Note: All names and identifying information have been changed.

Pornography and Addiction:

Why Men Fall Prey to the Lure of the Net

Michael, a CEO with a charming personality, lived a double life for three years. People admired and respected him for his honesty, intelligence, and uncanny ability to get along with people. Little did they know that he was spending more time online at pornography sites.

Michael began his entanglement with internet porn because of a pop-up ad which displayed a beautiful woman in a bikini. His day had been especially difficult. and he was exhausted and stressed. To his amazement, he felt much better after spending time at the site. A bit of guilt crept in while he thought about what his wife would think if she knew. But how would she find out? He shrugged it off and continued to click on more sites and images.

Before Michael realized what was happening, he developed an addiction to pornography. He spent more and more time on such sites and his work productivity decreased. The liberty he enjoyed as a CEO gave him flexibility in his schedule so that he could spend more time online.

His wife noticed that he was more emotionally distant and didn’t connect with her as well a he used to. He would get agitated when they went out, and seemed to want to get back home. She began to think something was going on with him, but didn’t know what it was.

One night she woke up in the middle of the night to use the restroom. She noticed a stream of light coming from Michael’s den, and she lightly walked down the hall to see what he was doing.

“What in the world are you doing?” she screamed. Michael sat on the computer while he masturbated to the image on his computer screen. He quickly deleted the image and pulled himself together. He couldn’t look her in the eye while he muttered, “Oh, nothing.”

Couples like Michael and his wife are beginning to become commonplace. Statistically, 40% of all time spent online is at pornography sites. Many of the users, believe it or not, are the nicest guys you’ve ever met. Their addictions, like all other addictions, only get worse if untreated. I have been working with such couples for several years, and have helped many work through their issues very successfully.

In order to treat this or other issues of sexual addiction, I have the best success rates when working with the wives and husbands separately. Later in therapy I often bring them back together, but in many ways the wife holds the cards.

As with other addictions, he is not going to change unless the costs are high. The wife learns to understand what sex addiction is about, and particularly that it is NOT ABOUT HER. It is in no way related to her own perceived deficits of physique or performance. It is actually about underlying issues, such as one or more of the following:

People Pleasing as a personality trait
Rejection in a relationship that occurred years ago
Getting attention from women that he did not receive from his father Stuffing feelings and acting out to reduce stress instead of venting his feelings to safe people
Perfectionism which is often related to people pleasing
Control issues which often come from a childhood that was chaotic to some degree. Sometimes it was a parent that exerted an exceptional amount of control over the child. Other times it was a situation in the home which felt out-of-control to the child, such as a parent that was a heavy drinker or alcoholic.

Until these underlying issues are addressed and successfully dealt with, the man’s desire to act out will only get worse. To pretend that it’s not a problem is ignorance that will only lead to a greater degree of pain in the future. Men are wired visually, and therefore are set up for an addiction to pornography. The hope comes from treating the roots instead of the symptoms only.

Pornography Stats:

The FBI finds pornography at 80% of all violent sex crime scenes

60% of all website visits are sexual in nature

1 of 3 visitors to all adult web sites are women