Gender Differences And Pornography Addiction

“It can snatch any kid out of the home…It snatched me out of mine 20 years ago.” (Final Interview, 2:54-3:02 minutes). The addiction to pornography is often likened to that of a drug, “One should become addicted to it, and I look at this as kind of like an addiction. Like other kinds of addictions…you keep…I would keep looking for more potent, explicit, more graphic kinds of material. Like an addiction, you keep craving something that’s harder…something…which gives you a greater sense of excitement.” (Final Interview,

Pornography is commonly used in many cultures across the world. Within the United States, alone, roughly 40 million people regularly visit porn sites (Streep, 2014). And yet, despite its growing popularity, only a handful of studies have explored pornography’s potential effects on sexual satisfaction for those in exclusive relationships (Bridges & Morokoff, 2011; Daneback et al., 2009; Maddox et al., 2011; Stewart & Szymanski, 2012; Stulhofer et al., 2010; Zillmann & Bryant, 1988). As using pornography can potentially have negative effects on both the user’s and their intimate partner’s sexual satisfaction, it is important to

To begin, pornography has addictive characteristics and because of those characteristics intimate relationships often suffer. Today, men and women tend to become addicted to watching pornography and use it to masturbate. It has been proven that “problematic pornography is characterized by a predominant urge for behavioral engagement, referred to as a craving” (Allen 67). If both parties of a relationship have this urge or craving for pornography, this could cause their relationship to suffer. The sexual act lacks love and intimacy and becomes mechanical or second natured. Pornography has been compared to addiction and people who are addicted enable each other. Therefore, there is no

Pornography is a controversial subject all around the world. Part of its appeal is its taboo nature. It has been argued that pornography is harmful. Porn is an underground market that is more or less legal but is it harmful? An article written by Diana E.H. Russell in “Dangerous Relationships: Pornography, Misogyny, and Rape” argues that it is. Diana E.H. Russell is a sociology professor. She has researched the issue and argues that pornography is profoundly harmful. Professor Russell believes that it inclines men to want to rape women and that it encourages them to act out rape fantasies. However, Michael C. Seto disputes Professor Russell's theory that pornography is harmful. Michael Seto's article, written with

Another information that I learned is having pornography online for easy access statistics says that it lowers sexual assault crimes. It outlined in the book in pg. 142, that pornography helps lower sexual assault, divorces, suicide and child sexual exploitation. Sexual assault is a major crime and if research are saying that pornography helps reduce cases, then it should be pursued not abolished. In addition, divorces have been on the rise in American families because financial problems, or just lack of passion. Using pornography, the book says that it is helping to rekindle most of the lost passion married couples suffer from on regular basis. Moreover, the decline of suicide

Consequently, the exposure of pornography can influence intimate partner sexual violence and forced sexual relations, especially among the females who are exceptionally vulnerable. In recent years, the focus on intimate partner sexual violence has been on the rise and its operationalization along with its association with negative repercussions. In particular, a study of 87 female victims reported that the presence of pornography is associated with the sadistic rapes from a sample of intimate partner sexual violence. With reports stating that 14% of individuals were forced by partners to watch pornography and attempt to re-enact such behaviors and acts (Moreau et al. 224). Which is directly an effect of sexual scripts provided by pornography.

While many will argue that pornography is not harmful and a “victimless crime”, are not of the real effects that pornography can have on a family, or a society as a whole. First of all pornography is detrimental, because it treats humans as objects. Pornography depicts people, especially women, in demeaning and degrading ways. Even if the only ones involved were adults who freely chose to be involved in the production of pornography and even if they were compensated well enough to feel good about what they are doing, pornography does not build the integrity of persons who are made in the image of God. Another effect of pornography is that it is linked to different forms of violence. Pornography can be linked to rape, abuse, murder, and other felonies. Pornography is also harmful to society in that the outlets for obscene material are often outlets for other material such as prostitution, pandering, drug dealing etc. Finally, pornography harms the family. Like other sins, pornography is addictive and progressive.

From the Utilitarianism view point, pornography is seen as morally right because it provides the greatest benefit of happiness for the greatest good. The Utilitarianism suggest that there is an obvious solution that is fair, and it may be one that appeals to common sense” and that “one should choose to do that which produces a better outcome for the largest number of people.” (Mosser, K. 2013, Ch. 1.6). under Utilitarianism, pornography offers benefits in marriage because couples can revive their marriage by using pornography as a new tool to explore each others intimacy and satisfy their sexual relationship. Some

John Woods, a child therapist, worked on a case with a 13 year old boy named Andrew who was referred to his clinic because he was abusing his five-year-old half-sister. During the therapy treatment, it was found that Andrew had been constantly viewing pornography for two years and he had “built up a complex fantasy world” and he wanted to try to involve his half-sister in what he was watching on his computer. Woods went on to explain, “Without virtual pornography, it’s my belief that Andrew would not have acquired his compulsion to abuse, let alone dreamt up the idea of involving his sister” (Woods 2012). In Andrew’s case, his addiction to pornography affected his relationship with his family, but in multiple cases, viewing pornography can bring up issues into one’s relationship with their significant other.

Mark Lasser’s book “Healing the Wounds of Sexual Addiction” there are 4 major themes being explored, Part One: What is Sexual Addiction? Here Dr. Lasser explains what sexual addiction is, and what the three building blocks of sexual addiction are “Sexual Fantasy, Pornography, and Masturbation”. (Lasser, 2004, pp 28)Lasser expands on the different types of sexual addiction, and give us understanding of the different characteristic of the addiction. Major theme part 2: “The Roots of Sexual Addiction”, here Lassser gives the roots of sexual addiction and explains the reasons why it happens, these reasons as listed are Unhealthy Family Dynamics, and Family abuse,

The adult-entertainment industry erupted in the late twentieth century and has expanded recently due to improved technology. Millions of men and women alike watch these films and arrive to the conception that what is portrayed on the screen is how a relationship should be. In a recent article in the New York Times, it was reported that 80% of men and 50% of women feel that their sex life is lacking due to pornography, and 40% of the people within the same poll have broken up with their spouse or partner due to the “lack” of love life. Clearly, the adult entertainment gives both genders a false conception of how a relationship and sex life should be. Pornography portrays sex as overly exciting and thrilling, which can lead to dissatisfaction with one’s partner. Such a situation can cause a rift between couples that can result in divorce and break-ups, which leads to fewer

Pornography has many obvious as well as not-so-obvious consequences within society. Pornography has the power to ruin marriages, destroy trust, excite a person to the point of sexual crime, or create an unhealthy view of human sexuality and the opposite sex.” (WowEssays, Pornography)

With the use of a comparative qualitative research design, this research can explore women’s attitudes and beliefs regarding to pornography and its consumption in considerable depth, but the small sample size (only eight research participants) of this qualitative research can result in lack of representation in the research findings of young Chinese women attitudes towards pornography. Bryman (2012) condemned that majority of the research findings from qualitative research cannot be generalised to a bigger population due to the small sample size (Bryman, 2012). Indeed, the issue of representation is less problematic in this research. This is because this study is not attempted for representing on behalf of all young Chinese women’s opinions and attitudes towards pornography consumption. However, the small sampling size (only 4 consumers and 4 non-consumers of pornography) in this research can connote that other researchers, who might be interested in studying pornography, can still neglect the relationship between pornography and Chinese women due to the fact that the research findings of this are not generalized to a larger Chinese population. Linked to the issue of small sampling, the selection bias inevitably appears as another limitation in this study. As afore-discussed, this study, because of the time constraint problem on carrying out a postgraduate research, has limited its targeted research participants to young Chinese women who are known

Prior to the death of Mr. Collins father, his consumption of Internet pornography and sexual chatting was not considered remarkable. He appeared to be able to function sexually while masturbating and during sexual intercourse with the partners in his life prior to this life-altering event. Mr. Collins expressed a relatively normal desire for sexual contact as a teenager as well as desire to couple with partners his age in traditional ways, but after the death of his father, what normally produced the arousal necessary to ejaculate while masturbating and having sexual intercourse, no longer appears to have had the desired effect. It is at this time that it appears that the symptoms of depression began to manifest in Mr. Collins life, depressed mood, decreased interest or pleasure, change in sleep, change in activity, and concentration. As these symptoms manifested, it appears that the indicators of Hypersexual Disorder began to develop; excessive masturbation, obsessing about sex to the point that it interfered with his life, spending significant time planning their sexual activity, frequent viewing of pornography or use of sexually explicit websites or other online services including adult chat rooms, frequent one-night stands with strangers, staying emotionally detached from sexual partners, frequently engaging in paraphilias, and inability to stop despite the consequences.

In order to understand the negative effects of pornography, the term itself must be properly defined. Britanica.com, one of the world’s oldest and highest rated encyclopedias, states that the word “pornography” can be derived from the Greek word porni graphein which means “any work of art or literature depicting the life of prostitutes.” (Jenkins, 2017) The modern-day English word, according to America’s number one dictionary Meriam-Webster, means “material (such as books or a photograph) that depicts erotic behavior and is intended to cause sexual excitement.” These definitions combined define pornography as any form of media that entertains its viewer with sexually arousing content.