Internet Porn the new crack!

[CrazyyAngel]

Well ... just found this on wired.com.

Internet Porn: Worse Than Crack?

By Ryan Singel Ryan Singel | Also by this reporter
11:00 AM Nov, 19, 2004 EST

Internet pornography is the new crack cocaine, leading to addiction, misogyny, pedophilia, boob jobs and erectile dysfunction, according to clinicians and researchers testifying before a Senate committee Thursday.

Witnesses before the Senate Commerce Committee's Science, Technology and Space Subcommittee spared no superlative in their description of the negative effects of pornography.

Mary Anne Layden, co-director of the Sexual Trauma and Psychopathology Program at the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Cognitive Therapy, called porn the "most concerning thing to psychological health that I know of existing today."

"The internet is a perfect drug delivery system because you are anonymous, aroused and have role models for these behaviors," Layden said. "To have drug pumped into your house 24/7, free, and children know how to use it better than grown-ups know how to use it -- it's a perfect delivery system if we want to have a whole generation of young addicts who will never have the drug out of their mind."

Pornography addicts have a more difficult time recovering from their addiction than cocaine addicts, since coke users can get the drug out of their system, but pornographic images stay in the brain forever, Layden said.

Jeffrey Satinover, a psychiatrist and advisor to the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality echoed Layden's concern about the internet and the somatic effects of pornography.

"Pornography really does, unlike other addictions, biologically cause direct release of the most perfect addictive substance," Satinover said. "That is, it causes masturbation, which causes release of the naturally occurring opioids. It does what heroin can't do, in effect."

The internet is dangerous because it removes the inefficiency in the delivery of pornography, making porn much more ubiquitous than in the days when guys in trench coats would sell nudie postcards, Satinover said.

Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kansas), the subcommittee's chairman, called the hearing the most disturbing one he'd ever seen in the Senate. Brownback said porn was ubiquitous now, compared to when he was growing up and "some guy would sneak a magazine in somewhere and show some of us, but you had to find him at the right time."

The hearing came just days after a controversy over a sexually suggestive Monday Night Football ad that has many foreseeing a crackdown on indecency by the Federal Communications Commission.

It is unclear what the consequences of Thursday's hearing will be since it was not connected to any pending or proposed legislation.

Brownback, a conservative Christian, is also scheduled to be rotated off the sub-committee in the next session.

When Brownback asked the panelists for suggestions about what should be done, the responses were mild, considering their earlier indictment of pornography. Several suggested that federal money be allocated to fund brain-mapping studies into the physical effects of pornography.

Judith Reisman of the California Protective Parents Association suggested that more study of "erototoxins" could show how pornography is not speech-protected under the First Amendment.

The panelists all agreed that the government should fund health campaigns to educate the public about the dangers of pornography. The campaign should combat the messages of pornography by putting signs on buses saying sex with children is not OK, said Layden.

However, as the panelists themselves acknowledged, there is no consensus among mental health professionals about the dangers of porn or the use of the term "pornography addiction."

Many psychologists and most sexologists find the concepts of sex and pornography addiction problematic, said Carol Queen, staff sexologist for the San Francisco-based, woman-owned Good Vibrations.

Queen questioned the validity of the panel for not including anyone who thinks "pornography is not particularly problematic in most people's lives."

Queen acknowledges she can name people who have compulsive and destructive behavior centered on pornography, but argues that can happen with other activities, such as gambling and shopping.

Queen also criticized the methodology behind research showing that pornography stimulates the brain like drugs do, saying the research needs to take into account how sex itself stimulates the brain.

"There's no doubt the brain lights up when sexually aroused," Queen said.

Queen too would like to see more money devoted to research on sex, but thinks it is unlikely that researchers on either side of the divide are likely to receive large grants any time soon.

Studies intended to show the harmful effects of pornography must contend with ethical rules prohibiting harm to human subjects, while sex researchers have a hard time getting any funding, unless their study is specifically HIV-related, according to Queen.

Discuss ... I'll give my opinion later (once I made up my mind ) ...

And sorry if that was posted already.

CA

 

[ltnsfr007]

Well ... just found this on wired.com.



Discuss ... I'll give my opinion later (once I made up my mind ) ...

And sorry if that was posted already.

CA

 

[Selena_Kitt]

Queen questioned the validity of the panel for not including anyone who thinks "pornography is not particularly problematic in most people's lives."

Duh!!!!!! Hello!?!?

this is a witch hunt.

god, we live in strange times.

 

[cantdog]

Lovely to be a dealer, if it's the new crack. How about we make some money with it, now??

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

Lovely to be a dealer, if it's the new crack. How about we make some money with it, now??

Working on that myself. Why not? No self-respecting pusher does it for free.

God forbid that we consider pornography to simply be a Constitutionally protected expression of healthy human sexual diversity! Or that anyone have politically incorrect views on sex as a result of reading or viewing it. God forbid that the radical feminists and the religious right not be able to brainwash people into their view on human sexuality! And God forbid that different people simply have different personal lifestyles, according to their own preferences!

 

[cantdog]

All this talk about individual freedom is all very well, but show 'em a free individual and they get frightened right to the eye-teeth.

I wish some of these repression-mongers could be a cop or an ambulance attendant for a season. Because those folks obtrude into people's lives at moments when they have not prepared for company. As a former ambulance man, I can tell you that people live wildly different lives from one another. The houses may look the same, and the people may look very conventional in the workaday world. But behind those doors is a wide variety.

Alternatively, and the younger the better (before the blinders of doctrine go on the eyes for good and all), let them go to another country for a season, and take care to leave the resort and see the countryside. People live very differently just house to house, as I've told you, but it is even more obvious country to country.

The thing about all this variation which is the most striking? It all works pretty well for the different people who live it, barring epidemic, war, famine, flood or the like. Someone categorized Rachmaninoff as a universal good, on another thread. Said it was valuable to all people at all times. Hooey. India has its own classical music, which many a cultured Westerner finds opaque. Gamelon music in Indonesia, sitars in India, Shantung folk music and opera, throat singing... there is no such thing as a universal musical language any more than a spoken one.

Place has to be made for variation, and not just for the ancient traditions, but for experimentation. Improvisation is right up there with sex, man, as one of the best things in life.

 

[3113]

Pssst. Yeah. You.... (Opening up laptop) I got what you need! (Looking left and right down the alley) Pornography. Not that visual type. This is the hard core stuff. Written. By real writers. Interested?

 

[BigFatMeat]

That's a shame.

I think more and more people spend more and more time on the computer and less and less time with people -- you know, actually with them. Internet porn is...yeah. Bad. I gotta cut it out.