Pornography Addiction - Proposed Definition

Proposed Definition

Pornography addiction is diagnosed when an individual engages in the overuse or abuse of pornography to the extent that they experience negative consequences. In 1990 Aviel Goodman proposed a general definition of all types of addictions in order to extend the specific disorders included in the DSM-III-R. While not explicitly in the context of pornography, Goodman explains his criteria for addiction as a "process whereby a behavior, that can function both to produce pain and to provide escape from internal discomfort, is employed in a pattern characterized by (1) failure to control the behavior (powerlessness) and (2) continuation of the behavior despite significant negative consequences (unmanageability)."

Pornography addiction is defined, by those who argue that it exists, as a dependence upon pornography characterized by obsessive viewing, reading, and thinking about pornography and sexual themes to the detriment of other areas of life.

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