Researcher says porn "endogenous drug" that permanently restructures brain, mind, memory, conduct.

http://www.drjudithreisman.com/archives/2006/01/large_increase.html 

UNITED STATES, December 16, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A significant rise in pornographic DVD sales and rentals within the United States points to a rapidly growing addiction to pornography that is going largely unacknowledged within society.

The United States’ massive porn industry has reported a marked increase in sales of DVD’s for home adult entertainment. California-based Adult Video News predicted revenue of US$12.6-billion this year for the industry. Of that number, US$4.28-billion is predicted from sales and rentals of porn DVD’s, even though the price of a porn film has dropped 20% in the last year–to less than US$50.

The report offers no reason for the increase in sales and the growth of the industry overall, although some retailers of the products have suggested the increase is due to growing social acceptance of adult sexual entertainment.

That ‘social acceptance’ is in fact a rapidly growing addiction to pornographic material within mainstream society, according to researchers and therapists who work in the field of sexual dysfunction.

Dr. Judith Reisman, who has done extensive research discrediting the work of Alfred Kinsey, has shown compelling evidence that pornography is a powerful addictive force. In an article titled Exposing Pornography’s Addictive, Destructive Effects, published 2003, she states:

"For decades I have lectured on visual pornography as an "endogenous drug" that permanently restructures the brain, mind, memory and conduct of unthinking users…Pornography overrides cognition and causes dramatic changes in viewers’ behavior. This can be simple coarsening, impairing the capacity to love, or it can lead to brutal sexual crimes." ( http://www.drjudithreisman.com/archives/exposingporn.doc">http://www.drjudithreisman.com/archives/exposingporn.doc)

Dr. Mary Ann Layden is co-director of the Sexual Trauma and Psychopathology Program at the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Cognitive Therapy. Speaking before the 2004 Senate Commerce Committee, she said, "Pornography addicts have a more difficult time recovering from their addiction than cocaine addicts, since coke users can get the drug out of their system, but pornographic images stay in the brain forever.

Social acceptance of the industry appears to be a blanket of acceptability tossed over the ugly truth of pornography–that the industry degrades the people involved in the production of material, degrades the viewer, and fosters socially deviant behavior.

"Those who use pornography have been shown to be more likely to engage in illegal behavior…Research indicates and my clinical experience supports that those who use pornography are more likely to go to prostitutes, engage in domestic violence, stranger rape, date rape, and incest, " said Layden.

From de-valuing of women and children, to disruption of the ability to be in intimate relationship, to the acting out of violent fantasy against actual victims that leads to sexually motivated crimes, research clearly shows the devastating social results of pornography addiction.

The unchecked increase in child pornography offers unavoidable evidence for the fundamentally disordered nature of the industry. Individuals who defend adult porn may be outraged by the view that child pornography is a direct outcome of the adult industry, but in fact viewing the recorded image of child abuse has become a sexual turn-on for an appalling number of adults.

Furthermore, research shows that as an addiction, pornography builds upon itself, driving the addict to seek more extreme experiences of visually satisfying material.

"Sexual addicts develop tolerance and will need more and harder kinds of pornographic material," said Layden. "They have escalating compulsive sexual behavior becoming more out of control and also experience withdrawal symptoms if they stop the use of the sexual material. This material is potent, addictive and permanently implanted in the brain."

Despite industry defenders’ claims that adult entertainment is a healthy form of sexuality, the porn industry has seen an enormous increase in recent years in "extreme" porn involving violence, the abuse of animals, a focus on fecal and urinary functions, and self-mutilation.

"There are no studies and no data that indicate a benefit from pornography use," Layden said. "If there were a benefit, then pornography users, pornography performers, their spouses and their children would show the most benefit. Just the opposite is true. The society is awash in pornography and so in fact the data is in. If pornography made us healthy, we would be healthy by now."

For the full text of Layden’s statement, see:
http://commerce.senate.gov/hearings/testimony.cfm?id=1343&am...

Article first appeard at LifeSiteNews.com

By Gudrun Schultz. January 26, 2006.

http://www.drjudithreisman.com/archives/2006/09/pornographys_li.html

Would you try to put out a fire with gasoline?

No? Then you might disagree with an MSNBC online article, "Porn: Good for America !" by Glenn Reynolds, a University of Tennessee law professor. Reynolds suggests that pornography reduces rape!

As proof, Reynolds quotes a U.S. Department of Justice [DOJ] claim that in 2004 rape of "people" over age 12 radically decreased with an "85 percent decline in the per-capita rape rate since 1979" (DOJ’s National Crime Victimization Survey of "thousands of respondents 12 and older").

But the FBI also estimates that "34 percent of female sex assault victims" are "under age 12" (National Incident-Based Reporting System, July 2000).

Since the DOJ data excludes rape of children under age 12, child rape may be up 85 percent, for all we know.

Although the FBI and local police departments are now swamped with teachers, police, professors, doctors, legislators, clergy, federal and state bureaucrats, dentists, judges, etc., arrested for child pornography and for abusing children under age 12, the Department of Justice excludes those small victims from its "rape" rates. Why?

Do DOJ, FBI harbor pedophiles?

You have to wonder: Are there pedophiles and other sexual predators in the governmental woodpiles?

When I worked for DOJ’s Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention in the 1980s, someone high up killed the order to collect crime-scene pornography as evidence in prosecutions. No Democrat or Republican administration has yet mandated such on-site pornography collections. Whom is DOJ protecting?

Reynolds, writes less like an objective scholar than a pornography defender:

Since 1970 … porn has exploded. … But rape has gone down 85 percent. So much for the notion that pornography causes rape. … [I]t would be hard to explain how rape rates could have declined so dramatically while porn expanded so explosively.

He opines that pornography possibly prevents rape (the old discredited "safe-outlet" theory).

The DOJ’s preposterous "85 percent" decrease in rape ignores the obvious. The U.S. FBI Index of Crime reported a 418 percent increase in "forcible rape" from 1960 to 1999. That fear means we now keep our doors, windows and cars locked. Women seldom walk alone at night. Parents rarely let children go anywhere unaccompanied. Many states let people carry guns for self-defense. Rape Crisis Centers do not report rapes to police. More women perform as sexually required. A conflicting DOJ 2002 report says "almost 25 percent of college women have been victims of rape or attempted rape since the age of 14."

Why don’t the feds call child-rape ‘rape’?
In 1950, 18 states authorized the death penalty for rape; most others could impose a life sentence. Following Alfred Kinsey’s "scientific" advice in 1948, many states redefined "rape" so the crime could be plea-bargained down to a misdemeanor like "sexual misconduct."

Missouri redefined rape to mean 11 different crimes for 11 different sentences, magically lowering "rape" rates. Like all states that have trivialized rape, Missouri relied on the Kinsey-based 1955 American Law Institute Model Penal Code.

"Rape" was eliminated from New Jersey ‘s laws and replaced with a variety of terms during a 1978 penal law revision.

For example, Dr. Linda Jeffrey notes that the charge to which child-molesting teacher Pamela Diehl-Moore pleaded guilty was reduced to a second-tier crime, "sexual assault" – i.e., sexual contact with a victim under 13, or penetration where the "actor" uses physical force or coercion, but the victim doesn’t suffer severe personal injury, or the victim is 16 or 17, with aggravating circumstances, or the victim is 13 to 15 and the "actor" is at least four years older. (Whew!)

Sex criminals copy what porn depicts
DOJ experts should read reports such as "Sex-Related Homicide and Death Investigation" (2003). Former Lt. Comdr. Vernon Geberth says today’s "sex-related cases … are more frequent, vicious and despicable" than anything he experienced in decades as a homicide cop.

In "Journey Into Darkness" (1997), the FBI’s premier serial-rape profiler, John Douglas wrote, "[Serial-rape murders are commonly found] with a large pornography collection, either store-bought or homemade. … our [FBI] research does show that certain types of sadomasochistic and bondage-oriented material can fuel the fantasies of those already leaning in that direction."

In "The Evil That Men Do" (1998), FBI serial-rape-murderer-mutilator profiler Roy Hazelwood quotes one sex killer who tied his victims in "a variety of positions" based on pictures he saw in sex magazines.

"Thrill Killers, a Study of America ‘s Most Vicious Murders," by Charles Linedecker, reports that 81 percent of these killers rated pornography as their primary sexual interest. Dr. W.L. Marshall, in "Criminal Neglect, Why Sex Offenders Go Free" (1990), says based on the evidence, pornography "feeds and legitimizes their deviant sexual tendencies."

In one study of rapists, Gene Abel of the New York Psychiatric Institute cited, "One-third reported that they had used pornography immediately prior to at least one of their crimes." In 1984, the U.S. Attorney General’s Task Force on Family Violence reported, "Testimony indicates that an alarming number of rape and sexual assault offenders report that they were acting out behavior they had viewed in pornographic materials."

More pornography equals more rape of children and women. We need to ask whether Big Government is now selling out to Big Pornography as it did to Big Tobacco for half a century

Source

Article by Dr Judith A. Reisman

September 12, 2006

http://www.drjudithreisman.com/archives/2006/09/pornographys_li.html

About Dr. Judith A. Reisman

http://www.drjudithreisman.com/about_dr_reisman.html

Brief CV

http://www.drjudithreisman.com/about_dr_reisman.html#cv

Sunday Star-Times
11 March 2007, A4

A COMMUNITY standards lobby group is asking for a porn video featuring police batons used as “sex toys” to be banned in light of public outrage over historic allegations against police officers.

The Society for Promotion of Community Standards has applied for leave from the chief censor to have the classification of Big Boob Lesbian Cops II reconsidered.

This film – which features group sex and “humorous” role-plays involving police officers using batons as penetrative sex toys on women – was cleared for R18 release with no cuts in 1994.

After Prime Minister Helen Clark’s public condemnation of the sexual exploits of Assistant Commissioner Clint Rickards and former policemen Brad Shipton and Bob Schollum from 20 years ago, and the “public outrage and disgust” at allegations women had been sexually degraded using police batons, the society wants the video banned, its secretary David Lane wrote in an open letter to the chief censor.

The three men were acquitted this month on kidnap and indecent assault charges relating to a teenage girl in the 1980s, having already been found not guilty last year of similar charges against Rotorua woman Louise Nicholas.

Shipton and Schollum were already in prison for raping a Mt Maunganui woman 18 years ago.

Under section 42 of the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act (1993), a publication can be reclassified if there were “special circumstances” justifying reconsideration.

Chief censor Bill Hastings said anyone was entitled to ask for a classification to be reconsidered and the society’s request would be processed “in due course”. But he suggested the society’s move may backfire by giving the video free publicity.

[See Below for Copy of Society's Letter to Chief Censor seeking leave]

The Society for Promotion of Community Standards Inc.
P.O. Box 13-683 Johnsonville

Press Release 9 March 2007

Society Wants Sex-Videos Mocking Police Banned

The Society wants the Chief Censor to overturn his decision that cleared sexually explicit videos for adult viewing that mock police and sexually degrade women. It has submitted an application to the Chief Censor Bill Hastings under s. 42(3)(b) of the Classification Act requesting that his Office reclassify videos that include degrading scenes in which police officers use police batons as penetrative ‘sex toys’ on women. Set out below is the open letter sent to Mr Hastings and copied to NZ Commissioner of Police, The Minister of Police, the Prime Minister, the Secretary of Internal Affairs and the Minister of Internal Affairs.

Open Letter to Mr Bill Hastings
Chief Censor of Film and Literature
Office of Film and Literature Classification, Wellington
9 March 2007

Application for Leave from Chief Censor: Reconsideration of publication “Big Boob Lesbian Cops #2” by the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) under s. 42 (3)(b) of the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act (1993)

Dear Mr Bill Hastings

The Society seeks the leave of the Chief Censor under s. 42(3)(b) of the Act to have the classification of the video entitled “Big Boob Lesbian Cops #2” reconsidered. The OFLC Publication Ref. No. for this publication is 401313 and it was classified R18 with the descriptive note “Contains explicit sex scenes”. The OFLC decision was registered on 3 September 2004 and no excisions were recommended. The Society contends that the video should be banned or excisions made because of its degrading sexual content including the use of police batons as penetrative ‘sex toys’ on women, by aggressive police officers.

Reasons for seeking reclassification.

Background: Ss 3(3) and 3(4) of the Act. In determining for the purposes of the Act, whether or not any publication (other than one to which subsection (2) applies) is objectionable, particular weight is required to be given to the extent and degree to which and the manner in which the publication describes, depicts or otherwise deals with “sexual or physical conduct of a degrading or dehumanising or demeaning nature” [s. 3(3)(a)(iii)] and “degrades or demeans any person” [s. 3(3)(b)]. In addition, when determining whether a publication should be classified objectionable under s. 3(3), the censors are required to take into consideration “the dominant effect of the publication as a whole”.

The OFLC report recognised that the extensive “degrading effect” of the publication Lesbian Cops: it degraded and dehumanised its participants (women). As stated its classification as R18 was “based on the publication’s treatment of matters of sex”.

“Consideration has been given to the extent and degree to which the publication degrades and dehumanises its participants. This effect created through the extensive use of sustained close-up genital focus, and also the use of derogatory comment to refer to the female participants.” [Emphasis added]

However, the report goes on to contend that that the “occasional use of fuller body shots” of the women being degraded, the “inclusion of faces” of the women being degraded and “the humorous pretence of role-playing the policeman [who degraded the women using police batons etc] at the beginning of the scenes”, “mitigated” against the “degrading effect” of the publication. The Society is shocked at these findings. It contends that the reasoning used by your Office to provide justification for retention of this degrading material in an adult video is perverse and erroneous. However, it does understand why your censors, who appear to have become desensitised to such degrading sexual material, might find such depictions humorous.

Sexually explicit videos featuring aggressive police officers (in role-play) using police batons as penetrative sex toys on women have been cleared by you as Chief Censor and your deputy Ms Nicola McCully. The Society says “Big Boob Lesbian Cops #2” is a title typical of a genre of toxic and obscene garbage that your Office regularly clears for adult viewing “for the purpose of sexual arousal”. Hundreds of obscene sexually explicit DVDs and videos with titles like “The F### Factory” and “Anal Crackmaster”, that degrade, demean and dehumanise women have been passed under your watch as Chief Censor, without any cuts.

[Note: We remind you that a few years ago you viewed and cleared the French rape film “Baise-Moi” (translated “F###-Me”) for public screening in the now defunct Incredible Film Festival, without requiring any cuts; a film banned by Australian censors and cut in the UK. The film which the Society sought unsuccessfully to have cut or banned by the Review Board, is full of graphic sexual violence including a four-and-a-half minute explicit voyeuristic close-up of actual rape of a woman, showing vaginal and anal penetration accompanied by ‘arousal music’ typically used in sex scenes from hard-core porn films. The husband of the former Governor-General, Dame Silvia Cartwright, Peter Cartwright, still a member of the Review Board, was one who approved the film uncut for a general R18 release into mainstream New Zealand cinemas].

The Classification Office’s decision on the video “Lesbian Cops…” notes: “The feature mostly has an easy and relaxed tone, except the role-plays are simulating the stereotypical attitude of the ‘tough cop’.” The “rather humorous role-play … often puts the police character in a position of dominance” [Emphasis added]. The camera gives “much time to close-up and extreme close-up footage of the [sexual] activity… The genital area and associated activity are explicit and take up most of the screen”. The degrading nature of the content is highlighted including … “The use of a police baton as a dildo (‘sex toy’) is degrading too, as it presents an object usually seen as an authoritative weapon, as a penetrative sex toy… a variety of wooden and plastic dildos are used throughout the sex scenes.” The video includes numerous trailers depicting sexual activities “including double penetration (simultaneous vaginal and anal intercourse by two men on one woman), and ejaculation onto women’s faces. Scenes such as women kneeling with her face raised for the ejaculate of two men, and vigorous, double penetration depictions, give the trailers a harder edge than the feature”.

S. 42(3)(b) Special Circumstances justifying reconsideration of the decision.  

In the wake of the Prime Minister Helen Clark’s public condemnation of the group sex engaged in by suspended Assistant Police Superintendent Clint Richard and his two senior police colleagues (both now convicted rapists), over 20 years ago (she called his activities “unethical”); and the public outrage and disgust at the allegations made by rape victims of these men sexually degrading them using police batons; the Society contends that this video should be banned. It features role plays involving police officers using police batons as penetrative sex toys on women, group sex trailers involving double penetration etc. and gratuitous and graphic depictions of vaginal and anal penetrative sex acts. Under the law such publications that have the effect of sexually degrading, demeaning and dehumanising women should be banned.

We await your response to our request to grant the Society leave under s. 42(3) to have the classification decision issued by your Office on “Big Boob Lesbian Cops #2” reconsidered, as soon as possible.

Yours sincerely

David Lane
Secretary
Society for Promotion of Community Standards Inc.
On Behalf of Society Executive

cc. Hon. Annette King, Minister of Police
Rt Hon. Helen Clark, Prime Minister.
Hon. Rick Barker, Minister of Internal Affairs
Secretary of Internal Affairs, Mr Christopher Blake.
NZ Police Commissioner Howard Broad.

In a decision dated 31 January 2006 and signed by the Chief Censor of Film and Literature, Bill Hastings, the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) has ruled that the Otago University Student Association’s Magazine CRITIC TE AROHI (Issue 23, Sept 19, 2005) is “objectionable” in terms of section 3(2)(b) and 3(2)(d) of the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act 1993 (“the Act”). The Society formally submitted this obscene and offensive publication to the OFLC for classification on the 23rd of September 2005, a few days after it was published by Planet Media Dunedin Ltd. and began to be distributed freely among university students at Otago University. The Commissioner of Police (NZ) and the Drug Rape Trust (NZ) also submitted the magazine for classification.

It is an offence under s. 125 of this Act to supply, distribute, exhibit or display any publication that has been classified “objectionable”. A person convicted of such an offence is liable to a fine of $3,000 and a fine of $10,000 applies to a body corporate. It is also an offence under s. 131 of this Act to “possess” an “objectionable publication” like CRITIC (Issue 23). An individual can be liable to a fine of $2,000 and a body corporate $5,000, once convicted of the offence of “possession”. Under s. 131 (3) there is no defence to a charge of possession of an “objectionable publication” based a defendant’s claim that he/she “had no knowledge or no reasonable cause to believe that the publication to which the charge relates was objectionable”.

About 5,500 copies of CRITIC (Issue 23), that demeans, degrades and dehumanises victims of drug rape and women in general, were distributed free around the Otago University Campus and throughout Dunedin city last year. The magazine’s editor Ms Holly Walker and her editorial team brazenly promoted the issue, refusing to concede that it was “objectionable” in terms of the Act. Ms Walker received wide publicity in the media over the controversy and never once offered a genuine apology to the victims of rape and the many people deeply offended by the publication. 

The OFLC ruled that the magazine “tends to promote and support the use of violence and coercion to compel any person to participate in, or submit to sexual conduct” and “promotes or encourage criminal acts to a large extent”. It also “contains an article that “describes the victims of sexual violence in a degrading, and dehumanising manner, taking the perspective of a misogynistic “drug rapist”.

The publisher (Planet Media Dunedin Limited) made a lengthy written submission to the Classification Office defending the Magazine. Its submission that was received by the Office on the 7th of November 2005 and was late (the publisher had been granted a two week extension to a deadline for submissions that had been firmly set at 21/10/05 by the OFLC. The revised deadline was 5 p.m. 4/11/05).

The Society’s submission to the Office on CRITIC is available on the homepage of its website (www.spcs.org.nz) in PDF format.

The Society is very pleased that CRITIC (Iss. 23) has been classified “objectionable” for the reasons it presented in its submission. Two other community organisations, The Drug Rape Trust (Inc.) and Rape Crisis Dunedin (Inc.), also made submissions to the OFLC on the publication, contending that it should be classified “objectionable”.

The Society is incensed that the Chief Censor Bill Hastings and his Deputy, Ms Nicola McCully, have been directly responsible for the clearing of brutal rape films like Baise-Moi, Irreversible and Visitor Q for public screening and yet fail to see that such decisions that have set new low benchmarks in the gratuitous and depraved depictions of sexual violence; cannot be reconciled with their recent decision to ban CRITIC.

Baise Moi features a four and a half-minute explicit and close-up depiction of a women being brutally raped and sodomised and an orgy of sexual violence as never seen before in NZ cinemas. Irreversible features a nine-minute depiction of a young pregnant woman being sodomised by a drug-crazed homosexual who fantasises that he is raping a young boy. Visitor Q features a lengthy depiction of the brutal rape of a young woman, the sexual violation of the corpse (necrophilia), sexual violation in association with human excrement and the mutilation of a corpse for sexual titillation. All these films, which the Society was unsuccessful in getting banned, degrade, demean and dehumanise women to a very high degree.

The same is true of the huge numbers of hard core obscene DVDs and videos that Mr Hastings and his Deputy Ms Nicola McCully clear for adult (R18) home viewing ‘entertainment’ every month. If CRITIC is to be banned, and the Society says it should be, then all these films should also be banned or cut. These depraved and offensive publications feature explicit and lengthy depictions of men ejaculating into the mouths and over the faces of women, forced deep throat penetration leading to the “gagging” of women, simultaneous vaginal and anal penetration (double penetration), anilingus, forced fellatio and cunnilingus, spectacles of women having to lick ejaculate off the floor and furniture, digital anal penetration followed by finger/anal sucking, etc.

The Society cannot understand why it took almost three months for the Chief Censor to classify CRITIC “objectionable” when his Office regularly classifies hard core porn films in a matter of a few days when friendly distributors get his assistance to fast track the process. The OFLC has failed to provide any reasonable explanation to the public or media for why it has taken so long to classify CRITIC. Clearly the OFLC does not consider it a top priority to promptly outlaw the dissemination of material containing hard core porn and promotes sexual violence and is freely available to very large audiences. The tardy response of the OFLC sends a very clear signal to the public and distributors of sexual violence.

The Society has called on the Minister of Internal Affairs, the Hon. Rick Barker, to promptly replace the Chief Censor and his Deputy whose statutory position has already expired (16 September 2005). The Chief Censor’s three year term of office expires on the 19th of October 2006.

To view Chief Censor’s media release (1/02/06) on ban go to: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0602/S00002.htm

Student drug-rape magazine banned (1/02/06)http://www.nzherald.co.nz/location/story.cfm?l_id=141&objectid=10366303

Stuff News Report (2/02/06) “Student Mag Banned for rape article” http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3558571a11,00.html

Student mag cited for ‘diatribe’ on Jews (26/09/05)http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10347305