Porn as knowledge??

Thank you Rob for bringing Steve Chapman's (Chicago Tribune) views on rape and pornography to our attention.  Chapman seems to suggest that porn equals knowledge and that this knowledge has contributed to a decrease in rape.  I'd be tempted to laugh at Chapman's conclusion if the stakes weren't so high.  I have no idea whether the growth in the porn market has any correlation, positive or negative, to the incidence of rape. 

The destructive effects of the porn industry, however, reach far and wide.  Dateline reports, for example, that an estimated 16 million people in the United States suffer from the devastating effects of sexual addiction. The Dateline article recounts the downward spiral of three sex addicts including Mark Lasser, a married minister and counselor, who started down the road to sexual addiction with soft-porn when he was 11 years old.   Here in Oklahoma, our newspapers are daily filled with stories of prominent people - ministers, police officers, and ADA's who have lost jobs and/or family because they couldn't resist visiting certain sites on the internet or soliciting a prostitute.  An Oklahoma state district judge is currently on trial for what was going on beneath his robe during court sessions.  (The judge has denied the allegations).  Many sex addicts eventually turn to programs like Sexoholics Anonymous, a twelve step program patterned after AA, for help. 

Instead of empowering these 16 million men and woman, America's "changing attitudes about erotica" (Chapman's phrase) helped enslave them by sexual compulsion, leading to a web of lies, deceit, and shame as the addict attempts to lead a double life.