Sex.com Returned to Original Owner

bahtama writes: "Yahoo and others are running a story about the Sex.com cyber-squatter who has to pay big bucks to the original owner." MSNBC says the owner plans to make it a *cough* sticky portal.

Comments

The moral? We're all in the wrong business

[Anonymous Coward]

The defendant made $43 million running the site for more than four years

Let's be generous and call it 5 years. That's still over 8 million per year. Seriously, don't we all feel a bit stupid, having looked down on those loathesome pr0n peddlers?

(not that pr0n is bad - I love them myself, especially fried in batter)

I hope this doesn't set too much of a trend

[Proteus]

While it's good to see that some justice is being handed out to the worst kind of squatters (those who fraudulently transfer domain names), I hope that this ruling doesn't start a trend that goes further. Namely, I hope this doesn't mean that we will see more of the EToys vs. etoy kind of thing.

If legitimate but similar names start being subject to this kind of monetary damage ($65M, from the article), I fear for the future. Let's hope this stays well in hand.

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Re:What are you talking about?

[Proteus]

I support the ruling, but I hope this kind of ruling stays in the realm of "if you steal domain names, you give them back and pay for lost profits." The trend I hope doesn't start is "hey! your name is too similar to mine, I want it, and I want to you pay me for every hit you got, since it was probably meant for my site!"

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Re:Well.. yeah..

[Proteus]

I see your point, but there is a progression. Today it's "you stole from me, give me my domain back, and pay for my lost profits." Tomorrow, it could be "by having a similar domain name to mine, you stole from me: give me your domain, and pay for my lost profits."

See how easy that jump is (for a clueless judge)?

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Talk about slow...

[Mercenary]

The Register had this story yesterday...

Plus they used the infinitely more amusing and subtle headline, sex.com changes hands on a previous occasion :-)

Of course, the money-related story is reported here.

There seems to be a definite trend now where The Register gets all the cool stories waaaay before Slashdot, and writes them far more amusingly and insightfully than the editors here.

Re:Talk about slow...

[Mercenary]

Well, Slashdot's editorial control has only (in my view) been declining recently. (in terms of most posted stories being seen elsewhere some time before).

So, to be honest, it's probably only a matter of time....

Re:Talk about slow...

[Sol Wientrub]

Tell me again, why are you still reading Slashdot?

ISO Country Code TLDs

[wilhelm]

All countries do have 2-letter TLDs; check the IANA's ccTLD page. However, some countries choose to sell their namespace for cash, and allow anybody to buy a name in their domain. .cc (Cocos (Keeling) Islands), .tv (Tuvalu) and .ws (Western Samoa) have done this, and I'm sure there'll be more to come. Just because registrars are billing these TLDs as "new" or whatever, and advertising the shit out of them, doesn't mean they're in any way special. AFAIK, ALL 2-letter TLDs are countries.

Straw Man?

[Kozz]

Interesting how you get modded up for creating your own elaborate straw man, and then knocking it down.

I'm no hardcore Bible-thumper, but you've certainly taken a few passages out of context... read them with the surrounding lines, and you'll get the full picture. 1 Corinthians 7:1-12 in its full context is better understood when one should and should not marry.

More power to you if you can build a strong argument for your case, whatever that might be. I always look forward to intelligent discourse. But you stooped rather low to get your point across.


Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.

So where does this leave NetSol?

[The Dodger]

Particularly as I'd have thought that NetSol would be negligent in handing a domain over to a fraudster.

D.

Re:So where does this leave NetSol?

[Zocalo]

Negligent seems about right to me as well. Since the fraudster has done the sensible thing from his point of view, namely skipped the country and stashed the cash in off shore accounts, I'd say that leaves NetSol in the position of about to receive a legal document from the plaintiff's lawyer...

What's the bet we all get to pay an extra buck per domain fairly soon to cover any damages and costs they might accrue in the proceedings? :-/

sue Network Solutions and ICANN too

[peter303]

These companies are pretty lacadasical about changing
name ownership and IP bindings.
Other organzizations names have been stolen too,
but more as short term hacks.
They should *always* send a change notification &
verification to the original address, much like
banks do.

Re:Only a portal? Won't violate any obscenity laws

[ethereal]

I don't find that particularly disturbing to see at sex.com, I'm sure you as well as minors the world over knew what to expect. It is impossible to prevent minors from viewing porn on the Internet if they are interested enough in it. Let's face it - few things are as motivated as a horny 14-year-old. I'm not one anymore but I can remember...

Re:Domain name worth more than the business?

[ethereal]

I think it's a reasonable argument to make in certain circumstances. For example, say the site made $100 after it was stolen from you. But you have better content, a better team, and better marketing, and so you could have made $500 off of it in that time. In this case it makes sense that the damages would be close to what your actual losses were. To do otherwise would be to penalize the victim because they were ripped off by someone who had less business sense.

This wouldn't work in the licensing situation, of course, because no one would agree to that. But no one's asking the defendant to agree to the damages assessed against them. Things are different if a crime has been committed.

Re:I'm glad it's over, but I doubt he'll ever see

[bjwest]

He was awarded $65 million, so doesn't that mean he owes his lawyer his 40 - 50 percent of that wheather or not he collects?

Re:A blow for pornographers and thieves

[Taurine]

As far as exploitation of women in porn goes, it is much more subtle. Whether the women depicted in the porn are being exploited or not, the effect that viewing the porn has upon the viewer's state of mind and world view is very important. Porn tends to portray the subjects of its images as promiscuous people that just can't get enough sex and would go with the viewer if they ever met them. The text that appears with the images seeks to reinforce a view that women are all desperate for sex and would go with (just about) anyone, etc.

What happens is that if a man views porn regularly, he gets a very distorted view of sex and women, which can cause two things. First he will treat women that do allow him to become close to them in ways that are (for many women) highly inappropriate, which is abuse of those women, and damaging to an otherwise good relationship. And secondly he will be approaching all women with this distorted view, which will cause him to find it more difficult to form relationships with women, and lead back, via frustration, to yet more porn. Its a negative feedback loop, and one that some men find very hard to see their way clear from. This is potentially harmful and dangerous to these men and the women around them.

Lost profits??

[PieceMaker]

From the Yahoo story: U.S. District Judge James Ware found Stephen Cohen liable for fraud and forgery in the five-year battle over sex.com, hitting him for $40 million in compensation for lost profits and an additional $25 million in punitive damages.

This has to be wrong. No one makes a profit on the internet!

Re:The whole DNS system should be redesigned

[sharkey]

The .gov and and .mil domains should be done away with and their current content placed in the .gov.us and and .gov.mil domains, since their content is totally US centric

Shouldn't that be ".mil.us"?

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Re:Presidential pardon material here...

[sharkey]

But Bill is already out of the White House.

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Never gonna get paid..

[jordan]

They failed to mention that no one has been able to get the guy, since he left the country a while back when all of this started.

Gotta catch him first before anyone gets paid..

--jordan

Re:The whole DNS system should be redesigned

[Midnight Thunder]

I partly agree with this. The .com, .int, .net and .org domains should be left as they are, though should only be given to companies that are ready to place non-geocentric information on the site. A company like coca-cola has international presence, and is justified to a .com domain name, on the condition that they use it for international content. A company such as Canadian-Tire on the other hand would have to use the .ca, or .com.ca domain, since they don't do business outside of the country.

The .gov and and .mil domains should be done away with and their current content placed in the .gov.us and and .gov.mil domains, since their content is totally US centric.

The .int domain should be left as the is used for international treaty organizations such as NATO and the united nations.

Admitedly it will take more than a simple /. posting to change this. I also feel that there is a huge need for internet task forces of various countries to get together to bring some sort of sanity to the current mess.

What are you talking about?

[mindstrm]

What kind of trend are you referring to?

The guy 100% *stole* the domain, using forged transfer documents... and it took 6 years for the courts to give it back....

what I want to know is why couldn't he get it back way before that?

Wrong.

[mindstrm]

Previous ownership? It was outright STOLEN from him using forged transfer documents; that's not anything at all like 'squatting' or anything else.

Well.. yeah..

[mindstrm]

but it's apples and oranges. I don't see how they are even related... other than having to do with domain names.

That's like saying "I'm glad they punished that mass murderer, but I hope it doesn't lead to punishing innocent schoolchildren because they disobeyed their teachers."

Re:The whole DNS system should be redesigned

[dvicci]

This doesn't really take into account growth and scale-backs. Suppose Canadian Tire (just an example here... I know NOTHING of their true business goals) does go international. They are all of a sudden allowed to ditch the ".ca". Ok, all the tech dudes go into high gear to handle the request of the clueless pointy haireds and get it working.

Doh! The Canadian economy goes south, and Canadian Tire scales back, closes all international offices, cancels all international contracts... once again, the tech dudes have to get into high gear to get that ".ca" BACK on the domain name... this time at the behest of the law, rather than just the pointy-haireds.

It just seems like more work than it's worth...

Re:Porn is *not* art

[Catullus]

OT: Top Salvor Hardin quote! Although it should be "never let your sense of morals...".

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Re:The whole DNS system should be redesigned

[Red Moose]

I think it should be the other way around. The nature of the internet is global, as you point out initially. I feel psychologically, it would feel less so if I was told where the domain was (.uk, .usa, .canada).

I would prefer, e.g., //www.coca-cola.us.com, or .uk.com.

If this method had been adopted initially, it would also have stopped the endless tirade of "dot-com" this and that.

I like .com, .org, .net, .mil, .gov, etc., .They are all useful and individual domains, so I would keep those as the root domain, and work backwards from there, adding a .uk.com, or something.

Re:Porn is *not* art

[Red Moose]

I don't, but I have seen films that came close to the line. Needless to say, at that point I switched them off.

That was probably a good thing when watching "Eyes Wide Shut" - after the big porno scene with orgies, etc., the movie basically sucked, so you saved yourself the agony of trying to watch Cruise et Kidman try and act.

No. Michaelangelo's David is art celebrating the beauty of God's creation, Debbie Does Dallas is just immoral smut designed to appeal to the pruriant tastes of sad lonely men. There can be no artistic merit in films made with exploitation and abuse.

I think that is exactly the point I made; pornography was the art in olden times, and yes, Debbie Does Dallas is immoral smut (and not very good either.....) . I said this, not you. I said that it was only when advanced technology that porn became what it is today. Stop stealing my lines.

Catholics venerate the saints, and the Virgin Mary. Indeed, in the confessional they place Mary on the same level as the Lord, obviously in direct contradiction with the Ten Commandments. Hence, they are really no more than a cult with Christian pretensions.

Ehhh.......no. Educate yourself. Even a little. I won't argue here because such statements from you are clearly of a purile development stage.

Sorry, but your morals dictate what is right. That should be obvious, even to an unbeliever!!!

The irony of it all is that I am utterly right with what appears as a crazy statement. Again, throughout history, morals in name of god and religion have caused more hardship and anguish to people than any pornopgraphy has. More wars are started in the name of the moral right than for any other reason.

If your religion dictates your morals, which they clearly do (you have indicated as such several times), I would like to see if you judge your religions moral basis as having been unconditionally right in it's history. The discrepancies you can not but find justify the statement. In the case of religion, Israeli's fight palestinians in a classic religious war. Each side feels they are morally entitled to the holy land. But, it is not right that they kill kids, etc., which they are doing.

I think this proves my point that morals can indeed differ from what is right. Q-E-fucking-D.

Re:Porn is *not* art

[Red Moose]

Ah dammit. It's been a few years since I read Foundation. Other gems I was going to use was the "violence is the last refuge of the incompetent" one ;)

Thnx for the correction!

Porn is not immoral, it's just mostly bad quality

[Red Moose]

While the extremes perpetuated by the pornography industry do serve as prime examples of its undue corrupting influence upon modern society, what I am saying it that pornography as a whole is immoral, even the softcore sex scenes used in some of Hollywood's more blatent exploitation films.

I thought you didn't watch porn (you said in your earlier response) - or are you going to use the old "it was part of the movie" line?

Sex is there for the purposes of procreation and between two people married with God's blessing. Pornography is quite simply the antithesis of this idea, in that it encourages promiscuity without responsibility, a dangerous idea for any society that wishes to hold itself to any kind of moral values.

I don't think you can make grand sweeping statements like this. It's gross generalisation and clearly massive speculation that promiscuity is encouraged by pornography. Throughout history pornography was more of an art form to celebrate the beauty of god's creation ; it's merely with advanced technology that it's become what it is today, which is different.

But aside from that, it is arguable as to whether Catholicism is even really a Christian denomination, given the fact that Catholics do not solely worship God.

Now this is a very bad comment to make. It's arguable whether you know what Christianity actually is, after reading this statement. Are you saying Catholics, as opposed to Protestants, worship multiple gods? Elaborate......

Because sex is not something to be used to satiate the urges of weaker people. That is pure and simply immoral.

Hmmm, but maybe it can be used to do that, to treat sex offenders, etc., . You seem overtly concerned with maintaining a high moral code and never once mentioning the more significant problems, such as abuse, etc., . Above all, remember that you should never let your morals get in the way of doing what is right.

I won't defend the porn industry, but likewise I think your argument against it was ill-founded and from the wrong point-of-view, as you seemed more concerned with yourself, and your own beliefs, than a far more due concern about the women who feel compelled to work in the industry, by choice or not.

If you lost the high-and-mighty attitude, maybe people would listen to you, as yes, there are thousands of women forced to work in the sex industry; articles are regularly in papers concerning illegal immigrants, etc., and being forced into prostitution.

Re:The whole DNS system should be redesigned

[mpe]

My ideas lean towards the Canadian system, but somewhat different. A top-down system, from more general to more specific. An important part of my idea is that **ALL** domains should end in the two-character country codes that are already established. A few examples...

Problem is that .ca has already gone the same way of .com, .org, .net, etc and become a .misc...


*.ky.us -- Would first be under state law of Kentucky, then under Fedral law of USA.
*.melbourne.au -- First under local Melbourne law, then under national law of Australia.
*.atlanta.ga.us -- First under Atlanta city law, then under Georgia state law, then under US Federal.
I simply can't think of a better system to use to allow for local laws and regulations to be enforced, and yet allow for national corporations to have a world-wide presence.

This already the way the .us namespace is ment to work. But this namespace is largly ignored.


I beileve this is the type of system that should have been implemented from he beginning, but at the time no one had the foresight to see that the internet and the web would become what it has today...

Plenty of people have though of it, in some parts of the world things were even done that way. However at some point things went seriously wrong, probably the point at which names began to be seen as land/mineral rights rather than addresses/telephone numbers.

Re:The whole DNS system should be redesigned

[mpe]

I think it should be the other way around. The nature of the internet is global, as you point out initially. I feel psychologically, it would feel less so if I was told where the domain was (.uk, .usa, .canada).

But most DNS names relate to physical entities. Very few commercial entities are even capable of operating globally. Typically they are restricted by geography (or currency).
Even supposed abstracts such as books, music, TV and films tend to be made avaliable in a way which follows geography.

Re:Pass the crack pipe

[mpe]

There's all sorts of .coms and .orgs etc that are not in the US. That's the whole point of leaving out geographical suffixes.

The problem is that a great many of these might actually be better off with geographical suffixes. If their area of interest is geospecific

Re:The whole DNS system should be redesigned

[mpe]

A company like coca-cola has international presence, and is justified to a .com domain name, on the condition that they use it for international content. A company such as Canadian-Tire on the other hand would have to use the .ca, or .com.ca domain, since they don't do business outside of the country.

Also there are plenty of companies, especially in large countries, such as US, Canada, Australia, Russia, etc, who's operations are strictly sub national.
Another point is that US cities shouldn't be able to hijack the domain names of other nations, just because they don't like .la.ca.us.

The .gov and and .mil domains should be done away with and their current content placed in the .gov.us and and .gov.mil domains, since their content is totally US centric.

The same reasoning can probably be applied to .edu.

Re:The whole DNS system should be redesigned

[mpe]

Well actually anyone can get a .com, .net or .org domain :P

Which is part of the problem. Also even if a .com is obtained by a commerical entity it need have no relation to the name of the entity.

What about my subscription?

[macdaddy]

Subject says it all. I'm a little concerned now....

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How?

[macdaddy]

How can that be offtopic? I'm talking about sex.com and that's what the article talks about. I personally think that whenever a moderator uses his/her points to lower a person's rating, it should cost them double. It's too easy for a person's personal beliefs to impact one comment in a setting such as this. There is a major lack of checks and balances here.

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Re:How?

[macdaddy]

Thanks asshole.

--

Re:Domain name worth more than the business?

[Sinesurfer]

your precedent is not the same as this case. when you said:

> So hey, sure, why not codify that into case law
> as well? And what a business plan: "Sure, I'll
> license you to use the name ThisDomain.com next
> year - in exchange for 105% of the revenues you
> earn from it

the license should confer a right to possess [and use] why you retain the right to own the domain name. the retention of owner ship would preclude any claim to compensation, you can't be conpensated for loss of ownership if you never lose the ownership.

i'd be interested to see if there is a claim agains network solutions for breaching the standard of care in that they were advised that the change of ownership was a fraudulent act.

if this was a clerical error between two different registries then it would be difficult [but not impossilbe] to cancel a change of ownership request [due to the lack of legal content to the 'contract']. when the dot com TLD name space is broken up, a protocol for dealing with clerical and human errors between registries would be helpful, useful, damn well essential.

[duty of care from DONOGHUE v STEVENSON [1932] All ER Rep 1 [HL].

I blame the English - honest!

[Sinesurfer]

i do like how you've resolved the jurisdictional conflicts by delegating jurisdication to the legislature of the country assigned the two letter TLD.

i'm assuming that any server situated physically within the countries jurisdiction would be subject to the host countries laws and any foreign domain name would be subject to their own countries domain laws/regulations and not the host country.

you might want to maintain the .com, .net TLD for use by international companies which want to publish non-geographical centric information. another benefit is an easier migration of coke.com to coke.com.us.

i blame the English for this mess.

when they first issued postage stamps, there wasn't a need to include Englands name on English postage stamps because they were the only country issue postage stamps. in order for the English to deliver your letters bearing a foreign postage stamp, your country had to agree to include their own countries name on their own stamps. Every country accepted this condition because the British Empire carried more than 75% of the postage traffic during the late 19th century.

the USA just used the same precedent, there wasn't a need to issue .com.us and .net.us because the 3 letter TLD name space was more about 80% of the domain names during the 80's.

I'm glad it's over, but I doubt he'll ever see $

[Sylvestre]

It's too bad about that part with the weak security and all, but I can't see how he'll ever collect a dime. Hopefully sex.com can start serving up some goodies soon...

Presidential pardon material here...

[weave]

Stephen Cohen better start lobbying now for a presidential pardon.

Maybe he could hire a Bush's brother-in-law to lobby for him.

Re:The whole DNS system should be redesigned

[Monte]

First, we need to do away with all *.com, *.org, *.net, *.gov, *.mil and *.gov. These are all US-centric, and since the internet is global, are inappropriate.

That's interesting - I come to the opposite conclusion. Because the internet is international, what should I care where a site is hosted?

The bigger issue, I recon, would be users (and site owners) balking at the length of the URL. coke.com is much sexier than coke.atlanta.ga.com or whatever.

But you've given me an idea for standardizing e-mail addresses. Example:

monte.protestant.caucasion.male@hoodyhoo.com

This should help clear up chat-room confusion.

Julian Jaynes

[1010011010]

Julian Jaynes has an interesting take on the creation of religion in his book, The Origins of Conciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind.



- - - - -

Studies

[citizenc]

.. studies showing that sex is a major draw for people on the Internet..

Well, DUH.

------------
CitizenC

Re:Domain name worth more than the business?

[Kanasta]

Think about it this way. If you had the domain, you would earn a revenue of $x per day say.

Your domain is stolen, so you lose your $x per day. There are also potential customers who would have bought something in the future (maybe they're still shopping around), but now they think your business doesn't exist and never comes back again.

Now you may have spent $y on advertising and promotion to get that customer here in the first place, now you've lost them and you have to spend more to get them back.

Clearly having a domain stolen constitutes more damages than actual running revenue


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Re:good old days of yore

[jesser]

So if a story we've been tracking ends in a reasonable way, the slashdot editors shouldn't post the resolution? And we shouldn't discuss how wide-reaching that resolution was, or whether it set a reasonable precedent?

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Re:Right

[Mike Connell]

This such a straw man: If they have abusive boyfriends, they need to be offered to chance to get away and escape the abuse - just like all the abused women not involved in the porn industry! The fact that they're abused is the crime.

If they have a habit, they need the chance to get rehab. If they weren't doing porn for a fix do you think they'd just quit "cold turkey"? Of course not.

Taking advantage of people in need isn't limited to the porn industry you know.

Re:Natural act?

[Mike Connell]

How is sodomy a natural act? Given that the sole purpose of sex is for procreation (in both a Biblical and biological sense no less), how is sodomy a "natural act"? It cannot cause conception, is extremely dangerous for the person on the receiving end and causes pain. This is not a "natural act" now is it?

So many faults, so little time:

1. Sodomy is a natural act because it occurs "naturally". For example, most mammals will happily bugger each other. They don't do it because they're too stupid to find the right hole (well, some of them might), they do it because they have a "natural" desire to fqck things (normally other creatures of the same species).
2. Sodomy is not "extremely dangerous" as long as you have an modicum of common sense.
3. Sodomy is not always painful. Lots of people actually like it. Gosh! isn't it an awful world outside!

Any more fundy illusions you want shattered?

Re:Porn is *not* art

[Mike Connell]

No. Michaelangelo's David is art celebrating the beauty of God's creation, Debbie Does Dallas is just immoral smut designed to appeal to the pruriant tastes of sad lonely men. There can be no artistic merit in films made with exploitation and abuse.

Director D obtains goatse.cx style pictures of actress A1 and actor A2. D blackmails A1 and A2 into doing his next film F. Film F is widely acclaimed as the finest peice of cinema ever made, and even the public love it. All agree that it is a fantastic piece of art. When details of the blackmailing emerge, all are shocked. However, all agree that the artistic merits of the film are unchanged. All apart from Jon Erikson that is, who holds that because of the blackmail, the quality of the film is now lower, and the film is now cr4p.

Move over logic, here comes the revisionism!

Re:A blow for pornographers and thieves

[Mike Connell]

Good points, kindof. For the first paragraph, it is again some porn. I've seen playboy. Only a idiot (or a rich male model) could read it and honestly think that the models inside would jump on them given half a chance!

For the second, you write if a man views porn regularly, he gets a very distorted view, where you mean some men. Now maybe you can claim that porn is so dangerous that the effect it has on these people means it should be made illegal, but that's a whole new arguement. The same one can be made for alcohol (some people get addicted), cars (some people drive badly), and having children (some people are bad parents)...

Re:Natural act?

[Mike Connell]

If they do it just because they want to fqck things, then it is because they're too stupid to tell the difference
Your conclusion doesn't follow from your premise. For the "buggerer", anal sex counts as a fqck as much as vaginal sex. Therefore they can both want to fqck things, and bugger. There is no contradiction.

- they don't make a conscious choice between the two, they just go for it.
They don't make a conscious choice at all because they aren't concious.

Lot's of people really like to eat other people,
No they don't. Very few people like to eat other people. So, other than being completely wrong, thanks for playing ;-)

Re:A blow for pornographers and thieves

[Mike Connell]

Some might think that his bio itself is a troll. After all, if you're not happy with all the liberals in the states, why on earth would you move to the UK? Surely Iran would be much better (I guess it's just a shame there aren't waco fundy christian states to move to).

Regarding the post, I think it's clearly a troll becasuse he states pornography is used for "the gratification of men unable to find themselves a loving wife." implies that anyone "using" porn is unable to find a "loving wife". Given the widespread "usage" of porn, that's clearly flamebait IMO. Also "pornography is nothing more than a perversion of His [gods] vision for us". Stating such contentious beliefs (porn not used by men with a loving partner, the existance of god) as facts can only be a troll; anyone else would have put "I beleive", "IMHO", or somthing else along those lines in there.

As far as exploitation of women in porn goes, I wish people would realise that there are two issues here: exploitation AND porn:
Some people drive too fast in their cars. The cars aren't wrong, it's people driving too fast.
Some people steal because they want to be rich. It isn't wanting to be rich that's wrong, it's stealing.
Some women are exploited in the porn industry. It's not porn that's wrong, it's the people who exploit women.

0.02

Re:Wrong

[Mike Connell]

Given that pornography is designed to help men spill their seed, and that any man with a wife won't have any need to debase themselves in such a way, it therefore follows that pornography is for people who are unable to find themselves a wife.

What a small mind you must have. Perhaps some people like both? Perhaps some people have wives that whilst loving the man, are unwilling or unable to have sex with them (for example after abuse, rape or physical disability)? Perhaps the couple are physically seperated for a period of time? Perhaps the man doesn't have bizarre hangups about it? Perhaps his wife likes it? Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.

The point is that your premise, that any married man can get as much sexual gratification from his wife as he needs and therefore doesn't need porn is both wrong, and (ironically) disrespectful to women.

Onanism is quite obviously a tool designed by the Devil to turn one's thoughts away from salvation towards more earthly pleasures.

[You get +1 troll point] If I never think of salvation when I'm having sex, does that mean that "obviously" sex must be a tool of the devil designed to turn my thoughts away from salvation? In fact I hardly ever think about salvation, so obviously almost everything is designed by the devil (he should have patented some of it).

Bzzt! Wrong! The porn industry by definition exploits women

I'm wrong ;-) How does gay (male) porn exploit women? It doesn't, your statement is (again) false. You might be under the impression that all pornography is of the "18 blokes+ 1 little girl all-out gangbang" type, but you're (fortunately) wrong.

If I was offered $1 million for playgirl style photos of myself, I might or might not do it, but I certainly don't think I'd feel "exploited" if I did. Why do you think women are any different? Perhaps the answer is in this comment "from exploiting women's naivety and greed all the way up to the use of force and drugs to ensure cooperation" You seem incapable of seeing the fact that women, as well as men have minds of their own. Some people will have sex in front of a camera for money. They might be greedy, or they might not share your particular moral code. Being different to you isn't the same as being abused.

Re:The whole DNS system should be redesigned

[Kishar]

how does "dot-com" annoy me? Let me count the ways:
usps.com -> usps.gov
goarmy.com -> army.mil
The latest IRS commercial annoys me so I mute it, but I'm sure that their online "eFile" (i- and e- rant will be saved for another day) service uses a .com host, instead of .gov.
*grumble*
--

Re:Porn is *not* art

[Kishar]

Catholics venerate the saints, and the Virgin Mary

Ahh, I see, but the "Jesus = G-d" paradox doesn't concern you? Webster's, by the way, disagrees with your interpretation of "venerate". Respect and reverance is hardly worship. Here's a little more food for thought:
The Ten Commandments originally appear in Exodus, one of the books of the "Old" Testament. In those 5 books, 603 other laws are mentioned. How many do Christians follow? How many can you name?
I thought so.
--

Pass the crack pipe

[Rares Marian]

*.com, *.org, *.net, *.gov, *.mil and *.gov. These are all US-centric

You're on crack. There's all sorts of .coms and .orgs etc that are not in the US. That's the whole point of leaving out geographical suffixes.
And guess what the net was built by the US. Get off your fucking high horse.

First your entire setup drives up the resource cost for every corporation, organization, educational institution, and network service provider on the planet.

Second your entire setup makes international trade over the net impossible or comically expensive. It even blocks interstate trade. Do us all a favor and control yourself. The net doesn't belong to you.

What does the suffix apply to? The server or the client machine?

For the server:

You expect everybody to buy a server in every state they operate in?

It's the same company or organization. All those machines would be redundant. They would be out of reach of the central headquarters. You'd have to depend on generic ISPs to keep every server functional instead of being able to guarantee that companies that specialize in that sort of maintenance keep the machines intact. You'd swamp said ISPs with multiple machines that are unnecessary. You'd drive operating costs through the roof. You'd make it even less likely that less developed communities would get net access.

For the client:

Exactly as above. Only now you force companies to
buy names for every different region of the net that might view certain content even if they don't operate there.

For trade:
serverside -
If the laws in one state make it illegal to display AIDS information or contraceptive information, you force me to buy a machine in every state I put my content so each server can comply with those laws.

clientside -
Now you force every organization to load rules for their machines to act differently in every region.
Let each region deal with content as they see fit.

Think about it. I wouldn't be allowed to look at anything but linux.com.biblebelt in the bible belt of the US from the bible belt of the US.

I'd have to first drive out of the bible belt to see linux.com and still I'd only see linux.com.middle-of-nowhere.

You really are a moron you know that.

(I keep mentioning the US, because that's where I live. Get over it.)

All suffixes should be removed in my opinion. They have no relevant meaning whatsoever. As if adding .pro makes you a professional.

Nobody wants to take responsibility so they invent all these little umbrella rules. Get a clue or stop babbling.

Re:Pass the crack pipe

[Rares Marian]

If only intelligence could be stored and copied...
alas in not this century.

Re:Pass the crack pipe

[Rares Marian]

Ok. I've slept a bit. I won't bite this time. The post did have a certain the old way isn't structured and disciplined enough for the Lord kind of tone to it. The bit about it being too US centric set me off because lately I've dealt with a lot of people who don't use the net much but bitch all day about it. It's disturbing to say the least.

But enough projecting.

The reason I said it would cost more money and more resources had nothing to do with how many bits are sent accross the network. It had to do with his goal of allowing local laws to have some force on the Net.

Simply setting things up by country and state code won't accomplish that goal.

Think about it. A server is in Texas. How does calling it bizname.co.tx.us help in any way to apply the laws of Paris, France where the contents might be viewed?

It doesn't. It has literally no consequence. Except perhaps to remind people that not everyone lives in their little bubble.

Now assuming we wanted this change to be useful, then the tx.us suffix has to have some meaning related to laws. For example, tx.us might mean the bizname.com version intended for Texans.

Otherwise it's just a pointless suffix just like .firm, .pro, .guru, .gnu (I can't believe RMS actually pushed that), .tv.

To say adding tx.us has any bearing on the rights of the viewer in Paris is to say that by adding .tv the site magically becomes television.

It's really just an example of a bit too much faith in symbols that have no physical connection with what they're supposed to represent. Humans are like that. Logic by association not by argument. It's quite frightening how we do that unconsciously.

And so that's where I started with my post.

I wasn't saying that he was suggesting to have a server for every region. I meant that if he wanted a tool for enhancing the applicability of laws on the net, that those costly steps would be necessary.

Re:Pass the crack pipe

[drnomad]

You're on crack

And guess what the net was built by the US. Get off your fucking high horse

Who's on the high horse then?

There are people who think that planes crashing in Chinese territory is world news

Furthermore.. I think every soverain state should have a two letter (accoring to the ISO country coding system) TLD. Current TLD owners should be able to keep their domain.

Re:Pass the crack pipe

[dentyou'reajerk]

for instance: sex.com.somewhereoffshore

Re:Natural act?

[nihilogos]

How is sodomy a natural act? Given that the sole purpose of sex is for procreation (in both a Biblical and biological sense no less), how is sodomy a "natural act"? It cannot cause conception, is extremely dangerous for the person on the receiving end and causes pain. This is not a "natural act" now is it?

It occurs in nature, therefore it is a natural act.

Domain name worth more than the business?

[BobGregg]

To me the most fascinating point revealed here is that the judge's ruling values the damages associated with stealing the domain name to be higher than the total revenues earned by the site. Assuming you believe what the business in question is saying - but let's say for a second that you do. That means that the law figures the value of the domain name itself - alone - is worth more than the actual business behind it.

Hmm... admittedly, for a lot of dot-coms that's actually literally true - or at least they probably *paid* more for the domain than they ever earned back. So hey, sure, why not codify that into case law as well? And what a business plan: "Sure, I'll license you to use the name ThisDomain.com next year - in exchange for 105% of the revenues you earn from it. Sound fair?" What a screwed up system.

Re:Domain name worth more than the business?

[aiken_d]

It is a bit weird, but not without precedent in the real world. Think of mom-and-pop stores that happen to own very desirable property. They have every right to continue to operate their small business on very valuable property. The property is indeed "worth" more than the business. Nothing wrong with that.

-b

Re:Domain name worth more than the business?

[Zeinfeld]

To me the most fascinating point revealed here is that the judge's ruling values the damages associated with stealing the domain name to be higher than the total revenues earned by the site.

That is easy to explain, the damages are $40 million and represent the lost business opportunity. The amount the fraudster made from the domain is not actually very relevant to the calculation of the damages. Kremen could reasonably argue that as a legitimate trader he could have formed aliances with Playboy Enterprises, Hustler and the like to generate additional revenue. These companies would not have dealt with the fraudster.

Furthermore by failing to appear and failling to release records demanded by the court the defendant made a higher award practically inevitable. A judge is almost always going to side with the guy who turns up against a fugitive.

While Kremen is unlikely to get back all the damages he is likely to obtain a significant sum. The guy who stole the domain had registered a bunch of other domains, some of which have significant value and were impounded by the court a few months back.

Another lever Kremen has is that as long as the case is not settled there is an outstanding arrest warrant. My guess is that this will lead to an eventual settlement for a percentage of the damages.

Re:Domain name worth more than the business?

[srvivn21]

Did you read the article?

Judge Awards $65 Million in Sex.com Case

and

Lawyers say the site gets as many as 25 million hits each day, and could be worth as much as $100 million.

Where did you learn math? Last time I checked, 100 > 65 no matter the multiple.

sex.eu.com

[Joel Rowbottom]

On another note, I notice that CentralNic have sex.eu.com up for auction as their charity thingy for the Farmers In Crisis fund, at www.auctions.eu.com, and nobody's bid for it yet...

Re:Right

[Deosyne]

It's not that hard to find evidence of corecion and exploitationin the porn industry, unless of course, you don't want to see any

As well as in the real estate industry, politics and law enforcement. Exploitation isn't a symptom of pornography, its a symptom of humanity. Pornography just makes a great target due to the bizarre irony in our culture that everyone is either having sex or wanting to have sex, yet sex is taboo. Christ, even kids who haven't learned a damn thing about the world start getting horny and staring at fine members of the opposite sex, or same sex for some. That's the curse we bear for being human. In the words of George Carlin, "There are far worse things that you can to do another person than giving them an orgasm."

To those of you unfortunate enough to grow up in a climate of repression and hate: don't worry, sex won't destroy the world, burn down the rain forests and upset Baby Jeebus(tm); it'll just make you a bit happier and a bit sleepier if you just have the courage to let it.

Deosyne

Re:Porn is not immoral, it's just mostly bad quali

[mjprobst]

It's "common knowledge" among most Protestant denominations that respect or veneration for Mary and saints is idolatry. And that observation of the Sacrament is actually worship of the god Ba'al. It must be true! Jack Chick said so!

Anyway, might it be possible that pornography is exploitation in _some_ sense, only because we're so hung up? Our society is full of exploitations. Hell, working for a wage in the office is exploitation of a sort; but in most cases one has a choice to work elsewhere. It's the cases where someone has no choice that most people consider "exploitation". While that may be true in many cases in pornography, I doubt it's true in all cases.

Re:Natural act?

[Temporal]

You, sir, are the most successful troll in the history of Slashdot.

If you actually believe everything you say, some of which is downright offensive, and some of which goes very much against Christian ideals, then I suggest you seek help.

However, I do believe, based on your words and you bio, that you are a fake. And trust me, you receive more respect from me as a troll than as the zealot you pretend to be.

------

Not a good idea

[Christianfreak]

Users are clueless enough, such a system would be extremely confusing. What if you don't know where a certain company or website is located? You are probably goign to have a heck of a time finding it becase search engines don't help most of the time.

Why base the net on geographic location? I think the original idea of basing TLDs on content is the best way to go. We need to enforce the content restrictions (.com for business, .org for organization etc) and we need to make sure registrants have good security.

Geographically based domains will make finding websites difficult, if not impossible, will make it possible to over tax businesses (as already mentioned) and any possible ways of making money on the web will disappear. I'm not a fan of e-commerce at all but I think that if there weren't any at all that the internet wouldn't be near what it is today (of course we'd probably have intellegent people on it too but that's a different angle :)

"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad

ACk

[sherpajohn]

I don't think I implied any such thing, I'm pretty sure that I stated it. Given that pornography is designed to help men spill their seed, and that any man with a wife won't have any need to debase themselves in such a way, it therefore follows that pornography is for people who are unable to find themselves a wife.
Are you stupid or just naive? I happen to know quite a few women who throughly enjoy erotica. And wow, even some married couples who enjoy viewing it together. And what about gay men and women, do they not even exist in your perfect little god-built world? Next!
...if there is anything I hate more than a troll, its a bigotted sexist closeminded misogynistic bible thumping a**-hole troll. Do you have some masochistic streak that forces you to display your small minded ignorance here, or do you consider yourself some kind of martyr? Sheeez, give me a freeking break.

Going on means going far
Going far means returning

Re:Natural act?

[EzInKy]

You lost it in your first statement...it is not a "given" that the "sole purpose of sex is procreation". It is "natural" to enjoy sex. Second, there are many more people in the world who have beliefs or follow teachings other than those in your bible. How would you like to be forced to follow the doctrines of a Buddhist even though you are Christian? Learn to live and let live.

What about sex.org? Do they get that too?

[e7]

Registrant:
Systems Engineering Exchange (SEX3-DOM)
821 America Way
Del Mar, CA 92014
US

Domain Name: SEX.ORG

Administrative Contact, Billing Contact:
Ennovations Administrator (EA167-ORG) admin@ENNOVATIONS.COM
Ennovations
821 America Way
Del Mar, CA 92014
US
858-259-9172
Technical Contact:
AENS Hostmaster (CERF-HM) hostmaster@ATTENS.COM
AT&T Enhanced Network Services
P.O. Box 919014
San Diego, CA 92191
US
858-812-5000
Fax- 858-812-3990

Record last updated on 10-Mar-2001.
Record expires on 09-Dec-2002.
Record created on 08-Dec-1994.
Database last updated on 4-Apr-2001 09:48:00 EDT.

Domain servers in listed order:

NS-WEST.CERF.NET 192.153.156.3
NS-EAST.CERF.NET 207.252.96.3
NS-WEST.VAYUSPHERE.COM 216.37.102.142
NS-CENTRAL.VAYUSPHERE.COM 216.37.106.142

Re:What about sex.org? Do they get that too?

[Gaijinator]

No, they get sex.orgy.

Oh, I kill me...

Re:What about sex.org? Do they get that too?

[LordArathres]

NO they dont get sex.org and they shouldnt! .com, .net and .org and all the others all different. Just becuase you operate sex.org does not give you an automatic claim to all the other sex.* out there.

Arathres

different from trademark issue

[e7]

ok, I was confusing this with the trademark rules which allow McDonald's to control mcdonalds.org. Hopefully nobody can get trademark protection on the word "sex".

fun to watch this get modded up and down

[e7]

it's kinda like a troll playing with a yoyo.

microsoft.com returned to rightful owner

[e7]

in other news, the Micro-Soft Insect Pillow Co. has won back the right to the microsoft.com domain which they originally registered in 1990.

Obviously the /. censor-trolls would prefer to keep this under wraps.

You have some valid points, but...

[garethwi]

...the thing which most drew me to your comment was the double entendre title.

Thank God

[garethwi]

Now the sex.com domain can be used as was intended, and not as some evil porn site.

What kind of 'studying' was this?

[eyez]

With other single-word Web site addresses such as business.com having sold for millions, and studies showing that sex is a major draw for people on the Internet, the sex.com site was seen as potentially one of the most valuable on the World Wide Web.

They have to have a STUDY tell them that?

Re:What kind of 'studying' was this?

[Darth Turbogeek]

It's called fact finding. Just like politicians have to go on fact finding tours of Ansterdam to find out how the sex and drug industries work first hand. Cheer for the guy getting his property back, well done. I doubt he will see a cent of the damages bill tho. Didnt the artcile (or was it The Register?) mention the theif had declared bankrupcy / had offshore accounts / done a bolter / or something like that? No matter, I bet sex.com is a highly tradable asset. Porn is basically the only model of Internet business that makes good dollars, so I would imagine that such a higly visible web name is worth the odd buck. And be the first place young innocent kiddy would go looking in most cases. I'm not exactly a fan of how easy porn is availible on the net, but such is the way it works - I actually agree with some of the religious POV's. I'm also a realist and know Porn is impossible to stop and what people place on websites is their own business, not mine. If you can have yer porn, I can have my quasi insane ramblings on various subjects elsewhere - works for me. Still,..... sticky portal? Oh man, that was lame as. It sounds like a fruit dish or the toilet bowl after a partularly bad case of the runs.

sex.com Going Legit

[Kristopher Johnson]

Too bad. Now I can't play the game of "How many pop-up porn windows can Mozilla handle before it crashes"?

Sacred Cows and Hamburger Chow

[Wintermancer]

Possible troll warning:
Ok. Life lessons for the morally *cough* right.

Please, please explain to make where you get the factual data that women are coerced into performing sexual acts in the adult industry?

This has been one of the long-standing arguments of the anti-pornography crusaders. Yes, crusaders. Very much like the Christian Crusaders. A lot of hoo-ha about some sacred chalice that ultimately was fruitless. Same thing here.

Admittedly, some of the people that get involved in the adult industry have come from rather disadvantaged backgrounds. Well, a number of them have not. Nina Hartley? Nurse. Do you think that she really needed to get involved against her will? Doubtful.

But it is more important for the religiously inclined to worry about their eternal souls et al. Yawn.

It's an easy way to make a buck, for certain, but if you do not want to be there, hey, the door is right there. Many come (no pun intended) and many leave. It's not a career for most.

I think that the majority of critics fail to realize some important points:
1) Just because you cannot fathom why someone would be willing to engage in paid sexual acting (ie: "happly gulping jizz") doesn't mean that there is a segment of the population that is.
2) Just because you may find something reprehensible doesn't mean others do not.
3) Violence and porn? One is not the result of the other. No study linking the two has ever withstood serious scrutiny.
4) "Degredation" of women? Okay. Chew on this for awhile: if you willingly choose to do something, how is it degrading? Some may feel degraded, others may not. Did you ever work at MacDonalds or some other shit job that you felt was degrading? But no one ever forced you to work there, did they. Right.
5) And please, please expain how homosexual and lesbian specific porn fits into this whole equation? It does exist. Now go and talk to some homosexual/lesbian adult film actors and see how they feel.

Just because you don't know any women that enjoy sex (in all it's forms) doesn't mean that I don't. So there.

Okay - that's just gross.

[Ron Harwood]

Bad author - jokes by sexual innuendo... bad.

Only a portal? Won't violate any obscenity laws?

[evil_one]

Upon entering the site, without a warning I might add, I was greated by naked women, and an offer to "Cum inside Latin virgins"

Oh, did I mention that this dosn't attempt to disuade minors from entering?
---

OSX

[kveton]

Check out netcraft on sex.com:

The site www.sex.com is running Apache/1.3.19 (Unix) mod_fastcgi/2.2.10 PHP/4.0.4pl1 mod_perl/1.25 on MacOSX.

Sure, they could have forged the headers, but why?

Re:Right

[sg_oneill]

And I don't. But there are people out there firmly conviced that liberal attitudes about sex are perfectly healthy, and that pornography is in some way "expressive" and "naturual". Please tell me, what is natural about some woman being brutally sodomized by several men on camera?

Of course, liberal attitudes about sex are rather natural, because conservative ones usually need religious lobotomies to aquire. (tit for tat. Fun) Pornography however is about power. It's nothing to do with sex. Sex is just it's subject matter. Sex is also the subject matter of your statement, but is your comment pornography?
Ultimately the reader of the porn is the one who decides the degradingness of it all. Many a porn starlet might find your attitude offensive as well, and yae! It may be that you are CERTAIN you are not the offensive one, surely then the porn starlett sees nothing offensive about her actions too.
Now I might actually agree with you that the brutal sodimisation of the woman is a little off colour , but IF it's consentual, then if you don't want to look at it, don't and admit then it's none of your business.
I certainly would not like you commenting on what me and my wife do alone. And if it was an act you saw on tape (which you won't!) , then be assured unto yourself, that it's not the sex act that is pissing you off (unless you are a missionary kinda guy) but the fact it's on tape.

Re:Natural act?

[sg_oneill]

BINGO. Mod up.

Legal Precedent

[tnak]

Nice to see a federal judge treat domain names like real estate. Hopefully this sends a signal to Network Solutions that domains are not "like telephone numbers". I'll see your circuit court judge and raise a US district court judge.

Re:Legal Precedent

[vidarh]

Actually you're as wrong as could be. This recent court decision is a result of the fraud comitted to obtain the domain name, not theft as Kremen originally attempted to use.

The decision that a domain is like a telephone number, and thus is not real estate, and therefore can't be stolen, still stands. However, it is still illegal to commit fraud to get control over it.

Re:A blow for pornographers and thieves

[CoreWalker]

Where is my mod status when I need it?
Moderators, give us a hand and mod this post up!
I could not have said it any better myself. We will NEVER solve these arguements. They are mostly based on the assumptions that not only are you be (in this particular case) Christian, but you are the right kind of Christian (I guess non-Catholic, in this particular case).
I've always hated the arrogance and condescending judgement of people trying to push thier given faith as fact or The Truth(TM). Ironically, I find it is mostly people doing this in the name of Christ, who himself strongly spoke out against this type of behavior.

Mr. Erikson, it is intolerant attitudes like yours that sour Christianity for the rest of the world. Not everyone believes in the same God you do, or even in the same Manner, and that's a good thing.

Re:The whole DNS system should be redesigned

[tcdk]

Let me get this straight... you want to make away with .com, .net etc and chance all domains to geographically oriented domains?

Why?

I agree with you that there's a bit to much US-centricity on the net, but that's mostly small things, where based on people forgetting that other people than north americans speak english (Just saw a banner add proclaming "Win vacation to Florida!" - I'm quite sure that one wasn't aimed at anybody but north americans).

But, most site are fairly international in nature (which is a good thing (tm) in my book) and wouldn't fit into your plan.

The sites running different sites for different parts of the world aren't doing a very good job of it in my experience, as it is. Sites like http://www.mustek.com/ (I've a scanner made by them), forces you to select one of their site based on which part of the world you live in. WHY? I just want to check if there's new driver for my scanner. The three differenet sites basicly contains the same, packaged in different bad designs and with more or less updated drivers. The Asian is usually the one with the newest drivers so I choose that one.

The only site that I can think of that's doing something usefull with their local sites are CNN.

I'm not saying that the country speficic domains are a bad idea, but doing away with .com isn't the solution.

Doing away with bad design, small mindedness and US-centric thinking is the answer. We are already moving in that direction, but it takes time.
--

Re:The whole DNS system should be redesigned

[Suppafly]

monte.protestant.caucasion.male@hoodyhoo.com
why not just monte.wasp.male@hoodyhoo.com? :)

Re:Right

[logiceight]

Of course. And none of them are forced into this kind of degrading behaviour by abusive boyfriends or drug habits at all are they? I think you're being far too naive about the depths to which the porn business will sink to obtain its multi-billion dollar revenues.

Do you have any evidence for this? Or you just making this up?

"Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it." - Locke

Oh I just love the irony

Counter warfare

[billcopc]

Although I do respect this guy's dedication for his cause (which sets a good precedent), I can't help but wonder why he didn't just steal the domain back when he found it had been swindled ? Sure, fighting crime with crime isn't everyone's idea of justice, but it would have fixed the problem quickly and he would have been making money for all these years instead of spending it in court where nobody really wins except the lawyers.

Right

[Jon Erikson]

No one is forcing any of these women to be involved in pornography. They do it of their own free will.

Of course. And none of them are forced into this kind of degrading behaviour by abusive boyfriends or drug habits at all are they? I think you're being far too naive about the depths to which the porn business will sink to obtain its multi-billion dollar revenues.

No one forces you to look at pornography either.

And I don't. But there are people out there firmly conviced that liberal attitudes about sex are perfectly healthy, and that pornography is in some way "expressive" and "naturual". Please tell me, what is natural about some woman being brutally sodomized by several men on camera?

Re:Right

[American AC in Paris]

All or nothing, yes?

But there are people out there firmly conviced that liberal attitudes about sex are perfectly healthy, and that pornography is in some way "expressive" and "naturual". Please tell me, what is natural about some woman being brutally sodomized by several men on camera?

Well, first off, I'd recommend calling brutal sodomy "morally reprehensible", as it is arguably a perfectly natural act (though, again, generally held as morally reprehensible.)

There are people out there firmly entrenched in the belief that conservative attitudes about sex are both healthier and morally higher, and that pornography is somehow "deviant" and "unnatural". These same people generally feel perfectly justified in pointing towards the most deviant, reprehensible acts of violent, aberrant behavior as prime examples of what pornography is. This is unfair.

It'd be somewhat akin to me calling Christianity a horrible, disgusting cult which has mercilessly slaughtered countless women and children over centuries in the name of appeasing an unseen deity. I'd be ignoring the fact that some of the world's greatest and most generous groups and individuals have acted out of their love of the Christian god. There is no "so, which is it, then?" It's both. Should we outlaw Christianity or claim that it's the most wonderfullest thing ever? Neither. It has both good and bad elements, people who respect it and people who abuse it.

The same holds true for pornography. While you are quick to point out that having people abused into pornography and tortured in front of a camera is (surprise) bad, the same moral compass cannot be used to denounce, say, a video made willingly (and happily) by a married couple for distribution in adult video stores. What is so unnatural (or rather, morally reprehensible) about that?

Re:Right

[vidarh]

You're assuming the same people are supporting both standpoints. This is a fatal flaw in the way many people look at communities like Slashdot.

Yes, some standpoints are more popular than others. But that does not give you any reason to claim that there's a double standard unless you find concrete examples that the same people are supporting mutually contradictory standpoints.

As for the case here: Sure there's exploitation in porn. Sure there's exploitation in politics. And there's exploitation practically everywhere else too.

Whether that is relevant in a discussion of whether porn is bad or not, depends on whether you or someone else can show that there's more exploitation in porn than elsewhere, and if so that that extra exploitation is an inherent feature of porn, and not of specific companies or persons in the porn business.

It is also too easy to say that "she's a drug addict, so she must be exploited since she's working in porn". That is making the assumption that because someone is working in porn, and has a problem, they must automatically have been exploited. In reality there's also other possibilities:

It might be easier for someone with problems to get work in porn, since the porn business is used to stigma, and may look more favorably on other people that are stigmatised than mainstream businesses. It may be that the person doesn't have any moral objections to working in porn.

Unless you claim that hiring someone with drug problems or other problems is inherently exploitation, then making the assumption that it is inherently exploitation if they're hired to do porn require more arguments to back it up.

If someone presents evidence that there's more exploitation in porn than elsewhere, and that is a result of porn in itself and not specific players in the porn business, then yes, porn might be bad.

So far I haven't seen anyone even trying to address that question, however - the focus is normally on equating porn with exploitation without looking at who is exploiting and why, to try to find out whether the exploitation is an inherent problem with porn or with specific companies or people.

If the case is that the exploitation is a result of specific players in the business, then go after those players - force them to comply with the appropriate laws - instead of whine about the product.

Re:Right

[Sol Wientrub]

How about dozens of first hand accounts by former porn actresses. How about lawsuits filed against porno producers. How about the Hollywood police files? Do me a favor, go to google, they have a wonderful new tool there, it's called a SEARCH ENGINE. It's not that hard to find evidence of corecion and exploitationin the porn industry, unless of course, you don't want to see any.

The only thing I find ironic after reading your post is your username. "logic" indeed.

Re:Right

[Sol Wientrub]

As well as in the real estate industry, politics and law enforcement. Exploitation isn't a symptom of pornography, its a symptom of humanity.

I certainly won't argue that point with you, but, you know, I don't typically hear arguments on /. defending politics as free from exploitation, coercion, or corruption, yet when it comes to porn, all of a sudden, we get postings like

No one is forcing any of these women to be involved in pornography.

Do you have any evidence for this? Or you just making this up?

Why the double standard?

Re:Right

[aol]

Of course. And none of them are forced into this kind of degrading behaviour by abusive boyfriends or drug habits at all are they? I think you're being far too naive about the depths to which the porn business will sink to obtain its multi-billion dollar revenues.

I truly cannot feel sorry anything a person does to support their drug/gambling/goatsex habits. Once again that is something they started themselves.

And I don't. But there are people out there firmly conviced that liberal attitudes about sex are perfectly healthy, and that pornography is in some way "expressive" and "naturual". Please tell me, what is natural about some woman being brutally sodomized by several men on camera?

Nothing natural about it at all. But there isn't anything "Natural" about driving a car, having a job, or reading slashdot. Calling something unnatural doesn't really mean anything at all.
(I actually do disagree with anal sex for biblical reasons myself, but that is MY CHOICE, and it is not my right to enforce my choices or my morality on others).

Re:A blow for pornographers and thieves

[Jon Erikson]

Oh it's easy for you to assume that just because it doesn't fit in with your wonderful, liberal view of life that it's got to be a troll. Far easier than actually trying to come up with some facts to support your position, right?

Wrong

[Jon Erikson]

Regarding the post, I think it's clearly a troll becasuse he states pornography is used for "the gratification of men unable to find themselves a loving wife." implies that anyone "using" porn is unable to find a "loving wife".

I don't think I implied any such thing, I'm pretty sure that I stated it. Given that pornography is designed to help men spill their seed, and that any man with a wife won't have any need to debase themselves in such a way, it therefore follows that pornography is for people who are unable to find themselves a wife.

Also "pornography is nothing more than a perversion of His [gods] vision for us".

Exactly. Holy matrimony is blessed by God himself, whereas Onanism is quite obviously a tool designed by the Devil to turn one's thoughts away from salvation towards more earthly pleasures.

Stating such contentious beliefs (porn not used by men with a loving partner, the existance of god) as facts can only be a troll; anyone else would have put "I beleive", "IMHO", or somthing else along those lines in there.

I believe these are facts IMHO. Happy now?

Some women are exploited in the porn industry. It's not porn that's wrong, it's the people who exploit women.

Bzzt! Wrong! The porn industry by definition exploits women, that is its raison d'etre. The only distinctions to be made are different levels of exploitation, from exploiting women's naivety and greed all the way up to the use of force and drugs to ensure cooperation.

Go and have a look on the net. There's plenty of information on this out there.

Re:Wrong

[smittyoneeach]

Religion and the concept of God(s) were started thousands of years ago to control people.

I can agree that this is a frequent motive, but you overlook some other ones. Many (possibly not yourself) have varying degrees of concern over where reality came from.

We'll simply never have an objective, inarguable answer until time travel is perfected and we can go back and debunk the spectrum of religious assertions.

Going back further in time, we can delve into the metaphysical territory before Creation and such.

Until that moment arrives, I'm all about the Jewish carpenter.

Re:Wrong

[smittyoneeach]

Agreed, boss. Yet, does the saddening lack of bandwidth in our wetare argue against an objective truth? I yawn at those who nihilistically toss off the concept of a Creator driving this whole thing, then pursue all manner of modern madness.

Re:Wrong

[LordArathres]

Glad I could help.

I shall inform you where my ideas came from. I studied Religion and Ancient Philosophy in Rome, Italy at a Catholic University. We studied all major religions and cultural philosophies for 4 years. My views were obviously NOT encouraged by the university but they accepted my view becuase there is a common sense approach to it. You may not accept my views and I can wholy appreciate that, but just think about my previous post and just think about what I said. I have a valid point which I abviously cannot prove just as religions cannot prove that a god really exists.

Arathres

Re:Wrong

[LordArathres]

I can agree that this is a frequent motive, but you overlook some other ones. Many (possibly not yourself) have varying degrees of concern over where reality came from.

I do think and wonder about where reality and we came from. Just thinking about it for a few minutes just blows your mind away because there is no way to say who if anyone today is right about where we came from.

Arathres

Re:Wrong

[LordArathres]

ha ha, thats funny. Considering you can quit a corporation and go work somewhere else. And that there are laws against companies abusing their workers etc. Back when the concept of religion was started you COULDNT go anywhere else. There was nobody protecting you etc. You cannot compare something to today's standards.

Arathres

Re:Wrong

[LordArathres]

Would you like a lesson in Religion? Ok here...

Religion and the concept of God(s) were started thousands of years ago to control people. Think about this. You are a peasant under the service of some king 3000+ years ago. Living conditions are horrible etc... you are not happy and neither are the thousands of other peasants like you. You all outnumber the King and his nobles etc. So as the King and Nobles see this and are scared. How can we control the peasants and make sure they do not revolt. (thinking....) AHA Offer them something that CANNOT be proved. In comes God(s) and religion.

"How would you like to be in Paradise. A Place where you are the happiest you can ever be. You have no worries and you are with God. God loves you and will take care of you after you die. Now here is the catch. God loves you but wants to make sure YOU love him back so there are rules that you must obey while you are alive. You have to conform to the religion and do everything the religios leaders tell you to do (nevermind for thousands of years that religious leaders were appointed by Kings etc). You have to be a good person to society etc. Most of the rules were made to keep society stable. If society is stable and happy (looking forward to living in eternal happiness) the chances of revolts are smaller.

So if you obey these rules and live your life in a good way when you die you will go to heaven etc. This is GENIOUS plan and it WORKED. Give the people something that cannot be proven. You cannot prove heaven. You cannot prove God, and you cannot prove any religion is real or true. So how do we get around this, easy PEOPLE MUSH HAVE FAITH! By showing you have FAITH in God you are showing that you love him(her) and want to go to heaven.

This is beautiful plan, it worked and still continues to work. Religion is the biggest con in the history of humanity. If you ever read and reserach why and how the concept of religion started it will make you think twice about the whole concept.

Arathres

Re:Wrong

[ViVeLaMe]

Bzzt! Wrong! The porn industry by definition exploits women, that is its raison d'etre. The only distinctions to be made are different levels of exploitation, from exploiting women's naivety and greed all the way up to the use of force and drugs to ensure cooperation.

mmhhhhhh
gay porn too??
(just wondering)

Re:Wrong

[Sol Wientrub]

Well thank God...(oops, never mind) um...Thank Reason you were here to clear up this whole Religion mess. I feel so...enlightened! You obviously have done hundreds of hours of painstaking research into this subject, and I for one applaud you. Would you mind replying to this posting with a listing of texts and available materials that you have perused, so that we too may read and reserach why and how the concept of religion started , as you have obviously done?

Natural act?

[Jon Erikson]

Well, first off, I'd recommend calling brutal sodomy "morally reprehensible", as it is arguably a perfectly natural act (though, again, generally held as morally reprehensible.)

How is sodomy a natural act? Given that the sole purpose of sex is for procreation (in both a Biblical and biological sense no less), how is sodomy a "natural act"? It cannot cause conception, is extremely dangerous for the person on the receiving end and causes pain. This is not a "natural act" now is it?

There are people out there firmly entrenched in the belief that conservative attitudes about sex are both healthier and morally higher, and that pornography is somehow "deviant" and "unnatural". These same people generally feel perfectly justified in pointing towards the most deviant, reprehensible acts of violent, aberrant behavior as prime examples of what pornography is. This is unfair.

While the extremes perpetuated by the pornography industry do serve as prime examples of its undue corrupting influence upon modern society, what I am saying it that pornography as a whole is immoral, even the softcore sex scenes used in some of Hollywood's more blatent exploitation films.

Sex is there for the purposes of procreation and between two people married with God's blessing. Pornography is quite simply the antithesis of this idea, in that it encourages promiscuity without responsibility, a dangerous idea for any society that wishes to hold itself to any kind of moral values.

It'd be somewhat akin to me calling Christianity a horrible, disgusting cult which has mercilessly slaughtered countless women and children over centuries in the name of appeasing an unseen deity.

Strawman. But aside from that, it is arguable as to whether Catholicism is even really a Christian denomination, given the fact that Catholics do not solely worship God.

I'd be ignoring the fact that some of the world's greatest and most generous groups and individuals have acted out of their love of the Christian god.

True. But where are these vast good works done by the porn merchants?

While you are quick to point out that having people abused into pornography and tortured in front of a camera is (surprise) bad, the same moral compass cannot be used to denounce, say, a video made willingly (and happily) by a married couple for distribution in adult video stores. What is so unnatural (or rather, morally reprehensible) about that?

Because sex is not something to be used to satiate the urges of weaker people. That is pure and simply immoral.

Re:Natural act?

[rabidcow]

As intelligent beings, we are naturally predisposed to be biased towards anything that gives us pleasure. As such, it requires a stronger will to avoid them. (not to say that someone who doesn't avoid them is weaker, they just aren't using that strength)

Specifically with sex, though: Insects have sex. That tells you something about the level of intelligence sexual pleasure is rewarding you for. You can memorize all the pickup lines you want, anylize the opposite sex until you pass out, it changes nothing: all you really want is mindless insect pleasure.

"Evolution" has no goals. Evolution does not value intelligence per se, it values survivability. Once you have passed your genes on to the next generation, evolution is satisfied and your personal existance/wellbeing is irrelevant.

So what do you value more? Intelligence and strength of character, or mindless insect pleasure? It's entirely possible to balance the two, but if you go toward either extreme, you must give up some of the other.

Re:Natural act?

[rabidcow]

And I see it as a clear sign of intelligence and strength of character to have broken free from religious dogma, which is basically what I said in the post you replied to.

I may not have understood you completely, but I would certainly agree with that. However, you seem to assume that all religion is is dogma, which is probably true for most, but not all, of them. Of course I can't provide good evidence of that, so go ahead and base your opinions on the majority. ;)

Most beings, intelligent or otherwise, seek pleasure.

true.

The weakness lie in those who accept outside pressure to let their lives be controlled, instead of choosing to live their own lives and seek pleasure.

Like people who pay taxes, don't kill their annoying neighbors, drive responsibly, etc?

Religion is oppression.

Government is oppression for that matter. Complete freedom from oppression is chaos.

Re:Natural act?

[3G]

Sodomy is a natural act because it occurs "naturally". For example, most mammals will happily bugger each other. They don't do it because they're too stupid to find the right hole (well, some of them might), they do it because they have a "natural" desire to fqck things (normally other creatures of the same species).

Actually, you just contradicted yourself. If they do it just because they want to fqck things, then it is because they're too stupid to tell the difference - they don't make a conscious choice between the two, they just go for it.

2. Sodomy is not "extremely dangerous" as long as you have an modicum of common sense.

And a really small weener, and a bucket of vaseline.

3. Sodomy is not always painful. Lots of people actually like it. Gosh! isn't it an awful world outside!

Lot's of people really like to eat other people, which (by your use of the word) is perfectly natural too. Or is it...?

Re:Natural act?

[soniatm]

How is sodomy a natural act? Given that the sole purpose of sex is for procreation (in both a Biblical and biological sense no less), how is sodomy a "natural act"? It cannot cause conception, is extremely dangerous for the person on the receiving end and causes pain. This is not a "natural act" now is it?

Natural is not the same as moral or good.

Take, for example, a tiger attacking a deer. It cannot cause conception, is extremely dangerous for the animal on the receiving end and causes pain. It is perfectly natural.

So what is a "natural act"? Animals (apes, elephants, rodents) engage in sodomy. Surely that's natural?

Sex is not just for procreation. If it was, we would, like most animals, only have sex when fertile. This is not the case. It is also for bonding.

I see nothing wrong with sodomy, as long as everyone involved is consenting. "Brutal sodomy" with it's implication of non-consent I would definitely count as wrong.

Re:Natural act?

[vidarh]

So what do you value more? Intelligence and strength of character, or mindless insect pleasure? It's entirely possible to balance the two, but if you go toward either extreme, you must give up some of the other.

I value intelligence and strength of character and freely chosen pleasure most. And I see it as a clear sign of intelligence and strength of character to have broken free from religious dogma, which is basically what I said in the post you replied to.

You said yourself: "As intelligent beings, we are naturally predisposed to be biased towards anything that gives us pleasure"

However, this I disagree with. Most beings, intelligent or otherwise, seek pleasure. That is one of the primary reasons sexual acts for instance typically bring pleasure: we are more likely to reproduce if the immediate act of reproduction produces a benefit for us.

Intelligent beings, on the other hand, explicitly plan their lives to increase pleasure, and to create situations and stimuli that create pleasure - such as porn.

If anything, porn is tool created specifically to give pleasure.

The weakness lie in those who accept outside pressure to let their lives be controlled, instead of choosing to live their own lives and seek pleasure.

To put it short: I value those who break with religion, and lead their lives in a way that give them pleasure and fulfilment, whether sexual or spiritual, provided they don't step on other peoples chances of the same by doing so.

Religion is oppression.

Re:Natural act?

[vidarh]

Sex is there for the purposes of procreation and between two people married with God's blessing. Pornography is quite simply the antithesis of this idea, in that it encourages promiscuity without responsibility, a dangerous idea for any society that wishes to hold itself to any kind of moral values.

This argument assumes whoever you're arguing with believe in the christian God, and care about the silly procreation argument.

It also assumes that there exists no pornography depicting the joys of procreation in a marriage.

The first is a belief that certainly has no proof, and which a great deal of humanity simply rejects.

The argument that sex is only for procreation assigns a purpose to nature, which either implies that nature is sentient, or implies a creator, which brings us back to the first argument - it's just as disputed, and certainly not proven in any way. For those of us who prefer evolution, sex is there because it works as a driving force to get living beings to procreate. And it gives pleasure because that makes it more likely that we'll procreate. But neither assigns any purpose to it. Unless you believe in a deity, sex is just a process, and have no more purpose than the oceans or the stars.

If you want to argue that since sex allows us to procreate, then procreation is it's purpose, even if it wasn't conceived by someone who assigned for a purpose, then you can just as well argue that since sex give us pleasure, then pleasure is also one of the purposes of sex. Seeings as sex is a driving force behind much of the work of man, it can even be said to be a very important purpose.

This argument can just as well be applied in the case of the existence of a "God" as well: If this God fellow didn't intend for people to have sex for fun he must be a complete idiot for making it so much fun. If sex has procreation as its purpose because procreation is one of its functions, then sex can just as well have pleasure as a purpose because pleasure is one of its functions.

You also assume that promiscuous behaviour is "dangerous idea for any society that wishes to hold itself to any kind of moral values". But that is simply wrong. It may be dangerous for a society that wishes to hold iself to any kind of christian moral values, but you are making the assumption that anyone else will share your view of what "any kind of moral values" is.

You go on to criticize even porn made willingly and happly by a married couple:

Because sex is not something to be used to satiate the urges of weaker people. That is pure and simply immoral.

Again you're assuming everyone else share your views about what is moral. You are not explaining what is unnatural or morally reprehensible, as the previous poster asks you to, instead you're just giving the blanked response that it's bad because it violates your morals.

Assuming that we agree with you that people who like porn are "weaker people" (weaker than who? The couple making the video? Presumably if they're happily making porn they like porn themselves), that still leaves us with the question of why it is bad to "willingly (and happlily)" (to quote the previous poster) do something to satiate the urges of those "weaker people"?

Unless you claim that seeing people have sex is somehow harmful?

But back to the "weaker people" part. Presumable this comes from some illution that people who watch porn are lost souls who don't believe in God.

In my eyes, if they've "lost" their faith, that makes them stronger, not weaker: They've managed to break free from the indoctrination of dogma, and to stop relying on a book of mutually inconsistent and ridiculous stories to find meaning in their lives.

Thus, that argument too breaks down if people don't agree with you from the start.

If you want to convince anyone who doesn't already share your beliefs, you better try some arguments that doesn't depend on conservative christian beliefs from the outset...

Re:Natural act?

[Jesus IS the Devil]

Amen to that. Look at my screen name on ./. I hate religion as a whole because it promotes intolerance and weakness in people. It has been responsible for a lot of this world's suffering. One only needs to look around the world today to see the ill effects of religion. Things like abortion clinic bombings, gay bashing, kkk, etc...

I just don't get it. Everything nice and wonderful is HERE on earth right now, while you're still alive. Why do humans look for happiness in the afterlife, for things that most likely does not exist. Happiness, friendship, love, entertainment, pleasure. It's all here right now. Why don't you enjoy it instead of keeping it away from you just to gain some illusional salvation that may not even exist?

As for god, if I told you there was a living cockroach in my stomach, would you believe in in blind faith? If I told you I believe in the Hale Bop comet, what would you do but laugh? Yet when suddenly it's Christianity, it's the "truth"??!!

Besides, what in the world is so "morally" wrong with sex? Exactly what is "morality"? And who's to say what is moral and what's not?



---------
Did you just fart? Or do you always smell like that?

Porn is *not* art

[Jon Erikson]

I thought you didn't watch porn (you said in your earlier response) - or are you going to use the old "it was part of the movie" line?

I don't, but I have seen films that came close to the line. Needless to say, at that point I switched them off.

Throughout history pornography was more of an art form to celebrate the beauty of god's creation ; it's merely with advanced technology that it's become what it is today, which is different.

No. Michaelangelo's David is art celebrating the beauty of God's creation, Debbie Does Dallas is just immoral smut designed to appeal to the pruriant tastes of sad lonely men. There can be no artistic merit in films made with exploitation and abuse.

Now this is a very bad comment to make. It's arguable whether you know what Christianity actually is, after reading this statement. Are you saying Catholics, as opposed to Protestants, worship multiple gods? Elaborate......

Catholics venerate the saints, and the Virgin Mary. Indeed, in the confessional they place Mary on the same level as the Lord, obviously in direct contradiction with the Ten Commandments. Hence, they are really no more than a cult with Christian pretensions.

Above all, remember that you should never let your morals get in the way of doing what is right.

Sorry, but your morals dictate what is right. That should be obvious, even to an unbeliever!!!

Re:Porn is *not* art

[NineNine]

All of Christianity is a cult. Christianity convinces people to reject and hate outsiders, give their money to other people for no apparent reason, and to talk to invisible beings that live in the sky. If this isn't a cult, I don't know what is.

Re:Porn is *not* art

[ViVeLaMe]

besides

If religion decides your morals, i guess you should check out some issues..

Laura Schlesinger is a US radio personality who dispenses sex advice to people who call in to her radio show. Recently, she said that as an observant Orthodox Jew homosexuality is an abomination according to Leviticus 18:22 and cannot be condoned in any circumstance.

The following is an Open Letter to Dr. Laura penned by a US resident, which was posted on the Internet:

Dear Dr. Laura:

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's Law. I have learned a great deal from your radio show, and I try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination. End of debate. I do need some advise from you, however, regarding some of the specific Bible laws and how to follow them.

a) When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord (Lev. 1:9). The problem is my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?

b) I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her? She's 18 and starting University. Will the slave buyer continue to pay for her education by law?

c) I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanness (Lev. 15:19-24). The problem is, how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.

d) Lev. 25:44 states that I may indeed possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? ....Why can't I own Canadians?

e) I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or should this be a neighborhood improvement project?

f) A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination (Lev. 11:10), it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don't agree. Can you settle this?

g) Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle room here? Would contact lenses help?

h) Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev.19:27. How should they die?

i) I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?

j) My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev. 19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? (Lev.24:10-16) Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)

I know you have studied these things extensively, so I am confident you can help. Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is eternal and unchanging.

Your devoted disciple and adoring fan.

Re:Porn is *not* art

[vidarh]

No. Michaelangelo's David is art celebrating the beauty of God's creation, Debbie Does Dallas is just immoral smut designed to appeal to the pruriant tastes of sad lonely men. There can be no artistic merit in films made with exploitation and abuse.

While I don't know about Debbie Does Dallas (haven't seen it, even though it recently passed British film censors), if you try to claim that all porn fall in this category, then you're way out there. Lots of porn is made specifically to appeal to women. And in the current market, most mainstream porn videos are targetted towards couples. Yes, there are porn out there for "sad lonely men", but there's also porn out there for happily married women, couples, and anything in between.

Why? Because there's a market for it, and because the most stereotypical market has long been saturated, and targetting other demographics, like women, gives you access to a much larger, broader market.

It shows that you haven't seen any porn... Try investigating before you make broad, sweeping claims about what is for whom. Maybe you'll even find something you like.

What a load of crap...

[ranessin]

How is sodomy a natural act? Given that the sole purpose of sex is for procreation (in both a Biblical and biological sense no less), how is sodomy a "natural act"?

How the Hell do you know what the sole purpose of sex is? If it never occurred to you that one purpose of sex is pleasure, I feel sorry for you since you've obviously never had a great blow job.

Ranessin

Re:A blow for pornographers and thieves

[nick_davison]

and a thief has been punished

If you count living in Mexico with the $40,000,000 they can't touch in off shore bank accounts being punished.

It's good to see the legal owner got control of his site back but that was after he was forced to spend three years in court and hundreds of thousands of dollars in costs. Granted he'll now make tens of millions from the domain name but it's still got to be a bittersweet victory.

goatporn gets the recognition it deserves...

[nick_davison]

The now legal owner of sex.com was quoted as saying in the article:
"We're working on a deal (for content on) ... sex education, disease prevention, women oriented stuff, stuff that you normally don't see in the (adult) space."

You don't normally see women orientated stuff on sex sites? No wonder all those large-pink-area filters don't work - they shouldn've been scanning for goatporn all along.

Posted early enough for the karma rich first few minutes, mentioning goatporn for a clear demotion under grounds of karmawhoring.

Re:A blow for pornographers and thieves

[crgrace]

Its a negative feedback loop, and one that some men find very hard to see their way clear from

Actually, it's a positive feedback loop. Negative feedback works to cancel the orignal disturbance while positive feedback reinforces the original disturbance. In your example the subject is led through frustration to do more of what made him frustrated in the first place: positive feedback. This positive feedback will lead to oscillation if the system's loop-gain is greater than 1.

sex.com?

[HongPong]

I find the domain name sex.org to be considerably more amusing.

--

looks like......

[canning]

I'm goin to have to update my bookmark. Transition the site to more mainstream content.....sheesh

Re:A blow for pornographers and thieves

[RandomPeon]

Oh it's easy for you to assume that just because it doesn't fit in with your wonderful, liberal view of life that it's got to be a troll. Far easier than actually trying to come up with some facts to support your position, right?

Ok, you might want to take a look at this story on sexuality over at Kuro5hin. It's a fascinating read, one of the best things I've seen there in a while. Chock full of hard facts about the intrinsic need for sexual release in human beings.

You're not worth arguing with. You'll just apply the word "liberal" to any evidence to any argument you don't like, just like you have in all three of your posts so far.

Furthermore, your argument seems to be based on a particular pseudo-literalist reading of the Bible, so it's not like the discussion would go anywhere.

Expedited discussion with this troll:

1. I'm going to have a little fun, and quote 1 Corinthians 7:1 "Now for the matters you wrote about: It is good for a man not to marry", the standard justification for primacy of celibacy over marriage, and tell you that if you really wanted to take the word of God to heart you would forsake all physical pleasure, even with your wife. I'll further support my claim with Luke 14:25-27: "If anyone comes to me and does not hate .... his wife and children, .... --he cannot be my disciple."

2. You're going to writhe and scream and complain and try and explain I'm distorting the passage. You might quote me Shakespeare, and say that "the devil has the power to quote scripture" thinking you have a biblical comeback. You might quote 1 Corinth 7:2-5 as a better retort.

3. Then I'll say Christ makes clear in 7:6-7 that permanent non-marriage is a preferable state.

4. Then you'll invent a new complaint to justify ignoring the passages of the bible you dislike. Of course, by disregarging only one passage, you've kind of shot your argument that we should blindly use the Bible as a set of rules without thinking - if it's wrong there, why isn't it wrong about pornography? (Of course, the bible never mentions pornography, you can borrow the inferential references which conservative theologians find to justify anti-pornographic positions.)

5. I'll be sick of the discussion and won't reply because you will ignore any other facts I introduce into the discussion or attach the word "liberal" to them, as if I should run in terror at being called such a horrible word.

There, we condensed in all down into one post. Wait I think I got a patent idea... Expedited troll conversations via prediction of troller/trollee responses.

Re:A blow for pornographers and thieves

[NineNine]

And I urge you to write every Christian minister you know to put their talents to good use, rather than continuing the vicious cycle of ignorance and hatred.

Re:A blow for pornographers and thieves

[NineNine]

Last I heard, coercision and exploitation has existed in 'religion' for centuries.

Re:The whole DNS system should be redesigned

[Bug2000]

Hmmm... Therefore my local store who wants his web site can easily be found under: www.mystore.localtown.department.county.region.cou ntry.

I claim my right not to be a DMOZ entry!!

good old days of yore

[stud9920]

When will they return the slashdot domain to those people that posted interesting stories ?

DUH... That's called altNIC

[budgenator]

For the Technologicaly Impared see www.alternic.org also for another example see www.OpenNIC.unrated.net for an alternative to the two more traditional network information centers.

It good to see the courts actualy deciding in favor of something logical for a change three cheers from me at least

The Clitoris

[MrBud]

Given that the sole purpose of sex is for procreation (in both a Biblical and biological sense no less)

I would like to point out that our big pink friend's (The Clitoris) sole existance is for pleasure. Perhaps god/evolution had other ideas than just procreation.

True. But where are these vast good works done by the porn merchants?

I bet I can vouch for myself and others in saying that the porno peddlers have done good things for us. Just because they don't fit your 2000 year old moral standard, doesn't mean it's necessarily wrong.

I don't force you to be buddhist, so even try to force me to be Christian/Catholic/[Insert sect here]/Anything else.

Re:The whole DNS system should be redesigned

[Lughlamfainne]

unfortunate problem: say you want to open a web page, dealing with a business that YOU own, created and have this great idea for branching out onto the web to gain a little more exposure for your business, but your (1) local government wants to tax your @$$ to allow you to operate your new 'web-business' because they can, then the next level of gov't decides, "hey lets tax them too" then it gets to the top level of gov't, who of course see this as a cash cow for them as well, see you had to register each part of each level of each domain sub-prefex, so now it's hooters.com.atlanta$.ga$.us$
Just my two cents worth, and a reason to question.
Just Another Pagan Shedding Light in this Dark Age~ JAPSLDA

Re:A blow for pornographers and thieves

[Rogerborg]

Wait I think I got a patent idea... Expedited troll conversations via prediction of troller/trollee responses.

And automate it. AutoTroll leaps in to any /. discussion and posts a single message composed of trolls and responses to save us wasting our time doing it. It would only need to extract a very little context from the topic, as most trolls are along the lines of:

"Regarding this exciting news about Star Wars Episode II, it clearly demonstrates that Microsoft sux, that there's a specific reference to Napster in the 1st Amendment, and anyone who challenges the inviolable opinions I got from selectively reading bits of an ancient document written by dead patriarchal slavers (Consitution or Bible, you choose), you're clearly a commie liberal dope head paedophile fascist, doomed to burn in heck, for ever and ever, oh man."

justice!

[fatgraham]

good luck to the lad.

the register's story

From the horse's mouth

[Salieri]

"The idea is moving more toward a Maxim magazine model ... softer, (with) more context around the content," said Kremen. "We're working on a deal (for content on) ... sex education, disease prevention, women's oriented stuff, stuff that you normally don't see in the (adult) space. And we're doing it because we think we can make money at it."

In other news, (a former) U.S. President made history with these words: "Ask ... what your country can do for you, (not) what you can do for your country."

Reached for comment, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said: "Alcatel has a full range of products and services for service providers of all types, enterprises both large and small, and users at home or on the road."

--------------------------------

Re:I'm glad it's over, but I doubt he'll ever see

[vidarh]

Only if he was a complete idiot when signing the contract with the lawyer.

Re:A blow for pornographers and thieves

[vidarh]

What happens is that if a man views porn regularly, he gets a very distorted view of sex and women, which can cause two things. First he will treat women that do allow him to become close to them in ways that are (for many women) highly inappropriate, which is abuse of those women, and damaging to an otherwise good relationship. And secondly he will be approaching all women with this distorted view, which will cause him to find it more difficult to form relationships with women, and lead back, via frustration, to yet more porn. Its a negative feedback loop, and one that some men find very hard to see their way clear from. This is potentially harmful and dangerous to these men and the women around them.

Can you please point us to ANY credible research that shows that this is the case, please?

This is an old argument, and I have yet to see any evidence for it. Several researches have concluded the opposite: That pornography serve as a healthy way of getting fantasies "out of your system", to prevent them from affecting your daily life.

Note also one of the classic mistakes made in much of the research of this issue: Many reports have described high usage of porn by rapists, and equate that with porn causing or contributing to the rape.

But those numbers are also consistent with the suggestion above that pornography serve as a way of getting fantasies out - if that is correct, then it would be natural to also find a high consumption of pornography by people who have used it to try to stay under control, but that have failed.

For a study to present credible evidence on any connection as mentioned above, the very least they would have to do would be to find a random sample of people that do use porn and a random sample of people who dont use porn, and let parts of the group that does use porn stop using it, and parts of the group that does not use porn start using it, and follow the resulting four groups over a prolonged period of time to see whether members of any of the groups are more or less likely to get abusive or to get problems handling relationships.

This page presents some research (mostly supportive of porn). If you have any specifics criticism of the research presented there, or any credible research showing different results, I'd like to see references to it, to take a look at it.

You are also making the typical mistake and assuming that porn is only consumed by men, when the major market for mainstream porn videos is couples, and videos for use by couples are typically chosen and bought by the woman.

The major reasons couples cite for watching porn together? To inject fantasies and excitement into their relationship, and to explore sides of each other they do not yet know well. In other words: To get closer. How that is detrimental to a relationship, I fail to see. I can however agree that that some couples choose to do so does not mean it's right for everyone.

The whole DNS system should be redesigned

[Cap'n Crax]

SEX.COM . . . Just yet another in the long and never-ending list of disputed domain names due to copyright, trademark, previous ownership, domain-squatting, and other disputes that are becoming more common every day. Most of these problems are, of course, based on USA laws.

After several years of thought on how this whole issue could be addressed, I now have a few ideas.

First, we need to do away with all *.com, *.org, *.net, *.gov, *.mil and *.gov. These are all US-centric, and since the internet is global, are inappropriate.

My ideas lean towards the Canadian system, but somewhat different. A top-down system, from more general to more specific. An important part of my idea is that **ALL** domains should end in the two-character country codes that are already established. A few examples...

Coca-Cola (A US based corporation)

cocacola.com.us
coke.com.us

--And since they have a presence in many other countries,

coke.com.au cocacola.com.au
coke.com.uk cocacola.com.uk
coke.com.jp cocacola.com.jp (Which should be in Japanese, with links to other languages, as all should be.)

English Parliament

parliament.gov.uk

Bob's Lemonade Stand, Atlanta Georgia, USA

bobslemonade.com.atlanta.ga.us

Of course there are some holes in my argument here... I typed this up quickly to get my point across. But this will allow domains to be controlled by the laws of the country, or even locality, in which the laws are relevant. As exmaples, domains under:

*.ky.us -- Would first be under state law of Kentucky, then under Fedral law of USA.

*.melbourne.au -- First under local Melbourne law, then under national law of Australia.

*.atlanta.ga.us -- First under Atlanta city law, then under Georgia state law, then under US Federal.

I simply can't think of a better system to use to allow for local laws and regulations to be enforced, and yet allow for national corporations to have a world-wide presence. I beileve this is the type of system that should have been implemented from he beginning, but at the time no one had the foresight to see that the internet and the web would become what it has today...

Confused

[schlam]

I do realize that yes these women do get" abused " but I thought the point of the artical was to show that that tech property is property not a to front an immoral site ...so to speak

Network Solutions SUCKS TOO

[Jesus IS the Devil]

I remember Network Solutions was also sued first, but Kremen lost his case there.

Personally I think Network Solutions should be paying some money out to Kremen also. Why? Because these bastards have been the source of a bunch of dns mess-ups. They don't give a shit about your registration. If they lose it or gives it to someone else, oh well... that's that. NetSol needs to be slapped hard to teach them a lesson well overdue.



---------
Did you just fart? Or do you always smell like that?

Re:Damn

[ssandv]

Well, clearly this is a troll, but I'll bite anyway. I'm a libertarian, and not because I'm selfish. It's because experience has shown me that most people apply themselves better in their own interest than in the interest of others. Worse yet, the idea that someone else thinks they're acting in my best interest is enough to make me scream in terror, because they almost never have a clue what my best interests are. If people actually worked for the common good, with the exception of crises such as earthquakes and hurricanes, then there would be no reason to *be* libertarian, as we could all do just fine as socialists--there would be plenty for everyone and the means to get it there. It simply doesn't work that way. Wake up and take a whiff of the Starbucks, for crying out loud.

And please, please, lose the all caps thing. It's so BIFF.

Re:A blow for pornographers and thieves

[Sol Wientrub]

Stating such contentious beliefs (porn not used by men with a loving partner, the existance of god) as facts can only be a troll; anyone else would have put "I beleive", "IMHO", or somthing else along those lines in there.

Compared to some of the things I have seen presented as "fact" on /. this actually seems tame (for lack of a better word)

It seems the only time I see people using "I believe" at the start of a post is when they're afraid of arousing the wrath of the Karma Gods.

At least that's what I believe ;-P

Re:A blow for pornographers and thieves

[Sol Wientrub]

You're not worth arguing with.

Coulda fooled me

Re:A blow for pornographers and thieves

[Sol Wientrub]

Absolutely true, and I would point that crap out as well in a thread primarily concerned with religion. Don't make the mistake of thinking I oppose porn lock, stock, and barrel, or that I even agree with Jon's religious beliefs. I originally posted a reply becuse I believe that Jon should be able to state an unpopular (on Slashdot) belief without automatically being labelled a troll. As far as exploitation goes, the world is full of people who are willing to overlook the evil present in their pet area, whether that be porn, religion, politics, etc. All I did was point out that Bad Things are present in the porn industry and there is ample evidence to support this, nothing more. Any attitudes assigned to me beyond this are assumptions that are not necessarily true.

Re:A blow for pornographers and thieves

[Sol Wientrub]

And this is a troll how? The guy states an opinion based on his convictions (read his user bio) and it's a troll. Looks like we found another sacred cow for /.ers. Hey, don't diss the porn, man.

As far as all of the posts touting the benefits of porn go, don't be so naive as to think that it's all willing women happily gulping jizz. Yep, some, maybe even most, are willing, but if you think coercion and exploitation don't happen in the porn industry, you must just be another Kansas farm boy who believes everything they read in Playboy. Take them rose colored condoms off and wipe the cream off your monitor.

Re:A blow for pornographers and thieves

[aol]

Remember something.
No one is forcing any of these women to be involved in pornography. They do it of their own free will.
No one forces you to look at pornography either.
The word SEX is synonomous with pornography on the internet. That is what makes that domain name so valuable. Would you urge "right thinking" slashdotters to email the webmaster of www.bigdicks.com urging him to put the site to good use?