Michael Leahy - Porn Nation: Conquering Americas #1 Addiction

Six-term Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) resigned amid reports that he had sent sexually explicit Internet messages to at least one underage male former page. Foley, who was considered likely to win reelection this fall, said in a three-sentence letter of resignation: I am deeply sorry and I apologize for letting down my family and the people of Florida I have had the privilege to represent.

A football-loving 14-year-old boy with quiet parents pleads guilty to raping four primary school girls in a park in Salford, England. The forensic psychiatrist who examined the teenager said in court that the violent sexual images he had seen inspired him to carry out the offenses.

The Department of Homeland Securitys deputy press secretary faces charges of using the Internet to seduce a detective he thought was a 14-year-old girl. The man sent the detective hard-core pornographic movie clips and used the chat room service to have explicit sexual conversations, some of which the sheriffs office said are too extraordinary and graphic for public release.

Police wondered where two girls, ages 11 and 12, who had posted photos of themselves nude on the Internet, got the idea. They said they were influenced by pornography on the Internet. Photos of the girls were downloaded and distributed at their school.

A Long Island man has been sexually abusing his 4-year-old daughter for almost her entire lifeand recently offered to swap her for another child via an Internet chat room called Baby Sex, police charged yesterday. The accused man, who lives in Dix Hills, was held in lieu of $1 million cash.

We see the headlines and read the stories and shake our heads in disbelief, wondering, Whats going on here? Who would ever do something like that? And then we read another. And yet another, the latter even more twisted than the first.

Some of us think to ourselves, Wow, there are some really messed-up people out there. Sexual deviants that need to be locked up for good. Others reason that its the porn industry and our hypersexual media who are to blame. They figure were all becoming victims of a sex-saturated culture. Then there are those who insist poor parenting and centuries of sexual repression are the culprits behind our sexual pathology. Regardless of our own particular bias, we all tend to breathe a sigh of relief in knowing that were not like them, and that theyre not us. That its just another news story about strange stuff that happened to someone else, matters far removed from our own personal lives.

But then you get the phone call from your sister-in-law with the surprising news that her husband, your brother, just announced hes leaving her and the kids for someone he met online. Or maybe shes the one whos leaving him for another man. Perhaps the stunning news was that of a longtime friend whos just been arrested and charged for soliciting sex with a minor.

Or maybe the newsflash hit closer to home and youre still reeling over the discovery of hundreds of pornographic images sitting on your family computers hard drive. Graphic images and hard-core videos whose lurid titles and degrading file names betray their owners best attempts to keep them hidden.

Again you find yourself asking, Whats going on here? Who could have done this? But this time, theres a strong sense of urgency and importance youve never felt before. Because now, its personal. No longer is it just a question of idle curiosity. The craziness you once thought only resided in other peoples lives has just invaded yours. So you start looking for answers, searching for the truth. You have to know the truth because the stakes are higher now that youre involved.

But youre not the only one looking for answers. Because youre not the only one involved. There are othersspouses, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, parents, coworkers, and friends. A web of people just like you who are trying to make sense of the offense or the abuse. And then theres the offender, or the abuser. You hope theyre asking questions too, or at least asking for help.

What were they thinking? How could they be so blind? Whats really going on here?

Speaking as one whos been both the offender and the offended, the abuser and the abused, questions like these have haunted me for most of my life. In my own case, as soon as I discovered that sex could make me feel better about myself, I gladly became a user. Whether it was trying to fix myself, to erase my pain and be normal, or trying to cope with the stress and boredom of my everyday life, I used both porn and people, and kept secrets to hide my guilt and shame.