What drives cybersex addiction among female internet pornography users?

Women who visit Internet pornography sites are at risk of developing cybersex addiction. A comparison of the tendency toward cybersex addiction among heterosexual women who do or do not use Internet pornography and factors predictive of developing cybersex addiction are described in a study published in Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking.

In "Cybersex Addiction in Heterosexual Female Users of Internet Pornography Can Be Explained by Gratification Hypothesis," authors Christian Laier, Jaro Pekal, and Matthias Brand, University of Duisburg-Essen (Duisburg, Germany), and Erwin L. Hahn, Institute for Magnetic Resonance Imaging (Essen, Germany), explore the role of anticipating and receiving sexual gratification in the development of cybersex addiction.

"The authors found that cybersex addiction in the study population of heterosexual female users is similar to that of heterosexual males," says Editor-in-Chief Brenda K. Wiederhold, PhD, MBA, BCB, BCN, Virtual Reality Medical Institute, Brussels, Belgium and Interactive Media Institute, San Diego, California. "Although the study population was only limited to individuals under 30, this helps to advance our understanding of cybersex addiction in females."