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Jed Boal ReportingA national anti-pornography group with a main office in Utah is trying a new attack on the porn industry. They aim to take on porn with medical evidence, but there's a lot of work to do and skepticism in the medical community.
The Lighted Candle Society is out to prove that pornography is addictive and physically damaging, and they plan to use MRI’s to do it. The group is building a team of researchers and raising money for the quest, and ultimately plan to fight porn in the courtroom.
Dr. Judith Reisman wants to take down porn in the court of public opinion and the court of law.
Dr. Judith Reisman, Lighted Candle Society: “The objective is to put the pornography industry on notice the same way the tobacco industry was put on notice."
Porn has exploded with the Internet. Reisman says that flood of images victimizes young people and adults and creates addicts.
The hypothesis is that images are not text and not processed in the brain the same way, and that highly exciting images like porn or violence are not protected speech under the first amendment.
The group wants to prove porn is a public health threat, that pornographic images overpower the thought process and trigger arousal.
Dr. Judith Reisman: “When a person looks at a pornographic image, for example, they're highly aroused, but unable to bring their cognition to this. So it is without informed consent that their brain is changed by the image. The brain is changed by the image."
Reisman has written on the topic more than two decades, but admits proving porn is a health threat is a challenge. The medical community contends MRI technology just isn't advanced enough to prove porn damages brains.
Psychiatrist Doctor David Tomb says the research hasn't been done to prove pornography irreparably changes the brain and can produce a tobacco type addiction.
While scientific proof isn't there yet, Reisman contends there is proof of the damage of porn --victims whose lives have been damaged. But they want to prove it in a courtroom and that takes physiological proof...
