A 24-year-old Ghanaian man has shared his staggering journey of how he got strongly addicted to pornography.
Kwesi (not his real name) only begun watching porn in his teens when he was just about to complete his secondary school education.
But after seeing his friends watch porn, out of curiosity, Kwesi was also convinced to start watching porn to experience the pleasures of masturbation and sex.
“In a day I could do masturbate like three to five times. It started when I was about to complete SHS. I saw some of my friends watching porn and I was just watching it for fun because I have heard of masturbation and how it is similar to sex, I wanted to feel how it was.
The internet has made access to pornographic materials easy. Millions of people visit various websites daily for content, but beyond the views and downloads is the dark side of addiction.
Anita Agbotah tells the struggles individuals battle with pornographic addiction.#News360 pic.twitter.com/GcXwFyI1zu
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“When I’m watching porn, my mind becomes blank and anytime I want to learn I feel like let me masturbate before I learn and if I learn I totally forget everything,” he told TV3’s Anita Agbotah.
According to him, his addiction to masturbating and watching porn quells the thought of going to church because he regards himself as a sinner.
“I do not see the need to go to church because I see myself as a sinner,” he said.
Another victim of porn addiction, a lady narrated that her engrossment with porn caused her fantasized and attempted to have sex with multiple men in a moment.
“There was one other idea that they told me that I really wanted to get there which is sex with multiple partners. I was just exposed to one partner and this is a group of people that you see just one woman and multiple men so like I really wanted to get on that space to know how it feels like,” she said.
Her addiction led her to go any length just to satisfy her pleasures including using her last cash left to purchase data just to watch porn.
“There are times I could be in class and I have to go to the washroom just to go and watch porn probably because I am triggered by somebody saying something or I’m ovulating at the time so it became a habit and I have to restrict myself,” she added.
In recent times, access to pornographic materials has become so easy with the surge in adult’s websites and social media churning out sexually explicit contents.
Meanwhile, a psychiatrist at the Korle-Bu teaching hospital, Dr. Albert Sedohia explained the dangers associated with chronic masturbation and porn addiction.
“After chronic endulgence in these behaviours; porn and masturbation you realize that your dopamine levels now below the baseline it should be and you’ll keep trying many times to get it back to the level it used to be but it doesn’t, he noted.
In 2022, the Cyber Security Authority (CSA) disclosed that betting and pornographic websites are among top five most visited websites in the country.
“Our citizens are quite active on social media and statistics show that we are ranked the third country with active social media presence behind Nigeria and Philippines in the whole world.
“You may be surprised, access to betting sites is one of them, also it is not very nice to say but even pornographic access is one of them,” the CSA noted.
The Director-General of CSA, Albert Antwi-Boasiako said per data available to the CSA Ghana’s internet population was around 17 million in 2022.