A new study shows that so-called “porn addiction” doesn’t actually exist. In fact, behavioral health expert David Ley, PhD, Executive Director of New Mexico Solutions in Albuquerque says that viewing porn is actually healthy and can be beneficial. “Ley and his team believe that the positive benefits attached to viewing such images do not make it problematic de facto,” the report tells us. “It can improve attitudes towards sexuality, increase the quality of life and variety of sexual behaviors and increase pleasure in long-term relationships. It provides a legal outlet for illegal sexual behaviors or desires, and its consumption or availability has been associated with a decrease in sex offenses, especially child molestation.”
And here’s where things get interesting. People who complain about having a “porn addiction” aren’t concerned about their interest in porn per se, but rather the type of porn that keeps bringing them back for more.
Clinicians should be aware that people reporting “addiction” are likely to be male, have a non-heterosexual orientation, have a high libido, tend towards sensation seeking and have religious values that conflict with their sexual behavior and desires. They may be using visually stimulating images to cope with negative emotional states or decreased life satisfaction.Consider it a relative of “the more you hate gays, the more likely you are to be gay" scenario. This is also why homophobes often argue that homosexuality is a choice. Many are deep in denial and they’re hoping like hell that it is a choice — so they can choose not to be. And it doesn’t take much looking to find people who claim to be straight looking for help to “cure” them of their “gay porn addiction.”
“We need better methods to help people who struggle with the high frequency use of visual sexual stimuli, without pathologizing them or their use thereof,” writes Ley, who is critical about the pseudoscientific yet lucrative practices surrounding the treatment of so-called porn addiction. “Rather than helping patients who may struggle to control viewing images of a sexual nature, the ‘porn addiction’ concept instead seems to feed an industry with secondary gain from the acceptance of the idea.
That’s what Ley and team seem to mean by an “industry with secondary gain from the acceptance of the idea”; the homophobia industry, the ex-gay scam, and religious right in general. It’s just another way that rightwing anti-science isn’t just pointing people in the wrong direction, but is actively harming people by telling them their healthy desires are a disorder that needs a cure. When it turns out that there is no “cure,” people get depressed and hopeless — and tragedy is the predictable consequence.
These people have no interest in helping anyone. In fact, to a large degree, they’re the ones with an unhealthy obsession. They’re obsessed with eliminating their own homosexual desires — and they don’t care who they hurt with their mad scientist experiments and quack pursuit of a “cure.”
[photo via Wikimedia Commons]
