 Hello, Psych2Go viewers. Our guest for today's live stream is Dr. Kirk Honda. You may know him from his amazing YouTube channel, Psychology in Seattle, which has amassed millions of views and over 300,000 subscribers. I'm Michelle Rivas, host of Psychology Roundtable, and we're super excited to have Dr. Kirk Honda here today. Welcome. Thank you so much for joining us today. Thanks for having me. And so could you tell us a little bit about yourself and your background for those who don't know? Well, I've been a therapist and a professor for 27 years-ish in Seattle. And I've been a YouTuber and podcaster for 15 years. We just celebrated our 15th anniversary with a 15-hour YouTube live stream this past weekend. That's amazing. And when did the YouTube channel start after the podcast, right? Slightly, yeah. I had a student at the time who said, you have to put your stuff on YouTube. And I was like, YouTube, why? I didn't know any better, but here we are. Yeah. And so it's different, though, having, I'm sure, a podcasting YouTube. It's like a two different platform. So, but that's amazing. And so just to start off, I wanted to ask, so this is such an important conversation because roughly about 40 million Americans click on porn-related sites regularly. And so I just really wanted to cover this topic. It's kind of all over YouTube. So to start off, I wanted to ask, when does the use of pornography cross the line from healthy to dangerous, such as developing an addiction? Yeah. People often will define any sort of addiction, including porn addiction, as a frequency issue. Like if you do it X amount per week or per day or for this amount of hours, then you have an addiction. And that's not how we clinicians define addiction. And we don't even use the word addiction. Typically, we'll use compulsion or problem use. And with porn compulsion or porn addiction, colloquially, what we call it, the individual, regardless of how often they consume pornography. And really, we're talking about pornography and masturbation usually. It's not, although pornography addiction can include a fair amount of pornography viewing that has nothing to do with self-stimulation or with masturbation. So but it often does involve that. Anyway, I just want to throw that in there. But the definition of a compulsion or a problem use or a problem with porn is one is that you're obsessed with the pornography, meaning that you're preoccupied, you're thinking about it, you have intrusive thoughts, you have cravings. It's an uncontrollable urge to think about it, even though you don't want to. You also have an associated compulsion to view pornography. You spend more time than you want to. You often spend a lot of time, it interferes with other parts of your life. You're neglecting parts of your life or you could even get fired from a job because you were looking at it at work. I've had people mandated to see me for that. And then there's negative consequences because of the obsession, because of the compulsion to your job, relationships, to your self-esteem, to your health, happiness, hobbies, money, that kind of thing. And in more severe addictions of any sort, the individual will have a lot of excuses because they're out of control for themselves. And they're having a hard time. There's cognitive dissonance where they have this need and they keep acting out that need. There's another part of this like, I don't want to do this. And sometimes what that will mean, push comes to shove is they will actually suppress or have all these internal denial mechanisms that actually will repress that voice that is saying, no, so they might even tell themselves this is natural or everyone is doing this or it's normal to neglect your kids while you're looking at porn, that kind of thing. And then there's a lot of shame often involved for a lot of people with addiction. There's a shame cycle, if you will, of self-esteem, degradation, relationship falling apart. I'm not worthy. You know, there's so those are the ways that we can define it in terms of how often, you know, typically for the people that I've treated and clinically, people who have an addiction to porn, we're talking about typically, but not always this individual is looking at pornography several hours a day, and they are potentially masturbating several times a day. And it is it's a it's a constant monkey on their back. It's it's always, you know, sort of like with cigarette addiction, you go for half an hour without smoking a cigarette. And then the cravings start beginning, you know, you're at a movie theater and you can't smoke and this voice is just like, you know, you can skip this part, go outside and have a cigarette. And you're just like, No, I want to watch this movie. You know, it'd be the same with pornography, you might be in a movie theater. And you just be like, you know, just play your phone, look, it's important. And it just it's a constant like it's intrusive. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's not like, hmm, what should I do right now? Well, you know, maybe it interferes with life, compulsive. Yeah. Yeah. And so do you think so you mentioned the shame around porn addiction. And I was wondering, do you feel like it's like a vicious cycle, the stigma and the shame that people often sort of like receive for even just watching porn? Does it like perpetuate their need to watch it even more because it's a way of suppressing their feelings and maybe reality? No, a lot of ways. Like the way we approach it as a society, the way we kind of like villainize people who watch porn, like, no, that's bad. And what'd you say? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, the broader topic is sex negativity. And there's a lot I could say about that. But yeah, absolutely. It can. I mean, there's a there's shame and stigma regarding any addiction. Figure that's included, right? And it can. But when you sorry, I'm so sorry to interject. But like when you think about it, let's just be honest, as a society, sometimes there are some addictions that people deem more acceptable. Like if someone says they have a smoking addiction, they might not get the same looks as someone who says, I have a porn addiction, people might perceive that person or label that person a pervert or creep because they have a porn addiction, rather than someone who, oh, they just have a nicotine addiction, you know? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And the isolation of that, self esteem degradation of that, the need so, you know, creates a cycle of I'm ashamed of myself, I'm worthless. I'm pushing myself away from other people. I need I'm feeling bad. I need some way to cope. I'm going to turn to porn. I feel ashamed of myself. And you know, just keeps going around and around for people. The other thing, though, is that I want to say is that there's a lot of over self diagnosing. We've known this for a long time with porn addiction. There's a number of reasons for this. One is just misunderstanding of what addiction is or what compulsions are or problem uses. But also that for some people, because of religion or culture or sex negativity, any porn amount of watching is considered a problem. And thus, if you're watching porn, and you know, like a common scenario that I've seen in my office is you'll have say a husband who you know, is 1520 years into marriage, sexual frequency has dropped off a little bit. Maybe there's some trauma that he's dealing with. There's widening distance, particularly physically between him and his partner. And he turns to pornography and masturbation as a way of gratifying a need or just something to do. And say he does it once or twice a week, and he gets caught. He gets caught. And according to his religion and his wife's religion and the values that they have, this is considered cheating, which is fine. If that's how people wanted to find this is why you want to talk about these things up front with your dating partners because right, it might come up. And, you know, because there's different values around this, similar to like, should we have kids or not, you should probably talk about that sort of thing before things get too far into the relationship. But so they have this value. And then he says, Okay, I'm never going to do it again. I'm never I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I, I sinned or I broke the covenant of our marriage or, you know, yes, I agree with you. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. And then he goes for three months without looking at porn and masturbating. And then he has a couple beers with some friends come home, comes home, and he's just like, screw it, you know, it's been so long since I've, you know, met that need. And I haven't had sex with my wife in six months. He does it, he gets caught. And then he ends up in my office. And he says, I have a porn addiction. I would not define that as a porn addiction, depending on I would have to ask him questions. But there's a lot of people that will define it as a porn addiction, which, you know, to my eyes, it's someone that has a need that is not being met. Now, it's not the wife's fault, you know, she has, you know, he is sneaking around and he is lying and he is being deceptive. But I have worked with couples of opening it up to the possibility of just like, Well, let's, let's look at that. I would never tell you to change your point of view about pornography and masturbation. But you do have a choice regarding that. And you can still choose to have that value. But maybe you've never even raised the question in your mind of, What do I want to believe about that? And, and or maybe we need to work on your sexuality, you know, it opens up a lot of conversations is the point. And I wouldn't be treating porn addiction in that situation. I'm treating a lot of different issues for that couple. Well, I think that the prompt to sometimes when we approach individuals who have an addiction, I think that the first instinct sometimes for like family members and friends is to villainize them and to label them as an addict. And that can be really hurtful and upsetting to that person. And they don't want that label. But then, you know, maybe it causes depression, anxiety, and it makes them want to watch porn more or whatever that addiction is, it makes them want to do them more because they're being shamed by their loved ones and being villainized. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And so what are some signs and symptoms that someone can look out for in themselves or in someone else that could indicate a porn addiction? Yeah. So there are various different online screening tools. Many of them are not very good. I did find one. Well, because, well, for example, I mean, if you really just want to get specific, there's a very common, if not the most common screening test is called the internet sex screening test. And it has to do with internet porn. And a number of the items on here, I would not be, I would not consider them to be necessarily signs of porn addiction, what's called that, like for example, logical. Well, right. I mean, it's totally within normal limits to people that people have these kinds of behaviors like, you know, I have one of the items is yes or no, I have joined I have joined sexual sites to gain access to online sexual material. Yeah, that I have joined a website, a porn website that has porn. What, you know, like, that's a lot of people, right? Right. Or I have purchased sexual products online. Yeah, that doesn't indicate an addiction or anything pathological. It doesn't even necessarily have to do with pornography. I mean, you could buy a toy online and and have be a total healthy thing. So it's but there is one test. I mean, they do have items on there that are more in line. But there's a lot of false positives. And I, you know, there's I could get into the problem with the research and the treatment in this field, because there's a lot of yeah, religiosity that is interwoven in this and sex negativity. But in terms of the, the test that I found that is actually a good one, it's called a porn addiction test. And it's on psychom.net, which is, it's not really something that psychologists use, but but I did find it to be helpful. There are there are a lot of other tests, but anyway, one that's free online. It's called a porn addiction quiz on psychom.net. And so one of the questions is there's nine questions. Do you spend a lot of time thinking about pornography? So that so if you answer yes to that, then that's an indicator. Another is, do you ever lose track of time while you're watching porn? So meaning that you probably think, well, I'll look at porn for 10 minutes or 15 minutes, and then it's three hours later. That's a common experience for people have porn addiction. Yeah. Number three is, have you ever tried to cut back on how much porn you consume? So that you know, that's a typical addictions question. Do you ever feel restless or irritable when you try to cut back on porn so that yeah, points to a compulsion, a craving, and truce of thought because withdrawal symptoms. Yeah. Yeah, you can put it that way. Have you ever lied about how much porn you actually watch? Has pornography ever interfered with your work, school, or relationships? That's a good one. Yeah, that's good. Do you ever continue to watch porn even when it had negative consequences on your relationship or your work? Have you ever done anything illegal to access pornography? Do you ever do you ever feel guilty, sad or anxious about watching looking at porn? The last one's a little funny, because a lot of people will shame themselves because of sex negativity. But you get the picture that, you know, are you spending a lot more time than you want to be? Do you have uncontrollable urges about it? Have you had negative consequences in your life because of you watching porn? Because someone could watch porn and masturbate, you know, four hours a day. But if they have all their other life aspects going well, and their relationships, their work, finances, their health, you know, it's it's a hobby. It's something that they just really like to do. And there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing pathological. Thank you. Thank you. I don't think that's clarified enough. The act of watching porn isn't bad. Like you can watch porn. It doesn't make you a bad person or a perv. But it's just when it becomes an addiction. That's when it's pathological. And even then, you're not a perver creeper. And we shouldn't label people that, right? Yeah, most people watch porn, most people masturbate. So if, if watching porn and masturbating is that you're a perv, then I guess most people are pervs. Right. Exactly. And so do you think just, you know, switching over to the causes of it? What are some of the root causes for porn addiction in Europe? And do you believe it's like an escape mechanism? It can be. Yeah. So one of the problems with answering this question is we don't really have a lot of robust research around this because one, it's a taboo topic, even within my field to some extent. Because I mean, it's not a, you know, for me to read research about pornography addiction isn't taboo. But when you commit yourself as a clinician or an academic to this is going to be my thing, you know, it raises questions. People are like, well, what's why is he so interested in this topic? Right. So it tends to be really. Yeah. Yeah. I even ran into this when I when I was proposing a research study at my university about cam camming, you know, pornography camming, you know, it's cam people who are cam performers. This would have been, I don't know, 15 years ago or something I was proposing this because I wanted to know the the effect that it had on couples, because it's one thing for someone to watch pornography, right? If you had a partner that watched porn, or you sort of knew that maybe they watch porn. It's another thing if they're actually interacting with a human being across chat across video, you know, live video. Because I wondered if that crossed the line or if it was actually just can sit because it's all internet stuff. I saw so I proposed this. And I had colleagues of mine mentors of mine who told me this is not a good idea for your career because people are going to ask questions as to why you're even looking looking into this. And I'm like stigma. Yeah, I'm like, but so even in my field and I didn't do it for the record because I did it completely the other. Yeah, it makes sense. So that's one problem. Another is that of the people that are motivated to do this research, they're often biased due to religion. So they have a bone to pick and the research studies research studies will look legit. But when you read them, it's skewed. It seems that way anyway. And, you know, there are religious universities like BYU that are, you know, it'll say in the research study that it, you know, the professors and the research. So you never know. Anyway, but the causes that we can look to that are often, you know, identified with lots of addictions are it can be hereditary, for example, you know, really? Yeah, susceptible not to porn addiction per say, but to addiction and compulsions. You know, you have you're prone to pleasure triggers, so to speak. And having those activations in your brain that are more effective than other people, you know, there's some models that include that. Another is childhood mistreatment is associated with a lot of trauma. Yeah. Including addiction. There's a lot of different reasons to why that would be but moving forward. Another possibility is that for some people that are, you know, it seems like there's some evidence that our initial experiences in sexuality, as we're developing as children and teenagers will imprint on us to some extent, you know, certain fetishes or preferences that we have as adults can be traced back to very early experience. The first time you felt that charge, the first time you felt that, that, you know, that, that sexual feeling, if it was associated with a particular stimulus, then, and especially if that's reinforced throughout early development, you know, you, for example, you have one kid who 13 looks upon masturbates, but also will start dating and, and fooling around physically with peers within reason. And for that individual, there's a variety of things that are being encoded as this is how you meet this need. Whereas another person, the first experience they have is with pornography, and it's very intense for them, and they don't have any experiences with other human beings, then that can lead to problem use in the future and also an inability to find safety or comfort or being turned on by real human beings, because, you know, your brain has been conditioned to respond to a particular stimuli pornography. So it's not pornography, you know, people often because there are, there is research that will point to early pornography exposure can be related to these things. But, but there's other evidence. And the way that I think about it is that it's not that you necessarily did take away pornography, although kids certainly don't need pornography. You know, I mean, there are some benefits to pornography that I should say just of, you know, while I'm on this topic that there is research and it's been around for a long time, that for a lot of people, they discovered themselves, their identity, they, because they might be in a very sex negative culture or church or family. Yeah. And they watch, you know, because porn is a wide variety of content, you know, you have everything from, you know, very explicit, I don't know what you call it, but that kind of porn to people just talking about their bodies and enjoying themselves and or, or couples that are just regular people that are open about their sexuality, you know, queer people, you know, all sorts of folks. And so for an individual, they might actually be liberated and destigmatized. And so they might really benefit from pornography. And that that research has been around for a long time. Yeah. But, but anyway, so the idea is, is that with teenagers, we really want to help them to not have barriers to actually meeting people in person and developing normally in that way, you know, age appropriate wherever they want, maybe it's later at 18, or maybe it's as young as 12 when they start to hold hands with someone or something, you know, to get that ball rolling, because that's, that's typically seemingly maybe how we evolved, which is perhaps best. Another way of looking at it in terms of cause is that we evolved to, you know, you think about a million years ago, we evolved to, it seems we evolved to respond to stimuli visually and auditory. So when we see sexual wool images or naked bodies or people having sex or whatever, we seem to respond to that. And the theory goes is that we're on the African savannah 200 thousand years ago. And we see an attractive potential partner or even hear people having sex that sort of reminds us of it or something. And it introduces the drive, right? And you you have a motivation. Well, on the African savannah 200 thousand years ago for us, the, you know, the amount of times that would happen in a day would be limited, right? But with the internet and with pornography, it can be constant, right? So similar to the way that Cheetos and Nachos hack into my evolved motivation to have fats and sugars and and and salt to too much degree, which isn't healthy for my body, pornography can hack into your system to give you too much of what you want. And then for some people that can develop into problem use, right? And speaking of overstimulation, or like what you just mentioned, because of like that overstimulation or being exposed to pornography all the time, possibly because of an addiction, do you think that porn can impact bonding and romantic relationships because people have this idealized this idea in their head of what like sex should be? And do you think it kind of damages relationships? Or what would you say to some extent? It can, it goes both ways. So it can both damage or be neutral or be positive for relationships. It really just it's sort of like the way people talk about social media, they'll be like, well, social media rots your brain. And research demonstrates that, yeah, for some people, there can be some negative effects, but for other people, it actually enhances their brain, their mood. So it just depends on the context on the person on the way they use it on the whole picture. So for one couple, absolutely or for one individual, and we have studied this and found this to be true for some that when they watch pornography, it'll twist their mind regarding what a body should look like or what sex should look like. It could be particularly misogynistic and sexist and in a lot of corners, it's getting better over time. Yes. But and it's particularly bad in some societies like the United States and places like Japan where it is, you know, exaggerated and demeaning to women. But so you could and you could imagine someone being influenced in that way, or a couple that, you know, their relationship starts to cool off and one or both of them watch a lot of pornography and and it creates this distance because there isn't a motivation to bond sexually or it could be hurt and betrayal feelings. But for another couple, another individual, it could liberate them, it could give them ideas, it could be a nice thing to do when your partner isn't around, it can be a way of flirting with your partner. You could do it with your partner. You can talk about it with your partner. You know, there's just it really just depends on on how it's being used. And we as a society have play a role in that because of education and awareness and also helping to guide young people about what they want to put in their brain, right? Because it's going to happen and I'll like that. So the general approach, though, is just say no and abstain or prevent and shame, which, you know, doesn't help. And so before we move to our audience segment, I just wanted to ask in terms of, sorry, just there's so many questions in here right now. Yeah, there's a ton of people in here right now. And so we're going to get to the audience segment soon, guys. But I just wanted to know, do you feel that when it comes to the way it impacts relationships, we need to like learn to not stigmatize our partners for their use of pornography? Like how do people go about conversations around these things as couples? Well, everything hinges on your values. So if so, I would even go further back and say that when people are young, that they are given a venue to explore this for themselves of what are my values regarding pornography and masturbation, for me and for my partners. And if an individual has given enough freedom and space to explore that, and they establish their own value regarding that, then they can enact that. So if they, for example, are free to develop their own morals, and they develop morals saying like, I don't want pornography in my life, because of various different reasons. And you know, and there are legit reasons why someone wouldn't want pornography in their life, they wouldn't want to contribute to the exploitation of the performers because the industry isn't set up currently to be able to regulate that. You know, there are reasons. And so they say, I don't want that in my life. And I don't want my partner to be in that. Okay, so then you got to lead with that when you're dating, it should be in your dating profile, similar to, you know, what sort of age are you looking for? Do you want to have kids? And how do you feel about pornography? You know, that's a that's a matching issue. And then if you have that, then you meet someone with similar values. And then if with that agreement and with, you know, similar to like monogamous couples versus polyamorous couples, if you are polyamorously oriented, you should know that about yourself and you should have the freedom to explore that and you should find other polyamorous people, you should not be with a monogamously oriented person because you're going to have drives to be with other people, someone's not going to be happy in that situation. So, so if you have that agreement, in your relationship, and you've established that, and then someone ends up watching pornography, I'm not saying that you should be shaming the other person, the person that looked up pornography, but you, because you have this agreement, you have the right to say, Hey, we have this boundary, you weren't going to do this, you agreed, you weren't going to do it. Whereas another couple, if they were to establish that that's okay at times, then they would. The problem is, is that there's so many couples where they've literally never talked about it. And they don't even know what their values are, because they haven't been encouraged to develop that. And they don't, they don't have the freedom to even choose themselves because of a high control group or even a cult that they're in regarding some religion. So I know it'd be clear, there's a lot of religious people who are very sex positive and watch porn or not, whatever. So, you know, it's not just religion, it's, you know, culture, but so if you're in a relationship where you never really talked about it, or even your partner might have even said to you, I don't watch porn, I'm never gonna watch porn. But they didn't properly explore that for themselves. And then they ended up watching porn. You know, it just, it there's a lot of conversations that need to happen. And as a couple of therapists, when people come into my office, these kinds of transgressions and I've had couples come in for this issue, it just blossoms into a whole exploration. You know, there could be a lot of conversations need to happen over years. And I agree with that because sometimes people feel like chemistry and like loving each other is enough. And sometimes when you're just not compatible with the person, you have to be honest about that instead of getting into a marriage and then these things come up later. And I remember one of your videos, you actually said this, and it stuck with me, you said, opposites attract but they don't last. And I really agree with that, like if you have, you know, opposite views on everything and you don't agree on most things, even if you love each other, it's not always enough, right? Yeah, well, if I said that, that's not exactly the way I think about it today. But, but yeah, we say opposites attract, but in, when we actually study, most couples are way more similar than, than we think of them being similar. Absolutely. But but absolutely, we should be talking about these things up front, you know, these kinds of, but of course because we live in a sex negative culture, people don't even know that they should be thinking about it, let alone talking about it with their dating partners. Well, yeah, definitely in the most successful relationships that I've seen, people usually have like the couples will usually have the same values. And I agree with what you said, we live in a sex negative culture, even here in the US, like we need to open, that's why we're having these conversations here at Psych2Go because we want to perpetuate and promote a more sex positive culture. And so that brings me to our audience segment where we answer your viewer questions. We have tons of fans in here from Psych2Go and psychology in Seattle, over 500 people are in here and there's a lot of questions. So are you ready, Dr. Honda? I am. OK, so first question, Jennifer asked, how do I tell my parents about my porn addiction without upsetting them? I have a very strict religious background, and I don't want to turn my family apart. Wow. To load a question. Well, one, you'd have to truly define us to whether or not you have a porn addiction. Is it that you look at porn and masturbate and it's not really a problem in your life and it's only a problem in your life because of the culture and the family that you live in. Or are you actually compulsive and it actually is ruining your life? You know, that's a huge distinction. You can have, for example, well, I won't go down that road, but well, let's go down that road. Let's say that, you know, back in the day, they would pathologize being gay, for example. And one of the criteria was that you say, well, given your sexual behavior or impulses, is it negatively affecting your life? And they would say, yes, it is. But that's only because of oppression and stigma and hate. So and the individual might even believe they deserve it because they've been told that, right? So just because it's impacting your life, doesn't necessarily mean you have an addiction. It could be that your life and your context is the problem and it's not you. So that's an important distinction to to make. But if you do have a legit addiction and you want to tell you what. So the question is, how do I tell my family? Yeah, that's pretty much in a nutshell. The other question, like, how do I tell them without them freaking out? Yeah, freaking out. Well, one, you don't necessarily have to tell your family you could if you want to. You also have options. You know, if you're in a jurisdiction that the laws are such that this is true, that you can seek clinical help, mental health treatment in a confidential way. And then you feel like some if someone has a porn addiction, they don't they shouldn't have to disclose it to family and friends, because some people have differing opinions on that, like they should tell people, I don't know. Well, there's no like scientific obligation that they have that anyone has to tell anyone about any of addiction that they have. So that's a value statement, I suppose. Yeah. But I would hope that any family would care about their members. And if someone is suffering from porn addiction, that they would want to be helpful. And a big part of being helpful is to not attack them for disclosing that they're suffering from something. So I would it would be understandable if someone, you know, reasonably predicted that they would be attacked, the overall effect would be negative for them that they would conclude that they would not tell them at first, at the very least, you know, I wouldn't fault them for that. You should get help. The help you deserve to get the help that you deserve. You deserve to help. Absolutely. Or that's the bottom line. And if your family can be a part of that, then great. And if they can't, then screw them. Yeah, exactly. Jennifer, I wish you luck with that. And you shouldn't feel bad about being open about your addiction. So moving on to the next question, this was asked by John Leon. He asked, what if you're in a relationship and you have a porn addiction, and you're actively trying to get rid of those urges? Should your partner still divorce you in your opinion? What do you think, Dr. Honda? What if you're in a relationship, you have porn addiction, you're actually trying to get rid should the partner still divorce? I mean, it depends. Obviously, it could be a reason. Well, a lot, you know, there's a lot of factors that could play a role. But I would, I would have clinically, I would not, I can't answer that question, because that's a question that comes from someone's heart. As a citizen, I would have an opinion about that if my friends, for example, they came to me and they were like, yeah, my partner has a porn addiction, they're really working hard on it, but screw them. I don't want to be with an addict. You know, I judge that person for ditching their partner when they're in need and also given that they're trying. So, you know, I think that it depends on the situation. I can also see in a situation where someone is legit trying to recover from porn addiction, but it's taking a long time. It's continuing to degrade everyone's life, including the person with the porn addiction and everyone around them, especially their partner. So I think it takes a long time. There's a lot of relapses. There's a lot of suffering. And could I see a scenario where friends come to me and say, look, I know they're working on it, but I just can't take it anymore. And I just can't do it. You know, what I think that was reasonable, perhaps. So it just depends on the situation. And then the next question is from Cloud. They ask, hello, doctor, what do I do if I suffer from a porn addiction, but I'm in a relationship with someone who is asexual? Well, again, it depends on if you actually have a porn addiction, you know, I would say 60% of the time when a client came to me saying that a porn addiction, I did not actually conclude that they had a compulsive porn problem. So it all depends on the compulsiveness and the obsessiveness and the negative effects on one's life. So there's that. But if it's a legit porn addiction, so the question is, oh, I don't see the question. Oh, sorry. So how do I deal with it with my partner when my partner is asexual? Yeah, that's the question. Like, what do you do if your partner is asexual, but you have a porn addiction, which in my opinion would be like an issue of incompatibility, but that's just my take. It depends. It all just depends on what you've communicated about and your agreements. It's all about agreements and it's all about communication. So if you legit have a porn addiction, how does your partner feel about it, regardless of their asexuality? How does it affect them? How does it affect you? That's what I'd say to that. Thank you. And then the next question is from Morgan Levoit. She asked what if and this is an amazing question, actually, it's a really good question. What if porn addiction coexist with a drug addiction? Does one fuel the other and should they be treated separately or both at the same time? Yeah, it is a good question. They often are coexisting, co-occurring, co-morbid. Addictions tend to do that, but with porn addiction in particular, it is according to research associated with drug addiction. Do they fuel each other? They can, yeah. Also, they can generate from the same place. And should they meaning that someone needs to escape in general and they use both porn and substance to escape? Also, but in terms of treatment, could they be treated at the same time? Yeah, you can go to a 12 step group. You can even go to out AA, you know, Alcoholics Anonymous and talk about the if alcohol is the drug of choice and the individual is recovering from alcoholism through AA. You know, AA groups in my experience would will welcome compulsions of other sorts like pornography and that kind of thing. And the same principles can be followed of having a sponsor and, you know, trigger management and setting up a system that is, you know, conducive to success, all the same principles apply to both addiction recoveries. And then this next question is asked by Melissa. This is actually, I think, like a fan question, someone who's like really into psychology in Seattle. They asked Melissa, asked Dr. Honda, when are you going to have Darcy and Stacy on your podcast? I don't think they would ever want to. I would love to talk to them. I have so many questions because I always wonder. I mean, I would love to talk to them off camera really, just just to know I've talked with people in their life off camera. But Paul, right? But I don't think they would ever want to come on my show, as the point I always say, I watch your channel and I always say that I feel like you should be the host of the 90 day, 90 day fiancee reunions or of the Darcy and Stacy reunions, because I think you're that good. I'm not that good. I would screw it up. I look up to Sean a lot. Sean Robinson. Yeah, she's good. But I just feel like you have the insight, though. You like are a licensed family marriage. And that's what they need. But I would be I'd yammer. I'd ask too many questions. I'd have too many caveats. I, you know, I would I'd probably be too nice because I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. So I and plus on camera with all the lights and everything I you know, I would freeze. I wouldn't know what to do. So it is a lot of pressure. Yeah. Yeah. So but that would you make an appearance if they invited you because they do that. Sometimes they have like guests appear like experts appear if they invited you like, hey, do you want to just do like film a little segment? Would you do it? No, because I threw that one up to somehow and it would end up in the edit and I would never be able to sleep at night again. So no, I want to be here in my office with my own microphone and my as I say, everything's fine. My dogs and my wife are in the other room and everything's good. So that's why I love that. And then someone Mondo asked, how do you tell the difference between porn addiction? And I'm guessing they are referring to other addictions. Well, there isn't a difference necessarily regarding the pattern, you know, the obsession, the compulsions, the the negative effects, the progressive nature, the shame, the hiding, the difficulty controlling it. The you know, it gets worse over time. But the main difference is one involves pornography and the others involve the other behavior or substances. And then Emma asked, is porn addiction linked to other mental illnesses like depression or adrenaline junkies? You can read that on the screen. Yeah, I mean, adrenaline junkies, sometimes in the research will call this like sensation seekers, this sort of thing. But yeah, it does co-occur with mainly anxiety, but also mood disorders, depression, bipolar, also trauma related disorders. I'm trying to think of the thought in my head, mainly anxiety, depression, those sorts of things. Yeah. And then you answer this question, but just like I think that it's really important to our viewers to know this. Angel 777 asked, is porn an addiction if it doesn't affect your social and work life in general? Is it an addiction if it doesn't affect? Yeah. No, it's it's not. It's not an addiction if it doesn't if it doesn't negatively impact your life. It's a very squishy, you know, evaluation. There's a lot of debate there. Also, when you talk to someone who actually we would term as having a problem use of porn, they might be in denial of it and you ask everyone around them, you know, is there a problem there? They might say yes, but the individual is in denial. So, you know, there's a lot of different things that have to be taken into consideration. But yeah, if objectively or as objectively as you can answer this question, there's no negative impact of watching pornography, then, yeah, it's not it's not it's not a problem. This will be our last viewer question. Sailor C asked, is there any way to help my partner overcome a porn addiction? I know it's their choice to overcome it, but I want to help if I can. Yeah, that's a great question. You know, we've been working on this question and people have been working on this question for decades. Both clinically and partners of people who suffer from addiction. Alan on the group is has been around for a long time. There's a lot of wisdom and a lot of guidance that Alan on can provide for people who have partners addicted to any substance or behavior like like pornography, so you can seek their their support groups out and their information. But it is it's difficult because you can watch your partner suffer from a problem and it hurts them mostly, but it also hurts you. And everything, you know, they're powerless over their addiction. You are even more powerless if you if it's possible to be more powerless over or something. And everything generates from the individual having most of them most of the time want to recover. So they have to want to do it. And there's a lot of research and observation about how people have those those moments where they turn the corner and let's say, yeah, I I've done little things here and there. You know, I tried using filters online or I said to myself, I was going to, you know, you know, take my laptop and put it in my wife's bedroom and then that'll prevent me from people. They'll take these little measures, but it's never enough with addiction. It defines a way. And eventually they get to a point and they just and how do they get there and when will they get there and how do we get them there? You know, there's a lot of wisdom and experience around this. And if you're a partner of that, you know, getting to know that wisdom and getting that help and having guidance around that is important. But but it depends on your partner. If your partner doesn't want to make that choice, then they don't make that choice. And then you have then you have to make choices yourself about what you want to do about that. Could be a deal breaker at a certain point. You could draw boundaries around it. You know, there's there's a lot of difficulty there is what I'm saying. Yeah. But if but the the breeding ground for that to happen that you do have control over that, I can't say is you don't want to add to the shame is the point. Absolutely. Or the stigma. Yeah, you want to and you also want to speak from your feelings instead of saying to someone. You have a problem and, you know, this is bothersome. You want to say you want to convey to them in a non accusatory and as, you know, compassionate way as you can how their addiction affects you. When when you do this and I see doing this, I have these emotions and maybe I'm unreasonable. But this is how I'm feeling. What that'll do is it alerts the person with the addiction to the negative consequences because they can go into denial of it. Also, it gives them a chance to have compassion and empathy for you, which at the very least in the moment can be helpful to you as a partner of someone with addiction. But also, you know, it that it doesn't have stigma or shaming or conflict. The person with the addiction is free or, you know, people who recover from addictions. Their lives tend to need to go a little better than they were earlier because when you're suffering from addiction, it starts to impact your life. People start to distance, your life starts falling apart. Then you need the the substance or the behavior even more because you need to escape or you need just something to get you through it. If you can not add to that. Now, you don't want to enable. So, you know, there's a lot of things to talk about in terms of but if you can create a space where it's just like, hey, if you want to recover, I am right here for you. And I love you and I care about you. And if you want to talk about it, you know, just an open experience, but, you know, it's hard to do when you're in the moment because you're hurt by it. It can be really hurtful. Well, thank you for that, Dr. Honda. Thank you to our amazing viewers for participating in our fun audience segment. And so that brings me to my last question, Dr. Honda. I want to know what can we do to dismantle the stigma around just the use of pornography and porn addiction? Should we have sex education in schools? Like, what can our society do? Yeah, I don't know. Intimidated by the question. Well, in the past, in the past, I would have thought, yeah, I mean, let's increase education. But there are certain movements in our society, in our country that are going in the opposite direction. So and preventing these kinds of things from even being discussed in schools or otherwise. So I don't know. I do know in my lifetime things have gotten better. Yeah, even in the last 10 years. So all of us doing, including you doing this episode is furthering that destigmatization and that seems to be working. So I would say that just everyone keep doing what they're doing, keep talking about it, actually talk to experts, yeah, talk about it in schools, age, appropriateness, just the destigmatization of treatment in general, therapy in general and recovery in general. So I I would say everyone just keep doing what Michelle is doing. Yeah, just do what I'm doing. OK, I'm just kidding. Well, thank you, Dr. Hanna. Thank you for joining us. I'm a huge fan. We had so many fans in here and they're so happy to have been able to participate today. Thank you again. No, thanks for having me. And thank you, everyone, at Psych2Go and Psychology in Seattle for joining us today. Have a great day. Bye.