New evidence points to porn's destructiveness

June 29, 2010
By Barbara F. Hollingsworth

Pornography, now deeply embedded in American culture, is considered in some quarters a harmless private pleasure, but there is new evidence that porn causes psychological damage to those who consume it.

Citing numerous academic studies and her own clinical practice, Dr. Mary Anne Layden, a psychotherapist and director of the University of Pennsylvania's Sexual Trauma and Psychopathology Program, says that porn meets all the clinical definitions for addiction except that obscene images can never be detoxed from the addict's brain.

"There is no credible evidence to suggest that porn does not in some way damage everybody who looks at it," she told The Washington Examiner at a recent press conference on Capitol Hill sponsored by the Coalition for the War Against Illegal Pornography. the rest

"There's always an escalation process. We don't know what the threshold is, and those with addictive personalities will start it earlier. But I see a lot of people who didn't show any psychological problems before [viewing porn]," she said.