Over the years, our internet speeds (depending on where you live) have got quicker and quicker. In the early noughties, simply downloading a 200kb JPEG could take longer than cooking dinner, whereas now it comes in the blink of an eye – and it’s only going to get better. People around the world can stream HD films without much worry and we’re all thankful for the technology. However, there’s one group who has suffered more and more because of fast internet: people with porn addiction.
Harley Street psychotherapist Rob Watt has seen a 100 percent increase in referrals to his Innisfree Therapy clinic over the past six years. Patients range from teenage years to the elderly and even involve couples as well.
He told the Evening Standard: “Sex addicts presenting today are unrecognisable to clients presenting 10 years ago.
“We are increasingly seeing more people presenting with a compulsive behaviour on pornography and, in the younger generation, this is becoming more pronounced. With porn, you can find bigger, better, faster, harder consistently.
“Dopamine is the neurochemical of desire and you might as well be on coke, having one line and not putting it down until the bag’s finished. There’s a tolerance level that develops – in other words, what did it for you yesterday doesn’t do it today, and there’s some pretty dark stuff going on out there.”
Over the years, several big-name celebrities have revealed their addiction to pornography such as Terry Crews.
Crews told Us Weekly: “For years, years, years, my dirty little secret was that I was addicted to pornography. It really, really messed up my life in a lot of ways.
“I had the biggest sense of entitlement ever. I felt the world owed me something. I felt like my wife owed me sex.
“If day turns into night and you are still watching, you probably got a problem. I literally had to go to rehab for it. I didn’t get help to get my wife back. I got help because I needed it.”
It’s certainly not helping that you can also now experience porn in virtual reality.
It’s been a bumpy ride for porn addiction to be considered as an actual addiction.
Two years ago the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists said it ‘does not find sufficient empirical evidence to support the classification of sex addiction or porn addiction as a mental health disorder, and does not find the sexual addiction training and treatment methods and educational pedagogies to be adequately informed by accurate human sexuality knowledge’.
It’s also not included as a condition in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
This however flies in the face of the evidence showing that when some people watch porn produces the same type of response as having a line of cocaine. If you can have a cocaine addiction, why can’t you have a porn addiction?
While it might not be acknowledged in the official manuals, it hasn’t stopped professionals from offering treatment.
Cognitive-behavioural therapy has been suggested as well as acceptance and commitment therapy. Other helpful steps to help addicts is putting on filters to prevent them from searching for sexual content on the internet.
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