Tuscaloosa Christian Counseling

Cybersex is transforming our sexuality.  It is now the number one profit center on the internet, having passed sales in computers and software.  Most sex education occurs on the web.  It is the number one activity for kids while they do their homework.  Most pornography is down-loaded between nine and five, so it is a fact of life in the workplace. On the positive side, people are able to access information about sex in ways that are comfortable and helpful.  People are able to connect with significant partners that they would never have met without the help of the internet.  It is also important to understand that many people have trouble with sexual compulsion that would never have had the problem were it not for the internet.  Consider the following examples:

• A minister discovered pornography on the internet. Within five weeks he had spent his family’s savings and embezzled eight thousand dollars from his church.

• The wife of a successful surgeon uses emails to contact her husband’s friends and now had a nightmare of multiple affairs.

• A base commander in the air force with full knowledge that information systems were monitored used a base computer to access prostitutes and was caught.

• A parent discovers that her eighth grader is using his computer for sexual purposes on the average of sixty hours a week.

The question is often asked, why does sex on the internet have this power? Among the answers, anonymity stands out.  Internet users are lulled into thinking that no one is watching what they are doing.  The facts are that our internet trails can be and often are carefully tracked by a variety of interested parties.  Further, those trails are recorded for a long time. Yet, the illusion of being alone is seductive. It allows a person to think of sex on the internet as impersonal (hurts no one).  It is more like a computer game – another in the panoply of virtual realities.  It is very easy to access requiring little skill to do.

A strong case has emerged that internet sexual stimulations has the capability to go beyond our own biological limits.  Researchers in this area such as Al Cooper have described cybersex as the crack-cocaine of sexual compulsivity. No partner can compete with the internet.  People get so stimulated that sex feels more real on the internet that in their real lives.  The marketing loops used by marketers of pornography create so many options that they “access the unresolved” in net users.

Some things we know for sure:

• Sexual addiction using cybersex once started can escalate quickly.

• Sexual addiction on the internet will extend to non-internet behaviors (fantasies turn into behaviors)

• Those who already had a sex addiction problem find that internet sex magnifies both behaviors and associated problems.

• Sexual compulsivity escalates to behavior that the addict has never done before or maybe never knew existed.

• Sex addicts in recovery report that internet sex is one of the leading factors in relapse.

We will need as a society to consider carefully the reality that cybersex is “the great accelerator.”   If people are going to experience healthy sexuality, we will need to establish boundaries to protect us from the negative influence of pornography.