Dr. J. Reisman

It is no secret that many Christians view pornography as being sinful despite the irony that millions of us utilize adult images every day. But some conservative Christian researchers assert that viewing pornography can also be physically and mentally harmful, is as addictive as crack and heroin, and can cause an ordinary man to rape women and molest children. With the advent of ubiquitous pornography online, has viewing it become our biggest health concern, or is the anti-porn movement just another tool from the conservative right to further dismantle personal freedoms and women’s rights? There are many vocal and well-respected researchers who analyze pornography and its effects, such as Dr. Mary Anne Layden, Dr. Judith Reisman, and Dr. Jeffrey B Satinover. They are not only researchers, but are also the forces behind the anti-pornography movement. Reisman and Satinover are also involved in the anti-homosexuality movement. They are all vocally conservative, and when it comes to researching the effects of pornography they always arrive at the same time-worn, black-and-white conclusion. Their tactics and analyses reek of Reefer Madness.

Dr. Mary Anne Layden

Layden is the Director of Education of the Sexual Trauma and Psychopathology Program, Center for Cognitive Therapy at the University of Pennsylvania, and is maybe most famous for stating before a Senate Committee that internet pornography is a drug which permanently implants itself into the mind of the viewer.

“The internet is a perfect drug delivery system,” Layden said. “To have drug pumped into your house 24/7, free, and children know how to use it better than grown-ups know how to use it — it’s a perfect delivery system if we want to have a whole generation of young addicts who will never have the drug out of their mind. This material is potent, addictive and permanently implanted in the brain.”

She is not alone in her extreme view of pornography’s effects. Satinover likened pornography to heroin before the same Senate Committee. “Pornography really does, unlike other addictions, biologically cause direct release of the most perfect addictive substance,” Satinover said. “That is, it causes masturbation, which causes release of the naturally occurring opioids. It does what heroin can’t do, in effect.”

Santinover is a well respected anti-homosexual leader, authoring the work “Homosexuality & The Politics of Truth” and is involved with the organization P.A.T.H., Positive Alternative to Homosexuality. Reismann is the world’s most vocal activists against the book “The Kinsey Report” and authored the work “Kinsey, Sex and Fraud.” She is also a vocal anti-homosexual, and was a prosecution witness for the state of Ohio when it attempted to remove photos by Robert Mapplethorpe from Cincinnati’s Contemporary Arts Center. Reismann coined the term “erototoxins,” a made-up word describing a made-up chemical produced by the brain while viewing pornography, which she claims could be the key to showing how pornography is not speech-protected under the First Amendment.

Another made-up element these researchers use to bolster claims is linking pornography to child molestation. Unable to claim pornography is harmful because it goes against their conservative views, they instead use the protection of children as the main argument in their anti-porn defense. Layden went so far as to claim that the federal government should fund “health campaigns” to educate the public on the dangers of pornography, by putting signs on busses that say “Sex with children is not ok.”

But in reality, innocent children and outlandish claims are a way to push the conservative agenda of crushing First Amendment and women’s rights.

The anti-porn battle began over a thousand years ago, with patriarchal leaders outlawing goddess worship that revered the nude female form–symbolized in the vagina, breasts, and swollen womb–to promote male-centered rule and divinity. It was only much later and with much difficulty that a female presence emerged into the Christian patriarchy, which was known during the middle ages as “the cult of the virgin Mary.”

These ancient leaders manipulated Christianity in order to designate themselves as divinely chosen emperors or church leaders in order to legitimize their elite power. They openly extracted enormous wealth from subjects rendered ineffectual by legislative schemes, similar efforts being carried to this day by the conservative right, using puppets like Layden, Satinover, and Reismann.

The ubiquity of pornography today, with the advent of the Internet, threatens to normalize sexuality, set the nude female form in a position of reverence, and lead us away from not the teachings of Christ, but the political institution of Christianity–the fear-based apparatus designed to control the populace and assure the power and wealth of an elite male oligarchy who have existed unmolested for millennia and who are responsible for moving our planet toward the brink of ruin. And thanks to the biased research published, and movements organized, by these respected researchers, we’re just one step closer to the end.