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US Senate Hearings: Americans Masturbate Too Much
Sen. Sam Brownback has no trouble talking about sex. In hearing after hearing, he has brought forward experts in sexual dysfunction, lawyers fluent in the constitutional regulation of sex, and even journalists who have studied American sexual behavior. His concerns are varied, ranging from the horrors of international sex slavery to child exploitation. But on Thursday, he convened his third hearing in just over a year on another sexual topic altogether: porn. "I think most Americans agree and know that pornography is bad. They know that it involves exploitive images of men and women, and that it is morally repugnant and offensive," Brownback said, kicking off a hearing of the Senate's Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Property Rights, which he chairs. "What most Americans don't know is how harmful pornography is to its users and their families." With those words, Brownback kicked off a 90-minute discussion of hardcore sex scenes, self-gratification and its negative impacts. "This is not just a simple, benign form of expression, but rather a potentially addictive substance," explained one of the subcommittee's panelists, Jill Manning, a sociologist from Brigham Young University. "People watch a movie, read a book, listen to music, but they masturbate to pornography. In that difference, you have a different stimulation to the brain." She went on to explain that the experience of masturbation activates about 14 neurotransmitters and hormones, causing a quick chain reaction of brain activity. "There have been some experts who have even argued that, in and of itself, overrides informed consent when encountering this material," she said, apparently suggesting that an adult's own sexual self-stimulation can lead to a loss of judgment. Pornography, she continued, had been shown to increase the risk of divorce, decrease marital intimacy and cause misunderstandings about the prevalence of less common sex practices like group sex, bestiality and sadomasochistic activity. Men are not the only victims. Women, she said, make up about 30 percent of the audience for online pornography. The problems caused by porn can strike at the heart of a marriage. Another panelist, Pamela Paul, who recently wrote a book about the role of explicit sexual material in American culture, spoke of a fateful decision faced by some married men every day after work: They must choose between masturbating at a computer and finding sexual satisfaction with their wives. "If they go to their wives, well, just practically speaking, they have to make sure they have done all of the chores around the house they were supposed to do. They need to have a half-an-hour conversation about what they did that day," said Paul. This courtship could take up to an hour and a half. By contrast, she said, it takes "five minutes to go online..." Or, they can do the healthy thing, and post to Rantburg! Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-11-21 |
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