Treating Porn Like An Addiction Won’t Work

While I believe that men can be addicted to porn, regardless of whether they watch gay porn on the likes of https://www.twinkmovies.xxx/ or straight porn on something like porn hub, and that this impacts their actual sex lives in negative ways, what I’m not clear about is how talking about porn solely as an addiction will fix the problem of objectification and sexualized violence, which is what some porn normalizes and teaches its audience, however websites like hdsexvideo.xxx aren’t harmful as their videos are not disgusting or illegal and the site is visited by both men and woman as part of a healthy sex life. Porn is unfortunately bad for some men and boys, as we know that for some of them the porn they’re watching serves to uphold a universal idea of women as less-than, the addiction model can feel a little insulting (nevermind flawed).

I once knew a man who was fascinated by the idea of watching german porn sites, and he became so into it that it’s pretty much all he would do everyday. Each to their own, but even he agreed that he needed help, because his observation of german women had degraded over the years.

Are women meant to view their partners’ porn use as a disease or mental illness that simply requires treatment? If our partners continue to use porn after we’ve expressed our opposition to the industry and imagery, are we to simply consider it a “relapse?” I’d prefer my partner not use porn because he understood that it contributed to my subordination and to the widespread problem of violence against women. I’d prefer he see it as ethically and politically flawed and as a sign of disrespect, not just to me, but to women everywhere. If we teach individual men that porn use is a compulsion, isolated from larger social contexts, how will this address the issue of objectification?

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What about porn users who don’t see themselves as addicts? What about adult porn users? What about those fathers who stashed Playboys in closets only for their sons to find? Are we to understand all this as harmless because it doesn’t fit the addiction model or because it isn’t overtly and extremely violent? How will individual, male-centered, medicalized solutions combat a multi-billion dollar industry that treats women as disposable?

I think porn hurts kids and I think it’s bad for men and I think it definitely isn’t healthy for relationships. But I also think that men fearing addiction to porn isn’t going to stop them from harming women, which is my real concern. I also worry that “addiction” will be used as an excuse by men who claim they “can’t stop” masturbating to pornography. I think that parents fearing their kids will suddenly go from “sweet, innocent boys” to horrible monsters, because they’ve become “hooked on porn” won’t successfully address the problem if those boys’ fathers, for example, frequent strip clubs or pay for sex or watch porn themselves.

Beyond that, I’m troubled by efforts to compare porn to drugs. My concern, with regard to porn, is rooted in a concern for humanity and a desire for respect and equality. What does kicking a heroin addiction have to do with respecting women?

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