Would JS be a porn addict?

[Rob4Hope]

OK...I'm gunna just start this thread flat out, cuz after reading the things I have concerning JS and his approach to women, especially this "don't accuse and its OK " (https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joseph_Smith,_Jr.) thing he is recorded as saying, I really wonder about him.

I think he would probably have been a porn addict. He certainly had a way of sneaking around and lying about everything....

Was he just a sexual addict? GAWD I feel for Emma....

[Hagoth]

It seems kind of pointless speculating about it.

[Rob4Hope]

It seems kind of pointless speculating about it.

Yeh...probably. But sometimes I think out loud when I see patterns.

Didn't Brigham Young have some type of involvement if not "turning a blind eye" to brothels in SLC?...and didn't BY also own some whisky plants? I just came across some of this stuff,...and its quite a pattern.

I use to speculate (yeh...bad thing again I know) that one of the reason's you had these ultra-conservative guys like Joseph Fielding Smith come along was because of the influence of their mothers. Those women were forced into polygamy, and the ideal of virtue was something they polarized into. Their husbands treated them like cattle (see early GA statements), and you have these women who wanted to be safe, loved, and treated WAY better than they were. The men were virtually non-existent in the lives of their children, so these kids were imbued with the conservative and even damaged polarized moral values of their mothers. As time passed, the children grew and with nice nepotism practices, elevated to GA status, taking with them the ultra conservative values of their mothers.

With this comes a whiplash affect: on one hand you have JS and BY drinking wine, even owning and operating distilleries; and on the flip side, you have WW, JFS and others who decry the affects of ANY alcohol, even making caffeinated drinks taboo (oh,...BYU, how we love you!). You have JS, BY JT and others chasing women and having "carnal intercourse" with them doing who knows what, and then SWK and others get right into the bedroom condemning any form of contraception, let alone various sexual practices. The list goes on and on.

Its a whiplash affect,..the massive swings between REALLY liberal and REALLY conservative. There has to be some psychology behind this, cuz there certainly isn't any revelation--lest God himself has some problems with consistency.

Yeh, its speculation, but interesting (and for me fun). I can't help but believe JFS, BKP, HBL, BRM, DOM and others who had polygamous families in their past were not influenced by that damaged perspective....

When people move into extremes, its a known psychological fact that it encourages codependency where the opposing party polarizes in an attempt to maintain balance. It makes sense to me this whole swing between liberal and conservative with leadership is influence by a massive balance attempt as codependent tendencies jump generations.

[SaidNobody]

Wow, Bob, that is some deep stuff.

[Not Buying It]

Who needs porn when you have that kind of access to the real thing?

[moksha]

It makes sense to me this whole swing between liberal and conservative with leadership is influenced by a massive balance attempt as codependent tendencies jump generations.

Liberal and conservative sounds so political. Wonder if the semi-Freudian terms penile compulsive and penile retentive might be a better fit.

[Rob4Hope]

It makes sense to me this whole swing between liberal and conservative with leadership is influenced by a massive balance attempt as codependent tendencies jump generations.

Liberal and conservative sounds so political. Wonder if the semi-Freudian terms penile compulsive and penile retentive might be a better fit.

Oh my gosh!.....LOL bad!

[Rob4Hope]

Look everyone,...I know its speculation which some like more than others.

I've heard people on this site mention that JS probably has Narcissistic Personality Disorder. There is certainly evidence of that.

My speculation is he probably had sexual compulsive disorders as well. The fact (and this is a fact) Oliver Cowdry thought JS was involved in an affair, and something which OC didn't believe JS was justified in having, is evidence that even some of his closest confidants thought there was something wrong.

Would you not agree?

[alas]

Yes, there are psychological theories that would suggest that the unhappy polygamous wives would warp their son's sexual values. Not that the wife would purposely teach her son that polygamy was bad, but that because the boy saw his mother unhappy, and knew it was because dad was off sleeping with aunt Jessica, he would form very repressive sexual values. But instead of saying polygamy was wrong,* they would they would jump to anything pleasurable about sex is wrong.

* because dad is powerful in his little life, he can't say dad is wrong, so he decides pleasure with sex is wrong.

This is all explained by Freud's theories.

[Hagoth]

Michael Quinn's list of the contents of the first presidency vault includes "obscene materials." I have always wondered what that might be.

[Thoughtful]

Michael Quinn's list of the contents of the first presidency vault includes "obscene materials." I have always wondered what that might be.

Whoa, interesting.

My thought on the OP question is that there is no such thing as a porn or sex addict, and that that disease model takes away personal responsibility.

IMO, he was an opportunist turned predator.

[LaMachina]

My thought on the OP question is that there is no such thing as a porn or sex addict, and that that disease model takes away personal responsibility

I lean this way as well. I have a hard time believing sex or porn is "addicting" in the clinical sense.

Besides, Joseph was just in love with being in love.

[Emower]

My speculation is he probably had sexual compulsive disorders as well. The fact (and this is a fact) Oliver Cowdry thought JS was involved in an affair, and something which OC didn't believe JS was justified in having, is evidence that even some of his closest confidants thought there was something wrong.

Would you not agree?

Maybe he would have liked porn as much as the next guy. Maybe not. But was he really that much different than any other guy who found himself in the position of having spiritual influence over people? There are plenty of other people who have gone down the same path.

[Jeffret]

I'd say, probably not.

It can be interesting speculation but it's really pretty meaningless, about like trying to figure out how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

First off, I'm not really convinced that porn addiction is a real thing. Neither are psychologists and other experts in the field, which is pretty much why I'm not convinced. If it is a real thing, there are certainly far fewer real cases than the Church thinks there are. Mostly it is artificially created by the Church's insistence that it exists and that anyone with normal desires and urges is wicked and abnormal. When there is real addiction, much of it is addiction to addiction. (Kind of the way "sin" works to begin with -- religion creates the problem and then offers the cure.)

Second, if Joseph were running things, and if he had a porn addiction, there wouldn't be an emphasis on porn addiction, so he wouldn't have a porn addiction. As Harold Bloom observed in "The American Religion", Joseph found that he had a polygamous nature and so he found that god revealed to him the necessity of polygamy. Joseph produced revelations and insights to solve problems, particularly things which disturbed him. He would have sought out doctrine and enlightenment that solved the problem.

Joseph was a free-wheeling, eclectic, visionary, charismatic spiritual leader. If he saw the Church today, God would tell him, “they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof.”

[moksha]

Michael Quinn's list of the contents of the first presidency vault includes "obscene materials." I have always wondered what that might be.

French golden plates?

[Just This Guy]

Michael Quinn's list of the contents of the first presidency vault includes "obscene materials." I have always wondered what that might be.

Paintings of JS jr and Fanny Alger on their wedding night? Sketches of his various wives in his favorite positions and clothing (or lack thereof)?

[Rob4Hope]

First off, I'm not really convinced that porn addiction is a real thing. Neither are psychologists and other experts in the field, which is pretty much why I'm not convinced. If it is a real thing, there are certainly far fewer real cases than the Church thinks there are.

Can you elaborate more on this?

The reason I chose "porn" addict instead of saying "sex addict" is because the church is the one who claims and pushes the idea of addiction to porn. So, my post was originally using the TBM perspective, even speculatively, because of the MASSIVE discrepencies between ideas here. On one hand you have JS who was shagging who knows how many women; BY doing the same thing; and at the same time you have people like JFS and SWK saying that sexuality for the pleasurable experience itself as a justification is sin.

Those two later men WERE raised in polygamous families, and hence the skew that seems like a wide swing that sex itself was bad, except for the necessity of having children.

Mostly it is artificially created by the Church's insistence that it exists and that anyone with normal desires and urges is wicked and abnormal.

Ah...but what is "normal".....? For years I have believed the LDS church has a problem with "desire" issues: anything that is pleasurable for the sake of pleasure is or is often considered wrong.

Second, if Joseph were running things, and if he had a porn addiction, there wouldn't be an emphasis on porn addiction, so he wouldn't have a porn addiction.

I conceded it not really possible to speculate about that period of time, because the daguerreotype was pretty new, and porn wasn't highly available. So, yeh...old Joe went after the real deal. His focus on younger girls is VERY disconcerting!

This much we do know: his father was probably and alcoholic; he himself used the bottle quite a bit. If there is something known as sexual addiction, JS would (by today's LDS standards) be considered an addict. It seems to me he had an addictive personality--he went after "pleasurable" things. And, inside of the standards of men like HBL, JFS, SWK, DOM, BKP and others, he would be condemned--there would have been upheaval.

[Rob4Hope]

Michael Quinn's list of the contents of the first presidency vault includes "obscene materials." I have always wondered what that might be.

WHAT!??.......

The sacred phallus or something?

sorry

[Jeffret]

First off, I'm not really convinced that porn addiction is a real thing. Neither are psychologists and other experts in the field, which is pretty much why I'm not convinced. If it is a real thing, there are certainly far fewer real cases than the Church thinks there are.

Can you elaborate more on this?

The DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, DSM–5) does not list porn addiction or sex addiction as a mental disorder or addiction. Among psychologists, neuroscientists, and neurologists, there are significant discussions as to whether any of these things are addictions, compulsions, or merely factors of other issues. The emerging capabilities in neuroscience have really had broad changes in psychology and our understanding of the human brain and human behavior. It's no longer just a matter of Freud talking with his patients to come up with hypotheses. There is still a ton to learn in these areas but some significant strides have been made. Unfortunately, one area that hasn't seen much improvement from these new sciences is how to treat or handle many of these issues.

There is also a lot of discussion about whether any of these things are really addictions. There are some attempts to distinguish between chemicals (aka, drugs) which create a true dependency in the physical body and things which are behavioral and social. Even some of those that are drug based may be better classified as compulsions, habits, or social behaviors. For example, addictions to coffee, Coke, etc., may better fall into this category. Some things, like gambling addiction remain in the DSM, though there is a lot of ongoing discussion around them also. The accepted status for gambling addiction keeps evolving. One of the big reasons to question porn and sex addiction is that it doesn't result in the same neurological responses as other addictions. For example, the status of gambling as an addiction is somewhat shaky, but porn and sex addictions do not result in the same neurological responses.

With porn addiction, much of the issues involving it are based around moral judgements. Certainly in the Church or at FtND, porn is assumed to be wrong or evil. This impacts everything that is thought and done about it. Pre-existing value judgements (biases or prejudices) get in the way of good science. Good science should be value neutral (as long as the science is carried out in a non-harmful fashion). We need to see where the science and facts actually lead.

Many things that people do on a frequent or regular basis are not assumed to be harmful or addictions. Is eating an addiction? Is it an addiction that I have the same thing for breakfast most days of the week? Is drinking an addiction? (I'm referring generally to the intake of liquid, not specifically to alcoholic beverages, which in some instances can result in serious addiction.) What about urinating or defecating? Is watching TV an addiction? NOM? Facebook? For an extrovert, being out among people is stimulating and addicting. For an introvert, the opposite is true. Is religion an addiction? What about running? Some people talk about a runner's high and a running addiction though lots of other people seem to have no trouble getting addicted to running. Watching sports? Watching soaps? Some of these are called addictions in common parlance, but fail to meet any of the technical criteria. I'm not saying porn is exactly like any of these, but it's also not exactly like things that are clearly known to be addictions.

The assumption is that porn is bad and harmful. People who view it are wrong or broken and need to be fixed. This makes it quite possible to create an addictive response where none necessarily existed before. If you tell someone they are addicted to something they will tend to accept that judgement and demonstrate addictive behavior. Given the common societal and religious messages about porn, it is quite possible to create addictive behaviors in people who have viewed it, purposefully or not. By casting porn in the role of great, powerful, evil captor, we voluntarily give it power that it doesn't necessarily have. People accept the idea that porn has some great power they can't escape so it isn't surprising that they find themselves addicted and can't escape it.

[Jeffret]

Here are some articles on the topic:

Your Porn Addiction Isn't Real

Is Porn Addiction Even Real?

Is Porn Addiction Really a Thing?

Is pornography addictive?

Porn ‘Addiction’ Isn’t Really Addiction, Neuroscientists Say

Is 'porn addiction' a real thing?

Keep in mind that whether it is an addiction or net, whether it is something else, doesn't necessarily mean that it cannot be a problem. For some set of people, whatever it is, is a real problem in their lives. Many times this problem is somewhat artificially created, but that doesn't make it totally unreal. In this area, it really can be the case that perception is reality, for those struggling with problems.

It's clear that without the Church's binary approach that any porn consumption is a full-blown addiction, that there are far less people with significant problems than the Church believes. Yes, there are those who experience serious issues in their lives related to porn. That's where good therapists focus. Many of the people with problems, though, wouldn't have problems without the Church telling them, and everyone else, that they have a problem.

Guilt is a powerful but terrible motivator.