Is the premise of your argument that men are innately sexual violent and that porn is a necessary evil to quell the violent nature of men? As a woman I find this argument unconvincing and deeply disturbing. Are you saying that men are unable to conduct themselves peacefully in society without access to porn?

You provide numerous examples of how porn benefits men and therefore should be supported by the community, but fail to mention the benefits a ban on porn would bring to women. I would have expected, at least, a token acknowledgment that porn does harm women. One good example might have been this weekend’s news report on the poor young woman gang raped by 10 men. During the gang raped the perpetrators masturbated over their victim. This scene could have come straight out of a Bukake porn video.

Lets face it porn has nothing to do with eroticia - it is violent and debasing not only of women but also of men - as if men just cannot help themselves.

What do people find 'enjoyable' about porn? From the little I've seen it's more being as degrading as possible.

Rivergum
You are obviously out of touch with reality.

Sex shops are a booming industry and, although I don't frequent them I have been into a couple.

What amazes me is that customers of these shop often purchase items that have up to 1000%+ mark up, yet they scavange throgh the supermarkets looking for 'mark downs' as they claim they are broke.

Furthermore, porn sites are amoung they highest money earners on the web.

I don't defend them but these are the facts.

Rivergum.. at least we agree there.

PORN by nature is degrading. Yes..I've seen my share of it, and find nothing in it worthy of anything except the utter condemnation for the reasons you gave.

The thing for the objective observer to note, is the facial expressions.
They deliberately seek to convey the following:

-I'm dirrrrty (come..be dirrrtty with me now)
-I'm badddddd (yes yes.. WE can be very 'bad' now)
-I dont careeeeeee (and why should you)

Catering to the portrayed male lust the woman is portrayed as lapping it all up as if it was paradise itself.... she is loving being the object of his "dirrrrrty, lustful advances"

Participating sympathetically in viewing it.. is to also degrade one's self and take another step into darkness and filth.

If you peel back the layers.. we are really just expressing our unfulfilled relationship deficiencies in a cheap easy way, by absorbing pornography.

To me.. it is simply one of many a sign of alientation from God and His best for us.

Pornographic portrayals of sexual relationships are in fact the very opposite of Godly portrayals.

To the secularist porn is "whatever turns you on" most likely, but this is also far removed from the best we can have.

The best response to porn and what it portrays, is repentance to God and His grace and a renewal of our minds and wills in Christ.

Sebastian Strangio, you've engaged in exactly the same logical fallacy that you criticize Caroline Norma for. Norma confused causation and correlation in seeing high porn use amongst drink spikers, you confuse causation and correlation when you see a decrease in sex crimes and an expansion of the internet.

You both seem to have a horrifyingly negative view of men.

I would dispute that porn causes violence and social dislocation.

The main effect of porn is that is causes the consumer to masturbate, and thus lose interest in sex. It is a threat to the power of women, as their ability to barter sex for other benefits is correspondingly reduced. It is interesting to note the number of young men who remark that they are not interested in the effort involved (both financially and socially) in attracting women, when they can get their rocks off with a good porno.

As other posters have remarked, all efforts to restrict porn will be futile, and are more an example of politicians wishing to be seen doing something than having anything actually achieved. It has been so for centuries; the elite in all societies wish to allow just enough sex that will produce the next generation, with the surplus sexual energy being diverted into channels seen as more suitable to the elite.

So what has changed?

Boaz
I would suggest that most people who look at porn would'nt even know what the colour of the participants hair was, never lone the facial expressions.

The fact is that many persons and couples, use porn as a 'sexual aid' which when you think about it comes into the 'what ever floats your boat' senario.

You are well within your right to criticise those who use porn, providing you are one who accepts critisisum equaly.

I would also like posters to leave their religious beliefs out of threads as there are vast differences in this area as well.

You don't have to believe in god to be what the bible portrays as a 'good person'. It is just that most belivers don't respect the rights and beleifs or 'non belivers'. And that's a fact

Interestingly recent research has shown that a significant predictor of adults with tendancies to sexual violence (and a preference for kinky sex) is being spanked as a child.

Murray Straus has recently released findings which appear to be quite clear about this. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080228220451.htm
“These results, together with the results of more than 100 other studies, suggest that spanking is one of the roots of relationship violence and mental health problems. Because there is 93 percent agreement between studies that investigated harmful side effects of spanking, and because over 90 percent of U.S. parents spank toddlers, the potential benefits for prevention of sexual and relationship violence is large,” Straus says.

http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=straus+spanking+violence&btnG=Google+Search&meta=

As someone who has been spanked and has used spanking in discipline the findings are disturbing but I've seen enough of Straus's work to pay attention when he expresses confidence in a finding.

Porn may not be the question.

R0bert

Dave here I've watched porn & I cannot see where it causes a person to do one thing or another it is the make up of the person it is time we worked out one thing all people are individuals & it is okay to be such.While ever we keep making laws our crime rate is going to keep rising & this making laws to combat anothers beliefs or conviction is only going to cause trouble it is time to accept others as we expect others to accept us live & let live do unto others as we would have them do unto us etc
May your Lord shine on you all well
God Bless from Dave

Banning it! That's a laugh. Censorship, yes. Some of the content is very questionable, and is knocking on the door of insanity. Better laws and harder ways to access some this material wouldn't go astray.

But people, this is the 21 first century, and if you don't like what you see, DONT WATCH IT! But for the young, it should be treated like a safe! You need a combination code to access it and the whole porn industry should become one entity and if persons becomes a member of that world, then no-one else can get into it. or allow only one visit per site and down load at your pleasure, and no screen viewing until the down load is completed, or time frame for viewing! Midnight till 6am. These are just a few ideas.

Because of population being what it is, you cant stop it, and it's a monster, 70% of the net,I believe, but we can make it safer.

Just a thought.

The author writes 'Pornography, then, acts like a release valve, channeling male sexual aggression into fantasy worlds that are sometimes ugly or grotesque, but which prevent those fantasies from ever being enacted in the real world.'

Sound like a line from the EROS mob. Try convincing the multitudes of children who have been sexually abused. Try telling the little girls and boys who have been abused by those who have watched this perversion and then act it out on their cousins and relatives.

Sebastion should pull his head out of the sand and stop living in denial. Promote perversion if you like but don't deny the obvious effects.

Runner, I hate to have to tell you this, but sexual abuse of children was around long before porn became available on the internet.

David

runner, how much porn do you think that clergy in the 1950's had access to? At a guess it would be have been very difficult for many of the abusers to have got access to porn in that period. Their vocations, societal values and technology all limited their options.

Any comment on what appears to be a proven link between corporal punishment of children and the likelyhood of them being into sexual violence as adults?

Is the idea that something which many in the church advocate and which the bible encourages a bit too uncomfortable to touch?

- Proverb 13:24 He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.
- Proverb 22:15 Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.
- Proverb 23:13 Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die.
- Proverb 23:14 Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell.
- Proverb 29:15 Thy rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame.

As far as I'm aware there is no proven cause/effect between porn and sexual violence, there does appear to be a proven link between corporal punishment of children and sexual violence.

R0bert

Strangio's article is a familiar small-l liberal response to the question of porn. He castigates feminists such as Norma for endorsing "censorship" and for ushering in a "dark age" of "puritanism", he suggests porn might in fact REDUCE sexual violence, and he suggests that all is well (really!) cos young men are being taught to treat women ethically.

Okay, I agree - there is a problem with suggesting that porn actually causes sexual violence. This suggestion is as problematic as the suggestion that porn REDUCES sexual violence.

I think Strangio overlooks what feminists such as Norma and others are doing - and that is, politically analysing porn. Perhaps there is material that is marketed as 'porn' and is not exploitative or degrading. But there is also the Youtube video of the young mother being raped.

Porn is not the only medium in which violence and sexual violence is eroticised. To be sure, this celebration has happened in EVERY medium. But I feel that to malign those who emphasise the sexism within pornographic material is misguided. I mean, so much for opposing "censorship"!

It is indeed true that there is a correlation between sexual violence and the viewing of pornography.

A negative correlation.

Large-scale empirical studies from Northwestern University (D'Amato, Northwestern Public Law Research Paper 2006), Stanford and Clemson Universities (Kendall, 2006), and Hawaii University with the Japanese Institute of Police Science (Diamond, Uchiyama, International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 1999) indicate that an increase in the availability of sexually explicit material has correlated with a decline in sexual violence of comparable significance.

This concurs with prior research from Scandinavia and Western Europe
(Kutchinsky, 1985, 1991).

This is probably not the correlation that some looking for, but the facts remain stubborn regardless.

Perhaps those who can't distinguish between their personal distaste and moral universals would like to return to 1950s, where sexually explicit material was virtually prohibited, and where sexual violence was common but rarely taken seriously or spoken of?

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=913013
http://www.law.stanford.edu/display/images/dynamic/events_media/Kendall%20cover%20+%20paper.pdf
http://www.hawaii.edu/PCSS/online_artcls/pornography/prngrphy_rape_jp.html

Robert

The subject is on porn not what the perverted priest (many of whom I suspect were homosexuals) did to innocent kids. They certainly were not alone in this. Scout masters, tennis coaches, school teachers, cricket umpires, football players, atheist, politicians all have their fair share of child abusers.

Your link between those willing to discipline their kids and child abuse is despicable. I suspect it is the earth worshippers who believe anything goes except decency that abuse their kids at a far higher rate than those who love them enough to give them a smack when required.

runner,

As always, you present an very interesting point of view. I must admit it does provide me a certain fascination on how individuals like yourself think they way you do.

I wonder if you could care to endorse or disavow the quotations from Proverbs? Do you "love" your children so much that you're prepared to beat your children with a rod (as long as they do not die from the beating)?

I wonder if you always automatically reject research that you find is despicable? Has the presentation of facts ever changed your mind, or are you loyal to eternal truths that have been revealed to you? Do you think that it is better that we do not engage in such studies in the first place? Or is it better that we just don't publish results that people like yourself find distasteful?

You provide a list of a great number of people from all walks of life who have engaged in child abuse. Please explain how come both Australia's Christian churches and the sex industry both employ approximately 20,000 people and since 1990, the courts have acknowledged over 450 child sex assaults against employees of the church and none against the sex industry?

Pornography cannot be portrayed in a positive sense.It is nothing but misues of scientific inventions like the camera.The earlier man could not have done this kind of uncivilised practices as there were no such gadgets.Let us use science to promote good human qualities among our children.It is the youth who get spioled by the pornos.The regard for women and womenhood will be lost for ever in the minds of the youth and it will increase the crimes against women.
The natural sexual instinct is enough and normal people do not need pornos to incite them for sexual inclinations. Sex should be interesting and individualistic and it will be so only when people have not seen others performing it.People in porno business do it for money and they are least interested in the welfare of the society in general and the youth in particular.Rather they make use of the volatile nature of the youth and the poverty and ignorance of women to make money.Let us condemn porno as barbaric and inhuman.

Lev, dispite the seriousness of the issue there is a funny side to this. Religious fundies spend so much time carrying on about sexual deviancy and blaming all sorts of things (such as porn) without being able to produce evidence of a causal relationship.

When a parenting behaviour is found that should be fairly easy to largely eradicate and which appears to have a strong causal relationship to sexual violence and sexual deviancy religious fundies are likely to be the staunchest defenders of the right to continue the behaviour.

The issues which I'm aware of which have been positively identified as contributing to adult sexually deviant behaviour are
- child sexual abuse
- spanking (assuming Straus is being honest and competent)

Use of violent porn and other stuff is more likely a symptom rather than a cause.

We have laws against child sexual abuse and as a society put a lot of effort into trying to eradicate (maybe not always as well as we should).

If Straus's work is accepted then the time will come when smacking will be one of those things we look back on wondering why we once accepted it. The frontline of the fight for the right to turn children into sexual deviants will probably be religious fundies who believe they are instructed by their god to beat their children.

What irony.

If we want to reduce the occurance of sexual violence we need to clearly identify the causes and work to remove them rather than focussing efforts on issues which are not proven to be causal.

R0bert

Lev

I would fully endorse the discipline mentioned in Proverbs provided it is applied with love. My children all received a spanking when needed and have grown up drug free, respectful of authority and useful citizens. They have achieved very well academically and in every other area of life. Due largely to the grace of God and some firm discipline when needed (not much as they grew older) I have seen God's word proven to be totally true. My wife and I were by no means perfect parents but we did love our kids to much not to discipline them.

As far as research is concerned it is what people read into it that I dislike. Just like you selectively have quoted passages of the bible on discipline without mentioning love which is the over riding message of the bible.

The so called facts you refer to are normally peoples interpretation of figures. One might argue that a certain ethnic group is over represented in prison. Without the data on how much crime that group commits these facts are useless. The porn industry plucks figures and
builds a case in order to defend their perversion. It's like hiring a evolutionist to have an honest scientific approach to testing the unproven theory by science. It fails dismally.

There is still no person or organization that comes close to matching the Lord Jesus Christ when it comes to truth. 2000 years on His wisdom is still unmatchable.

I find the assaults by clergymen as despicable if not more despicable than you. I am in favour of castration for repeat offenders. You are however dishonest again in implying that the sex industry does not exploit children. How many Aussies travel to Asia to visit the 'sex industry'. I suspect the numbers are in the thousands each year. These deviants are into internet porn and then into poor unfortunate kids. The practice has had a blind eye turn towards it because many Government officials have been involved in the deviant sex industry.

After reading the first two comments I had to make a response. Where do all these people that hate pornography and believe all the feminist tripe come from?

Really. It's like a child who has been reared in the 19th century to believe anything above the ankle is obscene and vulgar. Get over it. Seriously.

runner,

You consider violence against children (there are other forms of discipline, you know), to be OK because it is sanctioned in Proverbs, despite the fact that over 100 studies now suggest that it a key factor in causing future relationship violence and mental health problems.

You claim love is the overwhelming message of the Bible? Read it more closely. Even being generous that's a minority message; the main message is follow orders or be punished ... and others remember the crazy stuff e.g., http://www.cracked.com/article_15699_9-most-badass-bible-verses.html).

No person or organisation matching Jesus? He was a nice guy, especially for his times, but when it comes to a breadth of message and moral content, The Trail and Death of Socrates by Platon, some four hundred years prior is much more sophisticated, meaningful, and practical without needing magic.

Evolution fails dismally? At what? There are over 50 observed and recorded instances of macro-speciation, it is recognised by every public university in the world, and is recognisted through natural selection, genetic drift and gene flow? And what do you think is the alternative? What would it take to convince you that evolution is a fact? (I'm waiting for you to avoid this for the fourth time).

Also, answer the question that I posed previously, if you have the intellectual courage. "Sex tourism" to countries with a weak or unenforced regulative environment has nothing to do with what was asked. Trivial"bait and switch" techniques will be ignored.

Ezhil,

The claim that "earlier man could not have done this kind of uncivilised practices as there were no such gadgets" is wrong. From the earliest times there has been erotic art across all cultures in whatever media available. This will continued. cf.,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_of_Willendorf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerne_Abbas_giant
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erotic_art_in_Pompeii_and_Herculaneum
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_Museum%2C_Naples
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Modi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shunga

Lev

Your equating corporal discipline as violence is a joke. The 100 studies you refer to no doubt tell a small part of a fabricated story (if they exist). Parents who don't discipline appropriately are the child abusers. By observation I have seen that well loved and disciplined kids are far more secure than kids without discipline (corporal and otherwise).

You obviously read into the bible what you want to read. You are not foolish enough to believe that true love comes from man are you?

You also know that their is so much shame with the sex industry that people don't even use their own names. Many from this industry have ended in prison (often on drug charges) but of course have prostituted their bodies under different names. The industry is so sleazy that child abuse would not even turn most of the profiteers heads!

Evolution without a doubt, has a profound affect on our minds of the people of today. All of what our forefathers had experienced, is with us and now these thoughts are fighting against man kind in our new evolutionary position. You could say, we are cleaning up our act.

Before the bible, people were having sex with anything and every thing, and like I have said before, the bible was the type of law and order. The woman's body has been idolised in figure and worship and as is seen as the sole of fertility and pleasure. The idol or figure illustrated in your links, was seen as a good bet, considering the fact, a large woman, in times of hardship, as the most likely the one to insure the child's survival. How times have changed.

In short, Do you really think, that someone who watches porn, is going to run next door and commit an act of indecencies, come on! there going to run for the bathroom for a jar of vaso.lo

runner,

The physical abuse of children, even under the name 'corporal punishment', is no joke and your casual observations are nothing to the dozens of peer-reviewed studies.

Strauss' article alone was a survey of 14,000 individuals from 32 countries. Try reading Elizabeth Gershoff's article (Psychology Bulletin, June 24, 2002), and analysis of 88 studies over 62 years that determined, apart from immediate compliance, corporal punishment, had negative effects on all other child behaviour - including the ability to determine right from wrong.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) in an official policy statement rejects its use, the Canadian Pediatrics Society "strongly discourages" corporal punishment as it leads to negative outcomes and the England's Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and Royal College of Psychiatrists state it is "wrong and impractical ... it is never appropriate to hit or beat children". UNESCO and the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child also call for the prohibition on corporal punishment.

Some basic reading for you:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporal_punishment

I dare you to read the following and suggest that those images are an idea of "loving":

http://www.philosophyblog.com.au/arguments-against-corporal-punishment/

If I were to do a passage-by-passage study of the bible (and it has been done http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/) the majority of moral messages therein are most certainly demands of obedience with threats of punishment. That is simply a matter of fact. And yes, from the empirical evidence available, love does come from humans - as does hatred and indeed any human expression.

And so what if people in the sex industry don't use their real names? At least that usually protects them from discrimination and harassment from those who object to what they do with their own bodies.

I note once again, you failed to answer the question posed; and you've also avoided, for the fourth time, the question of evolution.

What it would take to convince you that you are in error? Is it possible that you're so intellectually insecure you can't?

Lev

I have never pretended to be an intellectual giant and I doubt you are. There are numerous men an women with every qualification known to man who know evolution is a load of crap. You can continue to have faith in the blind dogma in the name of pseudo science. I will have faith in the living God who created this world. Both positions are unprovable by true science but s far as myself and many scientist are concerned the evidence by far favours a Creator.

runner: "You also know that their (sic) is so much shame with the sex industry that people don't even use their own names"

And of course your real name is "runner", isn't it?

Obviously runner posts under a pseudonym because of the "shame" associated with producing an endless litany of fundy gibberish.

"I have never pretended to be an intellectual giant.."

I'll concede that is a redeeming feature.

runner, you need to learn some basic, elementary science and build up on it once you learn about scientific method. And then read about probability. There is no excuse for a citizen like you to not learn some of this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_as_theory_and_fact#Scientific_terminology_applied_to_evolution

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method#Truth_and_belief

Thank for those links Steel. Runner, I recommend you pay attention to them. They provide, in a very simple format, why evolution is a fact and why there are theories of evolution.

Denying evolution is akin to denying gravity. Biological evolution states is there are changes in the inherited traits of a population from one generation to the next.

What some religious fundamentalists seem really upset about is speciation. For them, approximately 6,000 years ago, according to biblical mythology, a god created the universe and all its species - for eternity. The first person who really challenged this static species point of view was Charles Darwin with the theory of allopatric natural selection.

Not only has this been observed numerous times, other types of speciation have been discovered and in some cases, actually induced in a laboratory situation, most famously among drosphila.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speciation
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c1/Drosophila_speciation_experiment.svg

Both evolution and speciation are observed and repeatable facts.

I sincerely hope you've learned something from this. Rather than seeking to be an intellectual giantism, I suggest you seek intellectual humility. If you have an opinion, even a most cherished one, I suggest you actually research the issue first and be open to the possibility that you cherished beliefs - and the books from which they came - make actually be incorrect.

Those who do not like pornography are not required to watch or read it.

Those who claim any relationship between pornography and sexual assaults have no objective statistics to base their assertion on.

Those who believe that pornography is morally reprehensible and against the laws of their particular God are entitled to their opinion but have no right to inflict their theological maxims on others.

What I see are a few people who want a vanilla world. Well folks if you check the pottery the ancient Greeks and Romans produced or the remaining artifacts of the Mayan culture, you will see the depiction of sexuality and sexual acts is nothing new.

As the final statement of the article states

“Rather than subjecting porn to bans, we should discuss it in terms of ethics - that is, how young men should treat women in our society, regardless of what they see online. Stop me if I’m wrong - but aren’t our teachers and parents already doing that?”

I agree.

Every parent has a duty of care to protect their children from harm. I acknowledge a childs mind is immature and may be unable to effectively handle some influences it may confront, hence censorship for children.

The same reasoning is not applicable to adults, who we must consider, have developed sufficiently to handle, in their stride, the hurley-burley of more graphic imagery and descriptions.

I do not intend to presume that, I should impose constraints on others to the viewing or reading of any “pornographic” acts involving one or more consenting adults, which I may not enjoy / appreciate.

I merely expect other people, who choose not to view/use pornography to employ a similar ethic, in not imposing their own (narrow) view on other adults who, it can be presumed, are adequately equipped to make reasoned judgments to what they will or will not watch or read.

Looks like this is a real whore.nets nest!

I think the real issue is just where do you draw the censorship line. I am sure once scatologist’s fantasy is another bestiality minded individual’s worst nightmare.

It has been said elsewhere (in earlier articles here on OLO and further a field) that contemporary heterosexual porn places a greater emphasis on anal penetration - obviously the homosexual lobby's attempt at gaining wider acceptance of this practice...

Anyway the wind is up and I've got other kites to fly...

After a read of the comments, I thought I might weight in...

In a nutshell, my argument is that porn does not dictate sexual urges; it emerges from, and is a manifestation of, such urges. Therefore, a ban would achieve little -- not to mention the implications for civil liberties.

Some feminists, like Norma, argue that porn dictates the content and direction of men's sexual drives. I am arguing, via Freud, that dark desires are a part of human nature, and that porn is merely a crass, commercialized expression of these desires. (And neither is it just men who have such desires: Nancy Friday's research into female sexual psychology shows that violent fantasies are surprisingly common amongst women also). Now, for well-adjusted individuals these fantasies are only enacted in a situation of mutual consent, if at all. In childhood we are all taught the difference between fantasy and reality (Bambi isn't really dead, etc.) and, by extension, that anything one sees on a screen is 'pretend' and should not be enacted in real life. This is the point where porn's power to subvert our nascent sexual urges is defused.

So Norma is right in one sense: Theoretically, if a child was exposed to violent porn *from infancy all through childhood*, the behaviour seen on screen would most certainly become normalised. But we're talking about adults here. The responsibility to prevent access to online porn for adolescents and children -- and to provide moral education about sexual violence -- falls squarely on the shoulders of parents.

Thx for the comments!

The contention that the State cannot dictate terms in respect of porno cannot be accepted. The state is not seperate from people.Any order from the Government should be taken as the collective will of the people.The State has the responsibility of controlling harmful activities of individuals. Individuals'rights cannot encroach upon public welfare and disturb peace.
People in porno business or who go for porno materials, it appears, must have some organic problem.

Ezhil “The contention that the State cannot dictate terms in respect of porno cannot be accepted.”

The “contention” that the state should ”dictate” anything is “contentious”.

“Any order from the Government should be taken as the collective will of the people.”

Really?

That is the thought behind despots, who insist they are acting on behalf of the people, (whilst having their opponents “censored”, with a bullet).

“The State has the responsibility of controlling harmful activities of individuals.”
“Individuals'rights cannot encroach upon public welfare and disturb peace.”

If I attack, rob or murder someone else, I am performing a harmful activity, which encroaches upon the rights of others and disturbs the peace

I am not sure what “public welfare” is but it sounds too much like “the common good” and I have never met anyone who has met anyone who has shaken hands with “the common good”.

If I am watching porn in the privacy of my own home, I am not performing a harmful activity, nor am I encroaching on the rights of others nor disturbing the peace.

Government is neither all seeing or all knowing (you just need to talk to some public service dullard to realise that). One of the duties of government is to respect the privacy of the citizen, unless you feel living under a Stalinist style regime is just fine and I, personally, do not feel that way and based on the fact that every Stalinist regime which has come into existence has been the result of violent revolution, rather than democratic election, not many other folk do either.

“People in porno business or who go for porno materials, it appears, must have some organic problem.”

That is straight subjective conjecture.

I would observe, people who support censorship and the absolute authority of the state have greater organic problems than those folk who seek to enjoy pornography in the privacy of their own homes or on other licensed or “adult restricted” premises.

So Ezhil, not sure if you are a religiously minded individual or not.
But if you are, just consider me your local heretic.

Dear Lev,
Thank you for your references in respect earlier man's porno activities. I don't have time to go through all those things. But one thing I want to tell you is that we must be able to distinguish ourselves from the earlier man if we accept that we are a civilised lot.
Ezhil

Dear Col.Rouge,
Thank you for your comments.I feel that you will be a better heretic for people of your ilk.With so much of distrust in the governments, we are heading towards what? It is all of us who elect the representatives. After electing a government talking ill of it is childish.I don't deny that wrong people get elected. But whose fault is it? People get a government that they deserve!The quality of government reflects the quality of the people.
The accessibility of pornos to children cannot be prevented in the present scenario. We don't have safeguards to that effect. Children see pornos in the internet because it is available. Why it is availabe? Because it is being made (with money in mind).
You are talking about your privacy more and more.Chlidren know that adults are seeing pornos. Naturally they also will be tempted to see it. Therefore the privacy you are talking about is not a private affair at all in the real sense. Therby you are acting against the welfare of people in general and children in particular.
Let us, as seniors,be good role models for decent behaviour. Let the issue be discussed by a panel of psychologists,psychiatrists
and social activists.
Ezhil

Ezhil My skepticism of government,

The“moral credibility” of the Keating government included everything from adultery (Evans/Kernow), avarice (Richardson) to pedophilia (Collins) and I am sure some of them would have been unsafe left around a zoo (thus a-z) but I never voted for the swill.


“Children see pornos in the internet because it is available”

I run essential anti-virus software on my computers called “VET”.

It includes, for those who need it, a censorship package which locks out all porn and chat sites etc. so parents can intervene to stop their children from viewing what is generally considered “adult material” or to protect them from the danger of engaging in “friendships” over the net through Chat rooms etc.

Any parent supplying a child with computer access should not do so without -

Virus protection (or the PC will not run the following day – my present note book collected 200 viruses in a day when I was using a previous product which failed on me and ceased to function. Because of it, I had to get the hard drive purged and re-installed)

Thus your claim of “children seeing pornos through the internet” is clearly and simply 100% avoidable.

“Let the issue be discussed by a panel of psychologists, psychiatrists and social activists.”

“psychologists, psychiatrists” I have met some who are as crazy as cut snakes, complete loons.

Since I am neither a psychologist (although my partner is and she did so enjoy seeing the movie “Story of ‘O’” , very adult, very kinky) nor a psychiatrist, I guess I can include myself among the “social activists”, rather than leave the panel to be populated by a bunch of do-gooder wannabes and dikes with hairy armpits (excuse my humour, it is a somewhat “acquired” taste).

I await being called to this “panel” you are proposing.

But believe me, I will vigorously protest against any government imposing censorship or bans on pornography, which I do use, from time to time.

Just as I will protest against any attempt to re-criminalize prostitution, although I have never used such services and never will.

I've just tracked down a link to Todd Kendall's paper on "Pornography, Rape and the Internet" http://www.toddkendall.net/internetcrime.pdf

I've posted some other links on Gibo's new tread.

If Todd's findings are correct the anti-porn lobby is unwittingly pushing an agenda with a likely outcome of increasing sexual violence in society.

R0bert

Dear Col Rouge,
Thank you for your comments. Let us not make others feel that porno is an indispensable human activity.
Even the regular cinema is causing immense harm to to the society.Love is portrayed very cheaply.Love will be divine in the minds of the youth only when is read or heard from literature.Once it is enacted by a male and a female, as in cinema,it becomes basal. Because of the obscene portrayal of women, youth will not develop respect for women. Instead they all will look at women as sex symbols. The women in society have lost their respectable status because of cinema and the glamour girls who sell their physique for huge money.
When this is the case with regular cinema, one can imagine the negative role of pornos in affecting the status of women.Let us not misuse the the great invention, the cinema and the camera, to the detriment of human beings especially women.
Ezhi

Dear Col Rouge,
Thank you for your comments. Let us not make others feel that porno is an indispensable human activity.
Even the regular cinema is causing immense harm to to the society.Love is portrayed very cheaply.Love will be divine in the minds of the youth only when is read or heard from literature.Once it is enacted by a male and a female, as in cinema,it becomes basal. Because of the obscene portrayal of women, youth will not develop respect for women. Instead they all will look at women as sex symbols. The women in society have lost their respectable status because of cinema and the glamour girls who sell their physique for huge money.
When this is the case with regular cinema, one can imagine the negative role of pornos in affecting the status of women.Let us not misuse the the great invention, the cinema and the camera, to the detriment of human beings especially women.
Ezhil

Ezhil” The women in society have lost their respectable status because of cinema and the glamour girls who sell their physique for huge money.”

Show me the evidence

I am the father of two adult daughters, aged 27 and 23 years.

They both have incredible self esteem which developed from the unconditional love which they have received from the moment of their birth.

Neither has experienced any “loss of their respectable status” because of movies.

My fiancé would not stay with me, nor I with her, unless we both respected each other.

We both enjoy watching and reading, separately and together, what many may class as “pornography”.

So I think you are wrong in your presumption to how women are viewed in society.

“.Let us not misuse the the great invention, the cinema and the camera, to the detriment of human beings especially women.”

Before cinema and videos and even before Greeks and Romans painted salacious and pornographic scenes on pottery, God bestowed upon us all free will and a conscience.

To repeat back to you your own words

“Let us not misuse the great” gifts of freewill and conscience by censoring peoples right to make up their own mind over what they watch, what they read and what they choose to do with other consenting adults.

The greater danger is censorship more than pornography.

I accept censorship as being necessary to protect the immature minds or children, just as I believe children have to be protected from many matters and things which adults deal with in their stride.

But that does not apply to the developed mind of adults. Censorship constructs the authoritarian societal organizations which destroys free will and conscience.

Basically put, no one can exercise conscience when not given a choice. Thus censorship stunts personal growth and works against experiencing the fullest quality of life possible.

I am sure you are not in favor of restricting any ones right to that full and rich quality of life and personal growth which is only developed through being responsible for making decisions for oneself?