One of the biggest social problems arising from the digital revolution and accessibility of computers and the internet is porn addiction. This problem is mostly prevalent in young men (Logue, 2015) and can start during childhood (Dignify, 2015). Before the digital age of computers and the internet, pornography was limited to drawings, physical pictures, video tapes, and magazines like Playboy. The internet and computerization allowed for faster, cheaper, and easier distribution and consumption. Rather than require an 18+ ID, porn could suddenly be accessed without any acknowledgment of mental issues or simply required pressing “OK’ to any age confirmation popup. Computerization meant that the internet and its entire database was at consumers’ fingertips meaning that pornography would also be at their fingertips. This digitalization and accessibility also meant that more pornography can be distributed and consumed in centralized locations (websites) and thus rather than be limited to a few selections of material, consumers can choose an essentially unlimited amount of content to consume!

From both an economic and psychological perspective, consuming the same content results in diminishing marginal utility. So, when supply of pornography is endless and much easier to access than alternatives (magazines at a gas station, consent of a physical partner, etc.), a person can go through so many virtual partners. This can strain the standard idea of monogamous relationships and even within a relationship can an addiction persist. Consumption of porn while in a relationship may be considered cheating to some or at the very least can make the partner feel insecure about themselves (Patel, 2019). Regardless of whether consumption is still present in a relationship, porn normalizes certain sexual acts, behaviours, and expectations that normally wouldn’t even be known. For example, in porn, the act may last 30 minutes, however in reality the average is 5-7 minutes (IQWiG, 2006). The consumption from either party increases anxiety which leads to higher levels of dissatisfaction and the normalization of sexual violence (Vera-Gray, 2021).

From a scientific point of view to explain porn addiction, the consumption of new content often with little to no effort results in the dopamine receptors being dulled. Porn overstimulates the brain and leads to secreting more than a natural amount of dopamine. This overstimulation and over secretion can result in unresponsiveness to natural sources of pleasure (The Conversation, 2019). Dopamine receptors play a central role in the reward system of the brain (Bhatia, 2023). An example of a natural source of pleasure for a man who is heterosexual would simply be preparing for sexual intercourse with his nude female partner; In this case, the receptors may be so damaged that the man may have trouble “getting it up” (getting and maintaining an erection). This is called porn-induced erectile dysfunction and there is a link between the amount of porn a man watches his level of erectile dysfunction (Jacobs, 2020). A metaphor would be like a dull knife that is unable to cut meat because it was used to cut much easier foods.

The question then becomes what to do about porn addiction, what has been done, and what options are available from a community perspective? Individually, it is up to each person to self-regulate, however an addict is hardly going to be able to see the issues caused by abusing drugs. In that sense, solving porn addiction is like solving drug addiction where a physical outward change may occur. Porn addiction however has mental side effects, so it is harder to pinpoint who is suffering from this addiction. Furthermore, porn consumption isn’t necessarily immoral, and so unless a government was to adopt an authoritarian stance on the issue, it wouldn’t be banned from the country. Not to mention the existence of VPNs. Any internet porn censoring (even by suppliers) would result in a rise in VPN interest to circumvent said ban, as can be seen in Utah (Lewis, 2023).

Another issue with curing porn addiction is that its consumption is normalized - at least the western culture. As the popular saying goes, “sex sells”. However, with porn addiction, the addiction can be triggered simply by seductive and lustful media (softcore porn) and not necessarily, what pornographic content is. Even if porn sites were nonexistent sexually implicit media is everywhere: social media posts, celebrities, memes, youtube, advertisements. All these potential triggers require resistance training and a higher level of willpower. So, in terms of dealing with triggers, an immense amount of willpower and contingency planning must be done. Each person will be at different stages of porn addiction, with different reasons, and will have different triggers. So just like with anti-marijuana and anti-gambling advertisements by the Canadian government, an anti-porn campaign would be beneficial to the public, even if the solution is up to the individual at the end of the day.

Another stab at porn addiction is preventing its manifestation in the first place as it does occur in children. One may jump to conclusions and say that children can simply be educated about porn addiction in school however this naïve thinking ignores how sexual education itself is taboo for some parents and can even be opted out by parents. If porn was being talked about in class to children aged 12, then a lot of parents would also be angry as they might perceive their child’s innocence to be taken away. The solution isn’t simply to “sexually educate” children, but additionally educate the parents themselves. This requires the amalgamation of many people and since it’s a taboo topic, it may not be met with open arms.

In conclusion, porn addiction is a private problem facing many individuals and the lack of sexual education in school can lead to disastrous relationship related situations for the public. A society plagued with addiction will be objectively less happy and less content than a society without addiction. There are democratic solutions available to be deployed, however the private nature of porn addiction combined with the taboo around sexual education makes both rehabilitation and prevention a difficult task.

Bibliography

Bhatia, Anmol., Lenchner, Jennifer R., Saadabadi, Abdolreza. (2023 January). Biochemistry, Dopamine Receptors. StatPearls. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK538242/

The Conversation. (2019, December). Watching pornography rewires the brain to a more juvenile state. Neuroscience News. https://neurosciencenews.com/neuroscience-pornography-brain-15354/

Dignify. (2021). Written evidence submitted by Dignify. UK Parliament. https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/39598/pdf

IQWiG. (2006). Premature ejaculation: Overview. Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK547548/

Jacobs T., Fog-Poulsen K., Vermandel A., Wood D., De Wachter S., De Win G. (2020). More Porn, Worse Erectile Function. EAU 2020. https://www.urotoday.com/conference-highlights/eau-2020/press-releases/123014-more-porn-worse-erectile-function.html

Lewis, Kaitlin. (2023, May). Utah Searches for VPN Spike After Pornhub Blocks Access to State. Newsweek. https://www.newsweek.com/utah-searches-vpn-spike-after-pornhub-blocks-access-state-1797964

Logue, J. (2015, October). Statistics on Who Uses Pornography. SAGU ThoughtHub. https://www.sagu.edu/thoughthub/pornography-statistics-who-uses-pornography/

Patel, A. (2019, January). Does watching porn count as cheating? Experts debate digital infidelity. Global News. https://globalnews.ca/news/4844943/cheating-online/

Vera-Gray, Fiona., McGlynn, Clare., Kureshi, Ibad., Butterby, Kate. (2021, September). Sexual violence as a sexual script in mainstream online pornography. The British Journal of Criminology, 61(5), 1243–1260. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azab035