4.2 million Internet sites are feeding porn addiction

Pornography addiction is a whispered affliction - a “hidden public health hazard exploding,” in one author’s words, largely ignored by the medical world. Yet, 2 million or more Americans struggle with it, experts say, and boosting that number is the wildfire spread of Internet pornography.

By JOHN P. KELLY
The Patriot Ledger

Every night while his wife slept, Joe, a 52-year-old salesman in an upscale South Shore town, navigated the underbelly of the Web, feeding his fantasies of teen sex, threesomes and gang bangs. There were nights when only the birds chirping at dawn could snap him from his trance. He understood what was at stake - his wife, his job, his sanity. But he’d convince himself: just 10 more minutes.

Joe is hooked on Internet porn.

So are an estimated 2 million other Americans.

Feeding them is a $13.3-billion-a-year porn industry that has experienced wildfire growth online.

There are 4.2 million Internet porn sites, generating $2.84 billion in online revenue. The porn industry saw 14 percent growth from 2005 to 2006, the most current available figures.

Porn addiction is a whispered affliction, largely ignored by the medical world, a “hidden public health hazard exploding,” in the words of the late Stanford professor and author Al Cooper.

Internet trackers say 43 percent of people who use the Internet go to porn sites, while one of every four Internet searches is pornography related.

“Today, the number of people looking at pornography is staggering,” Pamela Paul, author of “Pornified,” told an audience at Princeton University that spent three days in December exploring the “social cost of pornography.”

“Men look at pornography online more than they look at any other subject,” Paul said. “And 66 percent of 18- to-34-year-old men visit a pornographic site every month.”

On the South Shore, dozens of men and women - mainly men - meet at night in churches in Weymouth and Quincy to talk about how to resist their urges. Some compare their hours long pornography sessions to alcoholics on a drinking binge or drug addicts hunting a fix.

Online pornography is not the tame imagery of Playboy magazine. The Internet offers a mélange of the erotic, from hardcore movies of teenage sex to streaming videos of live sex acts. Web sites abound for practically every fetish - bestiality, child porn and mock rapes included. Part of the allure of Internet pornography is that any physical characteristic or desire is only a mouse click away.

Child pornography aside, online pornography is protected by the First Amendment. Legal battles continue to be fought with regard to restricting children's access to pornography.

Jill C. Manning, a Colorado sex therapist who specializes in pornography addiction, said the Internet has given pornography unprecedented reach into the home, workplace and school. There has been limited research into its impact on marriage, but early findings have been troubling, she said.

“We’re still thinking of it strictly as freedom of speech, a form of expression, art, et cetera,” Manning said. “We haven’t caught up to what’s happening in the public square. ... It’s not just impacting individuals, but marriages, families, even corporations.”

Addicts label porn addiction as a gateway to other sexual compulsions.

There is no proven treatment method. In clinical circles, a debate is unfolding over whether addiction is a fitting term, medically speaking.

In the past year, Joe, the South Shore salesman, said he paid $17,000 for six intensive weeks of inpatient treatment, reinforced with five nights a week of counseling, therapy and 12-step meetings.

When he first sought treatment 12 years ago, Joe figured it would take six months to overcome his compulsions. Since then, he said, “I have three days of sobriety.”

Another recovering addict, David, who is in his 40s, described pornography as his “medication of choice,” a daily portal for escaping his insecurities. Years of habitual use, he said, damaged his ability to relate to women, helped spoil his only steady relationship, and led him deeper into social isolation.

Rich, a late-40s husband and father, said he spun elaborate lies to blind his wife to his rampant pornography use. His extra-marital affairs multiplied and his cravings escalated for harder-core porn.

Therapists have witnessed the fallout of spreading pornography abuse, as more men seek treatment for their compulsive behavior.

Dan F. Pollets, a Medford psychologist, said half the men he sees for sexual therapy compulsively view pornography, a habit that seems to trigger or coincide with emotional issues like depression and other mood disorders.

Frequently, a man will seek treatment after his wife or girlfriend discovers evidence of his cyber-exploits in the computer’s Internet history, Pollets said.

“She now doesn’t recognize the person she’s living with,” Pollets said. “And it frightens her; it’s a threat to their kids. Either he has to fix this, or the relationship is done.”

Women often liken the discovery of a partner’s addiction to the trauma of infidelity. In posting after posting on message boards like pornaddictioninfo.com, women relate the betrayal they felt once they realized the extent of their partner’s habit, as well as the withering of their self-confidence.

Many times, marriages crumble. Two-thirds of the divorce lawyers at an American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers meeting back in 2002 said excessive interest in online porn contributed to more than half of the divorces they handled that year.

“People actually do - to coin a phrase - get lost in the matrix,” said the academy’s president, Gary L. Nickelson, a divorce lawyer for 25 years in Fort Worth, Texas.

“They’re off living this life - pornography, hook-up services, chat rooms - it’s not really a life, but in their head it is. It’s a cyber-life.”

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Next: Profile of Joe, an addict