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Pornography
Indulgence in pornography can effect one's mental
health. (some words are not spelled out on this website so that more sensitive web filters allow.) One 23 year old man who
suffered with bi-polar disorder explained that once one has bi-polar, it is something that you are going to have for life,
according to his belief, and that a person would have to stay on medications for life in order to stay mentally balanced.
When the suggestion was made to cut down on TV and movies, cut out pornography and video games, tone down the type of hard
core type of music that he was listening to, he responded that he would rather take his chances with the medicine. His friends
would surely think he had gone out of his mind. All of those things were activities that he daily participated in. For many
young people dealing with mental health issues this can be the case.
Overcoming pornography addiction can be difficult. Pornography addiction is like a drug. We need to take a serious
hold on ourselves, and take a strong stand to overcome this problem. We have to “get tough with ourselves.” We
have to be determined not to be involved with pornography. Don’t keep pornography in the house. Don’t let it be
available. Internet pornography is the most readily accessible. Keep the filtering systems on high, or don’t have Internet
in the house. Throw away pornographic magazines in the house.
Prayer is of importance in overcoming pornography addiction, not being isolated, and having meaningful relationships, Bible reading, and exercise also help. Be honest, get help
from others.
The following is the testimony of
Dr. Mary Anne Layden
Co-Director, Sexual Trauma and Psychopathology Program
Center for Cognitive Therapy,
University of Pennsylvania
Given at a science, technology, and space hearing
US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation:
Thank you, Senators, for allowing me
to speak to you today.
Pornography, by its very nature, is an equal opportunity
toxin. It damages the viewer, the
performer, and the
spouses and the children of the viewers and the
performers. It is toxic mis-education about sex
and
relationships. It is more toxic the more you consume,
the ‚"harder‚" the variety you consume and the
younger and
more vulnerable the consumer.
The damage is both in the area of beliefs and behaviors.
The belief
damage may include Pornography Distortion,
Permission-Giving Beliefs and the attitudes about what
constitutes a healthy
sexual and emotional relationship.
The behavioral damage includes psychologically unhealthy
behaviors, socially inappropriate
behaviors and illegal
behaviors.
Let me give some examples. Pornography Distortion is a
set of beliefs based
in pornographic imagery, sent to
the viewer while they are aroused and reinforced by the
orgasm. An example of Pornography
Distortion would
include beliefs such as ‚"Sex is not about intimacy,
procreation or marriage. Sex is about
predatory
self-gratification, casual recreation, body parts,
violence, feces, strangers, children, animals and using
women as entertainment.‚" All of these are messages
regularly sent by pornography.
Permission-Giving
Beliefs are a set of beliefs that
imply that my behavior is normal, acceptable, common
and/or doesn't hurt anyone
so I have permission to
continue to behave in the way that I am. In all types of
violence and addiction, Permission-Giving
Beliefs are
involved. Examples would include ‚"All men go to
prostitutes‚" ‚"Women like sex mixed
with violence‚" and
‚"Children enjoy sex with adults‚". These particular
Permission-Giving Beliefs
are also common in pornography.
Both Pornography Distortion and Permission-Giving
Beliefs increase the problem
of mis-education about
sexuality and relationships. For example, the myth that
women are sexually aroused by engaging
in behaviors that
are actually sexually pleasuring to men is a
particularly narcissistic invention of the pornography
industry. This is sexual mis-education.
The consequences of all these distorted beliefs are
varied. For the
viewer, pornography increases the
likelihood of sexual addiction and they respond in ways
similar to other addicts.
Sexual addicts develop
tolerance and will need more and harder kinds of
pornographic material. They have escalating
compulsive
sexual behavior becoming more out of control and also
experience withdrawal symptoms if they stop the use
of
the sexual material. The executive who goes to his
office and logs on to the Internet porn sites at 9:00 AM
and
logs off at 5:00 PM is out of control and risks a
great deal.
Research indicates that 70% of the hits on
Internet
sex sites occur between 9-5 on business
computers. Research also indicates and my clinical
experience supports that
40% of sex addicts will lose
their spouse, 58% will suffer sever finanacial losses,
and 27-40% will lose their job
or profession. Those
whose marriages don't end, may find themselves
increasing dissatisfied with their spouses appearance
and sexual behavior and increasingly sexually acting out
which leads to an increase in sexually transmitted
diseases.
Research indicates that even non-sex addicts
will show brain reactions on PET scans while viewing
pornography similar
to cocaine addicts looking at images
of people taking cocaine. This material is potent,
addictive and permanently
implanted in the brain.
Those who use pornography have also been shown to be
more likely to engage in illegal
behavior as well.
Research indicates and my clinical experience supports
that those who use pornography are more likely
to go to
prostitutes, engage in domestic violence, stranger rape,
date rape, and incest. These behaviors should not
be
surprising since pornographic videos containing all of
these themes are readily available and the
permission-giving
beliefs of these pornographic videos
reinforced by the orgasm say that all these behaviors
are normal, acceptable,
common and don't hurt anyone.
I have also seen in my clinical experience that
pornography damages the sexual performance
of the
viewers.
Pornography viewers tend to have problems with
premature ejaculation and erectile dysfunction.
Having
spent so much time in unnatural sexual experiences with
paper, celluloid and cyberspace, they seem to find
it
difficult to have sex with a real human being.
Pornography is raising their expectation and demand for
types
and amounts of sexual experiences at the same time
it is reducing their ability to experience sex.
The viewers
are not the only ones to be affected by
pornography. The performers are damaged as well although
the performers were
often damaged before they entered
the industry. No healthy six-year-old growing up in a
healthy home environment says,
‚"I hope I grow up to be a
porn star, stripper or prostitute‚". Those who now work
in the porn industry
were often little girls who got
into their beds each night, rolled themselves into a
fetal position and each night
he came in and pealed her
open. They work in the porn industry with its physical
invasion and visual invasion because
it feels like home.
Once they are in the industry they have high rates of
substance abuse, typically alcohol and
cocaine,
depression, borderline personality disorder which is a
particularly serious disorder and dissociative identity
disorder which used to be called multiple personality
disorder. The experience I find most common among the
performers
is that they have to be drunk, high or
dissociated in order to go to work. Their work
environment is particularly
toxic.
One study on strippers indicated that they were likely to
be punched, slapped, grabbed, called cunt and
whore and to
be followed home or stalked. Not surprisingly, these women
often work with bodyguards. This live form
of
pornography causes violence and the customers receiving
these Permission-Giving Beliefs become carriers of these
beliefs back to their homes, onto their jobs, into the
street, onto the school yard. There they encounter women
and
children who do not have bodyguards.
The terrible work life of the pornography performer is
often followed by
an equally terrible home life. They
have an increased risk of sexually transmitted disease
including HIV, domestic
violence and have about a 25 %
chance of making a marriage that lasts as long as 3
years.
The viewers and
the performers of pornography are the
most direct victims. However, the children and the
partners are also damaged
by this industry. My clinical
experience indicates that the spouses of porn viewers
are often depressed, and are more
likely to have eating
disorders, body image disorders and low self-esteem.
These wives can't function in the fake
sexual world in
which their husbands live. The wives may try to please
their spouse by engaging in sexual behaviors
that they
find degrading. The wife may think that they can
increase the sexual energy in the relationship and
satisfy
her husband if she views the pornography with
him. My clinical experience is that these wives often
get a short-lived
boost in sexual activity but soon she
notices that when her husband is having sex with her, he
is turning around to
watch the porn on the TV screen.
She then realizes that he isn't having sex with her at
all. He's masturbating inside
her body while he is
having sex with the women on the screen.
Some wives will resort to plastic surgery especially
breast implants. Research indicates that women who get
breast implants are four times as likely to commit
suicide
as other women are.
The children also show the damage. As pornography
becomes normalized, it is left around the
house.
Children can get exposed to it. These are tender minds
that are just developing their conceptualizations of
sex. Normalizing abnormal sex increase the likelihood
that they will engage in these behaviors. This increases
the
likelihood of early sexual experience and with it,
the increasing risk of pregnancy, and sexually
transmitted diseases.
These children often think that
all relationships are sexual. That sex is the core of
their personalities and is the
way in which you raise
your self-esteem. This may be one reason that we see
sexual addiction running in families.
The distorted
beliefs are not only reinforced but modeled as well.
In one report in Australia, children who had
become sexual
predators before the age of 12, all had experienced
pornographic material on the Internet and large
numbers
believed that the only use of the Internet was for
pornographic material.
Children who have porn-viewing
fathers complain that
when he looks at them it feels ‚"creepy‚". The parental
gaze has now become the
‚"porn gaze‚". The child of the
porn user finds that every thing is now about sex.
There are no studies
and no data that indicate a benefit
from pornography use. If there were a benefit, then
pornography users, pornography
performers, their spouses
and their children would show the most benefit. Just the
opposite is true. The society is
awash in pornography
and so in fact the data is in. If pornography made us
healthy, we would be healthy by now.
End of article.
508 Dirksen Senate Office Bldg
Washington, DC 20510-6125
Tel: 202-224-5115
Good information on the subject of
pornography.
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