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Taylor Bell
English 1010-010
Dr. Jeffrey Greenwell
04/29/2015
Pornography in the 1st world
Every second 28,258 users are watching pornography on the internet. Every second about
$3,000 is being spent on pornography on the internet, and 35% of all internet downloads are
pornography related. This issue of pornography is not a subject to be pondered lightly. Men, Women,
and Children of all ages are grappled by the deep hooks of pornography. Did you know that 40 million
people in the U.S. regularly visit porn sites? That number is heart wrenching and heartbreaking.
Hundreds of thousands of people would agree that pornography does no good for any human being.
Arguing that it causes divorce, ends relationships and friendships, causes men to see women as objects,
that is causes those who watch pornography to have the want to act violently (and in some cases
actually act out in violence [The serial killer Ted Bundy being just one example]), and much more.
There is so much more that happens to you when you watch pornography than you think, and it is all
related to the pleasure center of the brain. I will be responding to an annotated bibliography that I
wrote about pornography and the effects it has on people and the brain. The annotated bibliography
primarily focuses on what other people (of high status or college professors stating their position on the
subject) think about the subject. Quoting people you may have heard of like Russell Brand and even as
I mentioned before, Ted Bundy, a serial killer who pointed to pornography as the root of his killings.
Something else the paper focuses on is the brain and how pornography works its way into the nucleus
accumbens or the pleasure center as some brain scientists call it, with the neurotransmitter chemical
called dopamine.
Dopamine is a neurotransmitter chemical in the brain that gets released when a satisfying

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task/activity has been completed (exercise, a satisfying meal, satisfying your thirst, or watching
pornography). The paper quotes Russell Brand from his Vlog on YouTube, Aleah Taboclaon from her
article Pornography is an Addiction, Gail Dines from her article Pornography Contributes to Sexual
Violence, James Dobson's interview of serial killer Ted Bundy, and Milton Diamond from his article
The Damaging effects of Pornography have been Exaggerated. In our culture today pornography is
so prevalent and is hard to avoid. Once it has its hooks in you, it's hard to get away from it.
Pornography is destructive and is not a neutral habit.
Russell Brand brand has worked in television, film, radio, and performs as a stand up comedian
regularly. Some people can also recognize him from being married to the pop singer, Katy Perry. In the
video on YouTube he posted called: Russel Brand talks sex, softcore, and hardcore porn; Brand
immediately captivated my attention with the question he asked, What does softcore porn do to us and
what does porn in general do to both men and women and the way we relate to each other, all the way
that all adults relate to each other? Not only is Brand an extremely good communicator but the subject
matter in which he is communicating is very well executed. The way that pornography affects how
human beings relate to each other is very sad. In some cases porn causes Voyeurism, an obsession with
looking at women rather than interacting with them; objectification, an attitude in which women are
objects; Validation, the need to validate masculinity through beautiful women; Trophy-ism, the idea
that beautiful women are collectibles who show the world what a man is; and fear of true intimacy, the
inability to relate to women in an honest and intimate way despite deep loneliness. Having personally
been addicted to pornography at one point in my life I can agree that at least one of those cases, if not
all are direct symptoms of indulging in pornography. I whole-heartily agree with Brand that in society
today, our attitudes toward sex have become warped and perverted and have deviated so far from its
true function as an expression of love and a means for procreation.
Aleah Taboclaon wants society to understand that pornography is an addiction and that it also is

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a brain disease and I couldn't agree more. Modern brain monitoring devices have shown that
pornography users' brains react in the same way that drug users or gambling addicts do. The best thing
we can do is spread awareness about the effects of pornography so that proper treatment can take
effect. Spreading awareness about pornography and what it does to people is what needs to be done.
According to Aleah Taboclaon psychologists have long debated about the appropriateness of
associating pornography with addiction. Other mental health professionals say that those who are
hooked on pornography behave like addicts and should be treated like them. With drug addicts, the
need for more and more to get the same high as before is the intent. Porn addicts develop this same
thing, needing more and more pornography materials (increasing the intensity or the frequency of use
or both) to get the same high. The fMRI is a machine that is used almost the exact same way as a
normal MRI brain scanner. The difference between the two is: instead of taking pictures of organs and
brain tissues like the MRI does, the fMRI monitors the brains blood flow. Researchers would monitor
the brain's blood flow of a porn addict under an fMRI and stimulate the brain with a pornographic
image, thus monitoring what would take place within the brain. With tests like these, researchers have
been able to identify that when there is a pleasurable stimulus, the brain releases dopamine, which then
activates the brain's reward center and produces pleasurable feelings. With pornography you can see
that the excessive release of dopamine is unnatural and you can see how our brain begins rewiring
itself. Research has shown that instead of just being a compulsion, addiction and pornography
addiction is a brain disease.
Gail Dines explains in her article: Pornography contributes to sexual violence, that pornography
has become deeply embedded in American culture, shaping the way men see both sex and women.
When watching television, driving by billboards, or flipping through magazine adverts you are bound
to come across a risque image of a woman. Not only that but pornographers ignore decades of study
and claim that pornography has no effect on its consumers, when in reality porn is the major form of

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sex education for boys, and it seeps into mainstream media (for girls as well). In a study on content of
pornography, it was found that the majority of scenes from 50 of the top rented porn movies had both
physical and verbal abuse targeted against the female performers. I absolutely love what Dines says in
her article; Porn sex is a sex that is debased, dehumanized, formulaic and generic, a sex based not on
individual fantasy, play or intimacy, but one that is the result of an industrial product created by men
who get excited not by bodily contact but by profits. Porn is the commercial documentation of assault
played out on real women's bodies, who, like you and me have real physical limits. Pornography just
like all media forms is intended to tell a story. The story that comes across is that it is okay to abuse
women in any physical or sexual way. Pornography definitely has an effect on you whether you like it
or not. Whether you physically are abusing a woman or are seeing women as objects. No man or
woman can walk away from pornography unchanged. One of the most well-known psychologists
studying if porn makes people act sexually aggressive, Neil Malamuth found in his study that; When
we considered men who were previously determined to be at high risk for sexual aggression... we
found that those who are additionally very frequent users of pornography were much more likely to
have engaged in sexual aggression than their counterparts who consumed pornography less frequently.
This study that Malamuth did proves that pornography makes people more sexually aggressive if not
violent.
On February 15th, 1978 serial killer Ted Bundy was arrested in Florida. While in prison he
admitted to raping and killing more than 30 women and girls and was suspected of committing over 50
murders. He was convicted on July 31st, 1979 and sentenced to death. After 10 years in prison he was
interviewed by James Dobson who works with Focus on the Family (FOTF) on the eve of his death.
Just before his death and in this interview Bundy stated, I've met a lot of men who were motivated to
commit violence just like me, and without exception, every one of them was deeply involved in
pornography, without question--without exception, they were deeply influenced and consumed by an

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addiction to pornography. Bundy also said that pornography was at the root of all of his crimes.
Bundy's case is obviously an extreme example of what pornography can do to a person, but in rare
instances, where addiction has a chance to develop over time it does happen. And it's not just Ted
Bundy who had pornography at the root of his crimes, he said that he knew a lot of men who were
motivated to commit violence just like him, and that without exception every single one of them had a
connection to pornography. Bundy, like many Americans, grew up living an exceptionally ordinary life.
He had five brothers and sisters and had two loving christian parents who treated him right and who did
not drink or smoke. He had good friends, and lead what seamed to be a normal life. There was just one
tiny thing that he kept secret and didn't let anybody know about and that was his porn addiction. When
Bundy was first arrested, his family had no clue what he was doing or what he had done because he
kept it so secret. Bundy also stated; Like an addiction, you keep craving something which is harder
and harder, something in which gives you a greater sense of excitement, until you reach the point that
the pornography only goes so far, you begin to wonder actually doing it. Bundy really hits home at the
end of the interview, he talks about those who are deeply affected by pornography. He reminds people
watching the interview that those affected by pornography are not monsters but that they could be the
children in your house, they could be your spouse. He also reiterates that the so called monsters that
people refer them as, grew up in regular families just like you and me. Pornography can reach out and
snatch a kid out of any house today, just like it snatched Ted Bundy. Ted Bundy's story is one that
reaffirms my belief that pornography is destructive and is not a neutral habit. Porn use will end in
sexual violence and aggression or a negative/warped attitude towards sex and women.
On the opposite side of that argument, Milton Diamond argues that despite claims that
pornography use contributes to the degradation of women and encourages people to commit sex related
crimes, no legitimate evidence proves such claims. Diamond claims that no correlation has been found
between exposure to porn and negative attitudes towards women. I wanted to include this source in my

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paper because it contradicts all my other arguments. I want to challenge this Diamond's arguments,
because one can do a study of people who watch pornography, but it is difficult to do a study on
predators who are committing violent crimes against other people (Ted Bundy being one example). A
sex offender isn't going to step out and say, Hey, I'm a sex offender, I'll be a part of your study to see if
porn makes men aggressive to women. In saying that, I disagree with Diamond and his claims that
there hasn't been any legitimate evidence to prove that porn contributes to the degradation of women
and that it encourages people to commit sex related crime, because it has been proved exactly that. The
tests and studies are out there. We know from extreme cases of serial killers like Ted Bundy that
pornography was the reason he started acting out violently. We also know from studies done using
machines like the fMRI to track blood flow and stimulation that pornography is an addiction, and like
an addiction it makes you crave more and more, and in the end the addict will only turn to violence and
aggression.
As pornography becomes more accessible and more acceptable to people, the more and more it
will drag our society into a downward spiral. People need to understand what pornography does to your
brain and how it changes the way people interact with other human beings. If we do nothing about it,
pretty soon we are going to have a bunch of Ted Bundy's walking around our neighborhoods, where
children are out in the open and where people are more vulnerable. Look at the facts, look at the
studies, and look at other peoples lives who have been affected by porn. It's obvious that pornography
is harmful and is not a neutral habit.

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Works Cited
Russell Brand Talks Sex, Softcore & Hardcore Porn. Dir. Russell Brand. Perf. Russell Brand. Russell
BrandTrews, 2015. Video Blog.
Taboclaon, Aleah. "Pornography Is an Addiction." Child Pornography. Ed. Stefan Kiesbye. Detroit:
Greenhaven Press, 2013. At Issue. Rpt. from "Addiction StudiesWhy Pornography Harms."
Push of Hope. 2011. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 24 Mar. 2015.
Dines, Gail. "Pornography Contributes to Sexual Violence." Sexual Violence. Ed. Amanda Hiber.
Farmington Hills, MI: Greenhaven Press, 2014. Opposing Viewpoints. Rpt. from
"Congressional Briefing on the Harms of Pornography." Gaildines.com. 2010. Opposing
Viewpoints in Context. Web. 24 Mar. 2015.
Fatal Addiction: Ted Bundy's Final Interview. Prod. James Dobson. Perf. Ted Bundy and Dr. James
Dobson. Focus On The Family, 1989. Interview.
Diamond, Milton. "The Damaging Effects of Pornography Have Been Exaggerated." Addiction. Ed.
Christine Watkins. Farmington Hills, MI: Greenhaven Press, 2014. Opposing Viewpoints. Rpt.
from "Porn: Good for Us?" The Scientist (1 Mar. 2010). Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web.
25 Mar. 2015.