When Manly Courage Commands Us to Flee

1. When Manly Courage Commands Us to Flee Evidence from science in support of faith.

2. Why should we follow the 10 commandments? Are the 10 commandments a gift? a burden? an added obligation? a myth? a help? or a hindrance?

3. 10 commandments are not simply a bridge to the supernatural: they are a shortcut to understand ourselves. • Most of Catechism teaches about humanity, not just Catholicity. • Science and Faith can never be opposed. There is only one truth and one source of that truth.

4. So is there a real difference between what the Church sees in pornography and what science teaches us?

5. What does the Church say about pornography? • CCC#2354 Pornography consists in removing the real or simulated sexual acts from the intimacy of the partners, in order to display them deliberately to third parties. It offends against chastity because it perverts the conjugal act, the intimate giving of spouses to each other. It does grave injury to the dignity of its participants (actors, vendors, the public), since each one becomes an object of base pleasure and illicit profit for others. It immerses all who are involved in the illusion of a fantasy world. It is a grave offense. Civil authorities should prevent the production and distribution of pornographic materials.

6. What does science have to say on the subject of pornography? • How widespread is it in society? • How does it affect the individual viewing the pornography? • What is he looking for? • Does he receive what he expects? • Is it addictive? Is the individual still in control or rather is he controlled by the pornography? • Does pornography lead to other consequences? • Does it affect everyone equally?

7. Some indicators of its prevalence: • Nearly 1/3 of 12 yr olds and 2/3 of 17 yr olds say they have friends who view pornography • 2008 stats: • 42.7% internet users now view pornography online • Every second, there are approximately 28,258 internet users viewing pornography online • Approximately 1 in 4 internet search engine requests is related to pornography • (2007) 34% of adolescents reported being exposed to unwanted sexual content online.

8. More indicators: • One in 5 of all rented films are pornographic. • Hollywood yearly generates 400 movies – Porn industry shoots 11,000 porn films each year • 4,000,000,000 dollars per year in USA spent on video pornography • Men look at pornography more than any other subject • 66% of 18-34 year old men visit porn sites every month

9. Where does the attraction to pornography come in? • What parts of the brain are affected? • How temporary is the effect? • How powerful is the effect? • How controllable is its effect?

10. Shaping the brain Pornography actually influences the structure of the brain – the molding

11. Reality vs. fantasy • The brain processes as real the bizarre images that the eyes see. The brain has no apparatus to distinguish real images from media fantasy. • i.e.Pornographic imagery is perceived by the brain as reality and stored as part of the brain’s memory and response structure.

12. Sensory input molds • Sensory input that is strong enough or repeated often enough produces an electrical impulse in a neuron that stimulates the release of chemicals that either excite or inhibit other neurons. • i.e. The brain is not passive to input; it is molded and sculpted by input. • Memory is molded; does not discriminate the source • Reaction sequences (emotional, physiological, chemical… response to stimuli) are molded; do not discriminate the source.

13. Neuroplasticity • The ability to change the structure of the brain is known as neuroplasticity. • When we learn something new, neurons fire together and wire together and a chemical process occurs at the neuronal level called "long'term potentiation," or LTP, which strengthens the connections between the neurons. When the brain unlearns associations and disconnects neurons, another chemical process occurs, called "long-term depression" or LTD. Unlearning and weakening connections between neurons is just as plastic a process, and just as important, as learning and strengthening them. • [Though plasticity is also age dependent and some things acquired in youth are hard to “undo”]

14. Some factors that affect this shaping of the brain: • Repetition reinforces synapses' connections • Rewards reinforce learning • Novelty, like rewards, reinforces • The more [and earlier] a brain region senses an event, the more it remembers it

15. Neuroplasticity is not uniform through life; there are natural “critical periods” of intense shaping. • In our critical periods we can acquire sexual and romantic tastes and inclinations that get wired into our brains and can have a powerful impact for the rest of our life. • We are unable to distinguish our "second nature" from our "original nature" because our neuroplastic brains, once rewired, develop a new nature, every bit as biological as our original.

16. Young are hit harder • States of sexual or fear arousal (a child’s response to a flash of pornographic stimuli), can cause permanent damage to the neural structure and function of the developing brain itself. • The cognitive brain is not fully developed in men until they reach 21. Any emotional stimuli before this will necessarily have more effect on the brain; it will not be mitigated by reason.

17. Critical periods for sexual plasticity…. • Early childhood is 1st critical period for sexuality and intimacy, and children are capable of passionate, protosexual feelings (crushes, …). • Falling in love in adolescence or later provides an opportunity for a second round of massive plastic changes.

19. What is “sought” in pornography? What do you “feel”?

20. Neurochemical pleasure appetitive satisfaction Satisfaction pleasure comes with actually having the sex or meal - calming, fulfilling pleasure. Neurochemistry of satisfaction pleasure is release of endorphins, related to opiates and give peaceful, euphoric bliss. • Appetitive deals with "exciting" pleasure - imagining something that we desire, such as sex or a good meal. • Neurochemistry of appetitive is largely dopamine-related, and it raises our tension level.

21. The rush • Pornography normally works to include an element of fear or alarm. This will work on the flight or fight center of the brain and produce this “rush”.

22. Craving • The appetitive system can be hyperactivated. 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 do our senses hunger to be stimulated.

23. The drugs involved • Pornography produces epinephrine (adrenaline), testosterone (an endogenous steroid, men’s flight or fight hormone), endorphins (endogenous morphine), oxytocin (a bonding peptide strongly associated with feelings of love), dopamine, serotonin, phenylethylamine…

24. Dopamine • Dopamine is a reward transmitter. By hijacking our dopamine system, addictive substances give us pleasure without our having to work for it. • Dopamine is also involved in plastic change. The same surge of dopamine that thrills us also consolidates the neuronal connections responsible for the behaviors that led us to accomplish our goal. • Addictive symptoms - the highs, crashes, cravings, withdrawal, and fixes - are subjective signs of plastic changes occurring in the structure of our brains, as they adapt to the presence or absence of the beloved.

25. Oxytocin • Neuromodulator allows heightened plasticity • Oxytocin melts down existing neuronal connections that underlie existing attachments, so new attachments can be formed. Oxytocin, does not teach parents to parent. Nor does it make lovers cooperative and kind; rather, it makes it possible for them to learn new patterns. • Oxytocin is released in both sexes during orgasm

26. In the context of matrimony • Dopamine and Oxytocin work very well in the context of matrimony • The reinforcement works toward giving oneself and establishing a permanent relationship

27. Addictive? • Dopamine is released in sexual excitement, hence the addictive power of pornography. • Drugs involved in addiction act by producing a protein called iFosB (pronounced "delta Fos B"), that accumulates in the neurons. Each time the drug is used, more iFosB accumulates, until it throws a genetic switch, affecting which genes are turned on or off. Flipping this switch causes changes that persist long after the drug is stopped, leading to irreversible damage to the brain's dopamine system and rendering the animal far more prone to addiction.

28. Compulsion? OCD? • As far as the brain is concerned, a reward’s a reward, regardless of whether it comes from a chemical or an experience. And where there’s a reward, there’s the risk of the vulnerable brain getting trapped in a compulsion. • Addiction could exist within the body’s own chemistry and any activity that produces salient alterations in mood (which are always accompanied by changes in neurotransmission) can lead to compulsion, loss of control and progressively disturbed functioning. • Lust, that is sexual arousal, toward a real or media image, when experienced in the body as a drug high, poses significant danger, especially for those with an already delicate psyche. For, such chemical flooding of the brain would too often override ones cognitive thought and interfere with rational decisions to protect themselves and others.

29. Self-fueling addiction • Pornography is reinforced by sexual acts that it stimulates. If the act of viewing pornography is accompanied by sexual acts, the viewing of pornography is associated with the sexual act and reinforced by it. Clearly then the “rewarding” pornographically triggered orgasm, regularly reinforced by novel new pornographic stimuli, is seldom “abandoned” unless the users are equally driven by the sensate and cognitive demands of conflicting values and controls. • Pornography is self-fueling. It does not disappear without a fight.

30. What happens to “reason”? I thought man was smarter than this?!

31. Picture is worth more than 1000 words • Emotionally threatening/stimulating media bypass the neocortex and rational thought. Therefore, right hemisphere pictures will psycopharmacologically overwhelm weaker left hemisphere speech information. • In crucial matters of the heart --- and most especially in emotional emergencies --- the neocortex can be said to defer to the limbic system. Implicitly, pictorial sex stimuli obey “the law of strength” and dominate the limbic system in sexual desire, memory, pleasure, pain…

32. Emotional brain • The amygdala matures very quickly in the infant’s brain… long before other brain structures like the hippocampus, which is crucial for “information” and narrative memories, and the neocortex, seat of rational thought. •  Teens and children process emotions differently than adults. Viewing emotional images… teens.. activated the amygdala, a brain center that mediates fear and other “gut” reactions, more than the frontal lobe [rational, cognitive]. •  Without exception, ones dominate memories are emotional, not cognitive.

33. Anxiety response • If any two mental states be called up together, or in succession, with due frequency and vividness, the subsequent production of the one of them will suffice to call up the other, and that whether we desire it or not. •  Other emotional responses can trigger the same physiological response and be misinterpreted as a sexual high. When fear and shame are the triggers this process is notably anxiety-provoking and maladaptive.

34. Cognitive brain to rescue? • Circuits from the limbic brain to the prefrontal lobes mean that the signals of strong emotion – anxiety, anger, and the like – can create neural static, sabotaging the ability of the prefrontal lobe to maintain working memory. • That is why when we are emotionally upset we say we “just can’t think straight”.

35. How quickly does it grab? Can I have my pie and escape?

36. Just a glance? • Pornography works in 3/10th of a second to produce mood altering experiences which by their nature generate states of lust, undergirded by anxiety which always produces levels of fear, anger and shame. This means that the hypothalamus is at “red alert”, activated to “flight or fight”.

37. Tolerance vs. Sensitization • As tolerance develops, the addict needs more and more of a substance or porn to get a pleasant effect. As sensitization develops, he needs less and less of the substance to crave it intensely. So sensitization leads to increased wanting, though not necessarily liking. • It is the accumulation of iFosB, caused by exposure to an addictive substance or activity, that leads to sensitization.

38. Slippery slope • Once the brain becomes less sensitive to dopamine, it becomes less sensitive to natural reinforcers such as the pleasure of seeing a friend, watching a movie, the curiosity that drives exploration. The only stimuli still strong enough to activate the sputtering motivation circuit are drugs. • And once they've indulged in more quantity, they want more quality - meaning more action, more intensity, more extreme situations.

39. Effect on marriage • Matrimonial lawyers attest to a growing docket of cases in which pornography becomes a major source of tension. • Whether a couple watches together, or one or both partners uses it alone, pornography plays a significant role not only in sex but in a couple's sense of trust, security, and fidelity. • More porn men watch, the less satisfied they are with their partner's looks and sexual performance.

40. Effects on life • Loss of Interpersonal skills • Increase risk of spreading sexually transmitted disease • Increased isolation if spouse uses pornography

41. Attitude shifts caused by porn • Increased tolerance toward sexually explicit material, thereby requiring more novel or bizarre material to achieve the same level of arousal or interest • Diminished trust in intimate partners • Decreased desire to achieve sexual exclusivity with a partner • Increased risk of developing a negative body image, especially for women • Acceptance of promiscuity as a normal state of interaction • Begin to view love in a cynical manner • Believe superior sexual satisfaction is attainable without having affection for one's partner • Believe marriage is sexually confining • Believe raising children and having a family is an unattractive prospect

42. Women’s view of porn • Generally speaking, North American women are socialized to seek after, if not expect, marital and intimate relationships that foster equality between partners and which are founded upon mutual respect, honesty, shared power and romantic love. In stark contrast, pornography promotes and eroticizes power imbalances, discrimination, disrespect, abuse, voyeurism, objectification, and detachment - all of which represent antitheses of relational and marital ideals for Western women. Consequently, when a North American, married woman discovers her husband has been secretly consuming pornography, it is not only devastating to her sense of self and trust, but it often threatens the very foundation upon which she has constructed and framed her relational world.

43. Conclusions of science: • Pornography is chemically addictive – the addictions can lead to permanent damage in the brain structures. • Pornography causes anxiety and tension in both the short and long run • Pornography is particularly damaging to young and adolescent brain development. • The effects of pornography are felt by the individual user, his family, society.

44. How to break out of addiction • Don’t minimize the problem. It is real. • Get help. Don’t go it alone! • End the secret – secrets beget lies – lies beget guilt, beget loss of confidence, beget more pornography. • Set up system of accountability – don’t go it alone. Isolation undermines any recovery attempt. • Personal Spiritual direction can address a lot of it. • Harder addictions need professional help too.

45. Accountability vs filters • Both are good • Pornography depends on three pillars: accessibility, anonymity, affordability. • Knock out as many pillars as possible!

46. View addiction along a continuum – not as black or white. • Level 1: just recently exposed or view 1-2 times/yr. • Level 2: growing curiosity but no compulsion yet. View 1-6 x/yr. • Level 3: borderline between problem and compulsive behavior. View 1/month (maybe follow w/ binge). Try to avoid. R-rated videos, nude picture, sexual movies… • Level 4: impacts other aspects of life. Thinking about it a lot. Fantasizing increases. View few times/month –more hardcore material. Strong urges, withdrawal symptoms (restlessness, irritability, insomnia, etc.). Will need more effort to quit because exposed to harder material.

47. Level 5: significant time / week thinking about. View 3-5 /week. Impact other areas of life. Begin to feel consumed and helpless. Generally fighting for many years. • Level 6: begins dominating person’s life. Almost every day significant portion given to view or think about. Feeling of being out of control common. Often dealing with some kind of loss. Lying to cover tracks. • Level 7: viewing and acting out sexually now is a dominant player in life. Lying is common. Acting out sexual fantasies.

48. Lift the taboo on speaking about pornography • Secrets, especially related to sex and pornography, are destructive to relationships because they hurt the trust and feelings of loyalty necessary for healthy relationships to exist. • The path to addiction is often facilitated by fear of talking about images encountered accidentally – and by fear to hear of these instances.

49. Know the Reaction Sequence

50. Deactivate sequence