Time to talk about silent epidemic in our midst

AS A clinician who has worked for decades in the field of sexual addiction, I found the recent Red C survey commissioned by Women’s Aid to be most compelling. This report showed that women are more likely than men to believe that pornography is detrimental to young people.

It also stated that most Irish people believe pornography is too accessible to children and that it is contributing to gender inequality, coercion and sexual violence against women and girls, and that 75% of people agree that pornography makes children and young people vulnerable to requests to share intimate images and videos.

Neuropsychiatrists have reported that men who describe themselves as addicted to porn (and who have lost relationships because of it) develop changes in what we refer to as the reward centre of the brain which is akin to the changes that take place in the brain of a drug addict.

This to me is a game changer as porn addiction and drug addiction may now have similar brain pattern responses.

This Red C poll delineated that the majority of men (60%) agreed that pornography was harmful to society and yet the level of concern among women appears to be significantly higher at 82%.

Women’s Aid reported that pornography is now playing a role in the verbal, sexual and physical abuse that women are subjected to by their male partners. This to me is a red flag.

I am emboldened to learn that pornography is now specifically named as an issue that needs to be challenged in the Irish Government’s third National Strategy to prevent and combat domestic, sexual and genderbased violence.

As a society, we need to keep the debate on pornography to the fore. Education on this emotive subject needs to happen.

I now see pornography as a silent epidemic that’s enveloping our society. The disastrous impacts of inveterate addiction to pornography is catastrophic to

the mental, emotional and physical health of that person. Let’s keep communication on this complex issue open and pellucid.

John O’Brien, Clonmel. Co. Tipperary.

Nuclear hypocrites

I LISTENED To Eirgrid CEO Mark Foley being interviewed on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland this week about the signing of the contract for the construction of the undersea interconnector cable between France and Ireland.

It will be capable of carrying 700MWs per hour and can supply electricity for ‘up to’ 450,000 households, transmitted from France to Ireland (and in reverse when Ireland has an abundance of power... erm... going forward), according to the politicos in the know and their resident experts.

The interviewer asked Foley: ‘Won’t some of that electricity [from France] be from the nuclear [power stations], thus bringing in nuclear power to

Ireland by the back door?’ It should have been followed up with the question, ‘Doesn’t that make us hypocrites?’.

Foley responded in the same way Climate Minister Eamon Ryan has done, saying that we are already getting that kind of electricity, ie nuclear-generated, as well as coal and gas-generated from the UK. He also mentioned that on one day this week we were supplying the UK with 900MW of ‘green electricity’ but that in due course we will need to build more gas generators.

Firstly, how does Mr Foley know that the 900MW going to the UK for 12 hours on Thursday was green? During that 24 hours coal, oil and gas-fired generators supplied 40% of system generation. Electricity can not know which source it came from.

Secondly, where is the fuel for these new gas-fired generators to be found? Our native source of natural gas is fast running out. The dog-wagging-tail Green

Your Letters, Irish Mail on Sunday, Two Haddington Buildings, 20-38 Haddington Road, Dublin 4, D04 HE94 Email: letters@mailonsunday.ie including your name, address and telephone number

Party is against further exploration, or recovery from Ballyroe gas oil fields and opposes swift construction of an LPG storage facility on the island. Oh well, only time will tell.

Tom Baldwin, Midleton, Co. Cork.

Idiosyncratic shades

REFERRING to Alexandra Shulman’s article (MoS, Nov. 20) may we now expect a piece on womens’ idiosyncrasies, such as the practice of wearing sunglasses on top of the head indoors and outside regardless of the prevailing weather conditions? James Talbot, Celbridge, Co. Kildare.

Throw us a lifeline

OUR fishermen and farmers need to be thrown a lifeline on subsidies otherwise they will not survive for much longer.

This is a disgrace compared to other EU countries like France and Spain who offer their fishermen and farmers subsidies. The Government needs to wake up and keep the foreign boats out of our waters and look after our own on quotas as well.

Noel Harrington, Kinsale, Co. Cork.