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FACTS ABOUT PORNOGRAPHY AND ATTITUDES
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Studies show
pornography is progressive and addictive for many. It often leads to
the user acting out his fantasy -- often on children. -- Victor Cline,
Ph.D., Department of Psychology, University of Utah 1988,
Pornography Effects: Empirical and Clinical Evidence, pg. 24
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A primary pornography
consumer group is boys between ages 12 - 17. -- Attorney General's
Final Report on Pornography, 1986, pg. 258
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Pornography distorts
the natural development of personality. If the early stimulus is
pornographic photographs, the adolescent can be conditioned to become
aroused through photographs. Once this pairing is rewarded a number
of times, it is likely to become permanent. The result to the
individual is that it becomes difficult for the person to seek out
relations with appropriate persons. -- Jerry Bergman, Ph.D., The
Influence of Pornography on Sexual Development: Three Case Histories,
IX Family Therapy 3, 1982, pg. 265.
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When pornography is
readily accessed, this "simple" way to gratify sexual desires can lead
to a deviation from healthy development in which "pictures replace
people." Because pornography encourages neither tenderness nor caring
(and typically quite the opposite), it can negatively influence a
child's understanding of his own sexuality and the sexuality of those
around him. -- See John O. Mason, Ph.D., Dr. P.H., Assistant Secretary
for Health, Address to the Religious Alliance Against Pornography,
The Harm of Pornography, pg. 2 (Oct. 26, 1996).
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To children,
pornography "educates" by presenting new information. That information
about human sexuality is not only highly inaccurate, but also
misleading. Photographs, videos, magazines, and virtual games that
depict rape and the dehumanization of females in sexual scenes
constitute powerful but deforming tools of sex education. In addition,
pornography portrays unhealthy or antisocial kinds of sexual activity,
such as sadomasochism, abuse, and humiliation of females, involvement
of children, incest, group sex, voyeurism, sexual degradation,
bestiality, torture, objectification, and sanction of "the rape myth."
-- VICTOR CLINE, PORNOGRAPHY'S EFFECTS ON ADULTS & CHILDREN 13 (1994);
see also, Neil M. Malamuth & Joseph Ceniti, Repeated
Exposure to Violent and Non Violent Pornography: Likelihood of Raping
Ratings and Laboratory Aggression Against Women, 12 Aggressive
Behavior 129-37, U.C.L.A. (1985).
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As a result of a
steady diet of "regular" pornography, men can display such symptoms
as:
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Voyeurism: looking at
women constantly, which interferes in other relationships.
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Objectification:
obsessive fetishism over body parts that interferes with the
ability to have relationships with an actual person.
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The need for
validation, or handing power over to women to validate their
masculinity easily threatened by women and other men.
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Trophyism:
treating women as collectibles, and unable to see or feel beyond
it.
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Incapable of
intimacy: lonely, but unable to get beyond the
plastic/glossy images of women enough to make a relationship with a
"real" woman possible.
GARY R. BROOKS,
Ph.D., The Centerfold Syndrome: How Men Can Overcome Objectification
and Achieve Intimacy with Women, Josey-Bass Publishers (San
Francisco, 1996).
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