From Deseret News archives:

What do Utahns Google? Answers may come as surprise

Published: Friday, Oct. 12, 2007 12:14 a.m. MDT
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She adds, "It would not be surprising that at least some of the population here are Googling topics from both lists. The seeming anonymity of the Internet has made it possible for people to search for and find information about a lot of topics that they would be too embarrassed or shamed to ask about in person."

Sansone adds, "If you combine a strong inherent motivation (sex) with a strong social inhibition to discuss or even acknowledge it exists ... it does create a consumer base for anonymous ways to satisfy or least acknowledge the motivation."

One person who acknowledges doing both kinds of searches is a sex addict now in therapy, who asked that his name not be used. He says that when he discovered sexual sites on the Internet early, "It was like I found a candy store. I could look all day at that stuff — for free." He says it led to behaviors that led to excommunication from the LDS Church.

Britt Minshall, a psychologist who is also a United Church of Christ pastor in Baltimore, says bluntly that finishing No. 1 in Jesus and pornography "is called hypocrisy. Church people are loaded with it."

But he has compassion for such people. He says interest in religion and sexuality are normal and says churches often are too hard on people who explore what has been taboo.

"Actually, if you talk about Jesus on Sunday, and on Monday go on the Internet and search for naked girls, you are perfectly normal," he says.

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Are there dangers?

Minshall is one who sees little danger in being No. 1 in both Jesus and pornography. "Boys will be boys," he says.

But many others worry about potential danger from sexier sites, especially for youths.

One is the sex addict interviewed who is living and undergoing therapy in Utah. "To me it's a dangerous thing to everyone," he says, noting that viewing pornography at a young age led him to sex addiction and behaviors that went out of control, from visiting prostitutes to attending strip clubs and massage parlors.

With therapy, he says, he has stayed away from such things for five years now. "But I have to fight very hard against it all the time," he adds.

Tom Underhill, co-author of "Lock the Boogeyman Out of Your Computer" and an LDS Church member living in Southern California, says that working with a sex therapist for an upcoming book has opened his eyes "to the dichotomy of humanity, both in the Mormon Church and outside it."

He says, "We estimate sex addiction to float around 35 percent of LDS Church membership and slightly higher outside of the church." By that, he does not mean the extreme forms of sex addition, but rather much of it is inability to control viewing computer pornography.

Recent comments

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