‘The Drug of the New Millennium’
Internet pornography is the drug of the new millennium and usage is on the rise, said Mark Kastleman, author of “Drug of the New Millenium,” researcher and speaker on the subject.
“Internet pornography use is sky-rocketing,” he said. “Ninety-five million Americans a month are looking at pornography on the Internet.
“Many are sacrificing everything, including their careers and reputations because of Internet pornography,” he said. “This is much more than dirty pictures or dirty people.”
Kastleman spoke at Utah State University on Thursday and said the small numbers at that seminar reflected the current attitudes about Internet pornography.
“Some people think that this is kind of a joke, that it is not a big deal,” he said. “There are others that are offended by it and don’t want to talk about it at all.”
But he said people do have to talk about it in order for the “epidemic” to be cured.
There are three reasons Internet pornography is more dangerous than other forms of pornographic material: It is anonymous, accessible and affordable, Kastleman said.
“You used to have to slink to a bad part of town and go to an adult bookstore,” he said. “Suddenly, it is instantly accessible with the push of a button. It’s secretive and, in most cases, free.
“Those who use it aren’t pushing carts down the street. They are intelligent, successful and moral,” he said.
A recent graduate of USU, who wished to remain anonymous, said he got started using pornography when he was 15, because a friend showed him some sites and downloaded some pictures for him.
“They were interesting,” he said. “They intrigued me. I was a hormonal teenager.”
He looked at the site again one or two months later. He looked for five or 10 minutes at a time, and after about a year, he started looking at other sites, he said.
Kastleman said pornography is a drug addiction. When someone looks at pornography, his body releases endogenous drugs, which are the natural drugs alcohol and cocaine mimic, he said.
“It’s an addiction on steroids, an addiction at the highest possible level,” Kastleman said.
Like drugs, people use pornography as a release from stress, he said.
“You start to feel depressed and craving, a need to self-medicate to get those drugs back up to a normal level. It becomes a vicious cycle, and we have millions of people who are self-medicating,” he said.
The former USU student said he looked at more explicit material as time went on because the original pictures he viewed didn’t give him the same high as they originally did.
“It didn’t seem to fulfill me as much anymore,” he said.
Kastleman said, “This is not a harmless outlet. This stuff radically alters the human brain and body. This is a drug addiction, like alcoholism. It’s alcoholism and drug addiction and food addiction times 100.”
Pornography is dangerous, because it degrades women and turns them into body parts, instead of the human beings they are, Kastleman said. Nearly every sex offender of women and children has his roots in pornography, he said. He used Ted Bundy as an example.
Bundy was executed in January, 1989, after confessing to 28 murders of women, eight of which were in Utah, according to Serial Murder: Future Implications for Police Investigations by Robert D. Keppel.
“Ted Bundy said he began his journey to the end by peeking at sexual magazines,” Kastleman said. “It took Bundy several decades to go from [looking at pornographic magazines] to killing and sexually abusing women. With the Internet, how quickly will people make the transition now?
“People are wasting hours, which could have been spent productively. They are wasting away in front of the computer screen. Even when they’re not looking at pornography, they are not fully effective, because the images are going through their heads,” he said.
Much of the pornography on the Internet is free because pornographers want to get people addicted, Kastleman said.
Because pornography is so addictive, it is difficult to quit without seeking outside help, he said.
The USU alumnus said he tried for two years to quit but wasn’t able to until he sought outside help.
“I made a promise to myself not to look at it anymore, but I failed a few times before I got it down. I tried stopping on my own, but it was very difficult,” he said. “I told my girlfriend at the time and my religious leader, which was how I was finally able to stop.”
Kastleman said, “If you have a problem, come out of seclusion and get outside help, because it is the only way to be cured.”
People get into a “zone” when they look at pornography, where they don’t notice time passing or what’s going on in the world around them, he said.
“Guys will look at it for five hours in a stupor,” Kastleman said. “They go from real time to addiction time. They are completely engrossed in getting to a peak experience.”
He compared it to the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
“They come out of the zone and can’t believe what they have done. They ask, what was I thinking? But they weren’t thinking. Their thought process was shut down,” he said.
Pornography is not just a male problem or an adult problem. Forty percent of consumers are female, but the largest group of users is males between the ages of 12 and 17, Kastleman said.
For parents to protect their children from Internet pornography, they should put the computer in a public place – not behind a closed door, be in the room when their children are on the Internet, be accessible so their children can talk to them if they stumble upon Internet pornography, and not overreact, judge or lecture if their children do see it, he said.
At USU, looking at pornography is against school policy, so if a student is caught with it, he can be reported to Dallin Phillips, the campus judicial officer, and possibly be suspended.
“It depends on how serious the offense is as to what course of action we take. There are a variety of things that can be done,” Phillips said. “It could be anywhere from being put on probation to being suspended from school. We may restrict computer access. They’ll probably have counseling, most typically from the USU Counseling Services, and part of their probation is that they report back.”
Usually, first-time offenders are warned by the computer lab consultants. Students are only referred to Phillips after numerous warnings, he said.
Bob Bayn, the associate director of Network and Computing Services, said there usually aren’t repeat offenders.
“If there’s an incident in the lab, it’s supposed to be handled by a report to the lab consultant, and the lab consultant is supposed to confront the student and remind them of the policy,” he said. “Usually, that puts an end to that type of incident.
“When it is reported, then we keep track of repeat offenses. My impression is that most people that get into this kind of stuff are not too bold in public about it and quickly stop. I do not know of any repeat offenses,” Bayn said.
Phillips said he usually gets four or five referrals a year, but he hasn’t had any yet this school year.
There is often an illegal action connected to students looking at Internet pornography, he said.
“For example, they’ll use a friend or roommate’s credit card to pay for a pornographic Internet site,” he said.
Bayn said he doesn’t believe Internet pornography use is a problem on USU’s campus, because, based on a recent survey, students complain much more about other computer lab problems than pornography.
Kastleman said the best way to deal with pornography is for people to never start and to not get so stressed they feel they need to use it as a release.
“Learn about your boundaries,” he said. “Learn about your limits, and stay within them so you don’t get wound up so tight you can’t release.”
Like alcoholism, a pornography addiction
can never really be cured, Kastleman said.
The former USU student said, “The temptation’s still there. I try to keep myself busy and surround myself with friends, if possible. But it’s something I fight with. It’s addictive.”