I will be called names for writing this column. It always happens. Raise the issue of the pornification of the culture and its fanatical devotees will come gunning for you. If they hope to be intimidating, they've forgotten what delete keys are for.
It's Christmastime and the Fox News Channel, the most conservative of the major media outlets, is running an ad for PajamaGrams, "the only gift guaranteed to get your wife or girlfriend to take her clothes off." The ads feature soft porn images of women disrobing and tossing slips and bras to the floor. The ads run at all times of the day and night. Thus do we usher in the season supposedly devoted to the Prince of Peace and the Festival of Lights.
We all know how far the pornification has gotten. A mainstream movie apparently treats the subject as cute and fun ("Zack and Miri Make a Porno") and it runs at the multiplex next to "Four Christmases" and "Madagascar." Hotels offer pornographic movies and omit the titles from the final bill. Victoria's Secret graces every mall — and its windows resemble the red light district of Amsterdam. Viagra and its imitators are hawked ceaselessly. Television, music videos, and supermarket checkout magazines contain the kinds of suggestive words and images that would once have been labeled soft porn.
We know this. But what is less well understood is the world of hard-core porn that was once the province of dingy "adults only" stores in the harsher parts of town but is now available to everyone at the click of a mouse.
Last week the Witherspoon Institute (http://www.winst.org) convened a conference on pornography at Princeton University and invited scholars from a variety of fields to contribute. The statistics are mind-numbing. Pamela Paul, author of "Pornified," reported that "Americans rent upwards of 800 million pornographic videos and DVDs per year. About one in five rented videos is porn. … Men look at pornography online more than they look at any other subject.
And 66 percent of 18-34 year old men visit a pornographic site every month."
They are not, Paul and others explained, looking at Playboy magazine-like images of naked women. Instead, they are descending into darker and darker realms where sadism, fetishes, and every imaginable oddity are proffered. Sex and violence are offered together. Women are presented in a degraded — not to say disgusting — fashion.
Surely only people with peculiar sexual tastes are drawn to this sort of thing, right? Not exactly. Psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Norman Doidge, author of "The Brain That Changes Itself," noted that pornography use actually changes the brains of consumers. Like other addictions, pornography use breeds tolerance and the need for more intensity to get the desired result. He quoted Tom Wolfe's "I Am Charlotte Simmons," in which a college kid asks casually, "Anybody got porn?" He is told that there are magazines on the third floor. He responds, "I've built up a tolerance to magazines … I need videos." Tolerance is the medically correct term, Doidge notes, which is why pornography becomes more and more graphic.
The men (and they are overwhelmingly men) who become hooked on this bilge are often miserable about it. They know that it affects their capacity to love and be loved by real women. As Doidge explained, "Pornographers promise healthy pleasure and a release from sexual tension, but what they often deliver is an addiction, tolerance, and an eventual decrease in pleasure. Paradoxically, the male patients I worked with often craved pornography but didn't like it." Hugh Hefner, the godfather of mainstream porn, apparently does not have normal sex with his many girlfriends. Despite the presence of up to seven comely young women in his bed at a time, he uses porn for sexual satisfaction. Think about that.
Internet pornography truly is, as one researcher put it, "a hidden public health hazard." It isn't cute or funny. Relationships are crashing, women are suffering in silence, and men and boys are becoming entrapped by it. The Witherspoon Institute has done a valuable thing by starting a more public conversation about this cultural poison.
To find out more about Mona Charen and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
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6 Comments | Post Comment
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Pornography is an "addiction" that physically "changes the brain"? Give me a break. That sounds like just another excuse to try to avoid responsibility for one's own thoughts, feelings and actions. "It's not my fault -- porn made me do it!" Isn't that precisely the mentality that conservatives are supposed to be against? You may choose not to believe it, Ms. Charen, but most adults are perfectly capable of deciding for themselves what material is appropriate for them to see, hear and read. Adults can distinguish between reality and fantasy. Those who lack that ability are called psychotics, and we put them in mental institutions.
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And as for Hugh Hefner's sexual habits: If it's true that he doesn't have "normal sex" (whatever your definition of "normal" is) and uses porn for gratification, could that just possibly be because he's EIGHTY-TWO YEARS OLD?
Comment: #1
Posted by: Scot Penslar
Fri Dec 19, 2008 9:29 PM
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I'm Sooooo tired of everything being "an addiction." "Bad," "Awful," etc.
Sex is the most natural thing in the world. We stop doing it? We all die out, and the roaches take over the planet.
Get over it.
Itr's natural, and porn is the best teacher of pleasure. You don't like? Don't watch. But don't tell me what I can watch.
Comment: #2
Posted by: Eric J White
Sat Dec 20, 2008 10:42 AM
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Most people (apparently including Ms. Charen) fail to realize that habitual use of porn (as well as alcohol, drugs, video games, ...) is a symptom of an underlying condition rather than a root problem itself. "Excessive" usage (there's a debate) may cause another level of problems such as Ms. Charen mentioned and these may in turn increase the damage that precipitated the habitual use.
As usual, Big Brother has consistently missed the mark in it's attempts to "control" problems like alcoholism and drug use. The gov't will, likewise, fail miserably if it tries to "control" porn. Treating the symptom does not heal the disease. Until the underlying condition - be it emotional or spiritual - is recognized and understood the sufferer must and will find relief.
Most likely pron use is a male condition due to the emotional differences between the sexes. Women turn to romance novels and soap operas for the same refuge and release that men find in porn - but their pursuits are socially acceptable.
Comment: #3
Posted by: mister
Sun Dec 21, 2008 5:04 PM
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All three of you (Scott, Eric, Mister) are completely missing Ms Charen's point. The observation that it brings about changes in the brain doesn't have anything to do with an attempt to avoid personal responsibility, and neither does it have anything to do with government censorship of adult materials. (Where are you guys getting this, anyway? I don't see a word about either of those concepts in Charen's article!) She's trying to point out that using this stuff to "get off" is more harmful to the mind that it seems - because like a lot of addictive drugs, the user needs stronger doses and harder forms of it to achieve the same level of satisfaction as before. As someone who has had struggles with this for over twenty years, I can speak to the truth of this. Right now in my life, I'm trying to break free of it for religious reasons - it does not seem particularly compatible with a God-centered existence. But even if you're not a Christian, it still makes sense to try to drive it out of your life...because what young men who get started on it don't realize is its insidious nature. It's one of those things that gets into your life and it grows and grows, and you don't realize it until it's too late and you find that you have to struggle hard to get it out of your life. I'm in a support group for recovering sexual addicts, and all of them have talked about the role that porn has played in their downfall, so I know I'm not the only one who realizes that Charen is right. She also rightly condemns the cultural rot it's brought about and the objectification of women. Don't any of you at least have a problem with that? What's the matter with you guys?
Comment: #4
Posted by: Matt
Mon Dec 22, 2008 5:59 PM
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I agree with Mona and what she has said. I especially do not like the TV commercials with enhancement for males and the ones with both male and female having their own KY Jelly. It is unfortunate that we live in a society that makes sex a selling point. (especially to the teens) Now with You Tube they can be exposed to and do their own videos. Keep writing Mona, there are many like me that appreciate you AND what you say in your column.
Comment: #5
Posted by: Bob Urbani
Tue Dec 23, 2008 5:34 AM
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As someone that has been down the dark path of porn addiction, I can't help but read some of the comments here and fear for the people that don't understand the true consequences of porn. Scot P. is in denial about what porn can do to people. Scot, while you may be in perfect control of yourself at all times, having an addiction does indeed change a person to the point they can become oblivious to life around them. That is outcome of an addiction and to have it is to understand it - whether it be alcolhol, drugs, porn, eating or anything else.
I know that many will feel this analogy is overused, but for those of you that don't truly understand addictions I feel you are the "frogs" that are sitting in warm water right now. The heat is being turned up - at what point will you realize you are boiling yourself to death? As a society, we are making porn available and "ok" without any regard to what it is doing to those that have addictive personalities. Again, those of us that have struggled to pull ourselves back to a healthy life and stay there know what the consequences can be.
By the way, if you won't trust Mona's words or my own, please look up Ted Bundy's interview with Dr. Dobson prior to his execution. He had nothing to lose or gain by giving this interview, but he felt compelled to give it and help others see how he got to be sitting on death row. He will tell you how a normal, well raised and healthy boy was influenced by porn. You can pass this off as an anomaly, but at what point will you believe that many sex offenders were influenced by the availability of porn in their lives? It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that the more someone sees and partakes in something, the more they become desensitized and oblivious to the effects it is having on them.
Comment: #6
Posted by: Mark
Mon Jan 5, 2009 10:15 AM
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