Exclusive: Survey finds growing number ‘neglecting responsibilities’ or ‘damaging relationships’ as a result
Experts are urgently calling for a national strategy on pornography as a total of 53% of therapists surveyed by the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) said they had seen a rise in people seeking help for problematic pornography use that was interfering with their life or driving them to seek out more extreme content.
“Not an anti-porn crusade, that’s absolutely not it, but actually understanding that for some people, a significant number of people, porn does lead to harms. And how do we actually begin to do something and address that?”
Bullshit propaganda to ban porn
Literally a quote from the article:
“Not an anti-porn crusade, that’s absolutely not it, but actually understanding that for some people, a significant number of people, porn does lead to harms. And how do we actually begin to do something and address that?”
This isn’t some pearl-clutching religious group putting out the report. It’s a professional group of therapists.
Yeah of course the propaganda is going to say it’s not propaganda lol
Listen to the science.
(“Ban porn” is not science, but “porn can be harmful” is)
I’m not for banning porn but it’s quite ignorant to pretend it doesn’t lead to problematic compulsive use for some people and negatively affect their life. I’m one of those people. Porn addiction is no joke.
I understand the suspicion, but this seems pretty unreasonable. The arguments are scientific and credible. Or are you saying there isn’t a rise in people seeking help for problematic porn use?
There can be problematic porn use and bullshit government overreach hijacking an existing problem, both existing in parallel.
Porn has been around forever and hasn’t really changed too much. Why all of a sudden would there be an issue with it? People have always wanted to stop their vices. There is no crisis. It’s just normal.
It has changed a lot. It’s no longer just magazines, or getting a physical copy of a DVD. It’s plastered over the internet a few clicks away, with even more brainwashy algorithms to keep people coming back.
This is a big difference from the perspective of addiction psychology.
Why the rise? Maybe because an entire generation grew up with this kind of porn, maybe because there are therapists for this now and it’s not as stigmatized.
Maybe with the male loneliness epidemic it’s even more amplified, esp. for misogynists or cluster c men.
Maybe because porn has also been more normalized with PornHub merch, adverts and giftcards.
Really, I feel like if there’s a genuine interest to know, one can just start searching the web for porn addiction papers, etc.
Or to argue the point of propaganda, look at the BACP, and other parties mentioned in the article and consider how much sense it makes after.
FWIW the only thing that raises my eyebrows in the article is that they want the government to look at the problem. Expected to a degree from an org like BACP, but they aren’t going to invest in community resources. to help with understanding and support first and foremost, and then hold platforms accountable like they should game platforms with lootboxes and such etc… So I’d give them more credit if they offered the direct ways to help the problem. As the government, without direction only seems to know punish, block, ban.
Food for thought, I’m off to sleep and over and out.
The availability of porn has increased understandably compared to 20 years ago, never mind 200 or 2000. “Hasn’t really changed much”? what planet are you on?
Do you think it’s normal when someone finds themselves so compelled to look at porn that they do it at work?
Well the claim is that the problem has gotten worse, or at least more widespread. One thought is that the users’ external stresses (economic etc.) are now harder to get away from, so more seek refuge in porn. Not great but I guess it beats drinking. Anoher idea is that the porn itself has gotten more addictive, like through AI enhancement. Not saying it’s either of those necessarily. They are just obvious guesses.
that is so going to go over well.
Shining a light on a problem is good, directing people to resources where they can seek help is also fine. The problem I have with this article is that it steers into policy with statements like:
“Experts are urgently calling for a national strategy on pornography”
and the ambiguous claim that:
"the government aren’t doing [enough].”
What role are they implying that government should have in any of this? By and large it seems like governments generally tend to respond to “addiction problems” with some form of ban. Anti-porn legislation seems to amount to poorly drafted, ill-considered blunt instruments that also seem very likely to cause more problems than the issues they claim to address (and often backed by dubious special interests that clearly have other agendas). They present the claim that it’s:
“Not an anti-porn crusade”
But the article doesn’t mention any other kind of action or involvement the government might take in response to the problem.
Articles that cover subjects as controversial and consequential as this should be especially careful and informative in the way they discuss them otherwise they run the risk of merely fanning the flames.
[Edited for clarity]
Very well put. Thank you.
Gooners rise up
I never realized therapists were so addicted to porn.
I believe it. Especially with AI image/video generation, because it works exactly the same as a slot machine. Put in “hot girl” and pull the lever. No, not quite right, do it again. No, not hot enough, do it again. Yes, she’s hot! Huge dopamine hit. Rinse and repeat.
Porn is an addiction for men just like tiktok and Instagram is for women, better to keep an eye on how we use these.
