The expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and till action, lust
Is perjur'd, murderous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;
Enjoy'd no sooner but despised straight,
Past reason hunted, and no sooner had,
Past reason hated, as a swallow'd bait,
On purpose laid to make the taker mad;
Mad in pursuit and in possession so;
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof, --and prov'd, a very woe;
Before, a joy propos'd; behind, a dream.
All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads me to this hell.
Thus starts Dr. Judith Reisman's paper on the effects of pornography on the brain. She quotes William Shakespeare who describes the madness that takes hold of a man (or a woman) who seeks to quench their lust, yet nothing satisfies.
As a content analysis specialist, my task here has been to review evidence from the brain sciences to uncover if and then how pornographic images interfere with cognitive functions, including rational thought and its expression in free speech. For the purposes of this paper, pornography is not limited any currently accepted legal definitions but is characterized as a genre. That is, in its traditional sense, pornography is graphic depictions of sex or nudity, pandered for prurient appeal, rather than for serious literary, artistic or scientific purposes. Herein, pornography is objectively defined as private space behaviors displayed in public space forums in violation of self and species preservation. It proves a very woe.
Therefore, one could easily describe as pornography the recently declined by the Hamilton City Council, Erotica sex-expo. I had to laugh at David Farrar's reaction to this decline - the word "wowser/s" was used three times in his post and his outrage at "moral police" deciding what "consenting adults" could do was palpable. The implication being that there is no harm done by such an event, and even if there were, if a person consents then they should be able to do as they please and the council should stay out of the way.
The problem here is that we've moved past the idea that people should not interfere with what happens in the privacy of the bedroom to taking the bedroom out in public and charging money for access. While morality is always determined by the populace and what they are willing to put up with, there is a deeper truth that morality is always absolute. It seeks our highest good and to flout it is to destroy oneself. The lie is we should put up with what the more moral libertines among us would have us avert our eyes from, ie if we don't like it, we shouldn't look, as has been the subject of a number of controversial sex-scenes that have been shown on television lately in the timeslots when children can watch.
Judith Reisman's paper shows that pornography is not harmless. It literally rewires our brains. What we see becomes reality for us as our brain cannot distinguish fantasy images from real ones.
Since the brain believes what the eyes see, in 3/10ths of a second, real, virtual or pseudo pornography restructures the brains-minds and memories of participants or even casual viewers. That the brain's internal drug store produces mood altering psychotropic drugs, and that right hemisphere emotions including fear, joy, anger, lust (instant rewards) dominate the left hemisphere's cognitive functions of speech, rationality, logic (delayed rewards), further implicates pictorial pornography as causally changing the nature of the polity. The massive quantifiable increases and qualifiably more sadistic and barbaric kinds of sexual crime since 1950, supports the breeding of a sadistic, pedophile consciousness in pornography consumers.
There is a lot more in her paper such as some scary stuff on worsening attitudes towards women and children that can be readily observed in any political debate online involving welfare. And also implications for a free society where brains are working on a constant desire for their drug - sexual stimulation. I also have to mention that impotence one of the direct side-effects of viewing pornography - no man is immune to this effect.
The vociferous attacks by numerous individuals protesting that the Hamilton City Council has no right to decide on the basis of morality what type of groups they will allow to use their event centre shows just how important it is to sex-addicts that no restriction be made on their addiction of choice, no matter the harm to themselves or others.
If the council had declined for a Neo-Nazi group expo, would the same people be jumping up and down about moral police? Or how about a pot-smoking convention. Or even worse in their eyes, an ex-gay ministry church group. Can you imagine the outcry if the council let any of these groups on their premises, but if they denied them, heck, they're doing the right thing!
I just want to finish with a true story given by a young American officer who after spending an hour talking to Dr Judith Reisman, who explained to him the homoerotic nature of pornography. This man went back to his base and gave a talk to his buddies who threw out all their pornographic material. When it came to the choice, once they understood what they were choosing and what type of boys pornography would make them, they threw out the porn and chose to be real men.
“I reported what Dr. Reisman showed me to my buddies. Pornography is “homo” sex—that is it’s sex made by men to arouse men and boys. Pornography causes boys to have sex with themselves, psychopharmacologically conditioning them early to male sexual touch. Pornography claims our sisters, daughters, even our moms are nonhuman animals. Although human women, unlike dogs or monkeys, never go into “heat” (“estrus”), women and girls are posed by pornographers soliciting sex from everyone, everywhere, eye pupils dilated, intimate body parts and lips reddened, often bent over, rump up, to imitate primate females in “heat.” Normal boys are unconsciously made anxious, angry, ashamed, fearful of these airbrushed, naked women “in rut/heat.” Everywhere they wink, open their mouths, sigh, moan for penetration. Smiling paper and celluloid dolls promise everything and deliver nothing more than a man or boy can do for himself—thanks to the men who provide the sex images.”
“The females in our lives, now and later, too often end up paying for the pornographically based frustration, rage and betrayal boys and men feel toward them. Pornographic images repeatedly show consumers that women love oral and anal sodomy—the only form of homosexual penetration. Males learn that “real” women seek to sexually please males by engaging in what are known historically and cross culturally as deviant homosexual practices.”
“Pornography is “heterophobic,” as it stimulates fear, disrespect, and not infrequently, hatred of the opposite sex. Real man-woman-sex, requires intimacy, love, monogamy, fidelity, privacy, yes, in marriage, an opening for children and growing old together with her mate. Hetero-woman-based sex is generative, it is “heterophilic.”
[The young officer went on:] “You finally get past hunting for a “paint by numbers” woman and fall in love. She trusts you and thinks you want her only, and forever. Your wife wants affection, hugs and kisses. She wants to see your face, your eyes-the window to your soul--when you are intimate but soon you are asking her to do the things you saw in pornography, to try one kind of sodomy then the other--to watch pornography “together,” to do things “real women” in pornography do. You are asking her to have sex like a gay guy would! We get angry at our wives for sensing how degraded they are as homoerotic stand-ins. We are angry our wives don’t look and act like the paper dolls we’ve used and controlled.”
“Our wives don’t know what is wrong. Neither do we. The seeds of destruction were sown so long ago that answers today are hard to find. Sometimes we go to church or read so-called religious sex or marriage aid books that say breathe life into a marriage with sodomy, “variety,” or “erotic stories and sexy pictures” (pornography). We do, and gradually separate more from one another. So our wives, to save our marriages, try to please us. But pornography sets up a no-win situation for all. The more women do sexy weird things the less respect and intimacy we feel. And if women don’t do the sexy weird things we blame and resent them. (Of course, just as some men use pornography to seduce young girls, homosexuals similarly use “girlie” magazines to seduce boys.) Seeking what is really homoerotic “excitement” we often ‘fall out’ of love, more easily divorce and abandon our wives, even our children. (Remember, reproduction isn’t possible in sodomy). I think Dr. Reisman had it right.”
Until Kinsey and Hefner (his “pamphleteer” post 1953), western men and their sex laws largely looked to women for guidance of the sexual life. Following the Kinsey-Hefner homoerotic libels of the Greatest Generartion, men began replacing the civilizing force of womanly intimacy with the homoerotic pornography model of the sexual revolution. Instead of the stronger more satisfying sexuality and marriages promised by liberal sexperts, dysfunction, divorce and sex crime is rampant.
He said, “Bottom line: Playboys aren’t men. It takes a real man to be a husband and a father and to make a woman--his wife--beloved for a lifetime.” When the young officer finished talking, his buddies silently considered the unforeseen consequences of their naiveté. By morning the base dumpster was filled with Playboy, Penthouse and other pornography. End of true story!
Here's Dr Judith, in a half hour presentation on this subject. Well worth watching.
Related links: The Psychopharmacology of Pictorial Pornography Restructuring Brain, Mind & Memory & Subverting Freedom of Speech ~ Judith Reisman
All pornography is homoerotic ~ Judith Reisman
A wowser council in Hamilton ~ Kiwiblog
No sex expo in Hamilton ~ Stuff, Waikato Times
Public anger over Hamilton Erotica Ban ~ Stuff, Waikato Times