Those insidious erototoxins!!!

From Jan 2005. One of my favorites.

ALL WORKED UP ABOUT EROTOTOXINS
By J.T. Benjamin, coyotehowl@yahoo.com
Copr. 2005

It's hard work being a porn pundit, taking it upon oneself to be an authority on the subject of pornography and the erotic arts.

Dangerous, too. In the interests of full disclosure and public safety, I cannot endorse the pursuit of this discipline for just anybody. There are risks involved.

Those risks were brought into focus by Dr. Judith Reisman, when she testified in front of a Congressional subcommittee on science, technology, and space in November, 2004. Dr. Reisman, of the California Protective Parents Association, said that exposure to pornography triggers long-lasting alterations in the brain’s biochemistry which affect behavior. To quote Dr. Reisman, “Pornography triggers myriad kinds of internal, natural drugs that mimic the ‘high’ from a street drug. Addiction to pornography is addiction to what I call erototoxins—mind-altering drugs produced by the viewer’s own brain.”

Obviously, the average person could not study pornography without risk of harm from long-term exposure to these “erototoxins.” You’d need somebody who’s already built up a tolerance to safely handle dirty movies, pictures, and literature without fear of their devastating side-effects. Someone like me. In fact, the stuff’s practically dribbling out my ears.

Unfortunately, there’s been no real analysis of their effects. In her testimony, Dr. Resiman called for Congressional funding and support for the study of erototoxins and the brain and body. Ultimately, Dr. Reisman’s goal is the removal of pornography from society through lawsuits akin to those against the tobacco industry, and through criminally prosecuting pornographers as if they were drug dealers.

You see, right now pornography is theoretically protected by the First Amendment’s freedom of speech clause. Of course, drug use has no such protection. A heroin addict has no Constitutional right to shoot up, and the State has a valid public health and safety interest in prosecuting heroin users and dealers. If pornography could be established as having the same bio-chemical effect as alcohol or drugs, the State would have a valid interest in making porn a controlled substance and correspondingly prosecuting pornographers, overriding their First Amendment
protections.

Part of the problem with erototoxins is the fact that not only has there been no real study of their effects, there’s likewise been no study of their very EXISTENCE. No chemical has been identified as being an erototoxin. There is no list of characteristics or of the molecular breakdown of any erototoxin, nor has there been any identification of where, inside the human body, such a toxin is produced. As near as I can tell, Dr. Reisman’s testimony was the first time the word was even used.

Nevertheless, you have to consider Judith Reisman’s credentials when you question whether erototoxins can be considered controlled substances. I mean, she is a doctor. Right?

A quick look at her website, www.drjudithreisman.org verifies that fact. Judith A. Resiman, PhD. Say again? Not a medical doctor? A PhD in what? Biology? Chemistry? Nope. According to her website, Judith Resiman’s PhD is in communications, obtained from Case Western Reserve University. Hmm. Okay.

While Dr. Reisman has an impressively long list of publications and articles and expert testimonies, her main claim to fame as a scholar is an extensive study she conducted for the Justice Department in the early 1980’s. Dr. Resiman analyzed magazines such as Playboy, Penthouse, and Hustler, seeking images of children in mainstream pornography and how they related to child sexual abuse. After spending nearly $750,000 of the taxpayers’ money, Dr. Resiman’s study was determined to be a “scientific disaster,” according to Avedon Carol, author of “Nudes, Prudes and Attitudes: Pornography and Censorship,” published by New Clarion Press, 1994. Neither the Justice Department nor American University, where the study was based, would publish the report. Dr. Loretta Haroian, an expert on childhood sexuality, said of the report, “This is not science, it’s vigilantism: paranoid, pseudoscientific hyperbole with a thinly veiled hidden agenda…Her (Dr. Reisman’s) study demonstrates gross negligence and…her conclusions, based on the data, are completely unwarranted.” (Ibid). Another hmm.

Dr. Reisman cited this same report in her Congressional testimony last month, immediately before she called for Federal funds with which to study erototoxins. Hmm. And again, hmm.

Now, I’m no authority on biology, bio-chemistry, neurology, or science in general. Although, come to think of it, I’m EXACTLY as qualified to speak on those subjects as is Dr. Reisman. Anyway, there’s something I don’t understand. Dr. Reisman says that erototoxins are “mind-altering drugs produced by the viewer’s own brain.” (Her words). So these toxins aren’t injected like heroin, or drunk like alcohol or eaten like chocolate bars. They’re swimming around in our heads already. They have no effect on our thought processes until we look at pornography, and then they go into action.

I can’t help wondering how our brains evolved the ability to produce erototoxins. Did it happen over the course of tens of thousands of years of human existence? What have the toxins been doing in our heads all this time? Have they been lurking dormant for millennia, waiting for us to invent pornography so their lives would then have meaning? Or did they somehow serve some legitimate neurological purpose before being corrupted right at about the time the first issue of “Playboy” hit the stands? Maybe they didn’t even exist until after World War II. That’s it. Addiction to pornography is caused by radioactive fallout from all those post-war atomic bomb tests. First Godzilla, now erototoxins.

I’d like to volunteer to join Dr. Reisman in the war against porn addiction, but I’m going to take a different tack. I believe that it’s possible for erototoxins to have some positive benefits for humanity; that they could somehow be transformed to fight for the forces of good instead of evil. Like when Mothra attacked Tokyo.

It’s my theory that exposure to self-righteous, pseudo-scientific quackery produces in the brain insidious substances I’ve dubbed “bullshitoxins.” Bullshitoxins can, if unchecked, turn people into anal-retentive, moralistic assholes who can’t mind
their own business when it comes to human sexual behaviors. I believe that under the right conditions, erototoxins can be produced in sufficient quantities to transform them into an anti-virus to combat those nasty bullshitoxins and save humanity. My theory has the same basis in fact as does Dr. Reisman’s theory of erototoxins; that is, none at all. However, like Dr. Reisman, I’m not letting that little detail stop me.

Now, my goal of being a porn pundit has taken on a new meaning. I’m willing to act as a guinea pig to study the effects of massive exposure to pornography and the generation of erototoxins. My goal is to see if they can be brought over from the Dark Side. All in the name of science, of course.

Dr. Reisman, please contact me at the above e-mail address so we can discuss how I can get Federal funding to conduct my study. Thank you.