By Rebecca Flannery
Reporter
“Lust is the craving for salt of a man who is dying of thirst.”
At the end of his interview, addictive behavior specialist for the Baylor wellness department, Dr. Don Arterburn, said that this is one of his favorite quotes from American writer and theologian, Frederick Buechner. The quote resonates as one of the underlying causes of any type of addiction: the satisfaction of pleasing one’s self is greater than the need to get rid of it.
In its simplest form, pornography is any medium of visual display of sexual organs, actions or scenarios that is designed to stimulate erotic behavior in its viewer. However, more than physical satisfaction, Arterburn said that pornography also satisfies emotional and psychological aspects as well.
“Anytime you have trauma or are wounded, you have physical pain and psychological pain,” Arterburn said. “…But the power of pornography is that I can have the acceptance fantasy that takes care of the psychological pain, and the physical pain is taken care of, so for at least for a short amount of time I can satisfy both types of pain.”
The acceptance fantasy plays into addictive behavior as those who frequent pornographic websites feel an affirmation from those on their screen. Dr. Arterburn said that in daily life, no one would want to be with someone who thought badly of them, so when porn offers positive compliments, people accept that fantasy as reality.
According to Baylor’s pornography counseling website, pornography exposure can start at a young age. Once exposed, curiosity takes over and an addiction settles in.
“There are kids in junior high who as soon as they start understanding and have access to technology, they get on the internet,” Arterburn said. “Pornography sites know what popular searches are, so they name their sites something along those lines in order to flood you with their images that you weren’t even initially searching for. It’s dangerous.”
The porn industry is a multi-billion dollar business and cranks out enough sexual propaganda to last someone a lifetime. An internet safety website says that porn is a $97 billion business worldwide, $13 billion alone from the U.S.
However, the pornography industry is not the only business perpetuating the over-sexualization of society. Sex sells because it’s what society demands. There are scenes in PG-13 movies that used to be restricted to only R-rated movies. Even video games have begun to integrate sexualized images into the virtual reality that so much of the population takes part in.
An online article from a European publication called The Independent says that “Today there is almost no soft-core porn on the internet, because most of it has migrated into pop culture. What we are left with is a porn industry that is now so hard-core that even some of the big-name porn producers and directors are amazed at how far they can go.”
Magnolia sophomore Jordan Richerson said she is never shy to post blog posts that may be construed as controversial on her Facebook. On March 3, she posted an article about the sexualization of our society as well as the pornography industry.
“Sex, sex, sex, sex: songs about sex, ads about sex and being sexy, tweets about the ‘great sex’ in sororities and frats, movies with sex scenes,” Richerson said in her Facebook status. “America contributes grossly to the over-sexualization of the world.”
This post, accompanied by a video about the commercial sex industry, accumulated 19 comments. One-thousand four-hundred ninety words later, the topic was thoroughly discussed by students, parents, pastors and friends about the prevalence and denial of pornography in each other’s and their families’ lives.
“I have seen the degradation in American culture in general, just in looking at statistics, reading blogs and listening to people talk. So, the whole porn industry plays into that,” Richerson said in an interview. “I think people need to be aware of what’s going on. The fact is that watching porn on your computer in your bedroom is actually playing into a bigger epidemic of sex slavery and sex trafficking.”
This addiction is so prevalent today thanks to the ease in access to the material. One of the comments on Richerson’s post was made by Richerson’s mother who said “When I was a child, porn was generally something found in a magazine, usually found in a father’s bathroom or bedroom… Now with the internet, there is no end to the amount of access kids can have if their parents aren’t monitoring them.”
The boom in the porn industry between our parents’ generation and ours echoes this truth. When the digital era came about, the medium made accessibility for pornography easier than ever before. The shame that came with buying magazines in the old days disappeared when the internet started to offer it.
“It’s as easy as misspelling a word in a search engine,” Arterburn said. “Once someone is exposed, there’s no unseeing it. And that’s how the industry gets you hooked. They show you what they have for free, and once that’s not enough, they’ll charge you to go deeper into the material.”
Just like any other addiction, pornography viewers begin to get desensitized to nudity and sexuality because of the amount of it they see in porn. It then becomes a challenge to find the next big thing in order to be surprised anymore – in order to shock or arouse them. This gives way to a deep addiction that ultimately alters not only the viewer’s life, but lives around them as well.
“It’s scientifically proven that once a male partner has been in the same sexual relationship with a female for an extended period of time, they lose the ability to get as aroused as they did when the relationship first started,” Arterburn said. “The access to porn eliminates the need to be with only one woman, as there are literally thousands upon thousands of women on the internet willing to do just what the viewer wants.”
The Baylor online information about pornography says “If you struggle to see the dangerous effects of pornography, you are not alone.
Many people decide anything that brings a pleasant feeling must be good, but they never consider the implications.”
Dr. Arterburn encourages students struggling with this addiction to seek community that will make them aware that “They’re not alone, most people are dealing with some aspect of this and there’s help available.”
Counseling services are available in the McLane Student Life Center to help battle addiction with pornography.
