Dr. David Moore is a licensed psychologist and chemical dependency professional who is a graduate school faculty member at Argosy University’s Seattle campus. Bill Manville is a novelist and writer whose most recent work, ‘Cool, Hip & Sober,’ is available at online bookstores. Formerly the host of the No. 1 radio show ‘Addictions & Answers,’ he has been sober now for over 20 years.
BILL: Dave, here’s a question I’m sure many of our readers have wondered about: Why is porn so far and away a male addiction?
DR. DAVE: A Darwinian answer says that evolution selected different male and female traits not for their moral value, but to guarantee continuation of the human species. Male and female may be equal, but their genes are not the same. The female trait that paid off best was careful selection of a father who would stick around to help her raise as many healthy children as possible.
BILL: While the male trait that paid off best was a restless desire to impregnate as many women as possible? Being male myself, I can understand that urge. But where does porn come in – whoever got impregnated on an Internet porn site?
And yet, in a recent issue of the Atlantic, author Ross Douthat tells us celebrity architect Peter Cook was spending $3000 a month on “adult web sites” even while married to the beautiful Christie Brinkley.
DR. DAVE: My marital counseling colleagues report that while their male patients dismiss their hours on porn sites as just amusement, “like watching a baseball game,” their wives take their addiction to “eye candy” more seriously. As does no less an authority than Jesus himself: “I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
BILL: And would you believe it, the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers seems to be on the side of Jesus, reporting that Internet porn plays an ever growing role in divorce. OK, Dave, let’s talk about how to overcome an addiction to porn.
DR.DAVE: A quick bit of self-diagnosis will help. Has your porn viewing begun to harm your health, your job and finances, your family and marriage? And do you continue to do it anyway? That’s no longer an amusement. That’s an addiction.
BILL: Any 12-step programs you’d recommend not only for the guy himself, but also for his angry and embarrassed wife?
DR. DAVE: Bill, I’m going to surprise you and say “no” – primarily because too many of those narrowly-focused groups are filled with known sexual offenders.
BILL: Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous and Sexaholics Anonymous are not on your list of recommendations?
DR. DAVE: I believe that an obsession with porn is better addressed in the context of larger issues – like those dealt with in Codependents Anonymous or, if the instability has been alcohol- or drug-related, they can attend Al-anon or Narc-anon.
BILL: When I was growing up, porn was just something Henry Miller did in the back of a dirty bookstore in France. Why has it now become a multi-million dollar industry?
DR DAVE: Before the day of the World Wide Web, if your own impulse control didn’t stop you from indulging in pornography, the fact that you didn’t want to go to a dingy book store or to the “special room” at the video rental acted as a deterrent. But porn is now on the family computer, and kids know it’s there even before puberty – the average age of first exposure to Internet pornography is age 11.
BILL: Ugh! For a more hopeful note, Dave, how about giving our readers a reliable source for help?
DR. DAVE: First, a quick trip to sexhelp.com will lead to a Web site managed by the sex addiction specialist Dr. Patrick Carnes. Very highly recommended. But whether it’s the chicken or the egg, addictive behaviors feed on isolation. When we are isolated from people, we objectify them.
BILL: “Nastify” them?
DR.DAVE: Exactly. Seeing others as “nasty” sexual objects feeds our fantasies. Turning away from the solitary pleasures of computer porn to focus on increasing your partner’s emotional pleasure is Step One. The reward is that this maximizes your own sexual response; removing the motivation, and even ability, to objectify a sexual partner.
BILL: Although I started this column on a rant about the male impetus to porn, I should point out that at least one in four self-described sex addicts are women. Just like the increase in rates of female alcoholism in the last 20 years, porn seems to have become an equal opportunity destroyer.