What exactly is harmful about pornography?

[Tabris]

To JepSnertRF:

Pornography reduces the beauty and sanctity of a human individual to an object. It takes the wonderful experience of a relationship and seeks to extract only the physical sexuality onto a medium, depriving user of the full potential of the sexual experience.

True, true. And TV tends to extract only superficial aspects of human interaction for simple entertainment, depriving the viewer of the full potential of human contact.

Nobody ever said using a TV as a substitute for a social life or using porn as a substitute for a romantic life is supposed to be healthy. But it doesn’t make using either in moderation inherently bad, either.

I would like to see some women’s rights proponents on here to take a stand against the objectification of the female form (as is usually the case, though there are some exceptions.)

Oh, objectification my arse. What’s the big deal here, exactly? I certainly won’t be bothered if any ladies want to look at pornographic pictures of guys or whatever. Like Jpeg Jones said, anybody whose interaction with real people is affected by something trivial like porn has other problems.

It is also detrimental to existing relationships where a husband/boyfriend/live-in, etc takes attention away from his partner and dedicates it to the medium. If one gets his gratification from the porn, that takes away from his dedication/enjoyment of/with his wife.

To use my previous example, TV also takes attention away from normal interaction with the partner, etc. Porn or any other impersonal medium is not a substitute for real people and isn’t supposed to be. Everything can be harmful if taken to extremes, but looking at porn now and then is only a big deal if somebody in the relationship decides to make it a big deal. As I said before, my girlfriend and I both look at porn occasionally and will swap any particularly good stuff we find. If that’s hurt our relationship any, that’s be news to us…

Note that in no way am I defending addiction/obsession with porn, kiddie porn or anything else blatantly harmful, etc.

Anyhow, you’ve offered some reasonable arguments why pornography is a bad thing, which is a worthwhile topic. But like ThunderBunny did before you’ve missed the original idea of the thread. Can you give any arguments why the LAW should concern itself with porn?

[ThunderBunny]

*Originally posted by Tabris *
Unless given a logical argument to the contrary, I see no reason whatsoever that the government should legislate morality. Care to prove me wrong?

Nope, don’t care to. These aren’t things you can prove easily… (let’s see, we should take a sample of countries, randomly assign them to two treatment groups, have one treatment group legislate one way and another treatment group legislate another way, and then measure their outcomes and do a comparison…)

At least I intend to continue encouraging laws that are morally correct, and discouraging laws that are morally reprehensible. And, gee, this government represents me as well…

And I intend to keep disagreeing with you, and the government likewise represents me. Ahh, the beauty of democracy!

I had to smile at that one. Yes, that’s exactly right. Along the way we will make some compromises with each others’ opposing viewpoints… such as rather than outlawing all pornography, just outlawing its use or sale to minors. Sounds reasonable to me.

Now let’s consider if we want it in prime time televison(e.g. the Victorias Secret Fashion Show). Actually, I’d rather focus my efforts on curbing some of the depictions of violence anyway. =/

[ChoosyChipsAndCeilingWhacks]

*Originally posted by JepSnertRF *
**I would like to see some women’s rights proponents on here to take a stand against the objectification of the female form (as is usually the case, though there are some exceptions.)
**

If erotica generally objectifies women, or puts them in demeaning situations unsuitable for reality, then we should CHANGE erotica, make BETTER erotica, not ban it all together. No law means NO LAW.

What about looking at erotic photos of your husband or wife? It’s perfectly natural for humans to seek visual stimulation in ALL it’s forms.

-L

[Lamia]

*Originally posted by Tabris *
**
Anyhow, you’ve offered some reasonable arguments why pornography is a bad thing, which is a worthwhile topic. But like ThunderBunny did before you’ve missed the original idea of the thread. Can you give any arguments why the LAW should concern itself with porn? **

Because the LAW in the OP is about restricting children’s access to porn, and all the defenses of pornography offered in this thread are based on the assumption that the viewer is an adult with a fully developed mental capacity.

[Dangerosa]

*Originally posted by JepSnertRF *
**Pornography reduces the beauty and sanctity of a human individual to an object. It takes the wonderful experience of a relationship and seeks to extract only the physical sexuality onto a medium, depriving user of the full potential of the sexual experience.

I would like to see some women’s rights proponents on here to take a stand against the objectification of the female form (as is usually the case, though there are some exceptions.)

It is also detrimental to existing relationships where a husband/boyfriend/live-in, etc takes attention away from his partner and dedicates it to the medium. If one gets his gratification from the porn, that takes away from his dedication/enjoyment of/with his wife. **

Won’t get it from this woman’s rights proponent. Sex is sex, relationships are relationships. Sex can exist in a relationship - but I can have meaningless, but fun, sex with a complete stranger - and I can have a meaningful soulmate relationship without sex. Please don’t confuse sex and relationships.

Yes, women are objectified. So are men. I think women are far more objectified to the media that caters to them (i.e. Cosmo) than porn.

Its detrimental to existing relationships where a husband/boyfriend or whatever puts all his attention into playing Quake, watching football, being a workaholic.

[inertia]

*Originally posted by Mangetout *
**I think youngkids might have nightmares if they were exposed to pornography, but that’s not exactly harm, I suppose.

Since pornography doesn’t portray ‘normal’ relationships, I wouldn’t think it would be a good thing to expose young people to if they have no undestanding of steady, loving relationships; I certainly wouldn’t want it to be their first source of information on the matter, but that’s just my opinion.

Pornography is to sex what burger and chips is to gourmet food. **

Why would a kid have nightmares? Where does that thought even come from?

Granted that a lot of hardcore XXX porn does not involve fuzzy warmness, a lot of softcore pornography is simply nakedness. There’s nothing wrong with nakedness.

S. Frued believed that sexuality and love were inseparable. He thought that if too much emphasis was placed on one, it would cause neurosis of the other. You sound like you subscribe to this view. I don’t and it is not the priveledge of the Fruedian minority to impose it’s ideas on me.

[CriticalCat]

Because the LAW in the OP is about restricting children’s access to porn, and all the defenses of pornography offered in this thread are based on the assumption that the viewer is an adult with a fully developed mental capacity.

Frankly, that’s because it’s not really about them. It never was; as usual, the little angels are a favorite playing card in the perennial battlefield of politicizing morality.

Children, depending on how old the Future of Society unit in question is, do not yet have the capacity to distinguish between fantasy and reality, one small representation of a thing and the whole of the thing, and so on. So maybe really hardcore porn does do some damage to a malleable little six-year-old.

Children also cannot distinguish between genuine logic and pseudo-logic, a real argument and a solipsism, or read between the lines and make out the shape of a motivation behind a reasonable face. So while we’re in the business of protecting children from the Internet, we need to take down white-supremacy sites, Holocaust denial pages, that Bonsai Kittens site (hey, they’re not old enough to know it’s a joke!), sites with gory death photos, NAMBLA’s site, the NRA’s home page (kids and guns are a bad mix!), both Republican and Democratic party pages, pages for evangelical religions, military branch home sites, and so on. Ideas are dangerous things whether they’re gained from pictures or persuasive writing.

Bottom line: letting a kid too young to use his whole brain surf around unsupervised is stupid and irresponsible parenting. If you’re incapable of explaining things to a child and offering perspective when he accidentally stumbles across an outcropping of reality, your kids belong in foster care. This does not merely apply to the internet, it applies to all of life. The earth is not child-safe.

The people on the battlefield already know these things; this is just the latest staging ground for the larger and older porn debate.

These aren’t things you can prove easily… (let’s see, we should take a sample of countries, randomly assign them to two treatment groups, have one treatment group legislate one way and another treatment group legislate another way, and then measure their outcomes and do a comparison…)

Well, in regards to porn and sex ed, this has already been done. The natives call the two most polarized countries “Sweden” and “The United States”.

I would like to see some women’s rights proponents on here to take a stand against the objectification of the female form (as is usually the case, though there are some exceptions.)

Feminists split into two camps on the subject some time ago. There are the anti-porns, which agree with you and think porn is objectification of women and an encouragment of abuse, and those that think the only thing wrong with porn is that almost none of it is geared toward women. The common ground between them is a recognition of the current inequality in porn.

In case you couldn’t tell, this feminist falls into the latter camp. Everyone objectifies other people, be it as sex objects or success objects or… role models. Everytime we see something we desire in another person, we objectify them. Healthy people can do this AND form real relationships that go deeper, and lacking this ability means your problems go a hell of a lot deeper than just looking at too many raunchy pictures.

Has anyone ever met a gay man that felt the objectification of men in pornography was morally wrong and should be stopped?

[Enuma_Elish]

I don’t think much of anti-porn legislation. It seems that the more you tell some people not to do something that they think is harmless (like Prohibition) the more they will try to do it.

However, for all of you who like to look at porn, please try this:

When you are on a porn site, just for a moment look away from the various body parts and look into the eyes of the women in the thumbnails.

Ask yourself this: Does she look happy to be here? Does she look like she has a choice?

Or, do the eyes of this woman tell me that she feels small, powerless, worthless, and at the mercy of others.

Then ask yourself if that is at all arousing.

Try this.

Just once.

Go ahead.

Try it.

[Lamia]

*Originally posted by CriticalCat *
**
Frankly, that’s because it’s not really about them. It never was; as usual, the little angels are a favorite playing card in the perennial battlefield of politicizing morality.

<snip>

The people on the battlefield already know these things; this is just the latest staging ground for the larger and older porn debate.
**

If it’s not really about the children, then why does the law do nothing but limit children’s access to porn? There doesn’t seem to be anything that would stop an interested adult from obtaining and viewing all the porn she or he wanted. This law, in and of itself, poses no threat to adult porn fans.

If you want to argue that this is just the first step down a slipperly slope that will lead to all porn being banned, you’re going to have to come up with some better support for your position. Children are already restricted from doing all sorts of things that are perfectly legal for adults. I don’t think anyone should reasonably fear that adults are in danger of losing their right to drive, vote, purchase alcohol, or enter into contracts just because these things are illegal for children to do, so why should limiting children’s access to pornography be any different?

[inertia]

*Originally posted by ThunderBunny *
…The whole concept of psychological “release” of pent-up inhibitions is false.

I believe your characterization of the human sex drive is somewhat cursory. We as animals most definitely have a mechanism that beckons on occasion.

*Originally posted by ThunderBunny *
Rather, the use of pornography encourages the user even more to take action. [I’ve taken the liberty to edit a bit of a trollish inclusion of inflamatory, off-topic reference to violence that’s got nothing to do with sex and pronography.] The same is true of just about any bad habit.

You may have a point that pornography may be some sort of enabler. What business is it of anybody’s if I want to masterbate all day?

*Originally posted by ThunderBunny *
But then, whether it is a bad habit in the first place is really the question. Assume that pornography leads to more casual & meaningless sex…
Certainly, if you had no problem with casual & meaningless sex, there would be nothing wrong with pornography. Some people do have a problem with it, though. And there lies the real debate.

So do YOU consider sex to be just another bad habit? That would make me very sad for you. However, whether or not anyone does consider sex a bad habit still does not give them the right to define the limits of my behavior.

Anywho, all of that was really off topic because it doesn’t anywhere mention what harm it does to children to see pictures of adults either simply naked or engaged in a huge fucking orgy with peni and dildi penetrating every orafice. If parents and socienty didn’t act like spastic retards about pornography, kids would accept it at face value and not as some mysterious concept to be investigated incognito later.

[llamasex]

*Originally posted by Enuma Elish *
**I don’t think much of anti-porn legislation. It seems that the more you tell some people not to do something that they think is harmless (like Prohibition) the more they will try to do it.

However, for all of you who like to look at porn, please try this:

When you are on a porn site, just for a moment look away from the various body parts and look into the eyes of the women in the thumbnails.

Ask yourself this: Does she look happy to be here? Does she look like she has a choice?

Or, do the eyes of this woman tell me that she feels small, powerless, worthless, and at the mercy of others.

Then ask yourself if that is at all arousing.

Try this.

Just once.

Go ahead.

Try it. **

You should see the face I make at work, god I hate work.

[CriticalCat]

If it’s not really about the children, then why does the law do nothing but limit children’s access to porn? There doesn’t seem to be anything that would stop an interested adult from obtaining and viewing all the porn she or he wanted. This law, in and of itself, poses no threat to adult porn fans.

From the Register article that spawned all this:
“The COPA would make it a criminal offence for commercial Web sites to display any material that would be perceived as harmful by “an average person, applying contemporary community standards” unless access controls were employed to keep curious sprouts away from it.”

First off, “access controls” are difficult to implement, as any Webmaster will tell you. Even an Adultcheck ID is easy to obtain- all you need to do is beg, borrow, or steal one from somebody who already has one. Second off, depending on how rigorous the law is in regard to access control and the punishment for providing insufficient control, it is easier to take a page down than control it; good controls usually cost money to be part of a service, which means a great many free sites would either go pay or simply disappear.

Third off, you’ve mistaken my motivations. I’m not worried so much about not being able to get my porno fix as about the principle of the thing.

If you want to argue that this is just the first step down a slipperly slope that will lead to all porn being banned, you’re going to have to come up with some better support for your position.

Fortunately, that’s not my position. My position is that the law is completely ridiculous. My intention was to demonstrate that the “logic” behind the law would lead to something much more broadly applicable than just to porn sites. The language of the law specifies “harmful to minors”, and that can be applied to everything from hate to porn to violence to anything you just don’t like and don’t want your kid seeing. Yet we’re ALL talking about porn. That more than anything else tells me that the law is political code for porn; they’re less interested in protecting children from the internet than in scoring morality points.

[RickJay]

*Originally posted by Enuma Elish *
**
Ask yourself this: Does she look happy to be here? Does she look like she has a choice?

Or, do the eyes of this woman tell me that she feels small, powerless, worthless, and at the mercy of others.**

Uh huh. You’re presenting a false dilemma. Doesn’t tell us a thing.

The people (not just women) in porno movies are neither happy to be there (for the most part) nor helpless, powerless little children. They’re ACTORS.

[CriticalCat]

Ask yourself this: Does she look happy to be here? Does she look like she has a choice?

Or, do the eyes of this woman tell me that she feels small, powerless, worthless, and at the mercy of others.

Then ask yourself if that is at all arousing.

Try this.

Just once.

Go ahead.

Try it.

Actually, the women in the stuff I like to look at DO look pretty happy to be there. I’m not completely indiscriminate, and believe it or not exhibitionists do exist and they do enjoy showing off. I’m not into that myself, but I can’t say I’m not happy they are. I don’t care for the standard Orifice-Cam ™ shots and I avoid them.

Actually, the women in the more standard stuff you’re on about always looked less in soul-agony than they did just plain bored to me… not arousing either way.

[Enuma_Elish]

RickJay

False Dilemma, False Schlilemma

If you chose to react in another way when you look at porno, say by grabbing your butt and dancing the macarena,
go ahead and be my guest.

Look in their eyes and tell me what you see, just be honest with yourself when you look.

My post may not tell you anything, but your post tells me quite a bit ye-who-immediately-try-to-avoid-a simple-test-by-spouting-the-rules-of-logic

Go ahead

Look

Critical Cat

It sounds like you are already more aware of what you see than most people. Yes, some look like they are enjoying it, but not nearly as many as your average joe would think.
llamasexI’m not exactly sure if you are talking about pornography, or if work makes you feel small, powerless, worthless, and at the mercy of others.

If it is the work thing, I am quite sorry.

[Mr.Miskatonic]

*Originally posted by CriticalCat *
**

Ask yourself this: Does she look happy to be here? Does she look like she has a choice?

Or, do the eyes of this woman tell me that she feels small, powerless, worthless, and at the mercy of others.

Then ask yourself if that is at all arousing.

Try this.

Just once.

Go ahead.

Try it.

Actually, the women in the stuff I like to look at DO look pretty happy to be there. I’m not completely indiscriminate, and believe it or not exhibitionists do exist and they do enjoy showing off. I’m not into that myself, but I can’t say I’m not happy they are. I don’t care for the standard Orifice-Cam ™ shots and I avoid them.

Actually, the women in the more standard stuff you’re on about always looked less in soul-agony than they did just plain bored to me… not arousing either way. **

Indeed, if they woman does not look like she’s having a good time, it doesn’t do a damn thing for me.

I once knew a woman who had hit rock bottom with lost jobs and other problems. She had to pay rent and no temp or notmal job was going to get her the money in time, even if they did hire her the next day. She was attractive, though, and she got a job working the rooms of an internet live video sight as one of those girls.

Before she left for her first night there, I told her she would be best if she “showed off her best feature”.

She asked “What? My ass?”

I replied: “No, your smile.”

It was true, and she did keep up the smile through her sessions and earned decent bucks. She gave me the URL to lurk and I noticed she had quite a fan club built up. When I looked at the other rooms I saw some rather unenthusiastic girls at ‘work’. They running chat was filled with comments like “Are we keeping you awake, dear?”. Jerks were plentiful in all ‘rooms’ but the girl I knew had a fan base very quickly.

Was it great for her? No, not really, it was work! She had to sit in an awkward position, clean the room before and after she left it, keep the location sanitary, and work on plastic sheets. Oh and she would have to type from a reclining position, and be on a chatroom for 8 hours a shift (with breaks as needed). That being said, she was being paid to fake sex acts, occassionally chat on the phone with a ‘client’, and got extra for (ahem) urinary activities, which also had to be kept in sanitary disposible containers.

But in some ways, she said it was much easier than being a secretary.

Eventually she got a regular job, having decided that a woman of her age could not live off her body forever, and the late hours were a problem, along with the double-shifts.

Some sex actresses enjoy it, some enjoy it but know its work, some don’t enjoy it but can fake it a bit, some hate it and are bored, and it shows.

[tracer]

ThunderBunny quoted Intro to Behavioral Psychology (David G. Myers, 4th edition):

For example, Robert Arms and his associates report that Canadian and American spectators of football, wrestling, and hockey exhibit more hostility after viewing the event than before (Arms & others, 1979; Goldstein & Arms, 1971; Russel, 1983). Not even war seems to purge aggressive feelings. After a war, a nation’s murder rate tends to jump (Archer & Gartner, 1976)
[ … ]
In other experiments, aggressing has led to heightened aggression. Ebbe Ebbeson and his co-researchers (1975) interviewed 100 engineers and technicians shortly after they were angered by layoff notices. Some were asked questions that gave them an opportunity to express hostility against their employer or supervisor (…) Did the previous opportunity to “vent” or “drain off” their hostility reduce it? To the contrary, their hostility increased. Expressing hostility bred more hostility.

To my thinking, watching a violent sport, or answering questions that give you an opportinity to verbally (or writtenly) express hostilities, is not the same thing at all as actually venting hostilities through physical action (e.g. punching a punching bag).

And it’s not surprising that a nation’s violent crime rate should rise after a war, because a war puts a strain on the economy. Most of the people in a nation at war are not actually engaged in the real fighting, they’re just watching it on TV (like a football game).

[Dangerosa]

Look, a sex workers thread and no Stoid yet!

I, too, know sex workers…some love their job - true exhibitionists at heart.

One isn’t in love with her job, but doesn’t hate it, she is pretty realistic about it – “How else can a girl with a highschool diploma make a couple hundred bucks a night?” She’s also going to college (aging strippers are a sad lot).

I know that this is not all sex workers, but I’d like to see a reliable cite on the relative job satisfaction of sex workers over, oh say, hotel room maids.

[inertia]

*Originally posted by Lamia *
**

*Originally posted by Tabris *
**
Anyhow, you’ve offered some reasonable arguments why pornography is a bad thing, which is a worthwhile topic. But like ThunderBunny did before you’ve missed the original idea of the thread. Can you give any arguments why the LAW should concern itself with porn? **

Because the LAW in the OP is about restricting children’s access to porn, and all the defenses of pornography offered in this thread are based on the assumption that the viewer is an adult with a fully developed mental capacity. **

Firstly, I’m not sure I understand the answer.

Secondly, IF pornography is definitively and demonstrably harmful then it should be controlled. The question in my OP goes beyond “if porno is harmful should we ban it” and moves directly to “Is pornography harmful?” What I want is an example of a study of a representative group of people (not the occasional and rare, anecdotal sexual maniac) who can be pointed at and of them said, “Those people have viewed too much pornography and it has hurt them in this way.”

Most of the sexual trauma examples I’ve ever been exposed to have more to do with society’s shunning of people who HAVE a sex life rather than with deviant behavior.
Why are rape victims ashamed to report the crime? Because the sex act has been stigmatized by the over zealous repression of sexual discussion and a complete denial that people actually have sex. Therefore, it’s not a long and difficult journey to the belief that if you have sex, particularly in a less-than-ideal situation, you are a bad person.

[inertia]

*Originally posted by Enuma Elish *
**…

When you are on a porn site, just for a moment look away from the various body parts and look into the eyes of the women in the thumbnails.

Ask yourself this: Does she look happy to be here? Does she look like she has a choice?

Or, do the eyes of this woman tell me that she feels small, powerless, worthless, and at the mercy of others.

…**

So not only can you read minds, you can read minds from just a picture? That’s a pretty deep analysis tool you have there. Objectively (as opposed the the subjective passion you seem to be taken with) I would guess she’s thinking about the money she’s making. Subjectively, to me, half of the time these women looked bored. The rest of the time I see anywhere from mild interest to actual enjoyment. What really bugs me is that most of the time they never take off their damned shoes. That is sooo not real.

Maybe it’s the boredom that you see. Believe it or not, there are porn setups run by women. Who’s taking advantage of whom in that situation? Maybe everyone’s just happy to have a job.