Rick Santorum on Pornography and "Sexual Union"

In recent days, Mr. Santorum has decided that war is a good thing, particularly when it's a war on pornography.  On his website, Mr. Santorum rails against the damage that pornography is wreaking on American society as a whole and on individual Americans.

Here are a few quotes:

"America is suffering a pandemic of harm from pornography.  A wealth of research is now available demonstrating that pornography causes profound brain changes in both children and adults, resulting in widespread negative consequences. Addiction to pornography is now common for adults and even for some children. The average age of first exposure to hard-core, Internet pornography is now 11. Pornography is toxic to marriages and relationships. It contributes to misogyny and violence against women.  It is a contributing factor to prostitution and sex trafficking."

A wealth of research indeed.  One such "researcher" is Dr. Judith Reisman.   Automatically, one would thingk that she is a psychologist, psychiatrist or someone similarly qualified, however, Dr. Reisman has, in fact, both a Masters and Ph.D. in Communications from Case Western Reserve University.  In her biography, she claims that "she has been engaged in a lifelong battle against pornography and since 1977 has fervently exposed the fraudulent sex science of Dr. Alfred Kinsey.".  Here is a link to her website where it quickly becomes apparent that she certainly has a decades-long fixation on both pornography and Dr. Alfred Kinsey's research.  Dr. Reisman maintains that viewing pornography will cause a chemical change within a person's brain that will create physical deterioration.  If indeed that is the case, would not the same chemical changes take place during the arousal that takes place during "real-life sex"?  I'm not disputing Dr. Reisman's research but, contrary to what Mr. Santorum states, the very existence of pornography addiction is still hotly disputed among qualified mental health practitioners and researchers.

Mr. Santorum continues:

"For many decades, the American public has actively petitioned the United States Congress for laws prohibiting distribution of hard-core adult pornography.

Congress has responded.  Current federal “obscenity” laws prohibit distribution of hardcore (obscene) pornography on the Internet, on cable/satellite TV, on hotel/motel TV, in retail shops and through the mail or by common carrier. Rick Santorum believes that federal obscenity laws should be vigorously enforced.  “If elected President, I will appoint an Attorney General who will do so.” 

Mr. Santorum goes on to inform us that the Obama Department of Justice favours pornographers over children and families.  As did the Department of Justice under the Bush Administration etcetera.  One would like to think that an Attorney General would have better things to do than taking up arms against pornography (excluding child pornography of course).  Like the battle against the drug trade, this battle would cost taxpayers untold billions of dollars and the outcome would be far from certain.  Governments seem very, very slow to learn that banning so-called "sins" like alcohol, drugs and now pornography simply don't work, they are just driven underground.  Let me rephrase that, such laws do work, for the country's lawyers.

Here is the last paragraph of Mr. Santorum's missive:

"I proudly support the efforts of the War on Illegal Pornography Coalition that has tirelessly fought to get federal obscenity laws enforced.  That coalition is composed of 120 national, state, and local groups, including Morality in Media, Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, American Family Association, Cornerstone Family Council of New Hampshire, Pennsylvania Family Institute, Concerned Women for America, The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, and a host of other groups.  Together we will prevail."

Quite frankly, using the very notion of a battle against pornography is blatant political pandering to a subset of American voters.  If Mr. Santorum is truly serious about this battle, the quickest way to end the fight would be to disable the "tubes" that make up the internet, forcing purveyors of pornography skulking back to magazines wrapped in plain paper or, alternatively force us back to the 1990s when we all had to use dial-up access, rendering online video pornography absolutely unobtainable.  In this era of ultra-high speed internet connections, I think Mr. Santorum is urinating into the wind, short of unplugging us all.   

To put all of this into context, we need to remember that this is the man that said this about contraception within marriage in this interview:

"One of the things I will talk about that no President has talked about before is I think the dangers of contraception in this country, the whole sexual libertine idea. Many in the Christian faith have said, “Well, that’s okay. Contraception’s okay.”

It’s not okay because it’s a license to do things in the sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be. They’re supposed to be within marriage, they are supposed to be for purposes that are, yes, conjugal, but also unitive, but also procreative. That’s the perfect way that a sexual union should happen. We take any part of that out, we diminish the act...all of a sudden, it becomes deconstructed to the point where it's simply pleasure."

Now we can't even have fun having recreational sex within the bounds of marriage!  Mr. Santorum certainly has a very rigid (weak, weak pun) outlook on the sexual act.  Perhaps he should reconsider his position on running for the President of the United States and submit his name as a replacement for Pope Benedict XVI.  He's pretty much spouting the official Catholic Church line on contraception and procreation so he might be a shoe-in. 

We have to ask ourselves before it's too late - is Mr. Santorum's America the America that the majority of Americans want?