Bombay archdiocese studies porn addiction among youth

Study aims at understanding those who use it, and finding programmes to help them de-addict.

Mumbai:  The Bombay archdiocese has started an online survey to understand the viewers of pornography with an aim to help young people out of their addiction.

The online survey (http://survey.snehalayafamily.com) seeks responses from people in the age group of 15 to 25 years, as well as those over 25 years. The identity of those who participate will be kept confidential.

"At present, we hear a lot of things about pornography. While there are studies being done on porn and its effects outside India, nothing has been taken up here. We have not done any study on porn users, and hence, we wanted to do one," said Father Cajeton Menezes, director of Snehalaya Family Service Centre, who has started the year-long survey.

Snehalaya Family Service Centre, a facility of the archdiocese, helps families in Mumbai. The survey is part of its efforts to strengthen families of not just Catholics but also of all other communities that approach the center.

It was in the counselling centres — where the Church looks to ensure that marriages last — that they realised the need to study the porn issue closer. The Church stands for saving marriages unless there was some pre-existing problem that was not known and due to which a marriage needed to be annulled.

The priest said during counselling session was couples spoke of “more and more cases of erectile dysfunction, partners fulfilling their need by watching porn, husbands forcing their wives to watch porn and also enact steps. All this was leading to breaking of marriages,” Father Menezes said.

"This study also looks at figuring out addiction among women. Women addiction patterns are different. They are not so much into graphic but more into literature," added the priest said.

The other aspects of the study will be place of access of porn, how deep the users go into it, the genre, role of porn in marriage and life, post-porn effects, methods tried to de-addict, being open about watching porn, money and time spent, inclination towards religion and the self-esteem of the person.

"The aim is to understand the addicts and their practices. Questions will also gauge how they feel about themselves and their self-esteem, whether it is high or low," said Doctor Trudy Dantis, research consultant who has put together the questions and will be structuring the report when responses are close to 5,000.

"Through the study, we will also come to know if the problem is overrated or underrated. Once the study is complete, the report will be given to counsellors or psychiatrists who help people come out with answers on preventive programmes," said Allwyn Dantis, project co-ordinator of the Plague of Pornography.

"We want to complete the survey with good response. But what we see is that a number of people are not answering all the questions. Their identities will not be disclosed," said Menezes.

Source: DNA