Let us discuss the second question: can it impair other life aspects? Well, why is an addiction a bad thing anyway if it is confined to the time-bound practice and has no intervention or impairment to other life aspects whatsoever? A wife will not get upset at her husband if his smoking addiction was controllable, time-bound, and dispensable at any given time. A gaming hobby would not be frowned on if it did not intervene with other important life priorities. We defined an addiction as the inability to abstain from an action regardless of its negative consequences. Therefore, it is quite justified to assume that the addiction will intervene with other life aspects. Your yearning to the dopamine squirt, the visual novelty and this mischievous rush surely overrides the logical part of our brain and can oblige us sometimes to neglect important things such as the work project you have to finish tonight in order to concede to the physiological craving, triggering you closer to typing a nasty web address. Pornography addiction impairs other life aspects in different ways. Of course, the irritability it generates when desensitization carries the viewer to enjoy porn types that he/she would have never desired to watch consciously creates a deep state of confusion and frustration at one's self. This irritability and frustration creates intolerance and hostility towards other as you find yourself unable to enjoy the necessary mental clarity. It is important to note that desensitization happens as a result of dopamine plummet and not as a result of change in your sexual orientation. The taste you developed for extreme porn types is an acquired taste and is reversible in the context of abstinence and quitting.
Former porn stars such as Crissy Moran, Shelley Lubben, April Garris, Jennifer case and many others all shared that the porn industry took a toll on their lives. The truth about what happens between scenes, the thoughts that go through the minds of the actresses, the drugs they use to medicate the pain, the reasons that spurred them to join the industry and the damage it casted upon their lives are all cues that, if the viewer got to know, would help him/her understand that pornography is a damaging industry whether for the actors and actresses or the viewer seeing the end-result of a movie with editing, faked expression and unrealistic expectations (8).
When you are committed to someone, your other life aspects become theirs. Spouses can suffer a great deal from men with wrong sex beliefs. Relationships are hard work; they require emotional, mental, psychological and physical presence. Intimacy is a certainty. Appreciating your partner, understanding her needs, and satisfying her are required. Unfortunately, pornography turns women in the eyes of men to bodies to ejaculate to. I understand that this statement is quite extreme but it is true that the level of sexualization and objectification that happens is disturbing. Pornography is about rough penetration, extreme and spicy acts, women faking the liking of degrading sex actions, thus selling the belief that the awesome sex is porn sex.
Your spouse might be traumatized when finding out you're a porn addict. A lot of women would consider it a blatant betrayal and a true hurt. '' Why would you want to spend hours watching other female bodies while I am yours? '' the spouse might think. She will not understand that it is an addictive practice and it does not mean that her husband dislikes her and, frankly, you cannot ask her to rationalize it in that way so you won't do the effort required quitting and healing the trust you've broken. A full chapter in the porn trap: overcoming problems caused by pornography is entitled, '' partners in pain '' which narrates tens of stories about women who have discovered their husbands' addictive secret. Hearing them express their feelings serves true insights to any of those who would care about their current or future spouses. Some people might argue that their wives might be '' okay '' with it. They are not silly to believe that women in porn are their competition or that they are less attractive and sexy for not living up to their husband's acquired expectations. Having a partner accepting a brain-changing, distorting and will-eroding addiction does not make it okay. We do not stop our addictions for social acceptance nor shall we embark on them for that matter. If your spouse accepts the change in views and the unusual sex demands you ask from her and enjoys them and that becomes the reason she tolerates your practice then she does not understand the individualistic harms. Impairment to other life aspects is a part of the spectrum of consequences and not all. The prevalence of anal sex, for example, does not give it validity. Rather, it signifies the prevalence of beliefs distortion for those who are aware.
In conclusion, the answer to the second question is a definite yes. This is a backed up point of view. It is your right to think otherwise. However, I ask you to give due research to the points I tackled. Escalated pornography addiction impairs, and the belief that I will take one step and won't fall the slippery slope has been dreadfully proven wrong by the end result of many lives.
The 3rd question is: can it incur a social cost? It is interesting to know that individualistic actions can certainly have a social cost; a cost that others pay for an individual's unwise actions. The vague concept of freedom can be blatantly misused to serve personal interests. The business managers, or as I prefer to call them pimps, of porn actresses defend their rights to make their life choices. And, do you think because they care? Sasha Grey, a rising 18 years-old porn actress who has been challenged on Tyra Bank's show (9), has been defended by her so-called legal pimp, as he justified the extreme sex acts that Sasha undertakes. In summary, it's a matter of perspective; the porn industry itself can be served positively in a tactful presentation, arguing that it contributed to man-kind because of initiating the RTA label (restricted to adults), the ASACP (Association of Websites Advocating Child Protection), and accelerating the emergence of streaming technologies such as the video chat (10)!
Getting back to our 3rd question, the social cost of pornography addiction lies heavily upon the opposite sex. As it is argued by famous marketers that marketing is a battle of perceptions and not products, so do everything else; we hate, love, undermine, appreciate, loath, or cherish based on beliefs. And do beliefs fall heavenly from the skies above us? No. They get shaped. And what is pornography's all about? Women; it does not shape beliefs about cars, houses, neighboring countries or animal species; it is about sexual intercourse with women, at least in most cases. So, when you spend hours on products that directly signal to you that '' women moan to rape, women find degradation sexy, the key to winning a woman's admiration is your physical stamina, women appreciate and enjoy the kind of things you see on screen, and that women find no distress in that rough and animalistic treatment and that it is sexy, '' how exactly can we argue that pornography addiction is not correlated with abusive relationships, sexualization and initiating degrading actions on the assumption that it is normal and enjoyable in the context of what you see on screen?
The social cost of pornography is the destructive beliefs it constructs
To be continued:
List of references
8: Inspired by: Former porn star April Gariss' story part 1 and 2/Shelly Lubben's and Jennifer Case's webinar entitled, two ex porn stars uncover the truth about porn:
April Garris Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyQuBoVT46sApril Garris Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvOyTlePjlQ Shelley's/Jennifer's: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRZZAuPyG7I&feature=related (Note: The 7th note is inspired by numerous interviews for ex porn stars and not just April Garris, Shelley Lubben, and Jennifer case. However, they are the most prominent) 9: Inspired by: Porn Star Sasha Grey on the Tyra Banks show part 1, 2, 3, and 4: Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxUq_zzvAaAPart 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYs2YfNlRBgPart 3 and 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8dIxHSxeUk 10: Inspired by: Jupiter broadcasting: history of internet porn http://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com/2545/history-of-internet-porn-jupiternite-8510/
