I am a little saddened by a tirade from the correction experts in this forum giving the appearance of support to the porno industry. By deflecting attention from the spirit of Caroline Newman’s article you appear to acquiesce with the sordid sex industry.
It is a timely reminder to parents and family of the vulnerability of children with access to porno sites on the internet. It also gives a warning to be watchful over their long term interests, and the need for vigilance on the whole question of the greater sex industry. You never know, it may consume one of your children in the process of its existence. Then how would you be feeling about grammar and proof by the absolute.

What follows are some words from Michelle. A victim of the child sex industry.

BEFORE I DIE (again)

Before I die, (again), may desire at last rise as the tide to vanquish childhood memory that scream from the inner void , clenched in the fists of guilt and anguish so tightly, fearing exposure. Where, in that void they cling so defiantly and selfishly, harbouring atrocious secrets, that whip and stab at will. Pain transformed from afflictions past, embossed to the fabric of emotion, bearing the face of child so small. A child so trapped so stifled.

A void where conscious and unconscious permeate to confuse outcomes. Fooling each other with identity crisis, memories, acting as sounding boards, dwell like demons in the cavernous and dark corners of the mind; as if minding the mind. There dwelling, in defiance of pharmacology, to silence or release them. The scream that begs to spill those memories, along the winding road of life, vacuum sealed. Safe.

Memories, hiding and defiant , cocooned in the empty shell called my heart. A place devoid of garden and flowers, too bleak to sprout new season buds. Poisoned ground, on which falls the salted water of tears from grey clouds of despond, dispatched by the Gods of doom with sick humour. Fictitiously, nourishing agents, reviled by new life.

In a land where perpetual winter of sorrow and pain, strip away all vestiges of love and comfort. There, no hope dwells, and I, like a twisted and gnarled branch, grown inwards, have fallen defenceless, entranced; turned as Lot to a pillar of salt, ever to gaze into a beating and beaten childhood heart. Abandoned by deaths reaper; enveloped in blackness, strolling eternally through a museum of horrors, a fallen victim of child abuse. And lost, the child within.

Michelle

I agree with CJMorgan in that the article sounded more like a fire and brimestone lecture from the pulpit.

One In Three Boys Heavy Porn Users, Study Shows
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/02/070223142813.htm

"We don't know how we are changing sexual behaviours, attitudes, values and beliefs by enabling this kind of exposure and not talking with kids about it in any meaningful way," Thompson said.

I suppose it is one the great and cruelist ironic differences in gender in that it is extremely difficult for teenage boys to meet their sexual and emotional needs. Basically no matter what they do, it will never be the right thing.

Some people try to link pornography with abuse or an increase in abuse.

Child Pornography Link To Abuse Of Children Unclear, Forensic Psychiatrist Says
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/10/061027153001.htm

Another arguement that is often used, is that early sexual behaviour causes deliquency. In this it appears that teenagers who are more likely to engage in risky behaviour will engage in early sexual behaviour rather than early sexual behaviour causing deliquency.

This argument has being going on for years but there is still no definitive result.

"Rape statistics have never been higher, here’s the numbers; and rapists who have been surveyed all say they enjoy pornography, here’s the stats. Ergo pornography causes rape, there’s heaps of porn around, our society has become more dangerous so it’s all because of the pornography -- obviously.
Quite the neat little package really, or is it?
The truth is rape statistics have gradually increased over the last 30 years, according to the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC), but that’s not true of everywhere. Surprisingly, in the US, where pornography is not as obsessively controlled as it is here, the rates of sexual assaults have actually decreased, from 2.5 per 1000 population (aged over 12) in 1973 to 0.7 in 2002 (US Department of Justice statistics).
However, regardless of the statistical trends in sexual assault rates, what we do know for sure is that the number of people willing to report rapes to the authorities has increased dramatically in the last 20 years."

While personally not trying to excuse any of these factors, there is actually a stronger correlation (50% of reported cases) between alcohol and rape than there is between pornography and rape.

I suppose if I were the one defending a charge of sexual assault, I'd be blaming everyone else but me too.

The wide availability of porn is a factor in the way that males treat females, and the way females see themselves. Females are depicted as totally subservient in much of this pornography. As a result many males think that this is how females should be treated, and females start to think that they should put up with it. The womens lib movement must stand up to this. Women must be liberated from these depictions.

Males need to raise themselves up to the womens level and not bring the women down to their level.

We can all be in the gutter and say, pornography it isn't the statistical cause of rape, or we can rise above it. Lets just hope the nations children aren't addicted to pornography before they understand what is going on.

Dear Leigh and others

Ms Norma's article rightly condemns portrayals of women as sub-human and base. To dismiss it as a 'tiresome tirade' is suggest that the explosion of violent porn on the net will have no effect of men's treatment of women. At the very least violent porn desensitises us to other's suffering. I imagine that for white people to have routinely seen blacks as slaves made them think that black people were somehow inferior, and deserved what they were getting, back in the days of slavery in the West. Likewise, just to routinely see women being treated as sub-human tends to create the impression that they somehow deserve to be treated like that. It hardly makes for respect and trust between the sexes.