Porn Is Like Heroin In The Brain

Focus On The Family ^ | Nov. 19, 2004 | Stuart Shepard

[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.

[Pahuanui]

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."

Yawn. More steaming gutter science bullcrap 'designed' to fool the rubes and keep them coming in the tent.

[Pahuanui]

What has been side stepped here by many is just how insidious a danger this stuff poses.

Please. What has been side stepped here is that those who make such statements as the one above have yet to substantiate their Chicken Little claims in any meaningful manner whatsoever.

[tacticalogic]

True, but because that power is not specifically forbidden to the states or the "people." As per the 10th ammendment, states can ban pornography and the Supreme Court should stay out of it.

But that's not what's being proposed by the people in this article.

[middie]

You have the honor of the last word even if it is nonsencical......

[Ksnavely]

Explicit pornagraphy is available to all??? Hmm well then go have your 14 year old son go try to buy one at a store and when they card him and refuse to sell we can see how available to all it really is.

[Ksnavely]

So you will just arbitrarily define what is free speech and what is obscenity??? That is a good idea. Going down that road what if some day people in power started to define conservatism and christianity as obscene??? Should they then have the power to limit free speech?

[Ksnavely]

Yes you did say rude and crude and no you cannot side step out of it. Your evasiveness just illustrates how exact my charge was. You are saying you see rude people, and we (the ones who are opposed to you fundamentalists dictating what can and cannot be seen and done by consenting adults) are the rude ones in your eyes. I agree that there are 2 ways to change the behavior. Either by force or by persuasion just like you said. So like I said earlier if you evangelicals think our culture is so horrible and immoral, why don't you go evangelize instead of trying to outsource that job to the legislative branch. When Jesus walked the earth did he go to Rome and try to have all the laws changed so people will be forced to fit into what he says is good and right? No he didn't, he loved, sacrificed, and died for what he believed in. Never once did he do what you are telling us to do. He changed hearts and empowered Christians with that ability. The fact that our culture is so depraved doesn't speak ill of the government or activist judges. It speaks ill of evangelicals Christians like yourself who have and still fail to see the obvious truth. And this putting you in boxes crap, well nice to see you can pull rhetorical crap out of your @$$.

[Sam the Sham]

For quite a few centuries, the plain ol' common walkin around sense of the American people was that pornography was bad and should be outlawed. Which it was by communities across the country. As is their democratic right.

Funny to hear a so-called "conservative" defend Warren Court liberal decisions by which the federal government declared thousands of local laws across the country null and void. This was "small government conservatism" ? It was nothing of the sort. It was the federalization of obscenity legislation trampling upon community statutes across the nation.

Shouldn't you be on DU screaming "keep your rosaries off my ovaries" alongside all the other deviants and secularists ?

[Sam the Sham]

For centuries communities have dictated what "can be done by consenting adults". That is because civilization is a fragile thing. License and depravity destroy it, which happens if they go unchecked.

Christians are part of this world. We are not a beleaguered sect in a hostile empire. We are the empire. So we must use the weapons available to us to fight evil. Did the righteous kings of the Old Testament tolerate Baal worship and confine themselves to preaching against it ? No. They tore down the sacred groves and high places and ran out the temple prostitutes. Elijah, a prophet so holy that he went straight to heaven, commanded the massacre of the Baal priests. In the early Christian communities were not the reprobate punished by expulsion ? Did not St Paul command the Corinthians to expel a member who was sleeping with his stepmother ? So obviously the early Christians used coercion among themselves to maintain and preserve holiness because "a little leaven ferments the whole lump".

You are on the wrong side. You should be on DU with the party of license and depravity sneering about "Jesusland".

[JeffAtlanta]

You guys want to critisize the "moral right"...but who do you think got George Bush re-elected?

Citizens that realize that Bush is very good leader in the war againt terrorism and that Kerry would have been terrible. 22% of voters cited morals as a reason for their vote. Iraq and terrorism were cited by 34% of the voters.

[JeffAtlanta]

Did the founders of this country envision naked titty dancing and the most graphic of graphic sexually explicit pornagraphy being protected under the label of "freedom of speech"?

They didn't envision a lot of things. The founders aren't gods, they were people that wrote what they meant.

[JeffAtlanta]

Know exactly what you mean. You can't "un-see" something once you've seen it.

If that were true no one would ever misplace their keys or not be able to find their car in a parking lot. Eye witnesses also wouldn't ever contradict one another.

[willyboyishere]

"That image is in your brain forever"

---

\
Not really, or HUSTLER would still be selling its first
issue over and over. Like Casanova, what the male mind and eye hungers for is the image recreated anew, and more of it, and yet more replacements AGAIN. This vulnerability ( or trait perhaps?) of the male psyche is not shared by the female psyche for some reason. It's been proven conclusively that females are not turned on by visuals the way males are. The male mind is a roving voyeur in search of a parted curtain in a lit window.

[JeffAtlanta]

To the libertarian, ACLU, Hollywood secular mentality, porn is protected speech. It wasn't before 1960.

And women couldn't vote before 1920. Sometimes the founders just didn't get it right the first time.

[JeffAtlanta]

I've seen the porn threads. The supporters get very rabid, and ruder and cruder than anywhere else on FR.

Could you list some examples from this thread?

[JeffAtlanta]

The fewer inner moral restraints people have, the more laws they need. The more they will demand the state protect them from the vices of others. This is the fatal flaw in libertarian ideology.

Could you give some concrete examples?

[JeffAtlanta]

So does pornography. Not all porn consumers are monsters. But porn will feed the evil of an already warped personality.

By your logic, since blacks make up a higher proportion of criminals, being black means a person is a criminal.

[af_vet_1981]

Free speech refers to expression of ideas, not obscenity. The ACLU and pornographers are the ones who got the leftist Nazgul SCOTUS to shove porn down everyones' throats, whether they want it in their neighborhood or not.

Yep, and they should be treated just like narcotics dealers.

[JeffAtlanta]

For quite a few centuries, the plain ol' common walkin around sense of the American people was that pornography was bad and should be outlawed

The United States has only been around for two centuries - a far cry from "quite a few". Regardless, for almost half of America's history, slavery was seen to be ok. For about 2/3 of the nation's history, the plain ol' common walkin around sense was that women shouldn't be allowed to vote.

[gitmo]

It would be impossible to show a correlation between pornograpy and crime unless you inspect houses of criminals and non-criminals alike.

Besides, what part of this article wouldn't apply to liberalism just as well. Liberal trash is burned in the brain forever, and in some people leads to violent crime.