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Comment by superkuh | Hacker News Reader

Porn "addiction" and all that hand wringing is just FUD from the moral panic types and the skeezy media "doctors" that prey on them. In fact non-substance "addictions" aren't recognized at all. "Gambling disorder" is presently the only condition in the subsection of "Non-substance-related disorders" in DSM 5.

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.

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Is there a DSM-5 condition for outsourcing all your rational facilities to the DSM-5?

I cited the current status quo and then I explained the scientific reasoning behind it. You are implying the DSM 5 created my beliefs, but I only cited it here because if I just stated the science alone I'd be critized for that instead. I've spent decades reading journal articles on this topic and there's every reason to believe that substance mediated addition is a very different thing than non-substance mediated "addiction".

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.

Is it possible your issue is with the overloading of the word "addiction"? If we called it a compulsion instead would you be ok with that?

'cos I'm just thinking that Skinner boxes look pretty damn addictive from the outside, regardless of the precise mecahnism of action.

My issue is with the use of the term “addiction”, yes. It’s multiple orders of magnitude smaller in effect size on dopamine receptor down regulation compared to Opioid Use Disorder, for example, and I think conflating them can be a bit harmful.

That said, this battle was lost long long ago, so it’s somewhat of a moot point.

addiction refers to a pattern of behavior not just its scale. like, you can be addicted to eating even though it has a much smaller effect than smack and people still are and end up 600 pounds. i also think addiction around porn is not just addiction it's a fucky form of erotic plasticity that gets people hooked on weird stuff that messes with their ability to have normal, healthy relationships.

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.

> oh at least it's not opioids

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.

Yes, that's the primary issue I'm addressing. But even beyond that there have been many real studies (not anecdotes) showing that masterbation and porn use have no effect on sexual partners. In fact most of the one's I've read show the reverse correlation if anything: people who masterbate more are better able to enjoy sex with partners. ref: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41443-022-00596-y

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?"

Small point: you don't have any evidence that moral panic groups are unhealthy. If you're going to wield that "objective knowledge" sword, you'll need to die by it, too.

You're right. It probably doesn't change them.

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.

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Please don't cross into personal attack. You can make your substantive points without that.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

He study forms of addiction. He's just relaying things he have studied.

I don't think that observation is relevant to any of my objections.

> I cited the current status quo

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.

The point you should be catching, I believe, is that such things exist in reality independent of their existing in the DSM-5

Carry on doing your thing then.

They’re working on changing that, too.

Thats a long description of habit forming

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