For Hope & Healing
Porn is a controversial topic. Some people consider it completely harmless, while others think it’s poisoning our minds.
Regardless of these debates, a lot of people watch porn. Between 50 and 99% of men and 30 and 86% of women around the world say they view porn sometimes.
80% of porn viewers say that they feel fine about their consumption. Sometimes, however, porn can become an addiction that seriously impacts a person’s life.
Keep reading, and we’ll tell you more about what porn addiction is, how it works, and how to treat it.
We’ll also explain the telltale porn addiction signs and provide a porn addiction quiz that you can use if you suspect that you or someone you know might be struggling with this problem.
If you aren’t sure whether or not you need treatment, why not take a quiz on porn addiction? Take our quiz for porn addicts below and see how your results match up. You can use the results of this quiz to start a conversation with your therapist, doctor, or loved ones.
The first step of treatment starts with you acknowledging the problem. The sooner you assess yourself for porn addiction, the sooner you can start healing.
This test is not a diagnostic tool, nor is it intended to replace a proper diagnosis. Use it only for informational purposes. Mental health conditions should only be diagnosed by a licensed mental health professional or doctor. Regardless of your results from our assessment, you should speak to a doctor about your mental health.
There are two main categories of addiction: substance addiction and behavioral addiction. There is significant evidence that any stimulating behavior, whether it involves a substance or not, can become addictive.
Porn addiction falls under the behavioral category of addictions. Commonly known behavioral addictions include gambling addiction and sex addiction.
Someone who has a porn addiction will feel compelled to watch porn excessively, think about porn more than most people, and feel some types of withdrawal symptoms for example, when they are unable to view it While porn addiction is not currently recognized as a disorder in the DSM 5, it has been widely studied by behavioral science experts.
As the DSM expands to include more non-substance-related addiction disorders, porn addiction will likely become recognized by it. In the meantime, it’s important to know that porn addiction is very real and harmful.
The American Psychiatric Association first recognized the existence of behavioral addictions in 2013. This happened when gambling addiction was included in the DSM 5.
Since then, behavioral addictions have been studied more thoroughly than ever before.
The APA has now recognized that there is a lot of common ground between substance-related addictions and addictive behavior. Porn addiction was first considered for study as part of the umbrella term “hypersexual disorder.”
Hypersexual disorder includes excessive masturbation, cybersex, porn addiction, sex addiction, and more.
Hypersexual behavior is thought to affect between 3% and 6% of the United States population. However, this number may grow as these behaviors are taken more seriously and studied more.
Though porn consumption and addiction is still a relatively new field of study, there are a few things that we know for sure.
Porn addiction and consumption are both more common in men than women. Viewing porn is considered a very normal part of male sexual development.
Between 7% and 9% of survey participants have reported that they feel addicted to pornography and that it is a “big problem.”
In a 1999 study, the number of young women who watched porn sharply increased from previous studies. This is most likely due to the ease and anonymity of watching porn on the internet.
Nikolaas Tinbergen, a Nobel Prize Winner, coined the term “supranormal stimulus.” This term is vital to the study of porn addiction in the brain.
Tinbergen’s theory says that artificial stimuli, like porn, may be able to light up the reward centers in our brains more than we are evolutionarily equipped to handle.
Basically, our ancestors had no experience that was comparable to looking at a screen. The way our brains react to digital information is much more intense than our brains were designed for.
This also means that watching porn online could potentially give our brains pleasure in a way that masturbation or sex on its own cannot. This gives porn a huge potential to become addictive.
In over 40 studies, the brains of people with hypersexual disorders were found to mirror the brains of drug addicts.
These studies used several types of brain imaging and questionnaires to determine what happened when people with hypersexual disorders were shown sexual imagery.
These results were then compared to previous studies conducted on drug addicts, and both the brain imaging and questionnaire results showed a huge overlap.
The brains of these participants lit up when they were shown the sexual imagery. However, many of them said that seeing sexual stimuli made them want to watch porn and masturbate, not have sex with another person.
People without hypersexual disorders, on the other hand, enjoyed seeing the images but did not feel immediately compelled to watch porn.
All addictions function similarly. The signs of porn addiction are just like those of any other addiction, with a few minor differences.
In the case of porn addiction, increased tolerance may mean needing to watch porn more and more often as time goes on.
It also may mean needing to watch more intense or grotesque porn in order to feel satisfied, even if the porn depicts something you wouldn’t normally feel aroused by.
Difficulty controlling your use can look like watching porn even when you aren’t aroused, or watching porn in situations where it is not socially appropriate to do so.
If you or someone you know watches porn in public or around friends and family, that is a sign of a possible porn addiction.
Withdrawal in a porn addiction will not manifest itself physically. Instead, it will most likely show up as increased irritability or anxiety.
Porn addiction can have a complex set of underlying causes. These can vary depending on your unique experiences, genetics, and brain chemistry.
We’ll explain some of the risk factors that can make someone more susceptible to a porn addiction.
You’ve probably heard many people claim to have an “addictive personality.” This generally means that they have impulse control problems, whether they’re talking about drug use, favorite foods, or problematic behaviors.
There is scientific truth to the idea that someone can have an addictive personality. At least half of your susceptibility to addiction can be linked to genetic factors.
If one or more of your close relatives deals with addiction of any kind, you are at a higher risk of becoming an addict than someone with no family history of addiction.
Genetic risk factors combined with high enjoyment of porn can lead to porn addiction.
Psychiatric disorders rarely exist by themselves. People who have mood disorders, such as major depressive disorder or bipolar disorder, are more likely than the general population to struggle with addiction.
Mood disorders in people who watch porn put them at a higher risk of porn addiction. The riskiest co-occurring disorders, however, are other addictions.
Once you struggle with one addiction, it’s easy for that behavior to transfer onto something else.
For example, if you are a recovering drug addict, you are at an above-average risk of turning to addictive behaviors such as gambling, sex, or porn to experience the rush you once got from drugs.
Because porn now primarily exists online, porn addiction is inescapably tied up with the addictive quality of the internet itself. Looking at a screen stimulates the same pleasure centers of the brain that most drugs do.
Porn can be addictive not only because viewing it is pleasurable, but because viewing it on a screen multiplies that pleasure.
Furthermore, those who spend a lot of time on social media and internet forums are at a higher risk of porn addiction because they are more in touch with the virtual world.
If a lot of your friendships exist primarily online, you may start to feel comfortable confining other aspects of your life to the internet as well.
Watching porn can make some people insecure about their sexual skills. Insecurity can turn into an obsession, and you may find yourself compulsively watching porn in hopes that it will make you a better sexual partner.
Also due to insecurity, the risk of porn addiction is higher in people who experience erectile dysfunction.
On the other hand, sexual insecurity can turn into hatred, which can also lead to obsessive porn consumption.
People who struggle to meet new sexual partners in real life may feel resentful of the people who reject them. Watching porn in which one person is “punished” sexually may seem like the only outlet for that anger.
Sometimes, compulsive sexual behavior is the result of sexual trauma. People who have experienced sexual abuse often use hypersexual behavior as a coping mechanism.
By repeatedly exposing themselves to sex, survivors try to re-imagine the thing that hurt them as something pleasurable.
Survivors of sexual abuse are more likely to become addicted to porn that is violent, disturbing, or in some other way mimics what they experienced.
Since porn addiction became a more widely recognized phenomenon, promising new treatment strategies have evolved. We’ll tell you about some of the steps that can help individuals with porn addictions.
Someone who deals with a porn addiction may require multiple types of therapy, either one after the other or in combination. They should always be treated with one-on-one therapy that focuses primarily on their addiction.
In these therapy sessions, your therapist can talk with you on a deeper level about your history and try to find all the underlying causes of your porn addiction.
Often, dealing with the causes of addiction directly can help you let go of your unhealthy coping mechanisms.
It’s impossible to completely move past trauma, insecurity, or any other troubling part of your past without being open to talking about it and how it has affected you. Your therapist can help you grieve, forgive yourself, and shed that weight that way, you can break the cycle of shame and envision a better life for yourself.
There are a couple of types of group therapy that can also help you overcome porn addiction. Group therapy has long been known as a good way to cope with any addiction, as evidenced by the success of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Since AA’s initial success, other affiliated support groups have become more and more common. There are anonymous support groups for narcotics, marijuana, and sex addicts.
These types of groups work well because they help you hold yourself accountable.
Everyone in these groups is treated with equal value, and they are all held to the same strict standards of sobriety.
Anonymous groups allow addicts to support each other throughout the recovery process.
Another helpful form of group therapy is dialectical behavioral therapy or DBT. In a DBT group, people with addictions and sometimes other mental health struggles work together to learn valuable coping skills.
Everyone in the group learns from the same DBT skills workbook and completes assignments before each session. DBT is a lot like going back to school to learn how to handle your emotions and urges.
Like an anonymous support group, DBT gives everyone the chance to share updates on how they are doing and recent challenges they have faced.
The therapist leading the DBT group will then use each person’s unique experience as an opportunity for everyone in the group to learn new coping skills.
DBT places a large emphasis on mindfulness, which is a strategy for becoming more aware and in control of your thoughts and feelings.
DBT has been shown to help addicts stay sober for longer. Though it has been more widely studied as a strategy for dealing with substance abuse, DBT groups are a promising part of the treatment of porn addiction as well.
If you or someone you know is struggling with porn addiction, don’t wait to get help. The sooner an addiction is addressed, the faster it can stop controlling your life.
To sum up, here are some helpful tips for how to move forward if you suspect that you or someone you know has a porn addiction:
1.
Approach the situation with sympathy and kindness
2.
Be honest and firm about the effects of the addiction
3.
Seek out therapy
4.
Rely on those around you to hold you accountable
5.
Believe in yourself and your recovery
There is no shame in seeking help for porn addiction. Though people in your life may not treat your addiction as seriously as they would treat, for instance, a drug addiction, know that it is very real and needs treatment.
If someone you know seems to be struggling with porn addiction, don’t shame or attack them. Tell them that you care about their wellbeing and want to see them living their best life.
Book an appointment today to find out how to get addiction treatment with Steps For Change.
Brooklyn Center Office
6040 Earle Brown Dr. Suite 420
Brooklyn Center, MN 55430
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