The deadly truth about porn

[notice]Broadcasters like e.tv and Top TV believe it is their constitutional right to profit from the lucrative pornography industry. And adult porn consumers say it is their human right to choose what they want to view in private: nobody is getting hurt and those who don’t want to watch can switch off the TV or block Internet porn content. But the problem is that pornography is very destructive and addictive and is linked to child abuse, rape and violent crime in South Africa and the world, writes DIANNE STEVEN in this overview of the escalating problem with porn.[/notice]

Pornography does harm! It destroys the minds and morals of men — and increasingly of women. It degrades and dehumanises women. It tears at the moral fabric of our society. It diminishes the importance of family. Porn encourages promiscuity and portrays rape as desirable. Porn increases the crime rate as well as the rate of sexually transmitted diseases.

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You may think you know what the child pornography industry is. It is naked children forced to expose themselves. It is adults having sex with children, even babies. It is the rape, torture and sometimes murder of little children, all for the pleasure or sexual gratification of someone addicted to pornography! Pornography violates a child’s right to life, wellbeing and security which is the birthright of every child.

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It takes 3/10ths of a second for a pornographic picture or symbol to flood the brain with sensory experiences. Pictorial images have a more immediate and profound physical effect on the viewer than verbal or textual information, especially as visual pornography is designed to excite and stimulate the senses.

What we see influences what we think and therefore what we do. Actions flow from thought patterns. What you see influences what you become. Exposure to sexually explicit material will affect your thought patterns and habits.

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Steps to addiction
A clinical psychologist at the University of Utah, USA, describes the four-step process whereby a person becomes addicted to porn:-

Step 1: “Addiction” to the material and repeated return to it for sexual excitement.

Step 2: “Escalation” in the individual’s need for more explicit, deviant and sexually shocking material to achieve the same level of sexual stimulation.

Step 3: “Desensitisation” towards initially gross and shocking material so that, in time, this material becomes acceptable and desirable to the viewer.

Step 4: Increased tendency to “Acting Out” sexual activities seen.

Clearly pornography is addictive, progressive and dangerous. Pornography desensitizes, removes inhibitions and undermines moral restraint. Pornography is destructive, destroying morals, minds, minors and marriages.

Pornography is not like taking a conventional drug; it is endogenously processed, originating from within, producing an abnormal amount of multiple drugs, providing intense, sensory rewards.

Looking at pornography causes the brain to release a cocktail of erotic toxins:  The brain produces dopamine which is the brain’s own cocaine (responsible for a feeling of pleasantness). The brain also produces serotonin, the brain’s LSD. And it produces norepinephrine (the body’s adrenaline) and endorphins which are the body’s morphines.

Chemical flooding of the brain can override a person’s mental thinking pattern and perception, interfering with rational decisions. With most addictions, including porn addiction, the “thinking brain” (frontal lobe) shrinks, and the addict becomes impulsive, compulsive, aggressive and emotionally unstable, exhibiting impaired judgement and acting inappropriately.

An insatiable cancer
As with substance addiction, pornographic addiction is progressive – the addict needs continuously stronger “kicks” in order to get the same amount of pleasure. Porn is an insatiable cancer, stalking and devouring with an ever-increasing appetite. Pornography and sexual pleasure become increasingly more perverse.

Research clearly shows that porn, even ‘soft-core’ porn, is linked to increased levels of rape, child abuse, murder, violence against women and domestic violence. Pornography is hostile to law and morality. It favours rebellion against morality and advocates and encourages adultery, homosexuality, perversion and carnal desire. Pornography discriminates against and exploits women and children for profit.

Testimony presented to the US Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography led them to unanimously declare that hard core pornography is a “manual for rape.”

South Africa is experiencing an onslaught of pornography. A 2008 survey of more than 1 000 students ages 13-17 in three major cities found that 67% (84% of boys and 54% of girls) have seen a pornographic film; 45% report watching such films regularly. 

Pornography is on the increase but do we have adequate statistics today? The latest statistics from the South African Police Service reflect crimes reported to police between March 31 2011 and April 1 2012. Statistics from different crimes were grouped together. The sexual offences category, for example, included about 50 different crimes, with everything from pornography to rape lumped into one category. So today there are no separate pornography statistics to be found.

 But there is a growing body of evidence linking porn to social evils:

Rape …

• Reports and studies show that pornography plays a significant role in the occurrence of rape and sexual assault.
• Cape Town SAFELINE counselor Lindi Wadhams says, “About 80% of the perpetrators of sexual offences I worked with admitted to being involved with pornography ranging from soft core pornography to hard core pornography.” According to one sexual offender, “I can say that pornography definitely played a role in my abusive patterns. I have no doubt in my mind that from my experience, pornography should be banned and that it is harmful.” (In The Pornography Debate edited by D. Meissner)
• Based on US Census estimates of the number of adult women in America, one out of every eight adult women, or at least 12.1 million American women, has been the victim of forcible rape in her lifetime (National Victim Center, 1992).The rape rate and the actual number of rapes doubled between 1960 and 1970, doubled again between 1970 and 1980 and increased again during the ’80s. This increase coincides with the increased availability of illegal, hard-core pornography. (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1986)
• 86% of rapists admitted regular use of pornography, with 57% acting out the scenes depicted. (Marshall, 1985)
• Rapists are 15 times more likely than other people to have had exposure to hardcore porn during childhood. (Goldstein, Kant and Harman, 1973.)

Crime …

• Research conducted on 36 serial murderers revealed that 81 percent reported pornography as one of their highest sexual interests. (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1987)
• When police found the bloodstained body of 7 year old Ramonde Jacobs, of Mitchells Plain, Western Cape, they discovered the pornography saturated room of the rapist who had murdered her. The walls were covered with pin-ups from Scope, Stag and Bunny Girl (Cape Times, June 1991).
• Nineteen year old Elvis Jotamo testified in court that it was while paging through a Scope magazine that he visualised a sexual fantasy with an acquaintance. Over a six week period his fantasy developed into an obsession. He testified of how he had strangled Linsey Boyd and then had sex with her corpse (Die Burger 5/8/93).
• Convicted serial killer and Norwood rapist, Jacobus Geldenhuys,26, was convicted of 15 charges including five counts of murder and three of rape. His constant obsession with violent and pornographic videos could also have played an indirect role in the happenings, the Rand Supreme Court heard (Citizen, 21/9/93).
• Ted Bundy, serial killer of possibly 31 young women, on the night before he was executed stated unequivocally that it was pornography that initially got him into rape and murder.
• In a national poll of mental health professionals, 254 psychotherapists reported cases in which pornography was found to be an instigator or contributor to a sex crime, personality disturbance or antisocial act. (Lipkin & Carnes, 1970)
• An astounding 81% of sex killers reported their biggest sexual interest was in reading pornographic materials.
  Pornography serves as fuel for the fire. (Blanchard, Geral. “Sex Offender Treatment: A Psycho educational Model,” 1989)
• Research done in cities including Boston, Seattle, Houston, Los Angeles and New York confirm the relationship of pornography outlets to increased crime.

Child Molestation …

• The Los Angeles Police Dept. found that in 60% of child molestation cases, adult or child porn was used to destroy the conscience of the child and teach them to model perverse behaviour. (US Department of Justice, 1985)
• Paedophiles report having molested from 30 to 60 children each before they were first arrested. The typical molester will sexually abuse up to 380 children in a lifetime. (Abel, 1986)
• Pornography, especially child pornography, is used by paedophiles for three reasons: (1) to stimulate themselves; (2) to destroy the consciences and lower the inhibitions and resistance to sexual activity in their intended child victims; (3) to teach the child what to model in the sexual encounter with the adult. (Det Bill Dworin, Sexually Exploited Child Unit, LAPD)
• 87 percent of molesters of girls and 77 percent of molesters of boys studied in Ontario, Canada, admitted to regular use of hardcore pornography. (Dr William Marshall, 1983)
• Most of the models appearing in child pornography are likely to be incest victims being exploited by their parents or other adults. (Duncan, 1988)

Pornography addiction cannot be detoxified from the brain, so it is far more difficult to treat than drug addiction! Only a power greater than your own can set you free, that of the Holy Spirit! Turn to Jesus Christ for help! Jesus says in John 8:32 “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free”.

References:

1. Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence, Bantam Books, New York, 1997, f 5 at.17 http://www.drjudithreisman.com/archives/brain.pdf.
2. The Psychopharmacology of Pictorial Pornography Restructuring Brain, Mind & Memory,and Subverting Freedom of Speech; by Judith A. Reisman, Ph. D http://www.drjudithreisman.com/archives/brain.pdf.
3. Child Pornography; published by the Film and Publication Board/2006 http://www.pmg.org.za/files/docs/070607b27b-06_0.pdf.
   
4. Crime statistics show marginal improvement http://mg.co.za/article/2012-09-20-marginal-improvement-in-crime-stats
5. http://www.info.gov.za/speeches/2008/08052111451005.htm