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.
100% correct.
Sure they support it vehemently, Until they wake up to the reality that the next adult video they rent or download has their daughter or niece starring as "DEBBIE"
The "consent" factor goes right out the window at that point.
Put up a stiff resistance!
They'll give up when the batteries wear out!
Watch out for the inflatable dolls - those are decoys!
Well spank them!
Handcuff them!
On to victory!!!
Relax, I was joking ya' know.
Don't take everything so serious. Jeeze!
Their rationale' and justification can be easily summarized: All visual, printed and audio materials must be suitable for the average 8-year old - - heaven forbid there should be any consideration of human adult sexuality. George Orwell may have been off by 20 years but Big Brother and the Thought Police are just down the street from your house and creeps like Dobson, Falwell and their colleagues are in command.
You forgot the </juvenile humor> tag.
What a rant!
The simple truth is some folks are inclined to favor a decent society in which to raise their children without being exposed to promiscuous unbridled sexuality at every turn because smut peddlers are protected under the freedom of speech clause.
We just want to be able to go to the 7-11 without a copy of sluts-r-us on display out in the open at children eye level! or search the web for homework research without 1000 hits for sluts-r-us websites flashing across the monitor.
What's wrong with making pornography harder to access for children?!? Instead of .com, .org, etc. designate all adult material .xxx so we can elect not to be exposed to it!
Absolutely true. The less people can discipline themselves, the more they wind up having to be disicplined from the outside.
The idea that people can be out of control sexual libertines and act as the paragons of virtue in the rest of their lives is patently false.
Look at Clinton.
I've seen the porn threads. The supporters get very rabid, and ruder and cruder than anywhere else on FR.
Sam the Sham said it better than I could:
"To the libertarian, ACLU, Hollywood secular mentality, porn is protected speech. It wasn't before 1960. Bad legal judgements destroyed the power of communities to enforce moral norms. And now we will have the power to fill the judiciary with judges who will reverse this.
To the Chrisian and the conservative, porn is cultural srychnine. To your party of cultural anarchy, which has nothing in the least to do with conservatism, hey, anything goes if someone will pay for it."
You are onto something. The left has been censoring television and movies for over ten years. Janet Reno gave untimatums to networks about the sex and violence on late night TV and threatened them with fierce regulation. The result was late night television decaying into nothing but the infomertial universe.
Most notably shut down was the late night weekend entertainment on the USA network. Gilbert Gottfried was the host and his movies were often on the risque and seamy side.
The feminists do not want men looking at females. It's a power thing with them. Christians should be very careful about telling adults what they may do in private. Many of "us" ministers, deacons, etc...have been caught doing the same thing.
"I'm sorry, but your good intentions for the assumption of power over my entertainment doesn't give me any good feelings. Quite the opposite. And I certainly don't need you to be my master."
You are reading entirely too much in what I am saying and you use way too much hyperbole. I am a strict constructionist on the interpretation of the constitution. Until the 20th century no court "saw" a right to have pornography as a first ammendment issue. It was activist courts that made it difficult to regulate pornography. Those were bad decisions and poor interpretations of the constitution.
Now if the people don't want pornography to be illegal, that is their choice and consistent with a free society. However, if the majority want it illegal that is also consistent with a free society and should not be blocked by dubious extrapolations of the first ammendment. The constition neither prohibits nor allows pornography - regardless of what some foolish activist judges have ruled.
What has been side stepped here by many is just how insidious a danger this stuff poses. However, that is hard to explain to those lacking a belief in absolutes.
little j, I'm glad somebody here "gets it". Not all who post on FR are conservatives. There are many pushing their own agendas, and we see them pop out on the porn and abortion threads.
FOX had a good panel discussion on this topic tonight. Judith Reisman was most impressive. So was Sam Brownback.
At last, we are seeing the beginning of the Christian counter-cultural war against the permissive society.
I've been waiting four decades for this.
The bluenoses on this thread do not really want to dwell on the fact that raging bull-dyke Janet Reno was just as fiercly anti-p0rn as their beloved John Ashcroft. These is an odd, not to say creepy, continuity between warped power-mad rug munchers in bad suits like Janet Reno and sexless white male "church ladies" like John Ashcroft.
You are confusing "strict constructionism" with textualism. In textualism, if the right isn't there, you don't have it.
Textualism is a pervertion that sees the Xth Amendment as a nullity. It confers no rights.
Most "strict constructionists" are textualists in sheep's clothing.
Want on my "Moral Absolutes" Ping list? I already do the Homosexual Agenda one, and just started this one.
I expect a lot of flack, especially from the porn apologists.
;-)
Respectfully no. I am a strict constructionist of a variety that has been called "originalists." I found this out in www and I think it describes me pretty well:
Eight Reasons to be an Originalist
1. Originalism reduces the likelihood that unelected judges will seize the reigns of power from elected representatives.
2. Originalism in the long run better preserves the authority of the Court.
3. Non-originalism allows too much room for judges to impose their own subjective and elitist values. Judges need neutral, objective criteria to make legitimate decisions. The understanding of the framers and ratifiers of a constitutional clause provide those neutral criteria.
4. Lochner vs. New York (widely considered to be a bad non-originalist decision).
5. Leaving it to the people to amend their Constitution when need be promotes serious public debate about government and its limitations.
6. Originalism better respects the notion of the Constitution as a binding contract.
7. If a constitutional amendment passed today, we would expect a court five years (or later) from now to ask what we intended to adopt.
8. Originalism more often forces legislatures to reconsider and possibly repeal or amend their own bad laws, rather than to leave it to the courts to get rid of them.
.. Examples of Originalist Judges
Justice Hugo Black
Justice Antonin Scalia
Justice Clarence Thomas
Judge Robert Bork
BTW - I consider the 10th to be an important ammendment. It limits the powers of the federal government to those spelled out in the constitution. Plus, it reserves for states, or the people, any thing else not specifically forbidden to them in the constitution. That is hardly a view that nullifies the 10th.
Blah, blah---meaningless bumbling of crypto rote pet phrases constructed by religious fanactic who think their mission in life is to tell me what I can read, to what movie I can go or rent, and anything else they choose to dislike for others. Freedom is the foundation of this country. There are hundreds of books on the shelves of your local library that describe freedom. Perhaps you might read a few---that is, of course, if there are any left after you and your kindred fanactics get throught burning them.
I have the same issue with photographic memory (even at age 48). I foolishly viewed 3 of the jihadi beheading movies on the net. Unfortunately, I can replay the damn things in my head with full color and sound. I can't watch another one. Photographic memory is a blessing and a curse. You must choose wisely when you decide to observe something.
The "Anne Coulter" picture above is a worthwhile one to observe. It stands in stark contrast to the one of Nancy Pelosi dressed as a dominatrix in scanty leather with a whip in hand.
The question was...... What's wrong with making pornography harder to access for children?!?
And childless.
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