A response to the news that the GOP has added the “public health crisis” of pornography to its platform:
“It’s certainly the case that the people who think it’s bad, it’s bad for them,” says sex researcher Nicole Prause, who’s the principal investigator at the Sexual Psychophysiology and Affective Neuroscience Lab, in Los Angeles. “The actual inherent ‘badness’ there’s very little evidence for. Those who identify with no religious orientation or are agnostic don’t have porn addiction. The label and shaming has grown out of religious values and beliefs in the culture.”
Interesting. The return of the repressed and all that, I suppose. Though I do recall Martin Amis’ recollection of Gore Vidal: “Gore Vidal once said that the only danger in watching pornography is that it might make you want to watch more pornography; it might make you want to do nothing else but watch pornography.” And also this guy — though he does mention jacking it for 26 hours one Yom Kippur, so maybe the religious thing applies somehow.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3050060/
Not a religious source.
Thank you, Chaz!
Yikes! “This guy’s” story is … masturbing. I mean, how is that even possible?
Easy. I just…I mean he just…I mean, I can’t imagine.
“It is barely 10 o’clock in the morning, and I am, I realise, experiencing the kind of anxiety that usually precedes a mild ordeal. A line is about to be crossed. I shouldn’t be here. None of us should be here. But we all have work to do.”
Okay, last comment. Thanks for the Martin Amis article, which I’d never read (anyone reading this post should be sure to follow the link above). I have several time forgotten just how great a writer he can be.
Very civilized (as opposed to merely cosmopolitan or urbane) and truly compassionate, I thought. That ending, both sad and hopeful.
Time to go read that latest novel of his.
That’s a fine article on the neuroscience, so thank you for that.
But let’s face it: if we all wait around to hear what science tells us is best for us, there’s going to be a lot of dudes like Anonymous walking around with their arms in a sling.
“A Sea of Shame”
As if they might siphon an ocean empty, the pubescent
lads work overtime, their hairless cheeks rufescent.
Hairless cheeks but hairy palms
Does religion cause their qualms?
More excellent by far!
Since nobody else will ask the obvious question, I guess I will:
Why would Jesus watch anybody masturbate?