Is Porno Evil?

Great Debates
61

Atrael said:

I mean, if this were as prevalent, and as hideous a situation as described,
I’m sure there would be strong legislature to stop it. With a lack of such high-profile
actions being taken, I feel comfortable in stating that it may not be as big a problem as is
believed.

endquote.

I don’t wish to be rude, but that’s pretty naive. It’s like saying “There are no bad guys, because if there were, the police would have caught them.”

On the other hand we all know that if there were people out there exploiting young women the government would just call up the Superfriends on the Bat phone and that would put a stop to it. Right?

Let me repeat myself. I don’t think pornography is bad. I like sex, and I understand that lots of woman do as well.

I understand that there are woman in Pornography by choice, who make good money at it. They are the exception.

There is an IMMENSE amount of Pornography being made out there. Most of the woman are not stars. Most do not have agents, or advocates of any kind. Some are desperate, and quite a few must be stupid to fall for the kind of thing they do.

If you want to know if this exists, go to any large city (NY and LA are especially good,) and ask a police officer in Vice. Go to a youth shelter, and ask them how the industry works.

I used to work in NYC and take the bus home everyday. There are people who do nothing else but wait in the Port Authority Bus Terminal for runaways to get off the bus. They acquire their trust, party with them, get them involved in drugs, and lead them into the business. This happens to thousands and thousands of teenage boys and girls every year, and by any criterion it is evil.

The best man at my wedding is a probation officer. He tells me stories about how when he hassles a teen about a violation, they often think he’s giving them a hard time because he’s looking for a blowjob! Many (boys and girls are “veterans” of the Porn industry)

They make Pornography because its better than being on the street. They rarely get paid, other than in shelter or drugs, and after a few films when they are too strung out and hard to be attractive they end up right back on the street a lot worse for wear.

What you see in a video store is the tip of the iceberg. High quality, good production value, professional actors and actresses, this is not what I’m talking about (although that side isn’t exactly squeaky clean either.)

Most pornography is limited run, straight to video cassette, with local distribution, and a lot of it’s made the way I describe it.

My argument is not against the concept of pornography. It’s against the majority of the pornographers out there who deliberately con, mislead, and destroy those that they suck into their world.

If you choose to believe that it doesn’t happen this way you are woefully underinformed or else putting your head in the sand.

62

Scylla, I know what you are saying is true. I was taking the bus into NYC almost every weekend starting at the age of 14. Even now I take the PATH train in at least once a month.
I’ve seen them, hell, I’ve been propositioned by them. But this is what I would refer to as kiddie porn. This is evil. No one is arguing that. I would consider a runaway under the age of 18 as a child, and therefore this part of the business would, no doubt, be illegal, immoral, and, yes, evil.
I do not however think this is protocol for the business. There are snakes in every part of every industry. I just don’t think there are as many in this industry as you(and many others) seem to believe.

Always be ready to speak your mind and a base man will avoid you.
-William Blake

63

Psycat:

A fair point. I also don’t think that suddenly at 18 somebody is automatically old enought to be able to protect themselves from this kind of thing either.

Thanks for making the effort to understand what I was getting at.

Often wrong… NEVER in doubt

64

Well, you should be bent out of shape over his inability to share this with you, not just what it is, which was my point.

If I saw my SO’s bookmarks and I saw something relatively innocuous, say a folder dedicated to rifle shooting and competitions, it would not bother me for WHAT it is, even though (maybe) I’m anti-guns or something, but why didn’t she tell me about this interest?

Yer pal,
Satan

65

**

Um… Actually, I would say they are the RULE. You are talking about the exception.

My qualifications: Was published in Oi! and Adult Cinema Review magazines for about a year, interviewing porno starlets, reviewing videos, and going to a shoot once.

As far as people trolling the bus stops, well, people do this to get kids into prostitution as well. Or to kill them. What’s your point?

The military plays on kids with no direction, who believe they have no other options or ways to pay for schooling, and preach all kinds of great perks to them.

Religious cults (and even mainstream religious organizations) have no problems playing on the disenchanted to gain converts.

Does this make the military evil? Religion?

Yer pal,
Satan

66

Satan:

I would respectfully suggest that you interviewed the creme de creme of the business with your work in the porn industry.

There are tens of thousands of porn films made every year. For every happy starlet, there are probably a hundred girls whose primary asset is the recquired genitalia. These you did not interview, and these are of whom I speak.

I mentioned earlier that several companies (Vivid and VCA among others) are pretty clean. There are huge amounts of money to be made by using attractive, enthusiastic, and wholesome looking actors, a well as good production values. This is the common commercial pornography you most commonly see at the video store. These and othercompanies have nothing to gain by creating a scandal with drugs, coercian, or under-age actors.
Stop off on one of those stores on a major highway (the kind with the fenced off parking lot,) or the adult video store in the seedier part of town, and you will find another product altogether. This is the majority of the porn made in the US.

Small studios, noname actors/actresses very cheap to make, and the companies are rarely in business long enough to suffer any consequences. This shit is bad and there’s a ton of it out there!

67

I have been perusing the adult movie section of eBay.

It is… very scary.

I cannot believe the people making some of the movies advertised there are doing so because of their happy self-image.

I am really amazed. I didn’t think I was a prude – I had seen some “classic” X flicks. But these are very different.

Yeesh.

68

NO I WASN’T SNOOPING: We each have a private e-mail, but then have an AOL account that we use when we don’t want to be bothered by instant messages- I (up till now) have never used it. We’ve had it months and he uses it regularly. It really was an honest finding.

Thanks for the advice, Atrael. You made some good points. I think my best course of action is to not mention it, but try and talk to him about our relationship and if he feels it’s missing anything. I’ve been working a lot lately…

Satan- I wasn’t upset about the content, but the fact he didn’t share it with me.

Hmmmm. Here’s a question. If someone is inattentive to their spouse’s needs (and I’m not suggesting I’m inattentive… just unavailable lately)… are they then partly responsible for their spouse’s extra-curricular activities that may result?

Here’s another question… would anyone be in favor of government regulated porn?

69

Depends what you mean by “regulated.” If you mean that the industry should be held to the same standards as regards working conditions, safety etc. as any other industry, absolutely. One of the arguments in favor of legalized porn is that workers can’t easily complain about their working conditions when their job itself is illegal.

Is that the kind of regulation you meant?

70

Let me be clear on something because “Kiddie Porn” is getting thrown around a lot here.

I think of Kiddie Porn as that stuff which is specifically designed to appeal to pedophiles. That is, clearly pubescent or prebuscent children.

There is also a grey area. Over the last several years their have been at least three scandals with girls in the mainstream porn sector who were underrage. One was 15 years old, I believe. The only reason it was found that these girls were underrage was because they rose to become Pornstarlets so quickly.

I imagine there’s quite a bit of pornography out there with underrage actors. Perhaps they have a false ID, perhaps nobody cares. I don’t know. Go to Alta Vista and type in “Very Young Teenage sex” and take a look at what comes up. There is no way those girls are all 18. Pretend for a second that they are. why is this an arbitrary line? So you suddenly reach an intellectual maturity at 18 that grants you better judgement?

Check it out for yourself. Look at the expression on some of these kids’ faces. Do they look happy? It didn’t take me long to find this stuff. Go look for yourself and tell me this is all ok, and nobody’s getting hurt. Yeah, right. Who do you think you’re kidding. I have a daughter and this shit scares me!

Often wrong… NEVER in doubt

71

Scylla- Actually I thought I was being generous when giving the ‘magic’ age of 18. I for one think that at the age of 16, and in some girls, even 15, most have enough common sense to make a decision on whether or not they should take their clothes off for a living. You truly are underestimating these young girls. Your perception of use and abuse is not the mainstream, it exists, and it sucks, but it is not the norm. I’m telling you firsthand, the majority of these actresses start out as dancers and just follow the road to movies if they choose to. They like it. They are not desperate. Most of the girls I know live in beautiful homes in beautiful neighborhoods. Some had their children in the same Catholic School my kids went to. They are not the hapless idiotic twits you seem to think they are. They like their jobs. They like the income. Most of them I would consider rather intelligent.

Satan mentioned other organizations preying on young confused individuals. Does that make them evil? Perhaps, but we aren’t going to debate that. Seediness is abound everywhere. You have a daughter, then shield her from it.

Always be ready to speak your mind and a base man will avoid you.
-William Blake

72

Do you have names or dates for this? I assume you are talking about Traci Lords. That was back in 1986. Hell even the government thought she was 18. They gave her a U.S. passport.

Since then, the mainstream adult movie industry has been absolutley stringent about mking sure that their actresses/models are over 18. The IDs of every actor/actress in films produced by major movie studios have them on file. Most adult films show an address where you can request the info. Even many magazines with titles like “Barely Legal” go out of their way to say that all of their models are over 18.

The editor of one of these magazines was recently quoted as saying that pedophiles whould rather peruse the catalog of a children’s clothing store than read those kinds of magazines.

I agree with you that there does exist a certain amount of really base, deceitful and repulsive activity in pornography, Scylla. And you said yourself that you are “not against the concept of pornography.”

But the major adult film makers make up a huge share of the adult market and their standards are well above those what you claim “the majority of pornographers out there” have.

Did you recently see 8mm or something?

I used to rock and roll all night and party every day. Then it was every other day. Now I’m lucky if I can find a half an hour a week in which to get funky.

73

tracer:

OK :slight_smile: Entirely laudable excuse. [/dissed academic]

Designated Optional Signature at Bottom of Post

74

Scylla, the 15-year-old you’re probably thinking about is Traci Lords. According to the Internet Movie Data Base, http://imdb.com she made more than 80 porn films before turning 18. I’m not sure how they found out her true age. I do know this: All the films she made underage are supposed to be off the legitimate market and illegal to purchase. However, she did make a film AFTER she was found out. If the experience was so bad for her, why did she go back?

She has done some legitimate acting, on TV, in Roseanne, mostly, and her last listed credit was on Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. There is a short bio of her at http://us.imdb.com/Bio?Lords,+Traci

NOTE: In case you haven’t heard of it, IMDB.com covers ALL films, from “G” ratings up to “XXX”, from around the world. It’s not a porn site.

TRIVIA: Lords was a centerfold in the same issue of Penthouse that featured Vanessa Williams after she became Miss America. It’s illegal to own or trade or sell that issue unless you first remove the pictures of Lords.

LAST THOUGHT: Porn itself isn’t evil, but some of the people who make it definitely are. So are some of the people who make cigarettes. So are some of the people who make guns. So are some of the people who make _______. (Fill in the blank.)

>< DARWIN >
__L___L

75

Observations made BEFORE reading every other message before me:

Pornography, like numerous other things in life, has the potential to be quite damaging. It can be quite addictive and can potentially damage people’s lives. But if that was the definition of evil then we’re all doomed and nearly everything around is evil.

I’d like someone to succintly justify the statement, explaining why porn is evil.

Anecdote: Recently in a discussion with my married friends (I’m single and lacking kids btw) the topic if censorship came up and I shocked a few with the statement that if I had kids I’d prefer to discover them watching two people make consentual love (perfectly natural occurence) rather than a seemingly-indestructible guy killing and maiming countless number of people (hopefully NOT natural).

Yet which is freely available to our youth?

76

Believe it or not, I think I’m in agreemnet with most everybody on most major points.

No, I don’t remember the names of the three girls. Sorry, maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned it, if I couldn’t back it up. I hope you’ll accept my sincerity that I did see it.

It doesn’t take much looking to see what a nasty business Pornography can be though. If you did as I suggested, and spent ten minutes searching the web, I think you might agree that some of the stuff out there is very scary.

I’m not an old man, and I’m not a prude, but please don’t tell me that 14 and 15 year olds know what they’re doing. I’ll admit a lot of them think they do. But Jesus, these are kids, and they’re being put on display AS KIDS.

They’re dressed up as school girls for chrissakes. Some of the scenes give the clear impression that a rape is going on. Don’t tell me that some of these Russian and Scandinavian sites are all 18 or older. Some of these girls are clearly barely into their teens. Who’s checking ages here? How tough is it to get a fake ID?

We’re talking about tens of thousands of actors/actresses every year. I doubt it’s much harder for a 16 year old to make a porn film than it is to buy a case of beer.

What I think we are in disagreement about is exactly how prevalent this stuff is.

I’m sorry to disagree Psycat but most kids don’t know crap (I sure as hell didn’t, and it doesn’t take Machiavelli to influence them.

Consenting adults can do whatever they want, (and for the most part I’d like to join them in doing it!)

You can’t legislate morality, and you can’t protect people from their own stupidity, but you don’t have to dig to deep to find the ugly stuff. It’s obvious what’s on these kids faces in these pictures as this stuff’s being done to them. It doesn’t take much imagination to figure that some pretty hard things had to happen to bring them to that point. The people that manipulated the situation to deliberately make it happen are just plain bad. Pretend for a second that they’re all 18 or over, it still doesn’t make it right.

Enough of that. Sorry to pontificate. I know it’s not all like that, and most of the mainstream isn’t.

77

Ugh. First off, Tassey, porn may not be pretty, but it also isn’t a mistress. It isn’t a cheating husband. If you’re looking to lay blame, it has a place - you’re just not willing to acknowledge that the husband YOU chose was a jagoff. That’s all. He was a cheater and he cheated. His infidelity is his own fault. There’s no scapegoat, baby. Sorry.

Second - rape, pedophilia, and incest all existed before photographs or movies did. Explain away, but you’re not going to convince anyone that these sicknesses are 20th-century inventions. They’re horrible, but they’re not new. Pornography didn’t cause them.

Next - there are SO many differences among hardcore porn, softcore porn, bondage porn, transvestite porn, ‘barely legal’ porn, gay porn, lesbian porn, incest porn, group porn, interracial porn, … you all DO see where I’m going w/ this, right? The one thing they have in common is that they are all assumed to be performed by consenting adults. Icky as any of us may find the content of a particular genre, the subjects are of age to make their own choices. Not a one of us has ANY right to say a word about what they’ve done, or done in front of a camera. We’re also all blessed with the choice to watch or not.

Now, kiddie porn - I don’t think we’re going to hear from any kiddie porn advocates on this board. If there’s ANYTHING we can all agree on, I’m sure it’s that kiddie porn is sick and evil. That’s really a non-issue. Few NAMBLA members make themselves known in public forums such as this. When Traci Lords and the like come up, that MAY be a different story - she DID have a porn career before she was of legal age. I don’t think it’s right, but I think any thinking person can realize there’s a difference between a 16-year old female and a child. Those who produce porn SHOULD be positive that their actors are of legal age. However, Traci Lords’ films can hardly be considered kiddie porn, and once again, they’re the exception rather than the rule.

Then we have the degradation of women. I can’t speak with any certainty on this subject, as I’ve never been in a porno. I don’t know for sure if I’d feel degraded or not. I have, however, had a friend that’s worked in the sex industry, and she didn’t mind it. She didn’t view it as a career move so much as a chance to make a lot of money, but her feelings were that SOMEONE was going to do it and get paid, so she might as well be the one. I don’t necessarily think I’d do what she did, but I respect her choice. She never felt degraded, as far as she told me. She actually told me that, during the period of time she worked in the industry, she felt that she got more respect from the men than she would have in her normal life. This is just an anecdote, though. It proves nothing other than the fact that there’s ONE woman in the world that had a good experience in the sex industry.

My basic feeling is that unless one is involved in the sex industry or a slave to it, one should find something REAL to worry about. It’s not going to cause any psychological disorders. Sex is about choice. When choice is removed (such as child pornagraphy or rape)it’s a different story altogether, but a rare one - on film, at least. Rape and molestation aren’t about sex, they’re about power and subjugation. As a society, we need to worry about that more than we do about XXX-All-Girl-Action, or whatever… And we need to find ways to combat them that will have a real effect, rather than censorship that would just drive those particular publications underground. If only people realized that there were actual ISSUES to deal with, rather than sound bytes accompanied by glossy pictures.

78

Actually, I think porn is degrading to MEN! Think of it. Here are these guys who want physical contact with a woman, but all they can manage is wanking in front of their computer, going to a strip club (look, but don’t touch), or watching a video. It’s sad.

Yes there is kiddie porn on the 'net. But I’ve never causally come across any. Someone mentioned Russians. Well, we don’t have control over what someone puts on a Russian server (or Dutch, or Bahamian…). But if these people ever come to the U.S. for a vacation they can be arrested. It’s happened.

I don’t have the time or desire to do a search, but I’ll bet that if you did a search for illegal content it would not be especially easy to find. I’m sure many sites advertise illegal content, but their models are actually 18. Anything to suck you in and get your clicks and money.

79

There’s some serious talking-past-each-other going on here - Scylla said, right off the bat, that he didn’t think pornography was bad, but everybody kept hitting him with ‘just because the stuff you describe happens on occasion, does that make pornography bad?’

Never hurts to read the post, rather than just skim it, before responding.

In a similar vein, I think Scylla is making a valid distinction between the instances of porn being seen, and the instances of porn being made.

It’s quite possible that 90% of the time someone watches a porno flick, it’s made by one of the high-quality places that Satan and others have referred to - but that such flicks constitute a very small fraction of the films actually made. And if we’re arguing about whether the typical porn actress has a great life or is exploited every which way from Sunday, we need to look at the typical porn flick made, rather than the typical porn flick viewed.

I hope I’ve made the distinction clear - I got up too early this morning, and my words are probably as fuzzy as my thoughts. And I need to point out that just because the scenario I’ve described is possible doesn’t mean it’s true.

But it doesn’t strike me as particularly unlikely, because life is full of skewed distributions of exactly this sort: there may be a hundred kinds of birds in the woods behind my house, but most of the time I notice one, it’s a cardinal or a bluejay or a chickadee. And similarly, it may be that the vast majority of porn that we take note of is still a small fraction of the porn that is manufactured. So I think Scylla has a genuine point here.

80

I’m not slamming Scylla, RTFirefly. I thought he did make some valid points, as did you.

I just don’t believe the industry is as seedy and degrading as some people tend to believe. There is a stigma attached to sex. A taboo. That can tend to make people think the worst. I am just stating it’s not as bad as you think, based on my personal experiences with many young ladies in the erotic movie and dancing industry. Many people here have chimed in to offer similar stories. I agreed there are instances that are bad, horrifying even. Just as there are in many aspects of our society. It’s not the porn industry’s fault. It’s the scumbags that walk amongst us.

Always be ready to speak your mind and a base man will avoid you.
-William Blake