Porn Again Christians

When that nasty recording – in which Donald Trump bragged on a live microphone that his celebrity allowed him to grope and even grab a beautiful woman’s “pussy” almost at random – he explained it as “locker room talk.” Just about everyone who heard those words – especially those white under-educated and frequently un- or under-employed white Christian males who make up the cornerstone of his base – took them at face value. That he self-admittedly walked into the dressing rooms where naked contestants in Trump-sponsored beauty pageants, to their dismay, was simply icing on a promiscuous cake. Strange to watch seemingly committed Evangelicals turning such obvious anti-Christian behavior aside as if it did not exist.

That Mt. Trump has come out in support of heavily-accused child-molester, Alabama Senatorial candidate Roy Moore – and is openly aghast at first-daughter Ivanka’s rejection of Moore’s candidacy – is simply confirmation that the alpha male’s droit de seigneur is far from dead. You can picture that segment of angry white Christian blue collar males – out-sourced, made obsolescent and automated – living in a world of opioid addiction, video games and porn… cheering at every body slam inflicted by their new hero, The Donald, marching under burning crosses in the name of God. They seem to live vicariously through the President’s seeming triumphs and flaunting of convention.

Donald Trump’s bully-style is the very symbol of the “Sexual Abuse Enabler.” But there is another, seldom discussed element, which has permeated our society for years, a constitutionally-protected area of free speech: pornography. No, I am not coming out with a call to arms against pornography; my commitment to the First Amendment is way too strong for that. What I think we all need to ask of society, and of ourselves individually, is what the impact – the desensitization of sexuality and the expectations that porn creates among too many – of pornography is on the bigger picture of the acceptability, to one degree or another, of alpha male bravado and the notion that women expect, even want or invite, such overt sexual aggression.

Exactly what has porn done to American society? Writing for the November 26^th Los Angeles Times, journalist Zac Crippen explains the linkage between porn and the sweeping litany of sexual abuse that is dominating headlines: “Each new revelation since the first reports of the Harvey Weinstein scandal adds to the discussion about how to deal with sexual harassment and sexual violence in American society. And yet nobody is talking about what could be one of the most effective ways to attack the problem: Recognizing that pornography consumption is a public health crisis.

“In 1969, the Supreme Court overturned the conviction of Robert Stanley, a Georgia man charged with possession of pornographic material. ‘If the First Amendment means anything,’ Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote, ‘it means that a State has no business telling a man, sitting alone in his own house, what books he may read or what films he may watch.’ After Stanley vs. Georgia, President Lyndon Johnson established a commission to study pornography’s effects. The commission (which was 90% male and admitted to a paucity of data) concluded that ‘established patterns of sexual behavior . . . [are] not altered substantially by exposure to erotica.’ The data now show that this understanding is wrong.

“Hugh Hefner, the founder of Playboy who died in September, convinced generations of young men that the ideal female is large-breasted, young, airbrushed and exists for their pleasure. Porn powerfully imparts these lessons and more. According to Mary Anne Layden, director of the Sexual Trauma and Psychopathology Program at the University of Pennsylvania, porn is a particularly effective teacher precisely because learning is more permanent when our sympathetic nervous system is aroused, when what is being taught is reinforced through biological rewards, and when we see role models performing the behavior. Porn does all of those things, stimulating its aroused viewers with dopamine surges while they watch actors engaging in sexual behavior on screen.

“What else is porn teaching us? There is evidence that, as one researcher put it, ‘the heavy use of pornography skews the users’ perception of what is normal’ in sex, and interferes with relationships. Even more troubling: A late-2015 meta-analysis of the literature on sexual violence and pornography concluded that ‘pornography consumption [is] associated with an increased probability of the use or threat of force to obtain sex,’ and that both violent and nonviolent porn are implicated.

“The connection to assault is at least partly circular: We have a sexual violence problem because we have a porn problem, and vice versa. But at least one study suggests that the porn often comes first: In 2009, researchers found that after controlling for prior tendencies, exposure to sexual media increased sexual aggressiveness in youth.

“In addition to damaging intimacy and driving sexual aggression, the evidence is mounting that porn is addictive. A 2014 study looked at the brain function of men with compulsive sexual behavior: When they watched pornographic videos their brain activity in some ways mirrored that of drug addicts. Another study released earlier this year found that the brains of compulsive porn consumers reflected neural and behavioral changes ‘similar to what is observed in substance and gambling addictions.'

“Statistics from the popular website Pornhub corroborate the addiction thesis. Visitors to the site last year streamed 99 gigabytes of video every second and viewed almost 92 billion videos in total, streaming 4.6 billion hours of porn. According to the website-ranking firm Alexa, Pornhub ranks ahead of Google and Netflix in the daily time each visitor spends on the site.”

It seems as with the licit use of alcohol and the growing legality of recreational marijuana, the “drink or use responsibly” mantra would seem equally applicable to the consumption of pornography. Viewers need to know that the situations depicted are not the regular experiences for most of us, and that there are no generalizable assumptions about men or women that pornography can teach us. But how many porn fans ever stop to make those clear observations for themselves? How many bury the underlying messages deep within their brains, never pausing to question the veracity of the assumptions presented in these pornographic moments. And who in society is issuing reminders of the big disconnect between the “values” embraced in porn-world versus what is truly acceptable in the real world?

 

We need to talk about this pattern of desensitization that flows from addiction to porn. Parents need to explain these core issues to their children, male and female. Sex education needs to address the conflicts between the fake news of porn-world and the respect for individual dignity in the real world. And perhaps the pornography industry itself needs to spur a very necessary campaign for people to understand the dichotomy between entertainment and reality. Consent literally has to mean consent. Assumptions of consent, beliefs that such aggressive behavior is implicitly condoned or invited, need to be challenged and purged. It’s time for responsible adults to act like responsible adults.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I have spent several blogs addressing the underbelly of unwanted sexual aggression in our society in the hopes that this will getting people talking and communicating about the underlying issues and what we, as individuals, can do about them.