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