I’ve been reading the archives at lquilter.net, where I stumbled across this amusing yet scary entry:
…On the First Amendment side of things, Wired has a great new story explaining how recent Senate Commerce Committee, Science, Technology & Space Subcommittee hearings have shown that Internet porn is the worst scourge this nation has seen since CIA-sponsored heroin. [wired 11/19]
“Pornography really does, unlike other addictions, biologically cause direct release of the most perfect addictive substance,” Satinover said. “That is, it causes masturbation, which causes release of the naturally occurring opioids. It does what heroin can’t do, in effect.”
The internet is dangerous because it removes the inefficiency in the delivery of pornography, making porn much more ubiquitous than in the days when guys in trench coats would sell nudie postcards, Satinover said.
Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kansas), the subcommittee’s chairman, called the hearing the most disturbing one he’d ever seen in the Senate. Brownback said porn was ubiquitous now, compared to when he was growing up and “some guy would sneak a magazine in somewhere and show some of us, but you had to find him at the right time.”
Thanks Sen. Brownback for sharing stories from your personal experience. As for Santinover, he is an advisor for a gay-cure group — clearly an unbiased social scientist with no axe to grind. Kudos to Wired for interviewing Carol Queen for the article.
This all reminds me of a reading I attended some years ago, in which Susie Bright read dirty bits from the Meese Commission on Pornography report. Can we have Susie Bright do all the CSpan coverage of these hearings? Please?