[Two Pronged] Is my boyfriend a porn addict?

Jeremy Baer, Margarita Holmes

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'I always feel depressed that he prefers watching porn rather than having sex with me. Is he a porn addict?'

Rappler’s Life and Style section runs an advice column by couple Jeremy Baer and clinical psychologist Dr Margarita Holmes.

Jeremy has a master’s degree in law from Oxford University. A banker of 37 years who worked in 3 continents, he has been training with Dr Holmes for the last 10 years as co-lecturer and, occasionally, as co-therapist, especially with clients whose financial concerns intrude into their daily lives.

Together, they have written two books: Love Triangles: Understanding the Macho-Mistress Mentality and Imported Love: Filipino-Foreign Liaisons.


Hi Dr Holmes and Mr Baer,

Need your advice regarding my boyfriend for 6 years. We are currently living together and having our second child. From the start of our relationship, I already caught him hiding porn videos in his laptop. I thought it was just a phase but I caught him a lot of times downloading porn videos on his iPad and even in his phone up to this day.

Please help me understand, especially now that I’m pregnant. I always feel depressed that he prefers watching porn rather than having sex with me. Is he a porn addict? Please help me understand. Thank you so much.

Alma

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Dear Alma,

Thank you for your email.

Your (all too) brief account of your boyfriend (let’s call him Felipe) portrays him as an aficionado of porn, a predilection that was known to you virtually from the outset. You chose then to interpret it as a phase but it has become a habit, to the extent that just like an aggressive cancer it has spread from his laptop to his iPad and even his phone. What you don’t tell us is what, if anything, you have done about this, apart from getting pregnant twice. Have you discussed it with him, tried to find out why he is so keen on porn etc? Or are you more likely treating the whole situation with seething but silent resentment? We just don’t know.

Felipe’s view would have been very helpful in establishing how to move forward. After all, some people just like porn in addition to sex with their spouse, just as they may like going to the movies alone sometimes and going with their wives other times. Felipe does not seem to be in this category because you paint him more as a serious devotee of the genre. But even if he is a heavy duty user, porn and marital sex are not necessarily a zero sum game, meaning that indulging in porn does not necessarily reduce or eliminate the desire for marital sex (or vice versa). It’s akin to eating vegetables – carrots can complement cabbage though of course excessive carrots may well kill off any desire for cabbage.

You specifically say that Felipe prefers porn to sex with you and of course we cannot know whether this is literally the case or whether you are simply presuming it. Anecdotal evidence suggests that exposure to porn can increase a few people’s interest in marital sex, while others claim to treat it as an entirely different activity e.g. watch it on the way to work or during lunch breaks, that does not seriously impinge on their relationship with their partner. Yet others do become addicted and find that it materially affects their interest in other forms of sex. It is not clear whether your depiction of Felipe as someone who prefers porn to marital sex is any more accurate than your earlier diagnosis of porn being merely a phase he was going through.

At the end of the day, perhaps none of these distinctions really matter. You need to sit down and talk the whole issue through with him, establish what is going on, what behavior constitutes personal preference, what (if anything) constitutes addiction, explain what your views are, understand his and see what common ground you can find. This will not be a 5-minute chat but it need not be overwhelming either. If you take it slowly, step by step, it will hopefully be manageable, provided of course that Felipe is cooperative. If he isn’t, perhaps you will have reached your final destination earlier than you expected, however disappointing that may initially be.

Best of luck,

JAF Baer

Graphic by Nico Villarete/Rappler

Dear Alma:

Thank you very much for your letter. Mr Baer has discussed more of the relationship issues so let me try and answer your questions about porn addiction from a clinical perspective. 

According to psychguides.com, porn addiction is a subset of sex addiction, and can refer to a range of behaviors that are done in excess and negatively impact one’s life. 

However, many psychiatrists and psychologists disagree with the above statement, including members of the American Psychological Association (APA) which publishes the book series – the most current being the DSM-5 – that officially designates what problems can be diagnosed as mental disorders. Neither porn addiction or its mother, sex addiction, are included in the DSM-5.

Thus, for many, porn and sex addictions are unreal. 

However, I disagree… as do many other psychiatrists and psychologists, mainly those who are engaged in actual clinical practice.  

To many of us, porn addiction exists and the latest (most current) research in the field not only suggests but very clearly states that it does.  

The most objective way of defining addiction is to examine what happens to the brain when the supposedly addictive “substance” is viewed (pornography) and/or ingested (nicotine, drugs, alcohol). The American Society of Addictive Medicine (ASAM) states “what is most important when determining addiction is the anatomy (the brain circuitry involved) and the physiology (the neuro-transmitters involved).”

According to Robert Weiss, founder of The Sexual Recovery Institute (in Los Angeles), what is needed (to prove porn and sex addictions exist) is scientific evidence that sexual addiction affects the brain in the same ways as other addictions. And recently this proof arrived in the form of a detailed fMRI study conducted by researchers at Cambridge University (UK).

This study confirmed that sex addicts’ brains not only light up when seeing porn but also in the same places and to the same degree as the brains of drug addicts when they are exposed to drug-related stimuli. In short, the parts of the brain in charge of things like anticipatory pleasure, mood, memory, and decision-making are activated in sex addicts exactly as they are with drug addicts. 

So now we go back full circle to your question: Is your partner, “Felipe,” a porn addict?

Strictly speaking, our threesome – Mr Baer, you, I – cannot answer this question, not having the necessary diagnostic tools at our disposal.

However, you are in the best position to hypothesize if Felipe might be a porn addict, so allow me to share several possible manifestations (cognitive, psychological, behavioral) that might accompany addiction according to ASAM.

These include “inability to consistently abstain, impairment in behavioral control, craving (or increased “hunger” for rewarding experiences)…Like other chronic diseases, addiction often involves cycles of relapse and remission…a significant impairment in executive functioning, (including) problems with perception, learning, impulse control, compulsivity, and judgment.”  Perhaps, the most nakakata-cute of all is the possibility of “the presence of co-occurring psychiatric disorders.” 

My gut feel is that none of us have sufficient information to say whether Felipe is a porn addict or not. However, he does not need to be a porn addict before you start to communicate with him regarding your concerns. In fact, the sooner the better!

Perhaps another question you can ask yourself is: If what you suspect is true (or not), is this something you can live with? 

I suggest your concerns focus on your feelings rather than on accusations of his possible addictions. You might open up by sharing that you feel depressed because you feel he prefers watching porn to making love to you. I suggest further that you ask him if you can explore both your feelings rather than accepting a man’s usual reassurance that, “Of course not. I love making love to you. It’s just that I’m tired (stressed, hate my mother in law, hate my mother, etc etc).”

If, however, he refuses to do even that, then, perhaps the sooner you shed this relationship, the better. Not because he is possibly a porn addict but because he doesn’t seem to care enough about your relationship to make any effort to sustain it. 

All the best,

MG Holmes

Need advice from our Two Pronged duo? Email twopronged@rappler.com with subject heading TWO PRONGED. Unfortunately the volume of correspondence precludes a personal response.

 

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