[Matthew Shea]

Agnostic, I'm not sure that lack of pleasure is what causes addicts in general, whether they're addicted to food, sex, alcohol, drugs or anything else, to pursue their weakness with ever greater vigor. In my experience, addiction typically starts with a painful void or issue that a person is trying to avoid. The pleasure pushes the painful thoughts out of the way for a while but eventually they come back and the person turns back to the pleasure in higher and higher doses to compensate for an ever-increasing need to avoid the feelings or issues they're trying to get away from. In this way, addictions can really only be successfully treated by facing the issues that caused the longing for a pleasurable replacement.

I definitely agree with your statement that porn's prevalence is partly attributable to a repression of sexuality. I think a lot of that is due to a sense of rebelliousness, which is the first step in moving away from a repressive view of sexuality to a more open one hopefully to be followed by a more balanced view. I think porn will always have its place, as people always like to fantasize and escape reality from time to time, but as society becomes more comfortable with sex in general, it will cease to be so much of a "problem."

Concerning pleasure in general, we have to keep in mind that pleasurable things are pleasurable for a reason. With sex and food, for example, it helps ensure the survival of the human race. The problem comes in when we either unnecessarily suppress that pleasure due to a perceived moral problem or use that pleasure excessively for purposes it was not designed to suit, such as using sex to avoid problems in life instead of for procreation or expressing love for a partner.