Porn addiction – Towards disaster

By M L Satyan

Bengaluru: Screaming and shocking news:
• “A 16-year-old boy sexually abused his 14-year-old sister since he used pornography excessively.”
• “A school topper student got addicted to pornography and failed in his final exams. He then committed suicide.”
• “A newly married woman divorced her husband since he forced her to watch porn sites and abused her sexually.”
• “A porn addict man abused girl children aged 6-10 who lived in his locality.”
• “A school teacher compelled the girl students to watch porn sites during tuition classes.”

Today mobile phones are omnipresent and they have become “mini theatres” for the entertainment-lovers. Interestingly, media reports reveal that all categories of people like Legislators/Politicians, Teachers/Professors, School/College Students, Employers and Employees and even Religious leaders watch porn stuff during their working hours!

Use of porn materials by students increased during Covid-19 lockdown period when they were made to attend ‘online class’. They had a ‘free hand’ in using internet that was not properly monitored.

According to Pat Fagan, Senior Policy Analyst, Family Research Council-USA, “Pornography is a visual representation of sexuality which distorts an individual’s concept of the nature of conjugal relations. This, in turn, alters both sexual attitudes and behavior. It is a major threat to marriage, to families, to children and to individual happiness.” He further elaborates the key findings on the effects of pornography as follows:

Family and Pornography: Married men who are involved in pornography feel less satisfied with their conjugal relations and less emotionally attached to their wives. Pornography use is a pathway to infidelity and divorce, and is frequently a major factor in these family disasters. Pornography viewing leads to a loss of interest in good family relations.

Individual and Pornography: Pornography is addictive, and neuroscientists are beginning to map the biological substrate of this addiction. Users tend to become desensitized to the type of porn materials they use, become bored with them, and then seek more perverse forms of pornography. Men who view pornography regularly have a higher tolerance for abnormal sexuality, including rape, sexual aggression, and sexual promiscuity.

Other effects of Pornography:

• Many adolescents who view pornography initially feel shame, diminished self-confidence, and sexual uncertainty, but these feelings quickly shift to unadulterated enjoyment with regular viewing. This leads to increases in sex-related crimes.
• Pornography is about sex being used for the wrong reasons. Because it is sex without emotional closeness, the underlying hunger remains unsatisfied. They end up feeling emotionally empty and disconnected from those around them.
• When people view pornography, they end up creating an intimate bond with an artificial, fake world and can actually lose the ability to bond with real people. Pornography results in feelings of emptiness, low self-esteem and deep loneliness.
• Studies show that actual brain function changes in someone who has an addiction and the changes are the same in all addiction: alcohol, drugs, or pornography. Because pornography use can become an actual addiction, viewers are not able to stop through their own will power.
• Using pornography to feel pleasure and escape feelings of low self-esteem, anxiety, boredom and frustration creates a gateway for addiction. When the rush of pleasure disappears, they are compelled to repeat the cycle. Over time, their brain chemistry is altered and a full-fledged addiction occurs.
• Initially, people who are attracted to pornography say: “This is my favorite pastime”; “This is my reward to myself for making it through a rough day”. Eventually, they start saying: “I no longer feel an emotional response to anything”; “There is nothing in my life I enjoy doing” and “I feel totally isolated from the world” etc.
• Since pornography is an addictive substance, it creates an appetite for itself. This appetite increases over time as a person spends more and more time viewing pornography. The time, spent viewing pornography, will jeopardize work, relationships and interest in healthy pastimes.
• In the long run, pornography will not save a shaky relationship or failing marriage. In fact, it will magnify each emotional wound from the past and cripple your ability to meet your essential emotional needs, damage your ability to have a healthy relationship and leave you unable to sexually or emotionally respond to your partner.

Parent’s role:

Elder M. Russell Ballard identified seven things that every parent can do to minimize the negative effect media can have on families:

1) Hold family councils and decide what the media standards are going to be.

2) Spend sufficient quality time with the children so that they understand that parents are consistently the main influence in their lives, not the media or any peer group.

3) Make good media choices and set good examples for the children.

4) Limit the amount of time the children watch TV or play video games or use the internet each day.

5) Use ‘internet filters’ and ‘TV programming locks’ to prevent children from chancing upon things they should not see.

6) Have TVs and computers in a much-used common room in the home, not in a bedroom or a private place.

7) Take time to watch appropriate media with the children and discuss with them how to make choices that will uplift and build rather than degrade and destroy. (Source: LDS Family Services).

Parents can lay the foundation in the family for self-control, proper understanding of sexuality, and healthy emotional development by providing a secure environment in which healthy attitudes will grow. Love, kindness, good communication, and appropriate expressions of affection are vital.

Within the context of a warm and loving relationship, we will have our greatest influence as we teach our children to have a proper attitude about sexuality, warn them against unhealthy and immoral practices, and instil in them the desire to remain chaste and virtuous. Responsible societies minimize negative influences that affect young children.

The main defenses against pornography are close family life, a good marriage and good relations between parents and children, coupled with deliberate parental monitoring of internet use by the children. It is our responsibility to save our youth and safeguard ourselves from moving towards disaster.