Victor Cline was involved with multiple family-oriented organizations, such as Marriage and Family Enrichment (which he co-founded) and The Lighted Candle Society.[3] Cline's research area was on sex addiction, especially topics pertaining to pornography.[4] Cline was a clinical psychologist and psychotherapist specializing in marital and family counseling and the treatment of sexual compulsions and addictions. He also worked with the victims of sexual abuse and sexual assault. Cline was also a behavioral scientist with publications in the area of “media and pornography effects.” As a practitioner, he was involved in the treatment of sexual addicts or compulsives including many pedophiles and their victims.[2][5]
"I find that the use of child pornography in time desensitizes the viewer to its pathology no matter how aberrant or disturbing. It becomes acceptable and preferred. The man always escalates to more deviant material, and the acting out continues and escalates despite very painful consequences such as destruction of the family, loss of spouse, children, job, health, or incarceration after committing criminal acts."
According to Cline, online pornography can plunge a person into the pornography cycle of addiction, escalation, desensitization, and acting out sexually. The cost of addiction includes "divorce, loss of family and problems with the law," and it escalates so that the addict requires more deviancy in order to get a "high" or "sexual turn-on."[9][10]
Cline, Victor B.; Richards Jr., James M. (Jan 1960). "Accuracy of interpersonal perception: A general trait?". The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology. 60 (1). American Psychological Association: 1–7. doi:10.1037/h0041320. PMID13810712.
Victor B. Cline, ed. (1974). Where Do You Draw The Line? - An Exploration Into Media Violence, Pornography, And Censorship. United States: Brigham Young University Press. p. 376.
Cline, Victor B. (Mar 1955). "Ability to judge personality assessed with a stress interview and sound-film technique". The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology. 50 (2). American Psychological Association: 183–187. doi:10.1037/h0047131. PMID14366875.
Cline, Victor B.; Richards Jr., James M.; Needham, Walter E. (Jun 1963). "Creativity tests and achievement in high school science". Journal of Applied Psychology. 47 (3). American Psychological Association: 184–189. doi:10.1037/h0041145.
Cline, Victor B.; Tucker, Michael F.; Schmitt, James R. (Apr 1967). "Prediction Of Creativity And Other Performance Measures From Biographical Information Among Pharmaceutical Scientists". Journal of Applied Psychology. 51 (2). American Psychological Association: 131–138. doi:10.1037/h0024428. PMID6039336.
Cline, Victor B., Victor B.; Richards Jr., James M. (Jun 1965). "A factor-analytic study of religious belief and behavior". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 1 (6). American Psychological Association: 569–578. doi:10.1037/h0022083. PMID14300232.
Cline, VB (1994). "Pornography effects: Empirical and clinical evidence" In D. Zillmann, J. Bryant, & ACHuston (Eds.), Media, children and the family: Social scientific, psychodynamic and clinical perspectives pp. 229–247
^Cline, Victor B. (April 1999). "Treatment & Healing of Pornographic and Sexual Addictions". Retrieved 2008-10-08. In over 25 years I have treated approximately 350 males afflicted with sexual addictions (sometimes referred to as: sexual compulsions). In about 94% of the cases I have found that pornography was a contributor, facilitator or direct causal agent in the acquiring of these sexual illnesses. Patrick Carnes, the leading U.S. researcher in this area, also reports similar findings. In his research on nearly 1000 sex addicts as reported in his "Dan 't Call it Love", he stated: "Among all addicts surveyed 90% of the men and 77% of the women reported pornography as significant to their addiction."