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Internet Porn More Addictive Than Crack, Senate Told
applemasker writes "Wired says that the Senate heard testimony today that internet porn is 'worse than crack.' Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) called it the most disturbing hearing he'd ever heard in the Senate, saying that porn is ubiquitous now but compared to when he was growing up and 'some guy would sneak a magazine in somewhere and show some of us, but you had to find him at the right time.' Can someone submit a FOIA request for his browser history or cache?"
...a bill passed into law extending the ban on taxing internet access, a move that is very good for consumers.
Of course, this being slashdot, we'll post a story about it before the vote, not update it when the desired vote actually occurs, not post a new story about it passing, and instead post a story about a lone Senator's response to a University of Pennsylvania scientist's valid research opinions[1] (just as valid as, say, some sociology students alleging studying shaky, unprovable statistical anomalies in Florida voting, even as the MIT/Caltech Voting Project says there was no widespread fraud, tampering, or errors).
Surprisingly, a person who works at a sex toy shop called Good Vibrations doesn't agree with the researcher's conclusions!
Let's just face the facts that some people are more prone to addictive behaviors, and it can happen with anything: drugs, shopping, gambling, sex, and yes, pornography. The putative argument is that with the abundance of free porn on the internet, a porn addiction has the potential to be much more damaging, since it doesn't require the resources that other common addictions might. This is perfectly valid; it doesn't imply that everyone will be addicted to porn (or anything else), nor does it mean that internet porn will be "banned". It simply says an addiction with a free neverending supply can be harmful.
Is anyone the least bit surprised or concerned that a conservative Christian Republican senator from Kansas found the testimony "disturbing". How is this news?
(And as for the crack in the summary, believe it or not, there are some people who probably haven't had occasion to view porn on their computers. No. Really.)
[1]Mary Anne Layden, co-director of the Sexual Trauma and Psychopathology Program at the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Cognitive Therapy, called porn the "most concerning thing to psychological health that I know of existing today."
"The internet is a perfect drug delivery system because you are anonymous, aroused and have role models for these behaviors," Layden said. "To have drug pumped into your house 24/7, free, and children know how to use it better than grown-ups know how to use it -- it's a perfect delivery system if we want to have a whole generation of young addicts who will never have the drug out of their mind."
Pornography addicts have a more difficult time recovering from their addiction than cocaine addicts, since coke users can get the drug out of their system, but pornographic images stay in the brain forever, Layden said.
at least it doesn't make you bankrupt and chemically unbalanced. It just gives you a chaffed knob and strong forearms.
The incidence of carpal tunnel syndrome is on the rise.
When was the last time somebody was arested for busting into a house to steal e-porn from a harddrive?
Table-ized A.I.
YOU CAN PRY MY PORN FROM MY WARM STICKY HANDS!!!!!
Imagine how much funnier that could have been without the slashdot lameness filters.
Some things were meant to be yelled.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Hopefully they'll mention my air and water addiction in the next Congress.
Cool! Amazing Toys.
Didn't know it took a Senate to confirm that.
Isn't there a Dilbert comic that has Dogbert saying that humans will always go towards the thing that looks the most tempting/fun because it's our nature?
We're human. LET MY PORNO GO
He's probably right.
"Won't somebody please think of the children!"
...because without porn, how will the know how to give a good fuck when they grow up. How will they ever learn to masturbate during their teenage years!?
----
Go canucks, habs, and sens!
I guess someone will have to CRACK down on pr0n.
Sorry, I truly just couldn't resist.
Pornography leads to boob jobs? May I ask why this is being presented to the Senate Committee on Science, Technology and Space Subcommittee? Now I'm not an advocate of pornography but if I were going to argue against it, I'd try to base my arguments on less personal-value laden arguments than this. And that's leaving aside dodgy use of science. Example: Suggesting that boys and girls don't masturbate without pornography? Children masturbate before they even understand sexual attraction, let alone requiring pornography post-puberty.
But here's another highlight,
Erototoxins? Is this an attempt to re-brand a need for sexual stimulationas a medical condition again? You know that way they could overturn any constitutional protections under the guise of medical treatment, much like drug companies are pushing their drugs that render people resistant to illegal drugs. Why do I get the feeling that these people would like to be able to prevent sexual desire wherever they deem it innappropriate.
The whole basis of this article seems to be that somebody has shown correlation in the brain between pleasure from drugs and pleasure from sex... as far as I understand the article, the correlation appears to be something called, um... pleasure.
I think if you watch a lot of pornography, then that can distance you from other people and perhaps interfere with forming a healthy relationship with your parter, but who knows - it's just my feeling. I don't think anyone with a brain whichever side of the argument they fall on could see this article being anything other than bollocks.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
OK, maybe that broke down a little at the end there. But the point is, porn isn't addictive - sex is.
I can quit any time I want. I just dont want to.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
I can quit...
..anytime I want!
*CLICK* *CLICK*
anytime I....
*CLICK* *CLICK*
*CLICK* *CLICK*
Ok...maybe not...
DEAD DEAD DEAD DELETE ME
This going to get worse and worse now that the Republicans (notice I don't say conservatives) have control and the Christian Right feel like they are owed something for shutting up and not scaring the moderates away like they did during the Clinton era elections.
There is a lot of porn on the net and if you arent some by-product of the very culture that is so freaked-out about it in the first place you'd probably find it as boring and silly as it truly is.
-_-
Is war on internet porn coming up next? Since obviously it is bad for the society...
Coffee is addictive and so is tea and so are many other things in life. Some people are addicted to books. I have never seen senate debating library addiction PROBLEM? Before they should discuss internet porn addiction, they should show clearly that it is a problem which needs immediate addressing. Americans access more internet porn then many other nations in middle east, africa etc, but I don't think those countries have any less sexual crimes than USA.
"internet porn is 'worse than crack.'"
People are going to make fun of this line but its a very serious problem. Have you ever seen a porn baby you insensitive clod?!
-- "of course thats just my opinion, I could be wrong." --Dennis Miller
Their website looks very Christian, has the declaration of "standing up for what I believe".
I saw this story before it was posted on slashdot, and my conclusion that, as usual, the extremists of opinion are about to strangle each other, and moderation is hardly represented.
I'd say porn is about as addictive as television.
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality echoed Layden's concern about the internet and the somatic effects of pornography.
I am SURE that they are totally unbiased in this, I mean WTF where they doing testifying before congress on this issue? What happend to having experts on the topic at hand testify?
Um, yeah it is. Hence my huge library of like 60+ DVDs of it. Of course, I have friends who have even more....and they are married. Go figure.....
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
--
Cause I've downloaded internet porn while smoking crack and so I can say from first hand experience (and later, second hand) that when my DSL went down I was pissed BUT I didn't get out of my chair until the crack ran out.
Seriously though this is just some more alarmist bullshit from those special folks out there who live in mortal terror that someone, somewhere might be getting a nut or even enjoying something a little bit. They're just busy trying to save us from ourselves again. Nothing new here.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
senators and congressman hold these kinds of hearings all the tme so they can tell their constituants that they are actually doing stuff.
sorry 'bout the mess...
The Senate never heard of /.
"The Select Senate Subcommittee on Slashdot Addiction calls its first witness. Ms. Portman, would you please stand and raise your right hand..."
k.
"In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart." - Anne Frank
saying that porn is ubiquitous now but compared to when he was growing up and 'some guy would sneak a magazine in somewhere and show some of us, but you had to find him at the right time.'
Oh yeah. Porn's ubiquitousness now is leading us into the darkness of...
of...
Politics?
I think his point is that porn led him into politics. I bet he read in some Playboy article that the Kennedies get all the hot chicks. And he got that Playboy from some guy in a dark alley. So now that he's a sentator, he's going to do his best to keep that secret, and that way *he'll* get all the hot chicks.
What a devious bastard.
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
Impossible! This doesn't take into account... wait, brb...
Let's see here we have wars, intolerance an ACTIVE hatred of environmentalism (they call it GAIAISM) and science, a contempt for the human body and a concern to control the behavior of others while giving up their decision making ability to a primative conception of christ. Now explain to me why these people are qualified to point fingers about porn? It seems they have the more agregious symptoms.
-_-
We liked it better when people were stealing magazines instead of surfing the web for free.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
...when he was growing up and 'some guy would sneak a magazine in somewhere and show some of us, but you had to find him at the right time.'
When he grew up women stayed at home and men did all the work and sex was something that was viewed as a contractual obligation to marraige.
The guy grew up in the 60s, wasnt he paying attention to all that sexual revolution business? Sucks to be him.
Congress better stay away from porn and cut it out with this "erototoxin addiction" angle. That kind of rhetoric is more damaging than porn, in my opinion. Science is the new religion, and now instead of labelling people "evil", we label them all "sick". Erototoxin. What a retarded buzzword. Worst ever.
Yeah, sex and drugs are similar in that they are both a hell of a lot of fun if you do them right.
Wait till these guys find out about Rock n Roll.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
..yeah we here in the senate have been researching this for a while now...
And its more addictive than cigarettes..
seee here, thats why we can't stop. Its not that we're wasting tax payers money on our newley beeded up T3 lines running into the capital.
Those RIAA/MPAA supenas to my office were obviouslly caused by our affliction.
Really...
experts on the topic at hand
heh, heh... Beavis, you just said "at hand"... heh, heh...
Isnt it the masturbation part that is addictive rather than the porn?
-_-
In order to make such a statement, you would have to be on crack.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
..where Ed Meese went.
Addiction is a reification, and that's where the problem comes in. We've blurred the use of addiction in society until the abstract definition of addiction - the need to perform some behavior compulsively - determines the connotation of the word. The only meaning of the word addiction that applies to physical reality is that version that arises from biological adaptation to the ingestion of substances, which some people (alcoholics, for one) are much more prone to. Continued use develops continued need, and soon, their bodies (literally) depend on the substances for normal functioning, as they have stopped producing sufficient amounts of affected neurotransmitters on their own.
The other connotation of addiction is the one we refer to in common speech - when a person repeats behaviors, regardless of the consequences or his/her own inclination to do so. So we speak of those addicted to shopping, grooming, sex, or any other behavior a person focuses on for what others would deem an unhealthy period of time (this behavior is almost always a vice, or capable of becoming one in excess). This is where our definitions overlap and the problem first appears. Any thought or behavior is necessarily biological. What's more, for all of human history, people have tried to resist pleasure, such as eating or sex, that is innately tied with both biological reward and negative consequences. And in this way, the reward and the strong drive to perform the behaviors that bring about this reward are abstracted on the basis of their biological similarity (the same brain rewards both behaviors) and the strikingly similar behaviors of those deemed addicted (when you want to do something, you do it). But when we do this, we overstep the bounds of the word addiction, and soon we start regulating all human behavior associated with pleasure, negative consequences, and an obsessive quality into the category of addiction. Now, if you think that a reasonable definition of addiction is one that can apply to any pleasure-deriving activity, including every vice, that's your opinion. It just happens to be a very wrong one.
It's hard not to do the things we like. They make us feel the same (happy) as heroin makes heroin addicts feel (happy). And for all of human history, we've been trying to figure out how to suppress the human tendencies toward pleasure that can hurt and destroy us. But when we speak like this, we replace a deeper understanding of human action with the shallow descriptions of behavior we read in magazines. I used to smoke cigarettes, and I occasionally smoke pot. When I quit smoking, I felt nuts, like I was losing something that my body depended upon. When you're a smoker, you can't remember what it was like to be a non-smoker - to go a day without thinking of a cigarette. It was the hardest thing I've ever done, and if you non-smokers could imagine that suffering, you'd know what we mean we when talk about addiction. When I stop smoking pot, I feel upset that I'm not doing what I like to do, and I want to smoke. But I when I stopped smoking cigarettes, I couldn't think, my head felt like it was being smashed, and I wasn't able to register anything other than my shaking and desire for a cigarette.
There is a biological reality to real addiction. The rest is human behavior and the same attraction to vice that we've lived with for years. While this is necessarily biology, it arises naturally from human behavior, and is not caused by physical adaption to external agents and chemicals that act upon the body. This is a critical distinction, and not one easily understood by half-rate thinkers, people who read magazines, and those who've never wanted a cigarette.
This shit gets so old. First comes convincing people that others aren't in control of their actions. That's the only way a person can say "stop doing this action, even though it doesn't affect me, because I don't like it" without getting laughed at. Listen to this quote from the article: "Pornography really does, unlike other addictions, biolog
Think of the kittens please!!
I bet what a fair share of the commission members (including the president) found most disturbing was to realize they were badly intoxicated by their self erototoxins, because I can't imagine they just discovered there was p0rn available on the net.
Yes. You can. Quit being lazy and get busy. Report back when you have it.
we will end no whine before its time
I dont feel the goverment has a place in legeslating morality, because morality can be a very grey area. I think the only time when the geverment has a possible legetimate concern is when aan activity can have a negative impact on another individual.
Some of these fanatical people have to deal with the concept that sexuality is a natural part of us. to try to supress such strong urges seems to invite mental instablity.
The Dems are just as bad, HINT - Tipper Gore, Al Gore and a whole list of others from the Dem side of the isle that try to control things.
The only difference between the GOP and the Dems is that they wish to control different areas of our lives. Neither side wants smaller goverment, both wish to control us.
So, who's with me in the fight against banning porn? Who will stand up and publicly announce that There Is Nothing Wrong With That? Who will demonstrate that porn consumers are normal, mentally healthy, god-fearing, middle class men and women, and not the filthy worms the Christian right makes us out to be?
Anyone?
The only way evil survives in the world is when good people stand by and do nothing.
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
These are the same people who have said, at various times in the past, that rock and roll is evil/satanic, that PnP roleplaying games are evil/satanic, that music will make you kill and that guns, unlike everything else they wish to ban, are OK because they are just tools and harm no one.
They are totally incapable of being consistant and will do and say anything to stay in power. Look how many cheat on their wives.
n/t
Not according to this. However, you have to look at how we define and punish rape as well. I mean, if I had the choice between honor killing and keeping my mouth shut, I know which one I'd pick. Also, given that American prisons are gay sex torture factories, I have to wonder how many of those incidents took place behind bars.
Please do not group all Christians into the same category as these people. Not all Christians believe that the government should be used to force our values down others throats. Besides, this isn't really about Christianity or religion, it is about power and the ability to control people.
Hell, if these people in congress really believed what they say they believe they would act and vote differently.
I'm watching streaming pr0n right now... god bless the internet.
Yes, I am a smart ass; it's better than the alternative.
I don't think porn will ever make people loose teeth and degrade their health. The addiction to crack can be both extremely physical and psychological where as porn is more psychological. Easier now to get to for children yes, but much more easy to correct as well.
||| I still can't believe Parkay's not butter.
Someone just crapped a brick.
Fortunately a cameraman was there to film it and it'll soon be released on DVD.
It's an interesting tactic, to classify those who disagree with you as "addicts". Welcome to the Brave New World. Soon Pfizer will have a pill that'll "cure" you of liking to watch women make out. I'll take a stab at naming it: Noleztra.
Hell, maybe one day we'll have a pill that eliminates compassion. (pops pill) Ahhh, fuck 'em.
-dameron
------
DailyHaiku.com, saying more in 17 syllables than big media says all day.
I'll agree that porn is addictive. Just like sex, looking at porn and masturbating releases endorphins (i think those are the right horomones) into a guy's brain. And also, since guys are visually stimulated for sex (you know...it only takes a few glances at some boobies before Mr. Woody is ready to go),looking at porn on the net is like having personal access to limitless different sexual partners. Hard to pass up for many guys who don't have a real life partner.
Where's the problem with this though? What's the big deal about looking at porn? I think one big thing is respect for the opposite sex. It really changes how a man looks at a woman, when he spends a lot of time looking at porn. Look at porn for long enough, and the first thing you look at when you see a woman is NOT her face. This tends to piss them off, as well as make them feel like a piece of meat. It's not even intentional though...it's just what looking at porn trains your eyes to do.
Also, in my experience, I find that after looking at porn for awhile, it makes it harder to connect with women. Serious. It's very difficult for a porn addict not to think of a woman as a sex toy rather than a person. **NOTE - this doesn't apply to everyone, but it does to a majority of guys who are heavily into porn**
Also, porn addiction is progressive. Many porn addicts find themselves wanting harder and harder porn. A kid might start looking at bikini pics, then softcore pics, then he'll move onto hardcore sex, and after that if it goes far enough, he might go onto bondage, incest, beastiality, pissing, etc.
That's my take on it, and I'm sure there are those who will disagree, or who won't see what I've mentioned as a problem. Well, that's your opinion. This is my opinion. There are many like it. But this one is mine.
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
No.
You're welcome!
Request your free CD of my piano music.
If pr0n is da crack, then Firefox must be da pipe! With its tabbed browsing, popup blocking, and image scaling, its the perfect tool for some serious cyber bukkake! Uh, at least that's what some guy in a dark alley told me! Yeah...
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
This is mumbo-jumbo as far as I can tell. Note how quickly Dr. Reisman -- her Ph.D. is in Communications, and she has no education in medicine -- goes from coining a brand new word to describe something she cannot prove exists ("what I dub erototoxins") to using that word as if the substance is real ("study erototoxins"). Along the way she uses partial quotes out of context, and prepends her views on pornography to a quote that matter-of-factly describes an obvious fact about the brain.
And if you missed it -- yes -- she is railing against "sexually explicit sex education." She is saying that sex ed causes brain damage.
This is the same woman who thinks the Catholic Church should sue because priests molested children.
Anonymous Coward writes in: "I have been looking for some good porn sites to help my addiction. Most of the sites I've found, however, either have skanky chicks or want a lot of money and open too many popups. I was wondering if anyone knew of a good source of porn on the Internet. And as always, compatibility with GNU/FOSS solutions is preferred."
"I was gonna go fuck the neighbor boy, but the bus sign reminded me not to," testified recovering child fucker N.Curable-Sicko. "Until now, nothing had been able to stop me from having my way with them, not even the prospect of being sent to prison where I'd be raped constantly. Now, with the bus signs, I'm able to control my urges."
Internet porn is more addictive than Christ.
And it has them worried.
Howard Roark, Architect
I believe in a Man's right to exist for his own sake.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
wtf are they talking about. they are acting like its something new... when was porn and men not synonymous?
KARMA POLICE ARREST THIS MAN HE TALKS IN MATHS- radiohead
Which is the more "demented" form of entertainment:
looking at images/movies of naked people to achieve sexual arousal
or
watching images/movies of people hurting and killing one another with various weapons and by various means.
I mean, if we are going to *assume* that such stimulation motivates one to act, which is the more harmful resultant action? Sex/masturbation or harming/killing someone?
I have yet to hear a single argument against porn which could not apply equally well to violence, and yet no-one bats an eye at the tremendous amounts of violence in the entertainment industry.
Our culture is truely twisted.
(incidentally, this same reasoning applies to marijuana legalization as compared to alcohol/tobacco).
caffinecrackpornslashdot.
with caffine I get some work done.
I dont know what crack would to to me, probably post more slashdot.
porn takes 3 minutes every 2 hours. Going pee is more addicting then porn.
but... slashdot consumes my life.
The last HAS to be a troll.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
First, my background. I am an Evangelical Christian, as well as a future law student. I vote Republican more often than Democrat (not particularly liking either party), but am also a financial supporter of the EFF.
Do I believe pornography to be morally wrong? Without question. Do I believe pornography should be heavily regulated beyond how it currently is? Not necessarily.
My default position on any issue is "Show love, and respect personal liberty." The first aspect is inviolable, as God incarnated in Jesus directly commanded us to love Him and others, setting this as the most important consideration in any situation.
As to the second aspect, at heart I'm a Libertarian. However, there are many situations where personal liberty should not be respected. Your personal liberty to fire a shotgun should not be allowed when I am standing directly in front of said shotgun. Here, the consideration overriding your personal liberty is the harm done to others. (Our consideration of showing love incarnates itself by respecting human dignity in punishment that is humane and, when possible, rehabilitative.)
So let's apply these two principles to a third. Specifically, Christianity's political-legal struggles are more successful when the Christian stance is argued from the same secular assumptions that are largely shared by the other side.
Beating a Bible may produce (what I hold to be) Truth, but that "evidence" is inadmissable in a court under our current interpretation of the Establishment Clause (a discussion in and of itself). So Christianity needs to divorce the morality play from this and show the secular manifestations of harm produced by pornography. The current tactics fail to show love to the "other side" by, quite frankly, insulting your intelligence.
Coming up with new jargon like "erototoxins" or whatever is worthless without science to back it up. If there is a medical basis, using established tests for addiction, to the argument that pornography feeds into itself and leads to self-destructive behavior and other costs that society is unwilling to absorb, then we need to see that medical basis clearly presented.
A complimentary line of reasoning might be similar to that used against tobacco companies: the product is addictive (to a point society is not willing to tolerate) and individuals are not necessarily aware of that addiction.
But screaming "this leads to masturbation!" is not going to get us anywhere.
I would personally love to see less pornography on the Internet at large, as I know firsthand the destruction to self-control and personal relationships that it can bring.
But we cannot sacrifice personal liberty in the process without a compelling reason. I do not believe that compelling reason has yet been articulated under secular reasoning.
- Neil Wehneman
My legal education, in nifty podcast format
"Pornography really does, unlike other addictions, biologically cause direct release of the most perfect addictive substance," Satinover said. "That is, it causes masturbation, which causes release of the naturally occurring opioids. It does what heroin can't do, in effect."
So what the researcher here is actually saying, is that sex is addictive, and therefore bad.
Um.. let's try to take a rational view here?
Sex is a normal and healthy thing. (For some of you, yes, that includes masturbation.)
So, some people get obssessed about sex. True. But most people don't. Heck, there are obsessive bingo players out there.
But as long as the vast majority of people aren't getting hurt, why would the solution be to stop engaging in the addictive activity?
It's amazing how they can't ban smoking, which is directly harmful for everyone who uses it, and even those around them, but pornography is obviously fair game.
But let me guess: This isn't really about public health at all, is it?
This is the way news works.
You bring the initial inklings of the story to the public's attention, bringing them to the edge of their seat and then don't follow up on it. It causes people to hunger for news as a source of entertainment. What it really becomes is terrorism, striking fear and doubt into the minds of millions of people who think that they live in the worst possible time in the history of the earth.
*old guy voice*
Problem is, these kids don't have any imagination these days. They don't get enough iron in their diets if you ask me.
Why when I was a young lad in Germany, if my father caught me partaking in auto-eroticism with something as pornographic as a lima-bean that looked like a naked woman, there would be Hell to pay.
He'd take a switch from the old birch tree and give me my punishment. With every swift lashing he would tell me to start playing more outside.
Soon I learned the lesson he was trying to teach. I'll never forget what he said to me: "Die Mannwurst geht in den Esel! Nein, nein! Die andere Weise!" I found that the barn animals required much more imagination than lima beans. I made my fater proud that day.
Take it from me, I'm old.
LIFE IS ADDICTION!
We are a consumer culture, we consume... based on addiction!
Who isnt addicted to sex?
Who isnt addicted to sugar?
Who isnt addicted to laughter?
Who isnt addicted to sports
Who isnt addicted to talking?
who isnt addicted to politics?
who isnt addicted to television
who isnt addicted to radio
who isnt addicted to driving
who isnt addicted to coffee
addiction does not ruin life... IT IS life. Replace the words "who isnt addited to" with "who doesnt enjoy"
Addiction is just doing what you enjoy on a frequent basis because you enjoy it.
Addiction has a negative connotation when it shouldnt. Addiction should be a neutral word.
PORN is heaven. And many folks are addicted to the bible and i dont want to ban their idea of heaven... very odd that they're hell bend on ruining mine.
GUNS are addicting
FUN is addicting
Jumping off bridges with a bungee cord is addicting
Gambling is addicting
Smoking is addicting
Helping others is addicting
Being an evil bastard is addicting
Playing with my own penis while watching some psuedo named hot girl drink it down from 30 guys is my own dam buisness.... And besides.. she did it, she filmed it... i'm just watching... and thank you so much you little dirty saint!
MORE PORN.. less bible. OOPS.. let me translate that into arabic...
MORE PORN.. LESS KORAN!
If they take my pr0n away, then I will join the terrorists!
Let's get drunk and delete production data!
Dialup.
No, it isn't.
Read the FR religion forum sometimes. Most of the posters who post like that really appear to believe it as they have been doing it for years...
Well, I don't want to assume that this is true, so I will have to find out for myself. Anyone know a crackhead with connections?
I have to wonder why you linked to that one rather than this one... Still, the US doesn't look too good. But as they say... reported crimes indicates willingness to report crimes just as much as the number that occur.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
It was shown that prayer messes up your brain even more. Basically your brain releases serotonin when you pray and it makes you "feel better". Religion is just as addictive as drugs and porn, and if government insists on regulating the last two they should consider regulate the first one. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd= Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=1459474 2
..the more I feel that I should run for an elected office and make my way up to the Senate. I'm absolutely serious. It is obvious on many fronts that our current crop of representatives have no fuckin' idea what the people want. That is what they are there for, right? To represent us?
Whether it is technological issues, societal issues, foreign policy.. Politicians seem to think that they know what's best.
Where are the blogs from Senators and other elected officials? Why do they feel that they are using technology effectively when their official website is merely a brochure for themselves maintained by some lackey, some summer "work for free" intern? Seriously.. America, especially the 18-30-something demographic seems to get ignored somewhat. It's bullshit.
What is your penile percentile?
Maybe this is TMI, but I'd seriously been browsing for porn for about an hour then quickly clicked over to Slashdot and what was the top story?
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
So what?
Surely there are better things for congress to hear than this waste of time/money? What a man does with his penis on front of his computer is his business, so long as no one else is harmed. I fail to see where this enters the realm of government.
I'd like them to get back to me on this one after they finish banning cigarettes, alcohol, television, violent movies, exercise, and chocolate. Then maybe I'll take them seriously. (Actually by that time they'll all have been tossed out of office and I won't have to worry about it. Neat, huh?)
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
all your porn belong to us. (and its damn good)
just a web application developer and instructor in Toronto, ON Canada
Religion's function is to provide comfort and pain relief against the issues that people can not answer. i.e....
The real reason for religion is to control the masses by pacification (or distraction). If you want to discuss religion (Christianity), you first need to learn ancient Hebrew (or your language of choices language or original writing). That is the language it was started in. For Christians, you need to come to grips with polytheism in Judaism. It is their, in Genesis and many other places. Next, realize that in Genesis it says that the only thing separating you from being a God is that you do not live forever (which says God(s) are not as smart as we say they are.)
All of religion is based on faith, not knowledge. If it were knowledge, you would not need faith. Facts are used in religion the same way facts are used in a cleverly constructed lie. They give credence in clever ways to things that are unrelated (he said A and B, I know A is true, so B muse be also). Faith causes huge problems, especially in the fanatically faithful. The faithful who hate science and other things of knowledge do so because over time almost everything they ever claim gets debunked (maybe a few exceptions, but not many). On top of that, most Christians have not a clue what the Bible says it is to be faithful anyway. They claim to be Christian and partake in Christianity because it makes them feel good about themselves, without regard for how their actions impact on those around them.
In summary, where their faith/addiction is concerned, ignores reality, ignores the impact on those around them, does it for a feeling they get (normally covering up an emptiness inside) and unwilling to or unable to change based upon actual factual evidence that this causes harm. Sounds like a drug addict to me.
You really had to read slashdot to figure out that our government officials don't know or care about what's best for the people who elected them?
It's all about the $. Constituancies, lobbies, commitees, bribes, blackmail, scandals, and other distractions that keep the $ flowing...
No I haven't seen a porn baby. Thats sick. They have laws against that ya know.
A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over. -Benjamin Franklin
Are you hiding in a bunker filled with 12,000 cans of tuna waiting for the 'russians' to attack? If I'm to believe anything I read, give plausible and believable facts to back up your 'opinions'. You should write for Hollywood...
Masturbation 'cuts cancer risk'
...but ain't no WAY you are standing BEHIND me
Suchetha
learn from yesterday, plan for tomorrow, party tonight
or one out of three ain't bad
I had a ton of information here, but accidentally closed the window (argh). So here's the short version: we're talking about smut here, which is controlled through local decency/obscenity rulings and laws. Pornography, however, is a legal term and is not local in scope, rather being prosecuted at higher levels (state/federal).
Examples of smut include things that might upset a spouse or violate an AUP - imagery of people posed in erotic and suggestive positions (to differentiate it from nudism/art), or imagery of couples engaged in sexual activity for same. Pornography, however, entails imagery of children either exposed or inappropriately positioned - having legs spread is a pretty open-and-shut case for this - or imagery of (some) acts being carried out with corpses or animals.
Smut is not illegal; Pornography is. It is an important distinction to make.
Hmmm ... methinks I see a group with an Agenda. So ... we remove Internet Pornography [sic]. Given that the person here is from the NARTH (hehe - even the acronym sounds awful), are we going to advocate that young homosexual or bi/curious men and women should go to bars resembling 1970/1980s San Fransisco? That doesn't seem like a good public health policy, in my eyes. I'm not homosexual myself, but believe that homo-erotic imagery might be a good thing to prevent widespread sexual intercourse from happening when the individuals involved may or may not be fully aware of their leanings. Indeed, I think that the removal of any kind of smut or erotic materials from the open market may potentially lead to more risky sexual behavior; I would much rather face the "evil" of a society that masturbates than the spectre of a ubiquitous STD rearing its head. But that's just me.
Pornography [sic] causes masturbation? God, this reminds me of the turn-of-the-century Parisian leaflets that showed a healthy young male turning into an enfeebled zombie of a man because he touched himself. Or maybe of the actions that led up to the Comstock Act around the turn of the century (well, 1912 or so, IIRC). Or Reefer Madness, the movie that was one of the things that led to the use of Schedules for classifying illegal drugs in this country (The US).
Yes, it's called an Agenda.
Bottom line: pornography is already regulated (e.g. email, fax, web, and mail is all subject to search and siezure) and illegal. Smut has no such regulation at a top-level (yet ... let's give it until the summer), but is subject to varying local loose-and-sloppy "community standards".
Perhaps its the fact that I REALLY started paying close attention to politics round-abouts the same time I started posting here.. but yeah. It's all about the money. :-/ Sad, really..
What is your penile percentile?
'nuff said.
Fuck you, and your fucking sig, you fucking fucker.
-- Mace only makes me hornier.
Especially the "fall down holy rollers" churches. I attended two such stage hypnotism sessions where the trance words "god fills you with joy, with pleasure, perfect happiness " were repeated over and over. People went nuts at the high they got off of it.
... well masturbation or day dreaming while your partner thinks you are concentrating on them. Churches lead to overbearing self righteous dimwhits who annoy the rest of us, or worse, cause severe emotional damage to those who will not give in to the cult mentality.
The church makes them feel good. Then they throw a huge percentage of their income at the preacher, to
"give to God". An addiction to church is as bad as an addiction to any drug. It is every bit as expensive. It alienates you from non cult members, I mean church members. You live your life thinking constantly about that feeling you get while at church, you want to return for another fix. It is so hard to go those six days a week without it. You'll even try to convince others to pick up your habit.
Crack habits lead to crack babies which sucks. Porn leads to
It is great to see someone debunk this woman. Doctor of communications. Or rather, Doctor of philosophy- who knows something about communications. Medical doctors are so many notches above that it should be made a crime to allow her to use that title. She wishes she was a real doctor, as do I with the lowly PharmD I'm working on. But I know it isn't the same thing.
I can't believe that our society has become so uptight that they're trying to lable porn as an addiction. I'm so sick of people trying to push their morality into government, and claim it's all for the sake of the children. Whatever happened to REAL freedom? Did it die one morning in September? Or did someone just give the "Big Pendulum" a good strong push?
It is the consequences of addiction that we should be concerned with. What business is it of anyone else's if I, or anyone else, enjoys porn, coffee, whatever too much? /rant on
It's not their business, concern or problem unless the addiction causes some kind of criminal behavior or in any way begins to affect other people. If being a drunk makes a person violent, then, yes, arrest said person and charge them with a crime. Encourage them to stop drinking. If looking at porn gets a person off, and "damages their brain" who cares? It isn't anyone else's business.
I can't believe these people. They want to control all behavior, and seperate the "normal" from the "abnormal". Why? Because they are neurotic busybodies with lunatic notions regarding peoples rights, or lack of rights to control their own brain chemistry. /rant off
Don't believe him?
Then quit for a week. You'll be back at it within two days, because "it's not a problem". Just do it to see if you can last a week.
The chemicals released by human orgasm shouldn't be under-estimated in their addictive powers. Sex has been the second most powerful driving force in shaping human society, bar only power.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
That everybody looks at porn, and of course everybody masturbates.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
I wish I knew the sites that he visits!
I like stuff along the lines of suicidegirls and lithiumpicnic but I'm too stingy/poor to pay up.
Most porn I see on the internet has tired and sad looking women in it. I don't find it very addictive because it's mostly not very good quality - not very sexy women posing in not very sexy positions, or ugly couples rutting. Certainly not my idea of addictive but perhaps my aesthethic taste in porn is a bit more discerning that Senator Brownback. He must be too easily impressed.
Si tacuisses philosophus mansisses. If you had kept quiet, you would have remained a philosopher.
crack for the masses? There seems to be a lot more people addicted to it than there are people addicted to porn.
there's no place like ~
Let's see:
Finally:
it can lead to sex, and sex can lead to dancing.
You have redeemed your religion. You may be the first evangelical christian who i am willing to listen to without wanting to punch. THis is not meant to be a slam, or a joke, I actually have great respect for your views as expressed here.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
...virtually everything I knew about sex I learned from the Internet.
Recently, however, I had the oppertunity to sit down and have a very open-minded discussion with a relative of the opposite gender to find out which things were true and which weren't.
As a result, my first experience (*) will be much more enjoyable and safe for both parties involved than it would have been had the discussion not taken place.
(*) Yes, I admit it hasn't happened yet. No, that's not a valid Slashdot stereotype.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
It saddens me that people like this are considered "experts" worthy of testifying before congress thanks to the fundies being in control.
Are we absolutely sure these people are human? The war on Terror? Fine. Patriot Act? Well, ok. I guess. Invade Iraq? Sure go ahead. But it's revelations like, "Internet Porn More Addictive Than Crack!" that really give you pause.
:p Much easier access to potential self gratification and unrealistic expectations.
Pause like: NO F$%#%ING SH%^, SHERLOCK.
Just a thought, but I hear SEX is REALLY addictive too. Can I go up before the Senate and state- for the record -that sex is highly addictive??? Not that I would know. I'm actually posting here all the time (see? my karma is excellent). And let's see... If I'm not mistaken, sex is one of the most basic human attributes. Fapping causes pleasure (well, for most of us). Fapping is free (again, most of us). Internet Porn is well, um, free.
Ergo, we must introduce a bill that will spend a few million researching the causes and affects of internet pornificationers.
All kidding aside, I'm of the opinion that it kinda desensitizes you to sex in general, possibly even reducing your drive to actually pursue real sex. Such easy access to self gratification material can't generally be a good thing in that respect. The Seantor is somewhat right... back in the day, if you wanted a playboy, you generally went through some trouble to get it. Now all you need is Google and your imagination.. Oh, and a good cache cleaner
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Saying that porn is worse than crack is intended to make us think that since it's worse than something already illegal, porn should also be banned.
I just want to remind people that it is just as logical to draw the conclusion that crack should be legalized, since it is better than something that is already legal.
Pornography is exactly showing people having sexual intercourse. Pornography is LEGAL. Its distribution to minors is not.
I think they should just outlaw porn. After all, if someone looks at the nude body of someone else, it could destroy the entire universe.
"Any highly excitatory stimuli (whether sexually explicit sex education or X-Rated films) say neurologists, "which lasts half a second within five to ten minutes has produced a structural change that is in some ways as profound as the structural changes one sees in [brain] damage...[and] can...leave a trace that will last for years."
Nooooo! they have discovered my super secret study method: masturbation. 3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375 10 ... how far can you go? Lasts for years, that's for sure. There is real pleasure in learning and I can't get enough of it! Lock me up, now, for my own good.
This is tripe. I hate pornography because it's demeaning to those who make it and creates unrealistic expectations for those who consume it, but this kind of psycho babble is not the way to fight it. My government at work, how pathetic.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Tobacco isn't increasingly restricted (sales to adults only, no smoking in an increasing number of public places) because it's addictive.
It's restricted because there is a tremendous amount of compelling evidence that smokers are far more likely to die than non-smokers. Heart disease, lung cancer, etc. Yet nearly all smokers picked up the habit in their teens and were addicted long before they truly comprehended the risks. Essentially nobody picks up smoking after their early 20s.
BTW, I don't think I've ever known an adult smoker who didn't wish he or she could quit. But that may be this environment - this being Boulder (and me running marathons) I can't think of anyone in my circle of acquaintances who currently smokes.
On the other hand it's clear that caffeine is addictive. It's so addictive that some hospitals are now giving intervenous caffeine to their surgery patients to minimize withdrawal symptoms. But it doesn't cause significant harm (and may even be beneficial) so nobody worries about it. In fact it's shocking when it is regulated, e.g., the caffeine-free Mt Dew in Canada.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
WASTCH UUT
...and they're worried about a unproven addiction to pictures of naked people. Jeeez....
This is just a GOP way to get us talking about things that are totally unimportant so we ignore the real problems.
pornographic images stay in the brain forever
That's a feature, not a bug.
-God
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
Heard this on opie and anthony. XM Satellite radio rocks!
Audio only webpage, may offend co-workers. Doesnt seem to work in firefox, works ok in IE (sorry non-IE users)
http://forporn.ytmnd.com/
One of those "you'll be singing it all day" songs.
I mean, think about it for a second--what's harmful about the addictions that currently have legislation in place against them? Aside from whatever crap one might say about danger to the body (and let's be realistic here--there are endless quantities of over-the-counter drugs being sold right now that are vastly more harmful than, say, marijuana), the main problem is the cost. Crack, heroin, gambling, the big three right now--they all have the very real potential to take every dime a person owns without ever looking back, and for this reason they are legislated against.
Taking into consideration the fact that cost is the main reason for the danger of addictive behavior and supplementing this knowledge with the fact that pornography has no known negative side effects (moral arguments aside--not that they're irrelevant, but they add an entire new dimension to the situation that's quite frankly unneeded) or costs (well, assuming you go about it right)... what's dangerous about it?
I believe you're thinking of "obscenity." See this recap of the Miller test.
I haven't studied this extensively (but have given it serious study in an effort to understand what may, and what may not, be provided on a website), but it is my understanding that pornography (and other material!) can be "indecent" or "obscene." If it's obscene, e.g., photographic depictions of bestiality, child pornography or incest, it can be banned nationally. Determining exactly what's "obscene" can be a difficult problem.
On the other hand "indecent" material may be acceptable in some communities but not others. A few states prohibit any depiction of penetrative sex. Some permit depiction of penetrative hetereosexual sex but ban penetrative homosexual sex. Some permit all (except the obscene items mentioned earlier). This is rapidly coming to the forefront as some aggressive prosecutors attempt to impose the highly restrictive standards of some communities nationally since the material is available in those communities via the postal system or the internet - in 1973 when the Miller test was invented "porn" was distributed in seedy adult theaters, not in the privacy of the viewer's home using either a VHS tape or broadband connection.
A further complication is the different protection offered to different media. The courts are loathe to ban written material, and drawings also get a fair amount of protection. One of the big questions before the court recently was photorealistic CGI and photoshopped images - as I recall the courts ruled that this material can't be banned solely because it -appears- to contain prohibited material.
BTW the Comstack act was late 1873, here. It criminalized distribution of information on birth control or abortions, and has never been revoked. As late as 1965 (just a few years before Roe v Wade) the state of Connecticut was still prosecuting doctors for prescribing birth control to married couples - see Griswold
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
... because I'm not addicted to crack.
Here's an article fron the NYT on how heroin production has shot up since we overthrew the Taliban.
Afghan Poppy Growing Reaches Record Level
Why isn't this bigger news than porn addiction is beyond me.
It has none of the side effects. If anything, it has health benefits. So who cares how addictive it is?
People need to start looking at addictions as a problem of society.
You need to change the whole person's life to get them out of an addiction.
Addition to anything is a coping response to depression in your life. Some need not being fulfilled whatever that is.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/cixel
The reason women were treated like property is that the only way to get a human male to stay with the wife and kids was to give him a sense of ownership. In the wild, in most cases the strongest male has all the women, and no responsibilty for the children. In society, men where made to 'own' the women so that they'd feel like they where losing something by leaving. Now that this sense of ownership is gone (and has been replaced by a new breed of woman who have all the privileges and none of the responsiblites of marriage), men are leaving in droves. Hence the high devorice rate and number of fathers who won't support their children.
Furthermore, women don't make choices to shift power around, but instead follow existing power. 90% of women marry up. That sexual freedom is a practical if not actual illusion. This is why societies need monogomous relationships. There's nothing more dangerous than a poor, desparate and horny guy with no family. People like that crash planes into buildings.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
...and, more specifically, an attempt to curb masturbation, is the monstrous, pointless, harmful, and painful procedure/ritual that is circumcision.
Circumcision is child abuse.
A difference of willingness is a fair bet with, say introducing a third party into the sex relationship (jealousy is very common), but I can't possibly tell you how many couples enjoy porn together, based on what I've personally observed. Models, Ivy leaguers, union members, women's college grads, Christians, Jews, blue collar workers, Midwesterners, Europeans, Asians, gay men, African-Americans, lesbians, nerds, virgins; outside of religious fundamentalists, I can't think of a single group I haven't personally observed to show enthusiam for porn (well, maybe Arabs, but I'm not ready to lump them in with their fundamentalist brethren just because I lack sufficient cultural exposure). Except for Canadians; they might just be Satan's squeaky clean naughty milkmaids. Come here, Canada; you need a spanking.
People like to alter their consciousness (with drugs or otherwise). People like porn. Get used to it, and try to minimize harm. And frankly, that is 10,000 times more important than any particular moral bugaboo (and if you think otherwise, clearly you favor societal harm over disrupting your personal mental illnesses).
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
What is remotely scientific about quantifying something as subjective as strong habituation (aka addiction)?
people who have a great deal of pent up sexual frustration can be made to work extremely hard in factories or whupped up into a frothy rage and charged at machine gun nests _much_ more easily than normal people. Plus normal people when engaging in State Approved Missionary style Vaginal intercourse spit out lots and lots of kids for the afformentioned factories and machine guns.
I'm only partly joking. Leaders of industrialized nations are busy trying to figure out how to stop declining birthrates so that they're nations don't get marginalized (and they don't lose much of their power) to rising nations. A bizzare example of this is a Vatican Approved Sex manual being passed around Italy. At a time when we have far too many people for society comfortably to bare these bastards are going around and encouraging poor, stupid fucks to make more.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Here is an interesting source from the article "Jeffrey Satinover, a psychiatrist and advisor to the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality echoed Layden's concern about the internet and the somatic effects of pornography. "
Gee that sure sounds non biased. After all only the American Physciatric association proved that homosexuality is not a disorder at all and is natural.
What is next? Porn causes people to be gay?
Actually I use to be straight before I discovered porn.... rolls eyes
http://saveie6.com/
I'm sure many are proud to show off.
If anything, that's empowering for them.
But "the people" don't get you elected.
They may cast the votes, but think of it as a big rich sorority party where regular citizen aren't invited.
Quack, quack.
Pornography doesn't hurt people.
It helps people.
Pornography, Rape and Sex Crimes in Japan - International Journal of Law and Psychiatry 22(1): 1-22. 1999, Milton Diamond (University of Hawai'i - Manoa, John A. Burns School of Medicine Department of Anatomy and Reproductive Biology, Pacific Center for Sex and Society, Honolulu, Hawai'i 96822, U.S.A.), Ayako Uchiyama
(National Research Institute of Police Science Juvenile Crime Study Section 6, Sanban-cho, Chiyoda-ku Tokyo 102, JAPAN)
Coming soon - pyrogyra
Forget about what the Senate heard; that's just political nonsense. But this subject does raise an interesting question: Exactly what effect has the increasing availability of porn had on people?
I'm not condemning it, or praising it. I'm asking a basic question. What is the effect (good or bad) of this being the first generation of children and young adults for whom porn has been ubiquitious and easily available in the comfort of their own home? In no other generation in history has this been the case, to my knowledge. Yet kids today can access porn any time they want. They are growing up with ready access to any image you can imagine.
So what is the effect? I truly have no idea. I'm not condemning porn. I'm just wondering. Will this have a good effect, making kids more at ease around sex, not viewing it as this mysterious, dirty subject? Will it have a bad effect, conditioning them into thinking of sex in an unrealistic way? Guess we'll find out over the next decade as they grow up and enter society.
Read this link. To find out what it did to Japan.
Coming soon - pyrogyra
Every Psych major I knew was in there to self-diagnose. Every single one was a nutjob.
Also, you look at the Psych drugs and modern medicine has no idea WHY they work. They kind of work, we're just not sure why.
Break out the old SAT analogy:
Alchemy is to Chemistry as Psychology is to whatever real science will supplant it.
On a separate subject:
You're right. We have no clue what causes homosexuality. Depending on how it helps people's arguments they alternately claim that homosexuality is caused by (a) something you are born with, or (b) a personal and private choice.
We don't definitively know because no scientific studies can be done without running the gauntlet of PC criticism.
Almost every lesbian I know was abused (sexually, physically, or sever emotional abuse) as a child. Is this the reason they are lesbians? We'll never know, because no one is actually allowed to do studies on this. And, you can't ask the question because attempting to understand homosexuality using anything other than the template the high priests of Political Correctness gives us is a Thought Crime. Homosexuality may only be talked about using the DoubleThink described above.
And BTW, if sever childhood trauma is a contributing factor to homosexuality, I still don't believe "reprogramming" would turn them hetero. Sever trauma like that (even if it doesn't involve spinning your sexual compass) probably takes a few hundred years to repair, and human beings only live about 75 years. Your best hope it to patch up the major issues, and call it a life.
PORN AA!!
Hank: Hello, my name is ... Bob
Group: Hello, Bob
Hank...err..Bob: I am a porn addict. I didn't do homework. I would lock myself in my dorm room. I just couldn't help myself. It just kept callin' me. It just kept calling me'! Damn computer!!! Left the speakers on
Group: Here, here. Group hug
Yikes!! I'll just keep my addiction. I not sure if I want really want to hug others like me. You never know what's on their hands!You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
:0
Quack, quack.
...because these people have some sort of massive guilt complex. These are probably the same people who're off to cheat on their wives/husbands as soon as they're out of there.
Sex is a natural, healthy urge. Without it, the morons wouldn't be there. So, I propose that the far-righters lead by example and immediately and totally abstain from sex. If they stop breeding, maybe the rest of us, who will keep right at this horrific, immoral activity, can have a decent world.
Sex is nothing like crack. It is actually good for the body in many ways, as proven by medical studies. It certainly does not destroy the body and mind the way crack does. Ever met a crackhead? Ever met a person who routinely has sex? Or, for that matter, routinely watches porn? You tell me which one was in worse shape.
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
Where have I heard that quote? Ahhh, yes, washed up televangelist Jimmy Swaggart.
When confronted by the Assemblies of God leadership, Jimmy had no choice but to confess. He told them that he suffered a lifelong addiction to pornography. It was probably no real surprise to them. All the signs were there. Swaggart had written an article in 1987 asserting that "pornography is now considered as addictive as drugs." And over the years he had campaigned for tougher anti-porn legislation.
Fucking religious fanatics and the sheep that listen to them.
If you've never seen a boob, and you're straight, you may have never known you had heterosexual thoughts.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Anything can be addictive. Someone already said it, some people have addictive personalities.
That is why we need to hold this up against a baseline of some sort.
I say we use alcoholism as a baseline.
Face it, porn is more available then alcohol. You just try getting a 6 pack delivered to your computer terminal at 4am on a Monday morning in less then 30 seconds without having to put your pants back on. Can't be done.
Porn is more available to minors then alcohol ever will be.
No reason the two can't be compared.
But they don't. Alcoholics have all kinds of problems. Livers that go bad, hangovers, missing work, abuse of all kinds, killing people. Alcohol also tends to make some people violent.
Porn pretty much makes you horny.
I suppose I can come up with some sort of list of negative things. But I can't think of one thing that porn is responsible for that is as bad as DUI's.
Don't say rape. People that rape are effed in the head LONG before the porn. I argue that if we could take all porn from our society rape statistics would not change much.
Hell, when you talk 'date rape' then alcohol is a contributing factor.
Congress has better things to do.
I think.
...When it comes to making Christ as addictive.
Get Bob Guccione to remake "Passion of the Christ". I can see it now.... That nailing to the cross scene would be so much more interesting...
Unfortunately even when those people are only damaging their own lungs, eventually, my tax money (and insurance money) is going to pay for their long-term treatment in a hospital while they slowly die. Cancer is the number one killer in American and smokers are exacerbating the problem by inflicting more cancer on themselves. I would rather they go out and get eaten by a shark or kodiak bear. No long-term stay at the hospital, and no one to sue. The lights just go out real quick on them.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
The Dems are just as bad, HINT - Tipper Gore, Al Gore and a whole list of others from the Dem side of the isle that try to control things.
While more have supported them, there have been exactly two prominent Democrats who whine about morals and pander to the 'decency' crowd: Tipper Gore and Joe Liberman. And Tipper Gore held no public office. Compare that to William Bennet, John Ashcroft, Michael Powell, Jerry Fallwell, and so on. Its no contest.
"Internet Porn More Addictive Than Crack, Senate Told"
Gee, imagine the desire to procreate being more powerful than a narcotic. I'm addicted to oxygen, too.
"Derp de derp."
Well, Kerry's a christian. Edwards is a christian. They obviously aren't part of the reglious right.
Obviously Kerry and Edwards wouldn't for political reasons, but where are the Christian groups telling the right wing moralizers to piss off?
I fall into the same catagory as you (check out my website). I am a Christian and a libertarian.
What most people fail to realize is that the idea of seperation of church and state is there to protect the church just as much as it is to protect the state. Look in history when the church and state were either one in the same or very close to one another. It wasn't good for the church, nor was it good for the state. Think Rome, Britian, Spain...
Also, I think that we have to remember that under no circumstances should we attempt to impose our moralities on others via legislation/regulation. The reasoning behind this is that if/when we become a minority in this country then we don't want someone imposing their morals on us. The best way to avoid this is to ensure that the gov doesn't have power to legislate morality.
Now of course this takes into account the ideas that your rights end where mine begin (ie - you can't infringe on my rights by killing, stealing, raping etc...).
A couple of final thoughts:
1) I wish my fellow Christians would pull their heads out of their rear ends and think about things critically. The faith is spiritual but the world is intellectual - most Christians only get the first half of that.
and
2) I wish all of these athiest/secular humanists/agnostics (whoever) would quit labeling all Christians as prudes and mental cave men. Those are extreme gross generalizations.
And to everyone out there reading this I drink every once in a while, I listen to Metallica (the old stuff), I watch R rated movies, I have a high IQ, I believe evolution is a viable theory, I also happen to worship the Lord and love Jesus. People can still have their faith and enjoy life too!
Libertas in infinitum
If anyone reading this thinks they're addicted to porn and they'd like to get some help, check out xxxchurch.com. It's a site run by a couple pastors, believe it or not, who have struggled with this in the past, and want to help others to get off porn if they want to. They have a really great sense of humor about the whole thing.
Just figured I'd share the resource. I don't want to force anything down anyone's throat.
If senility was a race, I would win.
I'd like to remind the Slashdot viewership that the reason why illicit drugs work in the first place is that there are receptors for them in the brain; in other words, in the course of "regular existence" those receptors have the potential to be naturally stimulated; and sex being a very potent self-reinforcing activity, I wouldn't be surprised if it acted on some of the very same receptors that drugs do.
Hence the addictive possibility- despite all your cynicisms that this is just a conservative crusade.
I can say from personal experience from having dated someone seriously that was (high passion/low compatibility) that it was very difficult to not only get away from... but forget. =/
The right wing nuts don't like porn. Buh bye.
The right wing nuts don't like "liberal lies!" like the Washington Post, Doud, or Kathryn Thomas. Buh Bye.
They don't like people that don't go to church. Buh bye.
If you tell a lie often enough, a majority will believe it. Witness the 59 million that voted for Bush. If you tell a big enough lie, the majority will believe that too (witness the WMD in Iraq, terrorist supported by Saddam, blah blah blah.)
If you waive the bloody shirt faster, more people will support you. Look at all the folks they are calling to active duty.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
1. Most societies arranged marriges for profit and convience. Love never factored into it. It's only recent that the quaint notion of love had any force beyond poems and books.
/. prowling loser to every let it happen to me :).
2. I guess my point about most wild animals could be argued, but in any case that is certainly how human society operates. Strong, weathly men get desirable mates (and in the absence of anti-Bigamy laws, lots of them). Any King's Harem will prove my point.
Also, human males have no "biological responsibilities" after sex. There is no biological need, and in all likelyhood no biological desire. From a survivablity stand point, it makes much more sense for a man to have as many mates as posible, and let nature and the woman sort out which ones survive. From a social standpoint, unwanted, unneeded children are dangerous burden. The exception to this is a farmer in need of laborers. But machines make this exception moot.
3. The figure comes from www.nomarrige.com, take it as you will. From my own imperical evidence, I have never met a woman who married down or even on par.
I say that love is an illusion. A pleasant one that's fun to indulge in, but a poor one to base a stable society on. In any case it's a social construct. My main concern is that love needs practical social constructs if it's going to hold up against the real world.
You give people in mass too much credit. Taken as a whole they're nasty, lazy, brutish and selfish. They act out of practical considerations. Right now a marrige isn't practical for men. By contrast, it is very practical for women. This isn't idle speculation, it's fact of law. In times past women recieved protection under law because they were limited in society. Those limits have been largely removed (just ask Carly Fiorina), but the protections remain.
But take everything I say with a grain of salt. As someone who has watched his brother methodically destroyed by an unwanted child and a scheming woman, I'm a tad bitter. Fortunately, I'm too much of a
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it's a husband. Woman want someone to look after them and the children. The worse ones are just lazy and self centered and don't want to work for a living. The better ones are just following biological instinct and the desire to have a child. The woman wants to know the man inside and out to determine if he's suitable for this purpose. People are not the kind, sweet, emotional beings they like to think they are. Most choices we like to think are emotional are usually practical.
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Share some of the misconceptions which your relative brought to lite.
You mean women DON'T like having watermelons shoved up the... well, nevermind
Jay | http://oldos.org
slow systems more addictive than the inability to diagnose their slowness.... get a real fucking job, asshat politicos.
A woman who is sexually free determines the success or failure of the males around her by her choice and that takes away from the alpha male's power over his lessors.
Alpha males are available for rent? I thought that was illegal.
... the Evangenitals demo CD sold out at their last appearance.
Who's saying otherwise? And who's saying people are just fetuses? I don't think I've ever heard that either. That's just crazy talk.
Really I'm with you on this, man.
Something like
from Chuck Marx's Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right , to be precise.
Ought to ask "W" if he's ever viewed porn and ask him what he found more addictive.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
I once attended a contentious school district meeting in Newton, MA where Judith Reisman was a speaker advocating against our sex ed curriculum. At one point she called for "all those parents willing to die for their children [to] stand up!" In the midst of an evening filled with virulent anti-gay rhetoric, it was a horrifying implication that if you really love your children then you'll join her in hating gay people.
At the same meeting conservative commentator Don Feder was asked how he would react if he found that one of his sons was gay. He replied that he would immediately find out who molested his child, utterly oblivious to the reality that gayness is simply a natural and healthy state for many people.
I left the meeting hoping for their sakes that the Feder kids turned out straight, but also wondering whether his narrow view of the world might be challenged if he were forced to deal with the humanity of a gay child.
Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered Persons
"That is, it causes masturbation"
Am I the only one who finds the phrasing here deeply hilarious? It sounds like you'd just be walking down the street, and some psycho throws a dirty picture at you, and BAM! Masturbation!
Want to disrupt a PTA meeting? Break in with a few 8x10 glossies. BAM! Masturbation!
Trying to infiltrate a secret base? Just tape pornography all over your body! The instant one of the guards looks at you, BAM! Masturbation!
Just stay away from mirrors.
Breaking Into the Industry - A development log about starting a game studio.
As True Porn Clerk Stories put it...
I get sort of conflicted about throwing kids and teenagers out of the porn section. I really don't want them down there, not because I think sex is dirty or bad, but because I don't want them to think that that's what sex is about. The stuff on our boxes is sex in the basest, sometimes most brutal terms - naked women spreading their relevant orifices and making that Porn Face. Unless you're talking about the Max Hardcore series, which involves women with "SLUT" and "WHORE" written across their foreheads in lipstick. And besides - do we really need to raise another generation of men who can't deal with pubic hair?
So I don't feel bad about getting them out of there, except that I'm very conscious of the fact that I'm a woman while I'm doing it. I worry that I'm either setting up or reinforcing the idea that there are fun, bad women who like sex and good, boring women who restrict access to sex.
I always want to debrief them. "Hey, guys, it's cool that you're curious, but this isn't the way to find out. Porn is fine, but it's not real sex. Real sex is great, and even good girls love it, but it has to be a two-way street..." But I always just end up with "Sorry, guys - come back when you're 21." Perhaps I should write a children's book. Porn Is Healthy and Fine, but Only as a Temporary Physical Release.
It's true. Most of it is just incompetent, but some of it is actively... repulsive. Well, to me at least. The "Bangbus" stuff that was so, so popular on the campus network just left me kinda icked out. Where's the fun in degrading someone like that?
Now, compare that with Buttman: The Fashionistas, in which everyone's having a grand old time beating the heck out of each other. Because the participants wear wackier clothing and hit each other, it's supposedly more perverse... but I find it a lot more wholesome than "Bangbus" or anything in a similar mold.
'Course, given that I get all my porn from the internet, or make it myself, I probably don't have a representative sample.
Perhaps I'm missing something. Is there something terribly alluring about bullying women? It's like being in high school again.
I'd like to hear uplifting and affirming stories about good porn, if anyone has 'em.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
I spend much more time looking pr0n at the internet than smoking crack. I fear this may be the case of many slashdotters.
The thing is, doesn't it sound a bit like demagogy? I mean, looking porn is not as bad for oneself as is smoking crack, or is he thinking about the purity of our souls?
DON'T PANIC
... have to be a Slashdot Subscriber to know it first;)
Carpe Diem: Seize The Day!
'Course, if they don't, and one or both of you is a media-production dork, you'll end up with a disk full of homemade goodies, which is a warm fuzzy all 'round, because it's fun and uplifting and you get to be all, "hey, I look kinda hot".
Well, that last depends. In my terribly limited experience, it's more likely to hear the girl say, "AAH! THIGHS HUGE!" than "yeah, I'd do me".
But still. Mmm. Homemade goodies.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Pornography psychopharmacologically imprints young brains --- thereby invalidating notions of informed consent.
I'm reading this as, "when you get a hard-on, you lose all sense of right and wrong, and become a rampaging rapist".
Hasn't that, you know, not been in style since the eighteen fucking hundreds? Am I missing something here?
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Pretty much every guy I know who's got married (and who isn't rich) had it ruin his life. Oh, sure, they won't admit it. Even to themselves. It's taboo to do so, because heaven forbid you admit you didn't want children. You should see the looks on people faces when he plainly tells people he didn't want a kid (obviously w/o the kid present). It's freakin hilarious.
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Ah, you've hit the nail on the head, you have. For the rules and regulations of secular society to be affected, secular harm must be shown. Religious law is its own beast, subject to rules with different aims---to protect the spiritual well-being of adherents---and so has different criteria for law-writing.
I thank you for articulating your position. I do wish that the separation of church and state wasn't seen as such a threat by some religious folks.
I know that secular humanists (which kinda describes me, I think) can frequently come off as blowhards trying to impose our vision of society on everyone else. What you've explained here seems rather ideal to me. Religious laws for the religious, secular laws for everyone.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
This reminds me of 20 years ago (anybody remember that long?) during Ed Meese's commission on pornography. Bunch of old white guys looking at porn and decrying it on your tax dollar.
What is going on in this great country of ours? People are seriously making the connection that pornography == having sex with children? What the FUCK? And those people think that putting ads on a bus will stop pornography? Or that they'll stop people who are interested in sex with children (which is so tangential to pornography that I can't believe I'm even talking about it)?
This idea is apparently selling quite well, at least well enough for "Moral Values" to be the #1 priority for voters this time around.
I live in the bible belt. As an agnostic, I never really much gave a damn what anyone else's religious beliefs were, as long as they didn't try and impose them upon me. Leave me alone and I'll leave you alone, believe whatever you want but don't try to proselytize to me. It's just like the black / white / hispanic thing that I deal with here. I don't care what you are. You're a fellow human and whatever you want to do is fine with me, just don't go trying to convert me. That worked just fine up until a year or so ago.
Now it seems that suddenly, these people are rabid about imposing their religious beliefs upon the entire nation, out of nowhere and with no warning.
And they're winning!
What the fuck is going on?
"BSD: Free as in speech. Linux: Free as in beer. Windows 10: Free as in herpes." --Man On Pink Corner in #52607549.
People dont realize how deadly pornography can be.
There is a video that James Dobson (famous psychologist) did about Pornography.
He has the chance of interviewing Ted Bundy (the serial killer) a few hours before he was executed.
WATCH IT!!!
The video is called:
Pornography: addictive, progressive, and deadly
If you can't see the problem with pornography, then you are probably engulfed in it. Once you can get out, you will be able to see the damage it causes.
There are some good books also on how to do that.
Such as:
Every Man's Battle.
Every Young Man's Battle.
Free yourself!!
Hell, if that's true, then what's the fuss about crack. Let's make it legal...
Porn? Bah, a trifle. Usenet? A blip on the screen. IRC? IM? That's so five-minutes ago. Slashdot? Blogs? Soft drinks! No, no, the real tools of the demon Internet are far more powerful than these.
MMORPGs.
The trouble is that you can't do an experimental study that forces one randomly-selected group of people to watch pornography and another group to avoid it - well, you can, but only for a short period of time, and short-term reactions aren't really of great interest.
So you're left with quasi-experimental correlational-type studies. Say you wanted to show that watching porn causes people to spend too much time on Slashdot. You go to the local CS department, and get people to answer two questions : how much porn they watch and how much time they spend on Slashdot. You then do a correlation, and you find a strong connection between the two. You submit your findings to a conference,reporting your conclusion that porn causes excessive Slashdot-reading.
You go to the conference, present your paper. The room dissolves into fits of giggles. You assume that they're giggling because this is about porn, but you soon learn they're actually laughing at you. You've fallen for the oldest statistical fallacy in social science research - correlation implying causation. A young postdoc asks, "did you ask your participants whether they were single or had partners?". You didn't. Then it hits you - people who watched porn and spent lots of time on /. might have the time for both because they don't have partners...
So you redo your study, this time asking the participants for their relationship status. You use some slightly fancier factorial statistics to exclude the effect of relationship status. You still find a correlation. You go to the next conference. They laugh at you again. "Did you ask about the political views of your participants?", one rather middle-aged-hippie type from Berkeley asks. You're a bit puzzled by this, so you reply "No, why?". "Well, bear with me..." as they ramble on for a few minutes before getting to their point "...I remember from the old days; there were always a lot of libertarians who posted to USENET, maybe lots of them post to Slashdot, and libertarians aren't likely to have any moral objection to pornography. Have you considered this possibility"? To which you reply, "I'm afraid not".
This, repeated for about one million different factors, 900,000 of which aren't easily measured, is why these kind of controversial questions in the social sciences are so difficult to determine from the kinds of studies that are logistically and ethically feasible to do.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
And that, my friend, is the problem.
If you do run for office, I wish you the best. Personally I fear it's going to be at least a decade before things swing back our way, as it's going to take at least that long before the current crop of septuagenarian whores like Orrin Hatch and octogenarian whores like Fritz Hollings die off, and people with degrees in IT start getting elected to Congress. Keep in mind, many of the people who currently represent "us" in government grew up decades ago, when there was barely such thing as television, let alone the internet.
Hell, I'd run myself, but I'm broke and I have skeletons in my closet. Any deep-pocket lobbyists want to take a gamble and sponsor Motherfucking Shit for Tennessee legislature? Didn't think so.
"BSD: Free as in speech. Linux: Free as in beer. Windows 10: Free as in herpes." --Man On Pink Corner in #52607549.
So, if we're going to ban porn because of its addictiveness are we going to ban news, too?
I'm an information addict. I spend half my day browsing various news sites (no, not pornographic) and forums to read new information. I rarely remember what I read, I just read for reading's sake. I barely get to do anything else and when I do I often want to stop pretty soon and get back to the information. If you spend your leisure time reading Slashdot (or other news sources) instead of doing other things you usually love to do (e.g. play games if you're a gamer) you are another victim.
Sources: 1, 2 (NYTimes, reg or circumvention required), 3
There might be a connection between these two forms of addiction, after all porn is a form of information, too, right?
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
"Pornography really does, unlike other addictions, biologically cause direct release of the most perfect addictive substance," Satinover said. "That is, it causes masturbation, which causes release of the naturally occurring opioids. It does what heroin can't do, in effect."
Had I been at this testimony, I would have burst out laughing. Even though the fact that someone is stupid and pathetic enough to compare jerking off to shooting up heroin is no laughing matter...
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
I would have had first post, but I was too busy...um...researching this issue.
Giggity Gigity Gig-i-ty!
By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth. -- George Carlin
Isn't this entirely the wrong way around? Aren't street drugs popular because they mimic the natural high we get from pleasurable activities such as sex?
Anyway, all this babble about structural brain changes sounds scarily like engrams -- and we all know what that got used for...
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
pornography at its most basic level is pictures, videos, stories, of people having sex.
Humans enjoy sex. That, I would think, even to these christian, right-wing, 19th century-living politicians, is a given.
Why then is it a surprise that humans like to watch other humans have sex? Sure there's a lot of "deranged" porn out there, but thats because there's a lot of "deranged" sex out there. Always has been. Porn or no porn, sex has always been on people's minds.
That's nature, baby.
A Brain Scientist is very clearly a person who studies, researches and formulates theories on white lab mice with exceptional intelligence and a strong desire to Take Over The World. Tomorrow.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
As usual, the Feds are wasting your taxpayer money to debate issues which aren't their responsibility.
Witnesses before the Senate Commerce Committee's Science, Technology and Space Subcommittee spared no superlative in their description of the negative effects of pornography
The Senate Commerce Committee, huh? Well, let's see. Is there any mention of pornography, addiction, or mental health in the Constitution? No. Then, as usual, we go to Amendment 10.
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."
Whoops. Looks like this isn't even their business. As usual, however, the communists among us will try to give the Feds a blank check based on A1.S8.C3 commerce. Well, my friends, I assert that commerce is nothing more than point of sale. They can tax sales, or not. Why do I choose such a strict and easy definition? Well... Because it's written in Amendment 9.
"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
So, if it's not specifically in the Constitution, then (right, wrong, or indifferent) it's no business of the Feds because it's retained by the states or the people. And, according to Amendment 9, you can't go combing through the Constitution to find excuses to assign authority to the Feds for something based upon a vague association with something else.
So... As usual, the Senators are sitting around, tapping their watches, waiting for the (taxpayer paid) lunch, collecting their excessive (taxpayer paid) paychecks, listening to meaningless drivel from visiting self-proclaimed professionals who are staying probably in (taxpayer paid) hotels and expensing the entire trip to the (taxpayer paid) Congress, and debating issues which are NONE OF THEIR JOB RESPONSIBILITY. You can get fired in most American companies for doing things outside of your job description, you know...
Business as usual folks.
+++ATHZ 99:5:80
(One of the very few Get Rich Quick schemes where we know what the ???s are before "profit"!)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Really, I'm just going to blanketly call you a liar. No, I don't have any proof, just some inferences.
If you're telling me you work at a video store where you remember who rented exactly what video, and then the moment they return that video - which, everyone I know uses the video drop box - and you associate it with the person who actually rented it and then realize it's a woman who returned it, let me just tell you I'm impressed. You shouldn't be working in a video store, you should be doing spy work and cracking codes for the CIA with a memory like that.
I didn't vote for Bush. But I guess that makes me a "right wing propagandist". What does it make you when you ignore John Kerry's 2-year, $300 million, 3600 lawyer campaign, the entire DNC, every journalist with the media outlets who ravenously covered the Florida 2000 debacle, etc., who don't believe there was any level of fraud relevant enough to even have any possibility of altering the outcome of the election? If you want to believe those people are just shutting up "for the good of the country" or some other bullshit, be my guest.
.aftermath.ap/
And, it doesn't take much to figure out that the Berkeley "report" doesn't "prove" anything. It can NEVER prove anything. Numerous voting watchers have already said that the Republicans had very effective - and statistically unexpected - get-out-the-vote campaigns in hundreds of precincts around the country, many in areas that don't even use electronic voting at all. But you'll just ignore that. Not to mention that the authors of the Berkeley paper are, a.) associated with one of the most known liberal institutions in the country, and b.) probably are not, shall we say, "Bush supporters" themselves. You'll also ignore the entire CalTech/MIT Voting Project, who say there's simply NO EVIDENCE to support the theory that the election was "stolen", or that there were any fraud or errors that could come anywhere close to changing the outcome of the election. In fact, you'll ignore anything that doesn't support your view that the election was subverted (just like you also believe it was in 2000). (And by the way, Florida doesn't use Diebold - they use Sequoia and ES&S...are you alleging that ALL THREE e-voting vendors are in on it now, and that the county election officials are complicit?)
There is no way for ANYONE to categorically "prove" that the election was or wasn't tampered with in ANY precinct that uses many of these e-voting machines. That's the whole problem. So, since the people who matter, i.e., Kerry's whole campaign, and all the big Democratic groups, the FEC, etc., all don't believe there was any statistically relevant fraud or errors in the 2004 election, meaning that its results WILL NOT CHANGE, why not concentrate on doing the things we need to do to get paper trails and open source software on all e-voting hardware before they're MANDATED TO BE INSTALLED in January 2006, so we won't be back here having this same discussion over and over and over again in 2008, 2012, etc.
By the way, to preempt it from coming from you, my favorite conspiracy theory is that John Kerry's campaign probably decided that even though there was widespread fraud and that Bush likely "stole" the election with e-voting machines, he decided that it was "best for the country" to concede, because any accusations of fraud wouldn't be met very kindly by Bush supporters, and those in power in the government.
Or, an alternate version: the Democrats conceded even though Bush stole the election so that Hillary (and Bill) could run in 2008.
The journalists all said they'd kill for a juicy election fraud story, but there was none to be found...not even one that might exist but have no "proof".
My favorite retort for this one is that all of the corporate media (i.e., all mainstream newspapers, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, FNC, etc.) are all in Bush's "pocket", and that even though there is widespread proof of election fraud, the corporate press has ordered all of its staff to "lock the story down" and not speak of it further. (Of course, Common Dreams, dailykos, truthout, etc., have the "real" story.)
The thing about conspiracy theories is that their tautologies: everything can be neatly explained away, no matter how absurd it is, and you can still believe what you want to believe.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/11/19/election
"We conclude that there is no evidence, based on exit polls, that electro
What do you bet a lot of people in Kansas (those who even _have_ internet access) have a cheap ISP that doesn't even have a news server? Kansas is in the heart of the "outback" running from north Texas through North Dakota where I think stories of rampant internet perversion are still most likely to play to the rubes. I find the buttons this dude is trying to push sociologically pretty understandable.
At least he hasn't gotten around to the concentration camps for liberals yet.
I wonder if the same argument could be made about conservative christiantity. This is of course based on interacting with people I know, not a true study but it makes sense. They seem to get addicted to their cause to a point where they can't think about anything else. There are probably some checmical effects on the brain that come with the righteous feeling they get for "doing god's work". And they have a negative effect on society by attacking people who make lifestyle choices they disagree with through slander and legistlation.
So thats what Linus meant ;-)
A bad analogy is like a leaky screwdriver.
I cant fathom how our congress is concerned with people, private citezens, who might look or see pornography on their computers, which by the way is no different from the 70's and 80's when all we had were tapes. The internet has simply sped up the process, as it has for everything else that it has an effect on.
Im just sick of all these high-road people who will hide every bit of sexually related material from their lives, and then they turn around and plop themselves in front of CNN and watch people die on live tv. This seems to me like the general public is more comfortable watching one person shoot another in the head than watch two people have sex. It's fine to bring your 15 year old kid into a movie theater to watch Hannibal Lechter eat sombody's brain, but how many of you would have left the theater with your kids if he threw Foster down on the table and made love to her. Values are F**KED.
Just remember that when you are browsing your teenager's internet cache looking for evidence of "deviancy" there is most likely sombody selling crack cocaine a block away from your kid's high school.
Windows has more viruses because linux has more virus coders.
Let's just face it, the United States is becoming a puritan state. Consider: the FCC is seeking to extend it's powers to Cable, Satellite, and Internet (because violence doesn't hurt people, sex does. Just watch broadcast television); there is drastically more funding to combat "obsenity" (read: blasphemy), and now we're having senate hearings on the looming threat of pornagraphy (the ULTIMATE WMD?!?). You know what? I like to smoke, drink, and occasionally look at pictures of beautiful naked women. I don't smoke around people who don't like it, or in big crowds; I don't drink irresponsibly, and somehow I haven't had the urge to turn down the real thing. These are MY rights, not subject to the will of the people until they lead me to harm society. So, United States of Canada anyone?
Obviously the problem here is not pornography, but these 'naturally occurring opioids'! if you want to solve the problem, you're going to have to ban them - obviously that means banning orgasms! Because what this is suggesting is that not only can society not handle artificial drugs, but we can't handle the natural drugs in our own body! The whole issue of censorship here is completely screwed up, someone can be pretty arousing when they are fully clothed, in fact often more so than when they're totally naked - so censorship is not only draconian, its useless! People learn to combat addictions, and those who don't, well lets just say evolution trims off the crud.
Learning to live in society is like being pushed out of the birds nest, if you don't learn how to deal with a reasonable amount of issues early on then you are totally fucked for life. Go look at the Taliban or Saudi Arabia, their philosophy is light-years ahead of the Christian-right, cover all women and no-one will think about sex. It doesn't work and even worse is that when someone who has been pampered into this 'zero-porn' environment leaves they have major issues. Just imagine how a child would turn out if they were waited on hand and foot from birth, never allowed to so much as cross the road or plug something in on their own because it was too dangerous, imagine they had everything handled for them and everything in their life was sugar coated; would they be able to deal with the outside world? The opposite end of that scenario is if the kid had been allowed to do anything and go anywhere from birth, nature suggests that they would probably get hit by the first car they saw.
There's a balance - people should grow up in an environment as free as possible but with enough restrictions to keep them safe enough to live and not get trauma for life. There are some things that people have to deal with and learn from or else they are going to be weaklings, deal with porn, its not going to kill you.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Kent Brockman: Kent Brockman at the Action News desk. A massive oil tanker has run aground on the Central Coastline spilling millions of gallons of oil on Baby Seal Beach.
Lisa: Oh no!
Homer: It'll be OK honey, there's lots more oil where that came from.
The truth about Scientology, Xenu, and you: Operation Clambake
You shift your ground faster than an avalanche.
Quote One: Quote Two (from your first reply to me): Droves? I'm sorry that things ain't going well for you, really I am. But that doesn't make all women soulless gold-diggers and it doesn't mean Love isn't real.
You said earlier that Love is a social construct and that men are happiest running around grabbing as many partners as they can and fleeing. I think that is true for some men, and it tends to be younger men (teenagers?) that couldn't support a family and just have the urge to sneak a cuckoo into someone else's nest. But when a man is a little older, or simply matures earlier as many do, then the urge to care for someone becomes stronger.
You think that love isn't real. Despite many self-deprecating comments from 'geeks' on
I hope you find a somewhat nicer girl who can show you that women aren't that much different to men. And I hope when you do, you're not so blinkered that you don't give her a chance and treat her well.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
pornographic images stay in the brain forever.
dare to test this hypothesis?
You know, if they just called it "richnography" or "wealthnography" instead of "pornography" the Republicans would probably call off the war on it tomorrow.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
In other news, when critized by slashdot readers about his comparision "internet porn is 'worse than crack.'", Senator Sam Brownback said that he only had wanted to put it into perspective with something Senators know about first-hand.
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
1) GWB gets relected with majority in both houses - now the "conservatives" have a "mandate"
2) All the numb-nuts are embolded, and feel free to push their twisted agenda onto the masses, because they "know what is moral and rightous"
meanwhile, thanks to the NRA money in Republican pockets, 5-year olds can watch people getting their heads blown off on television.
Ohio, we counted on you to have some courage and vote conscientiously. But, you failed us.
BTW, funny how Senator Dumbshit isn't griping about Viagra TV commercials every 5 minutes. I guess those BigPharma checks did some good as well.
sigs are for losers (except to point out that sigs are for losers)
And is it any wonder men don't initiate divorce? A male divorcee is a dead man walking.
Are you nuts? Speaking from my own experience, I found divorce to be completely liberating, and I'm having more fun, sex and money than I could ever have hoped to have previously.
Oh yeah, and I initiated that.
I agree that there's nothing in marriage, for a guy. It's a pointless anachronism. Love is not proved by law, and commitment doesn't require paper.
Although I will admit that married couples do have one advantage over the rest of us, and that is the privelege to act on our partner's behalf in medical emergencies.
For example, if I'm in a coma for six months, or got alzheimers, or in some way become someone other than myself as a result of a medical condition, I would want my girlfriend to be the one to say "Pull the plug, let him go". That's what my Will will say, when I get around to writing it. But that could get overridden by my family because I'm not married to her.
The rest of us who are domestic partners, long time boyfriends, girlfriends, straight, bi, gay, or poly - we're screwed, and not in an "ooh baby" way.
NO TOUCH MONKEY!
porn is easy to stop watching(in fact i havent watched in like a month!)
THE EXERCIST was more fucking disturbing than jenna jamison giving oral
crak and hieroin can actually KILL YOU, unless you beat off 20 times a day, your safe!
porn is meant for stimulation and getting ideas, before porn, i thought female genitalia was much different
EROTOTOXINS are a bullshit medical term for actually dopamine, a chemical released in the brain for pleasure. it happens when you laugh or get excited about something(also from drugs...)
goatc.cx... i couldnt watch porn or dl new porn for a month after i was tricked with that link, gah!
I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes. - Catcher in the Rye
from http://www.bartleby.com/65/en/endorphi.html .... .... endorphins are also thought to be connected to physiological processes including euphoric feelings, appetite modulation, and the release of sex hormones.
...) Sexuality in any form only enhances my human well-being, because you know 2500 years ago that humans of that time would hunt or gather, play, eat, have sex, rinse and repeat without reguard to any ideals of christian morality ... beyond the civil social setting, why shouldn't our private lives resemble humanity at it's earliest/most natural state of existence. Of course, I have to explain that in order to do such a thing in a civilized world, one must have an adequately disciplined and compartmentalized mind ...
1) Endorphins interact with OPIATE receptor neurons to
2)
3) Prolonged, continuous exercise contributes to an increased production and release of endorphins, resulting in a sense of euphoria that has been popularly labeled "runner's high."
So, when are they going to start legislating my endorphin-producing 30-min cardiovascular workout every other day as "addictive" because it produces similar effects in the brain to a manifestation of sexuality? I'd rather masterbate before or after my workout to continue the effects of the endorphins (yup, I don't believe any of the workout-myths about any manifestation of sexuality having a negative impact on your workout
I think this issue just shows how ritualized (e.g. the defintion of ritualized society from the Reciprocality industrial psychology paper) some of the fundamentalists really are....
Of course it's addictive. But so is e-mail and slashdot. Quake3 & filesharing. Everything about the Internet. Some of us were adults before this Internet thing exploded and remember adult life then. The thing is immediate gratification and conveniences have made life more complex. I would say it's more of an issue for young people, but this is the new world and it's not going back ever. You wanted to have all your computers talk to eachother and now you have it. (learn appropriate latin phase and enter here. Damm.) be careful what you wish for?.. Remember your grandparents(?) stories of horse carriges and gentleman callers? Those days were gone long before the Internet. This is just the newest level. Okay people, keep on poping more kids out. Theyre going to have quite a ride ahead.
Oooh, baby, do me hard, oh yeah.
But, seriously, WTF are you talking about? Go to any major (and even most minor
It's not like we're sitting around in our friggin' Quaker clothes eschewing electric lighting, indoor plumbing, and porn for crying out loud. Hell, we've probably got more strip-clubs per capita than the US does, and our all serve alcohol.
Would it surprise you to discover we have all of those rather well represented up here in Canada? We also have our annoying share of Christian fundamentalists and rednecks as well.
As a Canadian, I demand equal recognition as being a porn-consuming country!!! =)
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
If we followed your ideas to their logical conclusion, then the only person I would ever be concerned about is ME! ME! ME! It's all about ME!
Well, that is a way to live life.
The problem with pornography is that it is an activity that focuses an individual on what he (or she) wants and not on what would make others happy. It focuses the self on itself. It is fascinating to notice how many self-justifications we see on this subject - that is almost all there is. That is almost all there is to read.
If each individual of our society is only focused, on his or her own self, THAT will destroy our society and all the evil laws and politicians will be just many deck chairs on the Titanic.
Addiction is a fundimentally selfish and self-centered behavior, and without our being concerned for the well-being of those around us, our cherished government(s) will not endure.
Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) called it the most disturbing hearing he'd ever heard in the Senate
It takes a senate hearing for him to learn that p0rn is ubiquitous on the internet? Just more anecdotal evidence of how completely clueless are the people making such laws as these.
Flying is easy, just throw yourself at the ground and miss. -Douglas Adams
The gist of the blog entry you linked to is "don't watch the news, anything that doesn't directly concern you (and thus, something that you wouldn't have needed to rely on the news to tell you about because you'd find out otehrwise) isn't worth the effort of listening to -- which is great if you don't feel any desire to go out and actually BE productive, and BE one of the people making change happen, because the people who sit back and let things come to them don't solve many problems in our world.
audioLibre - freedom of music
I think my phrenologist qualifies as a brain scientist!
T. F. Gumby - Are you the brain specialist?
Specialist - No, no, I am not the brain specialist. No, no, I am not...Yes. Yes I am.
T. F. Gumby - My brain hurts!
Specialist - Well let's take a look at it, Mr Gumby. Gumby specialist starts to pull up Gumby's sweater.
T. F. Gumby - No, no, no, my brain in my head. (specialist thumps him on the head)
Specialist - It will have to come out.
so bring the boys back home!
> Which is the more "demented" form of entertainment:
> looking at images/movies of naked people to achieve sexual arousal
> or
> watching images/movies of people hurting and killing one another with various weapons and by various means.
When a US president announces yet another war de jour he expects some level of popular support.
People who are constantly exposed to violence are more likely to give him that support. After all, they understand war. It's when the good guys beat the shit out of some bad guys with pockmarked faces and bad accents, right?
On the other hand, people who are exposed to sex instead are more likely to tell him to fuck off.
> You really had to read slashdot to figure out that our government
> officials don't know or care about what's best for the people who elected them?
>
> It's all about the $. Constituancies, lobbies, commitees, bribes, blackmail, scandals,
> and other distractions that keep the $ flowing...
So, what are you doing to stop this?
I agree with much of what you have said, but taking,
A woman who expresses sexual desire is damned wholeheartedly
And,
Now if a woman is free to choose her mate, to say "I want that one," then she will have power in determining status. Really, she has the strongest say in determining that status.
Do you not feel that women have used that power anyway in determining the status of a male, hence the need for certain traits of the "alpha" male. Do you not feel males have quested in proving those traits through forms of competition with each other?
Hence how would a liberation of females sexual desires change the male hierachy, if those desires for certain traits have already been recognised by male society?
Or are you purely talking of the human hierachy, which can already been seen changing through the acceptance of women in the, previously male dominated, workplace?
And if male and female are now competing on the same level, in the same power structure, do you feel that the female's ability to select mates will be lessened due to the fact they are now competing with each other?
I think being married is great. Granted, I've only been hitched so far for a bit more than 4 years, but we were already practically married for another 5 years before that (unquestionably monogamous).
I'm a much more social person now that I'm married, actually -- the pressure's off! It's so much easier to hang out with and meet new people (male or female) now that I'm "taken", and don't need to be forever trying to figure out what people (well, women, esp.) are thinking of me, plus I have a safe zone to retreat to if I'm not clicking with anyone there (i.e., we just talk to each other). And because I'm much more confortable dealing with people now, I'm probably more fun to be around. I tell jokes better, now that I can concentrate on telling the joke well, instead of trying to scan faces to see "how I'm doing".
I dunno -- of course there are downsides to anything (I have to keep the flirting within safe limits... but hey, that's pretty manageable), but as long as we both get our alone time, and remember that neither of us can tell the other what to do, ever, it all works out pretty well. We both decided from the start that no repeated nagging is allowed, ever (that's a form of "forcing" someone to do something). When we have problems we sort them out and move on. We keep separate bank accounts, since our bill paying approaches differ widely. And interestingly, our dog is pretty effective at stopping us from getting into emotional arguments -- whenever our voices start rising (even if we're agreeing about something we're pissed off at...) she gets *terribly* worried and starts climbing in our laps and licking. It's pretty funny, so it tends to defuse things.
Just one man's experience...
Do you not feel that women have used that power anyway in determining the status of a male, hence the need for certain traits of the "alpha" male. Do you not feel males have quested in proving those traits through forms of competition with each other?
Yes, very much. There is evidence to suggest that female selection of mates is responsible not just for superficial male traits, but fundamental ones that have directed the whole species, such as the increase in brain size or walking upright.
Context is everything however, and I was talking about slightly more recent time scales, i.e. the last couple of thousand years, primarily in Eurasia. I was trying to explain why female sexuality was consistently surpressed in Christian and Islamic cultures. In this framework, we see that in order to cement the power structure purely in male hands, a woman's ability to determine status through mate selection must be eliminated. You see the ultimate expression of this in places such as Saudi Arabia where women must be veiled and not speak to men, or some countries that practice removal of the clitoris (female circumcision).
So yes, on the evolutionary scale, women have exerted that influence. On the more immediate cultural scale, we see that there have been many attempts to remove that influence. My comments referred only to the latter case, as the timeframe is to small for it to influence us genetically yet.
Hence how would a liberation of female sexual desires change the male hierachy, if those desires for certain traits have already been recognised by male society?
A very tricky one to guess. Partly you can contrast modern western democracies with the islamic cultures and try and see some differences resulting from female emancipation, but it's very difficult to eliminate other factors such as poverty and the subjugation by invading forces. Alternately you can try to extrapolate from the changes Western society has undergone since the sixties and the advent of reliable birth control for women. However, it's again very difficult (impossible?) to eliminate other factors.
We in Europe, and I feel moreso people in the US, are still in the middle stages of that acknowledgement of female sexual desire. It's effects on human society are still being adjusted to, not least of all by women.
You're not going to see a complete emulation of male sexual behaviour. Women really don't have the same attitude to sex that men do on the whole. That's what millions of years of knowing you're going to have to give up the rest of your life looking after a baby in exchange for a shag will do to your sexual attitudes. But being freed from the binary choice of 'good wife' or 'ruined woman' will force men to take more account of what women want. I think you'll see a society that is better balanced. I loathe sterotyping, but for example, organizations such as CND and Stop the War, or environmental movements often have a majority of female membership, so perhaps as an example, society would become a little less warlike. It's really very hard to say. You'll probably see men start to diet more, but that's as far as I can see.
And if male and female are now competing on the same level, in the same power structure, do you feel that the female's ability to select mates will be lessened due to the fact they are now competing with each other?
That's a very good question that I hadn't thought of. Possibly it might be lessened in that women may not feel able to become involved with someone who they regard as competition. Women tend to take a very supportive role in a relationship you see and it would be setting the man's career ahead of their own. This is often what happens by the way, although partly because men have an easier time of it climbing the career ladder.
However, I'd like to think that couples can form amicable partnerships.
One thing that has happened since women have entered the workforce in greated numbers and in no
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
It's those files in Windows, I forget their names, that record everything the user does, and cannot be cleared, that they'd have to worry about.
Now this is how you start a monday morning! I'm chuckling in my cubical box reading this post.
Please correct me if I'm wrong. The President has used cocane, and has seen pictures of naked women.
Sounds to me like the honorable Senator from the "Its NOT the Edge of No-Where But You Can See It From Main Street" State; Has seen a National Graphic next to a line of Comet Cleanser in the Presidents Potty.
Better yet, would the President care to comment on the observations from the senator?
And if people continue getting richer with time, it's not even all that unlikely...
Kind of depends on what he means by "90%", doesn't it? Not to mention "up"...
It could be something as simple as women making less than men on average, right? If that's what he means, it could even approach 100%!
My mistake, Obviously something is "New Here".
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.