Porn: Not just Weiner's problem

Years ago when I was working at a beat reporter, I interviewed a delightful young man who had the good fortune to work with one of the most notable producers in Hollywood — Quentin Tarantino. He’d landed the job as a production assistant or something of that nature because he knew somebody who knew somebody. That he was from a smallish city in Washington state made his opportunity seem all that more glamorous. But after they wrapped the movie — and I can’t for the life of me remember what the movie was — he returned home.

I was writing what we reporters commonly referred to as a “fluff piece.” Nothing earth-shattering. Just a nice little vignette about his time in Hollywood. So the last thing I expected from this good-looking twenty-something was for him to blurt out that the real reason he came back home was to get therapy for a porn addiction.

Addictions are a common ailment in my family, so it’s not like I’m the Church Lady on these matters. I kept my poker-face intact but the entire time I was like: WoW! You have got to be freakin kidding me. You? Porn? I knew the young man to be a stand-up kind of guy. He was well-loved in the community, a leader in his church young adult group.

I had the same sort of reaction last year while in Portland at an event where Anne Jackson was speaking. It was a casual gathering in somebody’s backyard. I’d never met Anne before but had heard a great deal about her from various friends. Her new book “Permission to Speak Freely” was out and she was going to read some of it. During the course of the evening, Anne told her faith story. Embedded in that convoluted tale of her faith journey was a little snippet about how she became addicted to porn. Up until that moment, I swear I’d never ever heard of a women and porn addictions. I didn’t even know it was possible for a girl to have such an addiction.

The confession this week by New York’s Rep. Anthony Weiner that he has been involved in inappropriate online encounters highlights just how insidious a porn problem can be. Asked why he sent sexually explicit photos to women online, Rep. Weiner said he didn’t know why. It was dumb. Stupid, he said.

Anthony Weiner is married to a beautiful, smart, and engaging woman.

But she, apparently, wasn’t good enough. That’s the lure, and trouble with porn: you want what you don’t have and don’t want what you do have.

Naomi Wolff deftly explains the affect of porn on male-female relationships in The Porn Myth:  But does all this sexual imagery in the air mean that sex has been liberated—or is it the case that the relationship between the multi-billion-dollar porn industry, compulsiveness, and sexual appetite has become like the relationship between agribusiness, processed foods, supersize portions, and obesity? If your appetite is stimulated and fed by poor-quality material, it takes more junk to fill you up. People are not closer because of porn but further apart; people are not more turned on in their daily lives but less so.

Real women, no matter how beautiful or smart or engaging, cannot compete with a man’s online addiction.

Says Wolfe: “For the first time in human history, the images’ power and allure have supplanted that of real naked women. Today, real naked women are just bad porn.”

Not that it keeps women from trying.

Women are taking extreme, some would suggest self-mutilating measures, to keep their mates interested. There’s been an alarming increase — 70 percent — in the number of women undergoing labiaplasty (commonly referred to as designer vaginas)  according to a study published in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Dr David Veale blames the surge of surgeries on easier access to explicit sexual imagery. “We haven’t completed the research, but there is suspicion that this is related to much greater access to porn … This is to do with the increasing sexualisation of society – it’s the last part of the body to be changed.”

And if this weren’t shocking enough, earlier this year, The Virginian-Pilot reported that the number of child pornography cases increased 218 percent from 2003 to 2009. Nationally arrests for child pornography rose 2,500 percent in 10 years. Between October 2008 and October 2009, more than 9 million U.S. computers were identified as having shared child pornography, according to the Justice Department. U.S. Attorney Neil McBride says the industry was dying until the Internet and other online networks jump-started a troubling epidemic.

On the surface it may appear that Rep. Anthony Weiner has just made a stupid mistake.

But in reality this is more than just a bad locker room joke.

Porn is a national epidemic. It is threatening our jobs, our marriages, our mental, emotional and spiritual well-beings, and most important of all, our children.

And where is the church on this?

How many of you have heard sermons preached on this matter? How many of you would feel comfortable seeking help for a porn addiction?

If someone confessed to you that they had a porn addiction, how would you go about helping that person?

Karen Spears Zacharias is author of Will Jesus Buy Me a DoubleWide? ’cause I need more room for my plasma TV.