Porn addiction (or any addiction) is often an overused "disease excuse"

[JFrankA]

I subscribe to a blog by Dr. Marty Klein called "Sexual Intelligence". I tend to agree with a lot of what he talks about. (A big reason why I subscribe to his blog. ).

Though I don't always agree with him, I think he hits the nail squarely on the head about what most people who claim to have or their partners have a "porn addiction".

http://sexualintelligence.wordpress...h-bastard-life-is-more-complicated-than-that/

While some women don’t, (hit the roof when they discover their partner watches porn) too many do. And these days they have a choice: they can decide their man is a selfish bastard, or they can give him the dignity of a medical problem—“porn addiction” (as a bonus, she acquires the dignity of suffering with a partner who’s ill.” A lot of guys like the disease option, too. If a wife claims that porn use is infidelity, if a girlfriend claims that porn use means he isn’t attracted to her, a disease is a good place to hide. It’s like a high school dropout being busted for car theft—and choosing to join the army instead of going to jail.

That's exactly how I feel that most people who claim "porn addiction" is really going through. I do think that there are people who really are addicted, and he covers that in this blog, but I don't think it's as rampant and as dangerous as people are trying to make it.

Further, I feel that this attitude of, as Dr. Klein puts it, "hiding behind a disease" is in other non-chemically addictive things, like food, the internet or shopping, etc. Now I'm not saying that addiction to these things don't exist, I'm just saying that people hide behind the "addiction" tag when it's clearly not the case.

So what are your opinions on Porn addiction? Do you agree?

 

[applecorped]

Give me a minute......




















































(lights cigarette) whew!..........no, I don't agree.

 

[Tsukasa Buddha]

I don't know, thankfully I've never encountered such disturbed women .

My brother had a big porn addiction problem, and even went to therapy. Every once in a while there would be a big fight when my parents found out that he had racked up one thousand dollars in bills. Literally, not exaggerating at all, and this would happen time and time again.

 

[Hallo Alfie]

I had a 22 year old woman come to see me the other day in my capacity as a drug and alcohol clinician. She wanted me to write a letter to our road traffic authority confirming she was a drug addict. In certain circumstances the authority will excuse outstanding fines if drug dependance is evident. Her fines total some $8000.

I will write a letter after five sessions (our policy) stating she is seeing us for drug and alcohol counselling.

Is she an addict? Who knows, she uses drugs

 

[fuelair]

I don't know, thankfully I've never encountered such disturbed women .

My brother had a big porn addiction problem, and even went to therapy. Every once in a while there would be a big fight when my parents found out that he had racked up one thousand dollars in bills. Literally, not exaggerating at all, and this would happen time and time again.

ON therapy or porn? If porn, he was wasting money - he can freely download way too much to need to spend money (except for storage drives, maybe).

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

I don't know, thankfully I've never encountered such disturbed women .

My brother had a big porn addiction problem, and even went to therapy. Every once in a while there would be a big fight when my parents found out that he had racked up one thousand dollars in bills. Literally, not exaggerating at all, and this would happen time and time again.

Someone should tell him that you can get porn for free on the internet. Or so I heard.

 

[ThunderChunky]

So what are your opinions on Porn addiction? Do you agree?

I agree that it is habit forming, just like sex, gambling, and marijuana. Some might call this addiction, but I do not think it is fair to call it a disease. I would only classify addiction a disease when you get serious physical withdrawal symptoms. With decent will power you can stop looking at porn cold turkey, the same cannot be said for heroin (so let's not group the two together).

 

[Joey McGee]

The problem is really perspective. Evolutionarily, attention spent on other females, digital or real, is a direct threat to her security. There's no way that she is going to leave that unchallenged. Complaining that only some women have prefrontal cortexes that are experienced and well-developed enough to override this mechanism is childish and ignorant. They rationalize reasons why it is not a threat to them, why they should even support it. While it might be the better thing to do, it's not the natural thing to do. And this should be respected.

It's easier to think of addiction as a disorder of the reward system that was shaped by evolution. The further we get from a "healthy" functioning of this reward system, the more likely we are going to get labeled an "addict". Can a guy get all of the rewards he needs from one woman and no porn? Yes. Is it possible to rewire the brain of the average person in order to do this? Yes. Russell Brand claims he was helped by transcendental meditation and I believe him.

I fell in love with a girl once and couldn't even look at porn or think of other women sexually without feeling ill, a shocking development. It was clear to me that a sequence of extremely happy events had led to a shift in my biology, I think those are modules put there by evolution (see Kurzban) It took an even longer series of unhappy events to turn me back into a porn-addict pick-up artist. I really would not mind having that biological change happen again, and I think it's important that people know it's possible.

 

[The_Animus]

I suppose for some it is easier to say they are sorry or claim porn addiction than to try to get their partner to understand it's totally normal and they should stop freaking out.

 

[bluesjnr]

I had a 22 year old woman come to see me the other day in my capacity as a drug and alcohol clinician. She wanted me to write a letter to our road traffic authority confirming she was a drug addict. In certain circumstances the authority will excuse outstanding fines if drug dependance is evident. Her fines total some $8000.

I will write a letter after five sessions (our policy) stating she is seeing us for drug and alcohol counselling.

Is she an addict? Who knows, she uses drugs

What? There is a system in place that allows (in certain circumstances) drug addicts to avoid paying fines? Is there something similar in place for alcoholics?

 

[Hallo Alfie]

What? There is a system in place that allows (in certain circumstances) drug addicts to avoid paying fines? Is there something similar in place for alcoholics?

Yep. Same place and policy.

http://online.fines.vic.gov.au/fines/forms/application for revocation.pdf

If you suffer from one or more of the following conditions you may be eligible to have your Enforcement Order(s) revoked under Special Circumstances (Form B):
Special Circumstances in relation to a person means a mental or intellectual disability, disorder, disease or illness, or a serious addiction to drugs, or alcohol or a volatile substance and / or homelessness.
Where one or more of these conditions exist you may be eligible to have your Enforcement Order(s) revoked. To apply you must complete Form B and supply evidence by way of a recent report written by a qualified psychiatrist,
medical practitioner or health professional. Applications under ‘Special Circumstances’ can be completed and signed by a person other than the person named in the Enforcement Order, referred to as a Third Party. The Third Party must complete all the information in Form B and attach any relevant information (eg medical, psychiatric reports or other supporting documentation) that may assist the Infringements Registrar in determining the application.

 

[kerikiwi]

... when my parents found out that he had racked up one thousand dollars in bills. Literally, not exaggerating at all, and this would happen time and time again.

It sounds as of your parents had problems of their own: allowing him to rack up one thousand dollars once is an accident, twice is a little foolish, the third and subsequent times just plain stupid.

 

[kerikiwi]

I had a 22 year old woman come to see me the other day in my capacity as a drug and alcohol clinician. She wanted me to write a letter to our road traffic authority confirming she was a drug addict. In certain circumstances the authority will excuse outstanding fines if drug dependance is evident. Her fines total some $8000.

In those cases, do they get to keep her car? That would be a very sensible move: it could be sold to help defray expenses, and it would save her from herself.

 

[BobTheCoward]

I know my girl loves it if I do some prep work in the morning.

 

[kerikiwi]

ON therapy or porn? If porn, he was wasting money - he can freely download way too much to need to spend money (except for storage drives, maybe).

If therapy, he was also clearly wasting their money, if time and time again it didn't work.

 

[kerikiwi]

I suppose for some it is easier to say they are sorry or claim porn addiction than to try to get their partner to understand it's totally normal and they should stop freaking out.

Of course the partners could equally try to get them to understand that not induging in pornography is also totally normal, and they should stop freaking out at the idea of giving it a miss and going out for a walk instead.

 

[Joey McGee]

It sounds as of your parents had problems of their own: allowing him to rack up one thousand dollars once is an accident, twice is a little foolish, the third and subsequent times just plain stupid.

What an insightful, penetrating comment. Without you knowing anything about his family you somehow have discounted all other possibilities Sherlock Holmes style! How did you do it? I mean I would have thought that stealing and fraud against their parents being a problem with rich, drug-addict teenagers, that he somehow got around their willpower. I would have also thought that perhaps he was racking up his own debt and his parents were just pissed at him for throwing his life away. I would have also had some compassion for the fact that parents often lose their minds because of uncontrollable children who have become addicts beyond anyone's fault or control, cause I blame Darwin for a lot of this not unwitting parents.

 

[Hallo Alfie]

It sounds as of your parents had problems of their own: allowing him to rack up one thousand dollars once is an accident, twice is a little foolish, the third and subsequent times just plain stupid.

Actually it's very common; it's a symptom of co-dependancy. Parents and partners do it all the time.

In those cases, do they get to keep her car? That would be a very sensible move: it could be sold to help defray expenses, and it would save her from herself.

I'm not 100% sure - I'm not a lawyer. I understand that if they took her to court, obtained judgement and an order, they could then sieze assets (I will be happily corrected on the process here).

 

[Joey McGee]

Actually it's very common; it's a symptom of co-dependancy. Parents and partners do it all the time.

Another Holmes here, amazing! You see because I would have thought that a detailed analysis would have been required of the situation before you could make that call. And I would have used a term that is accepted by academia not a controversial and harmful idea bred out of the 12-step movement.

 

[kerikiwi]

What an insightful, penetrating comment. Without you knowing anything about his family you somehow have discounted all other possibilities Sherlock Holmes style! How did you do it? I mean I would have thought that stealing and fraud against their parents being a problem with rich, drug-addict teenagers, that he somehow got around their willpower. I would have also thought that perhaps he was racking up his own debt and his parents were just pissed at him for throwing his life away. I would have also had some compassion for the fact that parents often lose their minds because of uncontrollable children who have become addicts beyond anyone's fault or control, cause I blame Darwin for a lot of this not unwitting parents.

All of which support my suggestion that the parents had problems of their own: those things all seem like problems to me.