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The past ten days featured two opposing Op-Eds in the Salt Lake Tribune focusing on the issue of pornography, and especially if an \\u201caddiction\\u201d model (\\u201cpornography is highly addicting\\u201d) is appropriate to be taught in high school settings. The impetus for the initial opinion piece was the propriety of allowing the group \\u201cFight the New Drug\\u201d (FTND) to offer presentations in public school assemblies or other gathering types, especially since the science behind the claims FTND makes about pornography as \\u201caddicting\\u201d is not credible (at least that is the claim of the writers). Leaders of FTND and others who work with clients under the \\u201cpornography addiction\\u201d model and the therapies it suggests wrote a response challenging the claims made in the first Op-ed, linking to studies they say supports all the arguments they make or that challenge studies that underlie the thinking of those who oppose\\xa0the \\u201caddiction\\u201d model. It is a fascinating back-and-forth that highlights a major division within helping communities with regard to the effects of pornography upon the human brain and body, and the best approach(es) to take when someone comes to a therapist for help with a level of pornography usage they feel is is problematic.\\xa0

In this two-part episode, two of the authors\\xa0of the first Op-ed, Natasha Helfer Parker and Kristin Hodson (both Mormon and certified sex therapists), along with neuroscientist and sex researcher Dr. Nicole Prause and sex therapist Jay Blevins (who are both non-LDS), join Mormon Matters host Dan Wotherspoon for a wide-ranging discussion of the research surrounding the effects of pornography and if it shows the markers typically associated with \\u201caddiction,\\u201d and why this group feels the model fails\\u2014not only scientifically but with the therapies that arise out of this framing doing more harm than good. The host and panel discuss the influence of religious framings on both therapists and clients that are likely very much at play in preferring the \\u201caddiction\\u201d model, what other factors might be at play in continuing to use this language and claims about pornography usage, the propriety of it being presented in schools that allow no teachings whatsoever about sexuality within the curriculum yet still allow scare-inducing warnings against pornography (which, in itself, seems incomprehensible apart from understanding healthy sexuality first), along with various other models for assisting those who self-report as pornography or sex \\u201caddicts\\u201d\\u2014and why they feel these other framings and therapies yield better results. Plus so much more!

In the future, as Mormon Matters can gather a panel of persons supporting the addiction model and treatment programs that employ that framing, we look forward to letting them present their reasons and challenge anything offered in this episode.