YNOT — In an editorial published on CatholicExchange.com, columnist Charles “Chuck” Colson, former “Special Counsel” for President Nixon and member of the so-called Watergate Seven, cites questionable claims from censorship activists that compare adult entertainment to cocaine. Colson, who was indicted in 1974 on charges that he conspired to cover up the Watergate burglary, points to controversial sources often associated in the far right crusade against adult entertainment to bolster his own claims that pornography is dangerous.“In CitizenLink, writer Daniel Weiss describes pornography research conducted by Dr. Victor Cline,” Colson writes. “Cline found that ‘once addicted, a person’s need for pornography escalates both in frequency and in deviancy.’ Weiss writes that the porn viewer gradually becomes desensitized, no longer getting a thrill out of what he’s viewing. Ultimately, he is driven to act out his fantasies on innocent victims.”
Weiss, however, is a “Media and Sexuality Analyst” for Christian anti-porn group “Focus on the Family,” an organization with a long history of pushing hard for censorship of adult-related speech.
“Weiss notes that doctors have found that porn addiction is similar to cocaine addiction in the way it affects the brain,” Colson continues. “And because pornographic images are permanently stored in the brain, researchers believe that it may be harder to break an addiction to porn than to cocaine. Many of us remember where a porn addiction led in the life of serial killer Ted Bundy, who acted out his fantasies on more than 30 women and children.”
The night before his execution, in an interview with Dr. James Dobson, head of Focus on the Family, Ted Bundy claimed that consumption of violent pornography had shaped his mind. It was the first time that Bundy had made such claims, and some have speculated that it was a last ditch attempt to avoid execution; Bundy was a pathological liar, and the police had found no evidence whatsoever to suggest that Bundy had an even casual interest in pornography. Regardless, many Christian censorship grounds have cited Bundy’s interview with Dobson as “proof” of the harmful effects of pornography.
The idea that pornography consumption can be compared to consumption of illegal narcotics, as suggested by Colson, has been pushed by far-right activists like Dr. Judith Reisman, who testified before Congress at the invitation of Sen. Sam Brownback that watching pornography causes what she calls “erototoxins” to secrete into the brain. Reisman pointed to chemicals like testosterone and adrenaline that, while associated with arousal and orgasms, are neither toxic nor associated with viewing pornography.
Dr. Reisman and her work have attracted vocal critics. After winning a grant by the DOJ in the 1980’s to study images in Playboy, Penthouse and Hustler, Reisman’s conclusions earned her these comments from feminist Avedon Carol:
“It was a scientific disaster, riddled with researcher bias and baseless assumptions. The American University (AU), where Reisman’s study had been academically based, actually refused to publish it when she released it, after their independent academic auditor reported on it. Dr Robert Figlio of the University of Pennsylvania told AU that, ‘The term child used in the aggregate sense in this report is so inclusive and general as to be meaningless.’ Figlio told the press, ‘I wondered what kind of mind would consider the love scene from Romeo and Juliet to be child porn.’”
Dr. Loretta Haroian, previously from the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality, was also blunt in her criticism of Reisman’s scholarly skills.
“This is not science, it’s vigilantism: paranoid, pseudoscientific hyperbole with a thinly veiled hidden agenda. This kind of thing doesn’t help children at all. … [Reisman’s] study demonstrates gross negligence and, while she seems to have spent a lot of time collecting her data, her conclusions, based on the data, are completely unwarranted. The experts Reisman cites are, in fact, not experts at all but simply people who have chosen to adopt some misinformed, Disneyland conception of childhood that she has. These people are little more than censors hiding behind Christ and children.”
