You’ve heard of Snapchat. But have you heard of Stripchat?

 

The site, which is basically a strip club through the lens of a web camera, recently conducted an internal survey among its users. Forty-two percent of users report experiencing “some” anxiety about the time they spent on the site. Eleven percent of users say they experience “frequent or constant” anxiety.

 

Furthermore, 29 percent of married users report that they are worried their streaming constituted cheating, while 31 percent of married users revealed that Stripchat caused problems in their relationships.

 

Stripchat takes these numbers seriously: “Anxiety and relationship stress are serious issues,” they acknowledge. “Camming should be a source of pleasure and refuge from the stress of daily life—not something that adds to it. That’s why Stripchat is making a commitment to be a leader in mental and emotional well-being for its users.”

 

Thus, Stripchat announced its partnership with the Sexual Health Alliance “to bring clinical psychologists, sex researchers and relationship therapists onto its global cam platform to answer questions about sex addiction and online infidelity” as of August 1. It will also discuss “ways these can be balanced in your life.”

 

Some of these questions include the following:

  • “Is camming cheating?”
  • “Can you fall in love with a cam model?”
  • “Is porn addictive?”

 

Given that Dr. David Ley, who led the August 1 session, authored a book entitled The Myth of Sex Addiction, it seems plausible that the answer to the latter question will be a resounding “no.”

 

The porn industry makes more than the NFL, NBA, and MLB combined. It also makes more than NBC, CBS, and ABC combined. Rumor has it that the porn industry as a whole nets between $6 and $97 billion annually. So Stripchat convincing its users that porn may be addictive and hurtful to their relationships is not exactly what some might call a good business model.

 

Max Bennett, the Vice President of News Media at Stripchat, commented that the initial August 1 session was “a chance for them to get past some of the myths and stigma surrounding porn, and talk to an expert what science actually says.”

 

But what does the science really say?

 

For starters, using pornography shrinks the grey matter in the brain, the Max Planck Institute reports. It makes men more likely to suffer from erectile dysfunction. It is also known to cause mental health issues in men and women, including anxiety, depression, and body image issues.

 

It’s not surprising that one in three Stripchat users report that Stripchat caused problems in their relationships. People who use porn love their partner less and are more sexually dissatisfied. Pornography has also been shown to increase marital infidelity by 300 percent.

 

So even if Stripchat’s experts find that porn is not addictive and camming is not cheating, there are still plenty of other questions that the so-called sexuality experts need to answer. Max Bennet notes that “the outside world doesn’t always accept” people who use pornography. Maybe there is a reason for this sentiment.

 

According to “science,” if Stripchat truly wants to be a leader in mental and emotional well-being for its users, it would advise them to quit stripchatting altogether.

[Image credit: Pixino]