Patrick F. Fageb, Ph.D./Findings on Marriage and Pornography

Patrick F. Fagan, Ph.D.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Pornography is a visual representation of sexuality which distorts an individual's concept of the nature of conjugal relations. This, in turn, alters both sexual attitudes and behavior. It is a major threat to marriage, to family, to children and to individual happiness. In undermining marriage it is one of the factors in undermining social stability.

Social scientists, clinical psychologists, and biologists have begun to clarify some of the social and psychological effects, and neurologists are beginning to delineate the biological mechanisms through which pornography produces its powerful negative effects.

KEY FINDINGS ON THE EFFECTS OF PORNOGRAPHY

THE FAMILY AND PORNOGRAPHY

• Married men who are involved in pornography feel less satisfied with their conjugal relations and less emotionally attached to their wives. Wives notice and are upset by the difference.
• Pornography use is a pathway to infidelity and divorce, and is frequently a major factor in these family disasters.
• Among couples affected by one spouse's addiction, two-thirds experience a loss of interest in sexual intercourse.
• Both spouses perceive pornography viewing as tantamount to infidelity.
• Pornography viewing leads to a loss of interest in good family relations.

THE INDIVIDUAL AND PORNOGRAPHY

• Pornography is addictive, and neuroscientists are beginning to map the biological substrate of this addiction.
• Users tend to become desensitized to the type of pornorgraphy they use, become bored with it, and then seek more perverse forms of pornography.
• Men who view pornography regularly have a higher tolerance for abnormal sexuality, including rape, sexual aggression, and sexual promiscuity.
• Prolonged consumption of pornography by men produces stronger notions of women as commodities or as "sex objects."
• Pornography engenders greater sexual permissiveness, which in turn leads to a greater risk of out-of-wedlock births and STDs. These, in turn, lead to still more weaknesses and debilities.
• Child-sex offenders are more likely to view pornography regularly or to be involved in its distribution.

OTHER EFFECTS OF PORNOGRAPHY

• Many adolescents who view pornography initially feel shame, diminished self-confidence, and sexual uncertainty, but these feelings quickly shift to unadulterated enjoyment with regular viewing.
• The presence of sexually oriented businesses significantly harms the surrounding community, leading to increases in crime and decreases in property values.
• The main defenses against pornography are close family life, a good marriage and good relations between parents and children, coupled with deliberate parental monitoring of Internet use. Traditionally, government has kept a tight lid on sexual traffic and businesses, but in matters of pornography that has waned almost completely, except where child pornography is concerned. Given the massive, deleterious individual, marital, family, and social effects of pornography, it is time for citizens, communities, and government to reconsider their laissez-faire approach.

Defending My Honor

 Tonight I have decided to defend myself.

This week I found a journal from 5 years ago in which I had written notes from Patricia Evan's books on Verbal Abuse.  She writes about the ways in which women can stand up for themselves when they are verbally abused.

My notes were as follows:

Withholding: The purposeful silent treatment, when this happens leave the room stating "I am very bored with your company".

Countering: Verbal Abusers refute what they misconstrue you to have said, say in response "STOP!", "Look at my lips", then repeat the original statement.  Or, calmly and emphatically say "So you say". then leave the room.

Discounting: Verbal Abusers give the message that your feelings and experiences are wrong.  Don't ask why he said that, instead say "Stop that kind of talk right now".  Respond with outrage or say "You don't know what you are talking about!".

Accusation and Blame: Verbal Abusers blame and accuse the people the abuse. Reply by saying "Don't talk to me like that!" Do Not Explain, say "I think you know better than that!"

Judging and Criticism: Verbal Abusers lie about ones personal qualities and performance, they are meant to be blows to the self esteem.  Respond by saying "I don't accept that!" or " Do you hear yourself, cut out the criticism!".

Threatening: When threatened by a Verbal Abuser say "Stop threatening me". or "Don't bother me with those threats".

You probably can't imagine saying things like this to your partner, unless like me you have married an abuser and you are exhausted from the slings and arrows of his behavior.  In the 5 years since I first became aware of what my life had become I did try to say these things in response.  More often than not  his verbal abuse escalated. A few times he was stunned and walked away, but he always returned in the morning with another more seductive approach to get what he wanted. Like every other effort I made with the assistance of professionals and books on the subject, the results were very short lived.

Today I am in the final chapter of my marriage, divorce.  The abuse now continues through the proxy of his attorney whose dour face and indignant glances reflect his desires.  I am standing firm for the truth of my experience and defending myself in the face of what I could not do alone.

Invictus

“INVICTUS”

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Infidelity: Not a Pretty Picture/ Kay Rutherford

The following is an excerpt from an article about infidelity. As I was reading it I kept seeing words that I know, words that I use a lot. Words that are now all too familiar to me  CONTROL  POWER  WOMEN .  I see them put together EXPLOITATION INFIDELITY TRAUMA  often. They jumped off the page ABUSE DECEPTION.  They have become my life LIES DEGREDATION SEX.   These are not the words of poetry or of my creative avocation HUMILIATION TRUTH SUBJECTION SICK  They are words that define the existence LOVE ORGASM SHOCK INSOMNIA SELF ESTEEM which gradually became mine RECURRING NIGHTMARES TERROR PAIN  until I no longer recognized my life. PTSD DEPRESSION HURT COMPULSION DISTRESS ABANDONED SHATTERS SECURITY DANGER GRIEF DEAD FEELINGS VICTIM BATTERED RAGE VERBAL SPIRITUAL CHRONIC DANGEROUS ADDICTION EXPOSE.

Kay Rutherford has a PhD in Counselor Education and teaches Racial Ethnics and Abnormal Psychology at Viterbo University. She also counsels at a private agency. Dr. Rutherford's special areas of research and consultation are in infidelity, holistic therapies, wellness, humor, and the healing emotions.

Infidelity: Not a Pretty Picture
Kay Rutherford, PhD, LPC, NCC, RN 

Women are often controlled by men and very few societies exhibit an equalitarian relationship. One paramount way in which men control women is through sex and sexual power. Physician Bleier, a professor of neurophysiology and Women Studies (1984) emphasized, "It is precisely because sexuality is so charged for women with psychic and emotional significance…that it is so powerful a weapon for the social control of women." As slaves, concubines, and one of multiple wives, women 

Women are often controlled by men and very few societies exhibit an equalitarian relationship. One paramount way in which men control women is through sex and sexual power. Physician Bleier, a professor of neurophysiology and Women Studies (1984) emphasized, "It is precisely because sexuality is so charged for women with psychic and emotional significance…that it is so powerful a weapon for the social control of women." As slaves, concubines, and one of multiple wives, women are viewed as less than. This practice of viewing females as flawed or diseased is seen in childbirth, birth control, hormone replacement, abortion, or menopause. Often medicine (including the crooning brunette advertising Cialis on TV) is about women living and medicating to satisfy men's needs. It is much about control. Our courts and legal system place men at the head of the family and it is often the women’s job to stay within the family as the man sees fit, regardless of what he does. Bassoff (1991) tells us that “sexual exploitation of girls is a longstanding tradition” and so it is with infidelity…in American and in SubSaharan Africa…

Infidelity is a patriarchal way of controlling women. My work with infideled clients is very sad and thus, I share what I have professionally and personally learned: the basic premises of infidelity, the resultant trauma symptoms, infidelity’s abusive patterns, the societal acceptance of infidelity, and suggestions for counselors who work with infideled clients. My research is substantiated with interviews, an extensive bibliography selection, a trip to SubSaharan Africa and the results of a recent Women Studies class. In each section I compare the patriarchal control of women in America with that of SubSaharan Africa and the growing AIDS problems. As I tell my clients…there is almost always more to the story and it is usually not a pretty picture.

I first list the basic premises of infidelity, its unexpectedness, non-simplicity, and its seduction, deception and trauma. I speak as a woman, and in the female voice.

Premises of Infidelity

Most people who are in a mental and physical relationship expect their partner to be in love with them, meaning faithful in spirit and in body. Infidelity is not expected.

There is nothing simple about infidelity. It is a planned experience entailing a mindset of patterns. The unfaithful knows what he is doing and allows it to happen. Often the infidel wants a simple life-to have sex easily and without responsibility-and though this may be viewed as simple for him-"It just happened"-it is not simple for those he has involved.

Seduction is an active plan with massive deception, including the infidelity and the subsequent lying. "Sex is the most seductive possessing way to exert power and control and the most effective and abusive way to control women psychologically, physically, with degradation and humiliation, and her subjection to a man," says Bleier.

"Our body feels deception," author Harriet Lerner (1993) shares. The infideled feels that something is not right, something has gone astray. Often the betrayer and the betrayed will get physically sick as their bodies seek the truth. The infidel cannot relate to his partner in a sincere way at this time and the infideled often can do no right.  The betrayed’s body will signal her if she lets it, e.g., it responds in unusual ways, by not wanting to make love, not being able to orgasm, or being unable to fall asleep next to him, etc. Infidelity creates a traumatic situation and I define it as follows…

PTSD-Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

PTSD trauma symptoms often result for the victim of infidelity and Glass and Wright agree in their work Reconstructing Marriages after the Trauma of Infidelity (1997). The victim is often in shock with incessant, recurring thoughts of her partner with another. She will often lose weight, become a detective sleuthing for details, suffer from insomnia, and experience extreme loss of self-esteem. She may become manic and disorganized since she cannot face her terror or pain.

One seventy-six year-old client of mine told her ex-husband, when he finally apologized for his philandering twenty-five years previously, "I still have nightmares." Yes, this is PTSD. Her symptoms parallel those of other types of abuse…

I call this post-infidelity time Bloody Sundays and Hillary Rodham Clinton describes her bloody August when she and the world found out about Bill’s betrayals.

I feel it is very important for the infidelity victim to know that she can "be real” at this point, to "hurt so good" as a sobbing frump (my personal terms as to how I felt when it happened to me). Grief is necessary. She may feel as though her soul has been stolen, stopped dead, and frozen in its tracks. Bloomfield, et. al. (1976), list the following to express these feelings in their book How to Survive the Loss of a Love:

     This longing may shorten my life.

     He asked if seeing him was a drain.

     Seeing him is not a drain. It's a sewer.

"The pain center of the brain responds to the shock and distress of a rejected lover's broken heart like it does with physical pain. Our body becomes physically distressed when abandoned at the loss of a love affair. Personal rejection, especially one with a connotation of shame, inferiority, or failure in the eyes of others is especially potent and an unwilling separation initiated by another doubles the chance of developing depression (Eisenberger, 2003).

One of my clients put his right hand over his heart and lamented, “I was so lonely I could feel physical pain from my hurting heart.” I believe him.

Starting over seems too big a task and often the victim feels as though she cannot live without her once-true other. Infidelity shatters her assumptions of what her life once held true. The one who was her security is now her source of danger. When safety is threatened, we have abuse…

Infidelity Is Abuse

Infidelity is abuse because the characteristics of the unfaithful are like those of a batterer and the symptoms of the victim are like those of the battered. Sitting in on battered women’s groups, I heard the same things-women wanting to go back, full of anger and rage, saying they'd rather be beaten than wonder where their partner was sleeping at night.

The infidel has a sense of narcissistic entitlement exhibiting a pattern of behaviors that encompass more than just "the incident." The damage he causes-to partner/s, children, family-never seems to hit home for him. He continues to blame her, something, or someone. He feels his actions are not his fault. He uses phrases that absolve him of responsibility and portrays innocence, "I'm holding her but loving you," "She came on to me," or "I need to have my needs met." In actuality, it is all about him. He can only go to his own hurt, not others’. Some feel that infidelity is caused by sexual compulsion…

I recently heard a police psychologist refer to a client's sexual addiction as self-soothing behaviors-a definite euphemism for dangerous acts which expose victims to much physical, psychological, emotional, verbal and spiritual abuse. "Chronic infidelity is abuse," therapist Bancroft (2002) reminds us (I say any infidelity is abuse), and “twenty-five percent of abusive men cheat on their partners."

Jennifer and Burt Schneider (1991) say the sexually addicted person  numbs out with sex, blames his partner when she is not sexually satisfied, and his bedroom is usually "a nightmare" for he will not let her sleep until his needs are satisfied. Bancroft disagrees with the label sexual addiction and tells us, "Infidelity is not sexual addiction or compulsion, it is sexual abuse.”

Rescue Me

My assignment is to imagine that I am to rescue myself? How can I best do this?  I'm very good at rescuing.  I'd like to stage a full scale technicolor rescue, of myself.

I'll need a battle plan, ammunition, troops and a fearless leader (that's me).  This will certainly entail succeeding at some messy missions. I'll choose carefully those who are my allies.  I'll need to lead my troops with a stone faced determination and intelligence.  My goal is to love myself enough to keep the faith against the enemy, my own inner enemy.

Courtesy, Integrity and Indomitable Spirit will be my guide.  I'll get knocked down, but I'll get up again.

I saw the boys playing war games.  

I never learned nor taught my daughter the same.

Can I succeed by another approach, offensive yet humane?

Lies in the Courtroom

This is a very difficult post to write.   Part of me knows that people lie, even in courtrooms and maybe especially in courtrooms. Yet another part of me feels injured by these lies, conjured no doubt for the best effect on the stage that a courtroom is.

To untangle a lie in a courtroom is like undoing a knot in a very fine chain.  It takes patience and belief that it can be done.  But unlike undoing a chain, dismantling a lie in a courtroom takes lots and lots of money and manpower. These courtroom games are also a horse race because the battle is finite and not all lies can be addressed.  So we choose which lies are important to expose.  It's not a game for the weak willed.

The lies that are told to my children will be exposed over time and I can wait. I can love them while I wait. Their experience will one day match mine and before my life is gone, they will know for themselves.  This I do have confidence in.

The lies in the courtroom do not wait for the experience of the judge, there simply isn't enough time.  My injured self (ego) gets a good challenge there.  I am stretching my maturity as far as I know how and saying a small prayer that we choose the right lies to uncover and let the rest to rest.

                 "Karma Wash"at the Blueberry Patch

Welcoming The New Year

I don't often make NewYear's resolutions mostly because I don't want to dissapoint myself by failing to keep them but this year I made one.  I'll let you know if I'm successful!  Did you make one?

Something I've been thinking alot about lately is the myth of the the Knight in Shining Armour.  I know I've had a history of rescuing others and I wonder if my own desire to be rescued is tied to that.  Strangely,  I don't feel I've ever actually been resuced and yet the desire persists.

Part of it I know is my wish to be relieved of responsibilities and be child-like.  We all have a bit of that I think.  I wanted to be resuced when my burdons feel too heavy.

What I am discovering is that I must rescue myself.  I must be the one who cares unconditionally about my welfare and I must act on my own behalf.  As long as I am conscious, it is my job to care for myself.   I don't want to fully believe it. I am clutching to  the fantasy that I can return to a child-like state and be cared for, protected and lovingly embraced. Is giving this up part of the maturation process?  Is the process of becoming one of total self reliance where we finally give up our infantile needs?

Another idea I have been thinking about is my desire to one day be truly loved by a partner. I did not have that experience in my long marriage, not as I understand it to be. (If I did have it I'd still be married.) Loving is the result of conscious intention over time.  It survives the daily grind and overcomes the pettiness of ego.  Fragile as it may feel, love is an anchor.  I hope I live long enough to say that I have been truly loved, cherished and honored by another, not my child, not my parent, not a sibling but an intimate "other".  Is there a place in a truly loving partnership where we can spend a moment in a child like womb and be fully protected by another.  I hope so.