Topic: Divorce & Child Custody Issues
The Slippery Slope of Internet Pornography Addiction Internet pornography addiction destroys relationships and marriages. It its worst forms it can lead to sexual deviancy, pedophilia, and imprisonment. You owe it to your spouse, to your children and to yourself to address this problem early if it exists in your home.by Jake Morphonios
(conservative libertarian)
Friday, February 13, 2009
An addiction to internet pornography can be exceptionally devastating to a marriage. Viewing internet pornography is a form of unfaithfulness that often leads to adultery. The author has personally counseled with dozens of men and women whose marriages have been destroyed by internet pornography. The following stories are true, though names have been changed to protect identities.
Most internet pornography addicts know that their behaviors are shameful and they often attempt to hide their addictions from their partners. Often, addicts will wait until their spouses go to sleep and then get up to go use the computer. They have honed their reflexes to quickly click to a different web page if they hear their partner's approach. Because of this, it may be difficult to catch the addict in the act.
Jason Johnson is an insurance salesman in Buffalo, New York. His wife shared her thoughts on Jason's usage of internet pornography:
"I began to suspect that Jason was looking at internet pornography at night after I went to bed. Sometimes I would wake up in the middle of the night and he wouldn't be next to me. I would always find him at the computer in our office but I couldn't see the screen from the doorway. He always seemed so weird when I walked in on him like I had caught him doing something wrong. The next morning I would check the computer only to find that the internet history for the night had been erased. Before long he was doing it throughout the day and even got caught looking at it at work once. But Jason would never admit what he was doing. I felt betrayed - not just by him looking at pornography but by all the deception and lies."
A telltale sign of internet pornography addiction is the tendency for the addict to try to play out prevalent sexual stereotypes. The sexual acts illustrated in online pornography are often very different from the kind of sexual practices commonly engaged in by normal, healthy couples. Men who abstain from graphic pornography do not normally shave off their pubic hair (and compel their wives to do the same), sodomize their partners, subject their wives to humiliating acts with seminal fluids, or enjoy fierce physical domination. Internet pornography addicts become desensitized to traditional forms of loving sexuality and get to the point that they cannot attain sexual release without acting out or fantasizing about scenes of deviancy.
Kevin Hayward makes a living as a plumber in Phoenix, Arizona. His former wife shared the extent of her husband's depravity:
"I didn't want to do the things in bed that he wanted me to. So Kevin would bring home alcohol and get me all 'liquored' up so that I wouldn't be as inhibited. He made me do things that I never would have done sober. I'm still in therapy trying to deal with what he did to me. It was marital rape. He made me feel like a piece of trash and whenever he was done using me he tossed me aside. To this day I don't know how to have a normal relationship with a man because I'm so afraid of getting attached to another person who would do that to me."
Research has demonstrated that internet porn addicts develop progressively more deviant sexual appetites (McLaughlin, 2004). Just like a drug addict must gradually increase the frequency and potency of their drug to achieve the same high, porn addicts must gradually increase the frequency and potency of that which they view. When soft core pornography no longer produces the desired stimulation the addict begins viewing more graphic images. What once might have repulsed the porn viewer now becomes necessary to experience sexual release.
Larry Oaks is a tobacco farmer in Johnson City, Tennessee. His ex-wife explained:
"At first Larry was just looking at men and women having sex, which was bad enough. But then he started looking at homosexual images, scenes of bondage and sadomasochism, simulated rape and even bestiality. Around the time that I realized that he was getting gratification from looking at photos of teenage girls being savaged by grown men I knew that I couldn't live with him anymore. My kids used that computer too. I didn't want them exposed to all that."
For those addicts who choose to view child pornography, there is ample material available on the internet. With the click of a mouse the addict may visit sites with headlines such as "Exploited Babysitters" or "Daddy4Daughter". Psychologists suggest that the copious amount of child-oriented sexual material available on the internet creates an ideal breeding ground for new pedophiles (Farella, 2002).
The Center for Internet Addiction Recovery (www.netaddiction.com) published research affirming that internet pornography addiction often leads to the perpetration of "virtual" sexual offences against children. Some pedophiles "suffer from an addictive disorder motivated by an attempt to use sexual fantasies as a way to escape problems in their lives." (Young, 2001)
If your partner is struggling with an addiction to internet pornography do not let his or her addiction demoralize you, humiliate you or destroy your self-esteem and sense of self-worth. Decide what is and is not acceptable to you and talk through your concerns kindly and openly with your spouse. Express your dissatisfaction with the use of internet pornography in your marriage and warn your partner of the jeopardy in which this pervasive smut may place your relationship. Speak directly so that your feelings are made clear. If your spouse is unable to control the addiction, then encourage him or her to seek help. Support groups are available to the addict (www.sa.org) as well as for those who are being affected by the addiction of a spouse or partner (www.sanon.org).
Internet pornography addiction destroys relationships and marriages. It its worst forms it can lead to sexual deviancy, pedophilia, and imprisonment (Salter, 2003). You owe it to your spouse, to your children and to yourself to address this problem early if it exists in your home. The preservation of your family is worth the temporary heartache that may be associated with trying to help your spouse break the bonds of internet pornography addiction.
References:
Farella, C. (2002). The unthinkable problem of pedophilia. Nursing Spectrum: http://community.nursingspectrum.com/magazine/articles.cfm?AID=8291
McLaughlin, J. (2004). Cyber child sex offender typology. http://www.ci.keen.nh.us/police/typology.html
Salter, A. (2003). Pedophiles, Rapists, and Other Sex Offenders: Who They Are, How They Operate, and How We Can Protect Ourselves and Our Children. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Young, K, Cooper, A., Griffin-Shelley, E., Buchanan, J, & O'Mara, J. (2000). Cybersex and Infidelity Online: Implications for evaluation and treatment. Sexual Addiction andCompulsivity. 7(1), 59-74.
Young K. S. (2001) Tangled in the Web: Understanding Cybersex from Fantasy to Addiction.
Jake Morphonios is a child & family rights advocate and Executive Director of the North Carolina Family Rights Coalition (NCFRC). Neither Mr. Morphonios nor the NCFRC provide legal advice or assistance with individual cases.
Parents seeking support or information, or other parties interested in becoming involved in the family rights movement may contact Mr. Morphonios at: jake@ncfamilyrights.com
The views expressed in this
article are those of Jake Morphonios only and do not represent
the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates. Jake Morphonios is
solely responsible for the contents of this article and is not an
employee or otherwise affiliated with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.
Posted By: Walt Thiessen
Date: 2009-02-13 17:26:33
With all due respect, you're reversing cause and effect here to a large degree. First of all, none of the behaviors you're describing are due to pornography, Internet or offline. They are due primarily to previously existing dysfunctions within the people themselves, usually tied to various other forms of dysfunctionality by influential people (parents, teachers, other adults, siblings, etc.) in their lives from their early years of development.
Second, if there is sexual dysfunction in the bedroom, usage of pornograhy to compensate is a symptom of a much deeper and more all-pervasive problem. It is not the cause. Removing Internet pornography would not in any way address or remove the real cause. It would only influence the people in question to find other, dysfunctional ways to express their marital problems.
It is very true that most of our society (world-wide) is fraught with dysfunctionality, and this is a very real problem that is totally under-addressed. Blaming it on pornography only hinders honest discussion of the real issue.
I'd rather see an article that addresses the real, root causes of these kinds of behavior.
As a libertarian, you're doing a very cool thing by creating a market for your services. Unfortunately, the problem isn't pornography or internet pornography, but the way the people you mentioned deal with their problems.
Has there ever been a "normal" sexual act? The things you mention in paragraph 3 are only deviant if the partner isn't into it.
Oral sex used to be regarded as something deviant, awful and perverted. What's a little pubic hair trimming, roleplay or semen on the face between people who love each other?
Bestiality and child porn? That's disgusting! Makes me puke!
Everything else is up to the couple to decide whether is deviant or not. When couples are not loving each other accordingly is due to other issues not necessarily internet porn. When someone have to go out of their way to view porn rather than make love to their spouse, they are probably not getting any from their spouse. It seems that internet porn addiction makes it worst that what it already was to begin with. Not necessary the cause.
However, a little bit of porn every now and then probaly doesn't hurt as long as it is not used to replace the real thing. Example: If the spouse is on a two-week business trip and not available at home for the loving then what else can you do? For men, draining the prostate from the fluids regularly is actually healthy to decrease risks of its cancer or at least postpone it. A minimum of 25 ejaculations per month will keep the prostate healthy. That is why the body will create involuntary wet dreams if the prostate have not been drained for a while.
Here is a good website for your reasearch: http://www.youporn.com. It will get the job done quickly. :)
Did you ever notice that ancient Greek and Roman nude statues don't have pubic hair? That's because shaving pubic hair was fashionable then, especially with women! Was classical nude art "pornography"?
I thought that the Greek and Roman nude statues didn't have pubic hair because whoever sculpted them got lazy. It is very difficult to sculpt hair.
Anyway, In India there are temples with sexual sculptures in all sorts of weird positions. So it was like a worship of nature.
Porn is relative.
Internet pornography is destroying everyone by physically altering the survival instincts of our brains. Pornography is a poison that destroys a person from the inside out.
Pornography is the worst addiction because it strikes at the very core of who we are. We are, by nature, supposed to engage in sex. However, pornography distorts that very personal, wonderful and essential portion of our lives so much that our brains can't handle it. Therefore, we start to think different sex acts are ok, when they are not. Yes this is a personal matter but unfortunately pornography is distorting what we normally would find absolutely revolting.
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