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Cover of Maclean's Magazine Notes Children as Young as 8 View Online Porn Regularly

By Thaddeus M. Baklinski

June 27, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The moral and spiritual damage generated by the pornography industry is reaching farther and farther into our society and our families. The case is now being made that it is time for new government policies to protect the large numbers of children who are now being exposed to addictive and damaging Internet porn that is far too readily available to them on the Internet.

Canada's Macleans national news magazine recent cover story, "Guess who's watching porn" (http://www.macleans.ca/culture/lifestyle/article.jsp?content=20080618_9719_9719),  reported that children as young as 8 are viewing and getting hooked on pornography that is easily accessible on the internet and that netporn is reshaping the sexual attitudes of our youth.

"Pornography in all its permutations affects developing sexuality," writes Pamela Paul in her book Pornified: How Pornography is Transforming Our Lives, Our Relationships and Our Families. "The younger the age of exposure and the more hard-core the material, the more intense the effects."

Monique Polak, the author of the Macleans article observes, "These effects can include everything from a skewed sense of sexual norms to difficulty maintaining a healthy, loving relationship; an unrealistic view of women; and potentially, pornography addiction, which can interfere with school work, friendships and family relationships."

In its editorial, in the same issue, Plug the porn pipeline (http://www.macleans.ca/canada/opinions/article.jsp?content=20080618_40010_40010), Macleans states, "If governments have a responsibility to protect children from harm, this responsibility must surely also cover a flood of obscene words and images delivered free of charge to machines on which millions of normal youths play, learn and communicate."

The devastating social results of pornography use have been studied from many different angles, including the objectifying and de-valuing of women and children, the disruption of the ability to be in long-tern and stable relationship, and the acting out of violent fantasies against actual victims.

Dr. Judith Reisman, who has done extensive research discrediting the work of "sexologist" 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)

Dr. Mary Ann Layden, co-director of the Sexual Trauma and Psychopathology Program at the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Cognitive Therapy, 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."

Dr. Layden's research showed that as an addiction, pornography builds upon itself, driving the addict to seek more extreme experiences.

"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."

David Marcus, a psychologist at the San Jose Marital and Sexuality Center in California, corroborated Dr. Layden's statement, saying one of biggest problems with Internet porn in particular is that people's tolerance to it becomes accelerated. "What people really, really don't get is that what was enough yesterday - and exciting yesterday - is not enough today," he says in the Macleans article. "In other words, very soon a naked woman is old news, and users are seeking out different, increasingly graphic, and in extreme cases criminal, content - things that will continue to shock and arouse. They have to keep getting more and more, so it becomes this insatiable thirst for it."

Cardinal Justin Rigali, writing in the Catholic Standard and Times, the newspaper of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, said that the modern media's obsession with pornography is "one of the most pervasive and destructive problems in our society."
 
"Our society," the Cardinal wrote, "is inundated with sex and sensuality largely from the media. Films, television programs, and advertisements are loaded with sexual reference as well as the promotion of sexual promiscuity."

Rigali called pornography "a cancer upon contemporary culture." "Addictive in nature, many have been entangled in its lure and have caused great psychological and emotional harm to themselves and even to spouses and other family members. Violence, sexual abuse, psychological trauma and ruptured relationships are the fruit of pornography, which, astonishingly, is a multi-billion dollar industry."

So what can parents do to protect their children from the pervasive sexualization of the mainstream media and especially from netporn?

Talk to your children at age-appropriate levels about the problems they will encounter; set clear rules about TV and internet use; put your computer in a "high-traffic" area of your home where you can see it; buy and use filtering software that will allow you to protect your kids from inadvertent exposure to pornography; or contact your internet service provider to find out what they are doing to clean up what they are feeding into your home.

Read related LifeSiteNews.com articles:

Pornography "One of the Most Pervasive and Destructive Problems in Our Society"
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/jun/06060908.html

Large Increase in Porn DVD Sales Indicates Growing Pornography Addiction
Researcher says porn "endogenous drug" that permanently restructures brain, mind, memory, conduct
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/dec/05121603.html

Study: Teens Heed Parents Warnings against Drugs and Alcohol But Indulge When Left Unguided
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/jun/08061005.html

SEXUAL DYSFUNCTION RAMPANT IN AMERICA
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/1999/feb/99021206.html

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