Me trying to balance ATTACK AND DETHRONE GOD with getting banned for hating on religion. Either way, here we go;

It's not. There's no evidence that it is and lots of evidence that 'porn addiction' was created and propagated by anti-masturbation religious groups. Gambling works on susceptible people's brain in the same way, like the same chemical way, that alcohol or meth or opioids do. The biological process of addiction is happening. The best anyone who isn't a Graham Cracker* advocate can ascertain this does not happen with pornography or sex in general. The scientific consensus, to the best of my knowledge, is that porn addiction and sex addiction are both cultural phenomena and rooted in religion and in profound ignorance about normal sexuality and sexual behavior. I would go on the outside and suggest that some people with "porn addiction" or "sex addiction" are experiencing hyper-sexuality symptoms due to trauma, abuse, or conditions like bipolar disorder, but that's not an addiction either.

Here's an old APA article on the subject.

https://www.apa.org/monitor/2014/04/pornography

Another article that gets in to it

https://www.ashasexualhealth.org/pornography-addictive/

Something that's extraordinarily important to understanding why religious groups work so hard to force the idea that pornography is addictive is that religious groups hold a near monopoly on Addiction treatment. The famous Alcoholics Anonymous "12 step program" is completely unscientific and ineffective cult indoctrination. And it is overwhelmingly the dominant accepted model of addiction treatment.

First of all; 12 step programs don't work. When individuals "Succeed in the program" it's because of the individual, their community, and immediate support group. The presence or absence of the program is not a determining factor.

Secondly; The 12 step programs are a form of cult indoctrination. They'll deny it up and down but a core and mandatory step in the program is submission to the Christian god.

Step 2: Belief in a Higher Power

“Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.”

Step 2 of the 12-Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous is centered on faith and belief in a higher power or something greater than yourself. This step can be challenging for people who feel disconnected to their faith or religion or are agnostic or atheist. However, it is an important step to find something more powerful than yourself, which can guide you and inspire you to stay sober. The higher power can be God, some other supreme being, or anything that has a lot of meaning for you, such as art, music, nature, humanity, or science.

This isn't science.

Thirdly; This submission to a Christian cult is often enforced on people at gunpoint by the state. Joining a 12 step program is often a condition of supervised release. If you want probation you have to submit to the Christian god or back in the cage you go.

If Christian Fascists can get society to believe that pornography use and masturbation are addictions they can extend their control over society. They can convince courts, parents, and individuals who believe in pornography addiction to turn criminals, their own children, and themselves over to Christian cults for coercive indoctrination in to the Christian Fascist worldview.

I hope this is all adding up to a serious problem where violent religious cults are attempting to seize control of our understanding of normative sexual behavior to extend the hand of their hateful patriarchal and misogynistic god over society, because that's very much what it is. Christian and Mormon cults seek to prohibit pornography because it undermines their ability to be the sole source of legitimate sexuality and pleasure. Their dominion over their victims rests heavily on this. They control women by denying any sexual agency at all, and they control men by allowing sexual behavior and pleasure only within the rigid confines of sanctioned marriage.

This isn't a harmless disagreement over ambiguous science. It's a campaign of dominion and control by shadowy Christian cults operating behind a psuedoscientific veneer and preying on an alienated, miserable, and frighteningly ignorant society. It directly ties in to Christian Fascist assaults on abortion and reproductive health care; Abortion empowers women to seek sexual pleasure outside of marriage. It directly ties in to Christian Fascist attacks on LGBT+ people; LGBT+ people completely shatter the false world of a ruthlessly misogynistic divine patriarchy who has the authority and right to dictate the submission of people to the cult and dole out sexual pleasure only to men and only within the strict confines of marriage. LGBT+ people completely give lie to that belief and as such must be dehumanized to the point of demonization, or else physically destroyed. It is also key in Christian Fascist suppression of sexual education. For this whole assault to work Christian Fascists and their allies must deny children knowledge and understanding of human sexuality. The ignorance of children, and society at large, is critical if Christian Fascists are to continue to act as the sole gatekeepers of legitimate sexuality. If kids grow up knowing that you can just have sex if you want to, that there's nothing wrong or unhealthy about it, that you can do it safely and joyfully, the Christian Fascists have lost their main weapon of control.

So it's critical to understand; This isn't about gooners on the internet, or no-fap weirdos trying to maximize their internal power through some psuedo-scientific bullshit. The demonization of masturbation, via psuedo-scientific notions of pornography addiction, is part of a comprehensive assault on humanity using sexuality, gender, and reproductive health as weapons.

I keep adding stuff, but consider; If as many as 99% of men and 90% of women use porn, and the Christians and Mormons can convince those people that they are sinners who have angered god and must repent and follow the orders of religious leaders to be redeemed, that grants those cults a massive amount of social power. And because what's being suppressed is normal sexual behavior those people will continue to "sin", continue to feel shame and horror at their "sins", and continually submit and re-submit to the authority of the cult, forever. It's an extremely powerful self-reinforcing system of control. It's most obvious in hard-core Christian Fascist strongholds where they have father/daughter virginity balls where girls ritually marry their fathers and make their fathers the ritual owners of their "virginity", but that intensely fucked up cult ritual is only an extreme manifestation of the wider campaign of control.

"Porn addiction" is part of a comprehensive systematic attempt to distort reality that includes;

• the Virginity Cult

• Marriage as the only legitimate venue for sexuality

• The violent repression of LGBT+ people to defend the Christian Fascist's claim that only they can define legitimate sexuality

• The destruction of reproductive health and abortion access to ensure Women are trapped within the framework of Christian sexual control

• Enforced ignorance about sexual health and sexual behavior to prevent people, especially children, from escaping from the system of control.

None of these methods of attack exist in isolation. They're all part of a comprehensive program to seize control of what people believe is real and bend reality in to a cage for the glory of their God.

• graham crackers were part of a trend of weird protestants inventing bland food in the belief that bland food would prevent boys and young men from masturbating. They believed that masturbation in boys and young men was an extremely important cause of what they believed was the moral decay of society. Calling these people weird freaks does not even begin to describe it.

So, uhh, hope I don't get banned, but I think it's extremely important to understand how much effort and how many resources Christian Fascists and their allies expend trying to control the definition of legitimate human sexuality.