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Internet Porn More Addictive Than Crack, Senate Told
applemasker writes "Wired says that the Senate heard testimony today that internet porn is 'worse than crack.' Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) called it the most disturbing hearing he'd ever heard in the Senate, saying that porn is ubiquitous now but 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.' Can someone submit a FOIA request for his browser history or cache?"
...a bill passed into law extending the ban on taxing internet access, a move that is very good for consumers.
Of course, this being slashdot, we'll post a story about it before the vote, not update it when the desired vote actually occurs, not post a new story about it passing, and instead post a story about a lone Senator's response to a University of Pennsylvania scientist's valid research opinions[1] (just as valid as, say, some sociology students alleging studying shaky, unprovable statistical anomalies in Florida voting, even as the MIT/Caltech Voting Project says there was no widespread fraud, tampering, or errors).
Surprisingly, a person who works at a sex toy shop called Good Vibrations doesn't agree with the researcher's conclusions!
Let's just face the facts that some people are more prone to addictive behaviors, and it can happen with anything: drugs, shopping, gambling, sex, and yes, pornography. The putative argument is that with the abundance of free porn on the internet, a porn addiction has the potential to be much more damaging, since it doesn't require the resources that other common addictions might. This is perfectly valid; it doesn't imply that everyone will be addicted to porn (or anything else), nor does it mean that internet porn will be "banned". It simply says an addiction with a free neverending supply can be harmful.
Is anyone the least bit surprised or concerned that a conservative Christian Republican senator from Kansas found the testimony "disturbing". How is this news?
(And as for the crack in the summary, believe it or not, there are some people who probably haven't had occasion to view porn on their computers. No. Really.)
[1]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.
at least it doesn't make you bankrupt and chemically unbalanced. It just gives you a chaffed knob and strong forearms.
When was the last time somebody was arested for busting into a house to steal e-porn from a harddrive?
Table-ized A.I.
YOU CAN PRY MY PORN FROM MY WARM STICKY HANDS!!!!!
Imagine how much funnier that could have been without the slashdot lameness filters.
Some things were meant to be yelled.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Hopefully they'll mention my air and water addiction in the next Congress.
Cool! Amazing Toys.
Pornography leads to boob jobs? May I ask why this is being presented to the Senate Committee on Science, Technology and Space Subcommittee? Now I'm not an advocate of pornography but if I were going to argue against it, I'd try to base my arguments on less personal-value laden arguments than this. And that's leaving aside dodgy use of science. Example: Suggesting that boys and girls don't masturbate without pornography? Children masturbate before they even understand sexual attraction, let alone requiring pornography post-puberty.
But here's another highlight,
Erototoxins? Is this an attempt to re-brand a need for sexual stimulationas a medical condition again? You know that way they could overturn any constitutional protections under the guise of medical treatment, much like drug companies are pushing their drugs that render people resistant to illegal drugs. Why do I get the feeling that these people would like to be able to prevent sexual desire wherever they deem it innappropriate.
The whole basis of this article seems to be that somebody has shown correlation in the brain between pleasure from drugs and pleasure from sex... as far as I understand the article, the correlation appears to be something called, um... pleasure.
I think if you watch a lot of pornography, then that can distance you from other people and perhaps interfere with forming a healthy relationship with your parter, but who knows - it's just my feeling. I don't think anyone with a brain whichever side of the argument they fall on could see this article being anything other than bollocks.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
OK, maybe that broke down a little at the end there. But the point is, porn isn't addictive - sex is.
I can quit any time I want. I just dont want to.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
This going to get worse and worse now that the Republicans (notice I don't say conservatives) have control and the Christian Right feel like they are owed something for shutting up and not scaring the moderates away like they did during the Clinton era elections.
There is a lot of porn on the net and if you arent some by-product of the very culture that is so freaked-out about it in the first place you'd probably find it as boring and silly as it truly is.
-_-
Coffee is addictive and so is tea and so are many other things in life. Some people are addicted to books. I have never seen senate debating library addiction PROBLEM? Before they should discuss internet porn addiction, they should show clearly that it is a problem which needs immediate addressing. Americans access more internet porn then many other nations in middle east, africa etc, but I don't think those countries have any less sexual crimes than USA.
"internet porn is 'worse than crack.'"
People are going to make fun of this line but its a very serious problem. Have you ever seen a porn baby you insensitive clod?!
-- "of course thats just my opinion, I could be wrong." --Dennis Miller
Cause I've downloaded internet porn while smoking crack and so I can say from first hand experience (and later, second hand) that when my DSL went down I was pissed BUT I didn't get out of my chair until the crack ran out.
Seriously though this is just some more alarmist bullshit from those special folks out there who live in mortal terror that someone, somewhere might be getting a nut or even enjoying something a little bit. They're just busy trying to save us from ourselves again. Nothing new here.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
The Senate never heard of /.
"The Select Senate Subcommittee on Slashdot Addiction calls its first witness. Ms. Portman, would you please stand and raise your right hand..."
k.
"In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart." - Anne Frank
saying that porn is ubiquitous now but 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.'
Oh yeah. Porn's ubiquitousness now is leading us into the darkness of...
of...
Politics?
I think his point is that porn led him into politics. I bet he read in some Playboy article that the Kennedies get all the hot chicks. And he got that Playboy from some guy in a dark alley. So now that he's a sentator, he's going to do his best to keep that secret, and that way *he'll* get all the hot chicks.
What a devious bastard.
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
..yeah we here in the senate have been researching this for a while now...
And its more addictive than cigarettes..
seee here, thats why we can't stop. Its not that we're wasting tax payers money on our newley beeded up T3 lines running into the capital.
Those RIAA/MPAA supenas to my office were obviouslly caused by our affliction.
Really...
experts on the topic at hand
heh, heh... Beavis, you just said "at hand"... heh, heh...
In order to make such a statement, you would have to be on crack.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Addiction is a reification, and that's where the problem comes in. We've blurred the use of addiction in society until the abstract definition of addiction - the need to perform some behavior compulsively - determines the connotation of the word. The only meaning of the word addiction that applies to physical reality is that version that arises from biological adaptation to the ingestion of substances, which some people (alcoholics, for one) are much more prone to. Continued use develops continued need, and soon, their bodies (literally) depend on the substances for normal functioning, as they have stopped producing sufficient amounts of affected neurotransmitters on their own.
The other connotation of addiction is the one we refer to in common speech - when a person repeats behaviors, regardless of the consequences or his/her own inclination to do so. So we speak of those addicted to shopping, grooming, sex, or any other behavior a person focuses on for what others would deem an unhealthy period of time (this behavior is almost always a vice, or capable of becoming one in excess). This is where our definitions overlap and the problem first appears. Any thought or behavior is necessarily biological. What's more, for all of human history, people have tried to resist pleasure, such as eating or sex, that is innately tied with both biological reward and negative consequences. And in this way, the reward and the strong drive to perform the behaviors that bring about this reward are abstracted on the basis of their biological similarity (the same brain rewards both behaviors) and the strikingly similar behaviors of those deemed addicted (when you want to do something, you do it). But when we do this, we overstep the bounds of the word addiction, and soon we start regulating all human behavior associated with pleasure, negative consequences, and an obsessive quality into the category of addiction. Now, if you think that a reasonable definition of addiction is one that can apply to any pleasure-deriving activity, including every vice, that's your opinion. It just happens to be a very wrong one.
It's hard not to do the things we like. They make us feel the same (happy) as heroin makes heroin addicts feel (happy). And for all of human history, we've been trying to figure out how to suppress the human tendencies toward pleasure that can hurt and destroy us. But when we speak like this, we replace a deeper understanding of human action with the shallow descriptions of behavior we read in magazines. I used to smoke cigarettes, and I occasionally smoke pot. When I quit smoking, I felt nuts, like I was losing something that my body depended upon. When you're a smoker, you can't remember what it was like to be a non-smoker - to go a day without thinking of a cigarette. It was the hardest thing I've ever done, and if you non-smokers could imagine that suffering, you'd know what we mean we when talk about addiction. When I stop smoking pot, I feel upset that I'm not doing what I like to do, and I want to smoke. But I when I stopped smoking cigarettes, I couldn't think, my head felt like it was being smashed, and I wasn't able to register anything other than my shaking and desire for a cigarette.
There is a biological reality to real addiction. The rest is human behavior and the same attraction to vice that we've lived with for years. While this is necessarily biology, it arises naturally from human behavior, and is not caused by physical adaption to external agents and chemicals that act upon the body. This is a critical distinction, and not one easily understood by half-rate thinkers, people who read magazines, and those who've never wanted a cigarette.
This shit gets so old. First comes convincing people that others aren't in control of their actions. That's the only way a person can say "stop doing this action, even though it doesn't affect me, because I don't like it" without getting laughed at. Listen to this quote from the article: "Pornography really does, unlike other addictions, biolog
I'd stand with you, but I've got no pants on.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
Please do not group all Christians into the same category as these people. Not all Christians believe that the government should be used to force our values down others throats. Besides, this isn't really about Christianity or religion, it is about power and the ability to control people.
Hell, if these people in congress really believed what they say they believe they would act and vote differently.
Someone just crapped a brick.
Fortunately a cameraman was there to film it and it'll soon be released on DVD.
It's an interesting tactic, to classify those who disagree with you as "addicts". Welcome to the Brave New World. Soon Pfizer will have a pill that'll "cure" you of liking to watch women make out. I'll take a stab at naming it: Noleztra.
Hell, maybe one day we'll have a pill that eliminates compassion. (pops pill) Ahhh, fuck 'em.
-dameron
------
DailyHaiku.com, saying more in 17 syllables than big media says all day.
This is mumbo-jumbo as far as I can tell. Note how quickly Dr. Reisman -- her Ph.D. is in Communications, and she has no education in medicine -- goes from coining a brand new word to describe something she cannot prove exists ("what I dub erototoxins") to using that word as if the substance is real ("study erototoxins"). Along the way she uses partial quotes out of context, and prepends her views on pornography to a quote that matter-of-factly describes an obvious fact about the brain.
And if you missed it -- yes -- she is railing against "sexually explicit sex education." She is saying that sex ed causes brain damage.
This is the same woman who thinks the Catholic Church should sue because priests molested children.
"I was gonna go fuck the neighbor boy, but the bus sign reminded me not to," testified recovering child fucker N.Curable-Sicko. "Until now, nothing had been able to stop me from having my way with them, not even the prospect of being sent to prison where I'd be raped constantly. Now, with the bus signs, I'm able to control my urges."
Internet porn is more addictive than Christ.
And it has them worried.
Howard Roark, Architect
I believe in a Man's right to exist for his own sake.
First, my background. I am an Evangelical Christian, as well as a future law student. I vote Republican more often than Democrat (not particularly liking either party), but am also a financial supporter of the EFF.
Do I believe pornography to be morally wrong? Without question. Do I believe pornography should be heavily regulated beyond how it currently is? Not necessarily.
My default position on any issue is "Show love, and respect personal liberty." The first aspect is inviolable, as God incarnated in Jesus directly commanded us to love Him and others, setting this as the most important consideration in any situation.
As to the second aspect, at heart I'm a Libertarian. However, there are many situations where personal liberty should not be respected. Your personal liberty to fire a shotgun should not be allowed when I am standing directly in front of said shotgun. Here, the consideration overriding your personal liberty is the harm done to others. (Our consideration of showing love incarnates itself by respecting human dignity in punishment that is humane and, when possible, rehabilitative.)
So let's apply these two principles to a third. Specifically, Christianity's political-legal struggles are more successful when the Christian stance is argued from the same secular assumptions that are largely shared by the other side.
Beating a Bible may produce (what I hold to be) Truth, but that "evidence" is inadmissable in a court under our current interpretation of the Establishment Clause (a discussion in and of itself). So Christianity needs to divorce the morality play from this and show the secular manifestations of harm produced by pornography. The current tactics fail to show love to the "other side" by, quite frankly, insulting your intelligence.
Coming up with new jargon like "erototoxins" or whatever is worthless without science to back it up. If there is a medical basis, using established tests for addiction, to the argument that pornography feeds into itself and leads to self-destructive behavior and other costs that society is unwilling to absorb, then we need to see that medical basis clearly presented.
A complimentary line of reasoning might be similar to that used against tobacco companies: the product is addictive (to a point society is not willing to tolerate) and individuals are not necessarily aware of that addiction.
But screaming "this leads to masturbation!" is not going to get us anywhere.
I would personally love to see less pornography on the Internet at large, as I know firsthand the destruction to self-control and personal relationships that it can bring.
But we cannot sacrifice personal liberty in the process without a compelling reason. I do not believe that compelling reason has yet been articulated under secular reasoning.
- Neil Wehneman
My legal education, in nifty podcast format
"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."
So what the researcher here is actually saying, is that sex is addictive, and therefore bad.
Um.. let's try to take a rational view here?
Sex is a normal and healthy thing. (For some of you, yes, that includes masturbation.)
So, some people get obssessed about sex. True. But most people don't. Heck, there are obsessive bingo players out there.
But as long as the vast majority of people aren't getting hurt, why would the solution be to stop engaging in the addictive activity?
It's amazing how they can't ban smoking, which is directly harmful for everyone who uses it, and even those around them, but pornography is obviously fair game.
But let me guess: This isn't really about public health at all, is it?
It was shown that prayer messes up your brain even more. Basically your brain releases serotonin when you pray and it makes you "feel better". Religion is just as addictive as drugs and porn, and if government insists on regulating the last two they should consider regulate the first one. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd= Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=1459474 2
...virtually everything I knew about sex I learned from the Internet.
Recently, however, I had the oppertunity to sit down and have a very open-minded discussion with a relative of the opposite gender to find out which things were true and which weren't.
As a result, my first experience (*) will be much more enjoyable and safe for both parties involved than it would have been had the discussion not taken place.
(*) Yes, I admit it hasn't happened yet. No, that's not a valid Slashdot stereotype.
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It saddens me that people like this are considered "experts" worthy of testifying before congress thanks to the fundies being in control.
pornographic images stay in the brain forever
That's a feature, not a bug.
-God
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
A difference of willingness is a fair bet with, say introducing a third party into the sex relationship (jealousy is very common), but I can't possibly tell you how many couples enjoy porn together, based on what I've personally observed. Models, Ivy leaguers, union members, women's college grads, Christians, Jews, blue collar workers, Midwesterners, Europeans, Asians, gay men, African-Americans, lesbians, nerds, virgins; outside of religious fundamentalists, I can't think of a single group I haven't personally observed to show enthusiam for porn (well, maybe Arabs, but I'm not ready to lump them in with their fundamentalist brethren just because I lack sufficient cultural exposure). Except for Canadians; they might just be Satan's squeaky clean naughty milkmaids. Come here, Canada; you need a spanking.
People like to alter their consciousness (with drugs or otherwise). People like porn. Get used to it, and try to minimize harm. And frankly, that is 10,000 times more important than any particular moral bugaboo (and if you think otherwise, clearly you favor societal harm over disrupting your personal mental illnesses).
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
Crack, heroin, gambling, the big three right now--they all have the very real potential to take every dime a person owns without ever looking back, and for this reason they are legislated against.
Lemme see here. Someone doesn't like XYZ, so we'll make it illegal, thus driving it onto the black market, where the cost will rise by a factor of 100 and quality control will drop to null, and trade in the product will fall entirely into the domain of criminals. And when all that's done, and we're arresting 800,000 people a year for being caught holding a plant, then we'll pat ourselves on the back on what a kindly service we're doing making these expensive, dangerous, criminal drugs illegal. Do you really think heroin is illegal because it's expensive, or is it perhaps the other way around? May I remind you that hemp and marijuana at one time could be found growing in road-side ditches along half of all US roads? it's not called 'weed' for nothing.
Have you ever read some of the claims early proponents of prohibition made about drugs? They are farcical beyond the limits of credulity. The sort of things that only someone who was out to ban a product no matter what the reality would say. In fact, it sounds a lot like the outrageous claims the Kansas senator is spouting. How wonderful, Ashcroft kicks off the War on Copying, followed closely by the War on Porn. Give these guys a few more years, I'm sure they'll work their way through the entire dictionary of things to declare war on.
Dyolf Knip
I can't believe no one else has responded to this.
Here's a reason why a man might stay with a wife and kids: love. Do you really believe our ancestors were so fundamentally different in their emotions that they valued "ownership" above love?
I dispute your assertion that in "most" cases in the wild, "the strongest male has all the women and no responsibility for the children". Certainly in some cases the former is true, but not most. And the males of any species will have "biological" responsibilities; that is, they will seek to increase the survivability of their offspring.
Finally, I think your math is wrong if you believe 90% of women marry up. Where is that figure from? How many generations do you think that figure could hold?
Trust not a man who's rich in flax / His morals may be sadly lax
1. Most societies arranged marriges for profit and convience. Love never factored into it. It's only recent that the quaint notion of love had any force beyond poems and books.
/. prowling loser to every let it happen to me :).
2. I guess my point about most wild animals could be argued, but in any case that is certainly how human society operates. Strong, weathly men get desirable mates (and in the absence of anti-Bigamy laws, lots of them). Any King's Harem will prove my point.
Also, human males have no "biological responsibilities" after sex. There is no biological need, and in all likelyhood no biological desire. From a survivablity stand point, it makes much more sense for a man to have as many mates as posible, and let nature and the woman sort out which ones survive. From a social standpoint, unwanted, unneeded children are dangerous burden. The exception to this is a farmer in need of laborers. But machines make this exception moot.
3. The figure comes from www.nomarrige.com, take it as you will. From my own imperical evidence, I have never met a woman who married down or even on par.
I say that love is an illusion. A pleasant one that's fun to indulge in, but a poor one to base a stable society on. In any case it's a social construct. My main concern is that love needs practical social constructs if it's going to hold up against the real world.
You give people in mass too much credit. Taken as a whole they're nasty, lazy, brutish and selfish. They act out of practical considerations. Right now a marrige isn't practical for men. By contrast, it is very practical for women. This isn't idle speculation, it's fact of law. In times past women recieved protection under law because they were limited in society. Those limits have been largely removed (just ask Carly Fiorina), but the protections remain.
But take everything I say with a grain of salt. As someone who has watched his brother methodically destroyed by an unwanted child and a scheming woman, I'm a tad bitter. Fortunately, I'm too much of a
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Now that this sense of ownership is gone (and has been replaced by a new breed of woman who have all the privileges and none of the responsiblites of marriage), men are leaving in droves. Hence the high devorice rate and number of fathers who won't support their children.
I call bullshit, since most divorces are initiated by women
As True Porn Clerk Stories put it...
I get sort of conflicted about throwing kids and teenagers out of the porn section. I really don't want them down there, not because I think sex is dirty or bad, but because I don't want them to think that that's what sex is about. The stuff on our boxes is sex in the basest, sometimes most brutal terms - naked women spreading their relevant orifices and making that Porn Face. Unless you're talking about the Max Hardcore series, which involves women with "SLUT" and "WHORE" written across their foreheads in lipstick. And besides - do we really need to raise another generation of men who can't deal with pubic hair?
So I don't feel bad about getting them out of there, except that I'm very conscious of the fact that I'm a woman while I'm doing it. I worry that I'm either setting up or reinforcing the idea that there are fun, bad women who like sex and good, boring women who restrict access to sex.
I always want to debrief them. "Hey, guys, it's cool that you're curious, but this isn't the way to find out. Porn is fine, but it's not real sex. Real sex is great, and even good girls love it, but it has to be a two-way street..." But I always just end up with "Sorry, guys - come back when you're 21." Perhaps I should write a children's book. Porn Is Healthy and Fine, but Only as a Temporary Physical Release.
It's true. Most of it is just incompetent, but some of it is actively... repulsive. Well, to me at least. The "Bangbus" stuff that was so, so popular on the campus network just left me kinda icked out. Where's the fun in degrading someone like that?
Now, compare that with Buttman: The Fashionistas, in which everyone's having a grand old time beating the heck out of each other. Because the participants wear wackier clothing and hit each other, it's supposedly more perverse... but I find it a lot more wholesome than "Bangbus" or anything in a similar mold.
'Course, given that I get all my porn from the internet, or make it myself, I probably don't have a representative sample.
Perhaps I'm missing something. Is there something terribly alluring about bullying women? It's like being in high school again.
I'd like to hear uplifting and affirming stories about good porn, if anyone has 'em.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Let's just face it, the United States is becoming a puritan state. Consider: the FCC is seeking to extend it's powers to Cable, Satellite, and Internet (because violence doesn't hurt people, sex does. Just watch broadcast television); there is drastically more funding to combat "obsenity" (read: blasphemy), and now we're having senate hearings on the looming threat of pornagraphy (the ULTIMATE WMD?!?). You know what? I like to smoke, drink, and occasionally look at pictures of beautiful naked women. I don't smoke around people who don't like it, or in big crowds; I don't drink irresponsibly, and somehow I haven't had the urge to turn down the real thing. These are MY rights, not subject to the will of the people until they lead me to harm society. So, United States of Canada anyone?
pornographic images stay in the brain forever.
dare to test this hypothesis?