erototoxin

English

Etymology

From eroto- +‎ toxin.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɪˌɹɒtəʊˈtɒksɪn/

Noun

erototoxin (plural erototoxins)

1. An addictive chemical said to be released in the brain from looking at pornography.
   • 2004 November 19, Ryan Singel, “Internet Porn: Worse Than Crack?”, in Wired‎^[1], →ISSN:

     Judith Reisman of the California Protective Parents Association suggested that more study of "erototoxins" could show how pornography is not speech-protected under the First Amendment.

   • 2005, Ron Luce, Battle Cry for a Generation: The Fight To Save America's Youth, Colorado Springs: Cook Communications Ministries, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 99:

     As we saw in the previous chapter, pornographic erototoxins always bypass cognition and speech, reaching the right brain instantly to trigger excitatory transmitters and to overcome inhibitory transmitter functions.

   • 2005 May/June, Jack Hitt, “The Diddly Award”, in Mother Jones, →ISSN:

     And the winner is...Sam Brownback, who considered spending more tax money to explore the “addictive,” “mind-altering,” porn poisons that one witness called “erototoxins.”

   • 2005 July 25, Ed Brayton, “Robert O'Brien Trophy Awarded to Judith Reisman”, in Dispatches from the Creation Wars‎^[2], archived from the original on 8 March 2012:

     There is no such thing as an "erototoxin", of course, but there are pleasure chemicals that are released in the brain called endorphins and they are released in a wide range of activities, including physical exercise, laughter and — surprise, surprise — sex itself.

   • 2007 October 1, Mark Pilkington, Far Out: 101 Strange Tales from Science's Outer Edge, New York: The Disinformation Company, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OL:

     Not Reisman: erototoxins aren’t about pleasure; they’re a “fear-sex-shame-and-anger stimulant.”

   • 2010, Bettina Arndt, What Men Want in Bed, Melbourne University Publishing, →ISBN, →LCCN, page 53:

     But there is no good evidence to support the claims of pseudo-experts like Dr Judith Reisman that pornography is what she calls [an] 'erototoxin', producing an addictive drug cocktail of testosterone, oxytocin, dopamine and serotonin, which cause the brain to be ‘structurally’ changed.