Porn addiction does not really exist, according to a team of psychologists, who stress that watching it can actually prevent sexual offences.
Dr. David Ley, a clinical psychologist and executive director of New Mexico Solutions, a large behavioral health program, reviewed research into pornography addiction and found that only 37 percent of research articles about excessive porn viewing describe it as an addiction. What's more, the researcher found that only 27 percent of articles on pornography contain actual data. He therefore concluded that experiments carried out on the topic have been poorly designed and lacked the depth to provide any proof.
Ley notes that pornography addiction was not included in the latest version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders due to a lack of scientific data.
He also stressed that there were no actual signs that porn viewing was linked to erectile dysfunction or that it changes the brains of users. Instead, he claims that it can actually improve attitudes toward sexuality, increase quality of life and pleasure in long-term relationships. Porn viewing may also serve as an outlet for illegal sexual desires and its use has been associated with a decrease in sexual offences, especially in relation to child molestation.
"We need better methods to help people who struggle with the high frequency use of visual sexual stimuli, without pathologizing them or their use thereof," he said in a press release. "Rather than helping patients who may struggle to control viewing images of a sexual nature, the 'porn addiction' concept instead seems to feed an industry with secondary gain from the acceptance of the idea."
