ALBUQUERQUE, NM – Slapping the label “porn addict” onto those who enjoy viewing pornography not only obscures real potential issues for some over-indulgers, but also creates an erroneous notion that all pornography-viewing is maladaptive. So says David Ley PhD, a clinical psychologist and executive director of the behavioral health program New Mexico Solutions.
Ley objects to the pop-psychology label “porn addiction,” in part, because legitimate scientific exploration of the alleged disorder has yet to materialize. He explains his position in the report “The Emperor Has No Clothes: A Review of the ‘Pornography Addiction’ Model,” published in the scholarly journal Current Sexual Health Reports.
“Pornography addiction” was not included in the recently revised Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition — the bible of psychologists and psychiatrists — because of a lack of scientific data, Ley explains. Fewer than two in every five research articles, or about 37 percent of the literature about high-frequency sexual behavior, describe the phenomenon as an addiction. Only 27 percent, or 13 of 49 articles on the subject, contained actual data, and only one psychophysiological study appeared in 2013.
Ley’s review highlights the poor experimental designs, methodological rigor and lack of model specification of most studies purporting to “prove” porn addiction.
The research actually found very little, if any, evidence to support some of the purported negative side effects of porn “addiction,” according to Ley. There was no sign that use of pornography is connected to erectile dysfunction, or that it causes any changes in the brains of users.
In addition, despite great furor over the effects of childhood exposure to pornography, the use of sexually explicit material explains very little of the variance in adolescents’ behaviors. Ley believes adolescent behavior, as a whole, is better explained and predicted by other individual and family variables.
Ley and his team also believe the positive benefits attached to viewing pornography can improve attitudes about sexuality, increase the quality of life and variety of sexual behaviors, and increase pleasure in long-term relationships. Porn 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, the article notes.
According to Ley, people reporting “addiction” are likely to be male, have a non-heterosexual orientation, have a high libido, tend toward sensation-seeking and possess 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, he posits.
He also indicates a primary motivator for the diagnosis of “porn addiction,” when it occurs, may be financial. Practices used in so-called treatment are pseudo-scientific, at best, he noted — but they can be extremely lucrative.
“We need better methods to help people who struggle with high-frequency use of visual sexual stimuli, without pathologizing them or their use thereof,” Ley wrote in the report. “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.”
