Internet Porn: Worse Than Crack?

According to clinicians and researchers, Internet pornography is the new crack cocaine, leading to addiction, misogyny, pedophilia, boob jobs and erectile dysfunction. Mary Anne Layden, co-director of the Sexual Trauma and Psychopathology Program at the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Cognitive Therapy, called porn the "most concerning thing to psychological health that I know of existing today."

Layden said "the Internet is a perfect drug delivery system because you are anonymous, aroused and have role models for these behaviors." The drug of choice, pornography, can be pumped into the comfort of your own home 24/7, free of charge. With the youth of today’s society being technologically minded, many know how to use the Internet better than their parents. Furthermore as porn is now ubiquitous, it may increase the degree of difficulty for parents in stopping their children from being exposed to such explicit material.

No longer do pornography users need to make an embarrassing trip to a local newsagency, video store or an adult shop to feed their addiction, instead individuals can simply log onto the Internet to receive their fix (which does not discriminate against age, even if it is a legal requirement).

Layden also said “pornography addicts have a more difficult time recovering from their addiction than cocaine addicts, since coke users can get the drug out of their system, but pornographic images stay in the brain forever”. Similarly, Satinover (a psychiatrist) said "pornography really does, unlike other addictions, biologically cause direct release of the most perfect addictive substance”. Pornography causes masturbation, which causes a release of the naturally occurring opioids (doing what heroin can’t do).

Due to pornography’s increasing use, it has been argued that to reduce the prevalence of pornography use, federal money should be allocated to fund brain-mapping studies into the physical effects of pornography and also fund health campaigns to educate the public about the dangers of pornography, by means such as bus signage including “sex with children is not OK”. Many psychologists would like to see more money devoted to research on sex. However this is unlikely as studies intended to show the harmful effects of pornography must contend with ethical rules prohibiting harm to human subjects, while sex researchers have a hard time getting any funding, unless their study is specifically HIV-related.

This being said, there is no consensus among mental health professionals about the dangers of porn or the use of the term "pornography addiction." Many psychologists and most sexologists find the concepts of sex and pornography addiction problematic. Psychologists argue that people who have compulsive and destructive behavior centered on pornography can not be marginalised as this can also happen with other activities such as gambling and shopping.

Pornography is a safer form of sexual activity as, when used alone it has no risks of health issues such as sexually transmitted infections (STI), unlike physical sexual activity which has associated risks such as pregnancy and STI.

At the end of the day pornography use is not illegal (unless it is images of children) for adults to use (aged 18+), unlike cocaine which is illegal. Therefore it is unlikely, even if pornography is addictive, that it will be able to be controlled in the same way in which drug use is controlled.