Porn-Lovers Challenge C-SM

When I posted about the Bailey, Colorado school siezure and shooting of a 16 year-old girl by 54-year-old Duane Morrison, I guaranteed that pornography would be found in the perp's van. That resulted in a wail from porn users who felt I was making a rash assumption.

Still no word about what was found in the van -- I'm going to try to find out next week -- but I thought I'd provide a bit of background to my very un-rash assumption.

All the defenders of porn have to do is type "pornography violence rape" into their browser and they'll find a wealth of information about extensive research into the possible connection between porn and sexual violence. It is tough to prove causality because porn tends to lead to violence over time, as users masturbate and fantasize to porn. That's difficult to replicate in a lab, but that doesn't mean there's not a causal relationship.

One of the better studies I reviewed was Pornography and Sexual Violence by Robert Jensen. Here's an excerpt:

Even without making claims that strong, the public testimony of women ( MacKinnon & Dworkin, 1997), my interviews with pornography users and sex offenders, and various other researchers' work, have led me to conclude that pornography can: (1) be an important factor in shaping a male-dominant view of sexuality; (2) be used to initiate victims and break down their resistance to unwanted sexual activity; (3) contribute to a user's difficulty in separating sexual fantasy and reality; and (4) provide a training manual for abusers (Dines & Jensen, 2004). Consider the following reports and what they tell us about the relationship between pornography and behavior:

From a woman involved in street prostitution, who reported that when one john exploded at her he said: "I know all about you bitches, you're no different; you're like all of them. I seen it in all the movies. You love being beaten. [He then began punching the victim violently.] I just seen it again in that flick. He beat the **** out of her while he raped her and she told him she loved it; you know you love it; tell me you love it" (Silbert & Pines, 1984, p. 864). ...

And from three different men in my study who had been convicted of sex offenses (Dines, Jensen, & Russo, 1998): From a 34-year-old man who had raped women and sexually abused girls: "There was a lot of oral sex that I wanted her to perform on me. There were, like, ways that would entice it in the movies, and I tried to use that on her, and it wouldn't work. Sometimes I'd get frustrated, and that's when I started hitting her. ...I used a lot of force, a lot of direct demands, that in the movies women would just cooperate. And I would demand stuff from her. And if she didn't, I'd start slapping her around" (p. 124).

From a 41-year-old man who had sexually abused his stepdaughter: "In fact, when I'd be abusing my daughter, I'd be thinking about some women I saw in a video. Because if I was to open my eyes and see my stepdaughter laying there while I was abusing her, you know, that wouldn't have been very exciting for me. You know, that would bring me back to the painful reality that I'm a child molester, where I'm in this reality of I'm making love or having intercourse with this beautiful woman from the video. The video didn't even come into my mind. It was just this beautiful person who had a beautiful body, and she was willing to do anything I asked" (p. 126).

The key element of internet porn is that its prevalence on line makes makes predators think they're normal, and the behaviors they want to act out on their victims are normal, too:

Mary Anne Layden, Ph.D., a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania who treats child molesters in her practice at the Sexual Trauma and Psychopathology Program, said that by the time a man is bold enough to drive to a strange house in the middle of the night where he expects to have sex with a child, he’s most likely a habitual porn user who believes “millions of people on the Internet are doing it,” so it’s OK for him as well. And the pornography he habitually views doesn’t need to depict children specifically for this effect to take place. ...

“The anonymity of the Internet has told everyone that whatever you’re doing is just fine. One of the reasons the Internet has been so good at producing pathology is because it’s anonymous. The permission-giving belief is that millions of people on the Internet are doing it,” Layden explained. “... As soon as you break that anonymity, you stop feeding the pathology of antisocial behavior.” (source)

Not all porn-users have the underlaying frayed wires that lead to violence, but that doesn't mean continued use of it is not harmful. It disrupts normal lives and good marriages. Pornography addiction is progressive and the sooner a habitual user decides to get out, the better his life will be.

There are Christian and conventional programs that use the AA model of 12 steps and accountability. If you've got a problem with porn, use your browser to lead you to one of these programs, not to more porn.

Related Tags: Pornography, Porn, Recovery, Duane Morrison