Porn and Sex Addiction

The idea of porn addiction is commonly brought up by conservatives or sex worker exclusionary radical feminists as a way to demonize the viewing of pornography. Rhetoric around porn being dangerous and addictive has also infiltrated more liberal or left-wing groups. People can absolutely have compulsive behaviours applying to sex and porn, but the addiction model fails at understanding them.

Many of the issues that some would label as symptoms of “porn addiction” are actually caused by a discrepancy between behaviour and religious or moral convictions. If you believe God opposes you watching pornography and you do it anyway, rather than taking responsibility for that action you consider immoral it is likely that you will reframe the problem to yourself as an addiction. It is easier to cope with the cognitive dissonance between not feeling like a behaviour is wrong, but following a doctrine that says it is, by simply telling yourself that you cannot help engaging in the action even though you believe it is wrong. That way you avoid admitting that you have conflicting feelings about the behaviour.

In terms of who considers themselves sex addicts, there is a correlation between people with a high sex drive identifying this way – this is because the high sex drive combined with negative societal attitudes regarding sex means that people repress their natural sex drive and have shame associated with it. Someone who has a strong desire for sex but lives in an environment where that is shamed is likely to view having casual sex as something they should not engage in despite their wants, and to view having sex as relapsing into the undesirable behaviour. There is no physical dependence in this situation, nor is there really a compulsive behavioural element. What is actually occurring is that people are engaging in a perfectly normal and healthy action, which is vilified within their environment, and they feel ashamed.

Porn addiction is not real. Sex addiction is not real.

When it comes to the supposed side-effects of porn viewing, people often blame it for issues like erectile dysfunction. The vast majority of issues with erectile dysfunction have organic rather that psychogenic causes, meaning they’re an issue of biology rather than the mind, but low self-esteem and anxiety are known to create difficulty in maintaining erections. In the same way that looking at magazines of attractive people who fit societal beauty standards might make someone insecure, so might watching porn of people who look conventionally attractive and different to you. However, it’s also important to consider that watching porn can actually improve confidence and self-esteem depending on the type of content the person seeks out; not all porn is created equal.

Another commonly mentioned side-effect of supposed “porn addiction” is a misogynistic and objectifying attitude towards women. I’ve seen this spoken about with anecdotal claims that after watching a lot of porn men are unable to look at women they meet without picturing them naked or engaging in sex acts. In other contexts, these thoughts are much more readily recognised as what they are; intrusive thoughts. The porn isn’t the cause, it’s just shifting the content. If you are sexually repressed and taught that it’s wrong to think about sex, it’s no surprise that you’ll only think about it more. Whether those sexual thoughts result in picturing people naked or in sexual situations, or someone avoids porn and instead concocts their own fantasies entirely, they’re not immoral or evil to have.

People don’t suddenly objectify women because they see them naked, or because they see them treated roughly in porn scenes. Men who are already misogynistic seek out porn where women are degraded and get off to it, and in that situation the porn content comes after the sexist beliefs.

So, someone is more likely to self-identify as a “porn addict” if they have shame around porn viewing. There isn’t actually a connection between the frequency of porn use and this kind of distress, it’s about whether they think watching porn is wrong. The supposed side-effects generally have a reversed cause and effect from what people think, and spreading this myth doesn’t help people who are distressed by their own porn viewing or the people who make and watch porn who don’t want their content viewing to be restricted.