Pornography:
The Problem With Library Pornography:
Modern Brain Research Reveals Critical Importance of Library Filters

view the .pdf | note: all footnotes are included within the .pdf

December 2001

by Judith A. Reisman, Ph.D. Author, Kinsey, Crimes & Consequences, and guest author for the NJ Family Policy Council.

Pre-1949, never fearing mischief or injury, I ambled confidently to grade school and played in Newark’s parks while women casually rode buses alone at dusk. Our freedom from fear reflected the “public morals” of “We The People,” expressed in New Jersey laws protecting the safety of women and children.

Hoping to reduce crime, the 1950 New Jersey Senate’s “commission to investigate the problem of the habitual sex offender” emasculated New Jersey’s “Public Morals” laws, unleashing instead, unprecedented increases in crime. U.S. agencies report a 993% increase in violent crime and 5,171% more child sex abuse from 1976 to 1999 . In 1999, 67% of sex victims were children, 64% of forcible sodomy victims were boys under age 12,2 and 19,000 “in school” rapes and sex abuses were reported3.

Meanwhile, these weakened laws allowed for American Library Association administrators to quietly turn our public libraries into “dirty book stores”, protecting internet access to debasing and dehumanizing, adult and child pornographic stimuli. But soon modern brain science discoveries may just return public libraries to The People.

UCLA neuropsychologist Dr. Margaret Kemeny’s research implicates pornography as precipitating “a cascade of changes in the body that have an impact on health.” This supports former Surgeon General Everett Koop’s diagnosis of pornography as a “crushing public health problem.” “Violence and pornography” he said, “are felonies against the human spirit”. Those who commit them “have an appetite for outrage” and devour “what we cling to as civilized life.”

Gary Lynch, University of California at Irvine neurologist corroborates these assessments. Brain research, he explains, reveals that what one sees in three-tenths of a second, “has produced a structural change that is in some ways is as profound as the structural changes one sees in [brain] damage.” It can “leave a trace that will last for years.”

One recent example of such image assault was reported by the Sunday-Star Ledger (“pornography in the library,” November 2). Gloria Morales, a young mother accompanied by her 5 yr-old son, “could not help but notice the [sex] images on [a library computer] screen.” Mrs. Morales testified “[t]hat image of porn is in my mind forever.”

The Ledger quotes Frank Askin, professor of law, mocking Morales, saying “Tell her she doesn’t have to look at it.” However, just one unsolicited “look” created a neurochemical imprint. There were at least 245 nonconsensual child victims in 1998, due to reckless libraries, documented in the “Dangerous Access” report to congress. What justice does Professor Askin offer for the pornographic brain insults unmercifully inflicted on these children? What about the scores of molestation reports?

The Ledger also quoted Jim Yardley, president of the Morristown-Public Library and Pat Tumulty, executive director of the New Jersey Library Association, nimbly trying to costume pornographic stimuli as “information.” But cognitive “information” is highjacked by visual sexual stimuli long before the slow, thinking brain can even consent! Furthermore, the library’s latest move to add “privacy” screens can not magically convert deviant public sexual activity into “informational” scholarship. One must ask: What man practices sexual stimulation in a public library?

Despite the elites fanciful hysteria about “information,” most rational Americans want porn filtered from our libraries and will agree that Drs. Koop, Lynch, Kemeny and other brain scientists are “onto something” about how pornography harms individuals and society.

(See website: drjudithreisman.org for more detail on the brain and imagery.)

Endnotes:
These data are broken down in: Judith Reisman, “The Kinsey Effect: The FBI Uniform Crime Report Minimizes Child Sex Abuse.” Crestwood, KY: Institute for Media Education, 2001. See the US DOJ National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) “Sexual Assault of Young Children as Reported to Law Enforcement: Victim, Incident, and Offender Characteristics, July 2000. “Trends in Child Abuse and Neglect: A National Perspective, The American Humane Association, Children’s Division, Denver, Colorado, 1984, p. 22. Sex Abuse statistics, p. 106, Table A-IV-16, “Reports Of Child Abuse, Neglect Grew 33% In 1990s,” Prevent Child Abuse America, National Center on Child Abuse Prevention Research, March 15,1001, HHS NEWS, “HHS Reports New Child Abuse and Neglect Statistics,” US Department of Health and Human Services, “Study Findings: Study of National Incidence and Prevalence of Child Abuse and Neglect,” National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect. 1988, p. 3-13. (See, drjudithreisman.org)
2 The US DoJ, National Incident-Based Reporting System, (NIBRS) “Sexual Assault of Young Children as Reported to Law Enforcement: Victim, Incident, and Offender Characteristics,” July 2000, NCJ 182990. The 12 sample states reporting in comprised 24% of all US states, representing 60,991child sex abuse victims; 24% of 51 states is an estimated child sex victim population of roughly 244,000 in 1999.
3 Sources: DOE, NCES 1999-057; DoJ, NCJ 178906, 1999, p. 63. The following exchange is provided from the Department of Justice:
Dear Dr. Reisman: According to our data, there were approximately 12,000 rapes in or around schools in 1994. In 1999 (the most recent data that we have), there were over 19,000 rapes that occurred in or around schools. This information came from the National Criminal Victimization Survey. You can access the 1994 data in the report "Criminal Victimization in the United States, 1994," http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/cvius94.pdf. The data can be found in Table 63 (which is located on page 61). For the 1999 data, you can take a look at "Criminal Victimization in the United States, 1999 Statistical Tables." National Crime Victimization Survey, January 2001. [383,170,000 rapes and sexual assaults, 8.9% “inside school building or on school property” compared to 1.8% taking place “on public transport or inside station”] at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/cvus99.pdf. This data was also on Table 63. These are all age 12 and over only data. You also may want to take a look at some of the reports that we have available on crime that is committed in schools. “1999 Annual Report on School Safety” ages 12 through 18. You can access them from our Web site at http://virlib.ncjrs.org/juv.asp?category=47&subcategory=185. If you have any further questions, please feel free to write back and thanks for using Ask NCJRS. Ken M, Information Specialist, NCJRS. Email received 7/23/2001.

December 2001.

 

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