrupts personal, family, social, or vocational pursuits;(2)causes significant personal distress to self or others; (3) has risk or potential for significant physical or emotional harm to self or others; (4) is uncontrollable or resistant to change (eg, patient feels out of control or unable to reduce or change the behavior), and (5) is not better accounted for by an alternate psychiatric diagnosisLooking at it in this way, i doubt the vast majority of people are addicts or "
our generation is becoming addicted" assuming it occurs a few times a week and consumes no more than a few hours. I think of course a few people will be addicted to it much in the same way some people can be addicted to food (that is they compulsively overeat).
Of course, it's also important to note that to be an addiction it must be compulsive and hard to control but it also must cause significant harm or impairment. If you're staying home from school or missing work or its so hard to control you have to fire it up on the train, then, that is a problem. If it's simply because you're bored, have a lot of free time and have a sex drive, i'm not at all convinced that a person like this is anything close to addicted.
When people become totally dependent on it, they escalate and start to seek more 'hardcore' content - not realising they are literally killing their sex drive as it's very difficult to "go backwards", if that makes sense. They start to become desensitised and stop caring about the thoughts and feelings of other people and during sex, people are only considered as 'objects' by those involved. They eventually reach a stage where no content can fulfill their urges and they turn to murder, rape and other horrible crimes to provide themselves with sexual satisfaction.
I dont know if this is true. It seems like they're trying to apply a
substance addiction model (eg. coke, heroin) to porn. It is true these drugs, you do need to "escalate" or increase your dose but that is for a very different reason. They're not increasing the dose because want an
even larger high, they're increasing the dose to be able to maintain the
same high as (your body gets better at eliminating or responding to the drug*).
Gambling is a good example because it doesn't involve a drug.
This study asked if gamblers constantly increased their bet size to gain the same rush or if it was down to things like poor financial management or
chasing losses. They found you probably can't become tolerant to gambling in the same way you can with drugs. We can apply that to porn. Many seem to discover it around puberty so i'm sure at least a few people have been at it for a good couple of years, those of you out there(dont need to put your hand up), i doubt many of you needed to constantly kick it up a notch to be satisfied to the point of watching rape as stick suggests.
I'm not convinced if its operating in the direction you're speculating. That consuming pornography, especially of the kind most people don't consume (violent, etc), leads to the urge to murder, rape etc. I think it might actually work
the other way, people who already do have the urge to murder or rape will be excited by these kind of things and seek them out, they definitely won't find them objectionable like a normal person either. (Just speculating) In much the same way, people experience social difficulties, depression and other problems might be more likely to compulsively turn to pornography
BECAUSE of those things rather than porn
causing those things. So, porn addiction might be a
symptom not a
cause.
Look, if it's as dire as your speaker suggested, the
past 50 years in the western world have seen an
explosion in the availability and acceptance of pornography,
murder and rape rates would have skyrocketed. They
haven't, in many places they
fell significantly. In the third world where people have little access to internet or pornography in general, you'll find much higher rape and murder rates compared to the west.
*technically called pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic tolerance for those who are interested----
I could say that global warming has led to the rise in "unsuccessful relationships"
It's certainly decimated our pirate population...
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