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Dian Wulandari Professor del Rosso EN 121 30 November 2012 Final Draft Pornography Pornography goes way back to the mid-1600s in France where erotic novels had been printed, but the idea of porn itself only started to spread in the 1800s. In 1839, Louis Daguerre invented a primitive form of photography called daguerreotype and pornographers at that time almost immediately took advantage of the new technology. The earliest surviving dirty daguerreotype portrayed a man inserting his penis into the vagina of a middle-aged woman, is dated at 1846. By 1896, French filmmakers started to make erotic short, silent clips in which an actress performed a striptease. Hardcore sex, on the other hand, only started showing up after 1900s. These films were usually shown privately at all-male gatherings. For quite a long time, the films remained static, both in content and quality. It was until the 1970s when doors were starting to open for public showing of explicit films, that pornography started to make a big leap in the society. Today, porn is all over the media, but mostly on the Internet. It is almost impossible to surf the web and not accidentally find something R-rated. The Internet obviously plays a huge role in pornography; a child can easily access porn websites as soon as they know how to use the Internet. Stating that, though, doesnt mean Im completely on board with the idea of pornography being a part of the modern culture. I think porn is being taken way too casually in todays society. I actually find it ironic that people these days watch porn as if they are

Wulandari 2 enjoying Sunday morning cartoons. Yes, everyone will eventually be exposed to sexual images at one point or another, like I was, but it does not necessarily mean that we have to accept it as part of our lifestyle. As a matter of fact, porn does bring negative effects to us. Pornography does not physically connect you with someone, what it does is that it only connects you emotionally. Many have said that viewing porn is normal as long as it does not get out of hand. Now, what defines pornographic viewing to get out of hand? A Senate hearing in 2007 in Washington, DC, discussed the science of how sex visually affect the brain and the possibility of addiction. The experts that came to this hearing stated that an addiction to pornography is identical to heroin addiction, because the personality of the viewers changes when viewing pornography. The thing with pornography is that it sticks in the viewers mind. The physical pleasure that comes along with it just makes it very hard to forget, and sometimes it can even turn into an addiction in the long run. In 1987, psychiatrist Aviel Goodman defined addiction in his book, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Third Edition or DSM-III-R, as: A process whereby a behavior, that can function both to produce pleasure and to provide relief from internal discomfort, is employed in a pattern characterized by (1) recurrent failure to control the behavior (powerlessness) and (2) continuation of the behavior despite significant negative consequences (unmanageability). (1404) In short, addiction is best described as anything that a person does that hurts them but they still do it anyway. They begin risking their career and their relationship with their family or partner but they deny that it causes problems.

Wulandari 3 The big difference with pornography is that it is a fantasy way of getting, or feeling as if that person is getting a reward without actually doing any work. So pornography is basically a cheap shortcut to ones reward system in the brain.

Five years ago, a director named Lance Tracy conducted a study about the effects of pornography. One of his test subjects was a married couple for twelve years (at that time). Their names were Debbie and Joshua. The study itself was quite simple: for thirty days, Joshua was required to watch hardcore porn DVDs three days a week, read explicit magazines and go to a gentlemans club once a week, and also browse porn websites twice a week. Then after the thirty-day period, he had to fill out another survey (the first one was before the experiment began) about his point of view on sexual relationship. Debbie, his wife, had agreed to this for the sake of the science behind it. I honestly felt bad for the wife and thought that she was nave for agreeing to an experiment this risky. Her husband might say that it would not change him and that he did not take any pleasure from doing it, but he is still a man. That probably sounds judgmental but what man would not gladly accept an offer to get free services of all kinds of pornographic activities for a whole month? During the experiment shown in the documentary, I tried putting myself in Debbies shoes. How would I feel if my husband went to a strip club and exposes himself to pornography seven days a week? Would I be worried? Obviously. Seeing him getting a lap dance by some random women already looked very inappropriate in my eyes. What is worse was that all those times, Joshua seemed to be rather enjoying it.

Wulandari 4 On day twenty of the experiment, Joshua was given a video recording of the night when he received a lap dance. He then was offered a choice to whether watch it alone or with his wife. He chose to watch it by himself because he was afraid of the consequences he had to face if his wife saw the video. It only strengthens the fact that pornography does affect ones relationship with his or her partner. If he really did not enjoy it, he would gladly show the video to his wife. In my opinion, when one is in a position where one is in a skin-to-skin contact with someone, he or she will have some kind of emotional connection to that other person. This connection does not grow from ones fondness of his or her personality, but more from the attractive physique.

The result that came out of this study did not shock me. From the survey that Joshua filled after the thirty-day period of excessive exposure to porn, his belief that all women like forceful sex increased by thirty percent. This most likely came from all those times he spent watching hardcore pornography. If someone is constantly being exposed to spanking and hair pulling seven days a week, there is no way that that person would not have these images stuck in his or her brain. And over time, it will mess up ones mind and the way that person thinks. Book author Gail Dines seconded this argument on one of his works in 2010, Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality. He wrote: Men brought up in porn culture will have a distorted view of sex, since in porn everyone is having hookup anal, vaginal, and oral sex all the time (117). According to Sharon Mitchell, former porn actress turns doctor, the porn industry has changed drastically from the one she entered in 1970s. Back then, porn

Wulandari 5 videos were somewhat educational in a way that it taught young adults about intimacy between two people. Nowadays, the acts are performed over and over again without any real intimacy or pretending to have intimacy whatsoever. Pornography these days are more about coerciveness and violence. And those visuals really do affect the way ones brain works. From his book, The Drug of the New Millennium The Brain Science Behind Internet Pornography Use, Mark B. Kastleman explained: Research shows that visual images are stored as emotional memories in the brain before the logic centers realize what has happened. When the logical brain catches up and notices that something is not right, it will result in an instant conflict with the pleasure/emotional centers. Such confusion and conflict puts the nervous system under stress. The adrenal gland sends out a stress hormone called cortisol, which in turn activates myriad body-system processes to counteract stress. In essence, the entire pornography process is intensified, far beyond what sexual arousal alone would accomplish (122).

Another result that came out of the survey is, that both Debbie and Joshua trust each other less by as much as twenty percent. That feeling of anxiety clearly comes from the fact that Joshua spent a certain time per week with a practically naked woman. Even though it was for research, the wife obviously still feels disturbed about her husband being entertained by strangers and not her. Joshua himself, when he was being interviewed, claimed that he felt uncomfortable and guilty for doing so. The question is, what made him feel guilty? The right reason would not be because his wife disapproved of it, but because he knew it was wrong.

Wulandari 6 I, for one, think that cheating is when you are doing something with another human being that excites or arouses you, but deny showing or speaking of it to your partner when you are given the chance. It does not have to be something big like hiring a prostitute; it could be as simple as a text message. It may sound extreme, but the reason one is not willing to show whatever it is that he or she is doing, to his or her partner is because that person knows they are not supposed to do it. So for me, getting a lap dance like Joshua did, no matter what the reason was behind it, does count as an affair. Moreover, I believe that viewing or being involved in pornography only means that you are being disrespectful to your partner. It can only say so much about your personality and how you treat people. Pornography is a fantasy; it is silicone, makeup, and cameras. It is unhealthy and not normal, especially if you prefer pornography to reality. Not only that, the intimacy shown in pornography should only be shared with your own partner; they are supposed to be your closest companion on earth that you can share anything with. Pornography is an emotional affair and it can really break that special bond partners have with each other.

A significant number of men think that its just porn and it does not mean anything; they think that they are merely using porn to get excited. But, I think using something or someone else instead of your partner to get excited is lust. You are getting sexual satisfaction and arousal from another source. Lets just be blunt here: porn and masturbation are always connected. Rarely do people have one without the other. Porn was primarily created to arouse and that is only what it does; it creates an image of what sex is supposed to be and the role that both women and men have to

Wulandari 7 play. In a relationship, I think it will make ones partner seem less attractive. It even causes some porn users (the ones that are addicted to it) come to the point where they require porn to get aroused. Pornography misrepresents our sexuality, making sex only about the physical and not the relational connection. More importantly, pornography can only lead to trouble between partners. The effects will come later; someone will get hurt in one way or another. Things will happen more over time, especially in a long-term relationship such as marriage. So why would anyone choose to do something that is hurting the person he or she love and just disregard that?

Wulandari 8 Bibliography Dines, Gail. Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality. Boston: The Beacon Press, 2010. Goodman, Aviel. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-III-R. New York: American Psychiatric Publication, 1987. Kastleman, Mark B. The Drug of the New Millennium The Brain Science Behind Internet Pornography Use. Provo: Powerthink Publishing, 2007.