From choosing the VHS over Betamax to being the first online platform to utilise video streaming, the porn industry has often lead the way in innovation.
So it’s no surprise Pornhub, the most popular adult entertainment website, had 33.5 billion visitors last year. That’s a daily average of 92 million visitors.
Those users generate up 962 searches every second.
Along with these daily visits, amateurs, models and content partners created 4.7 million new videos which equates to over 1 million hours of new content.
While these numbers are great for Pornhub and its advertisers, there is a much darker side to this industry as with all activities that instantly give the feeling of pleasure and gratification. And that is addiction.
“When you become addicted to something you want more of it. The more you have the less satisfied you become and so porn is no different to other addictions,” said sex and relationship counsellor Pauline Ryeland.
“Addiction to porn can create a few obstacles. The main one is a massive disconnection. Disconnection to yourself and/or your partner because you are taking your focus away from yourself to an outer source.”
Erotic writer and relationship advisor Jade Seashell has a writer’s take on the issue of addiction and the damage it does to men in their private lives.
“When a man has a porn addiction, he needs women less, so it’s not good for his love life in general,” Seashell said.
“When a man is addicted to porn, he enjoys masturbating while watching porn on his computer. The problem is his position is sitting down in front of a computer, and he will get used to this sex position. Therefore, when he is actually having sex with a woman in bed, he might find it harder to get an erection because his body is used to getting an erection while sitting at his desk.”
While some host seminars on the immorality of porn and others make YouTube videos on the subject there are celebrities that have chosen to take a different approach.
Dark Knight Rises and Looper star Joseph Gordon-Levette did exactly that.
When speaking about his 2013 directorial debut film Don Jon, Levette citied fantasies as the reason for taking on the project.
“I’ve heard a lot of people say, ‘Why can’t my life be like that movie you were in?’ or ‘Why can’t I find somebody like you in that movie?’ and I find that a little startling because real life isn’t like it is in the movies. Real life is actually a lot more beautiful and rich with detail and nuance but you’ll miss it if you’re constantly comparing your real life to fantasies,” he said.
“So that’s why I thought a story about a young man who watches too much pornography going out with a young woman who watches too many romantic Hollywood movies would be sort of a funny way to ask these questions.”
Men’s health and porn addiction expert Catherine Lyell believes that “if the amount of times someone uses porn to masturbate is equal to the times a person masturbates then they are addicted to porn”.