Internet pornography is a major problem around the world. It is also a taboo subject. This semester, you will focus on educating yourself and other people about internet pornography.

In 2015, I had a student who was addicted to internet pornography. He came to my office seeking advice. He told me his story. I knew this student quite well and I knew that he was a very religious student. I was able to help me but it got me interested in his story. I started talking to an NGO (Malaysians Against Pornography) to find out more. Every semester, I decided to do something to create an awareness about this problem. But what is the real problem?

There are three interrelated problems:

• People who watch internet porn are victims but we treat them as “bad people”
• People who watch internet porn do not understand the physiological and emotional consequences of their actions.
• Internet porn is a mental health problem. The only solution is to go for counseling

Let’s start with the first problem. The strategy of the internet porn industry is to spread their message to children in primary school. By the time children enter secondary school, many of them watch internet porn and some of them are addicted. They become lifelong users of porn.

They are victims because they didn’t want to watch porn when they were small children. I told the story to a friend. He said, “its like in Bangladesh. Outside every school, there is a van and a man gives small children free cigarettes. After a while, the children will become addicted to smoking and they will become lifelong users of tobacco.”

Before learning more about how internet porn addiction worked, I was very naïve. I assumed that teenagers watch porn because they need to “release their tension”. I assumed that when they get married, the need for porn disappears. I assumed that it was a temporary problem. By talking to NGO, I found out that internet porn addicts bring their addiction to the marriage. It creates problems because the husband has sexual desires that the wife does not want to fulfill and this encourages him to find even more porn online.

Even people who do not watch porn are victims. People who watch porn become more violent. So they bring this violence inside the household.

The mistake is that we think about internet porn and we assume that the viewer made a deliberate choice to view porn. We assume that the viewer is “bad”. We pass judgment. But we understand how the porn industry works, we should always start by the fact that the porn industry starts by marketing themselves to small children. The second thing we should know is that internet porn is more addictive than cocaine.

Most people use the word “addiction” very casually. In fact, addiction is a technical term. It means:

• At the physiological level, the structure of your brain has changed so that your ability to control yourself disappears. For example, if you eat a lot, your brain will send your body a signal saying that you are full. Imagine that you eat a lot but the brain never sends the signal to your body. You will simply keep eating. In practice, the signal is sent from a part of your brain called the pre-frontal cortex (PFC). When you watch internet porn, your PFC gets weaker and weaker. If you were to do a scan of a normal brain and the brain of someone who is addicted to porn, the differences are significant.
• At the emotional and intellectual level, the person knows that watching porn is not good. He may hate himself for watching porn and he may try to stop doing it. But addiction means that even though you know, you cannot stop. If you can stop after someone simply tells you that porn is bad for you, it means that you were not addicted.

The only way you can deal with an addiction is to go for professional counseling. There is no other way.

Lastly it is a mental health problem because many internet porn addicts in the USA go and seek professional help for anxiety and depression. They do not know that their condition is linked to the porn that they watch so they don’t tell the psychiatrist. The psychiatrist diagnoses their condition and gives them a variety of drugs. Later, they continue to watch porn until they have erectile dysfunction (ED). Most guys only really realize that they have a real problem with porn when they get ED. They then quit porn. Once they quit porn, their anxiety and their depression disappears and they stop taking drugs. They then share their story on the internet to warn other porn users of the danger of porn.

Website

A really good website to get good quality information is called: https://www.yourbrainonporn.com/overview/.

The main author is someone called Gary Wilson. There is another website with a similar name so be careful.

NGO To Recommend

Let’s say that you talk to someone and they admit that they have a problem. Don’t judge them. Just tell them about Malaysians Against Porn. They are specialized in helping people with this problem and many volunteers are ex-UIA students.

Muslim speaker

The only speaker that is specialized on this topic is Wael Ibrahim. It has a very touching story that can be found on:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lto8zV3YFzg

Your Task

1. Your first task is to educate yourself. Go to the yourbrainonporn website and learn as much as you. If that website is too technical, you can refer to another website. Keep a record of your thoughts and reflections based on what you learn. Write a report.

1. Your second task is to educate people around you. Ideally, I would like you to spread this message to first year students taking MGT2010. The aim is to educate them and to create a culture in which
   1. Everyone knows the problems associated with internet porn
   2. Everyone knows that a NGO to recommend is Malaysians Against Porn

I decided not to tell you how many people you need to share the message with. That is a very artificial way of doing things. Just do the best you can and do it sincerely for the sake of Allah

1. Your third task is to discuss with people whether loneliness in IIUM is a bigger problem that internet porn.

1. Your last task is to visit Malaysian Against Porn premises and share your findings with them

ADD A SECTION IN YOUR REPORT AND TALK ABOUT THE OUTCOME

Answer rating: 100% (QA)

INTERNET PORNOGRAPHY THE STRANGE REALITY In todays world where technology keeps updating each and every human being in every aspect of their lives As it is said that Every cloud has a silver lining ev... View the full answer