A telltale sign of addiction is tolerance. I've never met anyone who has simply viewed images of nudity and not become bored with them. They always need to move on to more graphic images. The pornography industry in the U.S. alone grosses much more in revenue than most foreign countries have for their annual budget. Why do people pay for pornography when they can find it online for free? Because free images are only the gateway to paid sites with harder core pornography.
As the addiction grows images alone no longer satisfy because of the growing tolerance and without healing the addict moves on to actions and will do things that they would never have imagined doing in order to satisfy their addiction. Not everyone who views pornography becomes a serial killer but some do. Is it worth the risk? Ted Bundy in his final interview before being executed for killing several women states, "I’ve lived in prison for a long time now, and I’ve met a lot of men who were motivated to commit violence. Without exception, every one of them was deeply involved in pornography - deeply consumed by the addiction. The F.B.I.’s own study on serial homicide shows that the most common interest among serial killers is pornographers. It’s true." http://www.pureintimacy.org/f/fatal-addiction-ted-bundys-final-interview/
We could better define an addiction as, anything that fills the role that a relationship would.
Sorry, this is the bad news and our topic is solutions but we have to establish a working vocabulary and know our enemy in order to win this battle.
