Pursuing Sexual Health and Wholeness
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CONNECTION TO CRIME ...

VIOLENCE

Among 932 sex addicts, 90 percent of the men and 77 percent of the women reported pornography as significant to their addictions. The study also revealed that two common elements in the early etiology of sexually addictive behavior are childhood sexual abuse and frequent pornography accompanied by masturbation. (Patrick Carnes, Don't Call it Love: Recovery from Sexual Addictions, [1991].)

Research gathered over the past few decades demonstrates that pornography contributes to sexual assault, including rape and the molestation of children. (See S. Rep. No. 102-372, 102nd Cong., 2nd Sess. 23) (Aug. 12, 1992) (Pornography Victims Compensation Act of 1992, Senate Comm. on the Judiciary.)

Child molesters often use pornography to seduce their prey, to lower the inhibitions of the victim, and to serve as an instruction manual. (W.L. Marshall, Ph.D., Pornography and Sexual Offenders, in PORNOGRAPHY: RESEARCH ADVANCES AND POLICY CONSIDERATIONS 189 [D. Zillmann & J. Bryant eds., 1989]).

Of 36 serial sex murderers interviewed by the FBI in 1985, 81 percent admitted using pornography.
(Victor Cline, Ph.D. in Pornography Effects: Empirical & Clinical Evidence, pg. 19.)

87 percent of girl child molesters and 77 percent of boy child molesters studied admitted to regular use of hard-core pornography. (1983 A Report on the Use of Pornography by Sexual Offenders by Dr. William Marshall, Ottawa, Canada for the Federal Department of Justice.)

One in three American girls and one in seven boys will be sexually molested by age 18. (July 1993 article by David Finkelhor, Answers to Important Questions about the Scope & Nature of Child Sexual Abuse, pg. 8.)

ATTITUDES

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, and Pornography Effects: Empirical and Clinical Evidence, pg. 24.)

A primary pornography consumer group is boys between ages 12 and 17. (Attorney General's Final Report on Pornography, 1986, pg. 258.)

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, at 265.)

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, at 2 [Oct. 26, 1996].)

To children, pornography "educates" by presenting new information. This 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, UCLA. [1985]).

As a result of a steady diet of "regular" pornography, men can display such symptoms as:

	Voyeurism: looking at women constantly, which interferes in other relationships.
	Objectification: obsessive fetishism over body parts that interferes with the ability to have relationships with an actual person.
	The need for validation, or handing power over to women to validate their masculinity easily threatened by women and other men.
	Trophyism: treating women as collectibles, and unable to see or feel beyond it.
	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]).

GROWING THREATS

The Internet carries unique threats. The Department of Justice said, "Never before in the history of telecommunications media in the United States has so much indecent (and obscene) material been so easily accessible by so many minors in so many American homes with so few restrictions." (U.S. Department of Justice, Post Hearing Memorandum of Points and Authorities, at l, ACLU v. Reno, 929 F. Supp. 824 [1996]).

President Clinton has pledged that every American classroom will be connected to the Internet by the year 2000. * (President William J. Clinton, State of the Union Address [Jan. 23, 1996]. HTTP://www.democrats.org.80/bottomline/challenge/state of union.htm (.)

Pornographic entertainment on the Internet constituted the third largest sector of sales in cyberspace, with estimated annual revenues of $100 million. Such marketing success has fueled an increase in the size of the pornography industry; $10 billion annually, according to conservative estimates. (Anthony Flint, Skin Trade Spreading Across U.S., Boston Sunday Globe, Dec. 1, 1996, at A1).

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