The Unconscious Allure of Internet Pornography in Adolescence and Adulthood

ABSTRACT

The use of internet pornography combines the pursuit and elaboration of sexual fantasy with masturbation. In adolescence, masturbation with fantasy may be used developmentally to consolidate the adult sexual organization and as “trial action,” a rehearsal for intimacy; in young people who are unable to use masturbation in this way, there may be developmental “deadlock.” For patients presenting with compulsive use of internet pornography, we witness an equivalent state of “deadlock,” in which pornography use has become sterile and repetitive, primarily serving a defensive rather than a developmental function. This defensive use of pornography often starts in adolescence in response to both explicitly sexual and broader emotional challenges. A case example of compulsive use of internet pornography is presented which illustrates the way in which the images viewed, the use made of the electronic device, the timing of the enactment, and the physical experience of sexual arousal and masturbation, may all contribute to a system of defense within the mind. It is proposed that the psychic “satisfaction” from the operation of these systems of defense underpins the unconscious allure of internet pornography; this combines with the sexual gratification from masturbation and orgasm to contribute to the “addictive” quality of internet pornography.

KEYWORDS:

• Central masturbation fantasy
• sexual fantasy
• masturbation
• defense
• internet pornography

Acknowledgments

I am very grateful to Alessandra Lemma and Arabella Kurtz for comments on earlier versions of the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The Clinic is part of the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust.

2. In order to protect confidentiality, the patient described here has been disguised, with some elements from other similar cases to create a “composite” case; in addition, he has given permission for this material from his therapy to be published. I am very grateful to him for his generosity.

3. In accordance with psychoanalytic convention, the term “fantasy” will be reserved for a conscious fantasy, and “phantasy” for an unconscious representation of an object relationship, somatic process or drive, which is inferred but cannot be known directly.

4. Parts of this section and that on ‘Use of the electronic device as transitional object or fetish’ will be reproduced in Music and Wood (in press).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Heather Wood

Heather Wood D.Phil., Dip.Clin.Psych., M.Instit.Psychoanal., is a member of the British Psychoanalytical Society and a former Consultant Adult Psychotherapist and Clinical Psychologist at the Portman Clinic, Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust.