hmm yes that will definitely not totally fuck up the dopamine systems of young men and make an already badly addicted generation hopelessly dependent on this shit
Addiction mediated by chemicals that directly increase perceptions of incentive salience through mesolimbic dopaminergic activation are real addictions.
Perceptions of sensory stimuli come in through the normal paths do not directly hijack any part of the brain like addictive chemicals do. Downstream of the stimuli there may be reward learning but it's through normal channels, not directly turning up incentive salience. You actually have to like/enjoy something first before reward learning happens.
The crackpots and abusive groups out there holding "porn addiction" and related treatment camps and services are just about as legit as the "pray the gay away" camps. They're completely unethical and unsupported but moral panic keeps them flush with cash.
'cos I'm just thinking that Skinner boxes look pretty damn addictive from the outside, regardless of the precise mecahnism of action.
That said, this battle was lost long long ago, so it’s somewhat of a moot point.
like, i watch a shitton of peers have problems with this and then y'all tell me "oh at least it's not opioids". bruh. yes it's not opioids it's a different kind of problem. then there's the people who are out here like "oh you're just a puritan" refusing to admit that there's literally anything potentially dangerous about porn at all.
That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying that we shouldn't conflate the two via language, because as you also admit, they're not even in the same planet with regards to their danger and effect on the human organism. They don't operate the same way at all. I said nothing and passed no judgement on the dangers or lack thereof of porn.
Additionally, scientists have studied if it is possible to become "addicted" to sex and other normal sexual stimuli. It doesn't happen. At least not like with, say, methamphetamine. Imagine how many people would be "addicted" to sex if it were. ref: https://akjournals.com/view/journals/2006/11/2/article-p222....
The real dangers here are cults like "no fap" (ie, NCOSE, FightTheNewDrug, Reboot) and other unhealthy moral panic groups promising to kill each other and repeated threatening to kill adult actors, media producers, and scientific researchers.
People with the strongest opposition to scientific consensus have the lowest levels of objective knowledge--yet they also have the most confidence. If someone claims to "treat" sex addiction or porn addiction, they are part of the problem providing "non-evidence-based treatment". ref: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027273582...
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-020-01884-8 "Claiming Public Health Crisis to Regulate Sexual Outlets: A Critique of the State of Utah’s Declaration on Pornography"
https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.2019... "Should Public Health Professionals Consider Pornography a Public Health Crisis?"
There's a good chance there's just a selection bias for the type of person that joins a nofap cult (religious or otherwise) being intrinsically violent (unhealthy to others). Now they just have a cult to encourage them and tell them which researchers to send the death threats to.
You certainly did.
> and then I explained the scientific reasoning behind it.
That's charitable.
> there's every reason to believe that substance mediated addition is a very different thing than non-substance mediated "addiction".
And? They are both addictions.
edit: @stickfigure i'm can y'all please quit trying to tar me with this brush, it's bullshit. i'm not arguing about masturbation i'm saying excessive consumption of porn when people have limitless access to weird ass shit that doesn't reflect the real world is causing problems. don't try to make me some puritan or whatever because literally nothing i said suggests that.