CYBER PORNOGRAPHY ADDICTION AMONGST MEDICAL STUDENTS OF WESTERN RURAL MAHARASHTRA

Introduction: Cyberpornography is an act of using cyberspace to create, display, distribute, impart or publish pornography or obscene materials, especially materials depicting children engaged in sexual acts with adults. Cyberpornography on one hand, has opened up the new terrain of \u27safe sex\u27, and a positive space for sexual non-conformists. At the same time, it has negatively impacted many offline relations, and a new space for sexual predation and exploitation. Objective: To find out the prevalence, type and form of risk towards cyber pornography addiction amongst the students. Methods & Materials: A prospective cross sectional study was conducted after obtaining an ethical approval from the institute and an informed consent from volunteers fulfilling the eligibility criteria. The Internet sex screening test (ISST) questionnaire with score sheet was used and was collected by complete anonymity and confidentiality. 300 medical students were considered for the study and data collected was analysed by Microsoft-office excel. Results: 57.15% of the volunteer are in low-risk group whereas 30% are vulnerable and 12.85% are in highest-risk group. For boys, 65% are vulnerable whereas 21% in low-risk and the remaining 14% are in highest-risk group. For girls, 73% are in a low-risk, 19% are vulnerable and 8% are in highest-risk group. Conclusion: It is concluded that the majority of boys come under vulnerable category whereas the girls comes in low-risk group showing male preponderance towards addiction. The study reveals that, questions coming under the subgroup of online sexual behaviour-isolated have been answered the maximum number of times, by both the sexes. Whereas, the questions coming under the subgroup of online sexual spending has been answered the least by both the sexes. KEYWORDS: Cyberpornography; Addiction; Sexual behaviour; ISST Questionnaire