BLACKSBURG, VA -- Dr. Judith Reisman, long time anti-porn crusader and president of The Institute for Media Education, is no stranger to making controversial comments, especially asserting a causal link between the viewing of pornography and the committing of violent crimes.
Perhaps it should come as no surprise, then, that Reisman would seize on the tragic events at Virginia Tech last week and make the claim that deranged mass killer Cho Seung-Hui was driven by an addiction to “erototoxins” – a term coined by Reisman herself to describe a type of endorphin she claims is produced by viewing pornographic materials and to which Reisman asserts porn viewers become addicted.
(It should be noted that Reisman’s doctorate is in communications, not neurology, medicine, or any other field involving the study of endorphins or addictions.)
In an article published on conservative political commentary website WorldNetDaily.com, Reisman contends that the “common factors shared by recent mass school killers” boil down to a simple recipe for severe violent outbursts.
“Start with a boy who will never be a football hero or homecoming king,” writes Reisman. “Place him in a society drenched in sadosexual arousal as entertainment. Toss in some family troubles of a trivial and/or serious nature. Bring him to a local video game arcade to painstakingly perfect both a killer’s attitude and aim. Sit him at the Internet every night, angrily lusting after naked young blondes who provoke his loins.
Give him psychiatric drugs for his depression – drugs known to facilitate violent behavior.”
In Reisman’s above reasoning, porn is not the only contributing factor, but porn is given special prominence throughout her analysis of Cho’s actions and apparent mindset.
To buttress her claim that Cho was porn-obsessed, Reisman includes a quote stating that Cho “was taking photographs of their legs and knees under the [girls’] desks with his cell phone.” Reisman does not attribute the quote, or otherwise explain where the information concerning Cho’s in-class photography came from.
To Reisman, however, this ill-sourced fragment of data is all-important – a warning sign concerning Cho that Virginia Tech officials were negligent to disregard.
“Excuse me? He shot pictures of girls’ crotch area ‘under the desks’ and the police weren’t called to arrest the predator?” Reisman writes. “Were the pictures confiscated?”
In Reisman’s imaginative reconstruction of the circumstances in which the pictures allegedly were taken, Cho would not have been able to avoid the attention of his professors while taking his surreptitious upskirt photos.
“What kind of school does not prosecute men who slide under girls’ classroom desks to take such pictures?” objects Reisman, ignoring the obvious possibility that Cho simply snapped shots while seated at his own desk, positioning the camera through manipulations of his arm and wrist, as opposed to crawling about on all fours to take photos.
Terming Cho’s behavior “massive pornographically motivated sexual harassment well beyond the norm,” Reisman further asserts that “Law enforcement needs to collect and report all the information on killer addictions to violent video games, erototoxins and medications.”
“Our mass media needs to stop celebrating mass killers and pandering sexual violence,” writes Reisman. “Our universities need to stop pandering pornography. Our medicine men need to stop prescribing drugs likely to cause vulnerable users to violence.”
“Until we seriously examine these and other critical issues,” Reisman states, “these tragedies will grow in virulence and in ‘kill counts.’”
Reisman concludes by asserting that Virginia Tech could be held liable for Cho’s actions, not due to failing to take more aggressive action during the much-publicized interim between Cho’s killing of his first two victims and his second onslaught, but for being too permissive of pornography on campus.
“Meanwhile,” Reisman writes, “a major lawsuit waits in the wings if Virginia Tech has been a pornographic/erototoxic tolerant environment.”
For the full text of Reisman’s article, go to: http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=55338
In addition to contributing to YNOT, Q is the Director of Traffic Development for NicheBucks.com and an eight-year veteran of the online adult industry.
