Addiction sites/Research. Pls HELP!

[sunnysmiles]

Hey everyone,

can you post some sites that talk about addiction? I need some info for a story I am writing and it needs to be authentic.

Also, what is the age when children first view porn now? What age do boys become addicted? Aside: When do teenage boys first have an erection? This is all for my story - I didn't realize how little I knew about male puberty -- this is so sad.

Ty,
-Anita

[oneangrygirl]

if you watch my entire fact scroll you will see some stats on this.
(not the erection part...i think those happen to infants during diaper changes though)

[gerry]

......

Also, what is the age when children first view porn now? What age do boys become addicted? Aside: When do teenage boys first have an erection? This is all for my story - I didn't realize how little I knew about male puberty -- this is so sad.

Ty,
-Anita

Male erection/sexual function begins usually between the ages of 8-12. A good estimate of porn viewing on the internet would be from 10-12. If no access, then locating pictures, movies etc. would begin at same time. But some boys just don't get into either, or didn't some time ago, when i was growing up, either because of family or religious values/pressure.

"Addiction," i think, is a tricky concept. What men learn--from a male cuulture-- is that women=sex or fetish. This is the culture boys get introduced to in infancy---a kind of sadism enters into the dreams of very young boys, because the message is all around them---maybe they can detect such images even through the womb. I gotta think this is a power problem and that perhaps the addiction is to power--by men as a collective. (many angles to look at this from)

[sunnysmiles]

Okay question then, would it be too ridiculous to say that a boy (13/14) is watching a movie - with a few scantily clad women (not nude), and get's 'hard'....

Then though he has never done so before - starts watching porn on the internet out of curiosity? Though, initially he has never watched porn before because of moral guilt/shame?

Do I need to move the age down a bit? I am open to that - but I would have to alter other things too then...

[gerry]

No, not at all. Because there is a continuum between most images of women and porn (esp true in ads, movies etc). The only reason we have much more porn now than say 1955, is that there is far more access to it, and it has gone mainstream. I guess you can say pornographers try to hook men on porn, but that the greater hook is from male sex itself, which, by definition, needs an object.

This said, i guess we have to try to define the "porn" we're speaking about too, because to some it means violent porn only where to someone else "soft porn" or "ad porn" or "erotica porn" would be included.

[delphyne]

Why does male sex need an object? I don't understand.

[ndw]

I'm calling bullshit on gerry's attempt to explain the male libido as a continuum. Sounds like flat earth thinking to me.

"Addiction," i think, is a tricky concept. What men learn--from a male cuulture-- is that women=sex or fetish. This is the culture boys get introduced to in infancy---a kind of sadism enters into the dreams of very young boys, because the message is all around them---maybe

You 'think' it's a concept?! I'd describe male expressions of love as more of a trinary/binary system: love, getting frisky and reciprocation. The first conquers all, the second is frequently and infrequently urgent and must never be predicted or metred.

The third expression of love mediates and can soothe the first two or/and you're the type to fall for hot babes or sweet talk easy--nothing wrong there.
filming coitus is the fourth, devolved category.

they can detect such images even through the womb.

How unscientific. Don't blame the mothers, you assmunch. Every one takes responsibility for their actions and thoughts, before birth too. For example if the baby kicks, that means he's letting mom know something's up. Did mom do something to make the baby kick? Ingested food perhaps.. Ok that's an instance where it's mom's job to take responsibility for food intake.

[gerry]

Why does male sex need an object? I don't understand.

I don't mean I say so (or else i wd not be here). I mean the way men as a collective have defined sex---as an act between unequals, between an actor/subject and acted upon/object. prostitution and porn are just expressions of male defined sex. and of course men get to do the defining because of their immense social power.

[rich]

I think the standard litmus test people apply to addiction is a behavior that is engaged in even when the person knows it is destructive to the point where other aspects of their life begin to fall apart: in that sense, I think it's not a great test period, but one that's clearly not designed to "test" adolescents who have different standards of living a successful, viable life (according to the keeping up with the Joneses and all that).

Thus, the standard image of addiction is a man who:

ruins his relationship with his wife [preferably a soccer mom]
loses his respected 9-to-5 job
loses all of his material possessions [that cement his status as a true man] in pursuit of the addiction

so the addiction model is sexist, ageist (although I'm loathe to use the word for discrimination against young people since hipster/kinderwhore culture has appropriated it so strongly), and classist. Unless you're an adult white male, you can't REALLY be addicted: you're just a loser with no self control.

So I think using it in a piece of literature would likely ring false with the audience unless you're actively working to undercut the model.


NDW: I know you think it's nifty to act like you're a post-human cyborg or whatever, but you're really in no position to be judging Gerry on her language choices.

[oneangrygirl]

We don't call each other "assmunch" here, even when we disagree.

[sunnysmiles]

TY everyone. PS - I forgot to say thank you gerry as well - I just noticed I hadnt in the last post!!!!

I'm gonna ask ppl to read it over when it's done... give me a few days! But pls. PM me with ur email addy to send it to you - I don't want to post it on the net (as I can't - cause it's for a book, and I don't want to get in shit if it's accepted in the compilation).

I'll remind anyone who's interested about PMing me - when I am actually done.

TY AGAIN!

[ndw]

I thought gerry was a guy so I wrote my response in a gender oriented way assuming that..

word for discrimination against young people since hipster/kinderwhore culture has appropriated it so strongly), and classist. Unless you're an adult white male, you can't REALLY be addicted: you're just a loser with no self control.

rich: kinderwhore, eh? I think *your* language is whack, man. By that rationale if you're an adult black male or latino male you cannot get hooked to pixelated sex or prostitution. Or are you talking culture/statistics..

Post-human cyborg? Hehe. All I was trying to do in my last post was place the tendencies of the male libido into four categories. Are there more than 4 types of love, excluding self-love? Why not? I usually take a " four square " or quaternary approach when demarcating common elements of the subject matter at hand. It doesn't mean I'm proto human, inferior or an automaton.

[sam]

I'm a tolerant gal when it comes to anti-pornstitution activists and I respect the raw individualism and critical eye of y'all, but there will be no more calling anyone disrespectful names like "assmunch" around here. Argue vehemently, defend your ideas and question others' ideas with vigorous aplomb, but it will be done without personal attacks. Lurkers aren't going to feel welcome to participate in the face of such animosity, so this is the end of that, okay?

ndw, I don't think you're reading what gerry wrote with a broad enough mind to gather he is speaking about men in general and in no way was his 'womb' comment intended literally to be rude to mammas. As I see gerry's statement, it's about socialization that begins during gestation and never ends.

Aniters, let me know when you're done and I'll send you a PM because I'd really like to read what you've written. I'm not sure just where I stand on the model of addiction but I have to confess that from personal experience I can't toss the addiction model of porn use away lightly. I'm still churning the idea around in my mind.

[gerry]

Yes, and the mind picture i had when writing the "womb" comment was a male fetus gazing through at TV ads.

I guess one of the objections to the addiction model is that it tends to remove porn viewing from the political sphere and place it in the medical or psychological--or religious arenas. I doubt we would say that "my husband is addicted to multiple partners." (sounds trivializing for one) And the whole thing about taking the agent of oppression--the male or men, off the hook.

This said, i have no doubt that there are many similarities between "porn addiction" and other addictions, and that my remarks are quite apart from fictional use of this idea.

[sunnysmiles]

It's not entirely about 'addiction' - but more so about the starts of one... and very much in relation to everything else re: objectification, loss of relationships, compulsive behaviours such as lying etc...

Anyways - I don't even know if it will fit well with the criteria that they have posted for the call... its supposed to be about bollywood. Go figure, I am not a great writer for what it's worth - we'll see!

Cheers

[bitingbeaver]

I'm going to respond to the 14 year old thing. 14 is NOT too young for an addiction to porn.

One of my sons friends has a computer at hand, as such, at the ripe old age of 14 he has already been exposed to fisting shots.

Knowing that I'm the feminist that I am, and knowing that he can talk to me about things like this, he asked me about them.

After talking to him for quite some time he admitted to watching/looking at porn on average of 2-3 hours a day, at the age of fourteen. Highly disturbing but not rare I suspect.

[sunnysmiles]

WOW - I am really shocked - 'fisting'? Now, I think my story is really mild. I'm thinking like Maxim and stuff are what's exciting to young boys - but I guess not.

I don't understand - really sexuality is really really going to be messed up for this new generation.

[gerry]

The following from Alvin Cooper's study of sex addiction at Stanford University:

In a study in the May 1998 issue of Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, Cooper also found that more than 91 percent of Internet users spent less than 11 hours a week logging on to sexual sites. About 82 percent spent less than an hour doing so, "with very few negative repercussions," he says. (Full text of these research articles appears at http://www.sex-centre.com.)

Since this study includes women (chatroom "cybersex") one can guess that only about 15 or 16% of males computer users look at porn more than an hour per week. If this is true, it is very good news, but i have no way of knowing and cannot surmise whether this is something men would lie about. But it doesn't seem to jive with the number of hits at porn sites.

If the study's numbers are correct then it seems that this whole concept of addiction (i don't like it because it takes porn/prost out of the political arena---once again) being a major problem is somewhat incorrect. my guess is too that if a great majority of men look at porn less than one hour a week, that soft porn is probably preferred by many of these men. and at least this is not violent, and not s-m, and generally such models used display some control over their depiction.