As freshman Peter Lytle got older, he viewed Internet pornography with declining frequency.
At his peak, he was watching porn once every other day to once every three days, but now Lytle only views it approximately once a week.
Although he attributes this decrease to emotional maturity, Lytle said he was never addicted to porn.
The Web site http://www.no-porn.com, devoted to helping porn addicts overcome their addictions, offers a quiz for site visitors to determine whether they too might be hooked.
Adapted from Hazelden Publishing’s “Hope and Recovery: A Twelve Step Guide for Healing from Compulsive Sexual Behavior,” the quiz asserts that addicts exhibit some of the following symptoms: They let their porn-viewing habits interfere with work or school, they “feel empty or shameful after viewing or masturbating using pornography,” they “use pornography to deal with, deny, or avoid problems in (their lives),” or they have “replaced a collection of pornographic material after destroying one collection and vowing never to purchase pornography again.”
“I don’t believe it was ever a problem, and I don’t believe it was ever a vice,” Lytle said. “Pornography is not a vice when it’s used for sort of a quick sexual gratification, but it definitely can become one when you start to create personal gender norms and sexual stereotypes based on this false constructed reality that centers on sexual gratification.
“Pornography definitely does not represent reality,” he added.
Lytle’s viewing habits are incongruent with those who frequent http://www.no-porn.com’s online forums — porn addicts who consider it a point of pride when they can “go for long periods of time — hours or up to two days — without wanting porn.”
Another anti-porn Web site, http://www.victimsofpornography.org, catalogs testimonials from porn addicts, spouses of porn addicts and sex industry workers who said their lives have been ruined
by porn.
But the University Counseling and Testing Center makes no mention of porn addiction in its list of “important times for men to seek help.”
Lytle said in his experience, once men reach college, their porn viewing should decrease naturally.
“Guys in college are around girls more often, they’re getting into relationships and they really should be beginning to mature,” he said.
However, Lytle isn’t ashamed that he still looks at porn on a weekly basis.
“I’m not embarrassed about my use of pornography because it’s something that happens that I do personally. It’s a personal habit; it’s not something I share with the world,” Lytle said. “It’s a definite sexual release that I think, without, most men would go stark raving insane.”
Despite his assertion, Lytle said he is uncomfortable with the negative light cast on males because of their porn habits.
“It’s easy to perceive men in general as ‘sex fiends,’ and definitely our sexual beings are a huge part of us, but there is a lot more to man than just that,” he said. “While it seems like the Internet pornography phenomenon is mostly relegated to men, I would hate for the stereotype to develop that that’s all men can think about.
“We have psychological complexities. We’re more than just sex machines.”
But, Lytle said, he’s also aware porn can exert a negative influence on some men’s lives.
“It really depends on the person because for some people, pornography can become a very harmful aspect of their life, and for some people it’s a normal, safe avenue for sexual experience and release,” he said.
One of those harmful aspects, Lytle said, is the effect it can have on a relationship.
“Internet sates a sexual drive, but when you have a partner, there’s a deeper emotional stake,” he said. “If you love them there really is no need to look at porn, even if you’re not involved sexually because you’re … with someone on a deeper, almost spiritual level, and it seems to supersede the more juvenile need for sexual gratification — for instant, emotionless sexual gratification.”
That’s the reason Lytle, for one, moved on from porn.
“I won’t deny when I was younger I looked at a lot of porn,” he said. “But — and I believe this is true for a lot of guys — as I became older I began to desire a constructive relationship more than a hand job.”