According to the A.C. Nielsen Company, the research giant that determines television ratings, last year 27.5 million Americans visited pornographic websites. There are more than 100,000 porn sites and 200 new cybersex sites are created daily. These sites generate over a billion dollars a year in revenue.

Pornography is an “equal opportunity” addiction. It affects every segment of the population — male and female, white collar workers and blue collar workers, teenage boys and geriatic women. In a recent research study, one in ten people who participated admitted that they were addicted to online pornography.

According to counsellor / author Russel Willingham, “The person who is addicted to pornography lives their life according to a certain cycle. Whenever they’re stressed or angry or lonely or insecure, one of their first thoughts is to act out with pornography.”

Pornography has a single purpose — to stimulate a sexual response. Whether it’s a stripper at a bar, a triple-X video, a “men’s” magazine, or any other form of “adult” entertainment, the goal is to arouse sexual feelings. The problem is that those feelings are directed towards fantasy objects, not an addict’s spouse, so frequently extramarital affairs will grow out of an addiction to pornography.

Another painful truth about pornography addiction is that the non-addicted spouse may feel pressured into “performing” for his/her partner to keep that partner faithful. In an effort to motivate the pornography addict to give up his/her addiction or extramarital activites, spouses will offer to “do anything.” This can lead to degrading experiences for the non-addicted spouse.

A study at the University of Indiana and Jennings Bryant of the University of Houston found that exposure to pornography strongly influenced how participants felt about their sexual experiences. It showed that “repeated exposure to pornography results in a decreased satisfaction with one’s sexual partner, with the partner’s sexuality, and with the partner’s sexual curiosity.”

Why?

When someone becomes aroused by pornographic images, he/she will naturally begin to compare the experience to what occurs in the marriage bed. He/she will inevitably measure the absent spouse’s desirability against the “sexiness” of the stimulating pornographic image.

In a competition between a digitally enhanced, perfectly sculpted and air-brushed image in a magazine (or the ready-for-anything sex object in a video) and a pornography addict’s spouse … the winner is always pornography.

A centerfold is a fantasy, however, and unavailable. But rather than turn to his/her spouse … now deemed “inferior” … the addicted spouse will turn to relationships outside the marriage in an effort to recreate the fantasy promise of the pornography.