Is it safe?

So I joined MySpace in order to look at some photographs that a missions student from my church posted on her account. I run a missions webpage for the church and I told the pastor I would keep it updated.

Photos tend to make a story more entertaining and allow readers to "be there" so I thought I could get some from the MySpace account. You have to be a member to look at photos, so I created a profile in order to look at the missions student's pics.

Then today I get an e-mail that someone named "Betty" wanted to add me as a "friend" to her MySpace list. Now I didn't know anyone named Betty - other than my mother - and perhaps that should have been a clue.

When I click on the link, there is a picture of two women dressed in leather French kissing on this woman's website. Needless to say it was an unpleasant surprise.

I know some friends who struggle with addiction to internet porn, and I knew that this kind of image could lead to other things, even though MySpace says that nude photos or other porn are not allowed. So I cancelled the account. The title of this post is a link to a story about a man who was arrested after chatting up what he thought were two teenaged girls on MySpace.

When he got there, someone was waiting for him - Sheriff's deputies. Men with guns.

Why do I mention this? Because the thing about addiction is that the charge one gets from looking at porn, and drinking alcohol, and doing crack, changes your brain. It makes your wiring different. And you actually crave that charge again. And your brain starts looking for more of it when it can't get some.

The thing about porn is that it can make you unable to have real sex. Isn't that a Faustian bargain. The porn publishers tell you that it will make you sexy and will give you that charge, and then it makes you unable to have sex with a real person because you cannot maintain an erection because the real person is not like the fantasy images in your brain.

I am not a parent, but if I were, I would wonder what exactly is going on in MySpace.