If You "Believe" In Porn Addiction

I recently read an article about pornography addiction that gave me a moment of clarity on the topic with just one line. The article stated, "If you believe that internet addiction is possible, then you must believe that internet pornography addiction is possible."

Having dealt with porn addiction in the background of my life for so long now, it is sometimes difficult for me to remember that many people in the world don't even believe it exists. There's often enormous skepticism expressed in mainstream media, in psychology articles, even from my own close friends. And so, in my real life the choices, behaviors, and addiction of another person are something that I have learned to speak about sparingly, keep secret, speak about anonymously online to only those who have lived similar experiences.

Any woman who has lived with a pornography addict knows that the addiction exists.

Seven years ago when I went searching for information about what I then termed as "cybersex" addiction, the only information I could find was religious based and even that was hard to find. That was not enough for me. Right or wrong, it wasn't enough for me to read that my husband's behavior and pornography addiction hurts me and my children because God thinks pornography is not ok. I wanted more concrete answers. I wanted to know.....is this really happening? Or am I going crazy? Is this as bad as I think it is, or have I become a prude? Why is it wrong? Why does this affect ME so deeply? What will happen if my children are exposed to their father's porn? Why doesn't he just stop it? Why does he say he will stop and then get better at lying about it and hiding it? Is it just me, or does it seem that what he views on the internet is becoming increasingly outlandish and obscene? What does this say about his character? My judgement in living with him and raising children with him? Is he a compulsive liar or a porn addict or both? Which is worse, the lying and lack of trust, or the porn itself? Should I stay for the best interest of my children, or leave for the best interest of my children?

At that time, there just were very few answers available online, in books, anywhere. Even our marriage therapist seemed to shift focus from these questions, seeming to not know how to deal with them, or minimized them. I ended up searching for information regarding the symptoms of his behaviors and remember doing late night web searches on "bullying," "narcissism," "sociopaths," "compulsive lying" to seek out answers to to how to better understand this crazy monster living in my house posing as my husband.

Fast forward to today. I subscribe to alerts on current news articles regarding porn addiction for mothersagainstpa.com. Each day my mailbox is flooded with news relaying everything from the most benign articles that mention pornography addiction to the most heinous relating a new celebrity, judge, lawyer, doctor, policeman, or other upstanding citizen who has been caught with child porn.

Do a Google search on pornography addiction. Pages of sites dealing with the topic come up.

This is all good in my mind. The awareness has expanded and information is more readily available. There are entire online programs geared toward the recovery of addicts, websites dedicated to information about the addiction, postings online by well educated psychologists that validate the reality of pornography addiction, counselors now specialize in sex and porn addiction recovery.

And yet still most information is written from the point of view to convince readers that this is real. I have to wonder if while porn addiction is obviously exploding all over our world why it is that convincing people it exists is still necessary. Psychologists refer to this as a compulsion, not an addiction.

I find that this further mystifies me personally because, even with news of daily high and low profile convictions regarding the use of unquestionably illegal pornography, the focus by news writers is often on the crime, not the victim, most often children, and written with the slant that porn addiction may or may not really be "real."

The increase in awareness is encouraging in some respects. But, I feel it is too slow. Too little too late. There is no sense of urgency. This progressive addiction has escalated to impacting young teens. While I was searching for "cybersex addiction" and "bullying" seven years ago, some of the porn addicts of today were just entering second grade. Teen porn has soared to to new heights of production making it the highest sought after legal pornography on the internet. While teen boys view it, so do their fathers and grandfathers.

In 2007, with pornography being the number one search on the internet, there is still very little information to be found about how this addiction phenomenon affects children and families. A paragraph here or there is all that can be found. More information and programs are available for wives and significant others of porn addicts but there is still much to be done on that front considering the toll taken on marriages, women's mental and physical health, and the resulting consequences for children of those marriages. Taking it to the next level....this is not just about our husbands anymore. It's our children who are becoming, and in danger of being the next generation of internet porn junkies.

A factor that wives of porn addicts often deal with is lack of belief in it themselves, a feeling that they have caused or contributed to the addiction, or that they are capable of supporting an addict enough that the addict will quit. A simplified belief of "if he loves me he will quit," "he must not love me enough because he won't quit," permeates new member discussion on porn addiction message boards. These false beliefs find beginnings in our own homes and from the mouths of our own addicts through gas lighting and common addict blame shifting. Perhaps because of the highly personal nature of this addiction, while our esteem plummets, so does our belief that we have the right, or even the responsibility to set a zero tolerance policy for ourselves, our kids, and to expect that this addiction be outwardly named for what it is, that information and resources to cope with it be readily available. Significant others of porn addicts upon first learning of a partner's addiction, are still often caught asking the questions of nearly a decade ago even while they live with the fallout in their own house: "Is this real?"

Until women are able to openly identify themselves as having legitimate concerns for themselves and their children in dealing with a porn addicted spouse, and to have that routinely validated in media, their therapist's office, even political discussion, a secret virus continues to infect our families.

I have often wondered WHO will do something about internet pornography addiction? The government? Health officials? Oprah Winfrey? Jerry Springer? Dateline? George Bush? Hillary Clinton? Osama Bin Laden? Or will it continue on for another decade as a topic of titillating debate about whether it's real, whether free speech is more important than cleaning up the internet. In past generations we could simply zone porn shops out of our neighborhoods. Now they're free in our homes.

If a virus ran rampant in The United States, infecting many people, causing the breakup of families, infecting children, would an agency be created to research it? Create a cure? Creating a generation of people hooked on the glare of computer generated naked images in increasingly bizarre and inhuman and violent acts in millions of home offices and across the world during work hours, school hours, late at night surely is worth looking into?

In the meantime the significant others of porn addicts are the witnesses. We have the ability to verify for one another the reality of the effect and harm of addiction. And when we believe what we know to be true, we can help other women find their way too.

In the meantime women like me can write blogs like this and hold out hope, speak up, so that my daughters will somehow be able to find a partner 20 years from now whose mind is not a cesspool of unimaginable sexual expectations and acts. And that my daughters' own minds will not be the ones clouded by these images.