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.
Come on its a view point discussion...not an arguement on scientific logic. Children are involved in the porn industry....legal or not. It does induce unstable individuals to commit the vile acts depicted. It does degrade humans to a status even lower than animals!
The 1st amendment issues are thorny to be sure but men are most free when their consciences are free! And that is the question that faces us as a nation. Is it better to limit freedom in light of what is actually Morally right? And who decides what is morally right?
Slavery was such an issue...even acknowledged in the constitution in terms of voting representation....and we all know how that issue was decided!
Does free speach at any price actually denote freedom? Or, as Washington stated, do "Morality and religion" form the "twin pillars" upon which our all our freedoms rest?
What did "free speech" mean in terms of how our founders meant it? Did it mean freedom to make porn magazines with the first amendment stripped of any moral restraints as our courts are ruling now?
Argue those points "logically" with me now!
So you are saying that, in the absence of "porn", these people would not become serial killers? Is that what your argument is?
CA....
Slavery intrinsically violated individual rights; porn, if made and viewed by consenting adults, does not.
These fancy-pants doctors confuse me with all their scientific words, but if they're talking about the money shot, I don't think the actors are aiming for the actresses' brains. But I could be wrong...
Ahh the intrinsic arguement as in morality....right?
Slavery was wrong because it violated "intrinsic" moral laws...that is a moral arguement. Porn is wrong because it also violates intrinsic moral laws...that too is a moral arguement.
If we applied the same reasoning to slavery as we now do with porn, slavery might not have been abolished since the arguement now is that you can't legislate morality. After all there are many people who still believe that is right to have slaves...who are we to impose our morality on them?
Now I'm not stating there is any moral or ethical way to justify slavery, just as you would state there is no real way to morally justify porn.
So what did the founding fathers have in mind when they crafted the 1st ammendment? An amoral license to print, speak, perform, any moral perversion under the sun? Or was it more a document that allowed a more lofty debate regarding morality, ethics, politics, and needed governmental/societal scrutiny?
Serial killers actualize the 'pornographic dark fantasies' in their minds. You can't separate serial killers from their pornographic fantasies.
Pornography is nothing but dark sexual fantasies on celluloid. The type chosen by the user of it, tells something ugly and dark about that person.
Think about that if you are a porn user.
I'm not arguing scientific logic, I'm stating the undisputed fact that judicial precedent and case law are held in higher regard in this country than legislative law. Once you write a law that passes Constitutional muster to limit speech then you open the door to limits on other forms of speech.
All it will take is a clever lawyer and a willing panel of judges to use the 14th Amendment to apply the restriction on religious or political speech and then *poof* free speech is toast.
Also...
"Children are involved in the porn industry....legal or not."
Huh????
USC Title 18 prohibits children from being in porn. That law is nationwide. NOWHERE in the US is it legal to possess or view child pornography. Children are NOT legally involved in the porn industry.
Free speech at any price does not create freedom. Not at all. But people are not free unless they can speak freely.
Pornography can be prohibited by regulation in various media and I can see prohibiting internet pornography by saying that the internet is based on Darpanet (it is) and is therefore subject to Federal regulation.
It won't stop magazines or cable TV - but it will take a bite out of internet porn WITHOUT affecting general free speech.
Let me make clear: I do not support porn. But I dread giving liberals a weapon to use against the speech rights of conservatives and religious folks.
"Serial killers actualize the 'pornographic dark fantasies' in their minds. You can't separate serial killers from their pornographic fantasies."
So all the millions upon millions of people who view porn are serial killers? They have pornographic fantasies so that must make them killers, right?
Puh-leeze. What about the serial killers whose motivations are political or religious? How does your fallacious argument explain their actions?
You are arguing from the law that there is no child porn in this country but yet it certainly is happening....
but that is a separate argument from the main one we are having...Was the 1st amendment meant to be Amoral,...that is to say free of all religious and moral strictures in all contexts?
Could porn be done away with in the same way that slavery...once condoned morally by a great number of people was done away with?
Under what enumerated power of the federal government do you see this regulation being enacted?
DUH, DUH, DUH.
You said about child porn 'legal or not'.
Where, in the USA is child porn legal?
I never said it wasn't here. You, on the other hand, said it was >>legal<<.
Where, then, is it legal?
"Under what enumerated power of the federal government do you see this regulation being enacted?"
The Darpanet is Federally owned and funded. It would just take a regulation, albeit a very carefully crafted regulation, to prohibit porn from being transmitted over Federally owned servers, routers, and switches. The government simply has to excuse itself from the porn industry. Technically, it would not be a speech limitation of any kind, but a limitation of network service.
Certifiably private networks would be unaffected.
Certifiably private networks would be unaffected.
The government can do that now. There are segments of the IP address space set aside for government use, and traffic on those segments flows through government controlled routers. They can filter any IP address they want, and there are probably regulations in place that state that government owned servers shouldn't be used as porn servers. The vast majority of the internet servers, routers, switches, and even backbone segments are privately owned.
SNIP....Serial killers actualize the 'pornographic dark fantasies' in their minds........So all the millions upon millions of people who view porn are serial killers?
hmmm.....ya know Peter, you'd make one heck of a ballerina if you could transfer even a portion of your 'giant leap in reasoning' ability to your feet.
Simply put, this is the most ridiculous statement I've ever read on this site...and, believe me, there have been plenty of ridiculous things to see here the past six years.
What does porn have to do with a big gray crain-like bird?
"If you've seen one naked woman, you pretty much want to see them all."
NOT THE REALLY BIG ONES!
So what your saying is, I'm still normal, mostly. Thanks
MAYBE I NEED TO TRADE SOME OF THESE SMOKES IN ON SOME PORN, SPREAD MY ADDICTION AROUND A BIT.
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