Is porn a real addiction? Professionals disagree

Whether regular, ongoing use of progressively more graphic pornography is actually an addiction like alcoholism or a hypersexual disorder more akin to compulsive gambling, its impact on the spouses of those who use it can be lost in a focus on the behavior itself.

An ongoing debate about whether porn is addictive the way drugs or alcohol are has included U.S. Senate hearings, and professionals who treat compulsive porn users in Utah remain divided on the "a" word.

But spouses — to date, mostly women — who wonder why the glare of a computer screen has stolen the hearts of their partners don't worry much about the semantics debate when the pain of personal betrayal won't go away.

To them, it feels like it must be an "addiction" because their spouses simply can't stay away from it and consequently, the relationship suffers. Often they debate whether to seek help or stay silent, particularly in Utah, where the "religious culture makes it a little taboo to talk about this," according to Rory Reid, a research psychologist at UCLA and director of the Provo Counseling Center.

"It's OK to stand up in a church meeting and say, 'I'd like to bear my testimony, I'm a recovering alcoholic and I'm so grateful for the atonement of Jesus Christ.' That's fine and everyone applauds you for it. But just try doing that with pornography," said Reid, who regularly counsels clients with damaged relationships.

Keeping quiet to avoid embarrassment means that if spouses seek help at all, it is often from those closest to them — trusted friends or church leaders who have no formal training in how to help.

That's one venue where the debate over whether pornography is "addictive" has its roots. As with other political battles that involve semantics, money and reputations are at stake inside a growing treatment industry that caters to compulsive porn users and their spouses.

Reid, whose current research includes assessing motivations for pornography use among hypersexual men, said that while substance abuse often becomes addictive, the use of porn can't be compared to drugs, alcohol or cigarettes because "you're not taking anything physical into your body."

Some argue that the use of pornography creates permanent changes in brain chemistry, but "there is no evidence whatsoever" for that assertion, he said. "We have the best MRI scanners in the world (at UCLA) and I can promise you if we scan (a pornography user's) brain, we won't see any structural differences."