As the internet begins to exert more and more control over our lives, it brings with it an increasingly destructive problem – the rise of online porn. The issue is perhaps most damaging when it affects the lives of teenagers, who can be at risk of ruining their adolescence with an addiction to hardcore material.
And some parents are taking drastic steps to reform their porn-addict sons – by sending them off to a desert ‘boot camp’ to help them overcome their troubling behavior.
Oxbow Academy, in Utah, is a rehabilitation facility dedicated to teenage boys who have exhibited ‘sexual behavioural issues’.
These ‘issues’ can include a wide variety of problems – some of the boys there have been accused of voyeurism or even assaulting other children.
But perhaps the fastest-growing category of offender is the online porn fanatic – leading some to dub the academy ‘Porn School’.
The pioneering facility is in a converted church, with inmates sleeping in bunk beds situated in two large dormitories.
When parents send their sons off to the $9,000-a-month facility, they are committing the teens to a tough regime designed to shake them out of their destructive habits.
Around two dozen boys are subjected to therapy, chores – and, of course, a ban on phone and internet use.
The teens, aged between 13 and 17, must spend their days in counselling sessions, joined once a week by their parents
via Skype – and after a full day of therapy, the boys attend academic classes until 9pm.
The weekends are taken up with homework and chores such as laundry, although the troubled residents also get the chance to go horse riding in the wilderness around the town of Wales where Oxbow is located.
While there are computers at the school, they are modified so that the only websites accessible from them are online encyclopedias.
The teenagers are encouraged to open up about their past problems – and are even subjected to a lie detector test to ensure they are not concealing anything from the therapists.
Stephen Schultz, director of Oxbow Academy, told the Sunday Mirror that the boys – some of whom have been convicted of sex attacks – were like drug addicts going through withdrawal.
‘Most porn addicts get agitated when they’re deprived of their online sources,’ he said.
‘But one boy from Chicago actually got the shakes, like a drug abuser. He was in very poor shape when he arrived. He’d been on his computer 10 to 12 hours a day looking at porn.
‘He wasn’t eating, he was dehydrated, had poor hygiene. He’d done nothing but watch porn.’
He is adamant that his school’s regime is the best way for teenagers to begin a life without online porn, and encourages them to ‘disclose the most shameful stuff’ in an effort to move on from their past.
Most boys at Oxbow stay for at least a year, and they frequently graduate high school from the facility, which employs several qualified teachers.
Mr Schultz believes that the increasing sexualisation of modern culture means that places like his will become ever more popular among desperate parents.
‘Sex is everywhere,’ he said. ‘When I was growing up if someone said they were bisexual it was shocking.
‘Now threesomes and depraved sexual behaviour is all over the internet, and children see those images before they develop into adolescents.’
