Best Advice for Muslims-Porn Addiction Is a Myth
22/09/2019
Many researchers, authors and even physicians and psychologists have wrongly brought forward the argument that porn addiction exists. The arguments that are put forward to support such arguments and theories are mostly based on anecdotal evidence. It is very clear that you cannot rely on anecdotal evidence when proving a point in science. Scientific arguments are based on scientific and medical research evidence to back it. As far as science is concerned, there is no evidence whatsoever to prove that porn addiction exists. Dr David Ley, who is a clinical psychologist, published a study (David Ley, Nicole Prause, Peter Finn. The Emperor Has No Clothes: A Review of the ‘Pornography Addiction’ Model. Current Sexual Health Reports,https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11930-014-0016-8) debunking the argument that porn addiction exists. Dr Ley argues that people who report about being addicted to porn are likely to be male, have non-heterosexual orientation and have religious values that conflict with their sexual behavior and desires. Most people among the religious community have porn addiction counselling which are based on pseudo-scientific
methods and this has become a very lucrative practice. Take the Mormon church for an example, who have Masturbation and Porn addiction counselling sessions which are based on unscientific nonsense and the person is thought to shun masturbation and pornography, which is near impossible to achieve due to the simple reason that biologically people love to enjoy porn and masturbation after getting exposed to it.
There are sex,porn and masturbation addition, therapists who are just bogus men and women who are using pseudo-scientific methods to fool people into thinking that such addictions exist. Pathologizing individuals as addicts could increase the guilt and hence other psychological, physical conditions such as stress, Anxiety, diabetes and blood pressure can develop as a result. Masturbation is associated with pornography and a wrong analogy is derived to make it a sinful act among Muslims. There are many Muslim counsellors as well who counsel Muslims, especially men to stop Masturbating and watching porn. Similar to porn there is no such thing as a masturbation addiction. Firebrand Muslim preachers preach on how masturbation and pornography affect marital life and all of it is based on personal anecdotes.
Science has proven beyond doubt that there is no such thing as a masturbation or porn addiction. Some celebrity talk show hosts and doctors have come on record claiming that sex addiction exists which is once again a baseless myth based on anecdotal evidence. What needs to be understood is that a medical pathology should be based only on scientific research evidence and not on personal anecdotes. This fact is agreed by all scientists. Most of the porn, masturbation and sex addiction therapies are faith based and not based on science. Someone might ask then why do so many people complain that they are struggling to cope with porn? The answer to this is that most people who complain about porn, masturbation or sex addictions are mostly coming from a religious background. Take an example of a Muslim boy who was raised by his religious parents. He is thinking that watching porn or masturbating is a sin and Allah (Swt) is watching him. This fear induced religious learning impacts the boy not only in his childhood, but it also affects his adulthood as well. Religious learning induced by extreme fear creates a lot of guilt and the young Muslim man or woman end up interpreting his/her compulsiveness to a porn or masturbation as an addiction. As a result of this he/she tries to force themselves into unethical physical and mental control by reading books or watching/listening to Various Islamic lectures of Muslim preachers telling them how bad porn and masturbation are. Just because someone is compulsive does not mean that he is addicted. In most cases compulsiveness is totally harmless as in the caseof watching porn and masturbating. It’s the fear, guilt mind-set that has been turned into a victim mind-set due to frequent brainwashing that’s done during childhood through induced fear of punishment.
The change in mindset to a positive one will help the Muslim to understand that compulsiveness is not an addiction and many people are enjoying their lives being compulsive without any hindrance. Take for an example of people who are avid readers. Sometimes theses avid readers finish reading four or five books in a week and there are people who watch TV, movies and even travel the world frequently and such compulsiveness are never deemed as an addiction. If you fear that compulsiveness is hindering your day to day life as in the case in obsessive compulsive disorder, you can always solve such trivial issues with a qualified therapist but what needs to be understood is that compulsiveness is not an addiction. The positives and negatives of watching porn is a perennial argument that has been raging for decades. Does watching porn cause health problems and are there benefits of watching porn? Let’s analyse the evidence. Psychologists like Dr Al Cooper were hell bent on viewing pornography as an addiction. In the 90’s he argued that because porn was accessible and affordable with the advent of the internet made porn addiction alarmingly high. Known as the Cooper theory, it has no connection whatsoever between internet porn and any sexual behaviors. Like all other activities such as eating, drinking, watching television, using a knife or a gun, watching internet porn could also end up in the hands of people who are not prepared to manage such activities hence could lead to wrong consequences. The fact that needs to be understood is it is not the activity that needs to be blamed in most cases it is the person. An article published in Psychology Today dated 21/08/2018 ran an article arguing why porn addiction does not exist. Researches like Josh Grubbs, Samuel Perry and Joshua Wilt analysed data from 15 different studies from varied researchers comprising nearly 7000 different participants as mentioned in the article. The article mentions:
“Studies were conducted in-person and on-line, in the United States and Europe. They found that first, religiousness was a strong, clear predictor of moral incongruence regarding porn use. This is important; as it indicates that we can and should use a person’s religiousness as an indicator of the likelihood of moral conflict over porn use” The other fear that is evident among Muslims in general is the imbalance that could result of the so called porn addiction. Many Muslims brothers are famous for quoting hypothetical theories of how Muslim men could get addicted to watching porn that they will eventually forget their wives and they could waste precious time. All of these arguments are made up by Muslim preachers or are merely anecdotes. The truth is, in the real world, it is hard to find healthy people spending ten to twelve hours sitting and browsing only porn sites and becoming dangerous. Take the example of a person who plays a first person shooter game and when the game is over he stops the game and engages in other activity such as eating, drinking or going to the park. This in no way it reflects anything dangerous. This is why we need to rely on scientific evidence rather than anecdotes or hypothetical examples. The Release of Dopamine to The brain and Pornography. As explained earlier in this book, there is no such thing as a porn addiction yet some try to convince people that watching porn could be addictive because the neurotransmitter in the brain called dopamine increases in the brain, resulting in the person who watches porn becoming an addict due to the increased craving he has towards porn. A research published by Cambridge Neuroscientist Dr Valerie Voon (https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0102419) has highlighted that
dopamine increases in people watching porn.Many anti porn crusaders use this dopamine theory to push the argument that dopamine acts as an erotoxin that gets released to the brain when a person views porn. The truth is dopamine acts as a vasodilator that expands the blood vessels in the body. Dopamine is something that is important to the human body and the lack of dopamine could cause many nervous system disorders such as Parkinson’s disease. Trying to prove that porn is addictive because dopamine increases as a result
of watching porn is totally wrong. There are many activities and foods that increase dopamine. Exercising, consuming prebiotics, taking a good rest will increase dopamine. The increase in dopamine is good for the body and it’s elementary to base an argument on the increase or decrease of a neurotransmitter. The research, published by Valarie Voon also argues that the person who watches porn is as addictive as a heroin addict. This argument does not hold water because an article published in Psychology Today dated
06/01/2017 debunks this as a flawed argument. The article explains:
“When a person is about to experience pleasure, dopamine is released in the brain, and in the parts of the brain that experience And process pleasure. Dopamine’s role here is NOT that it makes you feel good. It doesn’t – the pleasure and hedonic or euphoria feeling comes from opiates in the brain, neurochemicals which increase pleasure and deaden pain. Dopamine’s role in pleasure and reward is that it helps your brain to recognize “incentive salience.” This means that it’s like a little red flag to your brain, saying “hey, pay attention, this is about to feel good, and you want to remember this, so you can do it again.”
A critical issue here is that a lack of dopamine doesn’t actually make the experience feel less well. In studies with rats, where dopamine was suppressed, rats showed “normal hedonic reaction patterns, (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9858756)” and still showed normal pleasure responses even though dopamine was suppressed. In another rat study, (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7826571) it was shown that dopamine transmission increased in the anticipation of the heroin administration, but decreased Sharply once the drug was administered (by the rat itself). Notably, this effect wasn’t present the first time the rat self administered the heroin. Why? Because they hadn’t learned yet tha the heroin was about to feel really good” There are a few researches published that argue that watching porn could affect marital intimacy. The research was a survey that was published by the American Urological Association dated 12/05/2017 (https://www.prnewswire.com/newsreleases/results-vary-by-gender-onwhether-pornography-use-leadstosexualdysfunction-300456647.html) arguing that watching porn can affect a man’s performance in bed. This survey, which is titled ‘Results Vary By Gender on Whether Pornography Use Leads to Sexual Dysfunction’ is yet to be proven with more scientific evidence and there is a research published by Samuel L. Perry of the Department of Sociology, University of Oklahoma
(http://www.seksonderzoek.be/wpcontent/uploads/2016/03/Does_Viewing_Pornography_Reduce_Marital.pdf) and the Samuel L.
Perry mentions the hypothesis needing further research. He says: “I conclude by discussing the implications and limitations of this study and outlining directions for future research. All the research evidence and surveys are hypothetical and needs further scientific evidence to back it, but there are many health benefits of watching porn. A study done by Cambridge University (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/269763975_(Viewing_Sexual_Stimuli_Associated_with_Greater_Sexual_Responsiveness_Not_Erectile_Dysfunction) proves that there is a positive correlationbetween watching porn and sexual desire. A research titled “The Effect of a Primary Sexual Reward Manipulation on Cortisol Responses to Psychosocial Stress in Men” was published by Carnegie Mellon University (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236193328_(The_Effect_of_a_Primary_Sexual_Reward_Manipulation_on_Cortisol_Responses_to_Psychosoci143al_Stress_in_Men) Proved that watching porn or nude images can decrease stress).
Another paper was published in 2009 in the International Journal of Law and Psychiatry (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19665229) By Milton Diamond and he concludes as appeared in Psychology Today dated 22/01/2010 stated:
"Indeed, the data reported and reviewed suggests that the thesis is a myth and, if anything, there is an inverse causal relationship between an increase in pornography and sex crimes. Further, considering the findings of studies of community standards and widespread usage of SEM [sexually explicit material], it is obvious that in local communities as nationally and internationally, porn is available, widely used and felt appropriate for voluntary adult consumption. If there is a consensus against pornography it is in regard to any SEM that involves children or minors in its production or consumption. Lastly, we see that objections to erotic materials are often made on the basis of supposed actual, social or moral harm to women. No such cause and effect has been demonstrated with any negative consequence."
There is also evidence to prove that porn helps relationships. A research titled “Erotica Viewing Effects on Intimate RelationshipsAnd Self/Partner Evaluations” (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-012-0034-4#/page-1) show that
watching porn can help have a good sexual relationship among couples. Another study titled “Viewing Sexual Stimuli Associated with Greater Sexual Responsiveness, Not Erectile Dysfunction” (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/sm2.58)Argued that men who watch porn have more sexual sensitivity. After analysing all the evidence on this subject it his very clear that there is no conclusive evidence) to prove that porn is unhealthy for humans and the evidence and surveys that prove against it are an assertion based on correlational data and nothing more.
C.J.Ahmed