Scylla, for what it’s worth, I don’t think anyone holds your analogy against you - the point was understood, the method of getting it across was debatable.
I never touched him, ref, honest!
Another thing: Do y’all have any idea just how long pornographic movies have been made? I’ve seen silent porn that was made at the turn of the century, and it was just as explicit as the XXX stuff made today, straight, gay and bisexual too. It isn’t new.
(And it was French, if that makes a difference. The titles were written in French.)
Then, of course, there was the Kama Sutra, sexually explicit statuary in India, Chinese sex manuals, and phallic symbols all over religious shrines, if you can believe that.
None of this stuff is new. Man (and Woman) has been making sexually explicit art since we learned how to make art in the first place.
The only way porn can be evil would be if Man (and Woman) was naturally evil. And, I don’t believe we are.
>< DARWIN >
__L___L
What disturbs me about porno is its easy accessibility to kids and teens via the internet. While I don’t feel that pornography is inherently “evil”, I do think that exposure to some pornography, especially images that link violence and sex, can lead to destructive behavior. Teenage boys especially concern me because they are notoriously pre-occupied with sex anyway, and given such easy access via the web…well,it’s like putting a brownie in front of me and asking me not to eat it.
Parents used to have to worry about relatively innocuous things like junior sneaking and reading his dad’s Playboy. Now with a couple clicks junior can be exposed to every sexual perversion imaginable, in full color. Bestiality, rape, you name it.
So while pornography isn’t necessarily to “blame” for bad behavior, I do believe it can be a contributing factor.
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(1) http://www.netnanny.com/
http://www.cybersitter.com/
(2) Maybe it’s a parents responsibility to keep tabs on their kids?
Nobody says that children should be watching porno, but the OP talked about how it was evil for adults.
In addition, I notice the first thing anti-porn posters came up with was kiddie porn.
I sumbit that our laws should not cater to kids. There are things adults do or at least should have the right to do, that are inappropriate for children. Driving a car, and driking are a couple of examples.
Most porn sites require a credit card number for access. If junior is stealing daddy’s Amex card for this, maybe the problem was rooted long before the new conputer was shipped.
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Purhaps anyone who had the desire to look up violent porn already had the violent tendencies to begin with?
Once again, we’re getting into an extreme category. First, kids, Now, violence. You are aware that most pornography has nothing to do with either of those things, right?
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I’d like an open call on Dopers who first saw porno as a teenager to see how much of a harmful effect this had on their lives and views on sexuality.
I will submit I saw porn as a teenager, and it had no effect on me, aside from the usual titilation.
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Have you searched for these extreme subjects? Fact is that (1) for almost all of these things, you do need a credit card to access it and (2) you really have to have a specific search command to find them. Put “sex” in a search engine, and you will find a lot of normal porn. So what exactly makes a teenager put “nymphos sucking horse cocks” into google?
Or maybe bad behavior contributes to bad porn, and the vast majority of people who are normal seek out the porno which is more conventional - also the vast majority - and this is something you have conveniently ignored in your post.
Yer pal,
Satan
“Teenagers sucking horse cocks”. Bestiality is illegal in the U.S.
There is no “XXX” rating. The MPSA only goes to “X”. The extra X-es are only a marketing ploy (like “teenaged lolitas”).
I certainly perused my share of Penthouse and Oui magazines (never did like Playboy, for some reason). So far as I can tell, it hasn’t had a tremendously deleterious effect on my sexuality, although my disappoint is still palpable every time a cute pizza delivery girl doesn’t offer to jump my bones when she arrives at the door.
Just for giggles, I searched “Nymphos sucking horse cocks” on Google. No beastiality hits in the first 50. Several that advertise Horse hung men though. Tell your devient teen to be more specific.
Cecil said it. I believe it. That settles it.
Satan, there is an enormous amount of porn available on the web without a credit card. You only need a credit card for the good stuff 
Lisa, I would submit that any teenager who would engage in bad behavior as a (partial) result of seeing porn on the internet most likely has a psychological/social problem to begin with. For those teens, yes, keeping them away from porn might be a good idea. That isn’t a good enough reason to make it inaccessible for everyone else though.
Just remember: Upon seeing a German “Scheisse” video on the Internet, the South Park boys’ immediate reaction was to go “Ewwwwwwww!”, puke, and complain, “What is wrong with German people?!!”
Satan said:
quote:
In addition, I notice the first thing anti-porn posters came up with was kiddie porn.
endquote.
Of course, because it’s a very valid point.
Why are you misconstruing what I have said on this subject to mean that I am anti-porn? I’m not.
I don’t believe the display of the naked human body is in itself inherently “evil”.
Now having said that, I find the way it is done, ‘porno’, to beget evil. In it’s mildest form it engenders a kind of ‘forbidden fruit’ reaction. At it’s worst it is degrading, dehumanizing, exploitative and sick. I believe it can take an already sick individual and push him/her over the edge, particularly as regards child porn.
Although not against it entirely, I personally have found it to be corrosive to the soul, and I leave it alone.
VB
Tempus is fugiting all over the place! Carpe that diem!
Satan, let me re-phrase my concern. “Considering there are people out there with mental disorders, it concerns me that porn is so easily accessible.”
You admitted to looking at tawdry material during your formative years, as have a lot of young men. Big whoop, right? I am assuming, and please correct me if I’m wrong, that when you looked at these pictures, you masturbated. Or perhaps you recalled these images when masturbating later.
Now, imagine a teen today who has the whole deviant sex community at his fingertips. He doesn’t have just one magazine that he managed to pilfer from his father. He has search engines, chat rooms, e-mail, the SDMB. All these places where he can access more of this stuff with the click of a button. And while a teen masturbating to Playboy does not really concern me, a teen who finds himself masturbating to a handcuffed and gagged woman does. Because, in a typical Pavlovian way, if he fixates on these images enough, he will begin to associate domination with pleasure.
I am a former volunteer counselor at the White Plains rape crisis center, so I’ve studied this to some degree. Rapists don’t just one day walk out of their house and commit a felony. It starts out as a fantasy. Most of them use pornography.
So, yes, I am concerned that graphic images, esp. deviant images, is the equivalent of opening up a pandora’s box.
PunditLisa–
You have some valid points, but again, the responsibility of monitoring what you children are doing on the Internet, is up to you…the parent. If you don’t want you kids sneaking to sex sites online, don’t have the computer in their room where they can do lord knows what in privacy. Our family computer was always in the office…were anyone could walk by at any time…this is still were it’s at.
It’s about time for parents to stop wanting everyone else to baby-sit their children…don’t like what your kid sees online?..be with them when they’re there. It’s not that difficult to install the Internet filtering software, or to password protect your computer so they can’t use things they’re not supposed to.
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“Considering there are people who are alcoholics, it concerns me that liquor is so easily accessible.”
Can you believe that they have liquor stores, bars, and even the local convenience stors sell the stuff? Unbelievable…
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As I brought up earlier, while that material may be more available than before, it is hardly “at his fingertips.”
I had a gross-out e-mail contest with a friend of mine, trying to find the most disgusting picture I could. So, I tried to get a beastiality shot. You wanna know how hard it was to find something suitable without a credit card? You wanna know how many sites say “beastiality” but don’t offer anything of the sort. They just have the word on their site to pick up hits?
And again, as also was noted, the “deviant” stuff is so in the minority of what’s out there, it’s not even funny.
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And most people who use pornography do no rape. Maybe for many the fantasy is enough, and in fact the pornography is a healthy outlet for these feelings? I happen to think that if you took pornography away, there would be MORE rapes for this very reason.
Yer pal,
Satan
So, Vestal, why blame porn for it instead of our society’s twisted and corrosive attitudes about human physiology and sexuality?
Satan, I sneaked into my folks’ closet as a kid, read my dad’s magazines and some rather lurid paperbacks. As a teeneger I had a small stash of magazines and have read Penthouse off and on since (er, for the articles. Yeah . . .that’s it), with my SO’s knowledge (she really does read the articles).
I can say all I want that it didn’t affect me, but how the hell would I know? My early experiences with erotica were certainly educational, and I believe very strongly that they did not warp my idea of sexuality. I don’t expect women to conform to the Barbie stereotype. I hate fake breasts. I love hips and a real waist. I enjoy sex in lots of forms . . . but entirely with my SO. Porn certainly hasn’t encouraged me to cheat on her, or to leer at little girls (or boys) or desire violent sex.
I do agree that there is a great deal of exploitation on the porn industry, but I believe that to be solely the result of narrow, suffocating zealotry masquerading as a social conscience in this country.
-andros-
Atrael, I agree that parents should watch their children. I do. In fact, I’ve been criticized for being too overprotective. I don’t even let my children watch “Rugrats” because Angelica is so mouthy. But it’s unrealistic for you or me to think that any parent is going to watch their child 100% of the time. It’s just not possible. And while I don’t ask anyone else to “babysit” my children for me, I do ask “society’s” help in helping me rear my children.
How can society help? Well, a case in point is cigarette vending machines. I don’t know if it’s a state or federal law, but in Ohio the cigarette vending machines have been removed from areas that are accessible to kids. They have also made the penalties stiffer on stores that are caught selling liquor to underage kids. The movie industry “rates” its movies so I can determine as a parent whether a movie is appropriate for my child.
All these things help me do my job as a parent. I wish the web community would help more. When I log onto AOL, every day I have a half dozen e-mails with hyperlinks to porn sites. Walk into a chatroom and within 30 minutes you’ll be instant-messaged with a hyperlink. No credit card required. It’s just too easy.
And, Satan, you wanted to find a bestiality image… you eventually found one, didn’t you? Now I’d bet that 10 years ago you’d have been hard pressed to come up with something like that with the library and a couple dirty magazines as your only resource. And that’s my point.
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Ask all you want. But there are plenty of laws an options for parents to take which restrict access of things to minors already, and any law which takes away the freedoms of adults I am not for at all.
I, as an American adult, refuse to have my entertainment options - whether they be pornography or anything else - taken away because you forgot to put your diaphragm in.
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As has been mentioned before, there are several web filters available for this purpose. See the links above.
Society is doing all it can to keep porn accessible for adults and make it harder for kids to get it. But you have to do your part too.
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Well, I would wager that a change in ISP’s might be in order, and it’s very simple to set up AIM, ICQ or any other chat clients to not get messages from unknown people.
How is society to blame because you choose a crappy ISP or can’t change the settings on your chat clients?
Had I had Net Nanny on my computer, I would have never found it. If I had a kid, I would install that and keep an eye on his or her internet usage.
But, once again, you do not adress that that kind of porn is very much in the minoity, and harping on it is like saying abortion should be illegal because some woman had twelve of them.
Pointing out the worst possible scenerio is not an adequate representation of the issue as a whole, and your refusal to even acknowledge this shows that you don’t get MY point.
Yer pal,
Satan
I skimmed a bit so I apologize if this echos any other posts.
Many normal everyday folks enjoy pornography. So the fact that rapists, murderers and Multi_level Marketers enjoy pornography is no reason to villianize it.
Quite frankly, most of the rapists and murderers who claim “I was a boy scout who mowed his grandmother’s lawn for free every saturday until i saw a girlie mag” is nothing but a manipulator playing on the religious fanatics to try to get themselves lighter treatment for their crimes. By saying “The demon pornography did it” makes the person somewhat less liable for their actions… they were “possessed by it”.
Such thinking is what started prohibition, and during which much more alcohol related crime occurred while non-alcohol related crimes remained the same.
Even if outlawing pornography were to happen, the people with the proclivity toward sexual assault and violence would still act out, pornorgraphy is not a trigger or a cause, it’s a coincidence.
If you feel that you must suffer, then plan your suffering carefully–as you choose your dreams, as you conceive your ancestors.