WHILE accepting that Jamaica is battling “a huge problem with sexual offences”, gender, sexuality and educational psychology expert, Professor Karen Carpenter, has argued an affinity for pornography is “not the trigger”.

“We have a huge problem…but I am going to suggest to you that…their fantasies are in their heads, they would have sought the porn whether or not they were committing those acts, the porn is not associated with the acts. The research does not show that,” Carpenter, who is a Florida board-certified clinical sexologist, told the Jamaica Observer in a recent interview.

Carpenter, who is also director of the Caribbean Sexuality Research Group (CSRG) free, public clinic, at The University Hospital of the West Indies in asserting that there is no such thing as “sex addiction” or “porn addiction,” says confusion has developed because individuals are not able to distinguish “between a diseased mind, mental health problems and the regular use of porn which she argues “does not impact the society negatively”.

She says diseased minds are more to blame for much of the sexual offences being perpetrated in Jamaica – including those committed against children – and not pornography.

Referencing a recent report by the Jamaica Observer in which a 44-year-old taxi driver, who was convicted for routinely raping and trafficking his teen daughter and stepdaughter, used pornography to train them to perform certain sex acts, Carpenter said, “Of course he is a pervert; however, a great majority of the population are people with sound minds operating in sound ways but there are those few who have mental health issues, or other issues. Now having sex with a child is already a mental health problem, and a criminal problem, but most of the population are not doing that,” argued Carpenter.

“People curate the kinds of things they want to prime these kids with and in my job I work with trauma, I work with children who have been abused, so I’ve heard the stories, and they are horrible but it has nothing to do with adults who use porn for their personal stimulation and do not act in pedophilic ways or harm others, it has nothing to do with that.

“The label of pornography is applied to what he did but it’s not the pornography that causes his behaviour. That’s the thing that I’m having the trouble with that we are not distinguishing between a diseased mind – and mental health problems are diseased minds – and the regular use of porn, which does not impact the society negatively. The minute you touch a child, we have a problem, the minute you want sex with a child, there is a problem,” argued Carpenter.

She added: “I sometimes have to do therapy with paedophiles and they don’t see what they are doing as something that’s heinous because they have lost a particular filter. When you interview them you realise that something doesn’t connect, they don’t see that child as someone they have to protect and they will often tell you that the child initiated the sexual contact,”

According to Carpenter, if these people have suffered neurological damage they might not change. In this respect she issued a warning to adults who inflict blows on children when disciplining them.

“Studies show that neurological damage can be caused by physical as well as psychological trauma in childhood. For example, childhood concussion, and blows. So even when we are beating our children to a pulp we have to be very careful. We traumatise our young people in the way we batter them and the brains are affected.

“The child’s brain is still developing and blows to the head affect the child’s brain when you hit that child. We want our children, our men, not to harm us when they become adults yet we batter them in order to get them to achieve this. The violence begins at home. It bothers me when we don’t look at the scientific evidence of these things,” stated Carpenter.

In response to questions on what motivates sex offenders, Carpenter said, “most sex crimes are power and control crimes, they are not about sex, they are about subjugating someone else. They are about having power over someone else. Rape is not a sex crime, it’s not sex motivated, it’s power motivated, it’s debasing the person, it’s reducing the person”.

She argued that sexual predators get aroused by other stimuli other than the prospect of sexual gratification.

“An erection is a bodily response to stimulation and you can get an erection even if you are not physically stimulated. That type of arousal is not about the sex, it is about the fact that you are subjugating the other person’s will, you are humiliating and debasing them, which makes you feel powerful,” she explained.

Carpenter also challenged claims by panellists at a recent virtual forum put on by the Jamaica Council of Churches who contended that the side effects of pornographic indulgence has, among other things, led to marital breakdowns and a disconnect, where individuals are no longer able to appreciate healthy intimate connection with their partners.

“There is a science to this whole matter of porn consumption. For example, I have absolutely no studies that prove that [porn causes erectile dysfunction]. Science doesn’t prove cause and effect, what science proves is that where one thing is present the other thing may also occur, that is called a correlation. I understand the notion that if you are looking at porn that has in it bodies and behaviours that you are attracted to and you find erotic, but your partner neither has the body nor the behaviours that are depicted in the pornography, I understand that can be a turn-off when you are with your partner but it isn’t the cause. The cause is what attracts and eroticises you, the porn didn’t cause it,” Carpenter maintained.

According to Carpenter addiction is a specific word used for specific clinical reactions.

“The lay person uses it loosely to mean a preference for, even an excessive use of, it is not addiction and it’s only excessive if it’s interfering with your social and other commitments and getting you in trouble with the law. I was very disappointed to see people who have access to a Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) and ought to have been trained in the use of the DSM were unable to properly diagnose it. What they are describing is an impulse control disorder.

“It can be associated with gambling or any other compulsivity. So we have compulsivity, we have addiction and we have impulsivity, each of those is different and a good diagnostician knows the difference,” contended Carpenter.

According to health-care information site
WEBMD.COM scientists are still debating whether heavy use of pornography is an addiction in the medical sense of the word.

The World Health Organization added compulsive sexual behaviour as a mental health disorder in 2018. Although it doesn’t single out a pornography (or any other) addiction, it does refer to repetitive sexual activities becoming a central focus of a person’s life to the point that they neglect their “health and personal care or other interests, activities, and responsibilities.”

At the opening of the Hilary term in January this year, murder and sexual offences accounted for the highest number of cases before the Home Circuit Court with 391 murder matters and 363 sex offence cases. Of that figure 164 are rape cases, 156 sexual intercourse with a person under 16 years cases and 15 are buggery related.