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No, You Cannot Get Attached to Porn
Responding to claims porn-related problems are based on attachment disturbance
Posted September 28, 2016
Sex and porn addiction theories are essentially “kitchen-sink” style theories. Proponents of these theories throw in various concepts and ideas that sound good, or are popular, but rarely do they do the homework to adequately address the foundations of applying these theories in effective ways. The latest of these is the use of attachment theory, to explain sexual behavior problems.
A related example here, is the common misuse of the word “compulsive” or “compulsion.” Repetitive, problematic sexual behavior is commonly termed “compulsive,” based on a person’s feeling that they have difficulty controlling it. But, research and diagnostic theory on obsessive-compulsive disorders actually specifically excludes reinforcing, rewarding behaviors such as sex, or even eating, from being compulsive in nature because they are in and of themselves, pleasurable. Compulsions are engaged in specifically to reduce anxiety, even when the behavior (such as flipping the light switch a hundred times) has no direct, realistic connection to the fear (see pages 238 and 242 of your DSM-5). Rewarding, pleasurable behaviors are excluded, because people engage in these repetitively, for many reasons, and including them would muddy the waters and lead to over-diagnosis of OCD. So - use of the term compulsive/compulsion regarding sex ignores this, and improperly tries to use this theory to explain sexual problems.
One of the latest ingredients thrown in the kitchen sink of porn addiction theories is the idea that sex/porn related problems emerge from attachment disturbances. To put it briefly, attachment theory argues that humans develop attachment and connection to other people, and that these attachment styles are formed early in life, and persist throughout a person’s life. These theories have been developed and applied in therapy, and are used to support the importance of good early parenting, in developing a child’s ability for later healthy relationship skills. Attachment is absolutely and definitely important. For over a decade, I’ve run a treatment foster care program, and we regularly see children whose early family experiences were deeply unhealthy – these children struggle in adolescence and later, to allow people to be close to them, to care about them, or for the child to rely on people who may ultimately abandon them. Unfortunately, attachment theory ignores the significant biological/genetic predispositions that these children often have, prior to their experience of unstable parenting. Attachment theory inadequately addresses the many comorbid factors, such as neglect, lack of education, institutionalization, mental illness, etc., that these children experience simultaneously, and take the too-simple approach of blaming these later problems predominantly on attachment. Attachment theory sometimes suggests that the singular treatment for these issues, is developing a healthy, secure relationship, for instance with a therapist.
Applied to sexual issues, the attachment argument goes that men who have problems managing their porn or sex behaviors have an attachment disorder whereby their interest in frequent, casual or “unattached” sex is an expression of their disturbed attachment style. Some folks even go so far as to argue that when young males watch porn, they are developing an “attachment to porn,” instead of to other people. This is kind of like the famous Konrad Lorenz study, where baby ducks attached (or more accurately, imprinted) on a human scientist rather than the mommy duck. So, in this interesting theory, males who watch porn when they’re learning about sex and masturbating, attach to porn instead of to the idea or reality of other people and thereafter have difficulty developing a healthy, intimate relationship with another person. Like this guy, who has sued multiple times, for the right to marry his porn-filled computer.
There’s a problem here though. Several in fact. First, although adolescent boys are often pretty silly, they’re not ducks. Secondly, attachment is a distinct , biologically-mediated process from imprinting. Thirdly, those who argue that people can attach to a stimulus such as porn also seem to be confusing attachment with the “transitional object” idea. Remember Linus and his blanket? Remember you with that favorite stuffed animal? People often learn to associate and use some object as a soothing tool or strategy, particularly when the person is under a high degree of stress and may have inadequate alternative coping strategies. Many men do use porn to manage stress – the answer isn’t to shame them for it or take away their blanket – the therapeutic intervention is to assist them in naming and understanding their stress, and developing a multitude of tools to use to reduce or manage their stress.
There’s an interesting embedded argument in these attachment theories – they suggest, sometimes explicitly, that the way to treat these sexual issues, is for the man to develop a “real” relationship and develop a bonded attachment. This argument is inherently suggesting that healthily bonded, securely attached people, have no need of masturbation, and/or that sexual infidelity emerges from an insecurely attached relationship. Hmm. There’s actually lots of evidence supporting the health of masturbation across the lifespan, regardless of marriage, and that infidelity is not in fact a sign of relationship problems.
Blaming porn for male’s decreased interest in intimacy, marriage, or the increase in open relationships, ignores the complex social causal factors at play in these large shifts. Birth rates in Scandinavia are not decreasing because of porn, and Japanese young people aren’t refraining from relationships, because of porn – these are all very large, complicated issues, and blaming them on porn is the silliest form of moralistic simplistic scapegoating possible.
But, what about the possibility that men watching porn decreases their interest in intimacy and relationship with their wife? Can’t porn get in the way of the relationship? Here, the marital attachment is treated as something which is fragile, and can be disrupted by one partner using porn to masturbate to, instead of having sex with their spouse. This theory treats sexual intimacy as the pinnacle of attachment. However, folks such as Esther Perel have pointed out how attachment and intimacy can actually inhibit sexual arousal. This theory dangerously confuses a symptom, for a cause. In other words – it lays blame on the porn, for the decreased trust or intimacy in a relationship.
In contrast, a wealth of research indicates that increased porn use in men usually follows – not precedes, increases in stress, loneliness and depression. Men more frequently increase their use of porn in response to marital problems. When I see couples coming to me for therapy, reporting that porn use has supplanted sexual intimacy, it is usually the case that sexual intimacy had been decreased or inhibited prior, and the husbands filled that gap with masturbation to porn. Why is this important? Because, clinically, it leads a therapist on a snipe hunt, where the clinical focus is placed on reducing porn use, rather than addressing the issues that preceded it, and which the porn use is merely symptomatic of.
The effects of porn use on couples is not simple. Multiple studies now reveal that when a wife uses porn, or when a couple uses porn together, it is generally beneficial for the relationship, and the sexual satisfaction of the marriage. So, for some reason, women are protected from the dangerous “attachment to porn problem”? Hmmm. But, it is when men watch porn, typically in secret from their wives, that porn use predicts negative outcomes. But again – is it actually the porn? Could the porn be an indicator of something else?
In this recent study presented at a conference, it was actually the wives’ use of porn that predicted later divorce – if a wife stopped using porn, risk of divorce allegedly decreased. Why would that be? Perhaps the women learned from watching porn that their sexual interests and satisfaction mattered. And maybe the women who didn’t stop watching porn and later divorced, had decided that they weren’t interested in being married to men who did not support or accept their sexual desires.
Why do men keep their porn use secret from their wives? Because the men are afraid of rejection, shame or judgment. Their porn use may reveal a sexual interest they are keeping secret. Their porn use might expose that the men’s desire for sex is higher than their wives, and they’ve been unable to negotiate that libido mismatch in the couple. Perhaps it’s because the man has been taught to believe that masturbation and porn and any non-heteronormative monogamous sexuality is inherently immoral, and they have no language or ability to manage this values conflict. This is what I’m seeing and hearing, as I talk to people, therapists and researchers around the world.
Or perhaps people keep their porn use secret because they know there are lots of therapists out there, who disregard the complexity of the research, cite pseudoscience, and tell people that porn is bad for marriage and evidence of disturbance. A building school of research points to this internalized fear and shaming of porn use as the real cause for porn-related disturbances. Porn-related problems are an increasingly discussed issue – but simplistic answers, ranging from attachment to addiction, only distract us from truly helping these people.
