Free porn is readily available and accessible all over the internet. Some may argue that there is truly no such thing as a porn addiction, as there is no diagnosis listed in the DSM-III-R (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders), but I argue that there is such an addiction as anyone who is a porn addict also exhibits the characteristics of addiction listed in the DSM-III-R. Those characteristics of addictive behavior are that the behavior which serves to bring pleasure and the person is 1) powerless to control the behavior and that the behavior becomes 2) unmanageable and out of control and thaat person engages in it despite negative consequences in other areas of their lives. Sound familiar?
I too have a spouse who has a porn addiction. He will readily admit it. He doesn’t think there is any harm in it. Maybe not, if you are a single guy who has no intentions of having any lasting relationships with anyone. True, porn can and sometimes does have an enhancing effect on some couple’s love lives, if you know where it’s place is in the relationship. A man (or woman after all i cannot be sexist in this post) who is a porn addict can’t possibly give their spouse or partner all that they need in a relationship, as the porn addiction takes precedence over attention, sharing, time spent together, intimacy, and all that is important to share. The spouse of a person addicted to porn winds up feeling like they are in second place below the porn models and actresses on the web. The spouse of a porn addict winds up lacking in intimacy as the porn addicted person soon cannot meet any sexual needs without the use of porn. Very sad that porn addiction itself can totally destroy relationships.