Nosology and metaphor: How pornography viewers make sense of pornography addiction

Abstract

Pornography addiction is increasingly a focus of both lay and expert attention, despite ongoing debate as to whether viewing pornography can be categorized as such. The present study takes a step back from such debates to ask fundamental questions about how pornography addiction is conceptualized between such lay and expert jurisdictions, and how the flow of information between these domains helps to create and sustain a pornography addiction diagnosis. Drawing upon philosopher Ian Hacking's theory of ‘making up people’, responses from a qualitative survey (n = 213), and semi-structured interviews (n = 30) are analysed, attending specifically to how pornography viewers themselves draw upon different ways of explaining how a pornography addiction works, and how the language of addiction is applied as either a literal or metaphorical explanation of behaviour. The results indicate, not only that addiction criteria are applied in surprisingly diverse ways, but also that pornography addiction's boundaries are elastic, its definitions transient, and its use dependent upon both metaphor and claims to neurological knowledge. It is suggested that if pornography addiction is being taken seriously, it is necessary to elaborate upon this relationship between metaphor and nosology.