While it is possible there is something in this, let's not forget that rape is not about sex, it's about power and violence. I struggle to understand the close link made here between (presumably) non-violent, consensual pornography and rape.

No doubt this issue will be hijacked by some Parents Group on morning television but it would make a nice change to have it openly debated. Why are certain politicians so up in arms over pornography? Is it simply the pressure from Christian lobby groups or do they truly believe access to pornography leads to exploitation of the soul?

Pornography comes with the territory of being a hormonally charged young boy/girl and finding the most explicit image without hundreds of pop-ups crashing the family computer was all part of the challenge. It was simply a phase I, like many others, went through and produced no harm but simply provided an outlet for adolescent confusion and urges best kept to oneself until an adequate blood supply was diverted to the brain.

Regardless of whether further regulations are imposed, porn will always be available whether from behind the toilets at lunch or from the dodgy newsagent down the road. Viewing porn merely fills in time before we are in a position to make it ourselves.

Please! The study shows an illusory correlation between an international trend for reduced rape and an international trend for increased internet usage. The correlation is no more causation than the study that found a correlation between stork populations and baby births in a country. The study also shows that areas where they can't afford internet have higher crime rates. Why is that surprising? To draw links like this is a joke when we all know that rape is a power crime. Using this type of reckless research as an excuse to perv at porn is science gone mad.

That is like considering Ted Bundy's comments scientifically valid when he said that an addiction to pornography had led him to commit his crimes. He claimed that, after he could no longer satisfy himself with violent pornography, he acted out his fantasies in real life and he had found that every other violent sexual offender he talked to had found the same thing.

Credible research has supported the idea that rape is about power. Yet some people will suggest otherwise for their own purposes. In the first case to perv. In the second case as an excuse for misdeeds.

For trivia sake I note that I stumbled across a study on pornography in a psychology journal once (while looking for something else) that found that people of both genders in current sexual relationships displayed reduced sexual satisfaction with their partner after a period of current exposure to pornography. I am always reminded of that when 'adult' shops advertise claiming that they will 'spice up' a relationship. There is obviously the possibility of irony. (I have been told that almost all sales at those places are pornography.)

Mjb - you say that "you've been told these stores stock pornography" indicating you haven't been to one, and you mention a study that you glanced at in passing.

These statements are a tad telling - are you perhaps ashamed of open sexuality? You argue against his using one study, then do the exact same thing.

I disagree with McConvill in most instances, but I'd agree with most of what he says here, though putting it in libraries is probably a little too far.

Plus, I'm not so sure about his statistics - he says the web porn providers make more than all the US media networks. This I find hard to believe, especially considering the media networks themselves own a pretty big chunk of the porn industry - especially Fox (surprise surprise). But sweeping statements like this don't take these kind of elements into account. Also, drawing a correlation between the increase in porn and the reduction in crime simply on basis of causation is a bit of a stretch - there's plenty of other influences there too.

Overall, he's right though. Beazley's effort to wipe out international porn is just plain stupid. It's not possible (how the hell do we prosecute a venezuelan porn king for instance?) and it's just another example of Beazley trying to out-Howard Howard.

The ABS report also says this:

"Response rates for sexual assault in 2005 are lower than in previous years. This is most likely due to changes made to the survey methodology, which included combining the sexual assault questions with the main survey form, and some changes to the structure and wording of the screening questions. Due to the low response rates for sexual assault only limited data is available for 2005."

Mr McConvill didn't mention this fact, perhaps because it would mute his thunder.

As for Prof. D'Amato's 'research paper', it's a polemic that neither contains nor cites any research or scholarship whatsoever and the scanty statistical nonsense contrived therein is laughable.

Although Mr McConvill's libertarianism on this issue does seem consistent with his previous remark in this forum that "a little bit of racial discrimination can go a long way", it is jarring in many ways when put beside his view that "the use of torture can be a useful and reasonable means of obtaining information", again previously expressed in this forum.

If Mr McConvill believes that unconstrained access to hardcore pornography in "homes, schools and public libraries" is desirable for the reason he suggests, he should make a better case, perhaps by providing proof that sexual attacks are actually inhibited by viewing hardcore pornography.

In the meantime he should refrain from tossing his specious excuse for an argument onto a public forum so as to "get it out of his system".

Hi James,

Thank you for discussing the topic.

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

You mentioned:
"According to the ABS data, between 1995 and 2005, there was a drop from 0.6 per cent to 0.3 per cent of persons aged 18 years and over who were victims of at least one sexual assault. That is a 50 per cent reduction."

Applying principles of mathematics and accepting the figures you have provided to be accurate, that would be a 0.3 per cent reduction (not 50 per cent, as you mentioned) in sexual crime rate over a period of 10 years. This reduction rate of 0.3 per cent is of insignificant value, according to the dynamics of statistics.

Besides, the link (Australian Crime & Safety Survey) you have provided leads to a graph (Crime Victimisation Rates) which demonstrates an increase in sexual assaults occurred between 1998-2005.

Nayeefa,

You need to go back to school. If the prevaling sexual assault rate is 0.6% and it reduces to 0.3% that is a 50% reduction as per the article. The group in question was over 18s. For Australia that would be in the order of 15,000,000 people. This means the number of victims over the given period has fallen from 90,000 to 45,000. Hardly an insignificant reduction.

Of course, whether this reduction can be attributed to increased access to internet porn is debatable, but the onus of proving internet smut is harmful surely lies with those who wish to restrict the people's rights through censorship. As it stands, there is more evidence to the contrary.

Freedom of expression, like the internet, is a mixed bag. Yes you get to say and publish what you like, but with that right, you also have to hear and see that which offends. It is fundamental to democracy that if citizens wish the former right, they must endure the later duty.

Spoil sport!
You would deny the Church the power of sexual guilt and deprive politicians of an issue? One sure to command much support and give a superior glow to the speaker, though the majority view may in fact be with those who are silent.

The Church and law says the body naked is obscene and the former that lust alone is a sin of hell. Copulation seen-blindness or am I out of date?

Read the early Church dogma the range of sinful sexual thoughts and acts. Condoms when HIV ? Acts in general, only some parts to be touched others in terms of genetic or legal relationship and find yourself lucky to be just castigated or prevented from watching sexual congress. see Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven By Uta Ranke Heineman 1990 ISBN 0 385 26527 1

Except race horses (and other animals of course), though these days one indulges in AI for value. The outcome could be $ Anyway animal passions are natural and our avoidance of them sets humans apart as God’s vessel.

Granted some legal restraints are needed for personal protection including from patriearchy and responsibility for any issue but beyond that?

Much of what offends is by custom. Much praised by those who would induce fear and grant themselves power.
I understand sex education is about the biology not the pleasure including looking and may still leave a child with crippling emotional trauma. Still unable to fully participate in sexual union.

No masturbation and madness are not causal but hell and sex is.
Studies galore but all read with the implanted sexual distaste that is our heritage.

This is one of the dumbest articles I have ever read. Ted Bundy serial rapist and murderer said before being put to death that he had not met one fellow sex offender who was not into pornography. Anyone with any contact with sexual offenders in prison will confirm that the offenders are almost all involved in pornography. Many of the outlying aboriginal communities receive mail orders from ACT of x rated pornography. To find a young indigneous girl in prison who has not been abused is almost impossible.

If the author and others want to gratify their sexual appetites on pornography so be it but to try and come up with statistics showing porn up and rape down is laughable. I have no doubt that porn up, child molestation up, pack rape up and every other gross crime you could think of. A far percentage of children and adults act out what they watch.

Tell the woman whose 12 year old raped a 3 year old that pornography is harmless. After finding out that this boy was not a victim of abuse but simply had acted out what he had watched.

It might ease the conscience of some by coming up with suspect stats but anyone honest knows that lust isn't satisfied by pornography. It just creates a desire for more lust. People desire something a bit more perverted than the last time.

For me the more pornography can be kept from the public the safer our daughters and wives from predators. It seems ironic that womens groups are happy to have themselves portrayed as porn stars created to please the appetites of men.

Oh, come on Runner. You say that bundy mentioned he hadn't met one sex offender who wasn't interested in pornography.

I say, well duh.

I haven't met one obese person, who didn't like food.
Should we ban food?

I haven't met one serial hacker, who didn't know how to use a computer.
Should we ban computers?

I haven't met one bomber who didn't know how to light a fire.
Should we ban matches?

I haven't met one morphine addict, who'd never used morphine.
Should we ban painkillers?

I haven't met one masochist, who didn't know how to use painful items.
Should we ban knives?

I haven't met one obsessed fan of violent television, who hasn't watched television.
Should we ban television?

I could go on all day. I trust I've made my point.
It's these kind of arguments that really irritate me.

Ho hum... pornography. Mostly boring really.
But what adults look at in private in really their own business. I'm not convinced that it either reduces the rate of sexual assault or increases it. Banning it would drive it underground.

I suspect people who commit sexual assaults are more into power and humiliating their victims than sexual gratification. They might use violent pornography (and I personally think there is no place for violent pornography - I draw the line at that - though maybe it means I have double standards) but I don't think it creates them.

Occasionally you hear of reports where bullies try to intimidate others by showing them porn, knowing that they would be upset and undermined by it. They are simply bullies and would find another way to harass their victims if porn wasn't available. It's the individual at play using what is available as a tool. It doesn't cause the bullying.

I take it TurnRightThenLeft that with your arguement everything goes. Why not supply pornography for the paedophile in prison. I thought it was obvious that someone eating themselves to death is a little different from a pervert who feeds on pornography and then rapes a little boy or girl. I thought it was obvious that we don't need to ban TV but we do need to ban sexual acts with animals on TV. I thought it was obvious that though we can't ban matches we can do all we can to stop idiots blowing up innocent people. Maybe if it is your wife/sister or kid that is attacked by one of the sickos who has fed off pornography u might find it less needful to defend the indefencible.

This website seems to give a balanced view:

http://www.sexscience.org/publications/index.php?category_id=440&subcategory_id=336

I am wary of those who approach this subject from an overly religious point of view. Their minds are already made up and nothing is likely to change their attitudes. Anything to do with sex, except within bounds which they are conditioned to find acceptable, is sinful and harmful and should be discouraged and, if possible, banned outright.

Definitions of pornography vary with the individual. I don't regard non-sexual nudity as in the least pornographic. Some would say that there is no such thing as non-sexual nudity and that all nudity, except between marriage partners, is sinful and should be banned. I consider this to be a learned religious attitude and something which should not be imposed on the rest of us.

I will draw some analogies of unjustified religious interference:

We all regard abortion rates as too high. The extreme religious answer is to push the chastity line and ban legal abortion. What actually works is the Dutch model, ie teach young people about sexuality, teach them to accept responsibility and make contraception easily available. Australia currently seems to be stuck with a poor compromise which demonstrably doesn't work.

My area has had a legal clothes-optional beach for many years. Every so often, the local religious right try to have it closed down, sometimes using lurid allegations. After a sensational letter to a local paper several years ago, I phoned the police and council and they both said the freebeach was quiet and trouble-free. Ever heard of "bearing false witness"?

Some months ago, there was an application for another so-called adult shop in our city centre. This caused an outcry in council and the local press, which I would say was deliberately staged. Apparently we already had two, which obviously weren't causing a problem, because most of us probably didn't even know where they were situated.

There were dire predictions of sex attacks etc if we got another "sex shop". Guess what, we now have it and it's had no effect on the local crime figures.

Runner wrote:


"This is one of the dumbest articles I have ever read. Ted Bundy serial rapist and murderer said before being put to death that he had not met one fellow sex offender who was not into pornography. Anyone with any contact with sexual offenders in prison will confirm that the offenders are almost all involved in pornography."

This stream of logic closely resembles that of King Arthur in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, or for those who can remember it the discussion on logic on the vinyl LP from that movie.

Or to paraphrase, Nicole Kidman is a woman, but not all women are Nicole Kidman.

Just because sex offenders are into pornography doesn't make everyone who is into pornography a sex offender.

I would venture to say that somewhere around 95% of males have willingly looked at porn sometimes in their lives, many for a second or third time even.

However, except for redical feminists, few would argue that all men are sex offenders.

As for pornography for women, 'The Bold and the Beautiful' and 'The Young and the Restless' don't seem to be losing ratings.

See my article, "Could it be that pornography prevents rape" at www.obcenitycrimes.org (Porn Problem & Solutions page).

Sex one of the deadly sins. We don't spend much time on things like greed and gluttony. If we did we could certainly send a few politicans to purgatory.

We live in a society which seems to have almost a schizophrenic attitude towards sex. In some ways it is liberal and in others extremely inhibitive.

In most religions sexuality is something to be suppressed and certian practises banned.

The discovery of the ancient city of Pompeii and the at the time shocking frescos which adorned the walls. So pornography has been around a long time. The invention of the camera and the movie camera socalled 'blue' films followed very quickly.

It doesn't matter whether you ban pornography or not, because there will always be a black market

Morality in the Media !

Whose morals?

Note that 100's of people looking at kiddy porn have been caught because of the internet, we have laws.

Could it be that the incidence of rape is going down because....

Men are dating less for fear of getting accused of 'date rape'.

The definition of rape is changing

Or false claims of rape are on a downward trend.

Improved surveillance techniques make it more difficult to make make a false rape allegation

Improved forensic techniques in proving, disproving that a rape took place.

DNA testing has freed innocent men imprisoned for years.

According to Naomi Wolf, porn is shutting down mens'libidos completely..

http://newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/trends/n_9437/index.html

If you have trouble with the link a critical POV is here..

http://www.leftist.org/haightspeech/archives/000064.html

The article is, like most of Wolf's work, unintentionally hilarious.

I agree with Wolf in that men in the US and elsewhere in the western world are losing interest in western women but I think it has more to do with personality than pornography.

MAKE_IT_UP_AS_YOU_GO.....imMORALITY...

and..... I rest my case.

Steve.. "kiddie porn, we have laws".... I'm sorry mate that is the joke of the century.

There is a political party in the Netherlands ADVOCATING child porn now.

The only question I have is...'how many times' does a community have to be told "Reap...what you sow"...or.. "If you hit that dog with a stick, it will BITE you"...before the scales or moral blindness are removed from our eyes ?

Let me take on the role of Micaiah the prophet, who was once asked by an ambitious, militarist king about whether he should 'go up against' another king.

[Fale Prophets/yes_men] ... "Yes oh King.. go up against them and surely they will be given into you hand"

[The King (doubting this 2good2btrue assessement)] "Is there not another man of God around who can give his opinion ?"

[Court Advisers] "Yes oh King..there is Micaiah"

[King} "HIM ! ? aaah.. he ALways gives me bad news.. I don't like his prophecies at all"

[Micaiah is called]

[King} "Sooooo... what do YOU think about this plan Micaiah"?

[Micaiah] "Oh king.. yes yes.. of course..go up against them and they will surely be given into your hand"

[King.... looks sideways.. rolls eyes...] "What"!

Readers will have to read 1 kings 22:8-39 to see full details.
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=11&chapter=22&version=31

So.. "I" say.. "Sure.. put pornography in libraries, in schools, in PRE schools.. put it everywhere.... and surely you will be blessed"

But read the link above. See what happened to the king. I'ts better than an Agatha Christie. It mentions HOOKERS which is on topic.

This lawyer has taken two statistics and attempted to relate them in a roundabout manner. The increased availability of pornography is not related to a decrease in rapes. There is no causality! Statistically, rapists are more likely to view sexually violent pornography which is what separates them from people who do not commit rape. Ridiculous.

The incidence of rape is vastly underreported, and if reported, not fully subject to conviction, and if subject to conviction, underpenalized.

If males are raping sexually trafficked females who are underage does that count as rape? If males are snatching children who "disappear" permanently does that count as rape or as rape and murder undetected?

What about the rape of girlfriends and spouses, does that count as rape? What about incest, does that count as rape?

Does sex + a few slaps counta s rape, or as just rough sex?

Does rape count if you can't find the victim, and prove it happened, as in Aruba?

Finally, what is the rule of law if it does not apply to the underreported and underconvicted crime of rape as it applies to females? Is it the rule of law or something else?

Rape is not about sex. It is about power and violence. I was bashed to a pulp and then raped by two men. They admitted that they " ... went out that night to bash and rape ..." because they hated women.

One got 200 hours community sevice - the other, six years - then reduced to three and a half years. The DPP challenged this. The primary offender got six years. The Magistrate apologised in the paper - but not to me - that he had made a sentencing mistake - he said he was using a "20 years old" guideline - and that he would not do this again.

Two days ago I took on board a "free" internet cleaner. It told me that I had entered 620 pornographic sites! I have NEVER entered a porn site.

I have a deep and loving relationship with my husband. We donot need porn to sustain the beauty that we have.

Kay

Just as 'Rape' is not so much about 'sex' (though I assert it is a big factor) and more about 'power' and 'self actualization' it is a scream from inside the deprived and depraved individual "meeeeeeeeeeeeeeee" but at the expense of all else. It is a point of ultimate confrontation with a world without God.

"When God is dead, all things become morally permissable." is something that either J.P. Sartre or F. Neitchze said.

Pornography is gratification of that part of us, which we all know only too well.... which we are repulsed by, yet lured towards. We hate it...but sometimes love it ?

Paul described the unrenewed man as follows

21 So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22For in my inner being I delight in God's law; 23but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. 24What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?

Fortunately for all of us, he finishes with the following:

25Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! (Romans7)

Porn takes that which is beautiful at the deepest level of our beings, and re-packages it in much less responsible wrapping.
It's "pleasure without responsibility"

It is the ultimate power trip. "Here.. USE this person as you please, look, she will do all that you desire, your wish is her command, you want such and such.. she will do it.. "

Can anyone deny seriously, that the promotion of such a view of our fellow men and woman is anything but destructive ?

I'd be much more interested in how violent hollywood films affect people's relationships with guns. America has the greatest level of church attendance in the western world, its interesting that it is also the most gun-filled, violent nation on earth - a phenomenon which seems to be spreading - is this because Hollywood dominates cinematic culture?

Virtually every film that comes out of hollywood glorifies violence and the machismo of posessing guns.Would much rather this was researched, debated and understood.

Once it was "dare we write?" now its "what shall we write?" and the saps at Online Opinion will spew it up on the site. To choose this article implies the rejection of another. I agree, this is an all time low for OLO.

"Theorists of public morality—from the ancient Greek philosophers and Roman jurists on—have noticed that apparently private acts of vice, when they multiply and become widespread, can imperil important public interests.

Even in defending what he believes is a moral right to pornography, Ronald Dworkin has identified the public nature of the interests damaged in communities in which pornography becomes freely available and widely circulates. Legal recognition of the right to pornography would:

“sharply limit the ability of individuals consciously and reflectively to influence the conditions of their own and their children’s development. It would limit their ability to bring about the cultural structure they think best, a structure in which sexual experience generally has dignity and beauty, without which their own and their families’ sexual experience are likely to have these qualities in less degree.”

It is in a special way a matter of justice to children. Parents’ efforts to bring up their children as respecters of themselves and others will be helped or hindered—perhaps profoundly—by the cultural structure in which children are reared. Whether children themselves ever get a glimpse of pornographic images in childhood is a side issue. A decent social milieu cannot be established or maintained simply by shielding children from such images. It is the attitudes, habits, dispositions, imagination, ideology, values, and choices shaped by a culture in which pornography flourishes that will, in the end, deprive many children of what can without logical or moral strain be characterized as their right to a healthy sexuality.

We know that a more-or-less unbridled culture of pornography can result in a sexualisation of children which robs them of their innocence and even places them in jeopardy of sexual exploitation by adults. Can anyone honestly deny that we have ourselves witnessed a shameful sexualisation of children in our own culture?"

http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0602/opinion/george.html

Religious zealots and feminists share a creepy obsession with sex and for both sex is a tool to control others.

Erotica has been enjoyed by men and women since time began. There are plenty of examples available from the ancient world, for example Hindu depictions of sex. There are plenty of nudes and with over-emphasised genitals in Aboriginal rock drawings. Should the offending bits be covered?

Anyone ever stopped to wonder why feminists and priests have far dirtier minds than the rest of us?

Runner, I wasn't advocating an "everything goes" approach at all. I was merely making the point, that your link between pornography and sexual assault is dubious. Hamlet pointed out the basic logic there quite nicely.

The message I was putting across, was its easy to pick a minority (i.e. sex offenders) then group them in a majority (i.e. people who watch porn) and draw a link between the two. Although it would be illogical, I could just as simply link sex crime to consumption of certain kinds of food or even an interest in certain kinds of sports. It's based on the same fallacy.

The reason for my 'duh' approach, was that sex offenders are going to have an aggressive sex drive. Of course they will watch porn.

Plenty of people who watch porn don't have this aggression. And removing porn, won't get rid of paedophiles. It will just make them more curious.

TRTL,

I didn't say:"you've been told these stores stock pornography". Of course they would. Do you think that a few toys would cover the market?

I said:"I have been told that almost all sales at those places are pornography". This was just to suggest that irony might be involved if the study about couples was correct due to the advertising suggesting that they will spice up rather than turn off couple's sex life.

"These statements are a tad telling - are you perhaps ashamed of open sexuality? You argue against his using one study, then do the exact same thing."

The "study" was nonsense. That is what I was arguing. There is no basis for arguing that a correlation in the circumstances is a causation. As the subject matter is rape, known to be about power rather than sex, alarm bells should ring in anyone's mind.

I referred to another study which I have not analysed just for an off hand comment about advertising. It may not be correct but don't use the comment to analyse me or get otherwise sidetracked. The essential thing I wanted to point out is that we know that rape is about power not sex and then there is an attempt to claim that porn brings down rape using dodgy statistics. That is ridiculous.

"The message I was putting across, ...Although it would be illogical, I could just as simply link sex crime to ... It's based on the same fallacy."

What goes around comes around huh?

"I disagree with McConvill in most instances, but I'd agree with most of what he says here.."

The basis of his argument is that porn reduces rape. Are you saying that you agree?

Ahh, nice reply mjpb.

In actual fact, I don't think pornography increases or decreases rape. I think rapists are rapists, and whether they rape or not is a decision made by them with little regard to what they've watched. I would find it just as easy to believe that watching some porn relieves tension that could otherwise manifest in various ways, as I could that watching porn influences people to undertake violent acts.
Both are just as plausible, and I can't say I know the figures.
I'm somewhat dubious on McConville's statistics in general, though basically, when I say I agree, I'm just glad to see a right winger expressing a "live and let live" kind of argument.

Essentially, my argument is - it's porn. Live and let live. If it isn't your thing, well, deal with it rather than trying to tell others what not to watch.

Besides, you'll never destroy porn, people have been watching naked bodies for thousands of years. In this age of digital communication, it simply won't work.

(P.S. mjpb, I still think your earlier post indicated a certain level of hesitancy to approach pornographic issues - this may not be the case, but it was an underlying suggestion in the language of the post - "I stumbled across," "I have been told,"

This may not be the case, but I don't think it's an unreasonable inference to draw from that particular post

Thanks for your most recent reply,

"In actual fact, I don't think pornography increases or decreases rape. I think rapists are rapists, and whether they rape or not is a decision made by them with little regard to what they've watched."

I expect that you are correct. It reminds me of an anecdote I heard from a psychologist.
Picture a rapist making excuses)
Rapist: I couldn't control the irresistable impulses.
Psych: Not even when you knew that it would traumatise the lady?
Rapist: No they were too strong.
Psych: So if the focus had been on your welfare not hers you would have done the same?
Rapist: ?
Psych: If a police officer was standing there you would have raped anyway?
Rapist: (No answer)

"I'm somewhat dubious on McConville's statistics in general, though basically, when I say I agree, I'm just glad to see a right winger expressing a "live and let live" kind of argument."

I am on the other hand quite focussed on how he grabbed onto something totally implausible and apparently used it as the basis for his argument. His live and let live seemed to be hanging off the end after being apparently satisfied that a power crime is genuinely wiped away by perusing porn.

"Essentially, my argument is ..."

As I said that didn't seem to be the argument of the article. It seemed to want to rely upon a dodgy claim.

"P.S. mjpb, ..."

Are you a psychologist? You seem to take a definite interest in human behaviour. I am definitely avoiding a discussion of the substantive issue that flows as I don't want to get bogged down in any more online debates. I am taking up too much time with online discussions already.

Pornography is the objectification of females as body part(s),oe else why do males refer to females by those parts -- "c___t," "ho," "hooters"?

Should females refer to males by their body parts as terms of endearment (or would that be terms that violate human dignity)?

Objectification is the prelude to violence, as it is easy -- ask any soldier -- to do violence to that which is thought of as inferior.

Thoughts are framed by words, and words that frame females primarily as body parts, rather than as human beings with minds, spirits and bodies, prepare the foundation for acts of violence.

The same is true of terrorists who call Americans heretics deserving only of having their heads cut off. Hitler used the same technique when he compared Jews to rats as carriers of disease, the disease he perceived being that of the uncivilized, the inferior.

Pornography: porno (slave) + graphein (to depict) -- the slavemaster had the unilateral right to view and use the body of the slave, and the slave, as a corollary, had no rights at all. Thus the slave had no future.

Do those who are used in the "body part depictions" known as pornography have futures like the rest of us? How about the children who are used in "body part depictions" -- say under l8 years of age. Try seeing them as mind + spirit + body and then ask how each of those aspects of a whole human being is affected by being depicted as body parts.

Is that violence or not? Is that a different future than yours or not?
How does one get a child to pose for pornographic pictures in the first place? There is coercion involved a.k.a. violence -- not something in the futures of consumers of porn.

Then, are the human beings depicted in porn living lives that are different from those of the consumers of porn? Education or no education, good job prospects or no good job prospects, high self esteem or no self esteem, future or no future, violence free or violated?

How unusual a lawyer from the USA got it wrong.

Pornography (from Greek (porni) "prostitute" and ; (grafi) "writing").

I wonder if anyone has done a study on porn and blindness. :)

The bottom line is - if you have not been bashed ++++ and raped ++ as I was (by two men who dragged me off the street behind a church), I say that you do not have a clue.

Reply to Steve Madden:

Yes, that is a Websterian problem. But what of the real world? I do see the lives of prostitutes as akin to that of the enslaved, if being enslaved means what I said in my earlier comment about different futures, dictated by sexual whims of others. That means having to spend 24-7 of your time not being educated, not having a good job, not having a future like the consumers of porn....

So, is there a difference between the lives of prostitutes and those of slaves? In ancient Greece there was not. Being "on call" for the purpose of being viewed, or being used for the gratification of another, is not my idea of freedom.

What do you think of the rest of my comments about objectification of females by reducing them to body parts? And your vocabulary? How does it compare, on a scale of human dignity or the lack of it? Do you use or think the words I referred to?

In Australia, prostitutes are private entrepreneurs who make good money with far less exertion and in better work conditions than many other workers.

Male and female prostitutes do it because the pay is good, previous work experience is not required, the hours are short and flexible and with few limitations they are their own bosses. The industry is well regulated.

If prostitutes are living the lives of slaves what about the wage slaves who only have their physical labours to sell? Actually, what about the knowledge workers who are getting screwed over with ten hour shifts on eight hours pay and forget the sick leave and other conditions? (Some of us have worked for partners like that.)

Feminists have banged on about 'sex workers' for years, however the same workers have told them to butt out. There is a lesson in there somewhere.

One thing which has always puzzled me greatly:- how the hell does one collate statistics on "unreported" rape or sexual abuse?

Oh, and Hawaiilawyer: you may not be familiar with Aussie culture - or rather you cannot be - we don't use words like "ho" or "bitches" as generics for female very much over here. We do however make great use of "di**head" "tool" etc. so it would be safe to say that in the objectification stakes as illustrated by language both genders run about equal. Doesn't seem to have affected the statistics in a markedly different manner. If, that is, one is naive enough to accept that incidents of rape in both our countries have decreased by 50%.

A little different, but reminds me of a friend I had probably twenty odd years ago who worked as a topless barmaid, before the WA govt stuck their noses in where it wasn't needed and banned this form of bar work.

She was a qualified, experienced solicitor [the legal kind] and had worked as such, but preferred topless bar work for a number of reasons. Very good pay [much better than ordinary bar work]. Hours that suited her and allowed her to spend much of the day on the beach. Work she found interesting, pleasant and stress free.

Of no particular interest to me personally, as I have never liked the front bar atmosphere and particularly not other peoples' tobacco smoke. But some may have pitied her for her work and assumed that was all she had the intelligence or education to get.

To Cornflower:

If being a "feminist" means arguing for human dignity for all human beings, then I am one.

If being one means standing for opportunities for work other than feeding an unspiritual mentality that demands objectified body parts that lead to more violence generally, then I am a "feminist."

And If being a "feminist" means aspiring to a world in which women and girls are no longer conflated with bodies only, and are approached always with respect, then, yes, I am a "feminist."

If you ask Sergeant Victor Vigna of the Los Angeles police if prostitution is a "victimless crime" he will show you graphic pictures of victims who have been brutalized (www.teachcops.com) by their pimps and tell you of cases where they have been as well by their "customers." Ask him if he has similar evidence of those subjected to violence through pornography.

Yankie Lawyer

In all but two U.S. states, the buying and selling of sexual services is illegal, not so in Australia.

In Australian any person over the age of 18 may offer to provide sexual services in return for money. A person who wishes to run a prostitution business must have a licence. Prostitutes working for themselves in their own business, as prostitutes in the business, must be registered. Individual sex workers are not required to be registered or licensed.

Comparisons to your sick society are irrelevant in this debate.

Hawaiilawyer,

For the record I am also in Australia and things aren't a total Utopia for prostitutes here either. The lyrics of that Bloodhound Gang song "Sex is better with a hooker when she's crying"(?) might even apply. It is true that prostitution is legalised over here but that is about all I'd agree with. I'm sure that there are exceptions that prove the rule but I suspect that those in here who make things sound rosy have lived a sheltered life and taken newspaper feature articles too seriously.

I am sure I recall John Birmingham (the Fellafell guy) telling me about a visit he had to Sydney where he felt frustrated watching pimps beat up prostitutes but he felt that if he intervened it would just make things worse for them. I mention the name not to name drop but as one of the better known Australian authors there must be some way for anyone interested enough to contact and verify with him.

Likewise in Brisbane all prostitutes I have encountered have not been enjoying the great life of a topless barmaid(if working in a smoke filled bar can be characterised as such) like the WA topless barmaid who claimed to have given up a job as a lawyer to do the work.

One lady I used to half know worked as a prostitute because her mother was a heroin addict and she thus became a heroin addict at a young tender age before developing any other type of money earning skills. In the time I knew her she earnestly tried the methadone program at a location just around the corner from Police Headquarters. I recall her expressing frustration that they are required to start off on insufficiently small dosages thus making it harder to go off heroin completely and onto the methadone. However she didn't make it and last I heard she was shooting up again. Part of her problem is that her mother would get her to buy heroin for her and she had trouble being around it without using it.

Continued.

I recall a guy I once talked to speculating that the reason prostitutes gravitated toward heroin was that they probably felt worthless as no matter whether or not it is legalised and no matter how permissive the society prostitution will always be socially unacceptable at an individual level so only self-abusive and desperate people will do the work. That reminded me of another prostitute that I half knew who had partnered with a guy who dragged her around by her hair and beat her up frequently. She said she had gone out with another guy but left him as she didn't deserve him as he was too nice.

There are sex worker groups (and major newspapers) who promote a flowery image and make unsubstantiated claims about having University students after extra pocket money in their ranks. I have always suspected that such groups are driven by pimps rather than prostitutes.

One of the earlier posters nailed this one on the head. What people do in the privacy of their own homes is their business. Porn should not be freely available in public places, as public places should be able to be utilised by those that have not yet been sexualised (ie, children). Schools and libraries are obviously ridiculous places to have porn freely available. Of course teenagers will always be able to get their hands on some porn magazine from somewhere, but that is different to having it freely available. having to sneak around with it, have an older friend buy it for you etc, all sends the message that this is not ordinary, which is a good and healthy message to convey. This is not real-life. That's (generally, there's always exceptions) not how women act during sex - yes I have seen porn, so I feel I am able to make that comment. At the same time, the porn itsef is not particularly harmful, in the right hands - in the hands of those that can objectively see that it is make-believe.

The big issue raised is whether the internet is a public place that should be kept free of porn. Arguably yes it is one of these public places, but the practicalities of regulation will prevent any govt from being able to control the content. So perhaps an alternative solution might suffice. Wouldnt it be preferable to regulate the ability of search engines to throw up porn sites from innocent searches (eg a little girl typing in "pussy" to find something about cats). Those that really do want to find porn will be able to track it down pretty quickly anyway. This approach would have to be much easier - the search engines are relatively few, whilst the porn sites are many.

HawaiiLawyer - I'm sure if one were to contact your cop-contact he could also provide graphic images of the wives and girlfriends of lawyers, doctors, blue collar workers, librarians, artists - in fact those from the whole spectrum of human endeavour - who are also brutalised, murdered, sodomised and rendered incapable of self-worth. I find it a specious argument to link only sex workers to male violence in order to link it to pornography. I also refer to my earlier post wherein I pointed out that the verbal convention of objectification is not gender specific - nor, as your knowledge of Greek or Latin will tell you, is it a new construct linked to the increased availability of pornography.I also reiterate what several posters on this thread have pointed out: - rape is not about sex but power. So if we are in the business of anecdotal evidence (albeit backed up by graphic illustration in police files) ask any male who has been raped by other heterosexual males in prison, on campus or in dark parks.

If indeed you identify with feminism you will know that it is a vast oversimplification to attribute gendered violence merely to one cause. Citing pornography as one of the many contributary causes of violence towards women while linking it exclusively to sex workers not only does not make a convincing argument, but does great diservice to the countless women throughout the ages not engaged in the sex trade who have been victims of male violence.

Pornography is degrading to women, wether the female willingly particpates in it or not..nothing to do with feminism and everything to with objectifying female sexuality..

Not saying theres not a place for it..but a lot of moral dilemmas in its conceptuality and portrayal.

mjpb

Did it occur to you that heroin addicts need money and for addicts prostitution may be a short term answer (They have to "work" the streets because they would not be employed in a brothel). Your assertion that prostitution leads to heroin is just as misguided as saying porn reduces the incidence of rape.

Rachel

Most porn depicts men and women, why is it exclusively degrading to women? If women do not engage in it willingly it is rape and not pornography.

Moral dilemmas depend on each persons "morals".

"Likewise in Brisbane all prostitutes I have encountered have not been enjoying the great life of a topless barmaid(if working in a smoke filled bar can be characterised as such) like the WA topless barmaid who claimed to have given up a job as a lawyer to do the work.

One lady I used to half know worked as a prostitute"

Not "claimed" to have been a lawyer, mjpb, this is true. What's wrong with you? Can't you accept that not everyone fits your stereotypes?

And how can someone half know someone? You may not know them very well, but you either know them or not. And if you don't know them well, then you may not understand their motivation for doing anything.

And how about all the Brisbane prostitutes you have encountered? May we ask how many and under what circumstances?

As for working in smoke filled workplaces. I have never smoked and have always hated and resented having it forced on me. My father was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1948 and his doctors told him even that long ago that it was almost certainly due to his heavy cigarette smoking. But for a large part of my working life I was forced to share other people's smoke at work and whilst socialising. And also in my living quarters whilst in the Royal Navy and in work camps. So this form of physical abuse is not limited to hotel bar work, regardless of how the bar workers are dressed.

Boaz, behave yourself.

>>"When God is dead, all things become morally permissable." is something that either J.P. Sartre or F. Neitchze said.<<

Neither Sartre nor Nietzsche is responsible for this "quote", Boaz.

But I suspect you knew that, and just slung a few of your own prejudices together and put them in someone else's mouth to add some spurious weight to them.

Contrary to your insistence, non-believers have a moral compass too. Porn, abortion, capital punishment, stem-cell research are concerns that we all share, and we are all mentally equipped to a greater or lesser extent to wrestle with the human dilemmas they create.

For the umpteenth time, christians do not have a monopoly on righteousness, only on self-righteousness.

From Robert Jensen, "The Paradox of pornography" (Feb.l, 2006):

Pornography -- though still resisted by some, from either a
conservative/religious position or...from a feminist point
of view - has become just one more form of mass entertain-
ment in a culture obsessively dedicated to the pleasure-
without-thought-about-the-consequences principle. Not every-
one likes it, but few see it as worth debating.

But the paradox remains: At the same time that it is more
accepted, pornography's content is becoming steadily more
extreme. In the "gonzo" style (those films with no plot or
characters, just straightforward sex on tape) that dominates
the market, directors continue to push the edge, filming
increasingly rougher sexual practices involving multiple
penetrations of women by two or three men at a time, or oral
sex designed to make a woman gag, while the language used to
insult women during sex grows harsher. Since legal controls
on pornography began loosening in the l970s, pornographers
have pusehd the limits of sexualizing the denigration of
women.

Though the pornography industry loves to talk about growing
sales to women and the so called "couples market," men are
still the vast majority of pornography consumers in the
United States....

So how can we explain the paradox? People typically do not
openly endorse cruelty or the degradation of women. Yet
just as those features of pornography are more extensive and
intense than ever, graphic sexually explicit material is more
widely accepted than ever. How can a culture embrace images
that violate its stated values?....

Sorry Pericles, I was relying on vague memory there.
Anyway, I found it:

Ivan, in Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novel, The Brothers Karamozov, got it exactly right -- if God is dead, everything is permissible.

But no matter who said or didn't say it, it remains true. Your point about Christians not having a mortgage on righteousness only 'self' righteousness.... not quite right.
You and I both know that without divinely revealed truth, right and wrong are a matter of opinion, and usually simply become 'Legal and Illegal'

HawaiiLawyers quote of Jensen is very apt. In particular I note the phrases about 'The language becomes increasingly degrading' etc..and the multiple penetrations etc....I mean.. when simply showing basic intercourse... or oral, ummmm what or where to next ? I mean if you view such stuff for more than a few minutes, the titilation must surely wear off, and some new 'hotter' action is needed for the same rush.

Of course, when the industry has gone as far as the law allows, it will seek to either go underground or change the law so it can:
-Show more
-Show for longer
-Show other combinations (human/animal action, defacating, Urinating etc, Multiple penetrations)

Each step of 'further artistic freedom' is a step closer to hell.
One day we might look over from among the sheep to some goat from the porn industry, and note him/her asked by the Almighty "Why did you turn my creation into a sex object."? Let them then say 'Artistic Freedom' because I know what the answer will be "No, sorry, you just wanted to make money".

"And If being a "feminist" means aspiring to a world in which women and girls are no longer conflated with bodies only, and are approached always with respect, then, yes, I am a "feminist.""

Umm hang on HL, respect is not a given, it is earned. I
might respect your human rights, but I don't respect you just
for being female or male for that matter

Boaz, Boaz, please!

>>Sorry Pericles, I was relying on vague memory there.
Anyway, I found it:

Ivan, in Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novel, The Brothers Karamozov, got it exactly right -- if God is dead, everything is permissible.<<

Ivan is a character from fiction, not a noted philosopher. Using his utterings as an example to suit your cause is like referring to the musings of Xena, Warrior Princess to prove the existence of the Elysian Fields.

Incidentally, the quote does not appear in any of the English translations of Karamazov that I have come across. Rumour has it that one of the Russian editions contains the phrase "esli Boga net - znachit, vsio pozvoleno", but I have met no-one who can actually verify this.

Perhaps one of the OLO scholars can help out.

Definitely not a scholar but look at http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/features/2000/cortesi1.html

“To my rather casual reading, it appears that the whole irony of The Brothers Karamazov is that Ivan advances this logical statement, but later admits to Alyosha that, in fact, he believes in God. Hence Ivan has believed right from the start that the antecedent is false and, therefore, that the implication is null -- it was never more than an intellectual toy. Alas, other characters take the succedent B seriously and act on it, resulting in great evil, for which Ivan must feel indirectly responsible.

In any case, did Dostoevsky himself mean to argue the truth of the logical implication? Or to argue either the antecedent (God does not exist) or the succedent (everything is lawful) separately? Did Dostoevsky believe the inverse statement ("If God does exist, then not everything is lawful")? Or did he only mean to show that almost everyone else believes it true, without examination?”

Yankee Lawyer.
“In days of old when knights were bold and women weren’t invented, they drilled some holes in telegraph poles, to keep themselves contented”.

Pornography has been with us since well before the invention of the printing press, check the karma sutra I think it includes all the things your previous post mentioned. New delivery system, same porn, same moral outrage.

That something has been with the human race since forever doesn't commend its continuance. If there is harm done to human beings, those are facts that are uncontrovertible whether nor not the "majority" likes it.

For most of human existence, humans have been brutish, violent, and interested in harming other members of their race. Does that commend the continuance of harm?

____________

Thanks mjpb for your comments on the lack of a total Utopia.

And also, Rachel, I agree with you that pornography is degrading to women despite the presence or absence of consent. Degradation is a form of harm.

Kay,

really sorry to hear of your experience. It must have been horrific.

Hawaiian lawyer,

great posts! I agree with most you say.

One general point, people keep saying that rape is not about sex but abou power, I agree with that, but I think it is a bit simplistic. The problem I have with certain types of pornography is precisely that they eroticise submission, violence, humiliation and degradation, therefore mixing sex with power. Trurning sex into a way of asserting themsleves violently over others and dehumanising them, that's where I think the connection between rape and pornography comes in.

Therefore the point that not just sex workers are subject to sexual violence is mute. If we as a society sexualise violence and submission is it much wonder that women get brutalised through sex?

I should say I have no problem with sexually explicit material which does not emply violence, humiliation and degradation

"For most of human existence, humans have been brutish, violent, and interested in harming other members of their race. Does that commend the continuance of harm?"

Well thats where you in the US have to ask yourself some hard
questions, for IMHO your society in general, comes
across as one that promotes violence. Look at the US gun culture,
violence portrayed as heroic in US tv and films etc, etc. Even
the US army and prez, wanting to dominate the planet.

Mixing US violent culture with porn might well be a problem, but
when it comes to porn, I had an interesting experience some years ago.
I visited Holland on a trip and went into one of their
sex shops and got talking to one of the staff. The place was packed,
but mainly by tourists from countries where porn is not available
or banned. For the Dutch, as for the Danish etc, its all just a
big yawn basically.

The US is the most most religious Western country, so perhaps
the problem is linked to that puritanical mindframe mixed with
the promotion of violence, as being the real problem. Look
how worked up the Americans got over Clinton's fling, in Europe
that would hardly have been an issue.

For those of us who see sex as something fairly normal and natural,
porn was fun when seen for the first time in our teens, after that
we moved on. But for those who get off on it, ok, no big deal,
as I always say, "whatever gets you through the night" :)

David Boaz,

You say "without divinely revealed truth, right and wrong are a matter of opinion, and usually simply become 'Legal and Illegal.'"

So which divinely revealed truth are 'we' all to follow.. yours?, the Pope's, the Mad Mullah's of Tehran?

No, the truth is that people in western countries have to act without divinely revealed truth, because all the divinely revealed truth that's out there is full of contradiction and disagreement.

The truth is that secular morality is more reliable and consistent than faith based morality. Why, because it is based on philosophy and debate. Not some magical directive from on high.

Do you really believe we should all throw out our mags, our dvds and stop browsing the internet merely because you, divinely inspired though you say you are, say so.

Isn't that a slippery slope toward everyone converting to whatever religios group shouts the loudest?

Kalweb - i'm sure everyone sympathises with what happened to you but please don't make such ridiculous statements:

"The bottom line is - if you have not been bashed ++++ and raped ++ as I was (by two men who dragged me off the street behind a church), I say that you do not have a clue. "

I have never had an abortion but enjoy having an opinion on the subject.

I also haven't (yet) considered euthanasia but have strong view concerning the subject.

So please remove yourself from the moral high ground you are currently occupying due to this elitist victim mentality and join in the discussion where all opinions are valid regardless of life experience.

i think its is a shame that rape is linked to pornography, and kalweb unless these people where caught and they had a stick book in their back pocket or you found during trial they where sexual perversive and influenced to rape by pornography, whilst i sympathise with your experience i think your link may not be founded.

Rape occurred long before pornography did. So how can we say this is a cause?

Mr Madden,

If you were actually to examine the false props to Mr McConvill's article (the D'Amato sheet and the single ABS statistic) you would see that they simply do not support his arguments for facilitating greater access to pornography in the public space.

One needn't be a feminist or a 'person of faith' to find Mr McConvill's argument without merit; writing as one who is neither, it's exceptionally poor and unsupported on its own terms.

It seems clear that private access to nondenigratory, nonviolent pornography, as a private custom, is no longer unacceptable, however damaging it might be to the people employed to produce it, who seem to have poor prospects, little education, low self-esteem and often addiction problems too. But as you responded in an earlier post, such employment is evidently useful to the individual as a short-term means to funding their addiction. I'd suggest that most people would think that that is a sad fact, although that didn't seem to shine through your earlier contribution.

But the point at issue seems to be the one you dismissed; that of new delivery systems. Mr McConvill's argument sought to go beyond the de facto private access moral that I mentioned above, by promoting pornography as a beneficial phenomenon and the idea that public space access to pornography might be a good thing, on the unsubstantiated premise that it might lessen frequency of rape.

I hope that you can see that Mr McConvill's assertion is itself a proposition about morals, and moreover, one that you haven't take the slightest issue with. If you think that it is a supportable proposition, why do you not support it? If you do not, why do you bother to denigrate other contributors to this forum?

amitarian

I did say "Your assertion that prostitution leads to heroin is just as misguided as saying porn reduces the incidence of rape."

I do not agree with the basic logic of the article.

"It seems clear that private access to nondenigratory, nonviolent pornography, as a private custom, is no longer unacceptable" says who?

"If you do not, why do you bother to denigrate other contributors to this forum? "

Cause I do not suffer fools lightly, I do not have long to live so I gave up being "nice" to people, I tell it how I see it - sometimes to provoke a response, sometimes because the poster is a dill.

Do I put you down as a fool or a dill?

Dear Kalin
your response to my post raises an important issue.

I think our guideline can be worked out irrespective of a faith position, but that guideline does depend on divine truth to be really valid.

"Love your neighbour as yourself" (L.Y.N.)

The first moral point is 'lust' as opposed to 'attraction'.
Attraction (with a view to marraige and maybe reproduction in the normal scheme of things) is quite legitimate. "Lust" on the other hand is that which objectifies and degrades a person into an object of self gratification. (Lust can be mutual, but still wrong)

If we apply the simple rule above (L.Y.N.) all will be well until some bright spark challenges it with "but this IS how I 'love' my neighbour.. I drool over his daughter, and I don't mind if he drools over mine" aah.. then we have a problem. Its what I was alluding to about moral 'opinion'.

10 people, maybe 10 opinions. Someone will try to re-define 'lust' as something without negative connotations.

I shudder to think what an already degraded person might suggest as being 'love for your neighbour'.

So this is where "L.Y.N" needs the first great commandment "Love the Lord your God" to have a framework where its meaning can be suitably derived.

Unfortunately, here we have another problem. Belief in and love for God, must always be a matter for the individual heart. So, our society tends to sway between 'degradation' and 'illumination' (spiritual revival/renewal).

I don't really have an answer on the social level. I can only point people to Christ, and trust that in Him, more and more of us, will seek to relate our lives to the Almighty and each other in such a way that we have no doubts about this issue.

"Attraction (with a view to marraige and maybe reproduction in the normal scheme of things) is quite legitimate. "Lust" on the other hand is that which objectifies and degrades a person into an object of self gratification."

Ahem David this where your defintions run into a problem. You can
love your wife, but without some lust for your wife, you will be
battling to have an erection, so she's your friend. Lust is
in fact also something quite normal, deal with it :)

Boaz,

You haven't answered the point about what we do with different interpretations of devine "truth".

Even if, and it is a huge if, we were to acecpt that the true religion is Christianity (and then what do we do with non-Christians?! force them to convert? force them to follow a religion that they do not believe in because "we" know it is the truth? and how? by force? sounds a bit self-defeating not to mention oppressive...)

But even if we say, ok, Christianity is the true religion, the question stands, Christianity according to whom?

I imagine you may be tempted to say Christianity according to Christ, but all Christians claim to follow Christ's teachings, but even within each Christian denomination theological debate is very lively, let alone between Christian denominations (religious wars in Europe?!)

So what is it going to be? Aren't we back with 10 people 10 opinions

Boaz - we have to be careful what we reap...

We also have to be careful what we reap when sexuality is repressed and people are made to feel guilty about having sexual feelings. It is possible that the incidence of rape may go down where ADULT pornography is freely available because people (including young adults) are being shown how to have healthy and consensual sex - without feeling bad about it. The more normal something becomes, the less threatening it tends to become.

Sexual repression leads to scenarios as seen in Pennsylvania this week.

Some of the comments about porn and the stereotypes involved are worth considering.

One older OLO article may be worth a visit for those who think they know all about porn based on their last visit to a service station.

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=334

R0bert

Dear Shmuck
you raise crucial questions which it gives me joy to respond to for the sake of all.

‘Which’ version of Christianity is the correct one ?

It is this one. Where 2 or 3 are gathered in the name of Jesus, He is there in the midst of them.
It is where you and I join in humble confession of our need for forgiveness and grace, and stand together singing praises to God such as

O Lord my God! when I in awesome wonder
Consider all the worlds Thy hands have made,
I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder,
Thy power throughout the universe displayed:

The true church of Christ was found yesterday morning, it happened to be at my own fellowship, but that was an accident of geography. We had a prayer meeting to which other local churches were invited.
There was the Church of Christ pastor, who shared about things in their area, and the Anglican who fondly related about the ‘blessing of the pets’ (not something I feel a great spiritual urgency for but thats ok) then, he ‘read’ some prayers from their prayer book, using beautiful sculpted words, which captured the essense of our heartfelt plea’s so well, and we all said “Amen”

It was when the Baptist deacon stood up and related about their fellowship and hopes.
So, there, was the true church of Christ, one body, many members, various diverse traditions held together in spiritual unity by the love of God in Christ.

Kevin and others ...LUST and PASSION. are different. Legitimate sexual desire is passionate and compelling, joyful and fulfilling. Sexual Passion in its right place, between (married) lovers is guiltless, ‘lust’ is the desire for sexual use of another, without love, except the love of selfish pleasure. Pornography feeds lust.
Yabby,erectile function is related to sexual desire and in marraige its not ‘lust’ but passion and love.

Roberts link is VERY interesting. Well worth a read.

Hello Mr Madden,

Indeed you did say "Your assertion that prostitution leads to heroin is just as misguided as saying porn reduces the incidence of rape." Fully conceded.

I'm glad you don't agree with the basic logic of the article.

In relation to your question concerning my statement that "It seems clear that private access to nondenigratory, nonviolent pornography, as a private custom, is no longer unacceptable": it's a number of legislatures around Australia that say it, by not banning it. Not banning it means accepting it (whether with or without reservations, whether under no, some or many conditions). The opposite is to ban it i.e. not to accept it, full stop.

In relation to your statement that you "do not suffer fools lightly, I do not have long to live so I gave up being "nice" to people, I tell it how I see it - sometimes to provoke a response, sometimes because the poster is a dill. Do I put you down as a fool or a dill?": I'm sympathetic if you do not have long to live and sorry that you've given up being "nice" to people; that seems to be an unhappy situation.

You seem to be articulate and reasonable. I guess what surprised me in the first place about your postings was the vehemence and scorn which they displayed. There are more kinds of posters in this world than just the 'fools' and 'dills' of that perspective.

Regards,
amitarian

From Catharine A. MacKinnon (In Harm's Way -- The Pornography Civil Rights Hearings, Harvard University Press, l997):

Women speak in public for the first time in history of the harms done to them through pornography in the hearings collected in this volume. Their first-person accounts stand against the pervasive sexual violation of women and children that is allowed to be done in private and is not allowed to be criticized in public. Their publication, which comes almost fifteen years after the first hearing was held, ends the exclusion from the public record of the information they contain on the way pornography works in social reality. Now ended is the censorship of these facts and voices from a debate on the social and cultural role of pornography that has gone on as if it could go on without them.

Until these hearings took place, pornography and its apologists largely set the terms of public discussion over pornography's role in social life. Public, available, effectively legal, pornography has stature: it is visible, credible, and legitimated. At the same time, its influence and damaging effects are denied as nonexistent, indeterminate, or merely academic, contrary to all the evidence. Its victims have had no stature at all....

From Susan Brownmiller (Susan Brownmiller.com):

...the feminist objection to pornography is based on our belief that pornography represents hatred of women, that pornography's intent is to humiliate, degrade and dehumanize the female body for the purpose of erotic stimulation and pleasure. We are unalterably opposed to the presentation of the female body being stripped, bound, raped, tortured, mutilated and murdered in the name of commercial entertainment and free speech.

These images, which are standard pornographic fare, hive (sic) nothing to do with the hallowed right of political dissent. They have everything to do with the creation of a cultural climate in which a rapist feels he is merely giving in to a normal urge and a woman is encouraged to believe that sexual masochism is healthy, liberated fun....

Hawaiilawyer,

"We are unalterably opposed to the presentation of the female body being stripped, bound, raped, tortured, mutilated and murdered in the name of commercial entertainment and free speech.

These images, which are standard pornographic fare,"

Is that the reality or an impression that some wish to convey? Did you read the link I posted to an earlier OLO article on this topic? http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=334

I support censorship of the kind of porn described in the comment you posted but don't share the view that they are standard pornographic fare.

I've heard of a number of studies on porn in Australia, and to the best of my knowledge one common theme has been the researchers surprise at how wrong such stereotypes are. When they look at the mainstream porn they find that women are more often than not the initiators of sexual encounters, that they come in a variety of shapes and sizes and that the individuals involved enjoy their work.

Such porn exists but I suspect that the claim that it is standard pornographic fare is at best misguided but more likely a deliberate lie.

R0bert

Here is the result of pornography in America :
A grown man goes into a schoolhouse and attacks a room full of girl children with a high powered gun. Five are dead today. Several others are in the hospital mortally wounded.
The doctors call it being in ‘critical condition’. They say the children who have been attacked by these adults are in ‘critical condition’. That’s the medical term.
What is the human term?
Charles Carl Roberts IV killed these girls — Naomi Rose Ebersole, 7; Marian Fisher, 13; Mary Liz Miller, 8; and her sister Lena Miller, 7, Anna Mae Stoltzfus, 12.
Another 6 year old girl was taken off life support so that she could be taken home to die.
Dr. D. Holmes Morton who was working with the 6 year old said, "I just think at this point mostly these families want to be left alone in their grief and we ought to respect that."
Here is a man who worked with the Amish for years and still doesn’t see what is right in front of him.
The Amish don’t want to be left alone. They want you to join them in a life of peace and harmony.
The world is a harsh place as it is but the modern world is filled with things that do not need to be that cause needless sorrow and waste a lot of time.
The handguns that killed these children wasted a lot of time and have caused much sorrow.
An Amish neighbor comforted the Roberts family hours after the shooting and extended forgiveness to them.
What courage before Christ have you shown today that could even come close to matching the compassion and love that was shown here?
What action will you take to make the world a better place? What will YOU do to make God’s world a place where girl children are safe?
It’s up to you.

Cranston36,

Those poor Amish girls died because some sick deranged man shot them.

Sick deranged men have murdered innocents since way back before pornography was more than an obscene cave painting. How do you explain those murders?

Perhaps these murders happened due to the sexual repression of a pornography free world? Why not.. it's as good a theory as yours.

Isn't about time politician's stopped such silly political games and do what they were elected to do - work?

Such anti-pornography laws do not work as was proven in Queensland during the era of Sir Joh Bjelke-Peterson. During his time in power, Queenslander's were the nations best consumers of mail order porn.

As far as I care, what people do in their own time, in their own homes is THEIR business. If pollies must control ourlives they are tell is of filth, they need to take a long kerosene bath.

From Sean Bruich, Texas prof condemns porn, Jan.26, 2006:

"The charge of pornography is the sexualization of male dominance and female subordination, and that's the appeal to men," Jensen claimed. He then detailed recent trends in pornography tending toward more hostile acts...it's designed to be that way..."

"Cruelty and degradation becomes largely invisible to those who watch it," he said. "[Porn] industry people don't recognize that it's the sexualization of domination and submission. In fact, most men who use it don't recognize it."

...Jensen also argued that for some men, repeated use of porn can blur the line between reality and fantasy.[END]

Where do the girls come from that appear in porn? They could be trafficked minors.An example of the methods traffickers use to ensure their "supply" (one has to ask for what -- prostitution and/or pornography?):

From Gordon Thomas, Captive Market: The sexual slave traffic in children (http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/thomas100806.htm)

"Girls who've shown signs of disobedience have had their feet cemented into washbasins before being dumped in the Aegean Sea. Others have been horrifically tortured...The victims do not officially exist and are powerless to resist...."

In 200l, the naked bodies of several girls were found in a river near Arizona Market. They bore the hallmarks of Russian mafia-style killings; hands had been tied behind their backs and their feet set in concrete. Their breasts had been slashed off.

Arizona Market is situated close to the Bosnian headquarters of the US peacekeeping force. During 2002, six Russian soldiers...gang-raped two girls in the Arizona Market. As they were "owned" by the club owner, the soldiers paid him a small sum in compensation. No other charges were brought against the rapists.

Those who survive such inhumane treatment are often sold on the international slave market....

The global traffic in children for commercial sexual exploitation involves torture and their premeditated rape and mutilation....

This terrible human abuse, the prerogative of no one race or colour, continues to occur under all religions, and where there is no religion. The sexual traffic in children is the product of greed and lust....

Boaz

"Pornography feeds lust.
Yabby,erectile function is related to sexual desire and in marraige its not ‘lust’ but passion and love."

personally I can't make such generalisaitions - there have been many cases of husbands raping wives and, as you can see form Robert's link above, many people involved in pornography in a fulfilling way - it is down to the individual, and how confident, mature and sure of themselves they are.

I generally thought most people watched pronography "to relieve" rather than feed their lust - which is why I can understand that it is now being observed that in places where it is freely available, the levels of sexual violence decrease.

Generalisations on such issues never work - the quality and tone of the material watched are also important as well as the nature of each individual involved.

To believe the overtly, "Old Testament Christians" on this thread, any man in Australia who had ever watched a porno is ergo a rapist - just as it seems, research being carried out is beginning to suggest the opposite.

Consent! Consent! Consent! Consent! Consent! Consent!

This seems to be at the real heart of this discussion; funny how things seem to get better between people when the word consent is involved?

Kev.... Thanks.

"it is down to the individual"

I have another term for that "Make_it_up_as_you_go" morality.

I've mentioned it like a thousand times here so I'm sure you know it.

In a way, that's how it is in relation to Christ, which is the answer also to Shmuckies question "What then do we do with the unconverted...those who don't agree with or want to follow Christ...do we force them" ?

Its the same answer. "Its up to you" There is no room for 'forced' conversions in Christ. Such a 'conversion' would not be genuine and thus pointless except for political purposes.

Consent in regard to Porn actors is meaningless, because thieves consent to rob places. The foundation is 'what is moral and immoral' ? It matters not that the participants enjoy what they do, get paid good money or whatever.

The alleged link between a reduction in sexual crime and the consumption of pornography has already been well debunked in various posts.
Is it not obvious that looking at images will, like a 'hit' of a drug, only last so long ? Isn't it obvious that familiarity breeds contempt, and consumers of Porn will always be looking for that more 'edgy' stuff ? which shows more, for longer..etc etc...or the real thing ?

To me, blind Nellie can see it.

Ask this. Is the Porn industry seeking to 'loosen' or 'tighten' the ratings of xx and xxx videos ? If they seek to 'loosen' -why ?
Why is there pressure to lower ages of consent ? Why ? What implications would that have for the Porn industry ?

The tragedy is, that it builds bad brain chemistry. It makes neuronic connections between areas which should not be connected. (yes, I just got my Neuroscience degree :) (not)
It reduces our abiilty to love purely. It detracts from the richness of what it is to be human. It destroys Gods image in us.

Lets contemplate great romances rather than porn. Try the story of Jacob's love for Rachel and BOAZ' love for Ruth or Joseph's love for Mary as starters.

Thanks Boaz - but as usual - the religious believe they have all the answers - they KNOW so they TELL, dismissing anything that other humans may discover - especially if those discoveries do not confirm or conform to the world veiw of the religious.

The religious will say anything to get their way - including lying about information directly underneath their noses. In the case of Old Testament Christian leaders like Bush and Blair for example, this could mean lying about WMDs etc...

Still, as we already know, all that eye for an eye in the Old Testament means such people are now blind, being lead by and leading other blind people.

Hi wavingcat,

After reading the statistical paper that is the basis of D'Amato's and therefore McConvill's assertions, I can tell you that there is not very much truth in them, to say the very least. The relevant paper is here: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/cv73_95.pdf

It says the following, specifically of the rape statistic:

"This finding should be regarded with extreme caution."

It continues:

"Before the redesign in 1992 the survey did not ask respondents whether they had been victims of sexual assault other than rape or attempted rape. Some victims of these crimes may have reported such victimizations in response to questions about rape or other forms of violence. It is not possible to determine to what extent crimes now categorized as sexual assaults were included in the data as rape or attempted rape in earlier years. To the extent that this occurred, estimates of rape prior to the redesign would not be comparable to those since the redesign."

That is, the correlation alleged by D'Amato is a statistical artifact due to the overhaul of the survey instrument in 1992, which coincided with the earliest dawning of the public internet access era; and its own promulgators stated that the basis of this artifact should be treated with extreme caution.

Given the extent to which McConvill's piece has lured forum contributors to get stuck into each other, he must be well pleased: it's produced the sort of engagement that online trolls normally generate, which might well have been his actual intention (see http://catallaxyfiles.com/?p=1238).

In future I'd suggest that McConvill's contributions be lumped where they belong: as less readable rejects from the Andrew Bolt/Piers Akerman school of intended controversy, with a loopy sexual bent added for extra zing. Sadly, I think McConvill would be chuffed to be seen that way (as do Bolt and Akerman, sans sex); attention is oxygen for these guys.

From "Prostitution: what is it really like..." (www.communitycare.co.uk) Sept.27, 2006 post

...Most punters [customers of prostitutes] don't care about you. As a prostitute you don't exist, you are just a shell. You're not a person, you're an object, a sex object.

Men like the power they have over prostitutes. That's why the girls get raped. They drive you out to the middle of nowhere and rape you, just because they can. I was held for over six hours once.

Nothing is done when women are raped, especially working girls...Three of my best friends have been killed while working as prostitutes. [END]

Any social science surveys done of the rate of rapes of prostitutes (who don't count, and presumably, aren't counted)?

If someone doesn't count, then their injuries don't count, and the latter aren't registered in "reality" as "true" injuries. How convenient. No one cares about the injuries to a prostitute. So, then, how does one count the rate of rapes?

Plato (non-Christian) counted males as of the Mind, and females of the Body. The mind was the way to heaven, the body, to an endless circle of reincarnation (those more fully of the flesh being, as a category, unspiritual) [from "Timaeus"]. Part of Plato's legacy to modern man is this presumably "non-religious," "neutral," or "secular" distinction between males and females, minds and bodies, spirit and flesh which continues to this day.

Prostitutes are condemned at the outset because they are categorized (because we are all to some degree in thrall or enslaved to Plato's distinction) as "flesh," and therefore they don't count. Their injuries don't count. Therefore,I presume that D'Amato doesn't count raped prostitutes. Prostitutes, as naturally unspiritual, can't be raped, and if they are, it is not to be prosecuted, again -- because they don't count. D'Amato, I presume, does not count them.

Should we give Plato/D'Amato the unilateral right to decide whose injuries are to be counted, and whose not? Now that is true mind control.

Boaz tells us:

>>[Pornography] reduces our abiilty to love purely. It detracts from the richness of what it is to be human. It destroys Gods image in us.

Lets contemplate great romances rather than porn. Try the story of Jacob's love for Rachel and BOAZ' love for Ruth or Joseph's love for Mary as starters.<<

Boaz, you fail to mention David's love for Jonathan. Any particular reason?

I don't believe anyone's opinion of pornography will be altered by the submissions here. Perhaps both sides have agendas they would rather we didn't know about.

My own view (and, as the old saying goes, I don't even own a pornograph) is that pornography comes in many shapes and sizes. And while the anti-pornographers use the most horrific examples to support their case, the pro-pornography folks consider only the mildest and least degrading bits in establishing their position.

This leads to a situation where neither side actually hears the other.

The antis case is like suggesting, having seen Formula One cars belting round a track at 300kph, driving cars should be banned.

This can be “proven” by reference to the Boaz effect:

>>Of course, when the industry has gone as far as the law allows, it will seek to either go underground or change the law so it can:
-Show more
-Show for longer
-Show other combinations (human/animal action, defacating, Urinating etc, Multiple penetrations)<<

So, once you have driven at 60kph, you are going to want to drive at 70... then 80... heavens, where will it end? In Boaz logic, pottering off to the shops in the Honda Civic is just the beginning of a horrible slippery slope.

But of course, if we were actually to be faced with a bunch of Schumachers driving Ferraris every time we crossed the road - hey, who can argue that it is not dangerous?

Opinions are useful when they can be heard. In this particular case, I don't believe that the opinionators are listening even to their own arguments.

Amitarian... you have a point there about McConville.

As I've often heard said "Any" publicity is good publicity.
Still, I forgot McConvilles connection with the topic quite early, and see it as an opportunity to explore a serious aspect of social life with other posters.

Pericles...

Some holes in your logic there. People don't normally drive cars for a 'rush' they just want to get from A to B. Granted, there is a period in most young mens lives when to go faster and to get to that speed more quickly is a rush,.. been there, done that and its just like my description of Porn. You have a standard car, want it to go faster, so, shave the head, port and polish, but you still want more so... extractors, fuel injection, ..close but not quite there.. so...Turbo charger.... then you find your out of money and are 32 and single. So.. u wake up and shape up.. or become an alcholic.
Ok.. a bit graphic but relevant to a degree.

David and Johnathan ? good grief, you have been reading too many gay articles. Why does it surprise you that a man can love a man very deeply, in a non sexual way ? I'd be pretty appreciative of the care of a Johnathon if his father was trying to kill me too.

My reasoning about Porn, is treating it as an addiction. The Purveyors of Porn have a financial interest in maintaining the 'rush' factor. Like any addiction or shallow life experience, the novelty wears off. I don't know why you question this widely accepted fact of psychology ?

KEVIN.. didn't mean to sound like a know_it_all .. I think my arguments are sustainable quite apart from reference to religion.
You know me by now, I will always point to Christ as He who gives our lives their true meaning and restores our full humanity.
Jesus words "If any man looks at a woman with lust.. he has committed adultery" do not mean we are to lack sexual desire, but that it should be rightly directed.

Pericles, good points but I'm seeing the debate a bit differently. I've not noticed support for the extreme versions portraying rape or other non consentual sexual activities. What we do have is some people seeking to ban the whole thing because of the extreme version. I'm seeing much of the other commentary as attempts to rebutt the dishonesty of that portrayal rather than a denial of the existance of that material.

Your rebuttal of BD's points are valid, and as BD points out people often grow out of youthfull obsessions as they age. Others don't but maybe learn more about consequences and moderate behaviours. If David does not like the story you mentioned he could look to the biblical love story of Amnon and Tamar or that of David and Bathsheba.

R0bert

On Perth TV News this evening there was an account of a professional survey of Australians' attitude to, and the nationwide availability of X rated videos/DVDs. This survey was recently commissioned by the so-called adult industry, but this should not, in itself, bring the findings into doubt.

Not offended by X rated videos/DVDs 70%

Think they should be legally available all over Australia 76%

A spokesperson for the relatively tiny religious extremist lobby group Australian Family Association said that such material is offensive to women and that the survey must have questioned a disproportionate number of men to get such a result.

When you think about it, many surveys over many years have repeatedly shown that a similar proportion of Australians would like to see voluntary euthanasia legalised. Well, successive Australian governments have ignored the wishes of most Australians in this respect and instead have followed the demands of the minority religious extremists. So, in this dishonest parody of a so-called democracy, what can we expect will be the likely outcome of the current X rated material survey?

Democracy has nothing to do with going with the majority opinion. It has to do with moderating majority force in order to protect the existence of minoritys/minority opinion -- to provide public space for the existence of more than a monochromatic population.

The result of a true democratic republic is peaceful coexistence which requires the rule of law. The latter is designed to minimize violence between groups, so that all groups can live lives of fulfillment. A majority vote in a gang or criminal enterprise is not evidence of a democracy as the outcome of the vote is likely violence/destruction of non-gang/enterprise members.

That pornography does violence to those depicted is a reality. That a majority of Australians are for pornography does not change the harm. It just says that a majority of Australians don't mind the harm committed.

The scope, nature and persistence of the harm should be investigated by bona fide social scientists, not by people like D'Amato. Such an investigation of the facts, before any conclusions are reached, would be more akin to a true scientific investigation based on reality.

If it is then found to be scientifically true that pornography requires extensive violence to the depicted, then the extreme position would be the one that insists that the damage continue.

From Kevin Doyle, "Cambodia's Child Sex Crackdown" Oct.5, 2006:

...At Henning's apartment, tucked away in a leafy neighborhood favored by foreign aid workers...Keo Thea sifted through the country's largest ever haul of hardcore child pornography. Amongst the bondage gear, handcuffs, whips... [deputy police chief] Keo Thea's unit found soft cuddly children's toys. There was also video and photographic cameras, and l8 videotapes, each one hour long, depicting the S&M-style rape and torture of young local children by the tall, gaunt 62-year old and another German, Thomas Englehardt,42....

"I am sending a message to pedophiles to not come here. I promise you,
you will be arrested and sent to jail in Cambodia or you will be extradited and jailed in your own country," he [Keo Thea] said.

Hawaiilawyer, why do you continue to portray what is probably an extreme fringe of pornography as though it were the whole? Are you incapable of recognising that almost everything comes in differing shades?

Child pornograpy is evil because it cannot involve informed consent by the child. That does not make all pornography child porn nor does it make all porn violent nor does it mean that all porn depicts women as victims nor does it mean that all porn does violence to those portrayed in it. Simple concept, why do you have so much trouble with it?

You continue to clutter up what could be a useful discussion with your dishonest representation of the issue. Who do you think you are going to help by so conspicuously misrepresenting what anyone with the willingness to check can disprove.

You are much more likely to influence opinions if you deal with the issue honestly and focus your wrath on the particular section of porn that does harm those portrayed. Child porn is something which we should be working to stop, any recreation involving violence which has not been consented to by participants should be stopped. It seems as though you do have detailed knowledge of the harm done by a section of the porn industry, stuff that most of us can learn from you about if you'll just try and be a bit more balanced in your posts.

There is some common ground there which most of us can probably agree on but it is hard to get there while you continue to insist on a massive misrepresentation of what is happening.

R0bert

If Hawaiilawyer really is a US citizen, then he/she speaks from the point of view of a country in which:

A brief glimpse on TV of part of Janet Jackson's breast, with the nipple covered, resulted in a massive fine for the TV station involved. [As if it was their fault it happened, and as it was such a big deal anyway.] And as a result of this, many other scheduled US TV shows, including some medical documentaries, had to be cut. Incidentally, this incident was shown on the 6pm TV news in Perth [without any publicised complaints] and any normal person would have to wonder what all the fuss was about.

There was criticism of the Athens Olympic opening ceremony on the grounds of alleged semi-nudity, which caused outrage in Greece that the narrow-minded US authorities couldn't just mind their own business.

A very highly regarded school arts teacher in Texas has just recently been sacked. She took her class to the Dallas Museum of Art on a school approved trip. 89 students went, each with explicit parental approval. The parent of just one student complained about that student seeing some classical nude statues and the teacher lost her job. This is just one of the many incidents in the US concerning stupidity about nudity in art.

The feminists are ridiculous when they claim that pornography always demeans women and that men are the sole consumers.

Both men and women take delight in erotica, although women prefer more story line so they can personalise it through their imagination. However at girls' nights at the local footy club the women are just as raunchy as men at a strip show and probably more insistent in propositioning the performers.

Men, gays and lesbians like their erotics more visual and more cut and dried so to speak. If anyone doubts that they can look at lesbian sites on the Net or mags in the sex shop.

I don't think anyone here is in favour of the way out and usually illegal stuff such as child pornography that is available on the Web.

Hawaii Lawyer should be aware that feminists tell a few wobblies* too (*that is Oz parlance for stretching the truth).

But what is the difference between erotica and pornography? Well a woman one said that any difference was only in the lighting.

I’d be content if I just make the point that prostitution isn’t hell in America and heaven in Australia. However regarding your questions:

““Not "claimed" to have been a lawyer, mjpb, this is true. What's wrong with you?”

I think it is a combination of reading those incredible flowery stories in the newspaper where supposedly the prostitutes are University students, reading some posts of people who think Australia is a prostitute Utopia, and not reading that particular post properly. In consequence I associated the fictitious prostitutes with the bar maid and was skeptical.

”And how can someone half know someone? You may not know them very well, but you either know them or not. And if you don't know them well, then you may not understand their motivation for doing anything.”

It is my way of saying I didn’t know them well and I may not that is correct. On the other hand I may.

To save you the trouble I’ll point out that I haven’t encountered all prostitutes in response to your number question. To answer your final question those I have encountered I have encountered through my work not theirs. I hope the latter point isn’t too disappointing.

More examples of the Australian ‘sex workers’ to show it isn’t a Utopia.

http://www.onlinecatholics.com.au/issue118/commessay4.php

Robert,

You accuse HL of "continuing to insist ...". Skimming through the relevant comment I noticed from HL was that social scientists should make the determination. Are you saying that in response to a comment that he made since your original comment?

mjpb, whilst HL might have made the comment the rest of HL's posts suggest that HL has already made the determination.

I admit to having trouble working out the boundaries between HL's own comments and quotes so I might have the context wrong but HL says in the same post

"That pornography does violence to those depicted is a reality. That a majority of Australians are for pornography does not change the harm. It just says that a majority of Australians don't mind the harm committed."

No consideration for the possibility that the majority of Australians don't support pornography which does genuine harm to those portrayed. Rather what appears the view that because HL or someone that HL agrees with with thinks that pornograpy does harm then Australians don't care about the harm.

perhaps HL's comment would have been better put

"That some pornography does violence to those depicted is a reality. That a majority of Australians are for pornography does not indicate that they support that harm. It just says that a majority of Australians don't accept that erotica and non violent pornography does actual harm to those depicted."

Almost any field of human interest can be shown to do harm in it's extremes, that does not mean that those who participate in or support the right of others to participate in the non-extreme incarnations of those interests are indifferent to the harm done by the extreme forms. Nor does it mean that all cases should be judged by the extremes.

R0bert

Frankly, I'm more interested in real facts. The nature, scope, etc. of harm caused by the creation and dissemination of pornography. What are the facts? Name the names of those who have been harmed, those who have not, the injuries, the lack of injuries, trace the harm to those who have been exposed to pornography injudiciously, etc.

Why speak of no harm, or the center and margins of pornography, if no systematic facts have been found, no harm or lack thereof thoroughly investigated?

If I were a consumer of a product, I would like to know if the process of producing that product harms anyone, or the selling of it does so, or the unsolicited exposure of it does. Why? Frankly, it's because I care about other people, and want to know how my actions, such as the purchase of a product, might cause them harm.

That's my personal point of view.

Thanks to all of you for allowing me to participate in your discussion

I'm interested in facts too. I'll give you an example. Tobacco harms those who smoke it and those who get the so-called passive smoke. My father died of lung cancer in 1950 when I was 16. His doctors told him even that long ago that it was almost certainly due to his heavy cigarette smoking.

I will not buy Kraft food products, because of the link between Kraft and Phillip Morris Tobacco. Not because of what tobacco did to my father, but because of what it continues to do to people who, for the most part, are deliberately hooked as children or teenagers. This is not conjecture, we know it to be true.

It is my belief that the kind of so-called porn which most of us in Australia can live with [whether we are personally interested in it or not] has not been proven to harm anyone. Child porn, bestiality and extreme sexual violence is [as far as I am aware] banned here anyway and I would think that most of us are pleased about that.

It is my belief that what we legally have in Australia will not harm a normal person [which I believe covers most of us]. We can't ban everything which could possibly have a negative effect on society's misfits, otherwise we would ban alcohol, gambling and motor vehicles. And dress our women in burkas. And the US would most certainly need to ban guns completely.

It is my belief that non-sexual nudity cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, be classed as porn. In this respect, do you have any comments on my post on Saturday? I posted these three assorted examples to illustrate the difference between what gets some US authorities hot under the collar and what most of us in Australia can handle with nonchalance.

Sorry to hear about your father.

With timely scientific investigations into the harms of smoking, fewer people would have died.

Scientific studies on the effects of pornography should include the effects of viewing porn on attitudes of the viewer towards females. Studies should test whether or not pornography makes objects of females, affecting definitions of what they "are," and therefore the relationships they are "entitled to."

Extensive studies should be funded before conclusions are drawn about the harmlessness or harmfulness of pornography.

From: Bob Herbert, "Why Aren't We Shocked?", Oct.l6:

"Who needs a brain when you have these?" -- message on an Abercrombie & Fitch T-shirt for young women

In the recent shootings at an Amish schoolhouse in rural Pennsylvania and a large public high school in Colorado, the killers went out of their way to separate the girls from the boys, and then deliberately attacked only the girls.

Ten girls were shot and five killed at the Amish school. One girl was killed and a number of others were molested in the Colorado attack.

In the widespread coverage that followed these crimes, very little was made of the fact that only girls were targeted. Imagine if a gunman had gone into a school, separated the kids up on the basis or race or religion, and then shot only the black kids. Or only the white kids. Or only the Jews....

...violence against females is more or less to be expected....

The disrespectful, degrading, contemptuous treatment of women is so pervasive and so mainstream that it has just about lost its ability to shock. Guys at sporting events and other public venues have shown no qualms about raising an insistent chant to nearby women to show their breasts....

In a misogynistic culture, it's never too early to drill into the minds of girls that what reallly matters is their appearance and their ability to please men sexually.

A girl or woman is sexually assaulted every couple of minutes in the U.S. The number of seriously battered wives and girlfriends is far beyond the ability of any agency to count....

Thanks, Hawaiilawyer, for your response.

In regard to smoking, British doctors were warning of the danger to health back in 1948. They were basing their warnings on carefully considered evidence. But people, and governments, didn't want to listen, and in many instances they're still not listening.

But, at the same time, people were being criticised for short skirts, low necklines, tight jeans, skimpy bathing costumes and even silly slogans on teeshirts. None of these things can be shown to be detrimental, but to some people they are "offensive", so it's legitimate to moralise about them and try to have them regulated by law.

I have no objection to scientific studies on the possible effect on the population of anything at all. But the studies need to be totally unbiased. And any alleged effects need to be based on their alleged bearing on average people, not just on the ultra-conservative, or ultra-religious, or psychological misfits.

I suspect that the ultra-religious will never accept anything at all which does not fit in neatly with their preconceived ideas, regardless of how extensive and unbiased the research may be. Because, after all, God is on their side and they absolutely KNOW what God thinks about everything. Just consider how the fundamentalists, many of them intelligent, well educated and successful, manage to stick to the idea of creation happening only a few thousand years ago.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/2.asp

And the fact remains that Australian authorities and Australians in general don't seem to be quite so hung up on nudity as many Americans. The resident religious moralists on OLO aren't typical of Australia, much as they would like to think otherwise.

Your various examples of ill-treatment towards females are regrettable, but can't simply be linked to your definition of porn without adequate evidence.

"A girl or woman is sexually assaulted every couple of minutes in the U.S. The number of seriously battered wives and girlfriends is far beyond the ability of any agency to count...."

HL, I think you are trying to attribute all these things to porn,
which is nonsense. Yours is a violent culture per se and its
encouraged. Perhaps Americans need to focus more on the rights
of other people, rather then on promoting more guns, more violence
etc.

If you want to understand sex, go back to nature, where we evolved.
Pairbonding happens in many species, where lots of resources are
required to raise the offspring. Females evolved to fuss over the
offspring, males evolved to provide resources for the offspring,
but they also evolved to get horny, so for eons these partnerships
of mutual benefit evolved. Males got their bit of nooky, but brought
home the food etc, females got the food for the family.

Claim what you like, but you ignore nature at your peril. We are
products of our genes, as well as our environment.

Yes, I would agree scientific studies need to be totally unbiased. If they are biased, they are unscientific by definition.

Yankee Lawyer

You are talking about Epidemiologic studies that are generally categorized as descriptive, analytic (aiming to examine associations, commonly hypothesized causal relationships), and experimental (a term often equated with clinical or community trials of treatments and other interventions).

Confounding factors must be taken into account, so bias is irrelevant, it is a question of indentifying confounding factors. An Epidemiologic study can be unbiased but still incorrect while still being scientific.

Any scientific study is designed to reflect reality/the facts. If it doesn't it is biased in that it doesn't reflect reality -- what is actually going on out there in the real world.

Who was more accurate? The alchemists or the astronomers? The latter because of the scientific method.

OK for your pea brain HL.

You do a study of smokers vs non-smokers and discover that smokers have a higher rate of lung cancer. Makes sense pretty scientific.

Then you do a study of non-smokers from hawaii vs non-smokers from sydney and find that the hawaians have a higher rate of lung cancer than those in sydney. WHY? This is a confounding factor, still a scientific study with an unknown factor.

Then you do a study of smokers vs smokers who also smoke marijuana and find that the marijuana smokers have a much lower rate of lung cancer.

Then you compare the marijuana smokers vs non smokers who work in the hospitality industry and find that the non smokers have a higher rate of lung cancer than marijuana smokers.

All of the above are true,(check the SEER database) all scientific studies, all factually correct.

Just shows that you cannot rely on Epidemiologic studies unless you know ALL of the confounding factors. IE Rape is related to pornography, not proveable by any scientific method.

Get back to your sick society full of bigotry and hate, kids being shot in amish schools in a tradgedy maybe guns had something to do with it.

Another scientific fact, America spends 50% more on cancer treatments than Canada but the cure rate is much higher in Canada. Maybe you should look at this rather than worrying about how people get their rocks off. :)

"A girl or woman is sexually assaulted every couple of minutes in the U.S. The number of seriously battered wives and girlfriends is far beyond the ability of any agency to count...."

HL, perhapas the problem is your single focus on women. Last time
I was in the US, I asked the taxi driver how dangerous his job was.
He told me 6 of his buddies had been shot that year already,
that was in New Orleans. Plenty of men suffer from violence too.

If you want to get serious, look at the many countries where porn
is legal, but which don't have nearly as much violence as the
US has. From that its not hard to deduce that perhaps its not
porn that is the problem, but other violent trends in your
culture, which are accepted as normal in the US.

IIRC, something like 100'000 a year are shot. How many of those
are men?

Have you read T.S. Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions?
What you seem to be talking about are individual theories tested scientifically. The fact that humans can't do more than test one hypothesis at a time only means that scientific knowledge proceeds slowly, and that each hypothesis is necessarily limited in scope, because the human mind is not omniscient.

I had the impression that what the original issue that you were responding to was the issue of bias due to hypotheses skewered by bias at the outset of testing, that presume conclusions before actual testing.


Many of the statements of so-called fact that you make about the world are themselves untested hypotheses, or tested against a limited supply of facts. Or are you omniscient? In any case, I am personally not interested in responding to your comments, which have little to do with any accurate survey of whether or not there are victims of pornography in the real world. Or have you interviewed every individual who might have been a victim?

What of the limits of human knowledge, the limits of existing knowledge on any subject, the limits of funding for scientific studies, for social science studies? It seems to me that you have reached conclusions about some issues without considering all possible facts, while asserting indirectly through name calling that you have considered all possible facts.

You might be interested in googleizing social scientific studies on the subject worldwide, or perhaps not.

And isn't this forum supposed to be about a SEARCH for knowledge, assuming we don't have enough, about issues of importance? If so, I would expect fewer conclusions and more fact-finding.

In my view, your display of rage does little to further scientific study.

I must admit it is 25 years since I read Kuhn's drivel, the man uses 21 different meanings for paridigm is what I do remember.

Kuhn's view of scientific progress would leave us with a mystery: Why does anyone bother? If one scientific theory is only better than another in its ability to solve the problems that happen to be on our minds today, then why not save ourselves a lot of trouble by putting these problems out of our minds?

I do note that his philosophy (not science) is being resurrected to back "creation" and "intelligent design" and I assume this is why you know about it.

OLO is a forum for opinions if you had not realised :)

"I am personally not interested in responding to your comments, which have little to do with any accurate survey of whether or not there are victims of pornography in the real world.

I am personally interested as to why your focus is so narrow,
when it comes to violence. What is your real agenda?

What we can show is that porn exists in many countries of
the world, many who don't have anywhere near the sort of
violence statistics that the US has. If violence is your
real concern, perhaps then you should address the bigger
picture and examine that. Is it that perhaps you have
some kind of religious agenda against porn perhaps?

Madden

Is that a meaningful response, an attempt to exchange ideas with a view to solving problems? T.S.Kuhn is drivel?

And I don't believe in what you call "creationism."

I'll let you direct your hatred elsewhere by withdrawing from this so-called debate.

Yabby

What do you know? How many victims of pornography have you interviewed systematically? How many scientific studies have you read?

Can't stand the heat. Get out of the kitchen.

Sorry I should have a sign saying "does not play well with others".

I live in a country where "vigorous debate" is cherished, if you wish to withdraw that is your prerogative.

Just because you assert something does not mean I agree, maybe you should look at the 37 million people in your country with no health insurance.

I suggest that you cannot answer the allegations of your societies violence towards ALL of its citizens.

Goodbye, good riddance.

"What do you know? How many victims of pornography have you interviewed systematically?"

What I know HL, is that I've lived in both Europe and Australia
for long periods of time and I'd hardly know a guy who at some time
did not watch a porn movie or see some magazine. I don't know a
single one who became violent because of it. What seems to matter
is their overall view of violence, the rights of others etc.

Thats the real thing that blew me away, when visiting the US, in
comparison to Europe or Australia. The lack of compassion,
the acceptance of violence as just part of life, the promotion
of the gun culture, ignoring the rights of others etc. Its a
real surival of the fittest mentality that is promoted, to hell
with anyone else. The net result is thats what people do. You
it seems are trying to blame all that violence on just porn,
excluding all these other factors. So think about it for a minute.
Why do so many men and even women, see the odd bit of porn and
not become violent? Perhaps you need to broaden your focus
when it comes to violence

HL,

Just in case you should keep reading...

As an Australian I again want to ensure that you don't get the wrong impression.

I can say that vigorous debate is fine but comments like "OK for your pea brain HL" are not considered fine. We have an expression "playing the man instead of the ball" to express the dissatisfaction with that approach.

mjpb.

Have you listened to federal parliament lately? Pea brain was an apt description for someone who wants to "take their bat and ball and go home".

Mr Costello labelled Mr Beazley "the Skipper" in parliament yesterday.

He later elaborated, saying Mr Swan was Gilligan, Mr Rudd was the Professor, shadow attorney-general Nicola Roxon was Mary Ann, Simon Crean was millionaire Thurston J Howell III and education spokeswoman Jenny Macklin could play his wife.

Ginger Grant, the marooned movie star, would be the perfect role for Labor health spokeswoman Julia Gillard, he said.

I am only following our estimeed political leaders.

I find that using the book of an obscure philosophy professor (who's work has been criticised by many) to muddy the waters about scientific research means HL got EXACTLY what he deserved. :)

Steve Maddon, Yabby thanks for your efforts in rebutting the claims of HL.

On the one hand HL calls for real data and scientific studies and yet continues to post quotes which indicate a belief that the issue is clearly decided and proven.

No serious attempts by HL to address the issues others have raised, rather a continual pushing of a particular beief system and a distorted view of the harm done to those view (the some porn is based on sex slaves therefore all porn involves sex slaves approach).

Thanks to you both for your contributions.

R0bert

Robert

I'm asking debaters to state the facts/data/scientific studies on which they base their conclusions. They haven't replied, which I take as a "no data" for their conclusions.

If there is data, why not state the studies read, the interviews done?
How can conclusions be drawn if not on the facts? What is the scope of facts relied on? Which continent? Which time period?

Why speak in terms of universals i.e. as if one speaks for all time, under all conditions, if this is not so?

And it is irrelevant what my biases or anyone's biases are. I'm referring to the facts out there in the real world.

This is an area which is difficult to discuss as it relates to perceptions of 'obscene' etc..

I suggest that there are ways of determining the acceptability of something based on sound principles of living, which in turn are based on the basic "Do for others". As you would predict also (knowing me) the will and ability to effectively 'do for others' is only possible by being rightly related to God through Christ.

On the general community standards, I think that if we lower the 'bar' of normality in the public arena, then private arena will then seek more sensational ways to be obscene...and have impact.

TODAYS PAPER.
HORRIFIC film showing at least 10 thugs setting a semi-naked girl's hair on fire is being sold for $5 at schools.

Members of the Werribee gang are shown urinating on the girl, who is believed to be mentally impaired, setting bombs off in streets, dropping flares on a homeless man and throwing eggs at taxi drivers.
Police are investigating footage that shows the teenage girl performing lurid acts on the boys before they throw her clothes in the mud.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,20634024-661,00.html

happy wallowing.

Well in today's SMH there is an article claiming that over 80%
of rapes in the UK are associated with alcohol.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/link-between-rape-and-alcohol-may-change-uk-laws/2006/10/23/1161455665504.html

David I know that religion works for you, but you happen to live
in one of the most secular societies on the planet. People in
general, don't believe the "Jesus loves you" story anymore,
so we have to look at options.

One of the problems we have is that the churches don't want to let
go of their so called claim on morality. So little else is taught
in schools, sadly. If time in school was spent teaching kids some
basic concepts of philosophy, ethics, morality, emotional intelligence, conflict resolution, behaviour towards others, their
rights etc, we could well make progress! We can achieve
an understanding of values, without scaring kids about burning
forever, which most of them simply don't believe anymore.

There is a book published called "Waging peace in our schools",
where a similar concept was tried in a few schools, with pretty
good results.

"Have you listened to federal parliament lately? Pea brain was an apt description for someone who wants to "take their bat and ball and go home"."

Steve,

He only threatened to withdraw after you made comments like that. Look back at the posts.

I hope you don't consider Federal parliament suitable role modeling. Parliamentary privilege seems to be virtually abused in there.

Madden, Yabby et al: Why get sucked into porn apologetics, theist bashing and Yank baiting? HawaiiLawyer's contribution have been mostly well intended, well informed and have addressed the point.

(Actually, in your case Madden, it is obvious why: you're just one hell of an angry little man).

HawaiiLawyer does plainly dislike the callous use and discarding of men and women in pornography to provide an endless "congaline of suckholes" (to appropriate Latham's colourful phrase) for the self-serving pleasure of others (the real statistics do show overwhelmingly men). He doesn't deny that. But he has also referred to numerous studies regarding the matter which his opponents have studiously ignored and not debated, in favour of 'playing the man, not the ball'.

As HawaiiLawyer amply argued, many people who enter that business have few if any other marketable skills and significant unhappiness in their past and present lives. They are then used by very commercially astute pornographers to turn bucks from the (as you point out) sizeable proportion of men who like watching these male and female prostitutes screwing and being screwed in what ever way the producers who call the tune have decided, based on market tastes and trends, that they should go about it.

Aint nothing wrong with masturbation fellas, but please don't confuse your distaste for the anti-porn crusaders with a justification of that industry on its own merits. It is a profoundly cynical industry which uses the most vulnerable people in the community, to provide a product with questionable social consequences for its personnel and consumers, for the great self-enrichment of its producers.

That is callousness and selfishness - all perfectly legal in a market economy - but the point of that tool McConvill's article was (apart from publicity for himself) to argue that hardcore porn is a boon to society. It aint: it's something we tolerate purely because cracking down on it could have negative consequences for real free speech (i.e. of the political kind) that we are sensibly more scared of. Period.

It's true, pornography is useful. The article calls for people,& legislators, to have a forum in which the facts are presented in a balanced way to find outcomes that are a benefit to the whole community. But unfortunately we don't live in a true democracy so people with a little power can hold sway over the masses with very little chance of "the people" over turning the decisions (in a peaceful way) that are unpalatable or obviously wrong. While we have politicians & government members waving the religious flags the facts and common sense will not get a look in. The saying "If you don't want to see it, then don't click on it" should apply.

amitarian

Once again I suggest you learn to read. I have not been an apologist for the porn industry.

There are no "real statistics" on porn, they are not able to be collected reliably and anyone who says they have valid stats are just best guessing.

HL made me angry relating the murder of Amish children to pornography.

You have at least answered my previous question, you really are a dill :)

Amitarian, I am not apologising for anyone.

Fact is the HL made a big case about violence, for the reason to
be so anti porn. Well coming from the US, thats a piss poor
argument quite frankly :)

All these people with agendas, wanting to tell others how to live.
Hey, I'll paddle my canoe my way, he can paddle his, his way.

Sex is something fairly normal and natural. Lets keep it that
way, despite the people with agendas, wanting to tell others
how to live their lives

"Our community is safer and more peaceful thanks to internet pornography. This may sound counter-intuitive, but there are recent figures to back up the argument."

Jeebus. I don't know if anyone's made this point [I spend way too long on comment threads as it is] but the recent videotaped assault on the young girl in Werribee smacks of porn influences. Young boys are socialised by porn. Those boys thought what they were doing was a bit of fun, entertainment, just like the violent acts of misogyny that gets relayed in most porn these days. As porn becomes more and more normalised the "naughty" thrill of it all disappears and people delve deeper into more violent porn to get that same kick. Rape porn is prevalent on the internet. Do you really want your teenage kid growing up thinking this is normal sexual relations?

Hi Robert,

I just want to pick up on your points that apparently refute HL's statements. You are ignoring the wide access to all types of porn that everyone has access to on the internet. Citing Australian dvd sales doesn't do much to analyse what people are actually watching on their computer moniters. As you [or someone else] said, violent porn is illegal here for sale on dvds etc so it doesn't speak much to what everyone would be watching if there was no regulation on it. My guess would be that some would go in for the more hard-core violent stuff they watch on the internet.

I saw a picture of a naked man and beyond my control had to have one.
I saw a picture of a naked woman and beyond my control had to have one.
I saw a picture of a sheep fresh from the sheering and beyond my control had to have one.
There's nothing wrong with me, porn made me do it. I'm a victim of my free society. Oh, who will protect me. Who will take responsibility for my actions.