Extreme sexual fantasies are being normalised because of the rise in deviant pornography on the internet, psychologists have warned.
Researchers have identified a ‘causal link’ between the rise in explicit images available online and an increase in extreme illegal behaviour in real life.
According to experts, the internet is allowing like-minded people to share explicit and violent sexual fantasies, thereby making them appear more acceptable.
Research
The findings are based on research conducted by Dr Tim Jones, senior lecturer in Cognitive Psychology at Worcester University and top criminologist Professor David Wilson from Birmingham City University.
Professor Wilson conducted a series of interviews with a convicted paedophile named ‘James’, who is serving a 14-year sentence for numerous sexual offences involving children.
The research also points to the increase in images of child pornography available on the internet.
Images
The Greater Manchester Police obscene publications unit has seen a staggering leap in the number of illicit images seized.
In 1995, they seized around a dozen images of child pornography, rising to over 41,000 in 1999, and by 2001 the unit was so overwhelmed with the number of images that they stopped counting.
Dr Jones told The Daily Telegraph: “The internet is fuelling more extreme fantasies and the danger is that they could be played out in real life”.
Addictive
Pornography has an addictive effect on men’s brains which affects how they interact with women, according to a book published last year, Wired for Intimacy.
The book’s author Dr William M. Struthers says: “Men seem to be wired in such a way that pornography hijacks the proper functioning of their brains and has a long-lasting effect on their thoughts and lives”.
Dr Struthers, a professor of Psychology from Wheaton College in Chicago, concludes that pornography is a “visually magnetic” stimulus which draws men in.
Pathways
He goes on to explain how repeatedly viewing pornographic images creates new pathways in a man’s brain which then become the main route through which he processes interactions with women.
Repeated exposure to pornography causes men to become addicted, and like a drug, it leaves them wanting more and more.
Dr Struthers explains, saying: “If I take the same dose of a drug over and over and my body begins to tolerate it, I will need to take a higher dose of the drug in order for it to have the same effect that it did with a lower dose the first time”.