[OMG] Women addicted to PORN, when marriage fails

FOR hours daily, she was transfixed by the computer screen, watching steamy love scenes play out in front of her


The 32-year-old Singaporean engineer was aware that she was hooked on pornography and tried to stop.

But she was unsuccessful and became compulsive towards porn when her marriage hit the rocks.

She is one of a handful of women suffering from porn addiction, whom senior consultant psychiatrist Associate Professor Munidasa Winslow has seen in the last three years.

On why women turn to porn, Prof Winslow said: "Porn is easier - you don't need to pay attention to being nice to each other. And you can do it anytime, anywhere.

"Also, it gives them a thrill and acts as a stress reliever."

Prof Winslow, who is now in private practice, previously headed the Addiction Medicine Department at the Institute of Mental Health (IMH).

He was also director of the Community Addictions Management Programme at IMH, providing professional case management in the treatment of addictions.


Internet

While not many women here are coming clean about their porn addiction, it is a different story elsewhere.

Last week, The Guardian newspaper reported that more women in the UK are admitting that they are hooked on Internet pornography.

When she went through a rough patch in her relationship with her husband, porn became an easy escape.

The report quoted Mr Jason Dean, the founder of the main porn counselling service in the UK, Quit Porn Addiction, as saying that about one in three clients are women struggling with watching porn. In the case of the Singaporean woman, her interest in porn "started even before the Internet", she told The New Paper in an e-mail interview.

Her friend in Australia had sent her a porn magazine seven or eight years ago. By the time she was done flipping through it, her interest was piqued.

Soon, she began desiring more porn and went onto the Internet for more of such fixes. And as Internet usage became more prevalent, it became much easier and faster for her to get porn online, she added.

When she later went through a rough patch in her relationship with her husband, porn became an easy escape.

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