Questions such as these are difficult to answer because it's always difficult to distinguish diminished capacity to resist a temptation from a diminished motivation to resist. People who tell us they literally can't resist might be deceiving themselves, or they might be looking for a convenient excuse.

There are two ways we can attempt to discover whether people who say that they can't control their behaviour really are suffering from some kind of diminished capacity.

First, we can gather as much behavioural evidence as possible: with enough evidence, we might be able to build an overwhelming case that a group of people genuinely suffer from diminished capacity.

When we see the costs - social, financial, physical and psychological - that drug addicts pay to continue using, we have good reason to think they have a diminished capacity to resist.

The second way we can proceed is to use scientific evidence that bypasses people's reports about what they can and can't do. Again, the case of drug addiction is a good example: some of the neurological changes in the brain of addicts seem to be changes in areas involved in self-control.

What about sex?

Recently, a group of researchers at UCLA attempted to resolve the question whether sex addiction is genuinely an addiction, utilising the second method.

Using EEG, which measures electrical activity on the surface of the brain, they determined that people who met the diagnostic criteria for "hypersexuality" did not find sexual stimuli any more compelling than did control subjects.

This is unlike the response seen in drug addicts, who find drug-related stimuli much more attention-grabbing than do unaddicted controls.

This research has been interpreted as showing that sex addiction isn't real. In the terms I used above, it might be taken to show that purported sex addicts do not lack the capacity to control their behaviour.

They simply lack the motivation; they might be morally condemned (if they are harming their families, say) rather than given a medical excuse.

But we shouldn't place too much weight on this study. The researchers looked for a likely correlate of a difficulty controlling behaviour, but there are many others possible correlates. Continue reading

Sources

• Neil Levy in The Conversation
• Image: SF Gate

Neil Levy is Head of Neuroethics at The Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health.

It is causing young people confusion and anxiety, and they are feeling pressure to mimic acts that are common in pornography but that many girls, in particular, find distasteful, degrading or painful.

Research shows more than nine in 10 Australian boys aged 13 to 16 and more than six in 10 girls in the same age group have seen pornography online. They can seek it out anonymously and effortlessly. Many, too, stumble upon it inadvertently through internet search engines.

Today's guest in The Zone has worked for more than a decade with young people and sexuality, and is the joint leader of a project called Reality and Risk, which seeks to arm young people - and parents, carers and educators - with information and confidence to think critically about pornography and the messages it conveys about women, men and sex.

Maree Crabbe has worked with young people for 20 years, and has focused on sexuality and sexual health for the past decade, developing and presenting programs about sexual violence prevention, sexual diversity and prevention of sexually transmissible infections.

In our interview, the full transcript of which - as well as a short video statement by Crabbe - is at theage.com.au/opinion/the-zone, she gives advice to young people and adults and sets out the scope of the pornography issue.

"Pornography has become incredibly accessible … and more aggressive. What was most accessible a couple of decades ago was a centrefold - a still image of a naked or semi-naked woman. Now what is most accessible is moving imagery of people having sex, often quite aggressively. It is shaping the ways that many people are thinking about and experiencing sexuality." Continue reading

Sources

• Michael Short in The Sydney Morning Herald
• Image: youthbullet blogspot

Michael Short is editor of The Zone. He also writes editorials and columns.

Less than a block from the porn shop sat a century old cathedral. Without warning, an impulse to set foot in that house of worship overwhelmed me. I walked toward the edifice, hiked the tall steps, and opened the monolithic oak doors. I sat in the back row of pews, he silence was terrifying. In that space, I reconnected with something I had lost-my true self. The part of me that wanted more than compulsion, shame, and despair.

That evening was the beginning of the end. Only a few months later, my wife caught me in a lie, and my double life was completely exposed. Read more

Sources

• Michael John Cusick in Huffington Post
• Image: Covenant Eyes

Michael John Cusick is an ordained minister and is the author of Surfing for God: Discovering the Divine Desire Beneath Sexual Struggle (Thomas Nelson, Inc.).