Study: Teenage boys addicted to 'extreme' porn and want help

Exclusive: Young boys are becoming so addicted to extreme internet porn that they now want help to stop watching it, according to a new study.

A fifth of boys aged between 16 and 20 told the University of East London they were “dependent on porn as a stimulant for real sex”. The online sexual imagery study surveyed 177 students and found 97 per cent of the boys had viewed porn. Of those, 23 per cent said they tried to stop watching it but could not, while 13 per cent reported the content they watch has “become more and more extreme”.

Seven per cent said they wanted professional help because they felt their porn habit was getting out of control.

Most said they had lost relationships, neglected partners, and cut down on their social lives as a result of their behavioural addiction.

Dr Amanda Roberts, a psychology lecturer at the university who created the study, exclusively seen by Telegraph Wonder Women, said: “About a quarter of young boys have tried to stop using it and can’t, which means there’s definitely problematic porn use within this group.

“It’s because there’s more and more exposure of porn and it’s excessive; it’s everywhere.”

She said the results were “worrying” and spoke about the effects it is having on the young boys: “I think it’s the really extreme hard-core material that is going to be quite damaging to children.

“It is also damaging to their self esteem, because they don’t look like that, and they then expect girls to look and act like porn stars.

“They feel inadequate, and most said they felt confused and angry because they couldn’t stop.”

Professor Matt Field, adolescent addiction psychologist at University of Liverpool, added: “Adolescents are particularly vulnerable to developing addictions and that’s because of how their brains are developing.”

He explained that humans have a ‘reward centre’ in the brain which develops quickly in adolescents and makes them sensitive to pleasure-inducing temptations such as porn.

But the part of the brain that is responsible for self-control does not mature until an adult is in their mid-twenties, making it harder for adolescents to suppress their urges.

Dr Roberts added: “To become an addict, you have to have a propensity to addiction first but they are all so exposed to it, which makes it so much worse.

“Porn is still one of the most looked up words on the internet. Before it was DVDs and magazines or soft-core websites, but now it’s all very hard-core and it’s free online.”

The study also found 80 per cent of girls aged 16-20 had seen porn.

Out of those, eight per cent felt they could not stop watching it, while 10 per cent said the content they watch has become more extreme.

While boys watched it mainly for pleasure, girls watched porn out of curiosity or for discovery learning.

The research comes after an NSPCC study, commissioned by The Daily Telegraph, showed a third of school pupils believe online pornography dictates how young people have to behave in a relationship.

The Telegraph Wonder Women’s Better Sex Education campaign, which launched last month, has highlighted how children are being pressurised into inappropriate sexual behaviour by internet pornography, and called for sex education in schools to be modernised.

David Cameron, the Prime Minister, has already indicated his support for the Telegraph campaign but has yet to announce how the Government will introduce reforms.

Current classroom guidelines on sex education have not been updated since 2000, failing to recognise vast expansion of online pornography which has taken place in the last decade with the growth of broadband and mobile internet.

The 12-Steps for Sobers

October is National Substance Abuse Prevention Month.

Turns out, ALL of us: sober, addict, BREATHING beings, could really benefit from taking the personal inventory promoted by the 12-steps to recovery.  

I  didn't grow up in an environment where addiction ( was talked about so I wasn't familiar with the 12-Steps until I was I desperate for recovery and begin applying the 12- Steps in my on life. What I discovered is the 12-Steps is like having some church up in here.  And by "in here" I mean the front row of your SOUL. So, if you think the 12-Steps don't apply to you, you're wrong.  All of us are, or have been addicted to something.  It just doesn't necessarily have to be a physical substance. 

Other addictions include: 

1. Drama/Chaos
2. Gossiping
3. Negative thought patterns/ fear-based thinking
4. Overspending OR over-saving (constantly crunching)
5. Food
6. Work
7. Overachieving/ Constant Multitasking 
8. Materialism
9. Gambling/Risk taking
10. Sex/constant need of relationship companion
11. Avoidance (of issues, motivation, etc.)
12. Jealousy
13. Violence
14. Arrogance/vanity
15. Lying/Truth "bending"
16. Working out/sports
17. Cosmetic surgery
18. Power
19. Our prejudices
20. TV/cellphones/internet


And that's just the short-list version.

Think of one character default you which to shed.  It can be anything that doesn't serve you.  And apply the 12-steps to your action plan.  It truly is applicable AND beneficial to any feature we wish to shed. 

The Twelve Steps

1. I admit that I am powerless over (fill your addiction here)—that my life has become unmanageable. 
   
2. I believe that a Power greater than myself can restore me to sanity. 
   
3. I make a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of God as I understand Him. 
   
4. I have made a searching and fearless moral inventory of myself. 
   
5. I admit to God, to myself, and to another human beings the exact nature of my wrongs. 
   
6. I am entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of my character. 
   
7. I humbly asked Him to remove my shortcomings. 
   
8. I have made a list of all persons I have harmed, and am willing to make amends to them all. 
   
9. I will make direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. 
   
10. I will continue to take personal inventory and when I am wrong, will promptly admitted it. 
    
11. I seek through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as I understand Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for me and the power to carry that out. 
    
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, I embody this message for others, and will practice these principles in all my affairs. 
    
    
    
    "The goal of spiritual practice is full recovery, and the only thing you need to recover from is a fractured sense of self." - Marianne Williamson
    
    
    
    

The New Teen Porn Culture

Witness Nancy Jo Sales’ disturbing “Friends Without Benefit” in September’s Vanity Fair. The article examines today’s sexting, Internet chat rooms and online hook-up sites for teenagers, “a world where boys are taught they have the right to expect everything from social submission to outright sex from their female peers.”

This is actually quite a polite way to describe the world our sons and daughters live in today. Vanity Fair interviews girls who describe masturbating for boys via Skype, one who makes a homemade porn video that ends up circulating via smartphones at her school, pick ups via SnapChat and Tindr, and the quaint cell phone text from a girl to the boy sitting next to her offering to give him a blow job after class.

It all starts with a virtual world, made all too vivid and interactive by today’s technologies. And my bad that I wrote that the world has gotten more complicated for girls. Boys are just as warped by today’s teen porn gone mainstream. Rampant tech sex, ironically, hurts everyone’s sexuality.

“If you’re between 8 and 18, you spend more than 11 hours a day plugged into an electronic device,” Sales explains. “The average American teen now spends nearly every waking moment on a smart phone or computer or watching TV. This seismic shift in how kids spend their time is having a profound effect on the way they make friends, the way they date, and their introduction to the world of sex.”

It’s the simultaneous intersection of the three most baffling, frightening, spit-out-your-coffee topics for most parents: teenagers, sex and technology. Together.

The facts are grim. Ninety-three percent of boys and 62 percent of girls have seen Internet porn before they turn 18, according to a 2008 study in CyberPsychology & Behavior. Eighty-three percent of boys and 57 percent of girls have seen group sex online. A “liberated” girl who imitates porn stars (think grinding and pole-dancing) is seen as the gold standard among certain groups of teenagers. But rather than finding sexual freedom and confidence in one’s attractiveness, this focus on near-anonymous, zero-intimacy sex exploits girls’ and boys’ sexuality and self esteem.

The question is: who is the mastermind behind today’s culture of everyday teen porn? Teenage boys? As I recall, teenage boys were not, collectively or individually, capable of mass domination of teenaged girls. They were barely in charge of their own erections. And, I as I pointed out, boys are corrupted here too.

So who is really to blame?

In Sales’ article, it’s the usual suspects. Shallow, materialistic, amoral celebrities like Kim Kardashian, Paris Hilton and Miley Cyrus. A culture that deifies blatant sexuality in women and girls as young as 11 or 12. Rampant, uncensored technology. Parents who aren’t being parents.

I wish I could offer a wise and effective solution. A nice pep talk you could deliver to your 13-year-old. A feel-good program we could implement in our schools.

Nothing so simple exists. No one -- and everyone-- is to blame. We are all at fault, every time we pick up a cell phone or check our FaceBook page.

The only way out, paradoxically, is a deep dive into our kids’ world. Horrifying, I know.

You’re going to need a tour guide, and only a teenager will do. It must be your own teenager. Doing this together, although excruciating for everyone, is the point.

Fess up and admit your ignorance. Profess curiosity. Explain how the world has changed since the olden days when we were teens and a sleepover dare was prank-calling the cute boy from history class.

Visit Tindr together. Ask your son or daughter, alone or along with their friends, to walk you through Facebook conversations and to show you a few provocative SnapChat photos. Discuss the pros and cons of sharing bodily fluids with some you met via a raunchy post online. Expect your face to turn bright red.

Talk, talk, talk. It’s not going to change anything. Your kids still have to navigate an Internet world that is disgusting, alien and anathema to many of us (and, fingers crossed, maybe it will be to them one day too). But perhaps we can make a few points that sink in about the folly of seeking lasting pleasure based on a naked selfie.

Parenting teenagers is equal parts giving them guidance and letting them go. The only part parents have any control over - and this has not changed in 30 years - is how we talk to our kids about sex, relationships, love and happiness, and how we model the same in our own live. Sunlight is the best disinfectant, even when it comes to teenagers, technology, and online porn disguised as the new sexuality. 

By Leslie Morgan Steiner on October 7, 2013