To be is to be contingent: nothing of which it can be said that "it is" can be alone and independent. But being is a member of paticca-samuppada as arising which contains ignorance. Being is only invertible by ignorance.

Destruction of ignorance destroys the illusion of being. When ignorance is no more, than consciousness no longer can attribute being (pahoti) at all. But that is not all for when consciousness is predicated of one who has no ignorance than it is no more indicatable (as it was indicated in M Sutta 22)

Nanamoli Thera
Showing posts with label Kuby. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kuby. Show all posts

Monday, February 17, 2020

Attack on religious freedom

From 2005 to the end of 2014 , more than 1 ,400 cases have been documented and published in a yearly Shadow Report. Dr. Gudrun Kugler, director of the Observatory, explains that “Studies show that in Europe 85 % of crimes committed on the basis of religious intolerance were directed against Christians. It is time for an open public debate on this issue!” Especially noteworthy is the Canadian website LifeSiteNews, which reports comprehensively on the intensifying global culture war over the family, the right to life and the LGBTI agenda. The British Coalition for Marriage published a flyer listing 30 cases of people being punished for  believing in traditional marriage.3 These cases clearly demonstrate that same-sex “marriage” is not about freedom for a minority of a minority. Only around two percent of the homosexual minority, constituting around two percent of the population, make use of the legalization of same-sex unions. It is about a new sexual totalitarianism that seeks to destroy the meaning and reality of marriage and family. New cases arise daily in which freedoms are curtailed. A few will be given here as examples.

Concrete Discrimination

Attack on: Religious freedom, freedom of conscience, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly.

Methods: Boycott of the State of Indiana, travel bans, ban of organizations, public mobbing, financial ruin, charges of discrimination, fines, telephone and e-mail harassment, vandalism, violent attacks.

Cases: Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act of March 26 , 2015 ; InterVarsity Christian Fellowship; Army Chaplain Wes Molder; Navy Chaplain Joseph Lawhorn; Pastor Åke Green; Bishop Anthony Priddis; Catholic adoption agencies; Christian retreat house; Church of San Vicenç; Archbishop André-Joseph Leonard; Pope Benedict XVI; Catholic University of Milan.

The Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) of Indiana is nearly identical with the RFRA signed into law by President Clinton in 1993 . The law prohibits substantial government burdens on religious exercise unless the government can show that 1 ) it has a compelling interest in burdening religious liberty and 2 ) is doing so through the least restrictive means possible. An unprecedented, nationwide, hysterical campaign for the protection of “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” ensued, including urging state governments to proclaim travel-bans on Indiana, closing down of businesses, and threats to individuals. Indiana had to amend the law. The rights of the non-heterosexual minority were given preference over the personal moral conscience of citizens. Donald and Evelyn Knapp, both ordained ministers of an evangelical church in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho, declined to marry a same-sex couple in October 2014. On the grounds of a non-discrimination statute that  includes sexual orientation and gender identity, the ministers were informed that they had to officiate same-sex marriages in their own chapel. Idaho’s constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman had been previously struck down by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The Knapps now face a 180 -day jail term and a $1 ,000 fine for each day they decline to celebrate the same-sex wedding.4

InterVarsity Christian Fellowship , a well-established Christian college group, founded in 1947 with 860 chapters in the United States, was “derecognized” by California State University, with 23 campuses; as well as by Vanderbilt University, Rollins College, and Tufts University. This means defunding as well as no access to on-campus meetings rooms, student fairs, or official school functions. The reason is that InterVarsity refused to sign a general nondiscrimination policy, which demands that leadership positions be open to all (i.e. all “sexual orientations”). InterVarsity spokesman Greg Jao said that changing InterVarsity leadership policy would undermine its Christian foundation.

Lieutenant Commander Wes Modder, a highly respected Navy chaplain, was removed from his position because his gay assistant officer filed a complaint against him. Having been on the job just for a month, his assistant accused him of telling a student that homosexuality was wrong. The chaplain was accused of being unable to “function in the diverse and pluralistic environment of the Naval Nuclear Power Training Command.” Franklin Graham, President and CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, said, “It’s a sad day in America when military chaplains have to choose between being true to their faith and keeping their jobs.”5

Army Chaplain Joseph Lawhorn, who conducted a suicide prevention training session with the 5th Ranger Training Battalion, received a Letter of Concern that accused him of advocating for Christianity and “using Christian scripture and solutions.” The offense: the chaplain had provided a two-sided handout that listed Army resources on one side and a  biblical approach to handling depression on the other side. Because one person complained, the chaplain was warned to be “careful to avoid any perception you are advocating one system of beliefs over another.” All the chaplain did was to give his personal testimony of how he himself had dealt with depression.6

A Christian retreat house in New Jersey was ordered by the court to provide spaces for same-sex wedding receptions with the justification that the Constitution allows “some intrusion into religious freedom to balance other important societal goals.”7

Anthony Priddis, Anglica bishop of Hereford, United Kingdom, was fined £47 ,345 in 2008 and ordered to participate in “equal opportunity training” because he was not willing to hire active homosexuals for youth work. Additionally, the bishop had to pay the rejected applicants £7 ,000 for “psychiatric injury” and £6 ,000 for “injury to feelings.”8All Catholic adoption agencies in the United Kingdom have been forced to close, because of their policy of only placing children with married heterosexual couples. Archbishop André-Joseph Leonard of Brussels was attacked by having pies thrown at him during Holy Mass and at a lecture at the Catholic University of Louvain. One of the attackers said, “He deserves it for all the homosexuals who don’t dare come out to their families, and all the girls who want an abortion.”9 In April 2013 again he was attacked by four topless, “femen” activists, who interrupted the Archbishop’s speech at a conference at the University of Brussels, screaming loudly and holding up a poster labeled “Stop Homophobia.”10

Pope Benedict XVI was formally condemned by the Belgian parliament for saying on his trip to Africa that condom distribution could not  prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS. Edward C. Green, director of the AIDS Prevention Research Project at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, says, “The best evidence we have supports the pope’s comments.”11

The Catholic University of Milan was forced by a 2009 ruling of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to extend the contract of Prof. Luigi Lombardi Vallauri. The university had wanted to dismiss the professor because he agitated against Christianity with statements such as “Jesus was through and through a bad human being.” The ECHR felt this came under the right to free expression of opinion at a Catholic university.12

Vladimír Spidla, E commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities, declared in November 2009 that there could be no exceptions to anti-discrimination laws in regard to “sexual orientation,” even based on religious conscience.13

Attack on: Freedom of expression, freedom of speech, f reedom of assembly, scientific freedom.

Methods: Defamation, character assassination, exclusion from public discourse, pressure through politics and the media, disruption of events, vandalism, exclusion from party, incarceration, fines, demonstrations, disciplinary measures.

Cases: Marburg Conference, politically incorrect journalists.

Marburg Conference

At the Fachkongress der Akademie für Psychotherapie und Seelsorge (Professional Conference of the Academy of Psychotherapy and Pastoral Care) in Marburg, Germany, May 20 –24 , 2009 , the Lesbian and Gay Association in Germany (LSVD) fought by every means the public appearance of two invited speakers: Dr. Christl Vonholdt, publisher of the bulletin of the German Institute for Youth and Society, which  publishes scientific research on homosexuality; and Markus Hoffmann, director of the organization Wüstenstrom, which offers help to people with ego-dystonic same-sex attraction—i.e., helps people who suffer due to their homosexuality. An “action coalition of queer, feminist, anti-sexist, anti-fascist groups, critical scientists and individuals” intended to bring down the entire conference. In a public statement 370 well-known figures, including philosophy professor Robert Spaemann, constitutional judge Martin Kriele and constitutional expert Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, published a Declaration for Freedom and Self-Determination . It says:We protest the LSVD’s acting on unproven claims and by slanderous means against Wüstenstrom e.V. and the Deutsches Institut für Jugend und Gesellschaft and discrediting them in the media. Intimidation is being used to create a climate of fear to silence politicians, journalists, scientists and therapists.14

This time, the LSVD campaign did not succeed. The conference took place. A thousand police officers had to be deployed to protect a thousand conference participants against a thousand demonstrators. The protesters carried picket signs reading:

We’re here to offend your religious feelings!
God is a lesbian!
Fuck your neighbor as yourself!
Freedom to all perverts!
Better to gang bang than to pray!
If Mary had aborted you wouldn’t be here!

That same year, Germany celebrated the 60th anniversary of its constitution. Public institutions and party-affiliated foundations are contributing to curtailment of the freedoms this magnificent constitution gave the German people in the wake of the Nazi terror. They regularly stigmatize politically incorrect journalists as the “radical right” who come out against gender mainstreaming, the LGBTI agenda and abortion. Prof. Edith Düsing. In December 2012 , the Autonomous Lesbian and Gay student organization of the University of Cologne (LuSK) demanded a ban on a lecture by philosophy professor Edith Düsing on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of Friedrich Schiller’s birth. The  sole reason for the attack: Prof. Edith Düsing had signed the Declaration for Freedom and Self-Determination in support of the Marburg Conference. The lecture was disrupted by a half-hour same-sex “kiss in.”15

Melanie Phillips , a prominent British columnist, received death threats after her criticism in The Daily Mail of positive treatment of homosexuality in all school subjects. “The response, however, exceeded even my expectations. . . . I have been subjected to an extraordinarily vicious outpouring of hate and incitement to violence [through e-mail, the Internet and the mainstream media].”16

Phillip Lardner, a Scottish Tory candidate, was thrown out of the party in April 2010 because on his website, he spoke out against treating the homosexual lifestyle as equivalent to marriage and supporting it with state subsidies.17

A street preacher in Scotland called homosexuality a sin. He was arrested by the police and levied a fine of £1 ,000 for his “homophobic statements.”18

The Spanish government under Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero fined a Christian TV broadcaster €100 ,000 Euros for broadcasting a series of ads promoting the family and opposing the homosexual lifestyle.19

2 . http://www.isp-dortmund.de/institut-sexualpaedagogik/referenzen.html (accessed October 17 , 2011 ).
3 . www.herzklopfen-muenster.de (accessed October 7 , 2015 ).
4 . Ursula Enders and Dorothee Wolters, Doktorspiele oder sexuelle Übergriffe (Zart-bitter e.V.), 19 . http://www.praevention-bildung.dbk.de/fileadmin/redaktion/praevention/microsite/Downloads/Zart-bitter_Doktorspiele_druckgesperrt.pdf (accessed August 19 , 2015 ).
5 . Sigmund Freud, Gesammelte Werke , vol. V, 136 .14

• Intolerance and Discrimination

1 . Michael O’Brien, Elijah in Jerusalem (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2015 ).
2 . Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians in Europe , abbreviated as IAC. The keyword can be used to find the case using the search function at www.intoleranceagainstchristians.eu .
3 . http://www.c4m.org.uk/downloads/30cases.pdf (Accessed May 2015 ).
4 . https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/idaho-ministers-face-fines-jail-time-for-refusing-to-perform-same-sex-marri (accessed October 7 , 2015 ). Keyword: Donald and Evelyn Knapp .
5 . http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2015/03/12/more-than-40000-rally-for-navy-chaplain-accused-being-anti-gay.html (accessed May 15 , 2015 ).
6 . http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/12/09/chaplain-punished-for-sharing-his-faith-in-suicide-prevention-class.html (accessed May 2015 ).
7 . https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/judge-rules-christian-facility-cannot-ban-same-sex-civil-union-ceremony-on (accessed October 7 , 2015 ).
8 . http://www.intoleranceagainstchristians.eu/case/anglican-bishop-fined-47-345-and-sent-to-re-education-in-gay-employment-case.html Keyword: Priddis.
9 . http://www.intoleranceagainstchristians.eu/case/belgian-archbishop-hit-in-face-with-cream-pies.html . Keyword: Leonard.
10 . http://www.intoleranceagainstchristians.eu/case/archbishop-of-brussels-andre-leonard-attacked.html .
11 . http://www.intoleranceagainstchristians.eu/case/parliament-issues-formal-protest-against-popes-statement-on-condoms.html (accessed October 7 , 2015 ).
12 . http://www.intoleranceagainstchristians.eu/case/italy-european-court-of-human-rights-violates-freedom-of-religion.html . Keyword: Vallauri.
13 . http://www.intoleranceagainstchristians.eu/case/eu-commission-demands-uk-abolish-religious-freedom-rights.html . Keyword: Spidla.
14 . http://www.medrum.de/content/initiative-fuer-freiheit-und-selbstbestimmung (accessed October 7 , 2015 ).
15 . http://www.medrum.de/content/vorlesungsverbot-fuer-die-philosphin-edith-duesing (accessed October 7 , 2015 ).
16 . https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/death-threats-against-uk-columnist-for-opposing-homosexualist-agenda (accessed October 7 , 2015 ). Cf. Melanie Phillips, The World Turned Upside Down (New York: Encounter Books, 2011 ).
17 . https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/i-stand-by-my-statement-absolutely-scottish-candidate-sacked-by-conservativ (accessed October 7 , 2015 ).
18 . https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/street-preacher-arrested-in-scotland-for-condemning-homosexuality (accessed October 7 , 2015 ).
19 . http://www.intoleranceagainstchristians.eu/case/100-000-euro-fine-for-christian-broadcaster.html . Keyword: 100 ,000 Euro Fine.

Gabriele Kuby
The Global Sexual Revolution
Destruction of Freedomin theName of Freedom

Sunday, February 16, 2020

The negative consequences of sexualizing children

It is a masterpiece of the cultural revolutionaries to remove society’s value system from school sex education without arousing any noteworthy resistance. This requires sophisticated manipulation techniques. These include:

• Presenting themselves to the adult world as “scientific experts.”
• Presenting themselves to the young as competent, understanding friends and advocates against strict, unsympathetic parents.
• Adapting the language to youth jargon and the graphics to kids’ comics.
• Representing permissive sexuality as mainstream: “That’s normal!”
• Simulating peer pressure: “Everybody does it!”
• Not mentioning marriage or family .
• Representing deficient forms of the family—single-parent families, patchwork families, LGBT families—as equal to traditional (mother-father-children) families.
• Destroying the sense of shame by:

–Fiddling with plastic penises, plush vaginas, and condoms.
–Detailed representation of sexual behavior in words, images, movies and videos.
–Forced verbalization of sex acts in the classroom.
–Sexually-oriented role plays and physical exercises.
–Peer education: training and use of teenagers for sex education of other teenagers.*
 –Tying teenagers’ sex drive to the cultural-revolutionary goals of the adult sex educators by constantly stimulating children’s and teenagers’ sex drive.

The great risks of early sexual activity are widely known, even to the public authorities who promote early sexualization of children and teenagers. These risks include:

• Teen pregnancy and abortion.
• Health damage from contraceptives.
• Infection with sexual diseases.
• Psychological injury that can lead to depression and suicide.
• Lower achievement.
• Weakened ability to bond.

...

Is it really necessary to have 8 -, 9 -, and 10 -year-old children practice pulling a condom over a plastic penis in class? One would think that a teenager who can work a cellphone could handle a condom without academic guidance, if the need arose, but this is about something much different. What does a girl or boy actually learn in the process? A child who is not sexualized early has a natural sense of shame that protects him or her from sexual intrusions and activities. The limits set by this natural sense of shame are normally exceeded only in an intimate, loving relationship where the partner’s dignity is respected. Intimacy means no one but the lover is present. Manipulating plastic sex organs and condoms in a  mixed class, coercion to talk about sex acts, and exposure to graphic material damage the sense of shame. A teacher’s abuse of authority and peer pressure from the class are hard for a child to evade. Children assume that teachers are role models who are imparting necessary information to them. So they conclude: school is getting me ready for sexual intercourse, so it is normal to have it at the first opportunity. “Everybody does it.”

...

Who Gains?

The negative consequences of sexualizing children and teenagers are not “side effects” to be taken for granted while achieving positive goals. On the plus side for sexualization, there is nothing but the false promise of gratification and pleasure. From that, one might conclude that these effects are the real objective.

So who benefits from sexualization of children and teenagers and from their “diversity” education? Several players come to mind:

• Those who want to produce rootless people who can be manipulated for global strategic purposes.
• Those who have an interest in reducing global population growth without changing global distribution of wealth.
• Those who have an interest in seeing the Western nations sink into a “demographic winter.”
• Those who have an interest in eliminating religion, especially Christianity.
• Those who suffer under “heterosexual normativity” and wish to gain recognition through its dissolution.

Everything described in this chapter has happened because it was concealed by a cloak of silence. It is as if an alligator crawled into a child’s bedroom and nobody wants to look at it. Looking away is the easy way. However, people will no longer look away from the sufferings of ruined families once the state can no longer buffer the unpleasant consequences. Accordingly, here is a series of unpleasant questions for all parents and for all those who hope to become parents:

• Do you want your kindergarten children encouraged to masturbate and engage in sex play?
• Do you want your children, in all grades from elementary school on, to be familiarized with contraception methods and all types of sexual practices? Do you want their sense of shame destroyed?
• Do you want your children to consider every “sexual orientation” equal?
• Do you want your son or daughter to be encouraged toward homosexuality in school—and for the risks to be concealed?
• Do you want your children to have their own “rights” that strip your parental authority?
• Do you want your children to grow up without ethical standards or belief in God?

Normative deregulation of sexuality through sexualization and destabilization of children’s and teenagers’ gender identity undermines the family as the basic unit of society, injures children and teens, and contributes to further reduction of the birth rate. They serve the interests of tiny minorities and not the public good.

*Pro Familia trains students as young as 15 years old as “peer educators” or “sexperts,” who then hold sex education classes in school on their own. Bundeszentrale für gesundheitliche Aufklärung: Peer Education—A Manual for Practitioners, Order No. 13300721 . International Network: Youth Peer Education Network (Y-Peer): www.youth-peer.org/ (accessed October 7 , 2015 ).


Gabriele Kuby
The Global Sexual Revolution: The Destruction of Freedom in the Name of Freedom

A whole generation has fallen into the hands of a cultural revolutionary mafia

Standards for Sexuality Education in Europe(WHO and BZgA2010 )A third document pursues the same goals, but through more moderate wording: Standards for Sexuality Education in Europe, published by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the German Federal Centre for Health Education (BZgA) in 2010 .16

As in all sex education, the WHO functions on the anthropological premise that humans have a need for sexual activity from birth on, and that they have a “right” to it. Adults allegedly should stimulate this need right from the beginning, speak to the child in detail at every age level about sexual acts, and give them the opportunity to live out their sexual needs free of “gender stereotypes.” A chart presents “age-appropriate” sex education:

• Age 0 –4 : The child has “the right to explore nakedness and the body and gender identities.” The child should learn “to differentiate between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ secrets and learn: ‘My body belongs to me.’”

• Age 4 –6 : The child learns to name each body part, and caregivers are to “wash every part of the body” and “talk about sexual matters in sexual language.” The child should be “given information” about “enjoyment and pleasure when touching one’s own body in early childhood masturbation,” “friendship and love towards people of same sex,” “secret love and first love,” and “an awareness of rights.”

• Age 6 –9 : The child should be informed about “menstruation and ejaculation, choices about pregnancy, different methods of contraception, sex in the media, including the Internet, enjoyment and pleasure when touching one’s own body (masturbation/self-stimulation), difference between friendship, love and lust, friendship and love towards people of same sex, diseases related to sexuality.” They should “examine their body, use sexual language and accept diversity.”

• Age 9 –12 : First sexual experience, variability of sexual behavior, contraceptives and their use, pleasure, masturbation, orgasm, differences between gender identity and biological sex, learn about STDs and HIV and sexual rights. The child is to acquire media competence using the Internet and mobile phones and deal with pornography. The child is to talk about sex and make conscious decisions to have sexual experiences or not.

• Age 12 –15 : The child learns the skill to obtain and use condoms; and obtains communication skills to have safe and enjoyable sex, and to deal with shame, fear, jealousy and disappointments. Child learns more modern media competence and deals with pornography.

• Age 15 and up: Time to learn about genital mutilation, circumcision, anorexia, bulimia, hymen and hymen repair, pregnancy in same-sex relationships, contraception services, designer babies, transactional sex [a euphemism for prostitution]—and acquire a critical view of different cultural/religious norms related to pregnancy and parenthood.

All right then, parents, teach your babies about masturbation, talk about sex to your children, push them into sexual activity, and let the school teach them about contraception, abortion and same-sex lust, love and parenthood before puberty. Teach them how to use condoms, immerse them in pornography, get them addicted to sex, let them know that all this is their “right”—drown their childhood in the abyss of sexual obsession, together with the dignity of man and the hope of your children for a happy family.

 What school principal, teacher, father or mother can stand up to this international authoritarian pressure? When an organization responsible for the health of the world (the World Health Organization), together with a German government institution, draws up “Standards for Sexuality Education” and creates the impression that they are derived through scientific objectivity, then obviously this serves the welfare of the world population—or does it?

 The document’s appendix contains comprehensive lists of literature, curricula, organizations, centers, foundations and youth organizations that drive “sex education” of children and teenagers in the United States. HOW IS IT POSSIBLE that a whole generation has fallen into the hands of a cultural revolutionary mafia that appears bent on turning future generations into amorphous, rootless masses of sex-addicted consumers?

Gabriele Kuby
The Global Sexual Revolution: The Destruction of Freedom in the Name of Freedom

Saturday, February 15, 2020

Like the rats in the cages of the NIH, pressing the bar to get a shot

Dr. Victor Cline is a psychologist and psychotherapist who, by his own reckoning, has treated approximately 300 sex addicts, delinquents, and victims of sex abuse. He concludes from his therapeutic experience that pornography consumption has a causal relationship to obsession and crime. Dr. Cline describes the process as consisting of four stages:

1. Addiction

The first change to happen was an addiction effect. The porn consumers got hooked. Once involved in pornographic materials, they kept coming back for more and still more. The material seemed to provide a very powerful sexual stimulant or aphrodisiac effect, followed by sexual release, most often through masturbation. The  pornography provided very exciting and powerful imagery, which they would frequently recall to mind and elaborate on in their fantasies.Once addicted, they could not throw off their dependence on the material by themselves, despite many negative consequences such as divorce, loss of family, or problems with the law (as with sexual assault, harassment or abuse of fellow employees).

2. Escalation

The second phase was an escalation effect. With the passage of time, the addicted required rougher, more explicit, more deviant, and “kinkier” kinds of sexual material to get their “highs” and “sexual turn-ons.” It was reminiscent of individuals afflicted with drug addictions. Over time there is nearly always an increasing need for more of the stimulant to get the same initial effect.

3. Desensitization

The third phase that happened was desensitization. Material (in books, magazines or film/videos) which was originally perceived as shocking, taboo-breaking, illegal, repulsive or immoral, though still sexually arousing, in time came to be seen as acceptable and commonplace. The sexual activity depicted in the pornography (no matter how antisocial or deviant) became legitimized. There was increasingly a sense that “everybody does it” and that this gave them permission to also do it, even though the activity was possibly illegal and contrary to their previous moral beliefs and personal standards.

4. Acting Out Sexually

The fourth phase that occurred was an increasing tendency to act out sexually the behaviors viewed in the pornography that the porn consumers had been repeatedly exposed to, including compulsive promiscuity, exhibitionism, group sex, voyeurism, frequenting massage parlors, having sex with 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.* Those who start using pornography generally aren’t aware that looking at pornographic images can quickly lead to a clinical addiction. And  if adults aren’t aware of it, then children and teenagers certainly aren’t either. After they stumble upon it—perhaps it confronts them unprompted through their cellphones or computer screens—children realize at some point that they have been caught. The addict does what he doesn’t want to do, and doesn’t want to do what he does. To feel “good” temporarily, he has to damage himself. And he becomes blind to damage he may inflict on others.

It starts with the “discovery” that they can seemingly escape unpleasant feelings, such as those of frustration, anxiety, loneliness, or inferiority. The real problem isn’t solved, so momentary relief is sought again and again, temporarily to bring on a feeling of pleasure or dull a feeling of pain. The dose has to be increased; the addictive behavior takes over more and more of the person’s life, and begins to destroy those support structures that still exist—marriage, family and friends. If the addict tries to escape the cycle, he suffers withdrawal symptoms that he may no longer have the strength to endure.

At the beginning there may be the power and will to tough it out through the unpleasant feelings and to seek a positive solution. With addictive consumption, the suffering is much greater, the consequences are more devastating, but the will submits to the addiction again and again and is much weaker than at the beginning—a dynamic similar to falling into debt.

Pornography addiction is among the substance-independent addictions, such as gambling addiction, workaholism and anorexia. Strangely enough, however, these induce biochemical processes in the brain similar to those of substance-dependent addictions. The brain’s self-reward system starts to break down, atrophies due to excessive use, so the dose has to be increased. The frontal lobes—which are responsible for discernment—start to shrink.

Modern brain research shows that the brain is actually changed through pornography addiction. Author and researcher Norman Doidge states that pornography, by offering an endless harem of sexual objects, hyper-activates the appetitive system. Porn viewers develop new maps in their brains, based on the photos and videos they see. Because it is a use-it-or-lose-it brain, when we develop a map area, we long to keep it activated. Just as our muscles become impatient for exercise if we’ve been sitting all day, so too our senses hunger to be stimulated. The men at their computers [addicted to] looking at porn [are] uncannily like the rats in the cages of the NIH, pressing the bar to get a shot of dopamine or its equivalent. Though they [don’t] know it, they [have]  been seduced into pornographic training sessions that [meet] all the conditions required for plastic change of brain maps.**

***
Signs of addiction include:

• The inability to quit voluntarily.
• The declining effect of the same sort of sexual activities, and therefore the need for stronger stimuli.
• A constant preoccupation with sexual thoughts, images and desires.
• Withdrawal symptoms when attempting to quit.
• More and more time wasted. Social, professional and family obligations and leisure activities neglected.
• The behavior continues despite its destructive effect on the addict’s own psyche, family and work.

The research studies agree that the pornography consumer finds himself on a slippery slope to ever-more abnormal sexual practices. He has to up the dose, and thereby increasingly loses moral inhibition.

* htt://www.catholicnewsagency.com/resources/life-and-family/pornography/pornographys-effects-on-adults-and-children/ (accessed August 20 , 2015 ).

**Norman Doidge, The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science (London: Penguin Books, 2007 ), 108

Gabriele Kuby
The Global Sexual Revolution: The Destruction of Freedom in the Name of Freedom.

Driven by a craving for ever-newer, stronger stimuli

ConsumerWhat are people doing when they look at porno movies? They watch strangers engaged in sex acts, people who are degrading and humiliating themselves by publicly using their bodies as a tool of lust, allowing themselves to be filmed so that multitudes of strangers can get sexually aroused over them. This body is that of a still-living person who was once born as an innocent baby, has a father and mother, a memory, feelings; a person who feels joy and sadness, has a soul and a yearning for happiness and love, although perhaps barely any remaining hope of fulfilling these aspirations. The person must typically be drugged or given alcohol to be able to do at all that she is paid for—and they are often coerced. She may be one of many millions of victims of the traffic in women, girls and children from poor countries, from which criminal gangs extract billions, using them as prostitutes to sate the sex addiction of millions of men in rich countries, whether live or on screen.Do people who sit at the screen seeking sexual excitement ever stop to think that it could be their own daughter, sister, wife, mother or even their own son, brother or husband before the camera? Given the high mortality rate in the porn industry, do they stop to think that the object of their lust may already have tragically died? Why do pornography consumers not realize that these are human beings through whose degradation and humiliation the consumers degrade and humiliate themselves.

*
Even the consumer just watching “totally normal” soft porn on the  screen degrades himself and reduces himself to an animal’s drive for physical gratification. He is driven by a craving for ever-newer, stronger stimuli, because the intensity decreases the more he views pornographic images and thus is caught in the cycle of addiction. The drive becomes a slave driver, robs him of his freedom, and forces him into behaviors that destroy his life and that of fellow human beings. And the longer it goes on, the worse it gets. Weren’t people talking about “mature adults” whose freedom shouldn’t be limited by a pornography ban? How “free” are the millions of pornography addicts? How “mature” are they?Yet our society considers this completely “normal.”



Gabriele Kuby

The Global Sexual Revolution: The Destruction of Freedom in the Name of Freedom

The perversion itself is no longer stigmatized, but the actual word "perversion" is.

The child pornography market is booming the fastest. Every day, there are approximately 116 ,000 online searches for child pornography.* I is estimated that 2 million children worldwide have been offered on the web or depicted in sexualized violence. According to the annual report of ECPAT (End Child Prostitution, Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes ), in the European Union alone, several hundred thousand children are trafficked every year. Many thousands of children are abducted and never seen again. This traffic in children serves the Internet supply and demand.

*
While 50 years ago, a kiss on the lips was all that was shown on screen, today we are bombarded all day with images of sexual activity that have just one purpose: to sexually stimulate the viewer and prompt him to buy products of all types, from cars to tabloid newspapers to sexual services—and to increase TV ratings. There is barely a movie anymore that does not turn the viewer into a sexual voyeur. The Encyclopedia Britannica defines voyeurism as “human sexual behavior involving achievement of sexual arousal through viewing the sexual activities of others or through watching others disrobe.” Since this occurs publicly at every movie theater and privately in front of computer screens, this perversion is now everyday behavior. The perversion itself is no longer stigmatized, but the actual word perversion is.

*

The pornification of our world has catastrophic consequences for individuals, the family, children, and youth: the whole society. Pornography has social costs for those involved at the primary level (consumers and producers, be they men, women or children) and secondary level (usually women and children). Mary Eberstadt and Mary Anne Layden have summarized the social costs of pornography. They say :Research and data suggest that the habitual use of pornography—and especially of internet pornography—can have a range of damaging effects on human beings of all ages and of both sexes, affecting their happiness, their productivity, their relationships with one another, and their functioning in society.**

*J.S. Carroll, et al., “Generation XXX: Pornography Acceptance and Use Among Emerging Adults,” Journal of Adolescent Research23 , no. 1 (2008 ): 6 et seq.

**Mary Eberstadt and Mary Anne Layden, The Social Costs of Pornography: A Statement of Findings and Recommendations (New Jersey: The Witherspoon Institute, 2010 ), 10 .



Gabriele Kuby

The Global Sexual Revolution: The Destruction of Freedom in the Name of Freedom.

While the body has mechanisms for excreting poisons, the soul does not

The media has brought new, lasting injury to the human psyche: images of evil. They settle in, unleash uncontrollable forces, occupy thoughts, fantasies and dreams, and affect people’s behavior. And most people are not aware of it. People have strict standards for the purity of water, air, and food, but they consume without reservation the most wretched pornographic filth, dreadful violence, and hair-raising horror as “entertainment.” While the body has mechanisms for excreting poisons, the soul does not. Man has no power over his memory: images burn into the mind forever. This is reported by every pornography addict who fights to free himself of the obsession.

Gabriele Kuby