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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.
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.
-_-
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/
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.
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.
I'd stand with you, but I've got no pants on.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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!
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".
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.
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
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.
...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.
Pornography is exactly showing people having sexual intercourse. Pornography is LEGAL. Its distribution to minors is not.
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.
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/
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.
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.
Lemme see here. Someone doesn't like XYZ, so we'll make it illegal, thus driving it onto the black market, where the cost will rise by a factor of 100 and quality control will drop to null, and trade in the product will fall entirely into the domain of criminals. And when all that's done, and we're arresting 800,000 people a year for being caught holding a plant, then we'll pat ourselves on the back on what a kindly service we're doing making these expensive, dangerous, criminal drugs illegal. Do you really think heroin is illegal because it's expensive, or is it perhaps the other way around? May I remind you that hemp and marijuana at one time could be found growing in road-side ditches along half of all US roads? it's not called 'weed' for nothing.
Have you ever read some of the claims early proponents of prohibition made about drugs? They are farcical beyond the limits of credulity. The sort of things that only someone who was out to ban a product no matter what the reality would say. In fact, it sounds a lot like the outrageous claims the Kansas senator is spouting. How wonderful, Ashcroft kicks off the War on Copying, followed closely by the War on Porn. Give these guys a few more years, I'm sure they'll work their way through the entire dictionary of things to declare war on.
Dyolf Knip
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.
"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."
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
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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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
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
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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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!!
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...
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
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.
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.
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pornographic images stay in the brain forever.
dare to test this hypothesis?
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)
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.