Does New Zealand really have a porn problem?

12:54 pm on 11 January 2017

Opinion - A lack of confidence with intimacy is New Zealand's real problem with sex, not what we view on our devices.

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Photo: 123RF

Statistics released by Pornhub this week claiming that New Zealanders are the fifth highest users of the pornography website give me cause for concern. Releasing these stats is only a marketing ploy to get traffic to their site and to gain credibility for the company, but is that credibility justified?

Pornhub doesn't release these figures because they are a responsible company. They release them to attract more visitors to their site. Releasing them serves to increase revenue for the company by 'normalising' the service they offer.

This marketing tool will cause some people to think it is okay to use porn, because the statistics make it sound as if most other people use porn regularly.

In fact, there is no reliable evidence that most people do. While "per capita" page views allows Pornhub to compare one country's page views with another, it tells us nothing useful and what they don't tell us is significant.

They do not tell us what proportion of any population is visiting their site regularly. Why not publish this figure? My considered opinion is that they don't do it because it would demonstrate that only a small proportion of any population does so. That one fact would ruin their marketing project. Objective people would look at the figures and be influenced by the greater numbers of non-visitors.

My reading of these statistics is that New Zealanders are not on the list of top 20 visitors. We are also not on the list of top 20 time spenders. When we do visit, we spend a fraction longer per visit and look at a few more pages than visitors from many other countries. Is this a significant finding?

It may be. What I, and other sex therapists, are seeing in the therapy room indicates some alarming changes in the past five years. I see a great deal of out of control sexual behaviour (OCSB). OCSB is the term Sex Therapy New Zealand prefers to use, since there is currently no real evidence that sexual addiction exists.

What is obvious is that some people are unable to control whatever is driving their sexual behaviour and aren't able to resolve the problems it creates. They need help to identify, understand and resolve the underlying issues and to regain control. I am seeing so much of it that I am concerned that we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg in the clinic, especially with adolescents and young adults.

I believe the problems are about lack of confidence to engage with age mates of both genders in the flesh; not on devices. The availability of devices, porn and the internet combined with isolating ourselves on our devices, after school or work and after the evening meal.

It is also about not growing up with appropriate models of how to be in a healthy close personal relationship and how to resolve interpersonal difficulties.

Porn never teaches anyone anything about how to be in a sexual relationship.

Mary Hodson is a sex therapist and regional director for Sex Therapy New Zealand.