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On Addiction to Pornography during COVID-19 with Dr. Moore

Click the image to view the full talk or you may read a full transcript of the talk below.

Dr. Moore:
Thanks everybody for showing up. Sorry for the complications here. We’ll see how fast we can race through this and still get some good information for you. Tracy’s going to help out with the slides, so why don’t we go ahead and [inaudible 00:00:15] slide. What we want to look at essentially, well, what I want to give you some information about, is this concept that there’s been really a huge increase in the viewing of pornography since COVID-19, and in general that’s been anywhere from 11% to 40% since everyone has been confined to home. So we’ve seen a big increase there and we’re going to look at probably some of the old, well, not old statistics, but these are some of the statistics that came out that do not include the increase. Some of these are pretty alarming, so do we have another slide?

Dr. Moore:
Just take for a second the idea that this is every second, that over 28,000 users are watching pornography on the internet at any given second. $3,000 are spent every second looking at pornography and there are 372 people online, every second, trying to search for adult material. Next slide.

Dr. Moore:
This goes to the same numbers looking at every day. Hopefully, you’ll look at this and find some things that look pretty disturbing and pretty alarming about what is going on, particularly looking at the problem that we still continue to have. This is 116,000 people that are searching for child pornography every day. Something to remember is how do we get these statistics? Just as a side note, every key stroke since 9/11 has been recorded at a clearing house in Arizona so it is not difficult to track this and it is not difficult to find out where it’s coming from. How about the next slide?

Dr. Moore:
About 200,000 Americans are estimated to be porn addicts. We’ll look at some things about sex addiction in general. Over 40 million Americans are looking at porn sites. 35% of all downloads are related to pornography and 34% of users have experienced unwanted exposure. This is where we look at pop-ups that come up, the avenues that the porn industry has of getting through in advertising and malware and other things that allow stuff to pop up on your computer. This doesn’t exempt kids that are using the internet. The other idea is, today, pretty much with the advent of the internet, we’ve seen a huge increase, not only in the number of women that participate in porn viewing, but the classification that 30% to 40% of sex addicts are women. Next slide.

Dr. Moore:
I think we all should realize that our children aren’t exempt. One thing that’s very important to realize, as a side note, something that Dr. Patrick Carnes researched several years ago was the probability that a child will interact with a sexual predator online. What are the odds that happens? It’s only a hundred percent. No child should have private access to the internet that’s not being monitored because sexual predators can come in and pretend to be children. They can pretend to be themselves, a lot of things, but it’s a very vulnerable world. As fantastic as it is, it’s not going away, the internet, there are some issues with it. And smartphones are a big factor in all of this. Next slide.

Dr. Moore:
This was just interesting statistic that all access to Netflix and Amazon and Twitter combined doesn’t match the visitation to porn sites and there are over 300 new porn sites that get created every day. Next slide.

Dr. Moore:
We’re not going to read all of these because we’re a little bit backed up on time this afternoon. It’s interesting that in spite of the concern expressed by families saying that pornography is a problem in the family, we still don’t have the control and the legislation and stuff that we should have. There was actually some legislation presented to be able to opt out of pornography, a simple one-click, your system cannot get pornography. It required 150,000 signatures for that to even be considered as a law. We did not get those signatures. Interesting idea. The other part is 40% of people that are identified as sex addicts, the consequences of all that are loss of job, loss of finances, legal complications. 68% of divorce cases involve pornography, internet use, inappropriate, and obviously affairs, et cetera. So this is a significant problem that’s going on and still remains pretty much a secret. Thanks, Tracy. How about next slide?

Dr. Moore:
I want to give you this opportunity to maybe take a moment to look at a couple of YouTube videos. One is Your Brain on Porn and the other one is The Adolescent Brain Meets High-speed Porn. One of the things that’s important to look at is the impact of the sexual stimulation on the brain. I wish we had 30 hours and not 30 minutes, but the idea is this sexual activity and stimulation and sexual arousal causes massive doses of dopamine to produce in the brain. This is basically where the addiction component comes into play, where the brain keeps crying out for that dopamine that it wants, which keeps drawing people back in and feeling like they’re out of control, not just with pornography but other sexual activities as well. Next slide.

Dr. Moore:
What is sex addiction in general? I’m just going to cover this very briefly, but it’s compulsive sexual behavior that’s out of control. Just ask yourself these questions. Am I spending more time in sexual behaviors or sexual viewing than I intend to? Are you engaging in sexual behavior more often than you intend to? Is there a commitment to stop and it’s met without success? You’re constantly feeling of guilt and shame and regret after acting out, viewing porn, or other sexual activities. Have you made promises to God, your spouse and not had any [inaudible 00:08:59] complications [inaudible 00:09:04] always there?

Dr. Moore:
One thing [inaudible 00:09:08] there’s an increase in the amount of drugs one takes to get [inaudible 00:09:12] when it comes to sexual activity [inaudible 00:09:15] what you’re doing or what you’re viewing, i.e. you can go from pornography viewing to interacting with people on the internet to then acting out in person with escort services or massage parlors or whatever, but there’s this constant need for change, for something different. And the other one is continuing in spite of the consequences, I could lose my job, I could lose my relationship, I could get arrested, I have put myself in danger in terms of my health risk, [inaudible 00:09:50] my health risks to my spouse and to others and yet the behavior continues. Next slide.

Dr. Moore:

[inaudible 00:10:02]

have our own ideas about sexual activity outside of our primary relationship. Not everybody, obviously, that views pornography or participated or masturbates or anything else, indicates that they are actually a porn addict. That doesn’t mean it’s okay to do that. It doesn’t mean that it doesn’t impact the relationship but the important thing is, just like with alcohol or with drugs people who use, the relatively small number that are actually, by comparison, that are actually addicts, but the number of addicts is still significant so it’s important to just kind of keep that in perspective. But the impact of participating in this activity definitely impacts the relationship.

Dr. Moore:
The biggest impact, this has to do with secrets, and something we look at, at least in the sex addiction world that I work in, in terms of treatment, is the idea that infidelity is more about keeping secrets. Keeping secrets from people that you care about or that you love, because you think something bad is going to happen, or you’re going to lose that relationship, takes away from any significant level of healthy intimacy you have with that person. It takes away their choice to choose you because they don’t know you have this problem. And it doesn’t matter how much somebody loves you or cares about you, you can’t appreciate that love because they don’t know all of you. And this really comes out to living in a world where you’re living two different lives, one where you’re always trying to figure out what your next opportunity is to act out. And the other one is your normal, professional and personal life. They’re both impacted. Next slide.

Dr. Moore:
Is there a problem? And some of the ideas that come across and looking at whether problems exist with someone in the household and some of the things that you can look for are accountability issues, what’s happening to… Is there money that’s unaccounted for that can’t be explained or that excuses are made for? Is there unaccountability for them of time, where someone is missing or gone or late coming home, or staying at work late? The desire to spend more time alone, “You go out and have fun with the family, I got to stay home and do work.” You find a pattern that develops with people that are spending more and more time online and figure out ways to find to be alone. The other one is lying to cover behaviors, getting caught and denying, denying, denying, denying.

Dr. Moore:
There’s a cliche out there that we call gaslighting. And basically it’s the idea that I get caught doing something I’m not supposed to be doing and I’m just going to keep lying and telling you and making excuses and saying that it’s not true, saying that it’s somebody else’s program, “I don’t know where that came from,” and keep up that dialogue until the person doing the confrontation pretty much gives up. The other one is when you start seeing a lot of malware or porn pop-ups on a computer or a device, most of these come from porn sites. Another one is somebody that always takes a shower before coming home and can’t explain when, where, why or how, or finds it necessary to use the excuse to always go to the gym. So none of these things in themselves is all that significant but when you start putting the whole thing together you might start thinking that there really is a problem. And probably your gut instinct is right. Next slide.

Dr. Moore:
If you’re in a situation where your partner is engaging in sexual activity, it’s important to ask, “I can’t deny this or ignore it. I can’t pretend it doesn’t exist. So what are some of the things that I need to think about or consider in all of this?” One is that, look, it’s not your fault. This problem probably existed long before you. The feelings of betrayal and hurt are real and you need help with that as much as the addict needs help with their problem. There is help for both the partner and the addict.

Dr. Moore:
The feelings of being confused and angry and helpless and hopeless and betrayed, these things are fixable but they’re also real and you can’t deny that it’s not happening. And it’s important to be able, for both people, whether it’s the addict and the partner, to figure out how to support and help each other. Lots of things on the list and we’re going to run out of time here and my apologies for that but it can be necessary, or can be possible, that some partners cannot handle this, or that a temporary separation is necessary. This is such a brief overview of everything but if this is going on, the bottom line is everybody needs help and there are specialists out there that can provide that help. Next slide.

Dr. Moore:
Take a moment to just… I’m not going to try to read through this because again, we’re getting short on time, but there’s actions that you need to take for yourself and for your health and for your protection and you don’t want to be talked out of these things. Who you share with, who you talk with, who you confide in, need to be significant people who can be very, very supportive and kind through this process. We do recommend that… The world of sex addiction is complicated. It is complex. There’s a lot of components to it. There are about 15 certified sex addiction therapists in San Diego and I can’t emphasize enough at least starting with this approach. However, if you have an excellent rapport with a therapist in the community, who’s also very helpful for you, you may not want to give that up either but there are nuances and specifics of the sex addiction therapist and the treatment or the training that we go through that really lines up in helping both partners and addicts. Next slide.

Dr. Moore:
I kind of just talked about this. Find out now. You’ll see a slide that says one of the places to go look for is something called sexhelp.com. There are also workbooks and textbooks out there that you can learn. One is called Out of the Shadows, which is a book written by Patrick Carnes some 25 years ago. Facing the Shadow is a new workbook that came out a few years ago to help stay on track for people going through recovery and there is a Christian component called Shadows of the Cross that goes with that workbook. There are other… lots of support material out there that you find on sexhelp.com. For the partner it’s something called The Shattered Heart written by Stefanie Carnes. But there’s lots of material out there. Next slide.

Dr. Moore:
This is important now. We’re going to switch to more like, next few minutes, just keeping your family safe, keeping your children safe, understanding that by the age of 13, nearly 40% of children have either received or sent a sext message, or sex-related picture. It’s probably extremely unlikely that any child the age of 10 has not seen pornography on their phone or their computer. Porn sites are free. Many of them charge a lot of money. Anyone can open up their computer and find almost any pornographic material that is absolutely free and there is no age verification process. Anyone can look at this. I told you this about the odds of a child interacting with a sexual predator and essentially there are no safe sites. Monitoring is always necessary. When I mean safe sites I mean any site on the computer that you are using can be invaded, essentially, from the porn industry. So we need to always be monitoring. I liken this to [inaudible 00:19:19] to watch TV. You watch TV publicly. All children’s computers and phones and everything should have public access and shouldn’t be able to have unsupervised activity. Next slide.

Dr. Moore:
The laws in California are restricted in terms of child pornography. Interesting thing is we, as mandated reporters, have to report [inaudible 00:19:46] discover child pornography on your computer that’s related to your child and another child and you watch that and you share it with a therapist we have to report that. I’m not sure I agree with that but that is the law. So initially you might get a warning or misdemeanor but anything related to child sexual activity online is dealt with pretty harshly. Next slide.

Dr. Moore:
We should be winding up here. Okay. If children are fighting against you and they don’t want filters on their computer, be careful. Look for excessive time they’re spending alone. Look for times when they’re locking their doors, looking for, demanding privacy, denying or making excuses if they get caught, finding pop-ups on their device and finding malware on their device. This is kind of the same things that go along with looking at the adults but you want to pay attention to these things with your kids. Next slide.

Dr. Moore:
This is a few of the things to look at in terms of what you can do in terms of protecting your phones and protecting your computers. There’s actually hardware that you can install on your router that blocks everything in your household. It doesn’t prevent the things outside the household with hotspots, but there’s things that you can do inside and this is just a brief overview of that. The next slide.

Dr. Moore:
Okay, Net Nanny, Ever Accountable, Covenant Eyes and Safe Surfer are just some of the suggested possibilities. One thing about Ever Accountable and Covenant Eyes is that you get an email of everything that’s been viewed on somebody’s phone or somebody’s computer. So those are options. And the next slide.

Dr. Moore:
If you and your household do not block down, or you don’t use filters on your computer as an adult, make sure your children don’t have access to it and talk to your kids and monitor them. If you have difficulty talking to your kids about sexual stuff it probably has a lot to do with your own difficulty in managing sexual conversations or your own past so it’s something we can help you with as well. Next slide.

Dr. Moore:
This is it, sexhelp.com. It’s a wealth of information, a place to find therapists, a place to find information, a place to ask questions. There are three self-evaluations and tests to take, both for the partner and for the addict, to determine if you need to get help. I just strongly recommend that you all take the opportunity to go and explore that site. And thank you very, very much for putting up with-

Speaker 2:
Indeed. Dr. Moore, can you hear me?

Dr. Moore:
Yes.

Speaker 2:
Yes, and for those who have questions, because our time it has come to an end, but for those who have questions for Dr. Moore, again, this is one way of contacting him. You see the website there, apogeecounseling.com, also the number 858-433-8751, so you can contact him there as well. Are there any concluding comments that you would like to give, Dr. Moore?

Dr. Moore:
Yes. If you would like to call, I offer free 30-minute consultations or questions and answers, either on the phone or online, so if you just want to figure out what’s going on, be happy to help you there.

Speaker 2:
Okay. Thank you so much. And I appreciate, Dr. Moore, wonderful presentation. And all of you going to the next presentation you have approximately 10 to 15 minutes to do so. And I appreciate all you being here today. Thank you. And thank you, Dr. Moore.

Dr. Moore:
Thank you.

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