As a result of high Internet use (the largest industry on the Internet is adult entertainment), more individuals are engaging in compulsive sexual behavior. The Internet has allowed individuals to express sexual behaviors in discreet and instantaneous ways.
The Internet provides opportunities to communicate and connect in healthy sexual exploration and expression. However, like other pleasure-seeking behaviors, online sexual behavior also has the potential to become compulsive and psychologically unhealthy.
Addictive behavior typically serves the purpose of providing temporary escape from negative affect or unpleasant situations.
Factors that make online sexual activity seductive and potentially addictive - Cooper believes that access and affordability, combined with anonymity, account for the Internet’s power to attract people into a cycle of addiction.
The anonymity of the medium lures many unsuspecting people into secret virtual sexual encounters. In chat rooms, users communicate with “screen names” or “handles” and live out fantasies without leaving the privacy of their home or office.
First, online experiences often occur in the privacy of one's home, office, or bedroom , facilitating the perception of anonymity and that Internet use is personal and untraceable
Anonymity can also increase the online user's feeling of comfort since there is a decreased ability to look for, and thus detect, signs of insincerity, disapproval, or judgment in facial expression, as would be typical in face-to-face interactions. Within the anonymous context of cyberspace, conventional messages about sex are eliminated allowing users to play out hidden or repressed sexual fantasies in a private lab.
For anyone who has ever been curious about a particular deviant fantasy, cyberspace and the abundance of sexually explicit adult web sites offers a private and anonymous way to explore and indulge in those fantasies. Therefore, individuals are more likely to sexually experiment online as users feel encouraged and validated by the acceptance of the cyberspace culture, and when clocked behind the anonymity of the computer screen feel less accountable for their actions over the Internet.
The anonymity of the Internet allows the user to engage privately in the exchange of erotic text-based messages, pornography, and audiovisual sexual feeds without risking his...
The cost associated with accessing sexual images, sexual chat rooms, sex video clips, and live video connections is inexpensive and is becoming cheaper as a result of increased competition among Internet and Web hosting companies. The affordability of the Internet allows an individual to choose the precise medium that satisfies his or her particular sexual interests.
Nearly 20% of all Internet users have engaged in some kind of online sexual activity, ranging from obtaining information on sexual health, online chatting, to viewing pornography, to arranging face-to-face encounters offline (A. Cooper, Delmonico, & Burg, 2000). Although the majority of individuals who access the Internet, even for sexual purposes, do not report negative consequences, 6% to 10% of Internet users do report concerns related to their online sexual activities (Carnes, 2001 ; Schneider, 2000). Furthermore, Carnes (2001) discovered that for 1% of users, their online sexual activity virtually "crippled" their capacity to function in their everyday lives.
Cyberspace, with its lack of restrictions, also is filled with hard-core porn banned in many parts of the world, such child pornography.
The uncensored nature of cyberspace coupled with its seeming anonymity provides child pornographers with a new medium to pursue potential contacts and clients (both in terms of children and fellow traders).
Child pornographers will not only create their own web sites but frequently spam (send child porn pictures to multiple and random online users) in hopes of finding others who share their interests for trade.
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Cybersex is dangerous for the sex addict because it embodies many of the characteristics recovering addicts must avoid, including isolation, fantasy, objectification, and sexual images.
Carnes: "Cybersex addicts can quickly become focused on new types of behavior in a very short amount of time - what has taken other sex addicts decades to develop before the advent of the Internet…. Addicts become obsessed and can’t stop thinking about cybersex. They begin to seek others who share their same interests through chat rooms and news groups."
Experts say men who frequently view porn may develop unrealistic expectations of women's appearance and behavior, have difficulty forming and sustaining relationships and feeling sexually satisfied.
Fueled by a combination of access, anonymity and affordability, online porn has catapulted overall pornography consumption:
Cybersex is the crack cocaine of sexual addiction.
The internet (vast range of sexual services available cheaply and anonymously) has become the newest, most rapidly growing form of sexual acting out for many sexual addicts today.
Sex addict spends hours reading or watching pornography (eventually masturbating as part of their activity.
Most of sexual addicts added computer sex to their repertoire. They spend increasing amounts of time surfing the net, downloading and reading information on sex bulletin boards, and exchanging sexual information with others in sexual chat rooms or interactive sites (web cameras), directing their own live sex shows and publishing on the web.
Internet pornography is stronger, and more addictive ("a crack cocaine for sex addicts") , than ordinary pornography addiction - here are some engines of the acceleration: privacy that viewing online offers, endless variety, around the clock availability, instant accessibility and affordability (free or cheap internet porn).
Using internet pornography results with a rapid progression of the disease - the sex addict is eventually moving to more extreme, illegal behaviors (e.g. watching child pornography), spending longer hours, doing it more and more often.
In some cases the acceleration/progression of the disease turns into a blessing, since it can move the addict into the consequences more rapidly (he may hit bottom more quickly), which can cause him to get help in a moment of shock and despair.
Cybersex - using the Internet to engage in sexually gratifying activities such as, looking at pictures, engaging in sexual chat, exchanging explicit sexual images or emails, “cybering” (sharing fantasies over the Internet which involved being sexual together while one or both people masturbate), using web cameras, online dating, etc.
Several years ago, cybersex mostly meant glancing at pornographic pages on Web sites. Now, countless erotic chat rooms beckon. They offer instant partners for mutual fantasies, intensified by Webcams that deliver images of the virtual lover's body. Streaming video of sexual material is widely available. There are live sex shows broadcast online.
Cybersex addict spends around 20 hours per week using Internet.
The anonymity of the medium encourages users to indulge their every fantasy. To that end, there are porn websites that cater to every conceivable fetish. Lest one think that Cybersex is innocuous, the plethora of child porn websites attracts viewers of both sexes and of all ages despite the fact that accessing any of those sites is illegal in USA. Other offender behavior on the Internet involves pursuing adolescents for sex.
An innocent e-mail cyber relationship may progress to injury when sex addict goes to a face-to-face meeting with their cyber lover.
Those involved in cyber relationships are prone to either stretch the truth about themselves or invent a completely false identity in order to lure potential victims (changing gender - gender bending).
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Cybersex allows two users to co-create an online erotic fantasy, typically tailored to each one's desires.
It is common for users to quickly move from cybersex to phone sex and even request real life meetings. It is also common for a person to have multiple and random cyber sexual encounters going on at once.
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A woman who role-plays a rape or bondage fantasy does not desire to be raped or tortured in real life and a man who role-plays a homosexual or incest fantasy does not desire a homosexual or incest experience in real life. Users progress gradually into these type of deviant fantasies such that topics and interests that they normally find reprehensible becomes acceptable and after continued use become “desensitized” to the experience.
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Those most strongly hooked on cybersex are likely to spend hours each day masturbating to pornographic images or having "mutual" online sex with someone contacted through a chat room. Occasionally, they progress to off-line affairs with sex partners they meet online.
Cyberaffairs - any romantic or sexual relationship initiated via chat rooms, interactive games, or newsgroups.
A Cyberaffair can either be a continuous relationship specific to one online user or a series of random erotic chat room encounters with multiple online users.
Virtual adultery can look like Internet addiction as the increasing amounts of time utilizing the computer.
Online Infidelity accounts for a growing trend in divorce cases.
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Cybersex addicts are just like drug addicts; they "use the Internet as an important part of their sexual acting out, much like a drug addict who has a 'drug of choice,' " and often with serious harm to their home lives and livelihood. Especially vulnerable to becoming hooked on Internet sex are "those users whose sexuality may have been suppressed and limited all their lives [who] suddenly find an infinite supply of sexual opportunities" on the Internet.
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"Sex on the Net is just so seductive and it's so easy to stumble upon it. "People who are vulnerable can get hooked before they know it."
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"Intense orgasms from the minimal investment of a few keystrokes are powerfully reinforcing. Cybersex affords easy, inexpensive access to a myriad of ritualized encounters with idealized partners. Many cybersex abusers are re-enacting aspects of past losses, conflicts or traumas in order to foster illusions of power and love."
Some cybersex addicts develop a conditioned response to the computer and become sexually aroused even before turning it on. Simply sitting down to work at the computer can start a sexual response that may facilitate online sexual activities.
People who were hooked on porn offline are now assiduously surfing the Net for sexual inspiration.
While social and safety concerns and fear of discovery may prevent someone from visiting an adult bookstore or prostitute, there are no such constraints when pornography and sexual partners can be called up at any time of the day or night on a computer screen in one's home or office.
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A cyberlover can type an empathetic message when he lives thousands of miles away, but in real-life be rude, aggressive, or insensitive to the people he meets. Yet this electronic bond can offer the fantasy of all the excitement, romance, and passion that may be missing in a current relationship. Instead of dealing with how to confront the issues hurting a marriage, people can use a cyberaffair as an easy escape from the real issues. The cyberaffair becomes a means of coping with unexpressed anger towards a partner as an outside person electronically offers understanding and comfort for hurt feelings. Therefore, it is vital that therapists thoroughly assess and directly deal with possible underlying issues that contributed to the cyberaffair.
Ability to remove the imposed constraints of real life in order to experiment with altered perceptions of oneself .
allowing a person to ‘reconstruct’ their identity".
A person can "act" in a new role through the creation of fictitious handles which alter physical characteristics such as gender, age, or race that cultivate a persona or false image of oneself.
Creating a persona through a fictitious handle allows one to transform himself mentally into a new person on-line.
Reconstruct an "ideal self" in place of a poor self-concept. This "ideal self" becomes a secret life carried out in the confidential surroundings of Cyberspace. Those who suffer from low self-esteem, feelings of inadequacy or frequent disapproval from others are at the highest risk for developing a secret on-line identity. Such negative self-concepts lead to clinical problems of depression and anxiety, which also may be intertwined with excessive net use and manipulated self-presentations. Persons who created a persona often times depended upon the release of their secret lives in order to block out such unpleasant thoughts about themselves and their situations.
The two most unmet psychological needs are an expression of a repressed personality trait and feelings of recognition and power.
They're not risking disease - but the damage to a cybersex addict's life and family can be as devastating as that caused by compulsive gambling or addiction to alcohol or drugs.
broken relationships, from their partners' cybersex addictions.
Partners commonly reported feeling betrayed, devalued, deceived, ignored and abandoned and unable to compete with a fantasy.
children can stumble upon the pornographic material left on or near the computer or walk in on a parent masturbating at the computer. Several mothers in her survey were worried because their husbands surfed the Net while supposedly watching their children, who got to view the pornography and sometimes the masturbation.
- men have a tendency toward isolated sexual compulsive internet behavior (pornography and masturbation)
- women have a stronger tendency toward social sexual behavior (chat room flirting, seduction).
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http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2372/is_4_38/ai_84866951/pg_5
Breaking off sexual intimacy with your primary partner.
Engaging in sexual situations in which you would not ordinarily find yourself.
Financial losses (paying for porn) .
Downloading pornography or engaging in cybersex at the workplace could jeopardize your job.
Reliance on the Internet as a coping mechanism for marital/relationship problems, stress or depression.
Loss of relationship, separation and divorce. A spouse can find out what a person is doing online. That can become an issue in child custody cases.
Legal problems. People who download child pornography
material or go online to meet children with sex in mind can become targets
of FBI or police sting operations. Many chat rooms are frequented by minors,
which leads into consensual/non-consensual sex issues including the
possibility of statutory rape.
The consequences of getting caught acting out using child pornography are
severe and usually include having to register for life
as a sex offender (photograph posted on the sex offender
registration site?).
Loss of judgment. When you're engaging in cybersex and sexually aroused and get caught up in the moment you may be less likely to think about the consequences of your actions or refrain from crossing a boundary that you wouldn't otherwise cross. People in recovery from substance abuse have reported relapsing when a real-time hookup initiated on the Internet showed up with drugs or alcohol. Use of drugs and alcohol with sex can lead to unsafe sex choices as well.
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The gradual decent into online sex addiction sexual follows five interdependent stages:
Deviant sexual fantasies carried out online do not always originate from individuals with a pre-existing disposition for deviancy
anonymity, convenience, and escape can lead to deviancy
Cybersex is more seductive than most people anticipate and may lead down a path providing short-term comfort, distraction, and/or excitement.
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Internet use for sexual gratification to alleviate boredom, and diminished relationships with family and friends.
Boredom:
Boredom might be understood as a psychological state that is often transient. Boredom-prone individuals are described as experiencing periods of depression, loneliness, hopelessness, lack of motivation, distraction, and dissatisfaction.
The relationships among boredom proneness, specific addictions, and compulsive behaviors...
Men are more likely than women to experience boredom and to engage in solitary sexual behaviors, such as masturbating and viewing pornographic videos.
Boredom may be an important factor in the maintenance of extreme online sexual behavior of sexually addicted.
Social connectedness:
Social connectedness refers to one's awareness of interpersonal closeness with the social world.
Individuals with low social connectedness are more prone to struggle with low self-esteem, anxiety, and depression.
http://www.sexhelp.com/internet_screening_test_bak.cfm#test
http://www.ncsac.org/members/papers_cybersex.aspx