WHEATON, Ill. – Last week, we were told that pornography was a sniper (or, more precisely, a poisonous sniper/spider/vampire infected with Ebola). This week, a more apt analogy has emerged, one concocted by a bona fide scientist.
That’s right, ladies and gentlemen: According to Dr. William Struthers, Porn is not a poisonous sniper/spider/vampire with Ebola. Porn is a hijacker.
Specifically, porn is a hijacker of male brains, so I suppose that makes it a “mindjacker” under the accepted nomenclature regarding the stealing and redirecting of things in motion other than vehicles on the highway.
At any rate, as the article linked above correctly states, Dr. Struthers is “a psychologist with a background in neuroscience and a teaching concentration in the biological bases of human behavior.”
What the article doesn’t see fit to mention, for some reason, is Dr. Struthers fills such a position at a college which sports the motto: “Wheaton College: For Christ and His Kingdom.” In 2011, Dr. Struthers authored an article entitled “Pornography Addiction and the Brain: Its Destructive Nature and How to Overcome It” for the Enrichment Journal, a publication offered by the Assemblies of God.
With his steadfast and unquestionable objectivity on the subject of porn thus established, let’s hear what Dr. Struthers has to say about the wily ways of Porn, the Hijacker of Male Brains.
“Viewing pornography is not an emotionally or physiologically neutral experience,” Struthers wrote.
This is an important point, because as we all know, when we look at most things, typically we form no opinion of those things, either psychologically or emotionally.
“(Lookin at porn) is fundamentally different from looking at black and white photos of the Lincoln Memorial,” Struthers continued.
No argument there. I must admit, I’ve never once found myself inspired to jerk off to black and white pictures of the Lincoln Memorial. Color pictures of it, sure, but not black and white.
“Men are reflexively drawn to the content of pornographic material,” Struthers continued. “As such, pornography has wide-reaching effects to energize a man toward intimacy. It is not a neutral stimulus. It draws us in.”
If I may translate for the esteemed doctor: Porn makes men want to “jerk it.” Again, you’ll get no argument from me.
“Porn is vicarious and voyeuristic at its core, but it is also something more,” Struthers explained. “Porn is a whispered promise. It promises more sex, better sex, endless sex, sex on demand, more intense orgasms, experiences of transcendence.”
It does? There must be something wrong with my porn, because it never says a fucking thing to me, whispered or otherwise, and it sure as shit has never promised me sex. (Hell, if it did, I might still be willing to pay for it.)
Part of me is starting to feel like there’s not a whole lot of science happening here, what with all this talk of whispering porn and “experiences of transcendence.” Can we get some nuts-and-bolts, honest to goodness neuroscience going here?
“Something about pornography pulls and pushes at the male soul,” according to Struthers.
Finally! Whenever a neurologist references the “male soul,” it might as well be a 10-foot-tall, bright-red sign that reads “Warning: Science Ahead.”
“The pull is easy to identify,” Struthers noted. “The naked female form can be hypnotizing.”
That is very true…particularly when the female form is draped in pinwheel-patterned clothing and slowly spinning in circles.
“A woman’s willingness to participate in a sexual act or expose her nakedness is alluring to men,” Dr. Sherlock Fucking Holmes continued. “The awareness of one’s own sexuality, the longing to know, to experience something as good wells up from deep within. An image begins to pick up steam the longer we look upon it. It gains momentum and can reach a point where it feels like a tractor-trailer rolling downhill with no brakes.”
Oh shit, here we go: Porn isn’t just a hijacker. It’s an inept and incompetent hijacker.
You see, most hijackers (at least those not affiliated with al Qaeda) like to maintain effective control of the vehicles they hijack. Otherwise, they haven’t really “hijacked” the vehicle so much as they have rendered it an enormous, motorized bowling ball.
As the author of the article noted, Struthers “neither leaves his argument to neuroscience, nor does he use the category of addiction to mitigate the sinfulness of viewing pornography.” Struthers avoided such “mistakes” because “his view of pornography is both biblical and theologically grounded.”
Oh, good; I hate it when neurologists maintain views that aren’t biblically and theologically grounded, or abandon their arguments to mere neurology.
No, Struthers doesn’t allow biology or neurology to serve as an excuse for porn hounds; instead, Struthers “lays the responsibility for the sin of viewing pornography at the feet of those who willingly consume explicit images.”
So…. Porn is a hijacker, but it only hijacks the vehicles of people who want to be hijacked? I must say, porn is one unusual hijacker. Either that, or all us porn-watching perverts are properly viewed as unindicted co-conspirators in the theft of our own vehicles.
Maybe Dr. Struthers and Rev. Griffith should get together and compare notes. Has anybody tried stabbing the Porn Hijacker in the chest with a wooden cross?
