Anthony Weiner, aka Carlos Danger, has a problem—one shared by millions of Americans. He is obsessively consumed by sex and pornography.
News reports indicate Weiner has been exchanging explicit images with strangers and even proposing sexual acts to his victims straight out of scenes from porn movies. Many psychotherapists would likely say he is addicted to sex or pornography or both, and though we are not qualified to make that judgment, his patterns of activity are similar to those who are addicted.
Like many sex and porn addicts, Weiner leads a secret life risking all, including his family and his employment, in an endless quest for sexual satisfaction that is never realized.
Weiner’s condition is likely a consequence of our nation’s failed experiment with the easy availability of pornography in the Internet Age. More so, it is a failure of society to recognize that pornography is a drug, much like cocaine and heroin, with similar radical, brain-altering effects.
Morality in Media maintains a unique database of peer-reviewed scientific research on pornography addiction and other harms of pornography at that may help explain these devastating problems. You can access the database at pornharmsresearch.com.
Morality in Media urges Weiner to drop everything and get intensive psychological help until he regains control of himself. Otherwise, as we have now seen, he will continue his bizarre activities.
His wife, Huma Abedin, should seek help as well because coping with a spouse in Weiner’s condition brings untold grief and pressure to a family, leading to alienation, humiliation and often divorce.
Weiner could help himself and his family, as well as millions of Americans, if he could only admit the obvious: that his compulsion is out of control and that he needs therapy. We sympathize with him, knowing that in our modern society such an admission is often more painful than the cure.
Dawn Hawkins is executive director of Morality in Media.
