Studies falsify the claim that sex & porn addicts “just have high sexual desire”
Porn addiction naysayers often claim that individuals with either sex addiction or porn addiction do not have addiction, they simply have high sexual desire. David Ley (author of The Myth of Sex Addiction), is one of the most vocal critics of porn addiction, and often claims that “high sexual desire” explains away porn addiction. (Update: […]
Critique of: “Damaged Goods: Perception of Pornography Addiction as a Mediator Between Religiosity and Relationship Anxiety Surrounding Pornography Use” (Leonhardt, Willoughby, & Young-Petersen, 2017)
The “perceived pornography addiction” meme continues to infect the peer-reviewed literature, this time in a new study: “Damaged Goods: Perception of Pornography Addiction as a Mediator Between Religiosity and Relationship Anxiety Surrounding Pornography Use“, 2017 (Leonhardt, et al.). The phrase “perceived pornography addiction” was promoted by Joshua Grubbs, and first used in his 2013 study. […]
Studies reporting findings consistent with escalation of porn use (tolerance), habituation to porn, and withdrawal symptoms
Introduction Compulsive porn users often describe escalation in their porn use that takes the form of greater time viewing or seeking out new genres of porn. New genres that induce shock, surprise, violation of expectations or even anxiety can function to increase sexual arousal, and in porn users whose response to stimuli is growing blunted […]
Is Joshua Grubbs pulling the wool over our eyes with his “perceived porn addiction” research?
FIRST, A FEW UPDATES UPDATE 2017: A new study (Fernandez et al., 2017) tested and analyzed the CPUI-9, a purported “perceived pornography addiction” questionnaire developed by Joshua Grubbs, and found that it couldn’t accurately assess “actual porn addiction” or “perceived porn addiction” (Do Cyber Pornography Use Inventory-9 Scores Reflect Actual Compulsivity in Internet Pornography Use? […]
Op-ed: Who exactly is misrepresenting the science on pornography?
Introduction by Porn Study Critiques We cannot tell you how many times the following “letter to editor” to a Salt Lake newspaper has been cited as “proof” porn use causes no problems and porn addiction doesn’t exist: Op-ed: Anti-porn school program misrepresents science. It’s often posted on social media (Quora, Twitter, Facebook) as evidence that […]
How to recognize biased articles: they cite Prause et al. 2015 (falsely claiming it debunks porn addiction), while omitting over 3 dozen neurological studies supporting porn addiction
A number of articles and interviews have attempted to pushback at the TIME article (“Porn and the Threat to Virility”) and the Utah resolution declaring internet porn a public health problem. What might be a few “dead giveaways” that such an article is nothing more than a propaganda piece? Psychologists David Ley and/or Nicole Prause […]
Debunking the debunker: Critique of letter to the editor “Prause et al. (2015) the latest falsification of addiction predictions”
Introduction: In various comments, articles and tweets, Nicole Prause has claimed that not only did Prause et al., 2015 falsify “a core tenet of the addiction model, the cue reactivity biomarker,” but that “a series of behavioral studies replicated by independent laboratories [falsify] other predictions of the addiction model.” Prause cites the Letter to the […]
Analysis of “Perceived Effects of Pornography on the Couple Relationship: Initial Findings of Open-Ended, Participant-Informed, Bottom-Up Research” (2017)
Update: In this 2018 presentation Gary Wilson exposes the truth behind 5 questionable and misleading studies, including this study (Kohut et al., 2017): Porn Research: Fact or Fiction? COMMENTS: Is the intention behind this Taylor Kohut study to (attempt to) counter the nearly 60 studies that show porn use has negative effects on relationships? The […]
“Is Internet Pornography Causing Sexual Dysfunctions? A Review with Clinical Reports” – Excerpt analyzing Steele et al., 2013
Link to full study – Is Internet Pornography Causing Sexual Dysfunctions? A Review with Clinical Reports (2016) Excerpt analyzing Steele et al., 2013: A 2013 EEG study by Steele et al. reported higher P300 amplitude to sexual images, relative to neutral pictures, in individuals complaining of problems regulating their Internet pornography use [48]. Substance abusers […]
“Is Internet Pornography Causing Sexual Dysfunctions? A Review with Clinical Reports” – Excerpt analyzing Prause et al., 2015
Link to full study – Is Internet Pornography Causing Sexual Dysfunctions? A Review with Clinical Reports (2016) Excerpt analyzing Prause et al., 2015 A 2015 EEG study by Prause et al. compared frequent viewers of Internet pornography (mean 3.8 h/week) who were distressed about their viewing to controls (mean 0.6 h/week) as they viewed sexual […]