They’ve also been shown to be psychologically addictive. Recovering addicts often claim the psychological addiction is harder to beat than the chemical addiction. The studies cited in the OP’s article would seem to show that porn is also psychologically addictive. Unless you’re saying that psychological addiction doesn’t exist, or isn’t as much of a problem as chemical addiction?
Bolding mine. I sure wish that would work for my Calculus II class.
…lets call the whole thing off. 
You know, Diogenes, for a cynic, you can be really kinda Pollyanna-ish. Or don’t you remember how President Nixon’s Commission on Pornography found no evidence that porn was harmful, and Nixon proceeded to ignore the Commission’s findings and crack down on porn anyway? These guys don’t want evidence, they don’t want proof. They want any kinda rationale, excuse, or lie they can get.
Add number two
The scene opens and the camera is positioned behind two seated teenage boys. They are staring into a computer monitor, which is obscured behind the head of boy #2. Both boys seem to be moving their right arms furiously in the vicinity of their laps. Again the view is obscured. Suddenly, a beautiful woman in a black dress bursts through the door.
Boy #1: Hey, it’s porn star Tara Patrick!
Boy #2: Awesome!
Tara: No boys, I used to be porn star… until I found Jesus. Now I’m a star for God. [half turning to camera] Did you know that that film video clip you are watching was produced using Afghani heroin money? That’s right, 89% of porn is illegally funded by TERRORISTS.*
Boy #2: No way!
Tara: Way. Here’s something else you didn’t know: by watching porn together, you are 6X more likely to turn gay**. That’s right; you could gobbling each other knobs by the end of the week!
[Both boys look uneasily at each other]
Boy #1: I’m sorry Tara, we didn’t know.
Boy #2: Yeah, let’s go to church and pray that Jesus doesn’t turn us gay.
Tara: [now fully to camera] Most porn addiction begins with gateway images like the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition or the Sears Catalog juniors’ underwear section. From there, it’s just a matter of time before they are raping nuns or turning gay. Parents, talk to your children about the dangers of porn before it is too late.
And the small print:
*Extrapolated figures from fictional accounts
**I’d like to say this is fantasy, but this is actually a belief held but some church groups
That joke would’ve worked much better had I actually included the link. :smack:
I suppose of one is bashing the biscuit while simultaneously thinking of Jesus, one is probably too far gone to help…
We should probably make sure our terms our defined correctly.
(Bolding mine)
So unless a dude is rubbing all the skin off his dork or it somehow affects his ability to work and finction in society then he does not have an addiction as that term is defined in the medical and mental health industry.
Even then, you would have to somehow prove that the addiction is specifically looking at pornography rather than just a compulsion to jerk off or keep producing sexual arousal.
There was a funny thread about kids making the “O” face for Jesus at Christian Rock shows…
Anyhoo, count me in as one of those folks cautiously supportive of catagorizing compulsive pornography viewing as a paraphilia worthy of treatment. My brother had a roommate (and no, it wasn’t my fucking brother, so don’t even start) who ran up over $2500 worth of bills for 900 numbers; and when confronted, the guy tried to skip town. My bro took him to small claims court and won. So, this guy had to pay out $2500 plus some nasty court fees, lost a friend and a good appartment, and was publically humiliated. Guess what happened next? He kept calling the 900 numbers and wound up bankrupt, so my brother tells me. This guy fucked up his life for phone sex. If that isn’t a classic unhealthy addiction, I don’t know what is. People do really need help with stuff like this, whether its porn, gambling, drugs, food, or any one of those things that are fun & fine in moderation, and totally destructive when abused.
As it is I’m pretty sure I’m getting hooked on this goddamn place, and need to knock it off. Lessee…ahhh, Halo 2!
Hmmm…I don’t know how they manage that. Looking at images of naked women will turn a man gay?
Bolding was mine, because when we talk about things that are harmless in moderation, we have to be very clear that problems originate with the person, and not the object being abused.
The Anti-Sex Police are demonizing the object, pornography, and ascribing qualities to it that it simply doesn’t have. That is what makes them look ridiculous.
Isn’t that a hallmark of the modern neocon methodology? It’s like a magic trick, where they wave their right hand in full view and shout “homo god pray porn jesus” so the target demographic doesn’t notice how the left hand is shoveling the nation’s treasury into corporate coffers.
(There’s a joke here about “stupid flaggots,” but I’m damned if I can nail down the wording.)
Of course we shouldn’t, and there shouldn’t be government action. However, in the original post, Gobear was doubting the existence of porn addiction. That’s what I was contradicting him on. I wasn’t calling for the government to do anything about it.
Of course. It occurs at level 1, though to be fair, the raping and pillaging don’t take place until level 3.
Well, that’s a good point, and certainly one I agree with. But in the spirit of not throwing the baby out with the bathwater, to those in this thread who seem to deny that even relatively harmless-seeming vices should be thought of as “abusable”, I would say you might be surprised. I’m not for outlawing porn or anything, but sex does appear to be something with serious abuse potential, and minimizing that concern doesn’t help with finding a rational solution to a very real problem.
Here’s why I can’t laugh at this thread. You see a former friend of mine is “a lovely woman who is sincere in her beliefs.” One of those beliefs is that her now ex-husband is a sex addict. She has never said what she meant by that, only that he had to go to 90 12-step problems in 90 days before she’d consider letting him live in her home again. As a result, he’ll be spending Thanksgiving Day with me and my family, if he isn’t too depressed. I know him very well, and I know what he was accused of and how much of it was true (damn little). The people we believe to be behind his ex-wife have done far worse, including to me.
I am a straight, healthy adult female. As a result, I enjoy looking at healthy adult males (if I’m only looking, it doesn’t make a difference whether they’re gay or straight). All of the straight or bi-sexual, healthy, adult males I’ve known enjoy looking at healthy adult females. I don’t have a problem with this, and, in fact, I’d be rather concerned if a man I was dating didn’t get a rise out of the prospect of seeing me naked (double-entendre intended!). I also find looking at people having sex to be rather exciting. I’m hardwired that way, and it seems to me to be a good thing. On the other hand, up until now, I’ve been pretty discrete about that. I look at porn once in a blue moon, but when I do, I enjoy it.
Meh. I’m with the Devil’s Grandmother. Porn is nice once in a blue moon, although I haven’t had the guts to search for it on the web. This message board, on the other hand, is something I do have to watch out for!
Maybe I should run naked through this thread while it’s still legal . . . .
Nah. Last time I did that, elucidator apparently mistook me for a man! 
CJ
You can try to take my porn.
You can try to take my TV.
But the day you come for Rome: Total War, there’s gonna be problems
Siege, I’ve been joking most of the thread, but I was being dead serious in that particular post. I think Leydan is misguided, but sincere in her beliefs. I believe she is being manipulated and used in order to lend an air of scientific credibility to a conservative agenda. As you point out, Leydan and many otherwise good people can’t come to grips with human sexuality. Worse yet, most still feel the drives and are wracked with guilt because of it. Sorry to hear about your friend.
I wonder when a War On Porn, and a search for Weapons of Ass Destruction, prompts the US to invade Sweden. OK, I’m joking again. I think.
This kind of irks me. Eight hours of porn? Must be bad. If he’d spent that same eight hours surfing sports sites, playing fantasy football or the like, that’d be just dandy. Or if he spent that eight hours drinking and playing office golf. And need I mention that “she told…” is hardly convincing?
I used to hear the same shit back when I still played D&D. “Someone did something horrible or something horrible happened to him, and he played D&D, so D&D is evil & bad & nasty.”
I have this little fantasy that someday the concepts of “addictive behavior” and “addictive personalities” are recognized.
You ain’t the only one. I actually had someone tell me that “only queers and dykes eat pussy.” That much head-scratching can raise welts.
Don’t you think there may be a middle ground between Victorian prudery and the present situation where any 12-year-old can sit down at a computer in a public library and pull up a picture of a woman eating feces out of another woman’s rear end?