How Pornography Is Hurting Many – Part 1 Mabel Ejoor - Vigil360 News

Prior to the development of internet pornography, a person had to go through a lot of trouble to get involved in any form of external sexual activity. In order to get a prostitute, engage in an affair, or even go to a strip club, an individual had to take the risk of being caught and exposed. With pornography being marketed as a healthy behaviour, many people turned to it to satisfy their sexual desires. A trip to a shop that sold pornographic material still has proven to be a relatively dangerous activity, with a risk of being noticed by family members or friends.

However, with the development of the internet technology, men and women no longer have to risk an embarrassing exposure in order to access pornography. Now they could watch an unlimited amount of obscene material from the comfort of their home. They could even get involved in the “harmless” internet sex with the help of video cameras.

Types of Porn Viewers
There are a range of people who watch porn. Some are more casual viewers, while others could very easily be considered addicted. While there are differences from one viewer to another, research indicates that none of it is healthy on their brain or relationships. Like we commonly have words to describe degree of an individual’s involvement in alcoholism, e.g. social drinkers, binge drinkers depending on how much alcohol he or she consumes. Similarly, there are terms like these for people who watch porn too. Three of such classifications were identified in http://fightthenewdrug.org/.

Recreational Viewers
Recreational viewers are the people who watch porn occasionally. This could mean they just watch here and there, or they only watch a couple hours of porn a week, maximum. Mostly they seek it out for sexual stimulation and entertainment, and it’s not a substitute for their social or love life. As harmless as that all sounds, this group of viewers is not totally in the clear. Research has shown that even exposure to soft-core porn makes viewers objectify the human body, and even feel dissatisfied about how their partner looks.

Even if a recreational viewer is just watching porn casually, their habit is still conditioning their brain to view people as sex objects, which is likely harming their relationship with their partner, and is still contributing to the demand for sexually exploitative material. Also, there’s the simple fact that every addiction had to start somewhere. Casual viewing may seem harmless, but it can easily lead to a full-on porn addiction.

Sexually Compulsive Viewers
Sexually compulsive viewers have typically been watching porn for years and the content they watch now is a far cry from what they watched in the beginning. And not only has their choice of porn turned more hardcore to satisfy them, these viewers turn to porn as a way to deal with their problems. When they’re happy or sad, angry or just plain bored, those with a compulsive porn problem turn to porn as an escape, a way to self-medicate. Because internet porn is a convenient, private, and cheap way to avoid dealing with real life issues, compulsive viewers use it as a means of managing life issues like depression, rage, disappointments amongst other stress syndromes. However, the relief of this sexual release only lasts a short time. When the viewer watches porn to deal with or avoid their problems, it only fuels a vicious cycle of addiction.

At-Risk Porn Viewers
This group defines the large group of people who watch porn habitually and regularly. They might not be considered full on compulsive viewers with a raging addiction, but they certainly have created a strong habit and regular routine of watching porn. People that fall into this group have likely tried to stop watching porn before, but have been unsuccessful. They’ve noticed that the material they watch has increased in both frequency and graphic content, and they also notice that they tend to feel a little lonely or depressed after finishing. At-risk viewers are right on the edge of becoming compulsive viewers, but haven’t yet seen porn affect how they live their daily life. They realize porn is a negative influence in their life, but can’t seem to kick the habit. Their partners likely aren’t happy with their habit and they find themselves unsatisfied at times by having real sex.

Porn and Relationships
How does porn cause these problems or make them worse? It’s the same with any addictive substance and behavior. When you view porn, your body starts to build up a tolerance to what you’re seeing, until the images that used to give you sexual arousal don’t do the trick anymore. So you end up spending more time looking for images that will give you the satisfaction you once felt. What used to take only a short amount of time turns into hours of clicking, searching, fast forwarding, rewinding, and viewing. The more time you spend chasing the perfect image, the less attention you give to your relationships, hobbies, work, and social life. This causes unhappiness and discomfort, and in order to deal with those feelings, you spend more time looking at porn to make them go away.

People who have slipped out of the recreational user category and into the sexually compulsive or at-¬risk user category have said that the addiction cycle made them feel guilty, frustrated, dissatisfied, and out of control. That makes total sense, especially when you consider that researchers have identified four levels of addiction that people cycle through.

Cycles of Pornography
i. The obsessive/preoccupation stage

ii. The ritualization stage

iii. The compulsive sexual behaviour stage

iv. The desperation stage

It’s probably not a coincidence that those same levels are used to describe people who suffer from clinical depression.

Bottom line—viewing pornography is damaging to relationships and to the quality of life in general. At first, a user may think they have their porn viewing habit in control and that it’s not a big deal. But after a while, it won’t be easy to stop. Pornography is changing our world but don’t buy the lie that porn use is okay or healthy because it isn’t.