by being slapped on to so much perfectly normal behavior.

And the obsession some people (mostly on the right but there are also those who could call themselves lefties) have with the genitals of other people and what they are doing with them is evidence of a deep-seated, serious mental illness.

because if they are suddenly withdrawn, there will be psychological stress accompanied by cravings. The "hit" such addicts get comes from within their own brain chemistry and explains things like why people will compulsively repeat this pattern while everything around them gets completely wrecked. "Wrecked" is the operative word. People who are not compulsively engaging this stuff have perfectly reasonable, normal lives.

The compulsion requires exactly the same sort of treatment that any substance addiction does.

I do agree that people who have no personal boundaries regarding other people's bodies and what they do with them have even worse problems.

Because that's pretty much the zeitgeist these "every man's battle" folks are coming from.

And it's awfully convenient, because news flash: I don't know if "every man" masturbates, but most do. And a huge, overwhelming majority of them look at smut, too.

If you can define those two things as pathological and guilt-trip people over them, man, you've got a limitless market for whatever bullshit you're selling the poor saps that buy it.

Does their habit prevent them from going to work? Do they do it in inappropriate places (such as work, while driving etc)?

If it's something that begins to take over one's life, it's an addiction. If you sometimes like to take matters into your own hands, that's perfectly normal. The problem comes from those who think that the latter is some sort of disease or a bad thing.

I also think Duggar obviously has deeper problems than watching the occasional Sunny Leone video on redtube.

I do think one can be addicted to porn. But I also think that is NOT duggar's problem. He has a terrible and dangerous relationship with sexuality. Watching pornography is a symptom for him, not the addiction/problem.

He abused his sisters, for christ's sake. And repeatedly cheated on his wife. If the story is true, one instance of his cheating was abusive.

That's not a porn addiction.

(Though I do believe porn addictions can be a real thing...)

Was never quite as satisfying

Bah dum dum

you should see my water bill.

or other inappropriate places. It's a compulsion, meaning he can't resist it long enough to go hide someplace to relieve it.

Anybody who retreats behind the locked bathroom door with hand cream and Kleenex is not doing it compulsively. He's just having a perfectly normal good time.

substances that more directly stimulate pleasure centers of the brain.

The idea of being addicted to sex or porn or various other pleasureable activities should be, imho, non-controversial after recent discoveries about the physical characteristics of gambling addiction:

Research to date shows that pathological gamblers and drug addicts share many of the same genetic predispositions for impulsivity and reward seeking. Just as substance addicts require increasingly strong hits to get high, compulsive gamblers pursue ever riskier ventures. Likewise, both drug addicts and problem gamblers endure symptoms of withdrawal when separated from the chemical or thrill they desire. And a few studies suggest that some people are especially vulnerable to both drug addiction and compulsive gambling because their reward circuitry is inherently underactive—which may partially explain why they seek big thrills in the first place.

Even more compelling, neuroscientists have learned that drugs and gambling alter many of the same brain circuits in similar ways. These insights come from studies of blood flow and electrical activity in people's brains as they complete various tasks on computers that either mimic casino games or test their impulse control. In some experiments, virtual cards selected from different decks earn or lose a player money; other tasks challenge someone to respond quickly to certain images that flash on a screen but not to react to others.

And it's not- it's someone arbitrarily telling you that something relatively harmless is sinful, wrong, patholigical, not based on any objective criteria like "did you look at porn at work repeatedly after being warned not to and got fired", which to me would indicate a general powerlessness (to use 12 step parlance) over the behavior, but rather based upon a subjective, religious or ideological assertion that the behavior itself is wrong.

Similar to saying everyone who ever has a glass of wine is an alcoholic, although alcohol DOES have the capacity to be physically addictive.

More like saying everyone who sets foot in a casino is a gambling addict. It's a ludicrous misuse of the concept.

Normal behavior being classified as addiction to justify the Religious Zeliot quest for celibacy

I mean, there's a devoted subset of kinksters who like that stuff, but perhaps if one put a big cross or a picture of the Jesus on them....


http://www.landoverbaptist.net/showthread.php?t=86786

That featured one of those.

Someone told me about the episode.

"How embarras'kin!"

Or does it?

And since none of us are psychiatrists--let alone one who has had extensive time diagnosing Duggar--we have no business playing one.

What's the point of online forums if anonymous cyber-mobs cannot occasionally opine on matters well outside our areas of expertise and experience, and when confronted by someone we don't like politically, demand we proverbially "burn the witch."

"Their keen enjoyment hid behind a Gothic mask of duty"

Two, it's fucking awfully convenient when culture war Jesusbagger crashes head-on into his own hypocrisy, and then blames the same godless fornication "immorality" culture he's been waging war on the whole time.

Isn't it?

However, I'm similarly not going to play armchair psychiatrist or theologian, whether to defend or condemn him, simply because I think he's otherwise a complete ass.

Addiction and dependency are serious topics, and it's not my area of expertise (I'm a commercial lawyer). Our political opponents can suffer from them like anyone else, and I have more than enough material to criticize people like Duggar without resort to commenting on potential psychological or medical conditions, or criticizing religion, even if hypocrisy is involved. I've also seen and heard more than my fair share of double-standards and hypocrisy about such topics here and elsewhere among even my most liberal friends and colleagues, so much so that I often find articles like the OP and related discussions particularly unhelpful and meaningless.

define anyone EVER looking at a picture of a naked woman (or man) for purposes of sexual arousal as "addiction" - AND sites like "every man's battle" are expressly coming from the "cold shower" perspective of pathologizing masturbation itself- defined pretty much universally in the health and psychology communities as normal, healthy behavior.

and

b) Duggar is clearly using these points as deflection, so that his own fundamentalist ideology isn't challenged, rather conveniently it is the same secular, sex-positive wider culture that he's been waging war against, that is the source of his troubles.

I think some people can have a tendency to become habituated to all sorts of things- gambling, sex, posting on the internet- and when those things cross the threshold of causing problems in ones' life, certainly some people need to address them and if they have trouble addressing them, ask for help, support, etc.

However personally as someone who has seen actual, physiological addiction at play- like, watching an alcoholic go through days of life-threatening DTs- I do tend to roll my eyes at the tendency to call ALL problematic behavior "addiction".

And you're also missing a core point, which is that the community Duggar is coming from defines looking at any pictures of nekkid bodies on the internet, or masturbating, as "addiction" (really, a fancy name for "sin&quot

You don't believe that, do you? Do you think every person that ever looked at a playboy centerfold is a porn addict?

Yes, I fully believe certain communities pathologize otherwise-healthy behavior and make even a passing interest in such behavior seem worse than it is, but none of that changes whether or not Duggar actually meets the definition of addiction or not.

Addiction is simply engaging in activities with rewarding and reinforcing stimuli despite adverse consequences--loss of relationships, jobs, health, money, or freedom. Some people can go into a casino, play a few slots, and leave--others feel so taken in by the reward of a payout that they seek it out at the cost of their job and their bank account. Some people can play World of Warcraft for a couple of hours a weekend and be done--others stay up for days at a night and miss sleep and stay home from school.

Calling addictions what they are, either behavioral or chemical, doesn't detract from other addictions. A job lost due to excessive pornography usage is the same as a job lost due to alcohol dependency.

and to conflate that with perfectly normal (and commonplace, as much as some people may be in deep denial over that fact) smut-viewin' seems an idiotic, and deliberate, deflection on the part of the Christian Right Culture War groupthink he's a part of.

And that, I think, is Marcotte's point "communities pathologize otherwise-healthy behavior". It's impossible to say if Duggar actually is a "porn addict" if he's coming from a place that defines looking at ANY porn as "addiction", any more than one can have a rational definition of alcoholic if you lump the person who has an occasional glass of wine at a party in the same group with the person who has to pull the plastic vodka bottle out from under the bed first thing in the morning to stave off the shakes and dry heaves.

The title of the piece is a little misleading and doesn't reflect the point of the article, which is really what I was commenting on--in addition to my distaste of armchair psychiatry.

I suppose it also depends on whether "adverse consequences" is subjective based on the community. Complex topic, addiction is.

of their life, which means they need help."

I would also say there probably are women, too, just as there are probably women who use their vibrator "so much it interferes with the rest of their life, which means they need help."

And yes, there are probably men who use their vibrator so much it... etc.

But again, as someone who has witnessed actual physiological addiction and what it can do to the body, I do think the word is tossed about a bit to easily to describe what is IMHO probably better referred to as "habitual, problem-causing behavior".

Dependency is the body's adaptive response to certain substances being introduced, and suffering through withdrawal when the substance is no longer introduced.

Addiction is compulsively seeking out rewarding stimuli despite adverse consequences. A compelling need to drink alcohol in order to enjoy the feeling of being drunk, despite potential consequences of losing a job or getting a DUI is addiction; drinking alcohol to avoid the shakes is the result of dependency.

I know a lot of people who like to drink even though it has caused them trouble in the past-- they're not all, to my mind, alcoholics or even "addicted" to alcohol.

I put ghost pepper sauce on my fajitas, because I find the stimuli rewarding- despite the adverse consequences that I shall not go into detail about, generally 12-24 hours later. Is that an 'addiction'? Hmmm, perhaps.

But I would think we ALL can agree that no one with any sort of actual problem is helped by defining the word "addicition" so broadly that it encompasses all use- like saying, again, anyone who has ever shot craps in a casino is a "gambling addict".

What that's about is trying to dress up a subjective morality point- "porn is bad, gambling is bad", etc. in medical lingo, i.e. "addiction".

And someone who meets a certain number of them can be classified as addicted; the more symptoms, the more severe the diagnosis (2 symptoms of alcohol use disorder is mild AUD, 6+ is severe AUD).

The overcorrection from over-pathologize get to dismissing legitimate pathologies is not an acceptable state either. The existence of Internet gaming addiction might be a good punchline at open mic night, but the APA apparently has considered it worthy of further study and potential classification as an official disorder.

What I'm largely saying is there are people who devote their entire lives to studying these issues, and I'm fully willing to defer to them, and not popular opinion, on their area of expertise.

might not fall under the umbrella of the go-to experts?

But typically neither is the "you're just trying to shirk responsibility" crowd.

And I think it's pretty clear he's got bigger problems than just looking at youporn.

... among the worst.

Go Directly to Hell, Do Not Pass GO, in this game of life.

Quickest way to lose your soul.

I'd rather be a homeless lunatic street preacher than a Koch or a Romney, or God Forbid, a Reagan or a Bush or a Cheney.

I understand what you're getting at, but I think it has become all too easy for people to explain away the choices of others that they don't personally agree with, as an "addiction" or somehow out of the rational control of the person making the choice.

It infantilizes others and it makes it too easy for authoritarians to try to control peoples' lives because "they don't actually know what they're doing".

Is every bad decision or crappy life choice an addiction? No. But people can become addicted. Addiction is a real thing. And it isn't just drugs or alcohol. People become addicted to behaviors as well. Gambling and shoplifting are two of the more well known and more accepted examples that come to mind. For some people, that rush we get when our brains fire up that reward system goes haywire.

personally I do distinguish between people having trouble modulating their self-control vis a vis something like gambling, for instance- even though, clearly, the reward pathway goes haywire- and the physiological syndrome that an alcoholic or heroin addict experiences-- but leaving aside the distinction between physiological addiction and behavior, psychological addiction (or habituation, which I consider a more appropriate term)... yes, people can seemingly become addicted or habituated to just about anything, including porn.

That said, Amanda Marcotte makes several good points, not the least of which is, these religious right anti-porn crusaders- have a history of dressing up what is clearly religious (or ideological) dogma in pseudo-medical terminology, to try to make it sound more legit. Remember our old friend Judith Reisman, who tried to say that something called "erotoxins" meant that those bad ol' picshurs of nekkid ladies were, quote, "1000 times more addictive than heroin"?

Yes, certainly people can become "addicted" to just about anything, from doing laundry to slot machines to looking at porn. That doesn't mean that everyone who gets turned on looking at a playboy centerfold is an "addict", any more than someone who smoked a joint at a Jimmy Buffet concert once has a "marijuana problem".

Amanda Marcotte: No, Porn Addiction Is Not Really A Thing

That seems to heavily imply that the opinion is that porn addiction is not really a thing. Am I being too literal?

I used that headline because it was the headline on slate. If you actually read the piece, she's clearer about what she means:

Definitely not her best work.

I agree that Josh Duggar, if he's blaming this on porn addiction, is probably just making an excuse. But I'd argue that doesn't mean porn addiction doesn't exist. It exists the same way all those types of addiction exist, i.e. gambling, shopping, etc.

I know that many people argue it doesn't, but unless one believes that those types of addictions don't exist, then it doesn't make sense that porn addiction doesn't exist. Why would porn be magically exempt from that type of addiction?

Probably the subheader would work better, but it's probably too late to change it now.

IMO Josh duggar is more of a psychopath than a porn addict

Hi. I am a licensed clinical social worker and licensed clinical addiction specialist. the only behavioral addiction recognized in the DSM 5 is gambling. There are a number of conditions that cause compulsive behaviors. The biological basis of addiction involves a hijacking of the brains reward systems and it certainly stands to reason that this could be activated by porn, however the research isn't there yet.

There are a slew of diagnostic criteria for addiction and a person has to meet at least five to qualify for diagnosis.
tolerance,
withdrawal,
major role failure due to use,
a pattern of legal problems caused by use,
a pattern of social problems from using,
excessive time devoted to obtaining substances of abuse,
continued use despite negative impacts on comorbid mental or physical health conditions,
persistent desire to cut back or quit without the ability to do so,
giving up other activities in favor of using.
... I feel like I forgot one, and I'm definitely paraphrasing but that's the bulk of it.
I hope this info is helpful.

Thank you!

and getting turned on as "addiction", that's a bit of a stretch, then, eh?

that's basically meaningless blather.

We can get to a place where no one is ashamed of baitin!

Seems positively archaic, to me. Like, "you'll go blind"!

Although come to think of it, my eyes are pretty bad.

They get all ruffled up at the thought of someone taking it to task.

I'd get a rotary saw and a workbench, but honestly smut is cheaper and creates less sawdust.

.,,.go forth and multiply ? And didn't he provide us with a "helping hand "?

to remind us that Onan was a Barbarian.

His sin was deliberately failing to impregnate his sister-in-law after his brother died.

The ever so wholesome family values and marriage laws of the Bible require that if your brother has died without children, then you have to bang his wife until she's pregnant.

Instead, Onan "spilled his seed upon the ground". Now, aside from the obviously uncarpeted bedroom, suggesting she was not much of a homemaker, Onan's reasons for doing that aren't clear. Either, he did not want the responsibility to a nephew being raised as his dead brother's child, or he figured that he wouldn't be able to keep having sex with her once his duty was fulfilled.

But it's not simply justified to remember him as Onan the Masturbarian when it seems from the text that he simply have been withdrawing and was not, shall we say, much of a pre-cummer.

Or maybe one or the other one of them was simply infertile, and in the reproductive genius of their day they simply concluded that he was "failing to plant his seed".

Who knows? But the takeaway for me has been that, through both of my brother's childless marriages, I have continued to wish him good health and long life.

Best part is, the fundy crowd couldn't get mad, because it was a straight interpretation. Right from the text.

When something is "forbidden," it becomes a rush for some people. Some of these far right "anti-porn" people get off on the fact that porn is forbidden and evil. It makes them want it even more.

has the possibility of becoming addictive--porn, gambling, sex, violence, etc.

Not physically addictive like drugs, but the brain can get hooked on its own response.

If various parts of the brain aren't being stimulated, you're either in a coma or dead.

X-box addiction, yada yada yada!

AA, OA, SA and DA simultaneously. While I thought it was admirable she was working so hard on her problems, I also wondered if she was addicted to 12 step groups.

You're right, that would be a lot of meetings.

I could go into extensive detail about some what-I-consider-valid criticisms of 12 step methodology- from "learned helplessness" to the historical ties to "Moral Re-Armament" (and, by extension, fascism in Europe).. but that's a cheezburger for another thread.

like con:

http://www.morerevealed.com/library/coc/chapter2.htm

http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-rroot120.html

and pro:

http://www.silkworth.net/religion_clergy/01050.html

and neutral:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_Group

The guy who went to various addiction meetings so he could feel like he belonged to a group when he didn't have the problem they were there to discuss. I thought that was an amusing comment on our culture of "gotta identify a disorder I Have".

oh, the irony.

....exhaustive , authoritative LAST FUCKING WORD on what addiction realy, actually, true fully is!

http://www.asam.org/for-the-public/definition-of-addiction

No! I am not trying to Rick roll you , this is it , honest !

Now, don't give me any TL;DR bullshit! If you want to participate in this discussion READ IT - read it ALL!

"addiction" (even as defined by the "society of addiction medicine" - hardly a disinterested party, one would think) is, at the end of the day, a label.

Whether or not that is an accurate or useful label, I think we can all agree that when people try to define any looking at porn or masturbating itself as "addiction" (because "sinful" is too obvious, I guess) as these "every man's battle" people, referenced in the Marcotte piece, do.. they are doing a disservice both to the folks who are being shamed for perfectly natural behavior, AND to those who actually do have a problem, whether you call it "addiction" or something else.

Wouldn't you agree with that?

We can all agree that while ....

..... an inability to consistently Abstain from controling others, something of an impairment in your own Behavioral control, a Craving, or increased "hunger" to control others as a rewarding experience, and this leads to a diminishment of your ability to recognize significant problems with your behavior and your interpersonal relationships along with dysfunctional Emotional responses.

Well, you just might be a member of the ASAM!

I never have a problem with this sort of "reasoning" as long as it is based on a desire in the person whose behavior is in question to change it.

When it becomes some other self-appointed authority figure who is not happy with the subjects behavior, and not the subject themselves, then my interest tends to perk up. Many are the atrocities commited in the name of that sort of "logic", it is the same "logic" that says "We had to destroy the village in order to save it." If the village chooses to destroy itself, that is one thing, you can say I told you so. When you do it, then it's your fault, meddling in thngs which are not your business.

It is never their fault.

"Listen, I'm no social scientist and haven't done a survey. I don't pretend to know what John Q citizen thinks about this. But I've lived in prison for a long time now and I've met a lot of men who were motived to commit violence just like me. And without expectation, every one of them was deeply involved in pornography. Without question, without expectation. Deeply influenced and consumed by an addiction to pornography."
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ted_Bundy

Causation - or merely correlation?

Hell if I know...

If porn was turning people into serial killers, there would be a fuckton more serial killers than there are.

One thing we DO know, statistically, is that porn is way more available than it was a few decades ago and violent crime is undeniably down.

Correlation? Causation? Hell if I know.

But I DO know that porn is NOT making people violent, because it was we would see some evidence. We don't.

#1- the massive, sudden increase was due to a change in the definition, that's spelled our right in the article. Now, maybe the new definition is newer, better, and more comprehensive than the old one, but it's still not even close to logically accurate to call that an "increase".

It'd be like saying on tuesday we didn't call nose picking a felony and on wednesday we did, and lo and behold, from tuesday to wednesday there was a massive increase; "soaring rates" in felonious crime!

#2- seems to be specific to the NYC subway system, a limited example to be sure.

#3- people are taking it more seriously and reporting requirements are more stringent (see #1)... however, there is also a good amount of evidence out there that the "campus sex assault epidemic" is hyperbolicly overblown, certainly it is highly unlikely that the situation on the nation's college campuses is any different than it used to be.

#4- cant get the forbes link to load, but it seems to be a list of the most dangerous cities- again, not really relevant to general statistics of a rise or decline in crime.

#5- that's the UK, and they're saying convictions are up; another good thing, because it means the crime is being taken more seriously and effectively prosecuted. (emphasis added)

As it's doubtful that Bundy could actually come up with anything but anecdotal data points from his prison cell.

Would it be different with expectation?

Bundy feeds people bullshit to amuse himself. Saying porn causes violence is like saying sexy clothes cause rape, the old I can't help myself bullshit.

that porn causes violence. At best, he was noting a correlation.

And to my mind that is a much more illuminating correlation. We are awash in smut. I can remember when smut was rare and precious and forbidden. And yet I doubt very much that forced sex is more common now than back in the days of the sexual double standard. So I don't think it's the dirty pictures that are the problem.

This is not to say that one wants to be inundated with soft-core all day long like we are on cable and the internet.

Sure, just noting a correlation between feet and violence, which will no doubt be cited for years to come by anti-feet activists.

First of all porn in prison is currency, and second a bunch of men with no access to women are still going to jack off, because biology.

And if you disagree... sexist too.

And not for the benefit of women.

Men created pornography, so Paul of Tarsus must have been a woman.

Check and mate.

If we weren't meant to masturbate, why are we designed to handle our penises every-time we have to urinate? Once a boy enters puberty the whole dynamic changes as is often shown by the amount of time he spends in the bathroom, and all that caked-on mystery stuff on his shorts and sheets (and sometimes gym socks).

Personally, I found booze to be a much more serious problem.

guaranteed method to secure converts and control their heads?

I mean, look at the facts- Religion couldn't make breathing a sin, couldn't make drinking water a sin, couldn't really make eating or pooping a sin, because if anyone goes too long without any of those, they die, and dead people can't tithe.

So what's left? Hey, sex. Great!

This was during prohibition, mind you

...and a pack of Sen-sen