The local chapter of Campus Crusade for Christ is putting on a lecture tonight titled "Porn Nation," speaker is a guy named Michael Leahy. Toyed with the idea of going--Crusade's activities are worth keeping tabs on--but after some searching online, which ultimately lead to finding preview chapters of Leahy's book, I'm convinced it's a waste of my time.
I recommend reading the at least introduction to the book. Here's what I got out of it: Leahy was a shallow, emotionally immature, selfish jerk. He let himself get strung along by infatuation, betrayed people close to him, and suddenly found out he had gotten tied up with someone also willing to betray people close to her. From all the talk in the publicity about the book, it seems like he's desperate to blame some outside force: our "hypersexualized culture," a mythological "sex addiction," masturbation, whatever, rather than simply admit to being a major jerk. When you betray people close to you, the main problem is not sex addiction, it's that you betrayed people close to you. Leahy seems like he doesn't want to recognize this, which makes him all the more shallow.
6 comments:
Seems to me, after reading the sample stuff on his site, that basically it boils down to "I screwed up my life and used sex to escape it, therefore sex is bad unless you control it as much as possible." That's about all I could get out of it.
xuThe US is a prudish culture if anything. The website is worth mild amusement though, see http://www.pornnationthebook.com/?page_id=22 for the story of a recovering lesbian sex addict. Anyway, as Dan Savage argues, when you try to contain sexuality into a smaller space than it should be, like a substance under pressure, in bursts out in weird ways. I think that pretty adequately explains all the porn in this country and the "hybersexualization".
a) Porn Nation was sponsored by seven different student groups. A couple of them were not religious groups.
b) During his presentation, Leahy made it clear that he does not blame the porn industry. "Ultimately, it was because of my poor choices," "I am the one to blame," "I single-handedly lost everything," and MANY other statements like this showed that he didn't blame anyone but himself, and he hopes his audience will learn from his mistakes. (though he did make a good point that more and more we don't always have a choice about seeing sexually-charged images. The media uses it pretty much everywhere.)
c) Sex addiction is not a myth. Leahy explained that very well at Porn Nation. Porn triggers dopamine, and just like drugs, we're able to build up a tolerance to it. It can then become a behavioral addiction. Research this if you doubt.
d) He certainly was shallow for most of his life. Now he's passing on what he's learned for the good of others. His research is credible-- there are interviews with several psychologists, advertising agents, former porn stars, playmates, etc. Call it shallow, if you'd like, but I'd say that's an extremely uninformed opinion (which you're entitled to.)
>Porn triggers dopamine
When are we, as a society, going to get used to the idea of neuroscience? YES! When you do stuff, stuff happens in your brain! This is true of everything we do, down to posting non-sequitur comments on other people's blogs. This fact, in and of its self, does not support half the inferences people try to draw from it.
Oh, yes, and this is worth noting
"Mark Gauthier
"U.S. Campus Director
"Campus Crusade for Christ
"Campus Crusade for Christ has partnered with Michael for four years to bring his multi-media presentation Porn Nation-The Naked Truth to more than 100 campuses nationwide."
http://www.pornnationthebook.com/?page_id=6
After hearing Leahy I really couldn't disagree with you more. I believe Leahy himself would easily say that he was "a shallow, emotionally immature, selfish jerk" but not that he is trying to blame an outside force. Certainly he points to environmental factors that led to his decisions, but at the root of his recovery is a belief that he was ultimately to blame.
This fact actually underlies his message to college students in the first place. In warning others about sexualized culture he is placing responsibility to not be affected by it in the hands of his listeners. I see no blame-game going on here.
Still I see what you mean. It certainly is en vogue to blame everything from parental upbringing to MTV to Victoria Secret. I wouldn't place Michael Leahy in that category however. His Christian convictions clearly distance him from that sort of blaming.
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