Always Turned on: Sex Addiction in the Digital Age

Technology has significantly changed our world. Sexual imagery and encounters can now be accessed anywhere, anytime, using portable electronic devices. Users can generate a stream of graphic pornography, a wide variety of virtual sexual activities, and casual, anonymous, or paid-for sexual encounters with a click or a tap. Simply put, we have greater access to highly stimulating sexual content, and potential sexual partners, with much less built-in accountability. Porn addicts are especially vulnerable to the lure of digital technology and the seemingly endless array of stimulation it provides. Research suggests that cyber-porn addicts spend at least eleven or twelve hours per week online viewing porn. Today, all forms of sex addiction are technology driven–from porn websites to webcams to casual sex hook-up apps found on smartphones. Sex addicts organize their lives around the pursuit of sexual activity with self or others, spending inordinate amounts of time viewing and masturbating to porn or planning, pursuing, and engaging in sex acts. At the same time, they neglect important relationships, work, and personal responsibilities. Overwhelming feelings of guilt, shame, and remorse invade when the acting out ends. While it’s complicated, recovery is possible. Always Turned On shows readers how to turn those temptations off while providing practical long-term solutions for recovery.