A ‘professor’ at the far-right wing diploma mill, Judith Reisman, has come out with a bizarre explanation for homosexuality.
On Sept. 21, 2012, Texas neurosurgeon Donald L. Hilton Jr., M.D., spoke on pornography addiction and sexual orientation, saying:
“Pornography is a visual pheromone, a powerful 100-billion-dollar per year brain drug that is changing sexuality even more rapidly through the cyber-acceleration of the Internet. It is ‘inhibiting orientation’ and ‘disrupting pre-mating communication between the sexes by permeating the atmosphere’ and Internet.”
This complements my theory perfectly. My theory is that while watching televangelists on TV, every once in a while a cartoon rabbit with a mallet jumps out and bonks the viewers on the head, causing transient memory loss that eliminates knowledge of the bunny, and also causes the viewer to become more stupid.
I am calling these brain-damaging rabbits ‘leporobashins’, because as we all know, giving things a Latin name makes them real.
(Edited to remove link to source that mangled the story, and replace it with a direct quote from the original source at WND.)
Stuck in a motel room during a book project visit to a Southern state, I found that my best “entertainment” option was Jimmy Swaggart on a local TV station decrying the curse and temptation of pornography. He sounded very knowledgeable on the subject (and we were later to learn how correct that was!). The obsession with porn among members of the religious right suggests that a lot of “research” is being done.
Oh! And that’s where dark energy comes from – it’s all the erototixins that have been created. This is why masturbation is bad: it contributes to the expansion of the universe.
Religion sure makes people uncomfortable with sex, doesn’t it? Perhaps the bible emits antitixins?
Er, can I order some of those erototoxins? My libido has been a little down lately.
‘erototixins,’?? is that a lapsus digitorum
And anyway I thought it was Midi-chlorians that controlled everything (not just yellow electronic music)
Shades of “Harrison Bergeron”, but with cute bunnies.
I’ve looked at pornography before. I most definitely did not have gay thoughts after viewing it. In fact, I was annoyed the man was blocking the view of the woman.
Of course there are erototoxins. Every teen-age boy will tell you they exist and must be purged from the body — sometimes 3, 4 times a day.
Brett: That’s why us bisexuals have it good, we can enjoy the whole lot.
I’m thinking that these erotitixins must be the real “god particle”
I think this also explains gay animals. Animal pornography is rampant in nature!
Weird, I don’t feel like I’m queen of the gays, even though I’ve watched enough porn to be saturated with gallons of erototoxins.
Bugs Bunny libel!
Do they actually think that this is something chemical, or is all of that a metaphor? Either way, stupid shit that is totally on par with what I would expect from Liberty University.
Oh wait, I know!
The erotoxins trigger the gay gene which in turn triggers homobacteria to enter the bloodstream, causing uncontrollable urges to violate the nearest same-sex person and spread the erotoxins through the community.
This theory should be showing up on the fundie sites pretty soon now.
Yes, you CAN make this stuff up…
Appropriately enough, being saturated with gallons of erototoxins sounds kinda hot.
As demonstrated in countless nature shows.
Now I have Mr. Mackey in my head saying “Porn’s baaad, m’kay.”
PZ:
This is indeed old wisdom. Quidquid latine dictum sit altum viditur.
Lord love a crocoduck!
You mean we can really transport stuff through USBs?
Anteprepro #14:
They don’t think like that. To them, if it sounds vaguely convincing to an ignorant person it could as well be true. Reality is just an opinion.
Here I am busting my arse yet again doing the most menial reagent preparation just so I can hopefully run a real experiment next week (or the week after…) all so I can get a professorship and run my own lab… maybe. Man I screwed up. I should have gone to Liberty U and just made shit up.
Wait, I do know (of) some fellow postdocs who _do_ make shit up. They haven’t really gone very far. I guess the point is you have to make shit up for Jesus. The it all comes together.
I feel dirty.
Liberty University, liberating its students from such problems as rational thought.
Like anyone who comes to these here parts still thinks “Liberty” “University” is a real school?
She cited a lecture that referred to pornography as a ‘visual pheremone.’ The lecture also put forth the idea that these visual pheremones rewire the brain, thus causing the viewer to become gay.
Guys become gay when they look at pictures of naked women? Who gave that lecture she cited?
I am calling these brain-damaging rabbits ‘leporobashins’, because as we all know, giving things a Latin name makes them real.
Sorry, your hypothesis fails because that’s not real Latin. So neener.
The obsession with porn among members of the religious right suggests that a lot of “research” is being done.
And even the Vatican are getting into the “research.” Hey, at least they’re not taking 400 years to catch up like they used to.
Appropriately enough, being saturated with gallons of erototoxins sounds kinda hot.
What do they taste like? Licorice? Pomegranite? Ambrosia?
Greta Christina could write some wacky porn based on ravings like this. What would the working title be — “Fifty Shades of Religulous?”
This is why masturbation is bad: it contributes to the expansion of the universe.
Actually, it’s bad because of how the universe kinda contracts after you’re done.
SO I think I might have found the original article here:
http://www.drjudithreisman.com/archives/2013/04/gay_gypsy_moths.html
It doesn’t seem like Dr (sic) Judith Reisman is claiming that real chemicals are emitted from pornographic images. It’s just a lazy allusion which is really distracting. All it does is divert from scholarly understanding of the mechanisms of addiction and how this can be a problem for some.
The article then proceeds to discuss the notion of novelty and how over exposure to sex creates the need for newer experiences. Which of course means homosexuality *face-palm-collision*. If this were true, wouldn’t bored partners immediately jump into bed with same sex persons? What accounts for homosexuality amongst 12-13 year olds without much exposure to, well, anything?
Pure stupid… and dangerous stupid. OK let me be generous. Not very rigorous…
Oh shit. I have to go to my homeopath to get some heavily diluted porn to get rid of my erototixins.
If pornography makes people gay, then the developed world should have a crapload more gay people than today.
Holy crap I should be well and truly be gay by now if that was the case.
I consider myself lucky my vomeronasal organ has disappeared some Mya; their Libertixins otherwise would make me as bonkers as those Libertixicated idiots.
@borax
I can sell you some diluted pornography. Just don’t overdose on it. It will make you asexual and sterile.
I’m a straight woman and I occasionally watch gay male porn and all it’s done for me is to make me desire men even more. I guess this porn-induced brain re-wiring only works on men?
@27 – Homeopathic porn for the win!
Oh. Her.
She has a track record.
Just had an old friend from high school track me down. She’s getting her degree from Liberty U online.
I don’t think we’re going to have much to talk about.
Erototoxins sound amazing, though. I may have to pick some up.
@scottrobson
I think I just overdosed by not taking it. Homeopath jokes are too easy.
According to this profile of Dr. Donald Hilton, he did his LDS missionary service in South Africa. Here’s the citation on the website for the lecture: Hilton DL, Jr, Watts CW, “Pornography Addiction: A Neurological Perspective” Surgical Neurology International, manuscript in press, Feb 2010. That could be some fun reading.
Hehe, reminds me of a case a few years ago here in Australia. A member of the the NSW upper house, the Reverend Fred Nile, was found to have porn on his taxpayer supplied laptop. His explanation? One of his staffers was doing research, over 200,000 page hits worth of research. Poor bloke’s arm must’ve been tired after that.
I’m also wondering if something like a Babel Fish jumps out of the screen to translate the gobbledygook of a typical televangelist message into something coherent like “send more cash quickly” because when I tune in little of it makes any coherent sense to me.
Bingo.
videtur, barbarian.
I think you’re right.
*blink* what
If this is true, the Mormons in Utah, the state with the highest per capita consumption of online porn, have some ‘splainin to do.
Wait, wouldn’t homeopathic porn/erotoxins make you SuperGay?
My favorite smack down of Liberty University was delivered by Richard Dawkins at Randolph-Macon Woman’s College (also located in Lynchburg, VA) in October of 2006 when he fielded a question from a Liberty U. student regarding the determination of fossil ages. It’s epic, and absolutely worth the 4 1/2 minutes to watch.
Dawkins: “not a trivial error”
Note, of course, erototoxins.
You won’t see discussions of anything like HubbaHubba* regulation or the new discovery of celibase inhibitors. Nono. This is sex. Therefore, toxin. Because the human species can’t survive if it keeps having sex, amirite?
*If they can name an evodevo gene Sonic Hedgehog, then if I’m ever in a position to name a gene that has ***anything at all*** to do with sexuality, I’m naming it HubbaHubba.
Now I just have to get a biology degree, maybe learn the chemical formula for something more complicated than methane, and I’m good.
David Marjanovic@40
That was my reaction too, but…
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/fred-nile-caught-in-web-porn-scandal-20100902-14nuc.html
Wait, how do you overdose on homeopathy, anyway, if it gets stronger the more diluted it is? Shouldn’t the risk of overdosing increase with smaller doses, then?
oops, borked link
On a non jokey point. Is there any peer reviewed study on the effect of pheromones on humans. Every time I try to google it, I just find a bunch of pseudoscience about women smelling male armpits or some other nonsense.
I’m genuinely fascinated to hear the mechanism for how this works. Are these erotoxins (whatever) photon-based as they’re received through the eyes only or would listening to someone reading a porno book transmit them through your ears? If it’s the latter, then they must be wavefunctions rather than the particles themselves, which makes sense(ish.)
So, assuming that these erototoxins are waves that leads me onto the next area of study. Can people get these waves even if they don’t understand the waves? For instance, if someone read me a Russian-translated porn book would I still be exposed to erotoxins? If so, then erotoxins exist independant of the human brain reciving it and we should be able to quantify them (I suggest’gretas’ be the unit, so a good porn movie might scale in the Megagretas whilst Fifty Shades of Grey would barely rank in milligretas.)
The next question is, how are erotoxins produced? Is a piece of nude art capable of emitting them? What about a completely dressed but sexually charged scene in a drama?
Surely, if these erotoxins were real, we should be able to predict exactly how gay a test subject should turn given an exposure to a known quantity of erotoxins. I suggest that this should be her PhD thesis, once she can quantify these things and make predictions which match experimental results then she can come back and hold her head up high in the scientific community.
Wait, what do you mean she’s not doing any experiments? You mean she’s just spouting her mouth off without any cause at all? But that isn’t scientific! Somebody contact Liberty Uni and let them know about this sullying of their good name!
… the state with the highest per capita consumption of online porn…
How, exactly, is that measured?
Larry — Please note that Dr. Hilton is apparently a member of the LDS. Is it just a coincidence that he’s written about pornography addiction?
(I’m sure there is legitimate research to be done on any type of addictive behavior and that it’s possible, even likely, that the lecture/paper in question is being misused by Reisman.)
Easy. You measure the number of erototoxins* passing through the internet, filter them by state, and divide by population.
* This can easily be done by using an venereae venenum metri.
This sounds like the Theory of Fundie Xian induced Cognitive Impairment.
And Judith Reisman is another data point.
There is a lot of data for this theory. Michele Bachmann. Internet trolls. And even hard statistics. Fundies score low in IQ and education levels. The fundie xian heartland is sometimes referred to as “Dumbfuckistan”.
Raging Bee — “How, exactly, is that measured?” Page hits correlated with IP addresses or some other Internet way of knowing the physical location of the computers where the pages are going. Not exactly difficult to get that information, although IP addresses are not 100% reliable.
Well so what.
If pornography can rewire the brain through invisible pheromones, the solution is simple. Just flood the USA with heterosexual pornography. On TV, radio, in the churches, Sunday school, billboards, gum wrappers, schools, everywhere.
If gay porn can make gays, straight porn can change them back and act as a preventative. Fundie parents will leave hetero porn all over their houses and there will never, ever be a gay fundie kid again.
@raven
#55
Or hire a bunch of exhibitionists! If pornography has that much of an effect, actual, LIVE public sexing should have even more effect!
Heterosexual orgies at every corner! That will stop all gayness!
The overriding message in these theories is that gay sex is soooo incredibly hot that even the merest glimpse, the fleeting encounter with a brawny gym teacher, the very thought of a legally recognized gay marriage, will drive you mad with same-sex lust and you will never procreate again.
Unless you are female I guess, but in that case you shouldn’t be making your own sexual decisions anyhow.
There is a great part on the Lisa Miller lawsuit, in which they are sued for aiding the kidnapping of a lesbian’s child to South America. When it lists the parties to the suit it says “Liberty University – a purported educational institution”
But she doesn’t say gay porn makes gays. She says porn makes gays – any porn, apparently.
No, it doesn’t make sense. Why?
From the Rationwiki page on Judith Reisman that Ms Daisy Linked:
Wait a minute…if her Ph.D isn’t in law, why is she only a visiting professor and not the dean of the law school?
That’s not what Reisman is saying. ALL porn makes people gay.
The correct course of action would be to restrict consumption of porn to people who are already gay.
@Borax #27
I smell a business opportunity! Let’s bottle a homeopathic erototixins solution called, HEX, and sell to Christians so that they can remove the erototixins and watch more porn.
We can then use the proceeds to invest in science labs (one for scottrobson) and in an indirect way, Christians will be supporting the advancement of science.
Unethical? We can always reimburse the buyers through profits from our patents – sort of like a reverse ponzi scheme. Come on, it will work. Think of the marketing opportunities.
I sort of filled in the blanks and made that assumption.
Because, otherwise, it is completely senseless.
If looking at naked women makes men gay, there wouldn’t be a heterosexual male left in the world. And as usual, she left out lesbians.
There were gays, long before pornography was common. It’s in the bible for Cthulhu’s sake.
PS I can’t imagine what it is like to go to Liberty U. Do the young adults just sit there and listen to gibberish like this all day and think about all the money they are spending to hear it?
Donnie, I got the pitch.
Step right up. Step right up.
We got the elixir that will give you the cure.
Don’t gotta be gay
don’t gotta be gay
Watch your porn
Watch your porn
No surprises
No surprises.
Straight for sure
Straight for sure.
Tom Waits’ fans will get it.
According to wikipedia, Judith Reisman is a crackpot with a long history of publishing gibberish. She’s been at other universities before and apparently the only place that will hire her is low class fundie havens like…Liberty U.
This is really lazy blogging and, for the most part, lazy commenting.
PZ’s link goes to a column by Al Stefanelli*, who not only misspells ‘erototoxin’ (which is left uncorrected here) but badly misunderstands the quotes provided by his source, Right-wing Watch, which finally links to the original column by Reisman at World Nut Daily.
Surprise! She does not claim that erototoxins are chemicals emitted by pornography, and she doesn’t claim that erototoxins are like pheromones, and she also doesn’t claim that pornography or erototoxins or pheromones cause homosexuality.
I mean, it’s the WND and she really is a (visiting) profesor of Law at Liberty U., so it is pretty much bullshit. It’s just not the egregious degre of bullshit that’s been posted here for the Horde to mock.
As I understand it, these putative erototoxins (‘the toxic form of Eros’, she sez) are brain chemicals that are secreted when viewing pornography, and which can rewire the brain, causing pornography addiction. Through this guy Hilton, the comparison is then made between pornography and moth mating pheromones, in the context of experiments in which male moths exposed to artificially high levels of such pheromones get confused about who’s female and who isn’t and therefore just start mating haphazardly with whatever. Analogously, sez Hilton, exposure to chronically high levels of visual sexual stimulation could cause an “inhibition of pre-mating communication” (as seen with the moth experiment) and a relaxation of orientation (ditto). Reisman apparently takes that to mean that sexual experimentation vis a vis orientation and/or positive attitudes toward homosexuality are encouraged by viewing pornography.
So it doesn’t make all that much sense anyway, but she ought to be mocked for what she actually said instead of what PZ said Al said RWW said she said.
*I thought slymepitters were banned on sight, and yet here’s a front-page link to one of their most enthusiastic cheerleaders. What gives?
This is just babbling. There is no evidence that viewing porn causes brain damage.
There is a lot of evidence for fundie xian induced cognitive impairment syndrome though. Reisman is clearly a victim. The mechanism is obscure but likely doesn’t include organic brain damage.
I have to second Chas’ comment about Al. PZ, you don’t link directly to any pitters, yet here is one of their supporters, whom you have banned from posting here (rightfully, I’MO), getting a link to his page. Whaaat?
Too many people to keep track of, I bet.
Chas,
Yep, that’s what she says and not that pornography emits erototoxins.
David:
That might be a reasonable assumption if we were not speaking of Al Stefanelli, who departed FtB in a bit of a huff (while showing solidarity with Reap).
@Chas
Nicely researched, but the “real thing” is still hilarious :)
This woman traveled to Europe a couple of months ago, to give a couple of lectures in my country, one of them to our parliament. She was there as an expert to spout her crap about how detrimental homosexuality is for the society, including this idiocy about erototoxins.
I would find it more funny if this piece of shit wasn’t actually causing harm.
At one university, she got called out on her bullshit, but the Medical university (!) treated her with respect *spits*. Not a voice against her was heard there.
So yeah, funny. Ha ha. Can Americans please stop exporting their bullshit sellers to other continents? Thanks so much.
Who is Reap?
…I want to emigrate to the Pharyngula Commune.
David,
Yeah, me too.
To be fair, the leftists didn’t attend in protest, and even some of the nationalist (right, bigoted – you know the drill) party that invited her didn’t attend.
David Marjanović
Reap Paden, slymepitter, misogynist and rape apologist extraordinaire.
David M.:
Tibi illam fixam.
Revised. Yep, I didn’t notice who I was linking to; it now goes directly to WND, and includes a direct quote from Reisman instead.
Also, I just looked at the URL, didn’t recognize it’s connection to that idiot, Stefanelli. How many sites do these guys maintain, anyway? I’ve got two, and invest almost all my effort in just one…and that’s enough.
@olav:
videtur. It helps if your Latin is correctly spelled.
I always wondered how many Latin-literate people were correct spellers, and how much of a hassle it was for translators to have to translate badly spelled source material.
I was actually the one to link this to PZ early this morning in a fit of sleep-deprivation-induced pique. As has been pointed out up front, no one is saying porn actually emits physical pheremones. The problem with the “research” is it starts with a conclusion and tries to stretch the facts around it, like just about anything these people try to prove.
I think there is such a thing as psychological addiction to porn, but it almost always happens in men, and the linkage to moths is a complete nonsequitur here, because a) moths aren’t much related to us and b) they put a very large dose of actual physical pheremone on the moths’ antennae. There is virtually no connection.
There is something to the idea of unhealthy attitudes about sex being inculcated and maintained by exposure to porn, but the solution to that is proper sex and relationship education early on. Porn is “hypernormal stimulus,” made with impossibly airbrushed and idealized models; no one looks like that in the real world. The harm done is third-order and sociological.
I am sure big-pharma, if they where no in on the “gay agenda” would be interested too. Unless these are like “magic toxins”, so you couldn’t develop a pill that could let you watch all the porn you wanted, without being flooded with porn pheromones. Hell, if this crap as real, some of them would be researching it just to “cure” all the gay people, along side heavy doses of religion, in these special, “You are not gay, you just are not hugging enough men!”, homosexuality cure places.
Such a restriction would cause a lot of heterosexual people to claim to be gay, at least in certain circumstances.
And now we come full-circle to the homeopathic homocure. (Although I hear that for it to work on me/my partner, it would have to be administered by our fathers)
It’s a boring day at work, and I can’t stop thinking about this.
Does looking at real people having sex generate erotoxins? Would masturbating to orgasm dissipate the toxins? Would watching your heterosexual partner pleasure xeself generate erotoxins? Would joining in help? What happens if you actually make a porno and watch yourself on the monitor? Is the best way to prevent the toxification to have sex with your eyes closed?
I thank the good “Doctor” for straightening me out on smut. I guess he’s sayin’ that it’s OK if yer’ married? I’m just glad I got outta Texas alive and reasonably sane.
her PhD is in Communications.
make of that what you will.