Posted on 11/19/2004 3:07:51 PM PST by Lindykim
Porn Like Heroin in the Brain by Stuart Shepard, correspondent
Senate committee discusses pornography and the First Amendment.
Experts on pornography's effects on brain chemistry testified at a Senate hearing this week where a key point of discussion was whether porn is a form of speech protected by the First Amendment or addictive material that should be unlawful.
Psychiatrist Jeffrey Satinover described how pornography is analogous to cigarettes, noting that "it is a very carefully designed delivery system for evoking a tremendous flood within the brain of endogenous opioids." It's time, he added, to stop regarding it as simply a form of expression. "Modern science," Satinover said, "allows us to understand that the underlying nature of an addiction to pornography is chemically nearly identical to a heroin addiction."
Dr. Mary Anne Layden with the Center for Cognitive Therapy at the University of Pennsylvania explained how a pornographic image is burned into the brain's pathways.
"That image is in your brain forever," she explained. "If that was an addictive substance, you, at any point for the rest of your life, could in a nanosecond draw it up."
Dr. Judith Reisman, president of the Institute for Media Education, called on the Senate to take action against pornography, saying it's time to mandate that law enforcement begin to collect all data and pornographic materials found in the possession of anyone involved in criminal activity. Doing so, she added, would yield data showing whether pornography is being used as a how-to manual for sex crimes.
"The evidence the panelists presented showed an overwhelming harm from pornography," said Daniel Weiss, media and sexuality analyst with Focus on the Family. He hopes the Senate will turn the evidence into action.
TAKE ACTION/FOR MORE INFORMATION If you think Congress should be taking serious action against pornography, you can start by thanking Sen. Sam Brownback for calling the hearing, then contact your representatives in Congress and let them know what you think. For help in contacting your elected representatives, please see our CitizenLink Action Center.
Also, to learn more about one person's struggles with pornography, we suggest the resource "An Affair of the Mind: One Woman's Courageous Battle to Salvage Her Family From the Devastation of Pornography." Author Laurie Hall shares her courageous struggle to protect herself and two children from her husband's addiction to pornography.
don't some of these same neurotransmitters get activated by watching football games?
and what about movies with violence in them? do we blame bank robberies on movies about bank robberies?
should all movies depicting nonsexual but violent crimes be banned? it seems that these would cause violence addictions.
Porn is probably worse.
Alas, I cannot.
Goodbye freedom and liberty.
Hello Taliban.
It would seem to correlate with the rise of the web and online porn.
It would also seem also to indicate that these scik and sadistic puppies by seeing their most base desires acted out daily in 10,000 websites feel less inclined to act out these desires and instead have become pacified with viewing their every fantasy instead.
It is not exactly high praise for the porn industry -- it says that apparently they are plumbing the depths of what rapists and other sickos want.
That said not all porn is equal and there are definitely many lines and levels within this. Certainly in its milder forms it is very much part of life and humanity and it can not be seperated.
I am reminded of a verse of scripture where the apostle paul rebuked the apostle peter he said how is it that you while living like a gentile expect the gentiles to live like a jew.
The Church has largely become confused by their own rhetoic -- Many of them live a worldly self serving life and expect the world to live a moral christian life. They have tried to create a comfort zone to support their beleifs and hold the world accountable anytime the world offends them -- this view is exactly 180 degrees out of phase with the word of God. In other words the christain should be in fear that he or she is offending the world and thus maligning the name of Christ by whom they call themselves.
Some one else brought up the phrase "Holier than thou" This is actually an accusation of God against beleivers in the old testament and it is echoed in the parable of the God samaritan -- an ungodly "unsaved man who did what none of the highly religious could bring themselves to do lest they soil their person.
The Church is full of porn. But everyone to their own damnation pretends that it is not there -- Chrstianity today did a survey amoung preachers (these would be fundamentalists and evangelicals) and they found 40% admitting that they had viewed porn -- so the number would actually be much higher.
Now if the shepherd of the sheep is viewing porn in their private inner sanctum how much more are their sheep?
Dr James Dobson cited here his son also a preacher was quoted in that christainity today article that he has had a porn problem and his wife is helping him to try to keep stright.
The Bible speaks harshly over those who would preach and condemn others for the same things that they also do.
Jesus said if your light is darkness then how great is that darkness -- unfortunatlely for many in the church that darkness is very great.
A pc for the connoisseur of porn.
ROFLMAO!!!
She was raised in a broken home I had wondered long if there was a reason for her behavior. Having been abused, having been molested, certainly I wondered if there had been something anything. No reason was ever given. She has recently told my kids that: "She just wasn't happy here."
"If it were burned in our brains, why do people go looking for more, and more, and more..."
Because it's an addiction. You're left searching for the next form of perversion once the current one ceases to please.
While I despise pornography, I know there's nothing I can forcibly do to stop people from consuming it. I can protest, I can make signs, I can call my legislators, but I can't personally stop an adult from viewing porn.
All I can say is, we're all created in the Holy image of God. Why on earth would you want to pervert and cheapen God's creation in the name of sexual gratification?
I grappeled with it for years, until I gave myself over to the Lord. And now, it's all changed - I don't have he slightest interest in any of it.
Know exactly what you mean. You can't "un-see" something once you've seen it.
When I first read the headline, I thought it said "Pork".
When they advocate Federal legislation for vice, yes. Where does the Constitution grant Congress such power?
but who do you think got George Bush re-elected?
In no particular order: Supporters of the WOT and Iraqi Freedom, Cubans in Florida, gun owners, small government Republicans, military voters, the moral right, independent truckers, etc.
i think these people are giving junk science a bad name.
"The Framers wrote what they wrote, in no place clearer than the 1st Amendment, and it's our job to protect and defend it, not try to get inside their heads."
That is one of the tenants of strict contructionism - original intent of the framers. That is the error of judical activism - they don't look at original intent, they reinterpret to suit themselves. The "living document" approach is too loaded with caprice.
Bottom line is that the Framers would NOT have embraced pornography as a "free press" issue. Strange as it may sound, they would probably protect Moore's trash because it is political. However, they wouldn't be for protecting "Debbie Does Dallas." It is not political speech, it is entertainment. Until the later 20th Century when the Supreme Court started going activist, pornography was illegal.
Definition of nervousness: Two Baptists seeing each other at a sex shop.
Yeah, probably a committee with "Family" in their name. Like I said, it is those wackos that give conservatives a bad name.
Don't kid yourself, there have been wars fought over those foods for cneturies, actually there is one going on right now dealing with the French at the Ivory Coast. The Ivory Coast grow 40% of the world's coco.
Do a little more research and discover for yourself that almost every serial killer was a porn addict actualizing his porn induced fantasies.
It depends, I like to think more positively, that their desire came first and that they were trying to feed their desires through porn so that they would not have to kill anyone; like someone playing a first person shooter game to relief their stress from their daily life.
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