Addicted to Porn: Chasing the Cardboard Butterfly Page #3

loving, monogamous,

heterosexual sex.

That is a cultural value.

It's not a medical one.

It's not a scientific one.

Ley even balks at argument

of neurochemical addiction

and the comparison of porn

to other drugs,

claiming that pornography

is a neutral element

in a far bigger picture

that stems from social fear.

The idea that, uh,

we are getting

addicted to dopamine,

and that's one of the common kind of

neurochemicals that gets thrown out there,

is reductionistic,

because guess what,

there are many neurochemicals that

are released in our body during sex.

Dopamine is just one of them.

There is little difference

between those neurochemicals

and the neurochemicals that

get released when we exercise.

Why is it okay to exercise,

and have

those neurochemicals released,

and use that as a form

of stress management or coping,

but it's not okay for sex?

And as a result,

men are afraid of it,

and women are afraid of it. They're

afraid of the effects of pornography.

That's why people

are scared to talk about it.

And that's why there are

very few people like me,

who are professionals

and scientists

who are willing to come out

and say, "Wait a minute.

This isn't real.

Porn is no different than any of

the other things that we might do

that hurt other people

or hurt ourselves.

It can be good

It can be bad."

Porn itself is neutral,

just like cars.

Used irresponsibly,

cars are incredibly dangerous.

Used irresponsibly,

porn can be dangerous.

But when we have a panicked

conversation about the danger of porn,

we ignore the fact

that it's neutral.

It really is devastating when people

like David Ley can try to say

that it's perhaps even good for

kids to broaden their adolescence

and college-aged kids to broaden

their perspectives with pornography.

It's ludicrous.

Is it really just

pornography that's to blame?

Or can a finger be pointed at media,

the Internet, and modern technology as well?

Is pornography

really just an ocean

fed by millions and millions of

media and technological tributaries

that slowly trickle

through society?

We seem to be creating a

moral whirlpool for ourselves

wherein people become trapped

in a cycle of shame.

So, perhaps it's time we take a look

at what's potentially going on here.

You can't show bare breasts

on network TV, for example.

So we exist

in this paradoxed world

where, on one hand, I've got it on my

phone at any time, whatever I want,

and yet at the same time,

what we're fed is this mixed message

that it's taboo,

that it's to be hidden.

And so that paradox

of those two dynamics...

On the one hand, it's there.

On the one hand, we sell it to you.

And at the same time,

"This is dirty stuff.

Don't look at it."

That screws with our heads.

We don't talk openly about sex in a healthy,

productive way.

But we're more than happy to talk about an

innuendo or blast it all over the media.

So again, there's

an imbalance there.

It's part of the conundrum.

I mean, we haven't figured out

what we want to grow up and be yet

as a society.

We're still very adolescent

in that way,

and unfortunately,

pornography...

When we mess with sexuality,

uh, we're messing with

a basic biological drive

that's essential

to our survival.

And to trivialize something

as powerful as sexuality,

as many are,

as some professionals are,

as culturally,

the entertainment industry is,

is irresponsible.

And even more so,

it's dangerous.

The media is a very

significant force.

I talk to my clients

about the importance

of having a neuro net

around them

and this neuro net, uh,

is basically a media filter

where they have to determine what is

healthy for them, what is unhealthy.

And this is a part of what continues

to build into that objectification

that we have,

where we're not seeing people as whole.

We're seeing parts and pieces of

different moments, and snapshots,

and body parts, and so forth.

The world is now providing us with the

very thing that it's conditioned us for.

More and more novelty,

more and more intrigue.

Something more

and more extreme.

The place where most of that novelty,

that intrigue

really began to take root

on a large scale in daily life

was with the development

of the Internet.

It's no secret that trying to describe

how the Internet changed humanity

for both the better and worse

could be, and maybe should be,

a documentary in and of itself.

But what's more alarming is

how the technology of today

is advancing at a much faster

pace than the Internet ever did.

And its accessibility

creates an anonymity

that is both dangerous

and damaging.

Our ignorance

around technology,

our willingness to incorporate things into

our lives without being informed and educated,

that's the adversary.

Guys will talk about

sitting in the car,

viewing pornography on their phone

as they're driving down the highway.

You know, when they

pull up in the driveway,

the first thing they do is they

hit their history and erase it.

And so, there was

no financial cost.

Nobody could catch them.

Nobody could see them doing it.

There's no cost in terms of the

marriage finding out about it.

They don't have to

worry about someone who saw them in the

adult bookstore seeing them the next day,

or seeing their car in a place

where it's not supposed to be.

So there's an anonymity,

a sense that, "I can do this

and still maintain the image that

I have to everyone around me."

We make computers and technology

our number one relationship

or the entity with which we spend

the most time and invested energy

as well as our sexual self,

then we've essentially

created...

an artificial intelligence

for us to be intimate with,

and we can't truly be intimate

with artificial intelligence.

Hence the term, "Artificial."

We don't go backwards

in this world

when it comes to technology.

So it's only gonna

become more available.

It's only gonna

become more prevalent.

So let's figure out a way

to deal with that reality.

Now that the picture

starts to become more clear

about the accessibility

of porn and modern culture,

it's time to zoom out and look at the

new set of dangers associated with that.

Part of the hope for this film

is to illustrate

the obvious progression

that porn and its ease

of access is creating.

So far, we've learned how

pornography affects the brain,

and we know that

it's now available

to just about anyone old

enough to hold a smart phone.

Admit it or not,

our children are potentially exposed

to massive amounts of pornography on

a daily basis by the tap of a finger.

It's very common now to hear stories

of men experiencing pornography

as young as five,

six years old.

We wouldn't let people learn to shoot

handguns by watching Bruce Willis movies.

And if they did,

we wouldn't be surprised if somebody died.

We shouldn't be surprised that

kids are making bad choices

if they are learning

about sex from pornography.

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