Disclaimer> This is only a draft! This is not done yet! So many of you, have begged and begged to see it that I decided to post it anyway. This is my baby, my Mona Lisa my 9th symphony. The Pizza day Resist-ah-nce.
Pornography: The Drug Of Generation X
The nineteen sixties, a time of sex, drugs and rock and roll. Drugs became prevalent, acceptable and easily accessible. In 1966 Richard Goldstien's expansive expose featured in the Saturday Evening Post uncovered the prevalent drug use in top tier "ivy covered campuses" (Goldstien 40), schools like Harvard, Berkley and Columbia University. "The long haired element those who were usually called 'ethnic,' 'beatnik,' 'folkie' or 'fringe,' [were] often a major source of marijuana but is a grave mistake to assume that these students [were] the only one's who used drugs. Drugs [began] to invade 'respectable' areas of campus life" (Goldstien 40). There was no end to the variety or the accessibility of drugs on college campuses in the sixties.
In 2010, a new drug assaults college campuses of "Generation X" or "The Internet Generation." The youth of this generation are the children and grandchildren of the sixties cohort. Unlike the drugs used by their parents this drug is not injected, inhaled or even swallowed this drug is ingested through the eyes. More additive than heroine, crack and cocaine; very few addicts to this drug will ever recover (Hess). What is this drug? This drug is pornography!
Pornography's pervasive popularity far exceeds that of the drugs available to previous generations because it's cheap and easily accessible. One needs only to turn on a television or have access to the internet.
With the advent of the computer, the delivery system for this addictive stimulus has become nearly resistance-free. It is a though we have devised a form of heroin 100 times more powerful than before. Useable in he privacy of one’s home and injected though the eyes. It’s now available in unlimited supple via a self replicating distribution network “ (Jeffery Satinover quoted in Hilton 49). The user doesn’t have to contact a dealer to get a fix.
Compared to the drugs used in the sixties pornography is far worse because only five percent of college students were experimenting with marijuana, today however, one hundred percent of high school seniors have been exposed to pornography(Hilton 32). The average boy has seen some form of pornography by the time he is seven(Hess). 57 million people a day use the internet for sexual purposes(Manning). That's equivalent to 33 percent of internet users in the whole world. In an average college classroom of approximately thirty people, nine regularly use the internet for sex. "The internet provides everyone with easy access the most vile, raunchy, and degrading images available"
(Manning 18). Because of wireless internet and cell phones this drug can be accessed and used anytime, anywhere, making pornography more accessible than traditional drugs. The pornography user doesn't have to contact a dealer in order to get a fix.
Pornography pushers are far more aggressive than the neighborhood drug dealer, assaulting the innocent with unwanted images, spamming e-mails, popping up during internet usage and via phone's through texting and sexting. It's akin to thousands of drug dealers niggling into your home tricking you into trying their wares, entrapping you, ever confident that the curious titillating sample will often lead to dependence. Every second $3,075.64 is spent on internet pornography (Manning 20). In 2006 the pornography business generated over 97 billion dollars worldwide. Right now the pornography industry is making more than Microsoft, Google, Amazon, E-bay, Yahoo!, Apple, Netflix and Earthlink combined (Manning 26, 27)! Making pornography the most profitable industry in the world. As the user begins to crave new and raunchier material or interactive pornographic media there are soon fees attached and the punter suddenly becomes a client.
Like traditional drugs pornography is used by all walks of life and has no stereotype. Pornography addiction and drug addictions share three major connections: tolerance, withdrawals and excessive use. Drug use and pornography use share the tolerance factor. “Pot smokers find their vice ‘enjoyable’ and ‘harmless.’ They deny that [student] users usually graduate to heroin” (Goldstein 40) It is estimated that thirty percent of heroin users started with marijuana(Goldstien 40). Like soft core drug use often leads to hard drug addictions,soft core porn usually lead to hard-core pornography use. Pornography users experience withdrawal symptoms similar to those experienced by drug users. Coming clean from pornography is comparable to coming clean from drugs. “many report headache, irritability, restlessness, sleeplessness, anxiety and other symptoms during the first week of abstinence.” However, because pornography is “resistant to treatment, entails significant risks and has high relapse rates,” (Hilton 70). pornography addiction is far more difficult to treat than drug addiction.
Hard core drugs like heroin, crack and cocaine are extremely addictive, pornography is even more addictive. When does normal use of substance or an activity for personal gratification become compulsive”(Bostwick, 3)? It becomes compulsive when it becomes an addiction. “Addiction is defined as compulsive behaviors that persist despite serious negative consequences for personal, social or occupational function" (Bostwick 3). Like traditonal narcotics recreational use of pornographic material can quickly turn into addiction.
What makes pornography so addictive? So much more is going on during pornography viewing than just another "happy ending" to a "hard day." During a pornography session the pornographic images enter the brain, through the eyes. The brain unable to discern fiction from reality, begins to react to what it's seeing, neurons begin firing, and the brain begins releasing petrochemicals (or natural brain-drugs). These chemicals normally heighten energy and focus, trigger feelings of attraction, relaxation, excitement and manufacture a high which provides an all around good feeling.(Hilton 61)
Dopamine, triggers feelings of ecstasy. Release of dopamine is what causes cravings and dependency in drug addictions. The brain requires more and more dopamine to achieve the same result. The releasing of high levels of dopamine in pornography addiction is why porn addicts experience withdrawal symptoms when porn use is discontinued.(Hilton 71)
Norepinephrine: Increases energy by giving the body a little dose of adrenaline and also increases memory capacity. In a natural relationship, Norepinephrine enables the couple to recall intricate details of each others appearance. Norepinephrine enables porn users to recall pornographic images with photo perfect clarity years later. Thus allowing the pornography user to "carry in [the] mind private porn library [accessible] at any time"(Kastleman 5).
Testosterone: The key hormone in triggering men's feelings. During pornography viewing, testosterone levels increase dramatically causing a self-sustaining building cycle. Testosterone increases the desire for more porn triggering the release of more testosterone, which then increases the desire for more pornography, so on and so forth (Kastleman 4).
Oxytocin: The most powerful of all the chemicals in the brain. oxytocin is the bonding chemical. During sexual activity oxytocin bonds the partners together like an emotional superglue (icare 11). Oxytocin is the chemical in the brain that bonds parent to child. When a man uses pornography his brain still produces oxytocin but instead of bonding in a loving relationship the oxytocin forms a bond, in his brain, to the pornography. Eventually this breaks and reroutes the bonds previously made to the man and his wife and children. Pornography can change the users feelings for partners and children by altering the chemical paths in the brain.(Hilton 72)
Serotonin: is released at the end of a sexual experience. Serotonin brings a deep feeling of calmness, stress release and satisfaction.(Kastleman 4) Pornography also triggers a release of serotonin. Porn users begin to turn to porn to escape the pressures of life. Using pornography and the resulting release of serotonin as a form of self medication to combat the daily stresses of everyday life.(Hilton, 72)
Drug abuse is: “The use of illegal drugs or the use of prescription or over-the-counter drugs for purposes other than those for which they are meant to be used, or in large amounts Drug abuse may lead to social, physical, emotional and job-related problems” (www.mdanderson.org). Norepinephrine, Dopamine, Serotonin and Testosterone, all synthesized by pharmaceutical companies, can be obtained from a pharmacists with a prescription from a qualified physician. Epinephrine (also called adrenaline), given to patients who’s hearts are stopping, is also carried in epi-pens by patients with life threatening allergies and used to counter act anaphylactic shock. Doctor’s prescribe dopamine to Parkinson’s patients, testosterone for diabetes and hormone imbalances and good old serotonin is found in common anti depressants. Doctors and pharmacists consider all of these to be drugs and so does the FDA. It is incorrect to assume nerochemicals are not drugs simply because they are endogenous within the brain. Using pornography to trigger natural brain drugs, in large amounts for purposes other than those for which nature intended equates drug abuse (Hilton 50,51). Therefore, pornography use is a form of drug abuse.
Pornography use leads to addition of endogenous drugs because a pornography user becomes addicted to his own neurochemicals and over time becomes tolerant of them, Subsequently craving more and more pornography. The key factor in pornography addiction lies within the brains natural cycle of dopamine regulation. Dopamine produces feelings of ecstasy and euphoria. Pornographic images enter the brain, triggering dopamine production within the neurons. The dopamine, then travels along (axons), little wires that carry dopamine to the pleasure center (nucleus accubens) of the brain. The pleasure center receives the dopamine through little branches or fingers (dendrites) that branch out from the center of the nucleus accubens causing the viewer to experience pleasure. "Because pornography is a much more powerful stimulant that natural sexuality in the sensitized brain"(Hilton 61), pornography "over stimulates” the nucleus accubens with excessive and repeated hits of dopamine, much more than the normal pleasure response is designed to receive. There are inhibitory nerve cells, which produce inhibitory neurotransmitters. Designed to protect the brain form too much dopamine, these inhibitory cells send the message back to the dopamine cells warning that the dopamine levels are too high (Hilton 62) The dopamine cells stop producing dopamine and actually shrink. The poor little shrunken producers can no longer make dopamine as fast as the stimulated brain is demanding it. The gluttonous cells in the pleasure center begin to think they are starving and demand more dopamine. In an attempt to get a hold of more dopamine the pleasure center expands, growing more branches or fingers (dendrites), thus expanding the dopamine receiving area and causing even greater cravings. However, the modified brain, unable to receive the same amounts of dopamine as before, will do anything for it's drug and the addict views pornography again. Nevertheless,this time the addict needs a stronger stimulant to trigger the same pleasure response within the brain. This means he must find harder porn than before; something newer, more erotic, violent and sensational to generate the same amount of pleasure experienced before(Hilton 71).
See figure one.

Figure 1 Adapted by Jenny Jackson (Hilton 71)
The abused and damaged pleasure centers in the brain no longer recognize normal pleasures as desirable and “the chemically altered brain is left to crave what can never fully be satisfied” (Hilton 5). The porn user can no longer be contented by sex within a normal healthy relationship. Because
“pornography is not some titillating feast for the eyes that gives a momentary rush of excitement. It has the effect of damaging hearts and souls to their very depths, strangling the life out of relationships that should be sacred, hurting to the very core those you should love the most” (Hinckley, 59),
as they (loved ones) become an obstacle to nourishing the dependence.
The most disturbing parallel between drug addiction and pornography addiction is the similarity in brain morphology caused by both. Recent high tech brain imaging shows that Pornography addicts have a significant reduction of gray matter in the brain these reductions are almost identical to gray matter reductions caused by drug use (Zhou Y 3). Pornography damages the brain in the same way that dugs do. The images below are brain scans from patients with internet and sexual internet addictions. A healthy normal brain is gray, without the spots seen in the images below. (The damage to the addicts brain have been highlighted in yellow for ease of viewing.) The damaged areas occur in the back left side of the brain, (left anterior cingulate cortex, left posterior cingulate cortex, left insula and left lingual gyrus). .These parts of the brain are associated with the ability to control urges and regulate emotional behavior, emotional states, mood and motivation. "Disruptions of these functions could impair an individual's ability to monitor and inhibit appropriate behavior" (Zhou Y 4). Individuals with brain damage in this area often have behavioral and emotional problems. The same morphology seen below in pornography addicts is also found in chronic cocaine users and schizophrenics(Zhou Y 3).
Images 1-4 Brain Injury caused by sexual addiction.
Images adapted by Jenny Jackson (Zhou Y 3).
Image 5 Adapted by Jenny Jackson( Brain).
Because of the similarities, pornography addiction is treated the same way that drug and alcohol addictions are treated. The addicted follow a twelve step program and meet with therapists and support groups. Rehabilitation centers for pornography addictions are becoming more and more common. Doctors treat pornography addiction with the same drugs previously used to treat drug and alcohol addiction. One of these drugs, Naltrexone, “Prescribed for treating alcoholism, [naltrexone] blocks opiates capacity to augment dopamine release.” Therefore “Blocking the capacity of endogenous opiods to trigger dopamine release in response to reward, naltrexone helps extinguish that reward‘s addictive power.”(Bostwick, 1).
Marijuana was the drug of the sixties, pornography, the drug of their children; the internet generation. Because of it’s addictive patterns, brain morphology and treatment options there is no argument
The addictiveness of Internet pornography is not a metaphor. Not all addictions are to drugs or alcohol...All addiction involves long-term, sometimes lifelong neuroplastic change in the brain...Pornographers promise healthy pleasure and relief from sexual tension, but what they often deliver is an addiction tolerance and an eventual decrease in pleasure (Hilton 51).
as the morphed, damaged and abused brain is left with a thirst that can never be quenched. The solution our pornography problem is the same as the solution to drug problem of the sixties. Education. Teach our youth about the dangers of pornography. Starting with: “This is your brain, this is your brain on porn, any questions?...”
Lol I figured out where all my works cited info went. I kind of deleted the file marked "Works Cited for all Articles." Oops
She is sitting a crossed from me at the table. Men are stealing glances at her and following her with their eyes. She is exceptionally beautiful. Blonde hair, blue eyes and a set of full, envy inducing, Angelina Jolie lips. When she laughs her smile is all encompassing, reminding me of the black and white pictures of Marilyn Monroe.
She tries to hide her shaking hands by fiddling with the paper napkin that wraps up the silverware on our table. She begins twisting it about, as she talks. She doesn't look at me. “I have never told anyone this story before.” She explains, to the napkin. “But I want other women to know it. Because this kind of thing is very lonely. I never told anyone because I was embarrassed. Not for me, for Him.”
She explains that she had been married to her husband a little over four years. He was in medical school. Money was tight and stress was high. Their second baby had just turned nine months. She had suffered some post partum depression and hormone imbalances that were just getting under control. She was having a really hard time “feeling sensual again. I was sooooo tired all the time and just felt blah, very unsexy... I was a worn-out mamma, I just wanted sleep at the times when he...expected me to be a hot momma.”
She then told me about “the first day.” She had taken the boys, (3 and 9 months) to the grocery store. Her husband stayed home, to "study." She came home from the store earlier than usual that day, too tired to finish all the shopping. She entered the office where he studied, the baby on her hip, the three year old at her heels. She stood at the door of the office. Her husband sat at his computer, completely nude. He had the lotion from the baby’s changing table at his right elbow. The top of the lotion was still open. Ironically the room smelled of baby lotion and cum and fresh leather, (the chair he was sitting in was brand new.) He was finishing an orgasm while at the same time frantically trying to click multiple images off the screen. He then jumped off the chair, grabbed a chocolate from the dish by the door and slid past her frozen body, down the hall and straight into the shower.
“What did you do?” I asked.
“ I fed the baby and put him down for a nap.” She replies, matter of fact. “That stupid, nasty old chair made me nauseous, for months“ (speaking of the new office chair). “ I got lightheaded and dizzy every time I sat in it. It was like visiting a place where someone was murdered. Part of me died in that chair. I felt so angry so betrayed.”
She tells me of the first few months of pain. The difficulty she has in trusting and forgiving him. She laid next to him at night and cried herself to sleep night after, night “At first he was really nice, overly nice but then he just got annoyed that I wasn’t just getting over it. I didn’t nag him or anything. I didn’t bring it up in fights, I was just kind of sad and melancholy all the time.”
She wondered what the girls he was viewing looked like. Who were they? Were they pretty? She suddenly became aware of her own bodily imperfections. She compared herself to his “porn girls.” She was conscientious of the post pregnancy weight she still had to lose. Of the “Baby belly.” She called it. She stressed about the stretch marks left by two pregnancies. Porn stars don't have stretch marks.
She felt trapped by the lack of funding for makeup, haircuts and beauty treatments. She had to do without.. She needed to look like his “Computer Girls.”
“ I was embarrassed about the way I looked but we didn’t have the money for me to do anything about it.”
She then became painfully aware of what “His Computer Girls” had that she didn’t have and she frantically began to do all she could to look like Pamela Anderson, Jessica Simpson or any one of Hugh Hefner’s known girlfriends. She studied makeup artistry specifically the work of Alexis Vogel and other artists that were known to have influenced the iconic “sex kitten” look.
“We couldn’t afford for me to get my hair done so I poured gallons of sun in into my hair to trying to turn it "playmate blonde". I wore sooooo much make up and I put it on just like the girls in playboy. Dark black liner, cat eyes and pale super shiny lips. Ugh, and I used self tanner!” (Ironically, he refuses to kiss her when she has lip gloss on.)
“Do you think this behavior was a direct result of you sudden awareness of his porn?” I asked.
“ I don’t know.” She said “ I guess I was afraid that his porn girls had something that I didn’t....I even shaved off all my pubic hair because I heard that was what porn stars did.” She thought maybe he would like her better.
“Did this change anything” I asked.
“ Don’t think he even noticed. He never said anything.” She replies, blankly into the air over my left shoulder, still twisting at the napkin; It was beginning fray and the moisture from her hands was starting to weaken the fibers.
She struggled silently for weeks. Afraid to talk to her husband about it because he showed so much guilt and sadness when she brought it up. “When I talked about it just bugged him. He was upset that I haven’t forgiven him yet. At first he told me that I could take as long as I needed, to forgive him. But he was upset when I still had feelings about it months after it happened. I think it was because it made him feel guilty.”
She explains how much she desperately needed to talk to someone. She thought about leaving him for a while, but she had no where to go, no place to stay. Besides, if she left people would find out what he had done. She never talked to her friends about it. Never sought counseling and “never, never, ever told anyone.” She felt that she needed to protect him, to hide their awful secret, so for seven years she hid the truth from everyone and she suffered in silence.
“ I would have really liked to go to couples therapy ;but we could hardly afford to pay attention let alone pay a therapist. I really wanted him to grovel.” She explained. “I wanted a really big sorry, like flowers, or a sorry note or him to get on his knees and beg forgiveness....it never happened. He swore that he would never, ever do porn again. He said I could ask him anytime and he would tell me the truth. He told me it was okay to talk to him about it. But it really wasn’t. I guess it took me too long to figure that out.” She trusted him. Through the years she occasionally would begin to doubt and ask him if he was still clean. He responded well to it for a few years but as time went by, affirmations of his sanitary viewing practices became hostile.
She begins twirling the napkin between her thumb and forefinger. Little bits of it start to crumble off. She absent mindedly rolls them into the table. Suddenly she needs lip gloss. Without a mirror and with an expert hand she smears Jessica Simpson brand lip gloss onto her perfect lips. It’s smells like overripe strawberries. Every man in the room notices. She doesn’t.
Her fingers continue absently working the napkin. Twisting and turning it between her brightly painted fingers. The interview ends. As I gather my notes I realize that she has sculpted the napkin into a rose. I resist the urge to take it with me. The waiter picks it up and looks at it for a moment. Then he adds it to the pile of disposables on his tray and carts it off to the kitchen.
Many important decisions in life are: Who you marry, where you go to church and which health club to join . Fitness and love are important things in life. Like finding a good man, finding a good fitness center is essential to physical and emotional well being.
My search for a great gym has paralleled my search for a great man. I have courted many different gyms in hope of falling in love with one.
At first sight, most gyms are all the same. Rows of treadmills, stacks of weights and damp steamy locker rooms. Yet, just like men, each gym has it’s own personality, pros and cons and little flaws that are usually discovered once the relationship has begun.
My first health club relationship was with Bally’s Total Fitness. The red, black and silver color scheme, low lights and pumping music feel more like a night club than a health club. Attracting patrons in early to mid twenties. Most of the women dress in designer fitness apparel, sport fully made up faces and strangely don’t sweat at all, when they work out. ( While look like I just lost a water balloon fight during my workout.) They seem intent on attracting the abundance of testosterone popping muscle bound meatheads.
Balley’s can be a great place to score a date. However, I go to the gym to work out, not to hook up. I found the pathetic pick up lines of post frat boys and pre-midlife crisis trophy wife seekers annoying and distracting.
My second health club connection was with 24 hour fitness. This was a short affair, driven by infatuation with the well dressed perfectly matched staff and the sparkling new facility. I soon discovered, the staff was very rude and the child care cost up to six dollars a day in addition to monthly membership fees. I finally "broke up" with 24 fitness because of the locker room. The large open room offers no privacy. I am not comfortable being stark naked in front of 30 strangers. The showers leave much to be desired. The stall showers have walls that do not reach he floor. Ending 18 inches from the floor allowing full view of the legs and feet of shower mates. Several of the showers share one drain. The unlucky user of the “drain-shower” is plagued with foamy refuse from bathers; tickling their toes, on the way down the semi public drainage system. Once while I was showering, the frothy river was laced with black curly hair. The woman in the stall next to me was giving her Cha-cha an extremely over do grooming. Since I could not find platform shower shoes tall enough to keep me out of the nastiness, I decided to look for a club that was a better fit. I dumped 24 hour and moved on to Gold’s.
The famous Gold’s gym was a huge disappointment. Like a designer knock off from Wal-mart the over all quality of Gold’s left something to be desired. The equipment is sub par. The classes are few and far between and they fill up fast. The instructors have no idea what they are doing. You have to get there early and wait in line, before classes start. Often they fill up and you are turned away.
The child care center and Gold’s was a frustrating. Parents have to make an appointment seven days in advance, during a scheduled call in time. Trying to get a slot for child care was like trying to win a prize on a radio show. I was usually met with a busy signal every time I tried to call, failing to obtain the child care that I had already paid for. If an appointment was missed you’re charged an outrageous no show fee. The employees at Gold’s child care staff suck. Often, I would find my toddler completely ignored, crying pitifully in the corner. The break up with Gold’s was a nasty one but along this broken road, I found true health club love, with my fitness soul mate, Club USA.
My relationship with Club USA has grown into deep affection. I can honestly say, “I love my health club.” My favorite thing about the club is the revolutionary child care included in my membership fee. My preschooler enjoys hands on activates and academic instruction with an amazing staff that loves him and knows him by name. My school age children enjoy their own workout in “Action Fitness.” The kids can work out on miniature equipment that looks just like what the grown ups use. They play fitness games, learn about nutrition, climb a rock wall, participate in fitness competition and are encouraged by their “coaches” the amazing Action Fitness staff.
The classes at Club USA are phenomenal. There area huge variety of classes included the monthly fee. The class instructors are the best that I have ever encountered, along my journey to find the perfect club. They are always continuing training in their specific expertise. They love what they do and are very knowledgeable. The instructors make it a point to get to know the class members personally. There are always several classes going on and I have never been turned away from a class because it was too full.
The locker rooms at Club USA are a dream come true. Rather than an open bay, the locker room has several long corridors. If you’re not into social nudity you can always find a quiet corner to change in, or you can use one of the clubs private changing rooms. The showers are…private! You enjoy your own shower with three full walls, your own drain and a privacy shower curtain. (No wallowing in someone else’s body waste.) The club also provides towels, shampoo, soap, hairspray, lotion, deodorant, blow dryers and curling irons.
Membership also includes tanning in state of the art stand up tanning booths. Protective eye wear is provided but cute little “tan tattoo” stickers are not. The club has a spa in the back where members can enjoy facials massages and other services. (While their children are tended to in child care.) Sadly the club does not offer nail services. I wish they had manicures and pedicures.
The only thing I don’t like about the club is the icy parking lot in the winter. But the parking lot faces north east I don’t see how it can be avoided.
The staff at Club USA is so friendly. They know my name and make it a point to know details about me. The staff always asks me how I’m doing and comments on the progress I have made towards my fitness goals.
I have definitely found true love with Club USA. Now if only I can find a man that meets my wants and needs like Club USA does. If I found a man like this club I would wed him. Until then I consider myself happily married to Club USA.
David,
My Beautiful David. You slew giants for me.
Bathsheba.
Placed her wicked font in front of you.
You watched. You fell
in.
David,
With your harp you sung our vows.
My loins bore your sons while
Bathsheba’s
loins bore your passion.
You, had to kill for
Bathsheba
had to be obtained,
so you killed me.
My body contracted in death,
alone on the cold marble tile, while
Bathsheba
held you tight in her fat adulteress arms.
David,
Oh what a tangled web you weave,
to cover your deceit.
You sent everything in to battle, for
Bathsheba.
Nothing came back.
Everything died in your lustful war.
David,
Now your bitter tears fill the seductive font of
Bathsheba,
in which all your dreams have drowned.
I ,
the holder of your once sung vows
slowly die.
I,
understand why
The King declared This the sin next to murder.
Adultery, causes the soul to die.
How Pornography Preys On It’s User
Some, regard pornography as a harmless male pastime. A simple act of leisure. Research is uncovering the not so innocent side to the cute and fluffy Playboy bunny. Pornography is more than attractive women in lingerie and animal ears. The proverbial "Bunny" is not a passive little pretty picture intended to help a man have a "happy ending" to his "hard" day. Pornography has become mainstream and accepted by many as a common male pastime. The women or “characters” in pornography are usually depicted in subordinate roles, such as slaves or animals. They are dressed in costumes inspired by patriarchal marauders and often portray abuse, mutilation and humiliation. Playboy mischievously referrers to it’s women as “bunnies” suggesting they are a form of prey. Fluffy, innocent, subordinate, disposable and bountifully copious. This imagery supports the notion of the innocence of pornography.
Pornography is not a fuzzy harmless pastime. Disguised as an blameless personification of male fantasy, pornography is a predator, stalking it's victims and pillaging it’s user of the most precious treasure in life: the ability to fully bond with loved ones and be fulfilled by happy personal, familial and intimate relationships, because it creates addictions which become fiends, threatening to tear apart relationships, families and lives.
"It's just a guy thing. A common leisure activity. It doesn't hurt anyone. It's just a picture of a pretty girl. It doesn't change the way I feel about my wife..." These are among many of the phrases employed by people attempting to defend their personal usage of "pornographic products, including magazines, videos, books, live shows and internet distributions” (Shaw 197). Most pornographic products are created for the male consumer because pornography does not represent the woman or her needs as a whole. It may be "just a guy thing" but it "touches the lives of countless people throughout the world" regardless of gender(Shaw 197).
Most women are familiar with material with sexual content and have been involuntarily exposed to it by a man. In a survey done by The Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies, University of Waterloo it was found that only nine out of thirty two women had used pornographic material. Fifty one percent of men view pornographic material on the internet once a month. This supports the idea that pornography is “just a guy thing.”
Women’s contact with this material was usually uninitiated. “When women did look at or watch such pictures or movies, it was generally at the initiation of male friends, family members or partners, and not because of their own desire or choosing” (Shaw 209). Most women instinctively feel the need to physically and emotionally flee from pornography, while men are drawn to it like a moth to a flame.
Pornography is “a common leisure activity for men,” this is an excuse often employed by those attempting to justify it‘s usage. However, “pornography focuses on women’s bodies and depicts women in various sexual acts for the exclusive pleasure of men, pornography can be seen as the quintessential leisure activity in which women are used as he objects of men’s leisure” (Shaw 209). Most of what is portrayed in pornography is purely fictional. These are characters; they are not real women. Average women don’t look like that or act like that. Often after viewing pornography men begin to fantasize about the real women in their lives behaving in the way they have seen pornographic characters behave. Often attempting to reenact the behaviors they have seen in their own relationships. This involves persuading, coercing, intimidating and even forcing their partners into sex acts. This simple form of leisure swiftly becomes a “propaganda tool that controls women and perpetuates gender based inequalities" (Shaw 198), by systematically saturating its users mind with inaccurate information about women and sexual relationships.
"It doesn't hurt anyone" claim pornography supporters. It is a private and covert act. It is between the man and his centerfold. However exposure to pornography and especially "exposure to violent pornography does increase, or is a least associated with, callousness towards women as well as increased propensity to violence" (Shaw 198). Pornography often portrays women as subsidiary objects, linking male power and male aggression to the objectification of women in pornography" (Shaw 198). We innately mimic the things which we are repeatedly exposed to.
Spending time in certain areas of the world one will probably unknowingly pick up certain, phrases, mannerisms and even an accent. Pornography affects the way men view and treat women in the same way, planting seeds of aggression and nurturing "sexual subordination, victimization and degradation of women" (Shaw 199). One a can not consume pornography without it eventually affecting one’s character. Pornography feeds, like a parasite, on the values and principles of it’s audience. It slowly morphs them until they assimilate their behavior into a shadow puppet of the ethics they are immersed in.
"It's just a picture of a pretty girl." These pretty pictures are destructive to men by presenting them with an "unrealistic expectation of how women look" (Shaw 206). As well as "encourag[ing] men to put women into categories according to their appearances. Such categorization is seen to be associated with the inferiorization of women, or with looking down on some or all women" (Shaw, 206) We have all heard a men give women numerical values. “She is totally a ten!” Or, “I would give her a five point two.” “Her face isn’t pretty maybe a three but her body is hot so I’d give her a seven, overall.” Women are being unfairly judged against suped up produced images. Women are graded on their curves.
Sandra, married, a forty year old nursing instructor says "Most of us don't look like that, and if you figure men are comparing you to that type of body, then you probably don't feel as good about yourself as you should" (Shaw 206).
Women's self esteems are negatively affected by their partner’s use of pornography. Pornography becomes an unfair standard to which average women are judged. Women feel unfair pressure to meet the beauty standard created by men. The attempt to meet these standards make women victims to the parasites of the fashion and beauty world who scavenge on women’s decaying self image as they desperately try to compete with the male induced standard.
"It doesn't change the way I feel about my wife." Actually, it does change the way you feel about your wife. Oxytocin is a hormone produced in the brain. Oxytocin is released during sexual activity it’s a bonding hormone acting as an "emotional super glue between partners" (Human, 11). Men produce an additional hormone called Vasopressin. "Vasopressin helps a man bond to his partner and instills a protective instinct toward his partner and children" (Human, 11). When a man uses pornography his brain still produces oxytocin but instead of bonding in a loving relationship the oxytocin forms a bond, in his brain, to the pornography. Eventually this breaks and reroutes the bonds previously made to the man and his wife and children. Pornography can change the users feelings for partners and children by altering the chemical paths in the brain, just like a drug.
Pornography is not "just a guy thing." "Pornography portrays women as sex objects, mentioning terms such as ‘disposable‘, ‘creatures’ of a lesser value, slaves abused and battered" (Cowan 102). Pornography is demeaning to women because is does not portray the woman's total being. Women are "presented as sexual objects who enjoy pain and humiliation"(Cowan 102). They are "cut up, mutilated or physically hurt or depersonalized as animals or things" (Cowan 102).
Leisure time is an individual choice but those who choose pornography as leisure need to realize that pornography is not a victimless choice. Pornography has an interconnected web of influence. It negatively effects the lives of everyone involved. It's not "just a guy thing." Pornography is a dangerous predator, it's prey is the user and those in his life. Pornography users become lured and trapped by it. Pornography lures, hypnotizes, then the user. Pornography is the predator and its user, the helpless, unstinted prey. Like a rabbit in the headlights, mesmerized and paralyzed by that that which will destroy it.
I was the Reverend’s daughter and it was my Junior year. I was a seventeen year old girl just getting over that awkward stage. I was kind of geeky and almost cool. She was my first car. An unsalted butter colored nineteen seventy seven mustang Ghia. Seventy seven was not the greatest year for the mustang. Still, she had a 351 cubic inch, Holly Four Barrel engine under the hood and she roared like a grizzly when you revved her up. Alas, the outside left something to be desired. In 1977 the Ford Mustang looked like a mutated mistake. A pathetic cross between a Pinto and a Maverick. The dirt brown vinyl top clashed dreadfully with the curvaceous signature mustang hood and etched sides. Nevertheless, She still had 300 horses under that curvy little hood. Just like me, She was kind of geeky and almost cool.
I was so infatuated with her. I loved the smell of her leather bucket seats and the look of her wood grained dash. I carefully washed and waxed her, all summer long. I conditioned her leather seats and religiously massaged “Amorall” into her vinyl top and polished Her galloping pony. I was so excited about the start of the new school year in the fall . I would proudly drive Her into the Junior parking lot, on the first day of school. The sun would glisten off of the layers of turtle wax that adorned her exterior, everyone would look and I would finally be “cool.”
The day came. Like a good Reverend’s daughter I went to seminary every week day morning, before school. One the first day of school, at six o clock am I pulled Her into the smooth pearly grey, concrete, church parking lot and carefully parallel parked Her front and center, for all to see and covet.
Seven am, seminary was out. Good Christian teenagers came pouring out of the building. Everyone stopped and stared. I waited, anticipating their immediate approval and acceptance of Her. To my surprise, there was no acceptance, just mocking and scorning. Rather than exalting my social status, She had caused a social apocalypse.
Frustrated, near tears I opened Her door. I plopped down into Her soft bucket seat, feeling comforted by the way She held me. I quietly turned the key and sadly ran my hands around the steering wheel. Slowly I eased her into reverse and crept out of the parking space. I revved her engine, as I continued to back her up, very slowly, drawing everyone’s eyes to her. Her back tires touched the rear edge of the long concrete parking lot.
Wretchedly, I dropped Her into neutral. I pushed the accelerator all the way to Her floorboards. Waking up the three hundred horses sleeping under the hood. Pistons fired, the engine roared and I squeezed the clutch, slamming her into first gear. The furies hell surged through all eight cylinders. The tires spun and squealed, the smell of burning rubber filled the cockpit. I thrust her into second gear and then third. After tattooing a sixty foot double black line across the church parking lot; I fishtailed the corner and sped down the street.
That night at dinner I sat at the table secretly reminiscing about our vintage victory. The Reverend looked up at me and raised one of his bushy eyebrows. “There is about sixty five feet of black rubber etched into the church parking lot. There is only one car in this town, I know, that can do that.”
