Pornography addiction is something we will often kid about but is ultimately a behavior that can seriously damage relationships and take precedence over more important functions and responsibilities in your life. What separates a porn addiction from a keen interest in porn is the negative consequences of your behavior. With a porn addiction, the behavior is considered compulsive, wherein you would spend an inordinate amount of time watching porn instead of interacting with others or completing important tasks. Moreover, the behavior would persist even if harms your career, relationships, or state of well-being. While the American Psychiatric Association APA made some effort to categorize porn addiction in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistic Manual of Mental Disorders DSM-5 —proposing that it be a subcategory of hypersexual disorder— the scientific board eventually concluded that there was not enough evidence to support the diagnosis. Some psychiatrists have questioned whether the behavior should be classified as a compulsive disorder more along the lines of a drug or alcohol addiction.
In the past, a person suffering from an addiction to pornography would primarily satisfy his or her craving for pornographic content by viewing or storing pornographic videos, magazines, and photos. Now, the tools available to feed a porn addiction have since evolved thanks to the internet and other technologies, allowing anonymous access to unlimited pornography at all levels of explicitness. Warning signs and symptoms of a porn addiction may include:. To determine whether porn addiction treatment is necessary, you may be asked to consider which of the following statements are true for you:. Many of these warning signs echo the behaviors associated with substance abuse disorders, such as isolating in order to engage in viewing porn, or ignoring, replacing, or neglecting significant relationships due to a fixation on pornography. Porn addicts may find themselves viewing pornographic images or content for hours.
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Others partake of it occasionally, and others on a regular basis. But experiencing an uncontrollable compulsion to view porn can be as problematic for some people as other behavioral addictions. A Kinsey Institute survey found that 9 percent of people who view porn have unsuccessfully tried to stop. This survey was taken in