Following up on recent arrest of Edgar Selavka, a preschool teacher, and the indictment of Ronald Garney, an Amherst high school science teacher, for possession of child pornography, today’s Gazette consults experts on the relationship between porn and pedophilia.
Fabian M. Saleh directs research for the National Institute for the Study, Prevention and Treatment of Sexual Trauma in Maryland. He tells the Gazette, “You don’t go on these [child porn] sites 15 to 100 times because you are curious… If you are compelled to go on child pornography sites, we need to look at the possibilities, and the biggest one is that the person may have pedophilia.”
David L. Burton is chairman of education and training for the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers based in Oregon. “We know a few things,” he says. “There is a relationship between these two groups–many child abusers, especially abusers who love their victims, use child pornography as part of preparation for an offense.”
The Gazette continues…
Saleh said most pedophiles suffer from a distorted belief system regarding children’s behaviors. For example, pedophiles have admitted to Saleh that they believe if a child does not resist sexual advances, the child is consenting to the sexual act. They do not understand that a child might not resist out of fear or shock, Saleh said…
“Essentially, they are viewing the child through a prism that is distorted, and their interpretation of a child’s actions are going to be wrong,” [Saleh] said…
[Said Burton], “Adults need to talk about sexuality with their children, and I know that parents don’t talk to their kids about that.”
Experts say there are ways to curb pedophilic desires and treat child sex offenders through therapy and medication…
“There are ways to change their interests, and they can be quite effective,” Burton said.
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We recall that porn itself urges distorted beliefs on its viewers. An analysis of incest fiction, for example, reveals prevalent myths such as “Incest is harmless”, “Daughters seduce their fathers”, “Coercion plays no role in incest”, “Any physical harm is so temporary that it is like a fantasy” and “Fathers have incest with their daughters out of love”.
Dr. Mary Anne Layden is Co-Director, Sexual Trauma and Psychopathology Program, Center for Cognitive Therapy at the University of Pennsylvania. She observes,
Pornography…is toxic mis-education about sex and relationships…
The damage is both in the area of beliefs and behaviors. The belief damage may include Pornography Distortion, Permission-Giving Beliefs and the attitudes about what constitutes a healthy sexual and emotional relationship. The behavioral damage includes psychologically unhealthy behaviors, socially inappropriate behaviors and illegal behaviors.
Let me give some examples. Pornography Distortion is a set of beliefs based in pornographic imagery, sent to the viewer while they are aroused and reinforced by the orgasm. An example of Pornography Distortion would include beliefs such as “Sex is not about intimacy, procreation or marriage. Sex is about predatory self-gratification, casual recreation, body parts, violence, feces, strangers, children, animals and using women as entertainment.” All of these are messages regularly sent by pornography.
Permission-Giving Beliefs are a set of beliefs that imply that my behavior is normal, acceptable, common and/or doesn’t hurt anyone so I have permission to continue to behave in the way that I am. In all types of violence and addiction, Permission-Giving Beliefs are involved. Examples would include “All men go to prostitutes”, “Women like sex mixed with violence” and “Children enjoy sex with adults”. These particular Permission-Giving Beliefs are also common in pornography.
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Capital Video, the company that proposes to put a hard-core porn shop at 135 King Street, sells magazines that promote incest. Capital Video’s movie inventory includes “Amateur Initiation 29”, “Bubble Gum Virgins”, “Early Entries
#4”, “Forbidden Cherries”, “Home Schooled #3” and “It’s a Young Girls
Thing”.
————— (added on 1/30/07)
Laura Michaud, blogging at NO V.I.P. in Berlin, CT, describes the magazines (Terrible Teen, Young & Tight, Barely Legal, New C_nts) and movies (“Don’t Tell Mommy”, “Little Girl Next Door”) she found recently at a Very Intimate Pleasures shop in Manchester, CT.
If you search on “don’t tell mommy” on Google, the number one link is for an adult video series [explicit].
I didn’t catch the part where the link was explained. Could you repeat it, please?
Why are you trying so hard to make a connection between pornography–not child pornography–but pornography and child molestation? Why would you leave you the lead of the Gazette story–the most important part of any news story, “A man could collect child pornography and view it on the Internet without also being someone who molests children, but experts agree that the viewing habit could lead to more aggressive behavior.” I’ve been following your work, and up until now I’ve admired what you’ve done. But your shallow attempt to connect pornography to child molestation I find disturbing. I hope you can explain your reasoning her more clearly.
The distinction between some types of ‘adult porn’ and child porn appears to me to be thin, and companies like Capital Video make efforts to obscure it. Besides the specific movie titles and incest fiction we mentioned, one of Capital Video’s websites, MetroOnDemand.com, features a whole category of movies called “Barely Legal”. The male actors in “Levi’s Twinky Tune Up”, featured today on the Amazing.net home page, appear to be particularly young, even if they are in fact over 18.
Clinical psychologists like Victor Cline have found that with the passage of time, the sex addicts he treated “required rougher, more
explicit, more deviant, and ‘kinky’ kinds of sexual material to get
their ‘highs’ and ‘sexual turn-ons’…[ultimately they showed] an increasing tendency to act out sexually the behaviors viewed in the
pornography, including compulsive promiscuity, exhibitionism, group
sex, voyeurism, frequenting massage parlors, having sex with minor
children, rape, and inflicting pain on themselves or a partner during
sex. This behavior frequently grew into a sexual addiction which they
found themselves locked into and unable to change or reverse–no matter
what the negative consequences were in their life.”
I encourage you to review our post from last month, Some Porn Hard to Distinguish from Training for Pedophiles (explicit language).
Child sex abuse is not that rare. The National Center for PTSD says, “Researchers estimate that, in our country, about 10% of boys and 25% of girls are sexually abused.”
Obviously not everyone who views ‘standard porn’ will progress to child porn and then child molestation. Neither will all people who smoke die of lung cancer. The risk, nonetheless, is present, people should be aware of it, and Capital Video appears to show no concern about it while they make heaps of money. “Levi’s Twinky Tune Up”, for example, sells for $32.49.
While we’re at it, let’s recall Larry Flynt’s long-running efforts to trivialize and make light of child abuse and child sexual abuse through Hustler’s cartoons. I call your particular attention to “Baby Kick and Bleed”.
Now on sale, by the way, at Capital Video’s Amazing.net site, “Barely Legal School Girls #2” and “Barely Legal: Cumming of Age”, both products of Hustler’s studio.
So, apart from a superficial resemblance, and your conviction that whatever sounds like it’s probably right to you must actually *be* right, do you have any evidence that regular, non-child-oriented porn affects people in the way you describe?
No? I didn’t think so. Thanks for letting me know.
The “barely legal” videos feature adults–they are over 18–depicting adult activity.
Every ad, every product, and every TV show in America glamorizes young adults. Most “normal” adults would agree that young adults are the most attractive to them, too.
So it is rational and understandable that some porn would feature “barely legal”–i.e., young adults–too.
Taken in the context of titles like “Bubble Gum Virgins” [explicit] and “Don’t Tell Mommy”, it’s clear that these porn merchants have little concern about where their customers’ fantasies might stray. Let’s be clear, we’re talking about material that excuses, trains for, and makes light of child molestation, not about idealizing youthful spirit and beauty.
This entry is incredibly misleading. The Gazette says that pedophiles sometimes use child pornography to seduce kids. It also says that if you’re interested in child pornography on any level, you’re probably a pedophile. Then it says that you should see a psychiatrist. As far as the Gazette is concerned, this is the extent of the link between pornography and pedophilia.
The Gazette does not say that there is a link between “regular” porn and pedophilia. You’re the ones who say that. The Gazette doesn’t mention “regular” porn at all. But the way you present the entry suggests that the Gazette says that this link exists, too. This is misleading because the portion of this entry that is sourced from the Gazette exclusively concerns child porn.
This entry, whether you intended it to or not, suggests that the Gazette is claims a relationship between the kind of porn that Capital Video sells and pedophilia. That suggestion is wrong, but you have to read pretty carefully in order to see that this is so. Perhaps you could clarify, and state for the record that you acknowledge that the Gazette doesn’t claim a relationship between “regular” porn and pedophilia; that you added that part in yourselves and that you don’t attribute it to the newspaper. Just to be as clear, honest, and forthright as possible.
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