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Equating pornography with censorship will take me some time to get my head around. Again, you seem to take the polar opposite here by saying that censoring pornography will cause extreme political ideaology to prevail and we will go through other Holocaust. Those who advocate censorship are not all Facists and Maoists - they just want their future generation to have a higher view of women and more respect for them. Read and reflect on reports on how young boys are watching extreme pornographic, and then getting a girlfriend and trying the same things they have seen, which can cause the girl pain and emotional distress. You are right it is a fallacy that moderation is always the middle path. But it is also a fallacy to assume that all possible fallacies are certainly fallacies. When it comes to sex moderation is the best path as the effects of too little acknowledgement and "over-acknowledgement" is unhealthy for society. Simple example, too much or too little with your partner can be damaging to the relationship. When is comes to moderation, pornography will always lead to excess as it encourages a quick-route to satisfaction which will always be addictive. A quick route to pleasure without very little effort is very addictive regardless of the vice. Age is definately a factor in determing how people think and view life. Our thoughts evolve everyday - this doesn't make me "ageist" as you describe, it's not suprising a pro-pornography person such as yourself will be quick to make me out to be discriminatory and try make yourself out to be the hero. Now I guess im "anti-liberalist" for pointing out your modus operandi. But pornography will always discourage moderation as it is a quick-route to satisfaction where one can bypass all the usual steps involved to gaining that pleasure with a partner. http://www.protectkids.com/effects/harms.htm However I'm sure you know statistics aren't everything so what is required here is a rational logical debate. Statistics will only get us so far so we must think these issues through logically. If we are to play your card we could use correlation does not imply causation for censorship effecting negatively/postively society over the years. This is the typical liberal argument except when it works in their favour. They will often goto extremes making their opponent out to be a right-wing facist. All I'm asking is for you consider one question:- "Are you fine with your children growing up in an unrestricted internet environment that could expose them to rape scenes, extreme pornography and self-multilation?" If so, then this is your choice.

I do believe your confusing porn with something emotional and meaningfull, like say a relationship. Its a quick physical release, nothing more.

I'm not going to suggest that porn doesn't feel good. But you imply that it is emotionless and meaningless, which is absurd. Porn affects your thoughts, your perspectives and attitudes regarding other people (as well as yourself), and the things you may expect or attempt when actually engaged in sex (as opposed to just watching it on video). This has consequences, which are frequently negative (PDF).

Anyway, whether you agree or not, here's a Wired article for the discussion...

Internet Porn: Worse Than Crack?

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2004 /11/65772

Internet pornography is the new crack cocaine, leading to addiction, misogyny, pedophilia, boob jobs and erectile dysfunction, according to clinicians and researchers testifying before a Senate committee Thursday.

Witnesses before the Senate Commerce Committee's Science, Technology and Space Subcommittee spared no superlative in their description of the negative effects of pornography.

Mary Anne Layden, co-director of the Sexual Trauma and Psychopathology Program at the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Cognitive Therapy, called porn the "most concerning thing to psychological health that I know of existing today."

"The internet is a perfect drug delivery system because you are anonymous, aroused and have role models for these behaviors," Layden said. "To have drug pumped into your house 24/7, free, and children know how to use it better than grown-ups know how to use it -- it's a perfect delivery system if we want to have a whole generation of young addicts who will never have the drug out of their mind."

Pornography addicts have a more difficult time recovering from their addiction than cocaine addicts, since coke users can get the drug out of their system, but pornographic images stay in the brain forever, Layden said.

Jeffrey Satinover, a psychiatrist and advisor to the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality echoed Layden's concern about the internet and the somatic effects of pornography.

"Pornography really does, unlike other addictions, biologically cause direct release of the most perfect addictive substance," Satinover said. "That is, it causes masturbation, which causes release of the naturally occurring opioids. It does what heroin can't do, in effect."

The internet is dangerous because it removes the inefficiency in the delivery of pornography, making porn much more ubiquitous than in the days when guys in trench coats would sell nudie postcards, Satinover said.

Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kansas), the subcommittee's chairman, called the hearing the most disturbing one he'd ever seen in the Senate. Brownback said porn was ubiquitous now, compared to when he was growing up and "some guy would sneak a magazine in somewhere and show some of us, but you had to find him at the right time."

The hearing came just days after a controversy over a sexually suggestive Monday Night Football ad that has many foreseeing a crackdown on indecency by the Federal Communications Commission.

It is unclear what the consequences of Thursday's hearing will be since it was not connected to any pending or proposed legislation.

Brownback, a conservative Christian, is also scheduled to be rotated off the sub-committee in the next session.

When Brownback asked the panelists for suggestions about what should be done, the responses were mild, considering their earlier indictment of pornography. Several suggested that federal money be alloc

For all we know, there could simply be a pool of say, 1000, images that are simply being recycled via digital copying over and over. No one has any hard data on this. We know nothing, yet laws are being drafted, essentially on the basis of rhetoric.

From http://www.protectkids.com/dangers/stats.htm#child porn
140,000 child pornography images were posted to the Internet according to researchers who monitored the Internet over six weeks. Twenty children were estimated to have been abused for the first time and more than 1,000 images of each child created

Another interesting site with some statistics:
http://internet-filter-review.toptenreviews.com/in ternet-pornography-statistics.html

Marketeers happily pay millions of dollars for a few seconds of television because they know that thirty seconds is enough time to influence people's behavior. That being the case it is folly to think that you can expose yourself to much longer periods of pornography without any effect on your behavior. The fact of the matter is that quite a few studies have been done on the effects of pornography on behavior, especially in children. Here's a good list.

I am not trying to set public policy, and I tend to agree that outlawing pornography is not likely to be effective. However, just because I can't turn off pornography everywhere doesn't make pornography harmless. For the most part that means that my reaction to this problem is to try and limit my exposure and the exposure of my family to pornography.

The definition of porn has already been determined by case history.

http://www.protectkids.com/effects/harms.htm But there is written in the beginning, that "every child who views pornography will not necessarily be affected and, at worst, traumatized in the same way"

Seriously, though, how much of the web is practical anyway?

At least 40,000 sites, I'd assume.