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Pornography Reactions and Reality DOMEENA C. RENSHAW Loyola University of Chicago, Stritch School of Medicine, Maywood, IL
ORIGINAL ARTICLE The Greek word porne (harlot) paired with graphe (picture or writing) has for centuries been used for depiction of sexual activity from cave paintings to contemporary internet depictions, movies, and videos. Playboy-type magazines are considered “tame” today. This brief discussion will update busy physicians of all specialties as to how their patients may be using or overusing available explicit materials and will also assess the impact on the patients’ current work and home adjustment.
INTRODUCTION
REPRINTS D. C. Renshaw, MD, Loyola School of Medicine, 2160 S. First Ave., Maywood, IL 60513. E-mail:
[email protected]. The author has stated that she does not have a significant financial interest or other relationship with any product manufacturer or provider of services discussed in this article. The author does not discuss the use of off-label products, which includes unlabeled, unapproved, or investigative products or devices. Submitted for publication: May 9, 2005. Accepted: May 18, 2005. Comprehensive Therapy, vol. 31, no. 4, Winter 2005 © Copyright 2005 by ASCMS All rights of any nature whatsoever reserved. 0098-8243/05/31:251–254/$30.00
Pornography is not new to 2005. In AD 79 the cities of Herculaneum and Pompei were buried in the volcanic explosion of Mount Vesuvius. In excavations of their remains, the walls of several temples were found. They were abundantly covered with paintings of sexual acts too explicit to allow tourist visits by women and children. Only adult men were allowed on the hour-long tour. How do men respond to pornography? The majority find it arousing or amusing, as do a few women. However, many women and a small percentage of men find pornography boring or offensive. Some say they are indifferent. No known culture openly displayed pornography to the public. Pompeii, an ancient Roman city, had its explicit sexual activities depicted for a privileged small group. The female “vestal virgins” were to serve the sexual demands of the high priest (keeper of the sacred fires of the pagan goddess Vesta). The ancient relics are now in a private restricted museum. Nearly every erection is an exaggerated thigh length. Primitive prehistoric cave paintings seemed to emphasize fertility of man and animal, whereas Pompeii paintings were of erotic variety. Contemporary studies of sexual behavior evolved slowly after discovery of the printing press. In England, Victorianism powerfully suppressed explicit art. In 1905, Havelock Ellis Encyclopedia of Sexuality could not find a London publisher and was printed in Germany (in English) because it was banned as pornographic. Laws COMP THER. 2005; 31(4) ............................................................251
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exist in all countries East to West about explicit erotic art and books—educational or commercial. One Sunday morning in May 1981, while on a lecture trip, a customs officer in Capetown confiscated all my academic materials. He confiscated my teaching videos and written articles because Peter Mayle’s child sex education book Where Did I Come From? was on the South African very long list of banned books. The next day with former rugby star, Danie Prenaar and Dr. Ralph Kirsch, medicine chairman, I returned to the airport customs to be met with an apology by an elegant gentleman in a blazer. All my materials were in two South African Airways carry bags. He quietly and politely asked me “not to talk to the press about this please.” Laws and private and community attitudes vary in different families, countries, cultures, and religions. They are in a state of constant flux. Hugh Heffner must have made millions because Playboy was banned in some countries. Japan finally allowed Playboy in but, because of the country’s abhorrence of body hair, had a fleet of male workers white-out all chest and genital hair on the nude pictures. In China, possession of pornography is a capital offense. For the past three decades, it has been said that Puritanism is dead and that America is at the top of the pornography age with a multibillion-dollar industry. There is a fringe of crime and another of community opponents who regard pornography as sinful and criminal. They protest and seek to eradicate pornographers. For many men, pornography is to their desire and arousal like lighter fuel to barbecue coals—it starts up the coals. US pornography laws are uncertain and have endless loopholes so that juries do not often convict producers of pornography. Millionaire Penthouse publisher, Bob Guccione, was honored by Brandeis University, in Pennsylvania, after he donated scholarships to the college. He had bought respectability with his pornography fortune. In 1840, after the Civil War, Anthony Cornstock launched a US anti-pornography crusade that resulted in prosecutions and laws, with censorship that banned D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover in 1920. Then, an anti-censorship movement arose to defend frankness in the arts. The courts then defined a difference between obscene and sexual: “whether to the average person applying contemporary standards, the dominant theme of the material taken as whole, appeals to prurient interest. Further the material should be judged in court as ‘without redeeming value’.” Juries were to be pornography judges. “Victimless crimes” became a phrase for pornography production each time adults were accused of producing pornography. Many citizens are “busted,” but few are convicted. Hard-core pornography will show intercourse; soft-core pornography COMP THER. 2005;31(4) ............................................................252
does not. The films and videos are cheap, quick to churn out, and generate big profits. On the black market, 30minute child pornography videos fetch $3000 and filmmakers risk jail for producing them. Kiddie pornography is criminal. As boredom rapidly sets in, producers constantly search for more exotic erotica. The taboos and violence pursued are called “brutalizing of the American soul.” In 1968, President Lyndon Johnson formed an 18member Commission on Obscenity and Pornography. In 1970, the commission stated the pornography problem was exaggerated and recommended repeal of all laws against explicit sex materials to adults. They recommended prohibiting (a) commercial sex materials to minors without parental consent, (b) public display of sexual materials, and (c) unsolicited advertising and mailing of pornography. The commission recommended expanded community and school sex education programs. The vote was 16 to 18. Only two members felt the pornography evidence did not prove it was harmful to minors. President Nixon rejected the entire report without ever reading it. Curiosity is an essential quality of intellect. We see, hear, feel, and are curious to explore further in order to understand. Both children and adults watch and repeat. Copycat behavior can teach us to sing, dance, talk, read, and compete in beauty pageants—imperceptibly, almost by osmosis. It is an ancient everyday way to learn. Sports, horseback riding, driving a tricycle or a car, all can be learned by observing and repeating. What about sex? Usually at home there is sexual silence until there is a problem. Children listen, watch, and learn—usually from other children or TV or the internet—with no anticipatory input from parents about right, wrong, good, or bad. There are no studies of a child’s reaction to watching pornography because the researcher would be jailed by law for showing pornography to a child. Parental consent would be necessary and even if it was legal, few parents would agree to such research. Scientific research on minors is still virtually nonexistent. In this computer generation, precocious children of 9 or 10 yr of age can find pornography on the internet. A 14-yr-old girl posted her own nude photo on the web along with her home phone number in order to seek a boyfriend. She had taken her own picture with her parents’ digital camera and put it on the web. Was it dangerous? Of course. She gave her phone number and her address. This girl could have been found and molested. She had not even considered the consequences because, at 14 yr old, she did not know them. She was brought to see me when her mother found the nude photo and panicked.
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Two 13-yr-old boys in an Illinois school made and circulated three copies of a video of two classmates, a girl of 13 and a boy of 14, having intercourse. The incident made instant newspaper headlines with photos and names of the teen producers when they were later tried as adults for “kiddie porn.” This is a different era of technology, of affluence, and of skill. Adults are often totally unaware. Most people only learn the laws when they break them (e.g., sex between minors is statutory rape). The 14-yr-old boy in the video can be tried for statutory rape even if the 13-yr-old girl consented and even if she solicited or was paid for the performance. Here the law is not gender-equal. Males fare worse. Laws for kiddie pornography—making, watching, and selling it—are in flux and have to be tested in the courts (1). A subindustry has formed to help screen the internet in order to protect children. Cyber Patrol, Surf Monkey, and Net Nanny are a few such blockers. In the end, however, parents are those most responsible and most affected and as such, they must monitor online chatting and stay informed. Web sites exist that give details for child safety. How does a child react to pornography? The sudden sight of pornography may elicit curiosity, surprise, giggles, excitement, embarrassment, and questions to a parent or teacher. Why no clothes? What are they doing? Answers depend on the child’s age, intelligence, and prior sex knowledge, what the child may have previously overheard or seen. Further questions challenge each adult. At a formative age, children may get mistaken ideas about sex. Information about family values, nudity, reality, variation, and how much exaggeration is depicted must be learned. Trust, equal relationships as the place for closeness, and the real consequences of sexual expression must be taught and discussed, as well as the prevalence and exploitation by peers or the pornography market. Being angry with or punishing the child may halt further questions. The child may redirect his or her search for information to other persons who may exploit the ignorant child rather than provide an appropriate reply, one with values concordant with those of the family. A reply such as: “Sex is natural and normal. In our family it is very private and happens between…” will provide the child with the beliefs that the parent wishes the child to have. For many women, pornography evokes a negative aversive reaction: “It demeans women,” “I feel threatened,” “Men enjoy looking at beautiful women—I feel I cannot compete,” “Why can’t he be satisfied with me and not need porn?” “He’s more in love with his internet chat ladies than with me,” “It’s sinful and evil to watch porn,” “Is he gay because I found him masturbating to gay sex on the
internet?”(2,3). Online pornography offers anonymity, affordability, and 24 h of international chatroom connections. These may amuse, entertain, or arouse. When some women realize that men use pornography for “start-up” arousal and not as competition, they will join their partner in watching pornography so both of them forget everyday distractions. They may then accept normal sexual fantasies and comfortably express their arousal with each other. Each partner needs to remind him or herself that fantasy is not real but grossly edited and glamorized. Also, often the forbidden fantasy is the most exciting. Once shared secrecy of pornography use is defused, it can become “no big deal.” The arousal duration of pornography has been studied repeatedly. It is brief, only 3 min on average before distraction sets in. But those 3 min is sufficient time to begin start-up sexual feelings. Two hours or days later, another 3 min of arousal may be obtained from the same movie or just the memory alone. For 2003, Google reported 3.3 billion web pages were pornography. Big profits. The US pornography industry grinds out 11,000 pornography movies a year. Hollywood makes 400; 3000 times more. Someone is buying them. Disease labels such as “sex addict” for someone who uses pornography must be carefully avoided unless there is obsessive overuse of pornography watching that results in being detrimental to the person’s job, family, or close relationships. There is also now a US subindustry of costly “pornography addiction”—hospitals to treat socalled sex addicts at prepaid, out-of-pocket expenses of $20,000 per week. The concept is controversial but popular because it “medicalizes” the condition of pornography watching. There are many levels of reactions to pornography: personal, emotional, sexual; interpersonal between partners, between parent and child, between employer and employee where instant loss of job may result. There may be a big religious impact. It is also a highly political issue for many US politicians who gain votes when they are super conservative. There may be legal aspects when laws are violated. Finally, the economic element drives the distribution and production of pornography. There may also be criminal aspects such as blackmail (e.g., photos of persons in a nude club or with a forbidden partner) or coercion of minors of both sexes to become pornography actors. Although some studies exist, it has never been proven that pornography causes promiscuity. However, promiscuous persons may use pornography, as do very ordinary persons. There are women pornography film producers who claim to be more women-friendly and add more foreplay, kissing, and talking to their films compared with the “groin-only” views of male pornography directors. COMP THER. 2005;31(4) ............................................................253
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Each person must take personal responsibility for how he or she uses porn. Individuals must understand why they use it, if they wish their partners to know and share. They must question whether they can stop watching the screen and use their own memory of the fantasy as needed. Billboards, TV commercials, and magazines are loaded with explicit sex photos aimed at selling everything in commercial culture from cars to soda. There are no physical withdrawal symptoms when one stops viewing pornography. The user may feel relief when his pornography viewing “habit” is discovered because the secret no longer needs to be hidden. He may promise to stop, but then may use it again in a game of “catch me,” which can be both negative and destructive. Some women use this discovery of pornography use as a divorce threat or as a reason to actually file for divorce, which may later become a much-regretted overreaction. Marital therapy can help greatly to discuss the issue and allows time for both individuals to calm down. A couple may need help to resolve the conflict and to learn to negotiate and find a compromise. Both partners need perspective, understanding of how pornography is used, and the chance to discuss their feelings. Each partner can write three strengths, followed by three problems of their relationship to be discussed and
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worked on in therapy. The question of whether the porn helped or hindered their lovemaking together can be asked One way to ask this may be: “Can 5 minutes of pornography be used together as part of foreplay?” If the non-using partner answers no, the practitioner should try to discover what the individual finds offensive. It should be determined whether the user understands his partner’s feelings. If the user is upset at stopping pornography use, it should be determined if a trial of 8 wk of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (e.g., 20 mg prozac or 50 mg zoloft) should be started. Four visits with a counselor, minister, or doctor could help the couple greatly to restore peace, reassess their relationship, and salvage the lost closeness. As always, new technology brings new challenges, particularly ethical ones. The delights and dangers of the internet for all ages are now ours for discussion and management.
REFERENCES 1. 2. 3.
Nielsen/Net Ratings (2003, October 21) Kids Account For One Out of Five Internet Surfers in the United States, New York Net Ratings. Renshaw DC. Women’s reactions to partner’s pornography. S Afr J Sexol 1997; 11–12. Renshaw DC. The delights and dangers of the internet. Psychiatric Times 1996, p. 64.
