The goal now, though, Harmer says, is to prove once and for all a causal relationship between the viewing of pornography and eventual anti-social behavior. Legally, the defense has always been that this relationship cannot be proved, and the U.S. Supreme Court has concurred. But brain mapping could finally establish the link, he says.

There are already studies that demonstrate the addictive nature of television, Reisman says, as well as fMRI studies that show that watching violence affects the brain. "But the good guys haven't used MRIs yet for pornography specifically."

Reisman calls visual pornography an "erototoxin." It's not that pornography acts on the brain like a drug, she says. "It is a drug." We now know, she says, that viewing pornography triggers adrenaline, "experienced in the gut and genitalia," and triggers the production of testosterone, oxytocin, dopamine and serotonin. "It's a drug cocktail you're hit with. Pornography is a powerful, an enormously powerful, stimulant, which triggers such a rush and such a high. It's not a sexual stimulant. It's a fear-sex-shame-and-anger stimulant."

Visual pornography should not be defended as a First Amendment right, she says, because visual pornography reaches a different part of the brain than speech, "a brain that is visceral, nonspeech, right hemisphere."

Pornography, she says, leads to rape, serial murder, child molestation — and male impotence. "Every time he looks at (pornography) he's ashamed and angry. And he's compromised his ability to respond in a normal way. . . . He can no longer just fall in love with a young woman and find a thrill in the turn of her neck and the curve of her cheek."

The battle against pornography, Harmer says, has been losing ground since he first appeared as an attorney in a trial against a pornography distributor in 1964. In those days, pornography was limited to magazines and 8 mm film, but now it includes cable, the music industry, video games and the Internet.

It's the Internet, especially, therapist Cline says, that has made pornography accessible, affordable and anonymous — affecting "a vast legion of men" as well as an increasing number of women.

"It's similar to the way cocaine or heroin can take over and control you," says Cline, who has treated clients for pornography addiction for 25 years. Self-gratification to visual pornography, he says, "sets up a powerful linkage between an image that arouses you and a powerful reinforcement."

"Just like with chemical dependency," Cline says, "new neural pathways are opened up and it changes the brain."

For more information about the Lighted Candle Society's May 12 banquet, call Sara Ebert at 651-6621 or Jim Smith at 364-3189.

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E-mail: jarvik@desnews.com