I think I wrote about this last year….search APA journals for literature on Internet addiction and Pornography addiction and what do you find? Not much (1st set of terms) and nothing (2nd set of terms). Search all of PsychInfo to include all of psych journals and you find a few: several published in christian journals and several in marriage and family journals. But all in all, very little.
I guess they don’t have the stomach to address these ills. They don’t even try to debunk them as social or cultural anomalies.
Musings on Faith and Psychology 
You should check out the XXXChurch.com. They’re not exactly batting for the APA, but they’re still pretty interesting.
Look how many painful years it took to get cigarette companies to put a Surgeon General’s warning on their packs…it was bad for business! Porn is one of the largest revenue grabbers out there these days, and speaking from the perspective of one who has struggled with porn earlier in my life, it holds out the offer of something far deeper than mere entertainment. Porn offers you (from a male’s perspective) the illusion of real “life” in terms of intimacy and impact, in an entirely controllable media. The dangerous road of developing intimate relationships with highly unpredictable humans is replaced with an easily accessible super highway lined with images (with video and audio) that offer up replicas of humans, but ones who cater to your every whim, and that with a smile on their Photoshop-ed faces. Porn holds out the promise of the serpent in the Garden, to make you a god, or to at least feel like one for the few minutes you’re indulging in it. Revelation 4:11 in the KJV states, “…for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.” Porn gives a guy the opportunity to live out his lust for being a god, by facilitating the illusion that the women (or men, in some cases) in the images are at his beck and call for his pleasure (almost as if the people in those images actually believe they were literally created to give that one indulger his pleasure), and just as easily dismissed when they are no longer pleasurable, and just as easily replaced with another subservient image that will get the job done. A friend of mine once speculated that perhaps this is why Solomon had so many wives and concubines in his palace…living human pornography! Supplying “godhood” for a fee is the life-giving root of all sorts of industries of pleasure and luxury. As Henry David Thoreau wrote in “Walden,” “There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil for every one striking at the root.” I’m quite certain that the world system coordinated by that serpent of Eden is going to do its darnedest to make sure no one under it’s command or influence is going to do any hacking or striking at this particular tree, so that it’s evil fruit can continue to poison the minds, souls and lives of anyone still trying to achieve independent god-hood.
It’s true that APA journals aren’t talking about pornography addiction much. Sexual addiction, yes, and they would probably lump pornography addiction in with that.
I wrote about the power of porn addiction on my companies’ blog: http://blogs.covenanteyes.com/2008/01/24/brain-chemicals-kirk-franklin-and-walking-trees/
I would highly recommend to anyone who is tempted by Internet pornography to find a good Internet accountability program, especially towards the beginning of the journey to recovery. My company, Covenant Eyes, has made an excellent accountability program that allows for complete honesty among Internet users.
Luke Gilkerson
Internet Community Manager
Covenant Eyes
http://www.covenanteyes.com
Scott, nice comments and thoughts. Thanks for sharing
Luke, thanks for your post as well. I am familiar with Covenant Eyes and have some clients who send me their weekly summary. Very helpful. APA journals aren’t writing much on sexual addiction either. There are some psych journals outside of APA (but included in their PsychInfo database) that do write on the topic, but not as much as you might think…
I’m not a member but there is a Journal of the Society for the Advancement of Sexual Health: Sexual Addiction & Compulsivity The Journal of Treatment & Prevention
You can view their areas of research here:
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t713658059~db=all~tab=jdb_table_of_contents_previous
A search for “pornography” at http://www.pubmed.gov (or http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez) yields 900+ research articles but many are not just for porn but for sexual addiction, health risks, etc.
Phil,
I am looking to start a referral list of counselors for those who call our offices. We are starting to have a number of callers that could really use a counselor to talk to. They are distressed, many of them in a state of panic when they call us.
Does CCEF have a referral network?
I’ll be at the upcoming CCEF conference and I am looking forward to meeting you!
Blessings,
Luke Gilkerson
Covenant Eyes
Luke,
I’ll bet you get many distressed individuals and couples. I’m sure they would benefit from a list of counselors. I wonder if you could tap Dobson’s Focus on the Family list?
CCEF used to have a referral network but I’m not sure they do now. It wasn’t extensive. I’ll check with my boss about some other places.
Looking forward to meeting you too.