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Porn-Viewing College Students Will Likely Face Problems in Work Force
Posted under Pornography on Wednesday, November 4th, 2009
It’s not surprising that pornography is rampant on college campuses—in dorm rooms and on computers—considering that many U.S. children first encounter adult sex materials online while they are in elementary school. But Michael Leahy, a recovering sex addict and author of "Porn @ Work: Exposing the Office’s #1 Addiction,” says that spending years in a pornography-friendly environment doesn’t benefit career-minded students.
Easy access to high-speed, wireless Internet that (usually) is unregulated, uncensored, and unmonitored is "the antithesis of what you find in a typical business environment," Leahy writes, adding that college students are going to get a "real shock treatment" when they go to work for employers who have a zero-tolerance policy on porn. "What’s going to happen when these two worlds collide?” he posits.
Cheryl Wetzstein of the Washington Times writes that Leahy founded www.bravehearts.net in 2002 after recovering from a 30-year pornography habit in order to raise awareness about the encroachment of adult materials in American life.
Between 2006 and 2008, Leahy gathered responses from about 26,000 college students and 2,000 college staff who took an online survey about their sexual views and behaviors. He found that 64 percent of males regularly viewed online pornography, as did 18 percent of females.
He also found that a significant minority of respondents (26 percent of men and 18 percent of women) were already struggling to stop their sexual behavior, even when they knew it was "inappropriate."
Some of these troubled men and women will join the estimated 6 percent to 8 percent of the population considered to be full-blown sex addicts, Leahy said. However, a more common scenario will be that men and women will try to hide their pornography habits, both at home and at work.
Working in the computer industry is especially risky for people with porn problems, said Leahy, who was once an IBM executive. Since computer experts "set up all the firewalls and filtering, they know all the back doors," he said. But "they have no accountability — and they have no way to be held accountable—because they know all the tricks."
Leahy recommends that business leaders face the reality that, since the mid-1990s, young people have "been raised on perhaps the most explicit and habit-forming types of pornography known to man."
Having employees sign an Internet Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) that forbids online pornography, exchange of lewd photos and obscene jokes, and storage of adult materials on company equipment is not enough, Leahy said. Rather, employee education and awareness training about Internet pornography and sex addiction will help employees understand warning signs and open the door for conversations about the problem.
Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) should include referrals to sex-addiction counselors and 12-step programs, just as they do for substance abuse, Leahy said. For people in recovery, EAPs can help negotiate temporary limits on computer access at work and "accountability partners" who get summary reports on a person’s computer activity.
Leahy warns, "For every employee who surfaces and is exposed as a violator of our sexually related company policies and Internet AUPs, I can assure you that there are 10 others hiding in our hallways and operating under the radar yet to be discovered."
