More Women Getting Addicted to Internet Porn

Posted under Sex Addiction in the News on Thursday, July 29th, 2010

According to the Sexual Recovery Institute, sex is the most popular search on the Internet. With well over a million pornography sites on the web, porn is easy to access in a way that is a lot less embarrassing than walking into your neighborhood video store.

When we think of Internet porn, we often imagine a 20-something guy in his room taking care of business while flipping through pictures and videos. However, more and more women are getting hooked on Internet porn. Teens are exposed to porn at a younger age than ever – and their curiosity often gets the best of them. This early exposure to porn could be detrimental to their sexual development.

Porn and sex addiction, like any addiction, gets worse over time. Many porn addicts will tell you they have to escalate the type of porn they view to get the same effect. Sounds a lot like drug addiction, doesn’t it? The brain reacts to the visual stimuli, the viewer becomes aroused, and endorphins are released. They might start with straightforward videos then move toward those with themes that would make the average adult cringe: animals, violence, feces, and other shocking topics

Rob Weiss of the Sexual Recovery Institute says that if you reach orgasm by viewing pornography on a regular basis, you will “attach to sex as object relationships as opposed to intimate relationships.” The obsession destroys intimacy because rather than relational it becomes object oriented.

Partners of those addicted to pornography may feel the other person is detached, even cold – and may not appreciate the “new ideas” they bring to the bedroom.

The Washington Times recently completed a survey and found that one in six women watch online pornography. In 2006, Internet Filter Review released survey results that showed 17 percent of women say they struggle with porn addiction. They also reported that over 9 million women access porn each month, and some 17 per cent accessed porn at work. Some studies suggest that over 30 percent of visitors to porn sites are now women.

One of the reasons for this increase in women’s interest in porn is likely the ease of accessibility. Certainly women are not comfortable walking into a sex shop filled with men so they can browse the magazines and videos. Now they can browse all they want, anonymously.

Some studies also suggest that the more women use pornography, the more likely they will be victims of rape, just as other studies suggest a correlation for men: the more porn they watch, the more likely they are to commit rape.