Slashdot Mirror
Pornified
stern writes "Pamela Paul’s Pornified surveys the effects of pornography in America. On the basis of the book jacket, this might seem more appropriate material for iVillage than Slashdot, except for one thing: pornography pervades the Internet and drives the adoption of new technologies. You can’t fairly tell the story of one without the other." Read on for the rest of Stern's review.
Pornified
author
Pamela Paul
pages
320
publisher
Times Books
rating
Worth reading
reviewer
Stern
ISBN
0805077456
summary
A study of the technology-fueled expansion of pornography and its effects on those who use it
Paul spoke with researchers and therapists, she surveyed the academic literature and commissioned her own study, and then, most remarkably, she tracked down more than 100 people who were willing to talk about their experiences with pornography. Men and women, detractors and fans, casual users and perverts. She arranges this material into chapters about how pornography affects men, on how it affects women, another on children, and so forth.
This is not a “gee whiz, look at all the dirty pictures” screed urging us to hang up our mice and go to church. It is more a summary of research than an opinion piece, and though the preponderance of the research presented is damning to pornography, defenders appear in most sections as well.
The book is remarkable in two ways. First, it presents a greater amount of hard data than I have ever seen on this topic before. Second, the interviews are amazing. Where does she find these people? The military man who masturbates by the side of the highway, the child porn addict who fantasizes about the girls he is teaching in Sunday school, the adult virgins with the almost clinically precise descriptions of what they expect in a woman (“I’m a big fan of full shaved,” etc.).
Pornified is worthwhile for this research and these stories, even if you disagree with the conclusions that Paul draws from them.
I found fascinating, for example, that a number of double-blind studies of the effects of pornography were completed over twenty years ago, but that the results were so damning that it has been difficult to follow up on them. The effects of dirty movies on the people who look at them were so profound that ethics boards at universities deny researchers the approval to show them to human subjects.
What are these effects? The book devotes chapters to this, and I can summarize only very briefly. For many people, porn has quasi-addictive characteristics, requiring escalation to maintain a constant level of stimulation. It dampens empathy, it changes expectations, and it damages relationships. The interviews in the book back this up; it contains example after example of people who started with modest porn searching online, then graduated to more heinous stuff.
And this is all about the Internet. Paul pays lip service to Playboy and smutty VHS tapes, but this is a story about X-rated websites, Usenet groups, and p2p file sharing.
Paul cites a study from 2000 that ties that the expansion of technological avenues for pornography to its growing more explicit, more dehumanizing, and more violent. In other words, alt.binaries.pictures.erotica was pretty tame. But then a.b.p.e.blonds and a.b.p.e.asians appeared, and these refined the expectations of their users, paving the way for the creation of a.b.p.e.bukkake and a.b.p.e.rape. And where the original newsgroup probably didn’t cause too much damage to anybody, the same can not be said for its increasingly brutal descendants.
Consider this — prior to the Internet, law enforcement believed that child porn had been basically wiped out. It was a crime from a previous age, like body snatching. But then came the Web. Between 1996 and 2004, child-porn cases handled by the FBI increased 23 fold. The research presented in Pornified argues that technology does not merely make it easier to serve an existing desire, it allows deep exposure that for many people results in stronger and more specific versions of the the original demand.
Paul presents most of this neutrally, but you can sense contempt for non-pornographic websites that link to porn sites, or endorse them. She doesn’t name any names, but the savvy reader will recognize Fark as one of her targets, and I suspect that Farkers figure among her interviewees.
Such “smut” can be defended, of course, and the book gives defenders their say. The obvious response is “porn has been around forever, so stop complaining that it is suddenly a threat to society.” But it seems to me that this response is disingenuous. You can’t compare an issue of Playboy and the Atari 2600 cartridge of “Custer’s Revenge” to the seamless infinity of smut that lives on the Internet today.
The second major response to the claims in this book follows the First Amendment. Regardless of harm, we must not start down the slippery slope of restricting access to objectionable material. Paul considers this, but her the book discusses concrete harm, and she argues that civil liberties are not absolute where one person’s rights hurt other people (not many argue for their right to cry “fire” in a crowded theater, for example).
Though Paul did not set out to explore the industry of porn production and distribution, in the course of her research, she did discover things I didn’t know. For example, she interviews one man who works in the oil industry and spends 25% of every working day surfing porn sites and submitting reviews to “porn aggregators” for a fee. It’s not about the money, though; he feels pride in his influence as a kind of porno tastemaker.
The material about pornography and children, and the chapter about sex addicts, were particularly strong.
Some of Paul’s interviewees play off the awkwardness of the topic, and one in particular starts something like a stand-up routine, criticizing the porn movies of the early 1980s for their lack of strong plotting. Personally, I thought it was funny that two women independently complained about the “cheesy... crappy” quality of black porn, relative to porn made for whites.
What’s bad? The topic is a difficult one, and perhaps impossible to approach without prejudice. Some readers will dislike Paul's conclusions and will dismiss the entire book as a result. Also, in the interviews, some stories leave out details the reader is bound to want to know. One of the interviewees is the “former CEO of a large international corporation,” who “lost his job due to pornography.” How? What happened? Did he dress in a leather teddy at a board meeting? The chapter about porn and relationships was less interesting to me than the rest, but your mileage may vary.
Paul comes to strong conclusions, and each reader will have to decide for himself whether or not he thinks her recommendations are wise. Her main goal, however, is probably to change the debate on pornography so that it is no longer simply about morality and free speech, but also includes a discussion of whether or not technology-fueled porn hurts people. In this regard, I think she is apt to be successful.
You can purchase Pornified from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Paul spoke with researchers and therapists, she surveyed the academic literature and commissioned her own study, and then, most remarkably, she tracked down more than 100 people who were willing to talk about their experiences with pornography. Men and women, detractors and fans, casual users and perverts. She arranges this material into chapters about how pornography affects men, on how it affects women, another on children, and so forth.
This is not a “gee whiz, look at all the dirty pictures” screed urging us to hang up our mice and go to church. It is more a summary of research than an opinion piece, and though the preponderance of the research presented is damning to pornography, defenders appear in most sections as well.
The book is remarkable in two ways. First, it presents a greater amount of hard data than I have ever seen on this topic before. Second, the interviews are amazing. Where does she find these people? The military man who masturbates by the side of the highway, the child porn addict who fantasizes about the girls he is teaching in Sunday school, the adult virgins with the almost clinically precise descriptions of what they expect in a woman (“I’m a big fan of full shaved,” etc.).
Pornified is worthwhile for this research and these stories, even if you disagree with the conclusions that Paul draws from them.
I found fascinating, for example, that a number of double-blind studies of the effects of pornography were completed over twenty years ago, but that the results were so damning that it has been difficult to follow up on them. The effects of dirty movies on the people who look at them were so profound that ethics boards at universities deny researchers the approval to show them to human subjects.
What are these effects? The book devotes chapters to this, and I can summarize only very briefly. For many people, porn has quasi-addictive characteristics, requiring escalation to maintain a constant level of stimulation. It dampens empathy, it changes expectations, and it damages relationships. The interviews in the book back this up; it contains example after example of people who started with modest porn searching online, then graduated to more heinous stuff.
And this is all about the Internet. Paul pays lip service to Playboy and smutty VHS tapes, but this is a story about X-rated websites, Usenet groups, and p2p file sharing.
Paul cites a study from 2000 that ties that the expansion of technological avenues for pornography to its growing more explicit, more dehumanizing, and more violent. In other words, alt.binaries.pictures.erotica was pretty tame. But then a.b.p.e.blonds and a.b.p.e.asians appeared, and these refined the expectations of their users, paving the way for the creation of a.b.p.e.bukkake and a.b.p.e.rape. And where the original newsgroup probably didn’t cause too much damage to anybody, the same can not be said for its increasingly brutal descendants.
Consider this — prior to the Internet, law enforcement believed that child porn had been basically wiped out. It was a crime from a previous age, like body snatching. But then came the Web. Between 1996 and 2004, child-porn cases handled by the FBI increased 23 fold. The research presented in Pornified argues that technology does not merely make it easier to serve an existing desire, it allows deep exposure that for many people results in stronger and more specific versions of the the original demand.
Paul presents most of this neutrally, but you can sense contempt for non-pornographic websites that link to porn sites, or endorse them. She doesn’t name any names, but the savvy reader will recognize Fark as one of her targets, and I suspect that Farkers figure among her interviewees.
Such “smut” can be defended, of course, and the book gives defenders their say. The obvious response is “porn has been around forever, so stop complaining that it is suddenly a threat to society.” But it seems to me that this response is disingenuous. You can’t compare an issue of Playboy and the Atari 2600 cartridge of “Custer’s Revenge” to the seamless infinity of smut that lives on the Internet today.
The second major response to the claims in this book follows the First Amendment. Regardless of harm, we must not start down the slippery slope of restricting access to objectionable material. Paul considers this, but her the book discusses concrete harm, and she argues that civil liberties are not absolute where one person’s rights hurt other people (not many argue for their right to cry “fire” in a crowded theater, for example).
Though Paul did not set out to explore the industry of porn production and distribution, in the course of her research, she did discover things I didn’t know. For example, she interviews one man who works in the oil industry and spends 25% of every working day surfing porn sites and submitting reviews to “porn aggregators” for a fee. It’s not about the money, though; he feels pride in his influence as a kind of porno tastemaker.
The material about pornography and children, and the chapter about sex addicts, were particularly strong.
Some of Paul’s interviewees play off the awkwardness of the topic, and one in particular starts something like a stand-up routine, criticizing the porn movies of the early 1980s for their lack of strong plotting. Personally, I thought it was funny that two women independently complained about the “cheesy... crappy” quality of black porn, relative to porn made for whites.
What’s bad? The topic is a difficult one, and perhaps impossible to approach without prejudice. Some readers will dislike Paul's conclusions and will dismiss the entire book as a result. Also, in the interviews, some stories leave out details the reader is bound to want to know. One of the interviewees is the “former CEO of a large international corporation,” who “lost his job due to pornography.” How? What happened? Did he dress in a leather teddy at a board meeting? The chapter about porn and relationships was less interesting to me than the rest, but your mileage may vary.
Paul comes to strong conclusions, and each reader will have to decide for himself whether or not he thinks her recommendations are wise. Her main goal, however, is probably to change the debate on pornography so that it is no longer simply about morality and free speech, but also includes a discussion of whether or not technology-fueled porn hurts people. In this regard, I think she is apt to be successful.
You can purchase Pornified from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Sure, you told your parents that you have them for computer games, but come on - we all know why they have both advanced so quickly.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
yeah, sure, wasn't it for tons of popups suddenly opening up and showing some rather grotesque cumshot scenes in front of your momma, popup blocking wouldn't catch up.
yay for pr0n as a new techs driving force!
I don't feel like it...
How I Failed the Turing Test - Sex Bots
Relism vs. Style: the Zelda Debate - investigating sexuality in gaming cultures.
And now this one Pornified!!! All right so we have failed to distinguish life from machine, the machine has become sexually provocative, and now we can't have technology without a driver. With the quote from Bender Stay away from our women. You've got metal fever, boy. Metal fever. is Futuram is it science fiction or science fact?
Am I the first one or am I the only one?
This is a bit offtopic, but I gotta ask...
[Porno] drives the adoption of new technologies
Other than VCR/DVD/Internet (video in general), what other technologies has Porno driven? We see people say it here on the Slashdot forums quite often, but I wouldn't say its a large number of technologies if I can count the list on one hand.
Maybe I haven't visited enough porno sites to know?
kthx
Man is a slave because freedom is difficult, whereas slavery is easy.
What are these effects? The book devotes chapters to this, and I can summarize only very briefly. For many people, porn has quasi-addictive characteristics, requiring escalation to maintain a constant level of stimulation. It dampens empathy, it changes expectations, and it damages relationships. The interviews in the book back this up; it contains example after example of people who started with modest porn searching online, then graduated to more heinous stuff.
What the fuck is this garbage? I've been with the same woman for nearly five years and just married her this weekend. If anything, porn has STRENGTHENED our relationship through mutual viewing.
Are they trying to say that porno searching online is a "gateway" to become some sort of "sexual deviant"? Give me a fucking break. Just because people's conservative sexual knowledge and behavior is the prevailing behavior (and IMHO negative) it doesn't mean that "graduating" to a different behavior is heinous.
Mod -1 Flamebait/Troll
I'm sorry, but 100 people aren't going to tell the tale of ALL those that enjoy porn either in solitary viewing or in group situations. I'd like to read this pile of shit and actually give a true account of the book rather than an obviously biased and conservative viewpoint on it.
In the future, everyone will get hard over InterPr0n for 15 minutes.
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
"pornography pervades the Internet and drives the adoption of new technologies"?
So, if I could substitute military / war for that generalization I would get published to slashdot?
"Military pervades the Internet and drives the adoption of new technologies"...
This is a disgusting article and not something I'm really interested in. I'm more into the whole geek / technology thing.
I'd like to know what technological breakthroughs were driven by Porn? Cameras weren't developed originally for Porn. Scanners weren't developed for Porn. Image viewers weren't originally developed for Porn. I find that to be the epitimy of Bullshit. Most of the continuing development of Computers happen to be for Highly Intense mathmatics. Video Games for instance are probably more of a driving force in technology's improvement than Porn! I can render all the porn I want on my DNS/Mail/Server. It happens to be running Linux and is only a 300 mHz pII. Yes it's old, and may take longer to render a picture than my Desktop, (1.8GHZ) but it'll never be able to run say Medal of Honor. Never! I just find that comment as ludicrous! Does anyone agree with me on this?
Generation Trance: What generation are you?
one man who works in the oil industry and spends 25% of every working day surfing porn sites and submitting reviews to porn aggregators for a fee.
Oil man's coworker: "Does anyone else smell Astroglide?"
Show me a hot babe, and I will show you a lady who works less than but earns more money than a fat, ugly lady. Life is unfair. This unfairness is how the world works.
Why are people so prudish to admit that sex sells? Let us face the facts. Sex sells.
We should essentially de-regulate radio and television broadcasts so that full nudity can be shown whenever and wherever. France has full-nudity television. Why can't the USA?
All this talk about how bad pron is makes me scratch my head. I understand that there is validity to a lot of the statements. But personally, I'm more worried about how quickly we had gangs of thugs running through New Orleans. Which is the whole point of the subject line. Europe has a very liberated sexuality. America does not. Perhaps there is some causation to Americas reaction to porn because of the cultural stigma attached to sexuality.
Correlation does not equate to causation.
"The bass, the rock, the mic, the treble. I like my coffee black, just like my metal" - Mindless Self Indulgence
anyone else remember that when you d/l'd porn line by line at 9600 you could see that the top line in a trinitron monitor usually lined up with the nipples on a full body shot?
I know it's hot, and everything, but it's gotta hurt.
While it's fine that you disagree with the conclusions of the reviewer and, it appears, the author as well, I have to wonder why your disagreement is so heated. The review was in a reasonable tone and focused mostly on the data, so why did it provoke such a firebreathing response?
I'd like to read this pile of shit and actually give a true account of the book rather than an obviously biased and conservative viewpoint on it.
Nope, doesn't sound like you've made up your mind about the book already...
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
A GREAT weekly column @ WIRED and an excellent list serve @ yahoo.com for those of you interested in Sex and Technology.
Remember, when Bram wanted folks to test BitTorrent, he put up a porn flic -- he knew there'd be enough who'd want to get it that they'd download and install BitTorrent, and then wait for the porn to (maybe) download.
I bet porn leads to people installing lots of software, good and bad.
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
There is a strong correlation between using morphine and having serious problems but sometimes the morphine is causing the problems (addiction or Christian Science moral problems) and sometimes it's alleviating the problems (medical/hospital uses).
I haven't read the book but unless the book carefully distinguishes causation from correlation then its public policy conclusions will be flawed because they ignore the alleviating effects of porn.
from reading your response, I can tell you are an unbalanced freak. I'm sure your 'wife' is one as well... all thanks to porn. :P
They like their porn. When they are not surfing for techie news they are typing with one hand on a porn site. Deny it if you will we know your browser history. Check out http://pornwatch.slashdot.org/
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
The review was in a reasonable tone and focused mostly on the data, so why did it provoke such a firebreathing response?
You're seriously joking right? This "review" was a biased advertisement stroking the right-wing conservatives egos that their missionary-position bi-monthly sex acts are acceptable and even encouraged while their co-workers' healthy and exciting sex life is deviant and unacceptable.
There is NOTHING worse than reading that someone else finds that your exciting sex-life is "bad" because you are a bad person.
Keep the right-wing ideals out of site and off of Slashdot.
On the basis of the book jacket, this might seem more appropriate material for iVillage than Slashdot
/. readership usually welcomes any story that lets them post countless old porn jokes and anecdotes about how they can never get laid.
No, I'm pretty sure the
In case you've been asleep for the past hour... it was just announced that actor Bob Denver (aka "Gilligan") has died at age 70 due to complications from cancer treatment. Also he'd had quadruple cardiac bypass surgery just a few months ago.
How is this related to the subject at hand? Well, every geek who grew up in the late 60's - early 70's wanted to see Mary Ann nekkid when she was young. And it's quite likely that Bob got to enjoy that for real. Rest in peace dear Gilligan, we'll miss you.
It is not your usual porn that is referred to here. The type of porn in question is the hardcore demeananizing porn that the porn industry seems to have led to. As is described, online porn seems to lead from soft to hard core porn, and it is the rape and bukkake that damage relationships. This also brings up another side in the viewer, as I won't watch anal, nor anything worse than that, while others may enjoy the rape or bukkake that plagues the internet.
Foxed Design
I don't see the review claiming that porn necessarily will cause those things, just that it can. In much the same manner that some people who drink alcohol become alcoholics, but not all. That's great that you have a good relationship and that porn may have actually helped you, but here's a newsflash for you: NOT EVERYONE IS LIKE YOU. Just because something doesn't negatively affect you doesn't mean it won't negatively affect someone else. And just because you call for modding down, yell, and otherwise insult the review and the book doesn't make what ultimately amounts to your opinion any more right than the reviewer's.
The laws of probability forbid it!
What are these effects? The book devotes chapters to this, and I can summarize only very briefly. For many people, porn has quasi-addictive characteristics, requiring escalation to maintain a constant level of stimulation. It dampens empathy, it changes expectations, and it damages relationships.
You might say the same things about many other non-porn things, like eating, or gaming, or dieting, or exercising, or anything pretty much. Some people are going to react in funny ways to anything. I've never heard of anybody that takes a stand against dieting, but there are many people with eating problems (anorexics, bulemics, etc) out there. To me, personally, this just looks like someone with religiously imposed morals trying to get their way.
The well-adjusted folk of the world who can look at porn, play violent video games, and eat fatty foods without going overboard and ruining their lives wish that everybody else would just get a freaking grip already.
-Jesse
Nothing says "unprofessional job" like wrinkles in your duct tape.
author Pamela Paul
pages 320
publisher Times Books
rating Worth reading
I thought, with the article titled as Pornification, it should be Pamela Anderson. Correct me if i am wrong
I too am skeptical of the authors intent and "research". It seems like over dramatized "sensationalized" reporting that is meant to sell books, not produce good reporting.
Sure 100 people's lives were destroyed, but COME ON, I could find hundreds of thousands whose lives have been destroyed by lack of medical care or tens of thousands whose lives have been destroyed by credit cards.
Give me a break.
HOORAY FOR BOOBIES!
I'm sorry, but 100 people aren't going to tell the tale of ALL those that enjoy porn either in solitary viewing or in group situations.
I would have to agree. One of the best times I've ever had was doing a MST3k-style commentary with my friends to amateur porn.
"Come on daddy, cum on my face, but watch out for my eyes!"
SPLAT!!!!
"Owowowowow! Asshole! I said not in my eyes!"
"No beer until you finish your tequila!" -Leela's Dad
Nope, doesn't sound like you've made up your mind about the book already...
sarcasm ( P ) Pronunciation Key (särkzm)
n.
A cutting, often ironic remark intended to wound.
A form of wit that is marked by the use of sarcastic language and is intended to make its victim the butt of contempt or ridicule.
See, I didn't believe that the "reviewer" gave an unbiased account of the book while trying to claim that he was going his best:
The topic is a difficult one, and perhaps impossible to approach without prejudice. Some readers will dislike Paul's conclusions and will dismiss the entire book as a result.
See, here he tries to imply that anyone that goes against the author is just dismissing it w/o reading deep into the pointless "conclusions".
Also, in the interviews, some stories leave out details the reader is bound to want to know. One of the interviewees is the "former CEO of a large international corporation," who "lost his job due to pornography." How? What happened? Did he dress in a leather teddy at a board meeting? The chapter about porn and relationships was less interesting to me than the rest, but your mileage may vary.
Ahh, the old "see -- a successful man was destroyed by foo." A popular tactic used in many forms of media including porn, pre-marital sex, and anti-drug messages.
Thanks for falling for the oldest propaganda tricks in the book.
"The book is remarkable in two ways. First, it presents a greater amount of hard data than I have ever seen on this topic before."
i bet.
...because you never know who you're dealing with.
This review is 100% Bovine Excrement and if the book content actually reflect what is stated in the article then the book is B-E as well.
/. - not The Fascist Information Network
This biased, scientifically unfounded, completely fictional OP-ED on pornography and censorship [against the former and in favor of the later] doesn't belong on slashdot.
This is
If you cannot keep politics out of your moderation remove yourself from the Mod Lottery.. NOW!
Danni at danni.com is probably the first Internet Millionaire. before Bezos, or Musk or the Ebay guys, there was Danni, taking it all off and raking it in.
gigantino.tv - Heavy but weighs nothing.
...through mutual viewing
You are missing the obvious here. I imagine it can be damaging if only one person would watch porn, usually the man. His view of what a women should 'be' becomes skewed. He might start to think his wife is not good enough, since she's not what he sees in the videos. Then, because the topic is difficult, instead of asking if she might be into 'that' (whatever it is) he goes out the door in search of it.
Not too hard to imagine.
PS. You watch porn, but you also use the words fuck and shit when an obviously (by the reviewer's account) well researched book does not fit into your view of the subject. I find that 'remarkable'.
Dude... you're posting on Slashdot on your HONEYMOON?
I've been with the same woman for nearly five years and just married her this weekend.
Because half a million idiots is better than the 400 (just a guess) idiots at M$
FTR: "I found fascinating, for example, that a number of double-blind studies of the effects of pornography were completed over twenty years ago, but that the results were so damning that it has been difficult to follow up on them (emphasis mine)
WTF? I was always told it would make me go blind, but how much did they have to do it to go double-blind?
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
For one, I bet that before the internet, the FBI simply wasn't aware of child pornography trafficking, maybe because of lack of resources, or infiltrants, etc. It's a lot easier to network up pedophiles on the internet, and trafficking is probably less riskier over the internet than postal mail or commercial delivery services. Maybe that's the point they're making, but I doubt that availability of child pornography makes more pedophiles.
Secondly, I think internet porn is so pervasive, it's rediculous to talk to addicts, etc. and say this is what porn is doing. It's hard enough to get some suburban dad to admit to digital pornography use, esp. to a stranger. If you interview weirdos, of course you will get a biased sample.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
You watch porn, but you also use the words fuck and shit when an obviously (by the reviewer's account) well researched book does not fit into your view of the subject. I find that 'remarkable'.
The reviewer was biased and cannot be trusted. His double-speak and propaganda message proves that he is nothing but a conservative retard pushing an agenda.
His claims about the book being "well researched" as likely false and will be easily disproved.
"Fuck" and "Shit" are only inappropriate words for those that are so simple minded that they are easily offended. Grow up and get a life.
Have you graduated here yet My Wife.
My point: How far do you actually take the openness?
How far and how much is too much?
You and I both know what country we live in so you have to expect (not accept) these conservative views.
And with supreme court changes it isn't going to get better for you.
The effects of porn depend on context. For a lot of young guys, porn forms their impression of sex, which of course is very limited. This can leave them stunted, sexually and emotionally. They end up putting the "pussy on a pedestal," by forming unhealthy obsessions over it. (Quote from the 40 Year Old Virgin)
Parents need to be more open about sexuality, because that is where much of the unhealthiness beings. Much of society too needs to chill the fuck out too, and quit demonizing sex to teenagers.
Go to a country like Brazil, where sexuality is very open, and you won't find many of these problems.
Actually there is a little grain of truth in there. While there have not been any technological breakthroughs that I am aware of that were driven by porn, personal observation indicates that new web technologies tend to be adopted earliest by porn sites as a group. So porn may not drive innovation, but does seem to drive adoption. This encompasses everything from using Javascript in clever ways to serve images (or nastier stuff) to using Flash for page elements and attempts to make it hard to steal site content easily. There are a lot of tricks porn sites use for good or ill, that often eventually find their way to mainstream sites.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
Back in 1991 or thereabouts, a friend of mine went to college at UCSC, where he was opened up to a whole world of new and amazing computing paraphernalia. We had previously both been computer geeks -- I on an Apple ][, he with a Kaypro, and both later on IBM PCs -- but this was the first time he had really been exposed to Unix, X terminals, big servers, fast Internet, and the like.
... all of these things have been pushed forward by the public's seemingly insatiable demand for porn. I'm not saying porn caused these things to be invented, though I suppose that's possible in some cases. I'm saying that people who sell porn make money, and they spend that money on technology, and in so doing they advance the technology industry. And I believe they do it to more of a degree than you realize.
I remember talking on the phone with him one time in particular, when he told me about the NeXT box they had down there. Now, at the time, NeXT hardware was amazing. 'Nuff said. We all wanted to fool around with these things. I thought he was a lucky bastard to be at a university that actually had one.
"What are they using it for?" I asked him.
"Not much, really," he said. "The hard drive's pretty much just full of porn."
I mention this not just because it makes me chuckle, but because at the time it didn't surprise me at all. And it still doesn't. Throughout my experience with computers, and in particular the Internet, wherever you found a significant technological advance, somebody had found a way to use it for porn.
So, you ask "what technologies has Porno driven"? And I would say to you: The Internet. Computers.
Fancy browser programming, plug-ins, encryption, fat storage, streaming media, e-commerce
Breakfast served all day!
Good little kook - remember the party line:
IT's All Bush's fault!!
Wow, I'm a Republican (not a New Aged GOP member mind you) -- I really doubt that the Republican Party's line is "It's all Bush's fault".
Please also note that I am vehemently against ANY conservative pro-value politicians or individuals (i.e. Hillary, Mrs. Gore, etc).
Please don't patronize me w/some trollish, uneducated, and unresearched comment about my political views. In the future, I seriously suggest that you take the time to read through my post history and learn how I really feel about many issues including this pro-conservative push for family first.
Chalk up another "GIVE ME MAH AFFILIATE DOLLAHZ!!!" post to spammer-boy.
So? Seriously, if it's less expensive than a given alternative, and if you don't care about commissions or affiliate dollars (e.g. if jealousy doesn't drive you), then what does it matter? Is it one of those "if I don't don't get it then nobody should?".
I don't have any interest in the book, but if I did want it I wouldn't be adverse to using some random guy's affiliate link.
This is all a load of crap.
Just the other day, while I was downloading an archive of puffy-nipple schoolgirl bukake videos, I was thinking about how little porn has affected me and my tastes.
Anyone else remember that when b00bies were printed onto dead trees, and then scanned in for BBS distribution, the quality was better?
Maybe I'm dating myself (ahem, no pun intended :), but when Bob, Hugh, and Larry had to select the best 10 models out of 100 applicants for dead-tree publication (or even - gasp! - film transfer to VHS!), and the best 10 pictures out of 100 from a photo shoot, (or the best 10 minutes out of a 2-hour video shoot), pr0n was actually watchable and fun. For one thing, we actually got to see reasonably attractive women, and for another thing, a model who didn't make even the slightest pretense of feigning interest in her partners, tended not to make the cut.
Today, we've got quantity over quality. The barriers to entry have disappeared, so it's just Joe Schmoe taking 100 pictures of every Jane Schmoe that's willing to do a shoot with him. Of the 100 pictures he takes, 70 of them show Jane shown out of focus, a horrendous boob job with scars still visible, be poorly framed, or feature Jane with that classic "Beige. I think Joe should use a beige tarp for a background in the next shoot" look in her eyes.
Feh.
However, the quality of porn is not as good as it was. I still think the best stuff can be found in the 80s binaries newgroups. The new stuff is not nearly as good.
I would also say that I bet pr0n on the Internet is the only real Internet industry that makes *hard cash* everyday, rather than the otherwise 'dot/com' bubble money in useless stock values.
I don't know why we bother with science when we can just ask one random person for a subjective opinion, and then draw a conclusion based on that single piece of anecdotal evidence. Sheesh.
In other words, just because someone smokes cigarettes all their life and lives to be 90 doesn't mean that smoking doesn't dramatically shorten life on the average.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
My point: How far do you actually take the openness?
As far as anyone is comfortable bringing it -- as well as it remains within the law (we'll ignore such laws that define sodomy in order to make homosexuality "deviant" as that's an entirely different discussion.)
You and I both know what country we live in so you have to expect (not accept) these conservative views.
I have no problems with people expressing their opinions. What I do have a problem with is people using specific language that twists the meaning around and makes a propaganda piece out of a specific media type.
This conservative viewpoint was specifically worded to make "sexual deviants" feel uncomfortable about what they do because they may "hurt" someone else. Obvious trash.
Is that how it's being portrayed in Europe? No wonder you guys are so hostile towards Bush (I have my own reasons, but not because of misinformation).
No troops were withdrawn from the middle east. These national guard soldiers were home on a regular rotation, and instead of getting some time off, were ordered to disaster relief duty.
And AFAIK, the only people that the troops shot were part of a group that was itself shooting at some engineers working on a bridge. They got what they deserved.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
People are much more often and more deeply perverted by TV and the lives that people live on "Reality" TV shows.
:)
Buy this! Everyone has it except for you! It really MATTERS!
The sky is falling!!!
Good thing I've got my porn.
BenCurry.net
'nuff said...?
The items that porn has driven into the mass market:
- The VCR, especially VHS. Before the VCR you had to go to a porno thatre and sit in a dark room with abunch of other lonely guys doing things you didn't want to know about. With the VCR you could watch your porn in the privacy of your own home. Hell, you could even watch it with your wife, who would rather die than be seen going into a porno thatre. I was there. I saw it happen with my own eyes.
- The CR-ROM drive. The first three products that came out for the CD-ROM drive were Bible-search programs, MYST and porn. Porn was the main reason many people bought CD-ROM drives.
- DVD players/DVD-ROM drives. These made porn movies even easier to watch than VCRs as the discs were smaller, the image quality better (yay, the pimples on Ron Jeremy's butt are much more visible!) and you can skip to your favorite parts. And as of today, porn is one of the few genres in video to bother using the multi-angle option.
- Broadband Internet: What do people use all that bandwitdh for? Porn. More than pirated movies, warez, and music, it's porn. Look around Usenet sometime. The busiest newsgroups are the porn groups in the ALT branch.
Now, none of these technologies were created for the expressed purpose of make, selling, or dispributing porn. And the author didn't say they were. These technologies were first exploited by the porn industry.Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
But does this mean that child porn has actually increased or that the internet has just made it easier to find? I hate when people try to use a statistic like this to prove some point, becuase it doesn't really prove anything.
My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle...
No pun intended? Okay, *someone* had to point this out, I've got karma to burn - LOL :-)
Does it have pictures?
"...example after example of people who started with modest porn searching online, then graduated to more heinous stuff."
"And how do we begin to covet, Clarice? Do we seek out things to covet?...We begin by coveting what we see every day."
of course, the second quote is from an insane person... and a cannibal.
Our president is a fuckup. No doubt about that.
The paperback book, whose popularity took off as a result of pornographic novels.
No? How about:
You have presented one single, solitary, biased anecdote and stated that your personal results apply equally to everybody across the board with no variations. Do you really not see a problem with this? Anybody who disagrees with you must receive -1? Newsflash: studies and metastudies aren't always going to validate myopia. Smoking causes cancer, but we still find the occasional 6 pack a day smoker who lives well into their 90s. Does this mean that anybody who publishes a study showing links between cancer and tobacco should be modded down? In your world, apparently.
The reviewer is not clucking his tongue at you, nor is the author wagging her finger at what you do in your own private room. It appears to be saying "there are negatives and not just 100% harmless fun as some people would claim". Nothing else.
If the g'vt kept the data on you that google does you'd better believe you'd be calling it "doing evil"
Little wonder the fucking thing is trading close to $70/barrel on NYMEX. Just goes to show the disastrous effects porn has effected on the global economy!
Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
Why does Slashdot link to BN.com? They sell it for $20.00 ($18.00 if you pay to become a member), but Amazon.com sells it for $16.50.
Apparently not as obvious as you think:
I imagine it can be damaging...
Can be? Not exactly definate.
You have data to support that, right? How do you measure the "skew" of a "view"?
He might...
Again with the passive voice! You don't seem to be so sure of what you are writing.
I think that is what you might think and that you are projecting your feelings.
Then, because the topic is difficult, instead of asking if she might be into 'that' (whatever it is) he goes out the door in search of it.
Do you think porn is what makes people cheat on their spouses? I guess the divorce rates should have shot through the roof with the increase in broadband.
What? It hasn't? That's strange because you implied a connection between porn and infidelity.
And as the parent has said, and you quoted, they are both viewing it "together". Why would the "the topic" be "difficult"? He could gauge her reaction while they are viewing it together, right? Wouldn't he get an indication of what she is "into" while viewing it "together"?
Not too hard to imagine.
"Imagine" != fact.
PS. You watch porn, but you also use the words fuck and shit
You didn't write "f*ck" and "sh*t" when making your point.
I find that 'remarkable'.
So do I.
What was your point?
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
The type of porn in question is the hardcore demeananizing porn that the porn industry seems to have led to.
LOL. You know what, you're 100% right, the "porn industry" has desensitized us to "demeaning" sex acts but thankfully we have people like you, the author, and our conservative/family-first politicians to tell us that anything but missionary sex is bad.
As is described, online porn seems to lead from soft to hard core porn, and it is the rape and bukkake that damage relationships.
You are saying that people *can't* enjoy being doused with semen? How the fuck do you know? It's obvious you have never done it or had it done to you... How could you possibly say, without a doubt, that it would be damaging to your relationship with your SO? You cannot.
All you can do is inject your personal opinion about something you know nothing about except from what you heard from your limited research and "personal knowledgebase". Let's keep our discussions to stuff you really have a clue about.
Rape is an illegal act and is of no relevance to the discussion. Are you not talking about criminal rape and instead simulated rape/fantasy situations where someone *could* enjoy that situation and may even fantasize about it?
Yet another situation that you have no obvious knowledge of and cannot speak on.
This also brings up another side in the viewer, as I won't watch anal, nor anything worse than that, while others may enjoy the rape or bukkake that plagues the internet.
Thank you for proving my points above.
This is the logic. Well...the logic given once you filter out the Bible-based reasoning. I.e. the Bible says to cover yourself, therefore it is bad to expose your body.
All this shit is done in the name of the 'child'.
I almost don't want to have children at this point...what a fucked up society.
Blar.
Why, with the advent of broadband, limewire, bittorrent, google images, etc, why people still pay for porn? Sure I've ran into a few porn websites that I wouldn't mind having accsss to, but with the plethora of free stuff available, never once considered paying for it. Who are these people dropping all this serious cash???
All this escalation talk reminds me of all the Marijuana leads to harder drugs talk in the mid 80's.
I'm still waiting to get a sudden urge to shoot some heroin into my eyeball.
My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle...
Yes, but on the flip side, you can't say that porn weakens relationships, if there is significant population for which it does not.
It seems more likely to me that a combination of beliefs that run contrary to human sexual nature, and porn, are the magic combo that go bad.
So if this is the case then, why not state it? Why do beliefs contrary to huuman sexual nature have to be assumed?
We who do not hold such beliefs can reasonably consider it an attack on our position, and an effort at coersion.
That is a Winblows bug.
Fight Spammers!
All women with large-diameter, dark-skinned areolae should be issued millions of dollars by the government, just because.
...this will be the first /.'ed book review.
Who put this thing together? Me, that's who.
Her S. O. liked to jack off to pr0n movies and she was not as pretty as Silvia Saint, so she felt diminished. Come on, even I feel kind of diminished when I see the size of those guys' dongs.
Come on, there is absolutely nothing to see here.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
You should be thankful that the reviewer didn't start blathering on about "erototoxins".
While the anecdotes sound absolutely fascinating, the conclusions sound eerily similar to those of the Meese Commission. At first (1968 or thereabouts), there was a Presidential Commission put together under Nixon to research the effects of porn on people. In its final recommendation, the Presidential Commission called for (a) comprehensive sex education for everyone, (b) continued dialogue, (c) more research, and (d) citizen participation in all of the above. Hardly a stinging condemnation.
That Commission was ignored, its report buried, and upon the election of Reagan in 1980, a new Commission was founded which would give Congress the answers it expected, by simply making shit up. To quote from the article, which quotes from the Meese Report:
While admitting that establishment of a link between aggressive behavior and sexual violence "requires assumptions not found exclusively in the experimental evidence," the Commissioners go on to say , "We see no reason, however, not to make these assumptions...that are plainly justified by our own common sense"
It's the same tired shit that's been thrown against the wall since the Reagan Revolution, in the desparate hopes that it'll stick this time.
I wonder if I could write a similar book about people who overdose on Evangelical Christianity and require ever-stronger doses of legislative activism and repression of women to get their rocks off.
Congrats on your marriage, by the way.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
See this film how one man's life was ruined by porno. It's called Farm Sluts. Don't worry it's work safe.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
from the article:
For many people, porn has quasi-addictive characteristics, requiring escalation to maintain a constant level of stimulation. It dampens empathy, it changes expectations, and it damages relationships. The interviews in the book back this up; it contains example after example of people who started with modest porn searching online, then graduated to more heinous stuff.
For many people [Insert just about anything you want to create a study against, chat rooms, video games, dungeons and dragons], etal. hate to break it to them, but People are always looking for a fix somehow. That fix can be so many things. People can esily become addicted to anything that gives them some kind of fantasy/escape from real life. It's not the porn, it's the person watching it. Some people just have a greater vulnerability and/or a greater need for this escape. As a person who avidly watches pron, plays DnD, and other things, that are harmless, but socially unacceptable, i get really tired of this crap.
I believe sex is highly over rated... unless it involves me
How many people a day view pornography online? thousands, millions? They get a double blind study of a couple of hundred, and that's supposed to tell us something?
I've worked on scientific studies, and I can say with certainty that they are highly dependent on the researchers who are doing them (and the groups that are funding them). I've worked on studies that didn't get published becuase they dind't have the results the funders wanted. I've also worked on studies where the results had to be skewed (ie, those samples are contaminated, remove them).
I'd be willing to bet that a anti porn book would sell more copies than a pro porn book.
Another issue is, how did they find the people that they interviewed? Most 'normal' viewers probaby wouldn't take the time out of their day to sit through a long interview. It's only the minority of people that feel some compelling reason to talk about it (ie, they feel it destroyed their lives), that would go to the trouble to get interviewed.
Since when did operating systems become a religion?
Are they trying to say that porno searching online is a "gateway" to become some sort of "sexual deviant"?
Yes, they are. Does that offend you? It certainly seems to, from your reaction.
If anything, porn has STRENGTHENED our relationship through mutual viewing.
That's wonderful for you and your wife. However, the author proposes that pornography might harm those not mature enough to realize which fantasies are not socially acceptable to perform.
Your ad hominem attacks on the author and the reviewer seem like a knee-jerk dismissal of a theory that contradicts your existing beliefs.
Are you unwilling to even discuss the possibility that conventional pornography might be a gateway to deviant pornography and thus to deviant practices? That's fine, but don't demean yourself by insulting the reviewer and the work. Just keep your mouth shut next time.
I may not happen to agree with the viewpoint, but unlike you I am open-minded enough to realize that not everyone feels the way I do. That's why I'm willing to listen to the discussion about whether or not pornography can be harmful. You deride the review as "obviously biased [toward a] conservative viewpoint", but it seems to me to be pretty evenhanded, neither accepting the conclusion nor disputing it. I would argue it's you that's biased.
I'm happy for you, that your mind is already made up on the subject. But don't assume you can close my mind for me.
Thank you for posting that; I hadn't heard. Of course, as a boomer, I tend to remember him as Maynard G. Krebs on Dobie Gillis. (The G. stood for "Walter.) I wonder how many of the girls that rejected Dobie ended up in bed with Maynard.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
Ok. Turn off the computer and walk away from it! Now, please return to more important things, like your Honeymoon.....
Why is bukkake lumped in with rape porn in the original post, and why has no one challenged that? Sure, it's weird, but so are fursuiters or people who dress up like Batman. Just because it's weird doesn't mean it's morally equivalent to rape, faked or no. Sheesh. You know, some people enjoy a good bukkake.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
And if Mary Ann hadn't been a wise businesswoman, demanding residuals from reruns instead of a higher salary and no residuals, like all her costars, she would have run out of money, and may have done the $500,000 or $1,000,000 Playboy appearance in her '40's or '50's.
But nooooooooo, she had to do the right thing and thus we'll never know her charms...
Paul considers this, but her the book discusses concrete harm, and she argues that civil liberties are not absolute where one person's rights hurt other people (not many argue for their right to cry "fire" in a crowded theater, for example).
So typical of modern day advocates of censorship and totalitarianism. If you want to ban a certain type of speech or expression you don't like, create "scientific evidence" that it causes some sort of harm, and of course reference the tired, old "fire in a crowded theater" arguement.
Of course any "scientific evidence" is total BS. No one can even come to any sort of definition about what "pornography" is (many people argue that the musical "Hair", or "Herbal Essenses" TV commercials, or safe sex pamphlets, or comic books, or top-40 hip-hop music, wardwrobe malfunctions, or gay pride parades, are pornographic). Given that there is no objective way to even classify pornography, and that the term is applied to virtually anything that someone wants censored, and given that it is virtually impossible to do things like double blind testing, there is absolutly no way anybody can make any sort of generalizations about "pornography" and claim they are in any way scientific or objective.
The real story in this is how in America, as well as Canada and Western Europe, liberal ideals such as Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Expression have come under attack by the intelectuals who used to champion those ideas. What is more disturbing that pornography is how intellectuals like Paul have almost universaly come to rabidly endorse total state control of speech and expression. If people are worried about the mainstreaming of pornography, they need to be much more worried about the mainstreaming of totalitarianism.
Just from a review it would be hasty for me to accuse the author of approaching the topic with concious prejudice or negative feelings though since porn is one of those areas like abortion which almost everyone has a strong opinion about most articles about it have this problem in one way or another. However, even if this author did their best to present an objective balanced view our inherent social preconceptions.
Consider for instance the claims that porn elicits responses that resemble addiction. What doubtlessly true it is also misleading, like quoting the college graduation rates of blacks in a discussion of racial differences without mentioning socioeconomic differences. Once you realize that studies are continually published showing similarities in behavior and brain response between eating sugar, chocolate and virtually all rewarding behaviors and addiction. After all adictive drugs don't work by magic, they exploit our pre-existing brain mechanisms. So while porn may in fact cause some addictive type behavior so too does love, romance, and particularly religious faith. Thus this isn't really so much an argument against porn but a restatement of our prejudices that the self-reinforcing behaviors of love, faith, and tasty foods are worthwhile in moderation but that porn is not.
While the support for the various other accusations wasn't explored enough in the review for a full rebutall I am quite skeptical that there are rigorous scientific results establishing what the statements seem to imply. For instance I don't doubt there are many relationships where excesive porn causes difficulty or adult virgins who spend time watching porn rather than having rewarding relationships but it is exceptionally difficult to disentangle the underlying psychological causes of the porn viewing from the effects of the porn itself. Looking at large amounts of porn is seen as socially unacceptable so just as with drinking alone (even at the same level that others drink socially) those that do it are likely to have some psychological or at least social issues.
Moreover, the results of many of this media research is framed in a misleadingly suggestive way. I don't know about this but many experiments purporting to show that violence movies/TV lead to violence in children are simply reporting the obvious fact that kids are more likely to do pretend karate moves on each other after seeing an episode of power rangers and says nothing about the real question of long term effects (yes this was a real study). It would be completely unsurprising and untroubling if people were less empathetic after having *just* watched porn. I expect sexual arousal makes people less empathetic in general as they are more focused on their needs and desires but this could reverse after they masturbate or as a long term effect. Remember we are interested in the effects of porn not simply how people behave diferently when aroused then not aroused.
In order to really test if porn damages relationships or has these other harmful effects you would need to randomly subject people to pornographic content and not just for short periods of time as I expect the studies mentioned were about. It is absurd to suggest that looking a porn a few times causes long term damage to relationships or empathy and unfortunatly long term studies regularly expousing people to porn haven't and can't be done. Even then the results would be somewhat suspect as the problems that porn causes in relationship may be the effect of a partners negative views on pornography rather than porn itself.
The statement about causing dehumanization made every skeptical bone in my body throb. Despite frequent attempts I have yet to get anyone to offer an adequate definition of dehumanization (one that doesn't apply equally to everyday activities like asking someone to hold things) much less propose a rigorous test to see if it is happening. The personal ancedots were particularly troubling. Talking about people graduating to more henious stuff is only ma
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
I think of the quasi-addiction that was mentioned as something to be conscious of, but I view it the same way I view illicit drugs (and legal ones, too) that you should know what the drug does, understand the dangers involved, and proceed accordingly.
Banning it is not the answer, however. This is why the war on drugs is a failure.
Are you aware that if there's anything less reliable than anecdotal evidence, it's got to be imaginary anecdotal evidence? You're proving less than nothing. Hell, I can make up an imaginary narrative to try and prove all kinds of crazy shit.
Whoops, I said "shit". Find that remarkable as well?
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Brazil is also in the midst of fighting off an AIDS/HIV epidemic...
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
There was an entire industry in wood-cut prints in the early 19th century.
In the late 19th century (before radio even), you could got into a special hall with photo-flick machines. Each had say 100 photos on a carousel wheel which were flicked into view as you turned the wheel and looks through an eye-piece, giving the illusion of movement. Most of these were girls undressing.
In the late 19th century and early 20th century one of groups to make the greatest advances in the new "magazine" publishing format was porn.
Same for films. Same for VHS tapes and cam-corders. Same for the Internet. Same for DVDs.
What is all this puritanical BS. It's ok to kill, mame and destroy, but if you have sex, the world will end. If one looks at history, restricting sex was and is a form of control. By preventing some people from reproducing, they are praticing eugenics. stop your yapping and masturbate already.
Of course I can. Just because there might be a "significant population" (whatever that means) that has had incestuous relationships without any psychological damage doesn't mean it's not harmful in a lot of cases.
It's simply foolish to say that porn is never harmful to anyone. The only question is how harmful and in what numbers.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
I find this statement particularly humourous becuase of a personal experience I had while teaching in a school in SW Philadelphia. One of my students stumbled on an unfiltered porn site while on a computer that was connected to a projector........of course you can guess the results.
What makes this so funny is that later on one of my co-workers (she and I are both white and the students and most of the other faculty at the school are black) said to me, "Did you notice that all the women that popped up were white?" 30 some 8th graders get exposed to a whole screenful of dirty pictures and that is the best she can come up with?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
Madre de Dios! Es El Pollo Diablo! -- Captain Blondebeard
It comes down to down to tone. The review was put in a rather nice and measured tone. The response started with the phrase 'what the fuck'. Typically, if somebody says 'fuck' in the first sentence of their reply, it isn't going to sound very nice.
Now you may think this is all 'Ms manners' bullshit, but in the past I have argued, that one of the reasons that Bush won was because those that were opposed to him came off as total ass holes. You don't persuade people by swearing at them. The Kerry supports came out spent several month say 'You are a total fucking idiot if you vote for Bush', and all that ended up doing was solidifying Bush's support. And now look at the mess we're in. We should really learn from this, or it's just going to be a repeat in 2008.
Keep the right-wing ideals out of site and off of Slashdot.
And I love your dedication to free speech.
I am addicted to porn now and had some porn exposure at a young age.
Porn drove me to the computer in the first place. I remember an article in TIME that had a list of the 'porn' newsgroups. This was in 1994 or 1995. I obsessed over it and knew I could get tons of porn on the Internet. It turned out I was good with computers and have since become an ISP worker and general computer nerd. I wonder how many other people are this way too.
Porn takes away self worth. It nearly ruined my family because my obsession lead to obsessions and secrecy in this and many other areas. It does as I have read in other posts, lead to malformed sexual expectation etc. I haven't been able to have a healthy sex life in my marriage of about 10 years. We have gone as long as a year without sex.
I have wondered why this discussion hasn't come up before on Slashdot. I would imagine that there are many people in the IT field who do or have obsessed over porn.
If my boss(es) knew of the porn I had downloaded on our work connection / pc, I would certainly be fired.
I now have kids of my own and am terrified that they may someday be exposed to porn. There is nothing good that can come from it.
I am getting help now with a 12 step group and I would recommend it for people who want to make a change. I would also suggest http://www.sexhelp.com/ as it has some great resources.
In my 12 step group there are those who have been addicted to drugs & alchohol but they find this more difficult to 'kick'. I know that is just a few people's experiences.
One other comment....I think people get so calloused by porn it is difficult to empathize, hard to feel. I hope there are others who can *honestly* relate to me.
Not that anyone on ./ needs to learn much more about getting their mits on free porn from the Internet... but here is a free ebook that teaches you just that!
Stick it to the man, and make sure everyone knows how it's done!
This wouldn't be an issue if people in this country could grow up not thinking that sex is some kind of forbidden magical thing. Look at alcohol and sex, both are taught to be something to learn about and do when you're older. And when you're older you basically go crazy doing as much of both as you can. Or, you bought into that crap and still repress yourself causing all sorts of other problems.
If we didn't attach some forbidden fruit label to sex and instead treated it like it was normal, sexual deviance wouldn't be neraly as much of a problem.
Let the invading beardy hordes import some more of their woman-stoning traditions and we'll see just how sexually liberated Europe is in ten or fifteen years.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
This "problem" and the associated "damage" are nothing more than the manifestation of sexual repression. The real problem comes from people trying to kid themselves and get into relationships with people that they don't have genuine sexual compatibility with.
The problem is that people settle for some flat cold fish when they really wanted some insatiable, warm blooded creature with some measurable curvature.
This problem also leads to a great deal of infidelity and divorce. Now since you obviously can't attribute the pervasive problem of failed relationships to porn, obviously something else has to be at work.
The wife was not good enough to begin with.
A man should after 15 years of marriage be honestly able to look over at the wife and realize "boy, she's hot". The reverse should be true.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
pornography pervades the Internet and drives the adoption of new technologies
(I thought pc games did). Even so, it doesn't justify it's existance. Pornography is addictive, it distorts the viewers perception of reality, destroys families and eats away at the very core of our society because it dehumanizes people.
SEO Copywriter. Just Say ON
Only it's about $4.00 more expensive at the supplied BN.com link than at Amazon.com.
So it does matter.
Keep the right-wing ideals out of site and off of Slashdot.
"Slashdot: news for nerdy liberals. Stuff that matters to those who aren't conservative."
just isn't that catchy... why don't we keep it the way it is?
using anti-bacterial hand soap is like drying your feet in the middle of a shower.
Keep the right-wing ideals out of site and off of Slashdot.
Ah, but you're left-wing ideals are perfectly ok? I guess some peoples opinions are ok and other's aren't?
Lex orandi, lex credendi.
Steve: Oh, because it's got naked women in it! Look, I like naked women! I'm a bloke! I'm supposed to like them! We're born like that. We like naked women as soon as we're pulled out of one. Halfway down the birth canal we're already enjoying the view. Look, it's the four pillars of the male heterosexual psyche. We like: naked women, stockings, lesbians, and Sean Connery best as James Bond. Because that is what being a bloke is. And if you don't like it, darling, join a film collective. I want to spend the rest of my life with the woman at the end of the table here. But that does not stop me wanting to see several thousand more naked bottoms before I die. Because that's what being a bloke is. When Man invented fire, he didn't say "Hey, let's cook!" He said: "Great! Now we can see naked bottoms in the dark!" As soon as Caxton invented the printing press we were using it to make pictures of - hey! - naked bottoms. We've turned the Internet into an enormous international database of... naked bottoms. So, you see, the story of male achievement through the ages, feeble though it may have been, has been the story of our struggle to get a better look at your bottoms. Frankly, girls, I'm not so sure how insulted you really ought to be.
"What the masochist doesn't know can't hurt him."
A perspective to consider is that all strong drives in people are strong because the object of that drive is supposed to be rare.
When technology makes the rare thing easy to access, whether that be refined sugar, salt or porn, there is serious social implications (related to addiction).
Two hundred years ago and all time prior, most men might only see one or two naked women in their life and probably not get to study them! Fifty years ago, a person willing to brave a seedy part of town could collect a number of photos of nudity but few that were explicit. Now, a person can continually surf and find new daily content that is more explicit than ever before.
Sex addiction is as big a problem as obesity in our society.
It is not sex or fast food that causes the problem, but the unprecedented access technology gives us that we must adapt to.
The societal "evil" is in that our strong ingrained drive for something that is no longer rare.
If any of you doubt the harm of sex addiction, you do not know (or have not struggled yourself) with that powerful "demon".
Science isn't just one bias screaming in the wilderness. THAT is no more compelling than a single anecdote.
Now your counterexample nicely glosses over the fact that genetics may play much more of a role in life expectancy than many care to admit. This is a good example of how bias alters the effectiveness of the scientific method.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Obviously you:
A. Don't read your own quotes since "For many people..." doesn't mean you.
B. Are angered by the fact that a study might actually go against your personal views.
C. Are less than a humble individual with an open mind (IMHO).
Before pissing all over it try going out and doing a study of your own. If you find something to refute the above then fine - otherwise your comments are that of an ignorant fool.
I really have no trouble seeing how an over-exposure to pornography can have effects on someone's personality over the long term. It might affect people in different ways, but there are generally effects.
That being said, I don't think that one should be so damning of pornography as this book apparently is. There are plenty of other things that will alter someone's personality in like ways. Alcohol for example. Exposure to/participation in highly competitive sports. "Extreme" games. (Who the hell came up with bungee jumping, anyway? And more importantly WHY?!) The problem is not that pornography is a "gateway drug" or "enabling behavior" but rather that there's a lot of OTHER things that are also "gateway behaviors" that are nowhere close to causing so much of a brouhaha. (Why is the arrogant, hypercompetitive date-raping jock looked upon with approval while the guy with a T1 delivering porn non-stop is reviled to the point of stereotyping? (I mean, besides hygeine.))
I tend to agree with some of the other posters here: some European countries have a much more liberal attitude towards human sexuality. The Puritan attitudes towards sex and women in the US tend to make pornography "filthy" and "degenerate," which is just more emotional baggage that's laid onto people who simply enjoy sex. We've made sex into some sort of taboo subject. ObGameRef: Look at the ruckus raised over GTA:San Andreas. The shooting and violence is relatively fine, but add some Hot Coffee and suddenly it's so very very not "all right." So we give off a wierd sense of schizophrenia in which our culture decries the prevailance of sex and porn, and at the same time appears obsessed with sex.
Porn is not the problem. It changes personalities no more than, and causes far fewer problems, than alcoholism and hypercompetitiveness. The problem is that we as a culture have skewed imperatives, and stupid ideas of what's wrong with ourselves as a whole.
"I am an Adept of Tantric VAX."
The best documentary on the business of pornograrphy (from "mom and pop" operations to Fortune 500 companies) is American Porn, produced by Frontline for PBS. It's hard to imagine that the need to feed thousands of websites and their user/subscribers with high quality/high bandwidth pictures isn't significantly driving both internet bandwidth demand and digital photography. BTW, you can watch a streaming video (MS Media Player or Real Player) of that entire documentary for free at Frontline: American Porn
Our generation views porn all the time, and this is detrimental to our mental health... but our fathers and grandfathers fought in wars where they may have blown people's brains out at close range, and witnessed a hell of a lot of death and destruction. If they managed to come back and live as good men, I fail to see how porn can destroy us. Not to mention that not every guy is into the kinky stuff.
Hmm. If boys get their ideas about sex from porn, and porn is awful... well, there are two options here; one, make it so boys don't get their ideas for porn, or make better porn. I suppose it'd be a little difficult to say "I want to make porn that won't give a fourteen year old unrealistic expectations of women!", though.
'Course, women get their strange, sick, twisted ideas---about men on brightly shining horses carrying them off to castles where they'll play dress-up and "... and they were one" every dang night---from romance novels and the like. Girls get some pretty funky ideas about sex and relationships too, y'know.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Given that porn tends to be, y'know, copyrighted, and Bram has worked quite hard to position BitTorrent as a legitimate means of large-file dissemination, I find it hard to believe that one of his initial tests was a flagrant copyright violation.
Do you have, y'know, any sort of source for this?
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
porno linux distro so that it takes over the desktop. =)
Just how is Bukkake damaging to relationships? I don't see how any willing and non-harmfull act is going to damage a perfectly healthy relationship. If it's there, that means there are people who enjoy that sort of thing and why should they be denied their fantasy, if it's a perfectly consentual, non-harmful, act?
As for Rape, it's fiction. There is no actual rape happening. If you think that rape fantasy is harmful to people's psyches, then you need ot also ban many many books and "normal" movies as well.
I believe sex is highly over rated... unless it involves me
This is re: the comments about child pornography.
I'm a bit skeptical to accept that child pornography was basically "dead" before the internet. Sure, the internet serves as an enabling tool, but stuff like this always exists in the woodworks. It's just that law enforcement never knew about it. I would presume that those who enjoy child pornography found other means of satiating that evil desire through some other way. It's not like these were "normal" people who suddenly came across some kiddie porn site and suddenly found themselves interesting in it. (Ugh.. at least I hope not.)
Secondly, I'd chalk this up to the open society and superempowered humans of today (terms borrowed by Thomas Friedman, NY Times Columnist and author). We live in an age where tools can be used for great good (indexing/searching knowledge, flattening the world, collaboration, etc) and it can be used for great evil (kiddie porn, learning how to make bombs, communication network for terrorists). Unfortunately, this is always the case for open societies.
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
Sounds familiar doesn't it? Kids going on a rampage due to playing violent video games...Hillary's on top of this one.
Ultimately, we are the product of what we take in. I think obsessing over porn can mess you up but so can obsessing over other things. My wife and I decided a while ago that our kids aren't going to watch TV, play video games or eat a lot of candy. While these are all fun things to do, we feel it would be better for the kids to grow up using their own imagination to form their brains rather than someone else's. When they get older, it's up to them.
I've surfed my share of porn and still do but I have the benefit of years of life behind me to give me some perspective. It's like using drugs. Some people can do it casually, others become addicts. Those with a good foundation in life probably handle it a lot better than those who have a lot of issues to begin with.
One reason porn becomes a problem for some is that like drugs, it gives an immediate reward for usage. What nature instilled in us in order to get people to have sex is being used by the porn business to make money. Everyone likes candy but it can rot your teeth...
I've actually heard research into this straight from the source - a Professor of psychology who was conducting a series of studies on the matter. I can assure you that he is not a man of "conservative sexual knowledge" but he reached the same conclusions as the reviewer indicates the book reaches ("dampens empathy, changes expectations"). His conclusion is that pornography is extremely harmful, especially to men. I would caution you to not let your "hobby" get in the way of reading this review objectively.
for example, that a number of double-blind studies of the effects of pornography You're not kidding!
but the harm is not really because of the porn, or what every else, but because people do things they can't handle. People just need to get a better grasp of themselves and know what they can and can't handle.
I believe sex is highly over rated... unless it involves me
Of course it's foolish to say never. If someone died because they were crushed by their pile of porn, they would be "harmed by porn."
However, it's also foolish to say only, as in "the only question is..."
Now the thing here is the chain of reasoning. And the critical thing in this chain is that porn only hurts those who believe they are hurt by it. For the people who don't believe it, it doesn't harm them.
Now, wouldn't the harmful agent here, then, be their belief?
Shouldn't we be talking about dangerous beliefs that cause people harm?
Is it not legitimate to say that anti-pornographic beliefs are harmful?
I can demonstrate, with studies and evidence, that anti-pornographic beliefs are harmful to relationships.
I suspect we're politically similar - old-school Republican, none of this pro-value, neo-con rubbish.
But why the vitriol? I suspect Ms. Paul tends more towards feminism than 'new age' conservatism, and her work probably stems from the (in my opinion) interesting concern that we're objectifying not just women, but sex in general. (not saying 'outlaw pr0n' or 'it's absolutely a problem', but just that it's worth studying) If the data says it's causing problems - child porn going from a non-existent problem to an FBI priority is pretty telling - how do we argue with this? I don't think mainstream adult entertainment is causing problems, but the Internet has certainly provided a mechanism for the wackos to correspond.
Note that I'm certainly not calling for the return of puritanical values and guilt-with-every-pleasure feelings that so many fundamentalists lust for, but I also do not subscribe to the 'it feels good, it must be okay' camp. Why not research?
Absolutely true that this is all corollary data, not definitively causal - I'm not defending or damning her study, just wondering why you're so vehement.
"Keep the right-wing ideals out of site and off of Slashdot."
Right, because opposing viewpoints, diversity and discussion are the mainstay of the left-wing. You're just as much an idea fascist as the right-wingers you despise.
What those who want activist courts fear is rule by the people.
Start here.
This is a very good point. But some things (like, say, peanuts) will affect some people in a very bad way. And, according to some research, so does porn. But if the government is going to come down and get rid of porn because of "possible negative effects", why not anything that can possibly hurt people? (Like peanuts. I mean, seriously, my mother-in-law would literally explode if you fed her peanuts, apparently. It's weird.)
The point I'm trying to make it, it doesn't fucking matter whether it's "morality", "decency", or "negative psychological effects", censorship is censorship.
My favorite part of the review is, of course...
Followed shortly by
Does stern actually know what disingenuous means, and if so, does he/she/it realize the irony?
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
"What the fuck is this garbage? I've been with the same woman for nearly five years and just married her this weekend. If anything, porn has STRENGTHENED our relationship through mutual viewing."
So while you're having sex with your spouse, you are looking at porn? Maybe I missed something, but how is that mutual in any way?
It's essentially the same thing as ripping off the picture of a model, putting it on a bag, and slapping the bag on top of someone's head.
Why would we want to keep it off Slashdot? You're probably one of those who uses Bittorrent to download your porn so you don't have to pay for it.
When was the last time you and your new wife had a threesome with some other guy and you and he both shoved your cocks in her ass at the same time thinking "yeah, this is normal?"
Or are you really trying to tell us you don't watch "that" sort of porn?
Could it be that porn doesn't necessarily make us into pedophiles, but does a very effective job of vetting them out from in our midst?
Could it be that (for a man at least) porn holds up a mirror for us to view, and shows us what we really like? We don't all like the same thing, but for some of us, what we see in the mirror frightens us.
How much more comfortable it would be to be able to blame the smut for what we are? "The porn made me this way". Instead of admitting "Porn showed me what I really am. And I am ashamed."
But the above thesis assumes that viewing porn has no real affect on a person, particularly no effect on the brain's pathways. Could it be possible that one 'flavor' of porn reinforces the brain's desire for more of the same?
What would happen if there is no well-defined preference yet? Could an image form the basis for all future preferences?
I am very curious to learn more about what science has discovered regarding stimulating images/words/sensory input, and their affects on a developing mind. Could it be that those of us with well-developed 'normal sexual tastes' viewing porn will only have that 'normalacy' reinforced? And therefore, react passionately against any conservative outcry against pornography?
But what if erotic images mixed with violent undertones can actually form the foundation for what turns a person on as an adult? If this is possible, would we not want to understand and control it?
Erotica may frighten a lot of people because there is so much about it we have yet to understand. Like electricity, it can be used for good or evil. Until we have a more complete grasp of it all, is there not reasonable cause for caution?
Just asking...
"Creativity is allowing ones self to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep" - Scott Adams
(we'll ignore such laws that define sodomy in order to make homosexuality "deviant" as that's an entirely different discussion.)
Huh? Consensual buttsex is entirely constitutional and has been for more than two years. Where've you been? (I'm assuming that you're in the United States, though.)
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
You disagree with the argument the article advances, therefore it is a 'troll'?
You might as well use the word 'heretic' for all the rationality in this view.
I'm very interested in this. Maybe I'll pick it up. I have a love/hate relationship wih pr0n. On one hand, I've always loved it. I love the hot women, the raw sexuality, the sexiness, and also the money it brings in. It's by far my biggest affiliate program money-maker, compared to Amazon, Commission Junction, etc. (See http://excaliburfilms.com/partner/mainaffiliate.cf m?ID=1765http://excaliburfilms.com/partner/mainaff iliate.cfm?ID=1765
However, I can see how it can become addicting. It's def affected my marriage in that my wife freaks if I look at it and it's made her very insecure. I've also been fired because of it once. But I still find time to look at as much as I can. I can see how it affects people's perception, as you really do need continued and somewhat heightened stimulation and "normal" sex seems boring. I recall an episode of CSI Miami where some dude killed a pr0n star and they called his fascination with pr0n something...damn, I can't recall that term now.
BUT... I'll take notice about the child and violence stuff. I can clearly understand how it's become more accessible, as being online allows you to pursue your darkest fantansies anonymously. I've seen some of the more "violent" stuff (anyone who's seen BangBus.com kinda knows what I mean, but I question the legitimacy of that). I don't take pleasure in seeing a woman gagged with a cock or slapped across the face. I just don't see how guys can find that shit attractive in any way. Violence and rape are so far and away from any fantasies I have that it sickens me.
Anyway, I'm posting this anon as I would prefer my screename not be associated with such a personal post.
No one ever claimed to say that porn is always bad. Your positive experience is certainly allowed for in any reasonable view on the scope of the effects of pornography. If you can demonstrate that your experience is the norm, then you have a legitimate objection. Or, if anyone claimed that your experience never happened, then yes, shout and let it known.
But really now, no one claimed to "tell the tale of ALL".
You have no reason to call the book a pile of shit, nor do you have any reason to call it biased or conservative.
Seriously man. Calm down.
"Cornflakes are not the innocent critters they seem"- Sterling Morrison
What about literary [verbal] pornography largely consumed by women? Of course, I am speaking of the "Romance Novel" genre which sells surprisingly well (1/3rd? total books sales). What pernicious effects does it have on it's consumers: addictive behaviour, dehumanizing, altered expectations, ... ?
When I was moving into my first house, I went through some local dumpsters looking for the cardboard only type, I went behind some superstore and peeked over the edge of a dumpster and it was empty except for one box full of porno mags. Funny how I look in a dumpster and in the back of my mind I am expecting to find some porno mags. My curiousity got the best of my and I picked it up out of the dumpster. After looking through all the smutty mags I determined there was nothing I liked, all wierd fetish stuff like fat women. Underneath the porno mags was a bunch of mail, already opened, I looked through it and it was pretty much an entire persons life in a nutshell, forclosure notices, lawsuit notices, divorce proceedings, gigantic phone bill (900# calls) apparently billed to some company account. He probably got fired for it and ended up losing his house. It was as if I was reading this guys life story, and he came to the conclusion that he had to dump the porn and get his life on track. Maybe he was dumping all the shameful evidence before he killed himself, who knows. I decided right then and there that I would never seek out pornography again, and that was an awful, damned awful habit to kick, but now its a thing of the past, it exists in the same region as smoking, something in my brain that I find disgusting, the taste of cigarettes, the smell of a porno mag.
So if you honestly think there is nothing wrong with pornography, then just wait. Eventually it will become such a problem in society that you see ads on TV like you see anti-smoking ads. "Don't look at smut" says McGriff. So you call a society fucked up that tries its best to prevent kids from getting hooked on cigarettes. It's the same thing, in fact the sexual sensation deals with the same pathways in the brain. Kids will get hooked on pornography and that will be the end of them.
You know, the author's results look like they've been cribbed straight from the Meese Report. You can read some information about the Meese Commission, about how the results of research were simply thrown out when they didn't fit the commission's prejudices.
There was real science done on this; see the Presidential Commission of 1968 or thereabouts, which was swept under the rug.
If the local porn zealots seem more vigorous than usual, it's only because we recognize the same discredited bullshit we've seen before. Last year it was "erototoxins"---do you remember?
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
You are saying that people *can't* enjoy being doused with semen?
Holy FUCK! This is one of the funniest things I have ever read. Serisouly, I'm in physical pain right now.
So, does this include people who aren't being paid to enjoy being doused with semen then?
Because the rest of the time, all he is doing is cashing his checks.
Damn I wish I owned some oil wells right now.
I'm not defending or damning her study, just wondering why you're so vehement.
Someone needs to be. Everyone else just either sighs and says "oh well, another political retard spreading his propaganda" or they jump up and down with excitement over "a return to 'true' American values."
Fuck all that. People need to sit down, open their fucking eyes, and stop being a bunch of cry-baby whiners that expect everything to be spoon fed to them from the "leaders" of our country.
It's morons like the author and the "reviewer" that continue to pander this nonsensical bullshit to the easily misled American public with cute propaganda messages and undertones of evildoer behavior.
(From The Economist print edition August 18th 2005)
If you come from a sexually repressed upbringing or have hang ups, then perusal of porn and opening one's mind regarding sex is likely beneficial.
However, if you don't have hang ups and have pretty much seen it all on the 'net, then moderation should be considered.
This is not just about religion, we're talking about addiction: sex addiction affects way more people than some people posting here seem to realize. Just the "simple" addiction of staying up all night, every night, to view porn is destructive -- those of you with gaming addictions know what I'm talking about.
The technology topic is that porn is much more available than ever before, and that is a recipe for addiction. Our society needs to figure out how to deal with this, regardless of whether there is a morality issue.
> Like electricity, it can be used for good or evil.
:)
Electricity can be used for a lot of things (eg, powering vehicles), which can be used for a lot of purposes (eg, delivering so-called springwater to earn a profit).
How you get to good or evil, I'm not so sure
I keep getting interrupted with requests for credit card numbers to actually VIEW the pr0n. Hardly seamless or infinite, but maybe I'm looking at the wrong sites. A little help, please.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
True story, believe me or don't.
So in response to you parent, I warn you that you may feel it's all fine and dandy to mutually watch porno with your wife, but who's idea was it to start with? Yours I'd bet. How can you be sure it doesn't hurt her feelings to see you gawk at other women on the screen? Perhaps she's just bottling her true feelings. What if your wife is actually having the opposite reaction and she feels you are not good enough for her, and she wants to live out her own pool-boy scene? Oh sure you'd probably go for that, but where is the love in your marriage if you start fantasizing about other people? Just a warning to you. Me, I kicked the porno habit shortly after I got married because it was hurting the wife's feelings.
This book is about manufacturing a scientific-sounding justification for making the possession of certain bit patterns illegal (and, in particular, a much larger subset of the possible bit patterns than is already illegal to possess).
The negative consequences of such laws are far greater and more pernicious than any of the (mainly imaginary) negative consequences of not having such laws.
That's what this is about, and my guess is that it's why the parent post is so vehement in tone.
Before you too readily sneer at my assertion that I'm an addict, consider this:
- I used to surf porn at work ~ when I knew there was a zero tolerance policy and I would well lose my job. I _wanted_ to stop. It wasn't _doing_ anything for me. But I _couldn't_. (and don't give me any shit about "if you wanted to you could." Know any alcoholics? Ask them just how easy it is to "just say no"...)
- I'm in fucking IT (heh), so I know there is no such thing as "anonymous" access.
- Yes, I've pulled the NIC from my system after one binge out of fear that I'd be traced.
- Porn does kill intimacy. It objectifies the opposite sex. It conveniently numbs pretty much everything emotion-related. (as a survival mechanism for dealing with life not being happy, it works well)
- Porn is NOT a problem for everyone ~ just as alcohol and illegal narcotics had zero appeal to me not everyone will get "hooked" on porn.
- That said, it is a very, very powerful draw. Seemingly anonymous and free, (ha! tell that to the men and women in my SAA group that have spent hours and hours and hours and lost marriages/families/self respect!) it seems like a perfect "clean", and harmless addiction.
- like any good drug addiction, it does need to have the ante upped. I started with soft core stuff, but with the availability via the internet I was able to progress...rapidly.
Sound like insane behavior? Risking your job, your family (yes, I'm married and have 3 kids) for looking at some (not-even-real) titty? Sounds insane to me. Even when I was doing it and couldn't stop, it sounded insane.Does this make "the internet" bad? Of course not. I'm just saying that's how I got to it.
Does this remove responsibility for action? Absolutly not. I decided to do what I did. There were reasons for it, but ultimately I am responsible for my actions.
Those who haven't experienced the insanity of an addiction cannot empathize, and really cannot understand. And I accept that. But for those of you out there who are struggling with this you're not alone. It is real. And no, you can't stop on your own. You've tried ~ remember? You've promised yourself never again (after being picked up/jailed/publically humiliated).
All that to say, porn isn't really the core issue. As with drugs/alcohol/workaholism/etc, it was my way of dealing with life/stress/pain.
Patrick Cairns: Out of the Shadows is an excellent book dealing with both sex addiction as well as underlying issues.
Need to get help? Sex Addicts Anonymous and Sexaholics Anonymous are both based on the 12 steps of AA and work well. It's hard work, but recovery is possible.
I'm (trying) to blog bits and pieces of mine at http://cluelessrealist.blogspot.com/
My .02.
Peace.
-adb
The review/book posits that the studies mentioned haven't been followed up on because their results were so disturbing. Isn't it far more likely that those results were disturbing due to their lack of connection with reality than due to their profound effect on anybody's psyche? By the by, if you're tempted to answer no to that question, you might want to do some research on the types of studies which are carried on in universities and government labs every day and get back to it.
Unless this review is a very poor representation of the book and the reviewer has disguised a large amount of his own prejudices as the book's, it seems clear that it set out with a conclusion and then found "data" to fit it. Given that, does it really surprise you that someone would have a strong reaction to it? Or is strong reaction only the purview of those without facts on their side?
Is that how it's being portrayed in Europe? No wonder you guys are so hostile towards Bush (I have my own reasons, but not because of misinformation).
;)
Actually, it's how it's being portrayed in the US. Sure, it's still misinformation - but you can't blame everything on the French
You're seriously joking right? This "review" was a biased advertisement stroking the right-wing conservatives egos blahblahblah
So, if a study's conclusions speak against your beliefs or way of life, suddenly it's a biased advertisement stroking the right-wing-conservatives?
(ad-hominem, anyone?)
I mean, *WHAT IF* what the book says is true? Oh of course not, that would condemn us all netporn-addicted slashdotters, so it must NOT be true! In fact, it's heresy! Lets bring our torches and burn that book!
You know, I used to think books were judged by the veracity of the facts they presented, not by whether their words made some people feel (Heaven forbid! *gasp*) judged.
Porn doesn't affect me, violent movies don't affect me... only people who already have a problem with those things are affected. I know the difference between fantasy and reality. ...
Hmmmmmm... kinda thirsty, I'd better go buy a Coke (TM)! Whoops, I'd better change... put on my Levis (TM) and Nikes (TM) before I go. Where was I?
Oh right! TV, movies and games don't affect me at all. I'm too smart for that kind of stuff to change how I think.
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
Sorry, but there are many evils out there far worse than porn. In fact, I agree with the grandparent and extend it further. Part of the reason why porn can be a problem is because, in the society in which we currently reside, sex is not acknowledged and appreciated as a wonderful, beautiful part of our human-ness. You don't learn about sex as something powerful and something that should be explored when appropriate...the energy most people have around sex is white-hot and terrified. Kids learn this and that creates (surprise!) perverts.
:)
I agree that most porn is not presented in a loving way, either, though. That's why I don't watch most porn.
BenCurry.net
I guess you're a rare case. Marijuana led to opium and painkillers for me. I'd put a chunk of opium on top of the Marijuana, that is a heaven that lives on in my mind, and I'll suppress the urges until I die (or perhaps when I'm near death ;).
I'd like to see some numbers on how Europeans are affected by pornography first. Addiction to it, child pornography, it all exists here as well. Seems to be doing fine? Only from a distance.
That's really funny. I swear I've read the review about five times, and I don't see "mature" anywhere. I see anecdotes about an "adult" (probably over 18), somebody in the military (definetely over 18), and a "former CEO" (I'd really, really hope he's over 18.) But nothing about "those not mature enough". So, is the review wrong, or are you?
Oh, yeah...
Did you run in the Olympics the first time you ran 100 meters? Did your dad teach you to drive in a NASCAR race? No, that would be silly. People start things at the bottom (well, most people. Some people like doing it the hard way). People do easy things in a category because they try the hard things. The only reason marijuana is a "gateway" drug is because it's the easiest illict drug to obtain. And the other reason that "conventional porn" is a "gateway" to "deviant porn" is because... gasp... it's easier to get. The very concept of a "gateway" anything is a tautology. So, yeah, I'm not willing to discuss conventional pornography's "gateway" status - or even "deviant" pornography's - as a precursor to nonconsensual sexual acts, because at its heart, it is a stupid statement.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
I for one never went into a Porn store, never bought a dirty Mag or video, but I looked at online Porn.. among others things online. It almost destroyed my marriage. I'm not blaming Internet porn, but it sure as heck was a major contributing factor. The scary thing to me is that I was not 'addicted' to it, I can only imagine what it is like for someone who gets addicted.
I am convinced there is a HUGE number of folks who would have NEVER been exposed to Porn but for the Internet, and now many of them are addicts. Remember looking at Porn online in the safety and PRIVACY of your home/office is very different than going to a Porn shop.
Yes straight porn does lead to more perverse forms and you're a fool if you think the Internet has had no affect on the number of pedophiles. The other grave problem I have with Internet porn is the affect on children. I don't know if you children, I have three, and I sure as heck don't want my kids seeing the 'normal' stuff, let alone the perverted garbage. I shudder to think how many 10yo or younger kids today regularly look at Internet Porn...
Porn is poison. Period.
Just married her this weekend, huh? Why aren't you on a honeymoon instead of surfing slashdot?
:)
I think he just proved the reviewer's point...
LOL, loved it.
Pamela Paul's Pornified
Sounds sexy.
:wq
I'm sorry, but I thought this was already well established.
r n (the flash sucks, but at least you can listen)
http://launch.yahoo.com/track/2098134
http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/internet4po
The problem with this argument is that it follows the racial-profiling logic. I have caught more poeple who look like x then x's are more likely. It is arguing from noisy evidence. As has been shown with suicide rates a rise in reporting or a change in who is making the arrests (the FBI versus local or state law enforcement) does not mean that crime itself has gone up. It could be the case that the FBI chose to ignore child porn issues before or that local law enforcement shifted from covering up cases or classifying them one way (child abduction) to another (child porn).
As the recent scandals in the Catholic Church demonstrated many cases of abuse have gone unreported or underreported for years not because they weren't happening but because those in power, or those victimized chose not to pursue them.
But the comparison of Custer's revenge to the "seamless infinity of smut..." is a fallacious example. Your very choice of these two to compare shows a bias. You have offered a not-so-bad concrete example and an abstract exaggeration. A better (less biased) comparison would be between a specific piece of pornography (say a Jenna Jameson Video), and the naked dancers of ancient rome, or the Harem of Solomon. If you prefer literary comparisons we could compare some online erotic stories to the Song of Solomon from the Bible ("My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door, and my bowels
were moved for him."). Comparisons of this time are useful and valid, comparisons of the type you presented are, by their nature, extreme and biased because of it.
Yes we do have limits where we bump up against the rights of others and, as Thomas Jefferson put it in his "Notes on the State of Virginia"
There's always the rest of the world. And if you must, step outside yourself for a second ... there's always room for hope .
It was written by Pamela and Paul! They're obviously a happily married couple with a quiet disdain for pr0n. :)
This "review" was a biased advertisement stroking the right-wing conservatives egos that their missionary-position bi-monthly sex acts are acceptable and even encouraged while their co-workers' healthy and exciting sex life is deviant and unacceptable.
I just re-read the review, and I have to say that I can't see where you're getting that. At all. It doesn't say anything at all about what kind of sex is or should be acceptable. It doesn't even say that people who view pornography are bad... only that pornography can have bad effects on people.
So, what you appear to have done is to assume that because the authors of the book and the review see problems with porn, that they also consider any sort of "non-traditional" (whatever that is) sex as bad, and further that they see you as a bad person because you don't view sex the same way that you presume they do.
Don't presume statements not in evidence, or you're as bad as any TV preacher convinced that the homosexual community is forcing our kids to become gay.
Also, I have to say that, as a conservative myself, your characterization of conservative sex is way off base. It's not that we right-wingers don't have interesting sex, and plenty of it, it's just that we don't feel the need to talk about it. Polls show that married, monogamous couples, on average, rate their sex lives as far more satisfying than do those with other lifestyles. I suppose that could be just lower expectations, but, hey, if you're happy, you're happy, right?
I don't begrudge you whatever sort of sex life you'd like to have, and if you really think porn helps your marriage, I think you should buy lots and use it regularly. But please keep in mind that just because you think it works for you doesn't mean it's a good thing for everyone. I'm opposed to censoring it, but I'm all for making sure that people can make informed choices. Research on actual, quantifiable effects is good. Having the ability to choose *not* to see porn is just as good as having the ability choose to see it. Being able to manage what your children seen is also good. I think we as a society can manage all of the above, without anyone feeling like they're having someone else's viewpoint forced on them.
There's no need for knee-jerk reflexes.
So why not just ban the violent porn?
That position is rather conservative, and will get many firebred liberals upset who gotta have their violent fetishes.
However I don't know about this guy whos stuff I found in the trash. He didn't have anything truly sick or twisted, just fat girl/big boob porn. Perhaps it reminded him of someone he once loved? It ended up ruining his life. All men are born with this potential mental disorder. Strange I think.
No GNU has been Hurd during the making of this comment.
of Pornographers on Society
If you've ever felt hurt or injured by Porn, we
want you for our study. CEOs and other ordinary
folk are especially desired.
call 1-800-ChurchLady
BAMM.com has it for $17.50, which is $1 more than Amazon. If you're on their $10/year affinity program (makes sense if you buy more than about $100 of books a year from them), it's $15.75, cheaper than Amazon.
So ha.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
So, let me get this straight, and see if I understand you correctly. You think because your wife was offended by your hobby, that garcia's wife is probably offended too, but doesn't want to say anything? And you're giving him a friendly warning that his watching porn could lead to his wife being unfaithful? All I can say is, he must either have not read your post yet, or be a much calmer person than me. Cause if somebody implied that about my wife, I'd feel a pretty strong urge to hunt you down and beat you severely.
As far as your little story goes, that proves nothing. Whose to say he got fired because of porn, or a divorce because of it? Maybe he turned to porn after his wife left him for being a pompous ass. Or perhaps he got fired because he drank too much, and turned to porn out of boredom. There's no way to tell...
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
I haven't read the book any more than you have, but responding to statistical data with your anecdotal "evidence" is just lame.
Wow. You're reacting pretty freaking strongly to the suggestion that *some people* are negatively impacted by online porn. The reviewer even states that the point of the book is to reframe the porn debate to include a discussion of personal consequences, not lambast porn as universally bad.
I can tell you from anecdotal evidence from my father's family therapy practice in the middle of suburbia that the issues raised in the book (as described in this review) aren't some statistical anomaly due to the small survey sample size. These issues are real and apply to alot of people.
You seem pretty attached to your porn... ever given any thought to why that might be? Why you might react so violently (at least verbally) to the suggestion that it might not be good for you?
-R
If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
Man, all the quotes and cussing really give your argument some class...
I don't know why people mod stuff insightful when it is clearly as close to a troll as the review was.
I would venture to say it probably wasn't the porn that STRENGTHENED your relationship, but the conversations about the subject and time spent together that really did it. Communication STRENGTHENED your relationship IMHO not the porno.
Peace.
Bill Roehl and Kim Christensen enjoy mutual porn viewing? That's great.
Congratulations on the wedding.. The Minnesota Zoo sounds like a good location.
The happy couple
the effects of not watching porn, or engaging in sexually stimulating activities regularly (masturbation or sex). From my personal experience, all those that suppressed their sexual desires in accordance with their religious beliefs were, to put it slightly, extremely hostile.
Does the book have pictures?
Good one! Let me don my Puritan cap for a second as well:
"Yes straight porn does lead to more perverse forms..."
How far do you think we should take this? Straight porn leads to more perverse porn. What is "straight" porn? A picture of a man and a woman having sex? Or can it just a picture of a naked woman? Should we consider all pictures of naked people poison? Maybe, just to be sure, we should ban women from wearing any revealing clothing outdoors.
Internet use obviously causes pedophilia. No argument from me there.
Good point regarding children. It's about time that somebody thought of the children! I also shudder at how many children probably spend long nights on their parent's computer, looking at all sorts of hideous porn. Unfortunately, we, as parents, have absolutely no way of controlling our children's internet usage, therefore we are forced to restrict the rights of other adults. Alas...
Pompous moral puritans are poison. Period.
anarchism won't happen, so what you really mean is... government is the next religion
I thought
If these web sites use XML to serve up their p0rn, then you can write worms that seek out new
Well, hypothetically speaking I mean. Isn't that what
Randy.Flood@RHCE2B.COM
nt
My grandfather for example who never smoked and drank far less than was considered normal in his society at the time, was addicted to sugar. He'd go through cases of soda a month. Later in his life he developed diabetes and still eat too much sugar even after his first stroke. The second one killed him. I've gone by AA meetings and seen guys lined outside chain smoking. Addicts usually kick one habit only to get another, if they're lucky its a less dangerous one. I had a cousin (heroin) who ran. Everytime he felt the need he'd start running. Somtimes he'd run until he collapsed and the cops with bring him back home. No one knew if he was running from the urge or running for the endorphine kick.
For whatever reason I've managed to avoid being one of thos people.
My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle...
Ah, but you're left-wing ideals are perfectly ok? I guess some peoples opinions are ok and other's aren't?
Essentially yes.
We as a species have decided that some viewpoints are bad. This is not news.
This country's founding was the peak of the Liberal movement.
Leftish ideals (ideals, mind you) are for greater liberty for everybody. This is an American ideal
Rightish ideals are for less liberty for everybody except for the richest and most powerful. This ideal is purely anti-American.
There is nothing the least bit hypocritical about this. It is quite clear that one of these is a good ideal and the other is bad.
Just because you probably don't actually understand what the left and the right are does not mean that people who do understand them are bad for not being ignorant, much as your politicians and pundits try to make it seem so.
You're a marijuana-addict though, right?
Dopamine is the end-all addiction. Opium or heroin addiction is much like a porn addiction. Everyone is a potential addict, what determines if one is capable of becoming an addict is mainly willpower, I think. Willpower is something you have to find deep inside yourself, sometimes people use tricks to get it, like you say, running. Run run run, don't stop, tired don't stop, willpower. Right? I can understand how that guy thinks. He's just testing his willpower. Very interesting, thanks for the post.
I recently had the chance to help catalog a Playboy collection from the mid 1980s to mid 1990s for someone who was tragically strucky down by a brain aneurysm at age fifty.
Having a normal complement of boy hormones I did page through a few of them. I'm struck by the difference between then and the stuff online these days. Women then were in their mid twenties to perhaps forty, there was seldom any effort to make them look like today's porno 'teens', and the treatment was respectful.
I got familiar with the wide variety of things available online when porno cop was added to my duties at a medium sized company. There were a hundred male employees, four of whom I tried to get fired - three for being nonstop porno fiends and one for gambling. I don't much care what other people do, mind you, but this company was struggling and a 4% reduction in payroll along with getting nonproducers out of the way would have been just the ticket.
There seems to be a site for every kink (women photographed with balloons or beach balls. no joke, its a fetish, there are sites for it). I still look at TheHun occasionally and I see a steady progress from stills to video and it seems like everyone except Petter Hegre is pandering to child molesters and those with rape fantasies. I don't think I could say "Hey honey, take a look at this" to more than 5% of it and I dodge the fringe stuff - bondage, shemales, faux lesbians, etc, etc.
I went through a period of what I'd call excessive porno use during the late nineties when my marriage was coming apart. The other man's name was Carla and I don't think my porn viewing was the driving factor. (You panting pervs need to visualize a chick who kick starts her vibrator and rolls her own tampons - I had no desire to watch 'em at all.)
I'm utterly thrilled with the way things are now. Ubersexy soccer mom five blocks away who can't keep her hands off me, ex wife stewing in her own juices and coming to understand I wasn't the source of her suffering, and I'm much more likely to be found writing erotica than viewing something demeaning to women if I desire an outlet like that.
Oh, and I took up writing from the female perspective, which I think has really helped me in being close to the world's hottest soccer mom. I've developed some strange side effects from this, like cyclical moodiness and I did pick up a fetish (house cleaning!), but its all good
What the author of the book (at least, according to the reviewer) said -- Some people have problems, they are addicted, they can't stop on their own... and everyone else's right to view this must be restricted to protect them.
I can sympathize & understand the first statement. The second makes me want to scream.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
There are a lot of things in society that we think we shouldn't do but if someone does them we get angry at them for doing it while we don't. Like when you're in traffic and some guy on a bike passes right by you between the lanes or someone decides to drive on the shoulder. I call it the what-makes-him-so-special syndrome.
Open Source Java DAO Generator
Holy FUCK! This is one of the funniest things I have ever read.
:-)))
Then you really have a poor understanding of human nature and women in particular.
I've never been involved in bukkake, but I've known several women who actually do enjoy oral, anal, facials, and the like.
With no money involved, I have had women initiate all 3 of those.
I'm sorry that you don't understand that contrary to what gets shoved down everybody's throats, many women actively enjoy some extremely naughty activities.
I for one am all for it
The interviews in the book back this up; it contains example after example of people who started with modest porn searching online, then graduated to more heinous stuff.
What the fuck is this garbage?
Good question.
How can anyone write a review without answering some basic journalistic questions? Who is the author? (An editor at American Demographics Magazine - a magazine that explores marketing trends.) What is her expertise? (She wrote a book on "Starter Marriages", she is divorced.). Who is the publisher? (Time books - the author is a columnist for Time Magazine).
Anecdotal evidence is about as reliable as drawing conclusions about society from watching Oprah or Maury.
So long Slashdot, it was fun.
If you want to comment here, here's the format:
1) Pick an industry (like printing or animal husbandry).
2) Name one example that may or may not have actually been illicit early in its development (this step is optional).
3) QED: Pornography fueld ALL development in _______.
Slashdot: Making Logic Fun!
Suppose you are a man in a relationship and you run across bukakke videos. Hey, you think, this looks like fun. You want to try it.
"No way" says your woman. "It's disgusting and unhygenic".
Well, now you've got a problem. Your woman obviously doesn't love you or she'd be happy to have you come on her face. And have all your friends come on her face. And she thinks you don't love her or you wouldn't want her to submit to this disgusting, dehumanizing act.
I don't see how any willing and non-harmfull act...
When it is willing for both parties, no problem.
Just wondering....
A particularly appropriate saying about stats (from a wiser man than myself): "Statistics are like a bikini: what they reveal is enticing, but what they conceal is essential."
"Funniest thing you've ever read." "In physical pain."
Well, a nod's as good as a wink to a blind bat, say no more, say no more!
(Umm... what's it like? :-)
If anyone wants more info on the book, check out ... Pamela Paul's website ... designed by me.
"Yes straight porn does lead to more perverse forms..."
Like what? Oral Sex?
OK, she interviewed 100. How many did you interview?
Many people caught the plague and didn't die of it. That doesn't mean it was a good thing.
I'm not agreeing with the book's conclusions (if it has any) because I haven't read it. But I sure as hell am not agreeing with your message!
"But all your emitter and collector are belong to me!"
He might start to think his wife is not good enough, since she's not what he sees in the videos.
Well, throw most advertising in with the porn and you have a complete point. It doesn't end up having much to do with porn in particular though.
Then, because the topic is difficult, instead of asking if she might be into 'that' (whatever it is) he goes out the door in search of it.
If the topic is difficult, then that marriage is doomed due to the failure of communication.
Porn might be how that is realised, but it isn't the problem in any of the situations you created.
Some consider oral sex and other than missionary position sex to be "violent" and/or "against natural law" so should we make those acts illegal?
No No No. You are all missing the real secret plot here. Porn is being distributed by undergraound adherents of the "Earth First" movement, whose goal is to reduce the human population of the earth to zero. As computer geeks get addicted to porn, they quickly lose whatever nascent social skills they might have carried into puberty. Soon they can not form a relationship with any woman who requires more foreplay than a quick "Hey baby, wanna f@ck?" and thus they are made permanently dependent on artificial sexual sitmulation for release. Due to this, their genes never get passed on, and soon, society as a whole has no individuals capable of supporting our vast technology infrastructure (don't believe me, call the helpdesk at any computer company these days). As the computers and networks begin to collapse, disribution and transportation go next. Followed by mass starvation, riots, and epidemics. Soon all that is left is a few hundred wretched humans living in tents and eating organically grown vegetables fertilized with their own feces. An environmentalist eutopia!
"Sic Semper Path of Least Resistance"
He says... "I had to kick the Pornography addiction a few years back,"
See folks it boils down to addiction, not porn per se.
It is common knowledge that some people have addictive personality types. Should we just outlaw anything that people can find addictive? That would fix everything right?
Another whiny bitch who has a lot of pent up rage at the fact that the digital age is freeing men from the tyranny of the vagina. Women are starting to hate the Internet for the same reasons that the RIAA does ... it's disrupting their business model. We don't have to put up with snotty or bossy women just to have our sexual energy released, and we don't have to spend outrageous amounts of money one tangible pr0n. Now it's ubiquitous and free. Some women will adapt to this new world, and the rest will perish. Let the evolution begin.
Only the truly stupid, truly oblivious, and the blindly religious thought this. Everyone else new that at the very least, the Catholic Church was running an international child molestation ring which, yes included pictures. Hell, just look at most childrens beauty pagent. Parents don't dress their daughters like cheap whores because it's good for them. They do it because dressing a 5 year old up like a whore wins prizes!
Like people REALLY wanting to villify Porn? (or video games, comic books, TV, or whatever)
http://www.abc.net.au/science/wings/episode5.htm
The above link is an interesting discussion/review from a perspective of innovation, that suggests that sex appears to have driven some tech. Perhaps not from nothing (big bang reference not fully squelched) into existence, but certainly the direction of the tech. Some tech listed in the discussion included the Polaroid camera, the low light settings on video cameras, phone sex, interactive sex CDs/games, and teledildonics. Yes you read that correctly. Think Internet connected body suits for long distance sex sessions.
The Holodeck is far off in the ST:NG universe. But did we really think Picard only played Film Nior Mystery games in there? Would the average user?
Most of the games I play with my computer today are not that prurient. Perhaps after a quick fling in the Holodeck, like most people I bet, the reigning obsession would be the hero in Battlefield 2 or a great mage in the World of Warcraft or Diablo universe.
Sure perhaps after winning the big battle or after a hard day of magic, I might want to have a bevy of buxom beauties (or a hill of handsome hunks) surrounding me, but only until the next real challenge in the Holodeck.
Any of this sound reasonable?
When a Ball Dreams, It Dreams it's a Frisbee.
WARNING may contain traces of porn.
You're a woman. Stop trying to pretend you're a man. You're not fooling anyone.
The book does seem to make a case for porn having an escalating effect - on porn consumption. It seems to make the case that "expectations" are affected by porn. I don't know if that's entirely bad, depending on whether those expectations are "linear" (do people expect sex to be like porn?) or just more expectations? I know plenty of people with all kinds of sex lives, mostly formed before Internet porn, and I haven't seen any good formula for learning realistic expectations of sex.
:).
The other serious implication (but not explicit statement) is that more porn means more child porn, which means more damaged children. But is that a correlation to Internet porn? Because I understand that most of this porn comes from devastated East Asian and East European countries, whose supply of exploitable children boomed simultaneously with the Internet, but not caused by it (rather something of the other way around).
Also an important psychological question is the effects of repressed sexual urges, without even a porn consumption "outlet" for expression. So how many people have committed fewer unacceptable acts because they're satisfied by porn? And then how many more unacceptable acts because porn has made them more likely to act? Neither side of that equation seems clear. It does seem clear that more porn consumption has led to more porn consumption. But other than debatable "morality", does that matter?
The review doesn't answer the basid question that makes this a popular issue. But maybe the book does. Maybe I'll read it, but just for the articles
--
make install -not war
Sure 100 people's lives were destroyed, but COME ON, I could find hundreds of thousands whose lives have been destroyed by lack of medical care or tens of thousands whose lives have been destroyed by credit cards.
First of all, those 100 people's lives weren't "destroyed". They suffered negative consequences, but not world-shattering such.
Second, I very much doubt you can find controlled double-blind studies about people given credit cards and having their lives destroyed, or whatever strange thing you are proposing in your confused mind.
Third, even if your two unrelated and, frankly, quite bizarre points were true, it's irrelevant. That's not how science if done, and it's not what conclusions are reasonable to draw from such an experiment. The conclusion to draw from "100 people had their lives destroyed in a 100 people experiment" isn't "OK, so porn ruins lives, but lots of other stuff might too, so it doesn't matter", but rather something like "porn isn't all that good for you". Sounds reasonable to you?
Sheesh.
Well, I haven't done this personally. I'm not a homophobe, but I'd have to draw the line at sharing an orfice with someone else's genitals. There are consenting adults however who engage in this sorth of thing all the time, purely for their own pleasure.
Check it out.
People are wierd in all kinds of fun and interesting ways. So what exactly is normal? If it's not your thing then just don't do/watch it.
My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle...
If soemone honestly thinks that the acceptence or disapproval of a fettish is a determinant of someone else's love, then they have MUCH more serious issues than porn. That's the whole point i'm trying to make with my several posts here... it's not the porn that's the problem, it's that some people can handle it, some people can't.
Not specifically Bukkake, but i've suggested some things that would be kinky to my gf. Some she liked the idea, others she didn't. Neither way did that hurt our relationship any.
The real problem isn't porn, but insecurity, closed mindedness, or a host of other things. All of them can be set off by many things other than porn, why not try and deal with the real root issue.
I believe sex is highly over rated... unless it involves me
I'd buy it! :-)
What the fuck is this garbage? I've been with the same woman for nearly five years and just married her this weekend. If anything, porn has STRENGTHENED our relationship through mutual viewing.
-1, Presents Anecdote As If It Were Meaningful.
Are they trying to say that porno searching online is a "gateway" to become some sort of "sexual deviant"?
No, they are saying that there's a large number of people who exhibit signs of addiction in relation to porn.
it doesn't mean that "graduating" to a different behavior is heinous.
No, but desensitisation is one of the requirements for something to be classed as an addiction.
I'd like to read this pile of shit and actually give a true account of the book rather than an obviously biased and conservative viewpoint on it.
You hypocrit! You've already decided that it's a "pile of shit" without reading it, and you complain that the review is biased and you can give a "true account"? Your review would be equally biased, but in the opposite direction.
I had a discussion with someone else in this thread about addiction, everyone is vulnerable to addiction, period. It's a matter of will-power. The only difference between me and the next guy is I'll call it an addiction he calls it a hobby, or something. You may be addicted to the internet by my standards. (I definately am) Some people claim they can use heroin in moderation, while by my standards if you've done heroin and you liked it, and you continue to do it you are an addict.
So to clarify what you're saying, I dropped the habit of looking at porn entirely, therefore my will-power is verifiably stronger than the guy who continues to look at it, even if in moderation, until he chooses to drop it completely his cannot be verified.
child porn going from a non-existent problem to an FBI priority is pretty telling
I think what the FBI means is that it's gone from "underground child porn rings swapping polaroids that we don't even know exist" to "yet another idiot has started a #!!!!!hotpreteenz IRC channel thinking he can hide it using +s"
If you can't do anything about it, it's in your best interests to pretend it doesn't exist so you don't look bad for failing to clean it up. If you can, it's in your best interests to make it look like a widespread plague in order to get as many people as possible to surrender their civil liberties and fork over millions to save the children like it was some kind of new problem that the internet created.
You're seriously joking right? This "review" was a biased advertisement stroking the right-wing conservatives egos that their missionary-position bi-monthly sex acts are acceptable and even encouraged while their co-workers' healthy and exciting sex life is deviant and unacceptable.
... As with everything in this world, different people respond to things differently. Sure, you may have a good relationship based on porn, and that's great. But it doesn't follow that just because the two of you enjoy viewing porn together, pornography is therefore a service that only does good and never does harm.
:) ... and I happen to know of people who are seriously addicted to porn, to the extent that they feel they cannot function without it. Personally, I don't think there's any/much harm in porn created by consenting adults ... however, when it leads people into exploitive forms of pornography (child or non-consensual) that's a problem.
... And unfortunately, rightly or wrongly, this is the more likely case when porn extends into relationships.
:) ... Oh, and I enjoy looking at porn too, while I'm single :)
Whoa, there! Steady on, buddy
For many people, internet porn is addictive - I've felt it myself (heh, while I've been feeling myself
Even discounting the issues of exploitation, porn often causes problems in relationships. I know that you personally are lucky in that you've found a partner who's comfortable exploring porn with you, and there's nothing wrong with that. But I've known relationships to be broken up by guys who can't stop wanting porn even when their partner's lying in bed waiting for them
So don't take the book personally, but do recognise that in being able to cope with porn without being addicted and without hurting anyone, you're the exception rather than the rule. This book deals with the majority case, and although I haven't read it and don't know if I'd agree with the conclusions, it sounds a valuable thing just for being a comprehensive study on the effects of porn in society.
This isn't a right-wing Christian view point, btw - for the record, I'm extremely left-wing in my politics, and agnostic in my religion (although FSM beckons
Since when have political parties meant anything about 'ideals' ;p the last president who did anything about making the federal gov't smaller was a democrat, who was totally not sticking to any of his party's political agendas other than in speaches , and a 'jobcorps' to provide votech training and geds for people who can't afford school and want a better carreer track.
politicians are trying to win a populatiry contest and programming to believe one party is left and the other is right is just part of the whole programming crap to make people vote without thinking about the people they're voting for.
Hey you know what if the canidate is the right man for the job i don't give a damn if he's republican democrat or some stupid party that has no elected officials. I need to know if he's capable of handling the job before I'll vote for him. Frankly, you should be ashamed of yourself for ever voting for someone who you knew nothing about.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
but don't be surprised if it's mandatory (or "self-imposed industry standard", or whatever) before too long.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
Emphasis added by me. Kinda seems to be advocating censorship to me.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
I'll be interested to see if this book takes porn for women into account. Sure, slash and yaoi production is nowhere near the industry that regular het porn is, but I'm guessing a lot of that is due to sexual politics and attitudes towards female desire in general. The consumption of slash and/or yaoi is definitely no small or isolated thing, and its growth in popularity is primarily thanks to the internet - both through fanfiction and distribution of translated yaoi manga. These are things produced specifically for women, usually made by women, and which are geared solely for female tastes. I've heard many men complain about how unrealistic and disgusting and wrong they think these works are. Where are the books that study the effect of this on women and their attitudes towards men? Come to that, where are OUR porn ads and popups? I want equal opportunity objectification, dammit! I want to be interviewed about my staggeringly huge doujinshi collection, how my boyfriend feels about my addiction, whether I look at too much porn at work, and the fact that I can't help but see homoerotic subcontext everywhere now because of O.D.ing on fanfic. But somehow, I doubt we'll see that book any time soon.
The question of the regulation of pornography is a very difficult one, I think. There are a number of very objective harms to specific people which result from it. And yet, I think that it is important to protect the integrity of the First Amendment.
.xxx domain name is another good place to start (we can then pass laws requiring such sites to be in the .xxx domain and this might provide easier law enforcement capabilities).
As for objective harms, these fall really into two categories:
1) Child porn (which is illegal, fortunately)
and
2) Human trafficking. (Which is illegal, but the making of porn which sustains it is not).
The rest of the arguments that detractors make I couldn't care less about. It is simply not the job of the government to keep people from harming themselves. The question is how do we prevent coerced harm to others.
Fortunately, child porn is something which is generally possible to prosecute. However, I also think that it is important for the burdon of the prosecution to be shouldered by the government. How can you require that someone keeps a site online during an investigation when it is cost-prohibitive for them to do so? Investigative reforms are needed here.
As for human trafficking, this is a tough one. I suspect that there are e-Mafias which deal in the following areas: Malware (in general), spam, stolen credit cards, possibly gambling, and sex (forced pornography/prostitution). This last one is generally sustained by telling people in the third world countries (including Russia, and the poorer Eastern European countries, South-East Asia, Latin America, Africa, etc) that the women will have good jobs if they go to the developed world. When they arrive, they are often forced into prostitution and/or pornography. In some places, such individuals can eventually "earn" their way out of this sort of slavery by becoming recruiters for others. This sort of forced pornography is as bad as anything else. And it is not a new problem. And there is, IMHO (IANAL), NO possible first ammendment protection to forced pornography. In general I don't believe that we are talking about higher-quality porn sites (though I reserve my judgement here) and so this is not a blanket condemnation of the porn industry in general.
So how exactly do we deal with it? I don't know. I think that we need to devote a *lot* of law enforcement effort to breaking up these organized crime cartels. The easiest handle on them might in fact come from the spam services. This might be a good place to start. Also the
If I were in the porn business (which thankfully I am not), I would want these organized crime cartels broken up because they fundamentally taint the image of the porn industry. Once you become aware of the scale of the problem, it becomes a black mark against the industry.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Just, in general, the review smacks of assuming cause and effect. For example:
"Consider this -- prior to the Internet, law enforcement believed that child porn had been basically wiped out. It was a crime from a previous age, like body snatching. But then came the Web. Between 1996 and 2004, child-porn cases handled by the FBI increased 23 fold."
It seems the reviewer is assuming that greater access to child pornography has triggered a surge, but even he used the word "believed." Simply because prosecutors didn't find any evidence of child porn activity does't mean it didn't exist. All I see here is that easy access to Usenet made it easier to find evidence.
And in general the reviewer mentions certain anecdotes for their shock value while never making the case that easy access caused this behavior (if anything, I can see this behavior causing a desire to look at the porn in question, not the other way around). It seems it would be possible to find a verified normal, healthy person, throw porn at them and see if there's empirical evidence of a change in the person, but the only answer given is another anecdote that some schools think it would be "too dangerous," regardless of whether the porn in question is late-night Skinemax or Rape Fantasies, Inc. Is it more dangerous than, say, pharmecutical testing?
And even if it can be shown that porn, any porn, is psychologicall damaging, I still don't see anything suggesting that a normal, healthy person would actually seek out this damaging material on their own, or at least wouldn't have a natural aversion to it if unwittingly exposed to it.
Yeah, see this post . True, I don't know what she said herself, only what your opinion of what she says. (Although this discussion has made me add this book to the list of those I'll at least browse through next time I'm at B&N.) But if she never said it, you did a pretty good job of making it sound like she at least suggests it.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
And congratulations, you made it to a second reply before resorting to personal insults yourself. It's better than most people do.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
He said "hard data."
- Old Man of the Mountain ---- "I want to disturb my neighbor"
My gut is that the influence of porn has be quite wildly overstated. Sure it's had an effect on some markets, but what percentage of VHS tapes or DVDs have been porn so far? I imagine it's well less than 10% of the market.
:).
I'd say that science fiction fans have been a bigger driver of new media technologies than porn fans. Look at the top-flight DVD genre DVD titles out there. And my nerdy friends certainly spend a LOT more time watching SF shows than porn. And they're not buying HD to watch HD porn (which is likely to be a bad idea...).
I've been a digital media technology consultant for nearly a decade now, working on lots of high profile technologies and projects, since before the DVD era. And even though I've not had a policy against working on adult stuff, I've NEVER had an adult project. I've had a few companies inquire, but they freaked when they heard the rates - much, MUCH more cost-sensitive than the mainstream video companies.
Slashdot has a lot of, er, anecdotal evidence of folks who spend a lot of time on porn (although I haven't heard much about those spending a lot of money on it). But don't we collectively spend a lot more time playing WoW and watching Battlestar Galactica?
Really, you can play a great game for eight hours straight, but spending more than 30 minutes in a row on porn sounds like doing it wrong
My video compression blog
The book is based on people who clearly have an odd relationship with their sexuality and pornography, it wouldn't be interesting or controversial if it was based on the general population and because of that it comes to a predetermined conclusion as the author obviously desired. It's pseudo science rather than science. It's called self selection in the statistics field. The problem comes when the ignorant or more commonly, those with an agenda use such "research" to determine the freedoms of the people.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
What the fuck is this garbage?
The results of a scientific study?
I've been with the same woman for nearly five years and just married her this weekend.
Then I suggest you return to your honeymoon.
If anything, porn has STRENGTHENED our relationship through mutual viewing.
Good for you. What has this anecdotal evidence from a sample pool of 1 got to do with anything?
Are they trying to say that porno searching online is a "gateway" to become some sort of "sexual deviant"? Give me a fucking break.
They are saying that large consumption of pornography tend, in the long run, to require more extreme pornography to get the same kick as did more modest material earlier in time. This is not a new finding. It is known from several other studies, and, quite frankly, known to most individuals as well. You almost even said it yourself -- to whom is a plain old missionary porn flick very exciting anymore? Probably nobody except for a first-time viewer.
Just because people's conservative sexual knowledge and behavior is the prevailing behavior (and IMHO negative) it doesn't mean that "graduating" to a different behavior is heinous.
That depends on what the behavior in question is. I haven't read the book, so I don't know. And neither do you.
Mod -1 Flamebait/Troll
Uh. Yeah. Ok. Right. What were the reasons again?
I'm sorry, but 100 people aren't going to tell the tale of ALL those that enjoy porn either in solitary viewing or in group situations.
And who claimed they were? It's a fucking statistical sample, for Christ's sake. Do you even know what that means? Do you have the faintest idea what studies of this kind even aim to show? Hint: it's not absolutes, and it doesn't necessarily say anything about you and your wife.
I'd like to read this pile of shit and actually give a true account of the book rather than an obviously biased and conservative viewpoint on it.
Good you haven't made up your mind already. If you had, that could have clouded your judgement.
And FYI, I'm about as liberal as it gets. Yet people like you, who just swing their fists around themselves blindly, hitting at every target that bears some resemblance to something they think might be bad, really piss me off.
Why do you think about sex so often?
To maximize the chances of reproduction
Anybody who is feeling they think about sex "too much" to be "normal" is certainly confused
The too much is bad for you idea is just that an idea, a meme a story a narative
So whats EP got to do with it?
The author is a WOMAN
Bingo! A example of sexual selection
"I will mate with the man who thinks about sex the least
a Becuase thats difficult
b Reduce chance of being cheated
c Conforms to my peer's expectation"
You see even an apparent anti-sex, "show some moderation" tome like this has at its heart a sexual selection function
Imagine a world with no sex
imagine a world without us
Do you really need all 4294967296 shades of pink?
Around 1994, an article appeared in Time or Newsweek or somesuch that posited that every major advancement in human communications was driven by and immediately exploited by three things:
Makes sense, doesn't it? What do people really care about? Today, we have other distractions, such as sports, celebrity gossip, etc., but overall, the investments necessary to develop and exploit new communications technologies come in the areas where people are most willing to pay, and those areas are sex, religion and politics. The Internet is no different.
Thanks.
Sure you can: the French built New Orleans to begin with.
I've been with the same woman for nearly five years and just married her this weekend. If anything, porn has STRENGTHENED our relationship through mutual viewing.
What's your wife's name? Rosey Palmer? You marry her five sisters, too?
If she thinks porn addiction is bad, she should check out /. addiction.
// file: mice.h
#include "frickin_lasers.h"
Hell I know a lot of my peers who are addicted to work (14hr days?). But instead of calling them addcits, people call them "successful"
I wack off to porn for 14 hours a day. Some people call that "successful".
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
I'm very suspicious of this - a lot of these anecdotes have the structure [made-up-name-to-preserve-anonymity] who [10 word potted history of previous carreer success] came clean and confessed to me that he/she [lost job/family/self respect] through porn by [30 word description of outlandish waste of time] is now [ a total loser] and damned in hell.
Notice the similarity with the anecdotes in your local paster's Sunday sermon? Not coincidental.
It is very, very easy to just make stuff up to support your argument when using oral history - particularly anonymous oral history (which anything to do with porn has to be)
Sorry, don't believe it. This is just total garbage:
- "porn reviewer [for money]" Yeah?? Porn doesn't work like that, what I like you won't - in the same series of shots. And where did you ever see porn reviewed? There isn't any such market, it doesn't exist
- "double blind studies" WTF??? This is porn we're talking about. a.) it's visual, by definition both the researcher and the subject can see the material; and b.) what the researcher defines as porn I might easily define as art.
Don't just mod the comments down, mod down the whole bloody article.
Oh, and BTW "graduation"????? Rubbish, I've been into Playboy for 30 years and have *never* "graduated". Why? Because it's my taste and preference, I don't like hard core and I've never had to go for harder stuff to maintain the same level of "stimulation"
Oh yes, and I do have a sex life - possibly better than yours - and I do have (excellent) relationships with women
Stop wasting our time
I hate right-wingers but it is people like you who are also lunatics.
/. with the same color.
/.?
/.'ers are always going on about freedom of speech, yet you'll propangadize anything (and calling something a troll and backing it up with little argument apart from emotionalism is propaganda) that you disagree with. It's disgusting. You've added nothing to the debate on this article apart from hyped emotionalism and you've been modded up for it. It makes me think how pathetic /. can be sometimes.
/.'ers the more you resemble fascist right-wingers.
What the hell do you think you're doing? You are doing the exact same behaviour that you so vehemently hate. You are shoving down YOUR views and YOUR opinions down everyone elses throats and painting the ENTIRE of
Why shouldn't dissident views be allowed on
You
It seems the further left you go with some of you
Keep the right-wing ideals out of site and off of Slashdot.
Yeah! And bring on some good wholesome, porn!
I want to see more articles on tips for typing with one hand, medicinal crack, how violent video games develop character, and how to increase your gambling budget by becoming homeless.
Tired of being "punished" by the Slashdot $rtbl since 2002. I'm now over at http://soylentnews.org/ .
So, if a study's conclusions speak against your beliefs or way of life, suddenly it's a biased advertisement stroking the right-wing-conservatives?
Well, you know, in the same way that most of the global warming studies are biased advertisements stroking the left-wing-liberals, and evolution is just a theory. In fairness, there are probably plenty of left-wing-liberal women on the "porn is evil" bandwagon.
I mean, *WHAT IF* what the book says is true? Oh of course not, that would condemn us all netporn-addicted slashdotters, so it must NOT be true! In fact, it's heresy! Lets bring our torches and burn that book!
I think the point is that the review is bad. I agree it was closer to an advertisement than a review. Calling it a review is like calling most U.S. news productions journalism.
Is the author specifically selecting studies which backup her position, or does a random sampling of studies lead to the same conclusions? This review simply recites the claims made by the book and agrees with them. Besides hinting at lots of data/studies, the review gives no specific references. The reviewer talks about the authors conclusions, but doesn't really spell out what those are, aside from the general tone of "oh my, the Internet has made porn so much worse!".
You know, I used to think books were judged by the veracity of the facts they presented, not by whether their words made some people feel (Heaven forbid! *gasp*) judged.
Then you should be agreeing that this "review" sucked. The author of the "review" agrees with the author of the book. The reviewer did nothing to check the veracity of the facts. Stern seems to take the facts as presented at face value without question. This is a good book because it makes him feel judged, "correct". I mean, how can the author "presents most of this neutrally", while showing "contempt for non-pornographic websites that link to porn sites". What does the author show for sites that actually have porn? The bias is clear; it just happens to agree with the reviewer's opinion. This book is not an objective study, and neither is the review.
The reviewer seems impressed by anecdotes, stories, and simple conclusions. For example, I doubt law enforcement ever thought that child porn had been wiped out. If it had been, wouldn't prosecutions have risen more dramatically? 23 times "wiped out" is not really threatening. Digital media and the Internet have dramatically increased the trade in all types of information. I find the fact it has increased the trade in child porn unremarkable. Digital media and the Internet also make this trade more open and easier to infiltrate. The reviewer and possibly the book fail to mention the ways the Internet enables law enforcement to locate and catch those involved in child porn, or how much that may contribute to the increase in prosecutions. And, I'm pretty sure there were Sunday school teachers eyeing their pupils long before the Internet.
I don't even think the reviewer supports his own conclusion. I don't see how showing how the Internet has made porn so much "worse" moves the debate from morality vs. free speech. At least by his review, it sounds like the book is simply attempting to strengthen the "morality" argument by making porn that much more threatening. The role of technology seems to be dealt with in a very superficial and one-sided way.
Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco warned rioters and looters late on Thursday that National Guard troops were under her orders to "shoot and kill" if needed to restore order.
"These troops are battle-tested. They have M-16s and are locked and loaded," she said. "These troops know how to shoot and kill and I expect they will."
This whole situation is making America look pathetic. You can send an army to 'liberate' another country, but you can't even help your own citizens when they need it.
Halle freakin luya, could not agree more
The question comes in - does the first ammendment cover pornography? Because if it does, the people's right to see it if they want outweighs, in almost all incidents, (imminent lawless actions aside), the government's authority to restrict it.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
I'm awed by your willpower, oh great one.
You realize, of course, that your willpower is only stronger by your own standards.
By my standard, porn is a great thing, so my willpower to stop doing other mundane tasks such as sleeping and instead masterbate furiously over wild porn is a triumph. Obviously my willpower is verifiably stronger than you in this area. (Who verifies by the way... you?!?)
Oh, and by the way, stop making assumptions about people's lives based on what you find in a dumpster. Unless of course you like being smug and holier-than-thou; in that case, go back to sifting around in the dumpsters.
Is that how it's being portrayed in Europe? No wonder you guys are so hostile towards Bush (I have my own reasons, but not because of misinformation)./i?
Well, such a remark is quite as stupid as the poster you replied on. I would say the most items in the broadcasts are about the big number of people trapped in the city without food or water and therefore the expected high deathtoll, the very slow response by federal emergency services, and the political effects of this. Issues like why NO was build there in the first place or the question of whether to rebuild it or to replace it are almost unheard. I read these only on slashdot.
Rare case? You do realize that most people that try marijuana never move on to harder drugs?
Pro Drug-War cronies usually trot out some statistic like 80% of heroin users started out with marijuana. But that doesn't mean that 80% of marijuana users moved onto heroin. It's all drug war propaganda BS.
It's the same with this sex addiction crap. People like thinking about sex.... oh my!! shocking!!
News at eleven: does breathing air lead to car crashes?
It is a badly-kept secret that Pioneer struggled all along to get LaserDisc mainstream because they didn't want to let pornography on it. The DVD Forum knew this and told the porn industry "we won't stop you".
Just another moral treatise disguised as neutral research.
No troops were withdrawn from the middle east.
That's not what Marine Corps Times says:
The Air Force has announced it will send 300 airmen, who are based at Keesler, home from Iraq and Afghanistan in the next two weeks, and nearly 100 more who were scheduled to leave Keesler for war duty will be staying home.
Keep the right-wing ideals out of site and off of Slashdot.
Since when has slashdot been for liberals only? SHould we change the DNS records so that slashdot.org points to dnc.org? There is no reason to kick one out and not the other.
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
I do think the most disturbing statement in the review was that pr0n significantly affects all who watch it, but that statement was telegraphed by the reviewer with no context or annotation. 'Might be a perfectly viable study, for all I know.
What I do know is that many slashdotters will combat an idea as stupid, beating it to the ground, just because it challenges the status quo - and I saw no one with facts that've had that strong a reaction. Anecdote is the singular of data.
And the *last* way to refute a hypothesis, no matter how ridiculous, is with vitriol. We simply lower ourselves to the realm of Rush and Michael Moore. There is still room for rational discourse in this country, and even on this site - let's engage in it.
I was surprised to find on googling Paul that she has pretty serious "liberal" credentials (here, from her bio). She seems less like one of those annoying distort-the-data right wingers and more like a sort of "pulse-of-the-culture" type people.
I doubt Paul is clamoring for the banning of porn, but it is certaintly true that we can create technology with consequences that far outstrip our mamamilian brain's ability to compensate.
On the other hand, I don't think I've ever heard of a study that showed long-term psychological damage from exposure to words or (self-chosen) pictures. It would be surprising (though not impossible) to discover that porn really did cause problems for people.
In other words, there's a difference between porn and alcohol. People with seriously fucked up issues probably often consume both at rates and methods we'd considered messed up -- but alcohol actually causes additional problems, whereas I would be surprised if such causation could be demonstrated for porn. People with messed up ideas about sex probably consume messed up porn, but it's not like the porn "made them do it".
One thing that struck me, which I haven't heard before, is that University Ethics boards prohibit showing dirty films to human subjects. I'd be very interested to see a link to such a restriction.
Protect your liberties. Donate to the ACLU
on your own accord, did you happen to be talking to your dealer and say out of the blue "HEY DO YOU HAVE ANY OPIUM?" i'm sorry weed did not cause you to do that. you could have done the same thing under the influence of alcohol or even sober. seriously, everyone that i know that has ever tried a harder drug after weed can be attributed 100% to peer pressure. hell, even my sister was trying to get me to do shrooms this weekend. i thought about it, but then decided that i'm going to stick to marijuana. if i want to trip out like i'm on shrooms, i'll smoke 1/8 of some purple haze in one sitting and sit back and enjoy the ride. i don't think i need to be any more lifted than that. if you do, then you're a damn fool and you are one of the reasons why i am scared shitless to drive around with weed in my car (unfortunately i fit all the stereotypes: young black male with a luxury car that smokes way too much in a prodominately white suburban neighborhood.. and i have been pulled over for DWB on numerous occasions)
I'm still waiting to get a sudden urge to shoot some heroin into my eyeball.
Hey! Don't dream it ... live it!
Porn is very powerful and addicting. I know by experience and I'm only a 23-year-old guy. I started out like pretty much like any other normal guy, I think. With a simple online file sharing program and the Internet, I moved quickly from the extremely tame Playboy-type stuff to more hardcore. People with even a decent imagination can think of stuff that would have seemed totally devious beforehand and it is all right there. Simple file searches brought up tons of "barely legal" and illegal child to teen porn, incest, bestiality, and violent stuff getting pretty close to rape. There's stuff I saw and read that I'd pay thousands of dollars to erase from my mind, but I know I can't.
Its effects start psychologically in how I view and have viewed women. They become dehumanized (a sum of their even remotely sexual parts) with what seems a simple flick of a switch in my mind. Women are so much more complex and interesting but it so easily becomes an endless comparison game with all the airbrushed porn stars I've seen, and it's so frustrating...especially when it's your sister, close friend, or someone you meet for the first time. I think one way it manifests itself is the fact I rarely can look people in the eye for any reasonable period of time, especially women.
BTW, in response to your first post, Garcia, I am not precisely looking up to you as a mentor for a (possible) future relationship. Your annecdotal evidence of porn strengthening your relationship can possibly be true if you mean your physical relationship. However, if I just married someone, I definitely wouldn't be at work (or elsewhere) posting about how strong my relationship is. I'd spend that highly important time after the wedding with her and build the relationship on a much deeper level than simply sex or watching porn together. And for me, watching that porn video together with my wife would be the last thing that would remind me of the priceless treasure that SHE is.
These are not 'troops withdrawn to beef up the security forces', as you seem to imply. They are people who lived in what is now a pile of sticks.
They're coming home to try to rebuild their homes. Yeah, they'll probably be working some at the same time. But the PRIMARY reason these particular people are coming home, is because they have no home left.
(its a JOKE, son)
I, being niether a member of the left nor the right, find your attitude a bit distasteful, unintellectual, and bigoted. Since when is discussion of topics that rational people disagree on bad? If you're consistently encountered only with opinions that match your own, how will you learn?
But wait -- this is Slashdot. I guess this isn't really a place for intellectual discourse...
Lex orandi, lex credendi.
People who have addictive personalities are likely to use and abuse lots of different drugs. All the heroin addicts I've known have also been heavy cigarette smokers. I drink alcohol and occasionally smoke a joint. I've never been tempted to try anything else. Marijuana didn't "lead to opium", you were looking for somethng stronger.
Unfortunately, this sounds like yet another case of mistaking perception for reality. While "pornified" is a clever title, in reality the interesting here is the increasing *acceptance* of porn, not its increased availability.
People like food, and look at all of the food porn out there: magazines, cable channels, websites, etc.
People like shelter, and again, look at all of the home porn out there: magazines, cable channels, websites, etc.
People like sex, and, surprise, all of that same stuff exists (and always has, since the invention of the appropriate mediums).
The real revolution here is that the internet has made it clear to everyone that they're not the only ones who like sex. In fact, as most of us suspected all along, the puritans are in the minority, and it was only through dilligent and thorough application of the shame principle that they kept everyone else from realizing that sexuality is totally normal.
Bottom line: sounds like the book makes valid points based on flawed assumptions.
Cheers
-b
If I wanted a sig I would have filled in that stupid box.
If anything, porn has STRENGTHENED our relationship Uh, yeah, you're goung to have a GREAT marraige -- I can tell.
the possibility that it was technology driving porn, and not the other way around?
On-line payment and DRM are about the only areas in which porn actually drove the innovation, if you want to call it that. Laser discs vs. DVD? Laser discs were too expensive compared to the cost of living, and the advantages over tape not well enough developed. Someone else mentioned the reality about VHS vs. Beta -- porn may have accelerated the selection, but it did not catalyze it.
Sure, there was undercurrent concerning porn, but I see pornography more as a parasite than a catalyst.
I defy any other country on the planet to go in and 'help' a devastated area the size of the entire UK in less than a week.
90,000 square miles are trashed. It may take a couple of days to get cranked up (especially when major parts are still under water). But when it does, things happen very, very quickly.
Y'know, my boss at a previous job was Canadian. He spoke glowingly of his homeland, and I mostly concurred---I have nothing but positive memories from my visits to Canada. But then he explained the "hatespeech" laws they have there.
I don't know where you're from, but part of the value of the freedom to speak one's mind is a freedom to criticize, to insult, to offend. "It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg," to cadge a turn of phrase from Jefferson. This new existence of a right not to be offended---bah! The proper response to criticism is not to stick your fingers in your ears, yell "LALALALA" and cry for the force of law to shut me up.
Look, it's a savage and medieval thing they've got going in Pakistan, in Iran, and until recently in Afghanistan. This is a system of religious law that treats women as chattel, punishes homosexuality with death, silences criticism with brute violence, and actually does all the things that the American religious right is accused of trying to do.
Yes, Christianity did this. But at least in the West, it grew out of it. Folks are more than welcome to come here if they're willing to live like civilized people. If they're committed to setting women on fire for the crime of being raped, they can stay where they are until they decide to grow up.
If you're asking when all this savagery came to Europe, I suggest you take it up with Theo van Gogh, who was murdered for insulting Islam. Civilized people do not respond to philosophical insults in this manner. If I go outside wearing my Bad Religion "crossbuster" shirt, I do not expect a Christian lunatic to stab me with the approval of his religious establishment. Or ask Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a vocal critic of Islam who worked with van Gogh. She's the subject of constant death threats, thanks to her criticism.
I'd think anyone interested in free speech would be a hell of a lot more concerned with the chilling effect caused by violence against critics of Islam than with what those critics have to say. After all, Theo van Gogh may have been a damned troll, but at least he never shot anyone and pinned his manifesto to their chest with a knife.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
That's egg on me. Perhaps I'll remember to Google for it next time. Thanks!
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Betamax didn't die because porn adopted VHS. It died because it offered such low running times, not even long enough for a standard hour-and-a-half movie. People switched to the VHS format when they realized they could record at 8 hour just by lowering picture quality slightly.
I think it's more like porn adopted VHS because consumers were adopting VHS. I think people just like the idea of porn driving technology as some sort of humorous irony, but I don't think it's quite as true as they want it to be.
"Sufferin' succotash."
"I know by experience"
This is the definition of the word "anecdote." While I don't doubt your experience, yours is only one out of possibly millions, and before we are able to say that porn is bad to the species as a whole (as opposed to a predisposition of a few, as with alcoholism) we have to take into account the expierence of a properly chosen sample of the population, which this book apparently does not do.
And while your experiences may be true, your interpretation of them may be flawed. I myself have been a 23 year-old guy with an internet connection, and I know that one's hormones do not magically turn off at 20 and you're still a young man with the primal urge to procreate the species. You're assuming your obsession with porn is a cause rather than a symptom.
"BTW, in response to your first post, Garcia,"
I'm not him.
"However, if I just married someone, I definitely wouldn't be at work (or elsewhere) posting about how strong my relationship is."
No plan survives contact with the enemy. Honeymoons end.
I, being niether a member of the left nor the right, find your attitude a bit distasteful, unintellectual, and bigoted.
I being a member of neither have studied both.
That, in a nutshell, *is* the difference between left and right.
That's a fact, Bucko, so your ignorance of the definitions of words doesn't matter to me.
The fact that you make a feeble attempt to disguise the truth as "distasteful" even less so.
Since when is discussion of topics that rational people disagree on bad?
Never.
Now explain to me rationally how using the power of the state to take away rights from the masses to enrich the rich is good? This isn't an issue here though. The right in this country has gone to great lengths to demonize the very idea of "Liberal" to destroy rational debate.
Given that you made a point to describe yourself as a Liberal while defending the people who are out to destroy the very idea is a major contradiction. You might want to look into that.
If you're consistently encountered only with opinions that match your own, how will you learn?
Again, irrelevant.
I constantly challenge myself with new ideas.
The fact that the rich want to get richer and will do it at the expense of everyone is an idea thousands of years old.
I make it a point to try to *learn* from history.
Sadly, you seem to have no interest in that at all.
You are getting way overworked over this. You angrily use the word "fuck" in every reply, and I can hear you seething through your teeth. Please, take a deep breath, and go have some deviant sex. After all, your opinion is just as flat-out wrong as everyone else's.
"Sufferin' succotash."
For guys who like to go beyond the missionary position and try out bondage, porn's invaluable. What knot are they using? Is that a cam cleat? What kind of gag is that? How many minutes did she leave him there? and so forth. Lots of clever ideas that translate well to the bedroom and make for some sweaty intense TOGETHER times, not just solitary antisocial wanking.
The safety word is "CmdrTaco"
There should be a +1 Troll mod.
That was very well done.
[i]You are saying that people *can't* enjoy being doused with semen? How the fuck do you know? It's obvious you have never done it or had it done to you... How could you possibly say, without a doubt, that it would be damaging to your relationship with your SO? You cannot.[/i] I know I'm late with this one but it's too important a topic not to speak up. The first time I pulled out of my g/f and came all across her tits I apologised profusely since I had been trained into that "cum == bad" mentality. She asked if I liked it and I had to admit it was hot. She said she didn't mind it and that she hated condoms* since they interupted the natural rhythmn of things with an awkward pause. You cannot generalise what is demeaning since I assure you there is nothing dehumanising about it and trust me my g/f wouldn't stand for it if it was.
Obviously you misread the title of the RFC.
It is ".sex Considered Dangerous" not "sex Considered Dangerous" Note the dot at the beginning. This makes all the difference in the world as they are talking about the TLD, not the domain name.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Holy shit mods, this guy is being blatantly arrogant and flaming people yet you are modding him up all because he somehow fits the biased left view of the world? THIS guy is the one who is using propaganda.
How about the 2004 tsunami? The most devastating tsunami in recorded history and within days there were relief workers in the area helping out, burying bodies.
I certainly didn't hear about people stranded for 5 days without any sort of help.
i have been pulled over for DWB
I know what you mean by that, but my mental acronym-expansion-process initially supplied me with "Driving While Baked". A reasonable interpretation given the subject matter, I guess...
heh heh.
There's a ton of very explicit Roman pottery kept locked up in Italian museums. Gang bangs, double penetrations.. You name it, it's there. See also the erotic mosaics dug up in Pompey. Or Japanese shunga prints.
I wonder if she likes to take it up the arse...
Thats because there weren't so many news crews. Just because you didn't hear about them, doesn't mean they're not out there.
Wiki link
"In Sri Lanka, only 30% of those elgible impacted by the tsunami as of 10 February had received any aid, and there are allegations of local officials giving aid only to their supporters, some of whom were not victims of the tsunami."
What happened in the microcosm of New Orleans is quite different than what happened in other affected areas.
What we need is a "Porn Madness!" documentary in the vein of Reefer Madness.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
Digital cameras, more than the internet, may be responsible for the rise of the harsher forms of porn.
In the past, if you wanted to get film developed, you had to develop it yourself or else have someone else do it. Or use a poloroid, but those are pretty low quality.
Now you can use a digital camera to take the picture yourself and reproduce it instantly. Digital images and cheap, easy to use tools for making them, are the second half of the porn explosion.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
Should being an inquisitive, well-informed, technologically adept person generally mean one is also morally debased, maladjusted, or incapable of normal, healthy relationships? From the reaction here it would appear so. And for anyone who would rebut me, go say it to someone of the opposite sex--and not another miscreant but a handsome, virtuous creature and watch the expression of disgust and horror on his or her face. We all know it in our hearts to be wrong, but so many of you are so hardened in your contempt and disrespect of women that you don't even hesitate to defend it. Not even to consider the morale, dignity, or feelings of anyone subjected to such disgrace. This is the most disgusting thing I have ever seen on Slashdot.
If anyone out there agrees with me, please join in support. Otherwise, I could care less what you say as you are the most boorish of the boors and do not deserve the respect of any reply.
The GOP line is "it's the fault of all that bush!!"
I first discovered porn when I was about 14, and naturally started masturbating to it. This continued throughout my 20's and into my 30's, even after I got married. I drastically cut down on my porn viewing, but the masturbation didn't stop. It got to the point that I would rather masturbate than have sex with my wife. I didn't need to look at porn because I had it stored away in my head and could visualize it any time I wanted. I have come to terms with this and admitted to myself, to my wife, and to my support group that I have a sexual addiction. I found help by attending meetings at Celebrate Recovery, a Christ-centered 12-step recovery program.
Pornography: Harmless Fun or Public Health Hazard? is an informative (and cited) look at the effects of pornography. Here are a few quotes from the artice:
I never thought that whacking it to a rain-soaked Penthouse I found walking home from school when I was 14 would nearly cost me my marriage.
I was wrong.
Actually, the BBC was quoting a Reuters story which, in turn, was relaying the story as told by a witness. Please do not represent a piece as being "how the BBC is portraying it" when that's not even close to what it is. What agenda are you trying to advance by distorting how the situation in New Orleans is being portrayed in Europe?
Taking 100 anecdotes from people who allegedly had their lived "ruined" by porn does not constitute a scientific study of any kind. It is merely a collection of anecdotes.
Perhaps you remain naively unaware of the process of 'selective reporting' whereby you only report results (and anecdotal evidence is not a scientific result) that suit your preconceived idea of what the outcome should be.
The so-called conclusion in your post is flawed. It should have read "of 100 people who reported their lives as being 'ruined' by porn, 100 percent of them felt their lives had been 'ruined' by porn."
That's the only conclusion that can be drawn, and it has no scientific merit whatsoever. I mean, even the Creationists can come up with better fake science than that.
Still, it was enough to fool you.
New Orleans was built by a society that did not have the insane notion that poisoning the planet was a sound basis for an economic system. The delta had more swamps and wetlands to protect them from storm surges. Of course, those swamps weren't productive in the current quarter so they were leveled and plowed in the name of progress. Now nature has come to collect the residual payment on that land with a little extra "beyond normal wear and tear" penalty.
Hipocritical of you to sit there and say I have an addictive personality, I'm assuming you are addicted to something. I still think about pot sometimes, but I cant say I've ever had a serious addiction to it. When it was gone, it was gone. When my internet connection goes down, I go find something else to do. Some people would call the cable company and start screaming because they can't read the news and shit. Some might call their friend and ask if they can borrow their AOL account or something. Addictive personality, or abnormal socialization?
Explain the guy who is addicted to sleep. I'm an insomniac, does that mean I am addicted to being awake?
Ah, but when is rape really rape? These arguments pro-porn are exactly the same arguments my father used for years when frequently justifying his sexual abuse of myself. Didn't make me stop hating it and him then, and now still, forty years later.
This is also exactly the same argument the Man-Boy Love Association uses to justify their seduction/rape of young boys. It wouldn't be a crime if it weren't for all these right-wing Christian wacko fundamentalist prudes that won't let us have any fun!
I would be willing to bet a goodly sum that at least 90% of the women in these porno flicks and pictures have been drugged and raped so much that they just gave up trying to fight it. In the end, I quit trying to resist my father, and ended up being passed around to his friends whenever they were in town. Was I acquiescent? Yes. Was I willing? Hell, no. Would I be happy to see every one of those bastards hung? Hell yes!
My first marriage ended after 24 years of my husband demanding that I do things that turned my stomach, but he got all hot for them when he watched porn. At least he didn't make me watch it with him, as my father did.
Sorry that I can't agree with you, I guess I'm just not liberal and unrepressed enough. Been there and done that.
The reviewer was biased and cannot be trusted.
Everyone is biased. A review will always be an opinion. Get over it. Noone is asking you to "trust" him or anyone else.
When you grow up you might learn to filter what you read, and thus become able to glean information even from people you don't agree with. Then maybe you will avoid those embarassing moments of going instantly blind just because your enemy points out that the sun is up.
sudo ergo sum
The reviewer appears to be showing bias, this may or may not be a reflection of the book itself.
The book based on descriptions sounds like an interesting read, know the other arguments.
Before condemning pron as bad (mmkay?), please first have a look at the effect it has on non-american societies, or better yet, societies not poisoned by a judaic religion.
In Japan, where you can get porn ranging from schoolgirl fetishes to rape fantasy to comic books about a guy with a very stretchy scrotum that he can form into a hang glider, I've found there to be on average very healthy attitudes towards things sexual.
If you don't believe me, try telling a japanese girl what a bad girl she is while shagging her and check out the confused look on her face as she asks you what she did wrong.
my girfriend simply loves to get covered in cum (the more the better)--and not for money either, but simply because it is something she really enjoys.
;)
:) (and you're probably only jealous or disgusted if you choose to doubt my word)
on first finding this out, i was delighted and amused, and i asked her a lot of questions as to why/etc. she says she just likes it, simple as that. fwiw, she found this out when she was about 18, and she's now 25.
and i'm posting this as an anonymous coward because i promised her that i would never tell anyone about her 'preferences', which i obviously respect (and by honoring her respect, i hope it will further my chances of staying with her forever--who wouldn't want that? heh
in the past, i've encountered plenty of girls who have had other 'preferences' that some people may regard as 'not normal' or perhaps 'somewhat unusual'--but here's not really the place to go into details.
and you know what? i don't care if no one believes me, because i believe i am one of the luckiest guys in the world to have a girlfriend like mine!
--J
Those people know what step 2 is.
1. Whack off for 14 hours a day.
2. ?
3. Profit.
Why am I wrong? Because you don't want to accept any personal responsibility?
the demand is there but the supply isn't.
I've been offered all kinds of drugs, I chose not to use them. I don't claim any moral strength, just lack of desire.
opium has the same effect on one's life [as pot]
So why use it then? I've known heroin users, and seen what it did to them. They tried to stop, they couldn't. I've known lots of pot users, it was mostly a thing to do at parties, not somethng they would steal or prostitute themsleves for (as heroin users did).
Hipocritical of you to sit there and say I have an addictive personality
From your testimony, it seems a safe characterisation.
Actually, I don't think opiates are inherently evil; alcohol and tobacco do immeasurably more harm. Unfortunately, opiate's illegality drives users into a criminal lifestyle, without that it might be more manageable.
Well, you can rest easier if you re-read the review, as it nowhere says that porn affects everybody. The book does not make that claim either.
Paul's claim is not that porn is some satanic vice that corrupts all who gaze upon it, but that it can addict people, and that it hurts both men and women. She explicitly compares Porn to cigarettes in her concluding chapter.
Sorry kid, but you've got to be careful when you're arguing with an academic researcher, even on slashdot. They do tend to sneer at dolts who can't speak properly, and frankly even though I'm a coder who will probably never have more than a Bachelor's degree, I do too. Spellcheck is your friend.
Re-reading Mr. Garcia's rejoinder to the original article, I find myself considering a passage in Pornified in which Pamela Paul summarizes experiments by Dolf Zillmann and Jennings Bryant. A group of subjects looked at porn over a period of six weeks (a control group was not asked to do so). Their opinions on various topics were surveyed at various points through the six weeks.
One result of this study was the realization that the more porn you watch, the more fervently you defend porn. This is not a selection effect; people did not volunteer for the "high porn" group in the study. Zillmann and Bryant took a random sample of people, showed them porn for six weeks, and the more porn they watched, the more intensely they defended porn.
You can argue that they were somehow educated by watching the blue movies in the study, and their defense of porn reflects a good civil libertarian instinct. However, at the same time that they were defending porn, they were developing a demand for more of it, and more explicit porn, and more violent porn. The preponderance of evidence suggests that porn had an addictive effect on some people in the experimental group, and they defended it the same way a nicotine addict defends access to cigarettes.
I don't know what Mr. Garcia's personal life is like, beyond what he has shared with us here, and the following suggestion is not aimed at him particularly. If you find yourself angry at the thought of this book, and you look at a lot of porn, do a "Seinfeld-like" experiment and try going for a couple of weeks without looking at any at all. If that's difficult, maybe there is something subconsciously at work in your defense of porn, rather than just a patriotic defense of free speech.
Others in this discussion have posted their personal stories of escalating porn additiction. Many of those were posted anonymously and now have scores of 0, so others coming into this discussion may miss them. If you fail the "two week" test, maybe come back to these pages and read those posts.
Now explain to me rationally how using the power of the state to take away rights from the masses to enrich the rich is good?
I don't know a single self-described conservative who believed this is a useful goal. They're against high taxation in general. Most feel, as do I, that private charity is more efficient than most government programs.
The right in this country has gone to great lengths to demonize the very idea of "Liberal" to destroy rational debate.
The left does the same. As you are doing now.
The fact is that I agree with both sides on different issues. I'm pro-life, but anti-death-penalty. I despise huge government programs, but also despise the war in Iraq (and America's general feeling that it should be the world's police force). I find pornography to be disgusting, but see no justification in censorship (with exception of kiddie porn and snuff films and the like).
Just assuming across the board that about half of the people in this country are totally irrational is a bit closed-minded and foolish. Their oppinions hold value, as do yours.
Lex orandi, lex credendi.
Well, considering that this is a discussion about porn, that would be "penises".
And I love your dedication to free speech.
And I love the New-Aged GOP's dedication to it as well. How dare you place blame on me while supporting an institution that prides itself of eliminating the freedoms of its people?
Fuckhead.
You have completely missed the point of the book and the point of the topic. The debate between conservatives and liberals on this point is TIRED! This is not about your grandma and her "frigidity" (which is a problematic statement anyway), but about human rights, specifically women's rights. Pornography is inhumane, allows for the legal instillment of sexist, racist, classist, homosexist etc..notions in the minds of men specifically, which affects women horrendously! Experiment in yoru bedroom, sure. But, did you ever think that what you're experimenting with is harmful to one partner physicially and emotionally and, thus, limiting to the other's full capacities in a relationship as well? Defend mutual sex, however experimental you want it to be. But do not defend an industry that uses rape to get people off, eroticizes non-white women, and prays particularly on the poor who have few other choices than to have their bodies used for a multi-billion dollar industry to make yet more profits.
I don't know what Mr. Garcia's personal life is like, beyond what he has shared with us here, and the following suggestion is not aimed at him particularly. If you find yourself angry at the thought of this book, and you look at a lot of porn, do a "Seinfeld-like" experiment and try going for a couple of weeks without looking at any at all.
Anyone who tries to substantiate what they are saying by using something like "Seinfeld" is obviously disturbed.
Nothing like trying to support your cause by naming a pro-Jewish and anti-comedic television show as a way to prove someone's ignorance.
Moron.
Obviously you have never known a compulsive gambler or shopper then. They go from cash to credit and just keep spending until someone takes away all of their credit and by that point most of them have racked up tens of thousands ( if not hundreds of thousands ) in debt that they have to work the rest of their lives to pay back. Of course they never pay it back because they get more credit along the way and the cycle repeats.
Fuckhead.
I see you missed the entire point of the 'be polite' post.
Now, I will close with a smile and a 'have a nice day', and I'll be the good guy. That's what the republicans do, and that's why they win. If you cannot learn this, then you are dooming yourself to another 4 years.
Have a nice day...
Internet porn reaching all time highs...so is the divorce rate. Do they have anyting to do with each other? I don't know, they are just two factors that track a similar parallel and may be statistically significant. Divorce is related to a breakdown in relationsships and porn is according to the author also somehow related. If two items are related to the same thing then they must be related to each other.
I don't know a single self-described conservative who believed this is a useful goal.
Yet they ally themselves with the extremist right wingers who do have this goal. So it is totally irrelevant that they wouldn't describe themselves that way. Actions speak much louder than words.
They're against high taxation in general.
Yet, they vote for the party that not only believes in high taxation but also believes that the brunt of the burden should fall on the poor and middle class. You're really not painting yourself and those you're speaking for as particularly astute.
Most feel, as do I, that private charity is more efficient than most government programs.
That's really neither here nor there regardless of whether it's true or not.
Taxes at some level are inevitable when you have a government.
The left does the same. As you are doing now.
First, you're pretending there is a left in this country.
Second, you're ignoring the fact that the right wing with lots of thought and planning intentionally drove it to its current levels.
Third, you're deluding yourself if tyou think what I am doing is demonizing anything. I am pointing out facts, and pointing out a fundamental disconnect in the Republican party between the stated goals of the regular people who are members of the party and those who run it. Your failure to look reality in the face is your failing.
Just assuming across the board that about half of the people in this country are totally irrational is a bit closed-minded and foolish. Their oppinions hold value, as do yours.
Again. I am assuming nothing.
Certainly people's opinions hold value, but that has nothing to do with what is under discussion.
Ask most people who describe themselves as Republican what their opinions are and you would get some pretty sane, rational responses. Look at those opinions and compare them to the actual actions of the party, and there is a fundamental disconnect. Whether you want to call it irrationality, delusion, or hypocrisy really doesn't matter. It is reality.
Here's a simple example for you.
You have the so called "values voters" who don't like the course that our culture and society are on. They, in the interest of promoting their agenda, have allied themselves with the Republican party.
Now, the Republican party is the party of big business and rich corporate interests. They are the party of hyper capitalism.
Now, capitalism has an innate and inevitable liberalizing effect on society. With no restraints, we see this on TV, advertising etc. Spend, Spend, Spend. Consume, Consume, Consume.
Hell, gay people have money, so we'll target them.
Yet the biggest promoter of this whole package is the Republican party. They try really hard to blame everything on the "left", yet the "left" are the only ones even trying to do anything about it the whole time being called communists by the very people whose values they actually are promoting.
So, the "values voters" see all of their efforts come to nothing and in fact, the "problems" they see keep getting worse for quite obvious reasons: They are voting *against* their own self interest.
So, while people's opinions do have value, that has nothing to do with it.
If their opinions were in line with their actions, then they would be worth listening to. When their stated goals are in direct opposition to their actions, then they clearly are not rational.
but I wouldn't say its a large number of technologies if I can count the list on one hand.
Only one hand, hmmnnn?
And what, pray tell, is the other hand busy doing?
Yeah, we wouldn't want any differing opinions. Debates are so much more interesting when everyone has the same opinion!
I'd better duck before I'm slain by your mighty swingin' debate wang. Ayep.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Funny... I never brought up issues of party... niether did the poster of the article.
The left claims to be the ones that are open minded and don't make snap judgements. As the actions and words of the extreme right, the extreme left shows its true colors in ways like you demonstrate.
Lex orandi, lex credendi.
You know, name-calling isn't a substitute for making your point. But at least you tried. Good for you!
So far as I can tell, your point is that Christian nuts in the United States blow up abortion clinics, just as Muslim nuts in Europe chop heads and set women on fire, so we can't really judge between them.
Of course we can. The level of popular support among Christians for the actions of, say, Eric Rudolph, is nowhere near the level of popular support among Muslims for the actions of Mohammad Bouyeri. And while the actions of Christian terrorists have caused a shameful chilling effect (on people performing abortions) in this country, it's nothing like the chilling effect against simple speech perpetrated by Bouyeri and his ilk.
Lastly, your entire argument is based on the premise that while the United States has not thoroughly rid itself of its homegrown twits, I, a citizen thereof, cannot point out what I see as the rising tide of a disgusting, backward, medieval culture across the pond. What's up with that?
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
The review completely failed to indicate the book appears to be based on lopsided research. If the book were balanced it would indicate there is at least as much research completely contradicting the research showing serious harm.
It is ridiculous to claim there is all this damning research. Unfortunately research into the alleged negative effects of pornography is like the research into the alleged negative effects of violence in games, movies etc. - the researchers invariably set up loaded criteria, then allow there prejudice to further distort the results. So far no reliable research has materialised and neither pornography nor graphic violence has been linked to real negative effects in the real world. Although research that finds no harm is also not without problems the onus is not on us to prove there is no harm, but for others to prove there is harm. So far they've failed, dismally.
Sure some people get obsessed with porn. There will always be some people who lose it with something. Trying to extrapolate from a tiny sample, 100 people, results in the same drivel about drugs you'll hear from people who work at rehab clinics - they only see one side, and it is the minority side too.
Just as some research claims that someone with inclinations towards children will escalate to actual abuse if they're allowed to look at naked children, there is research that finds the opposite.
"It dampens empathy, it changes expectations, and it damages relationships."
Many things will change your expectations. Actually these three things can be linked something else - religion.
"requiring escalation to maintain a constant level of stimulation."
Pretty much true of almost anything that is initially thrilling. Then again what percentage of all those who view pornography have problems?
Claiming that adding further newsgroups
"Consider this -- prior to the Internet, law enforcement believed that child porn had been basically wiped out. It was a crime from a previous age, like body snatching. But then came the Web. Between 1996 and 2004, child-porn cases handled by the FBI increased 23 fold."
This means that the cops were deluding themselves, the child pornography networks were well-established and secretive. Along came the net and people started using this as a means of distribution instead of the much safer, but slower postal service - they exposed themselves and made it easier to get caught. I expect these groups to once again become much more secretive.
Consider this - there remain members of law enforcement who convinced that snuff movies exist despite no snuff having been found, ever.
The facts is that cops live in their own world.
"started with modest porn searching online, then graduated to more heinous stuff"
What? Torturing search engines for fun?
"some people who drink alcohol become alcoholics, but not all"
And that would typically be emphasised in any discussion about alcohol. Suddenly when it is other recreational drugs or porn, if they even bother to mention that these negative effects apply to a small minority, they mention it in passing in the small print.
If someone comes to a school and gives a talk about how they started out with a little wine, but before they knew it, inevitably, they were drinking all day and living in a gutter, most listeners would be thinking 'Yeah, well that was you, we know this won't happen to most people', but with other drugs and porn we've been brainwashed with the implicit assumption that these things must do serious harm to almost all those who are exposed to them and that it is in fact just the very lucky few who escape being destroyed.
When I was at school some ex-junkie came round and told us his tale of woe. Afterwards I asked him if he ever drinks alcohol. 'Yes, he said, but that's different'. I suggested that perhaps while he clearly had a problem with heroin he might be OK with say LSD. He launched into an increasingly ridiculous anti-drug tirade. I thought what a hypocritical, lying waste of my time. As I discovered over the years this hypocrasy is pretty much typical amongst self-righteous ex-illegal-drug users and those who work at rehabilitation clinics for those drugs.
"Does this mean that anybody who publishes a study showing links between cancer and tobacco should be modded down"
Yes, if they failed to mention an equally huge body of research that could find no link, or worse had found positive effects from long-term smoking. This doesn't really exist for smoking (we can ignore any research carried out by those who sell cigarettes just as we can ignore research carried out by those who sell pornography).
Far too much negative research into pornography, violence in games etc, starts with something along the lines of 'We set out to find and demonstrate the harm'. It is all loaded from the beginning. Research results are distorted after the fact. It is actually really hard to get money for unbiased research in this field. Probably as hard as getting money to test fingerprint theory.
The escalation is not that simple. I would argue that those who "graduated to more heinous stuff" were simply predisposed to this heinous stuff. If someone secretly dreams about domination or sexual violence, he will migrate to rape. But it's not because of escalation - he always wanted rape, it's just that it's hard to start your porn journey with rape magazines. :) Similarly, one may be a paedophile, but you don't usually start with child porn.
:)
Everyone starts with tame porn, because it's the easiest to get. You can get softcore magazines in grocery stores, you can get softcore movies on free cable TV.
I personally like child porn, lolicon anime and bestiality porn. However, I find rape, scat, peeing, BDSM and many other types of porn disgusting and repugnant. I also enjoy vanilla softcore teen porn and lesbian porn. I think that if you describe my porn preferences as "escalation" you are committing a serious fallacy - the transition to more heinous stuff is simply because I started with..... Let me remember. Aha! It was non-nude erotic stickers in bubble gum.
We move to stronger stuff not becauses exposure to softer porn makes us crave stronger stuff, but simply because the porn we start with is almost never strong enough for our taste.
"doesn't mean it's not harmful in a lot of cases"
In some cases it is. We don't know how often it is harmful because you simply cannot get funding to research something like this.
"It's simply foolish to say that porn is never harmful to anyone. The only question is how harmful and in what numbers."
Exactly, but that is just what this book is not doing, and that is what is being pointed out. It is presenting a skewed view, pretending that there is this huge pile of research showing negative results, even alleging it has been kept hidden it is so bad, implying that positive research doesn't or barely exists.
It would be useful to do some real research into pornography, just as it would be useful to know for instance what percentage of heroin users come to harm and how much of that harm has nothing to do with heroin, but is entirely caused by its legal status. Good luck getting funding. Of course if you want to add more research to the 'It's bad' pile the government will throw money at you.
I don't know whether porn is good or bad. One thing I know - if there was a safe, quick and easy way to completely eliminate my sexual drive without any significant side effects and in a reversible way, I would do it gladly.
Having said that, while my sex drive is still non-zero, I very much prefer wasting time jerking off to porn to trying to get a "relationship".
I can understand those who oppose both sex and porn for morality reasons, I can understand those who embrace both in their hedonism. But I can't understand people who accept sex, but argue that porn is bad. It's only as bad as our sexuality is. Porn (even when easily available) doesn't make people waste time masturbating.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
"His view of what a women should 'be' becomes skewed."
It's great then that we have good conservative influences correcting us on what a woman should be.
"He might start to think his wife is not good enough, since she's not what he sees in the videos."
Good to know then that the rest of our culture teaches us to accept people for what they are.
"because the topic is difficult, instead of asking if she might be into 'that' (whatever it is) he goes out the door in search of it."
That's a relationship problem, not porn. Funnily enough humans don't require porn to think of sexual things they'd like to do. Only conservative nutjobs think humans are so stupid and lacking in creativity that everyone could only come up with what they consider the right, godly way.
Then again these are same loons that worry about children being exposed to nudity.
The fact is that real humans generally like to try out different experiences and sensations. That is why we have a wide variety of foods, why we have music and art.
Actually, I don't think opiates are inherently evil; alcohol and tobacco do immeasurably more harm. Unfortunately, opiate's illegality drives users into a criminal lifestyle, without that it might be more manageable.
Well here you have stated my point quite well, that Marijuana truly is a "gateway drug". It drives people into a criminal lifestyle. Your experience with Marijuana isn't the same as mine. You have seen it at parties simply because of it's widespread use, but the people bringing it to the parties probably smoke it every day. Ask them how many times they've tried to quit. The parties I went to revolved around Marijuana, roll a few joints and play some music and you have a party. Eventually I stopped smoking it at parties because I decided I would rather be alert, socially active, pot would give me couch-lock and slow my brain down at parties.
You feel alcohol and tobacco do immeasurably more harm, which may be true, but they are also connected to this gateway system. You go to a party and get drunk, and next thing you know you're smoking pot, because it's fun and cool and all that. It is irrational for you to believe that the buck just stops dead at anything beyond Marijuana.
So why use it then?
That is a very good question. There is plenty of reason *not* to use it. I think peer presure and pop culture are the two greatest influences.
Why am I wrong? Because you don't want to accept any personal responsibility?
I didn't smoke pot to be cool at parties, I smoked it by myself because I liked it. What you are saying is a lie made up by the anti-drug war types who think legalizing marijuana is the right thing to do. They may use phony statistics to make their point but I think it really boils down to common sense. The gateway drug argument has a lot of weight. I was young at the time, willpower grows stronger with age and as greater responsibility amounts. So I *did* take responsibility at some point. I don't know where you put yourself. Perhaps you intend to use it in moderation your whole life, like I drink alcohol in moderation. I don't know how old you are either, or what your family situation is. Pot these days is strong, I used to smoke one little tiny piece, maybe the size of an m&m, and it would bake me for the whole night after I got off work. If I did that right now I would be a stoned idiot around my wife and kid, all the time as far as they could tell. Back when I was young, I had nothing to do after work.
Well, then please post the peer reviews of his research. It has of course been repeated and verified right?
Just because he is not a man of "conservative sexual knowledge" does not mean he didn't start with a basic dislike of pornography.
The important thing though is that others must have been able to repeat his results and check his research for problems.
"The results of a scientific study?"
Not quite. It alleges such, but it is skewed by not presenting the vast evidence that counters the general bent of the book.
> How you get to good or evil, I'm not so sure :)
Electricity can be used for constructive purposes, ie:
- powering engines
- creating light in light bulbs
Electricity can be used for destructive purposes, ie:
- killing a condemed man in the electric chair
(I'm not against capitol punishment, just an example)
Electricity used carelessly can also be destructive, albiet unintentionally, ie:
- dropping the hair dryer in the tub and electricuting someone
- a short in a wire causing a fire that burns down the house
Point being: with power comes responsability. Including the responsability to understand the consequences of unleashing that power. Until we get a better understanding of porn's effects on us, should we not err on the side of caution?
"Creativity is allowing ones self to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep" - Scott Adams
Quite wrong. You can get pretty much any drugs you want. Yes, cannabis is typically all around because it is a relatively mild intoxicant and it is fairly easy to produce. Yes, there are some people just set out to get as loaded as possible who will probably go for heroin if they can get and afford it, but if they couldn't they'd just smoke insane amounts of weed. Or they could move to an easily available, highly toxic drug known as alcohol. You can't get much harder than that.
Cannabis is supposedly a gateway drug because it allegedly introduces people to getting high. Well then alcohol should be the real culprit since that is most people's first introduction to getting high.
If many drugs are available some people will try them all out, but each person will have their preferences and it isn't matter of graduating from one to another for most. You move onto something else because you're after something the current drug doesn't give you, not because the drug itself induces the need to move to something else.
Drug users can be idiotic snobs just like any group. In the end though each person chooses what they want to use and there is no inducement from whatever drug they currently use.
"the more porn they watched, the more intensely they defended porn"
OK, so they demonstrated that people defend their right to something they enjoy. Which applies equally to the nicotine example, but proves nothing. Nicotine withdrawal passes pretty swiftly.
No addiction to pornography has been demonstrated. It appears also that the authors of this study demonstrated no real-world negative outcomes.
"they were developing a demand for more of it, and more explicit porn, and more violent porn."
Were these people who had never seen pornography before? It sounds like it. So they were curious and wanted to see more. Proves nothing. Violent? How did the researchers define violent? It is usually defined as something like expressing negative thoughts or getting agitated. That's right if you get excited and vocal about something you'll be defined as violent.
"If you find yourself angry at the thought of this book"
Well I'm a fervent demander of some real research into pornography, something that so far is actually lacking. I don't really look at porn all that often though.
I'd like to take issue with your 4th point, regarding First Amendment rights.
If we can agree that porn is akin to alcohol, in that it has the capacity to be addictive to at least some people, then should we not take more care to ensure that it is only consumed voluntarily?
My neighbor is free to drink beer in the privacy of his own yard. One could even argue that he should be free to shoot up heroin, so long as he confines himself to his property. But no one would conscience my neighbor walking around the streets jabbing a needle full of smack into random people. Nor would we as a society ever condone grain alcohol to spout from random water fountains.
But that's what is currently happening on the 'net. Porn is too accessible, and too many people who probably shouldn't look at it, get bombarded with erotic images in spite of their resonable efforts to avoid them.
Freedom of speech does not mean my neighbor can put up a huge billboard on the roof of his house, where everone who walks by on the street can see, with a pic of hardcore porn.
IMO, porn needs to be on secure sites, accessible only by paying adult customers.
Then we can start to argue over what constitutes "art"...
"Creativity is allowing ones self to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep" - Scott Adams
Funny... I never brought up issues of party... niether did the poster of the article.
Sure you did. The Republican party in the US is the extremist right wing party. The Democrats are the moderate right wing/ Left fascist party. I know you don't like taking an honest look at reality, but those are the facts.
As the actions and words of the extreme right, the extreme left shows its true colors in ways like you demonstrate.
So I point out the blatant and obvious hypocrisy of your position. Rather than actually having the courage to look at your positions and realising that they are, in fact, contradictory you lalalalalala it away and then launch into an idiotic attack on me.
Not that attacking me is idiotic, but you do it in a way that proves the points I was making.
the extreme left shows its true colors in ways like you demonstrate.
That in itself is laughable for a number of reasons.
First, I'm mostly a Liberal, hence not a leftist.
I do lean a little to the left, but really, as a person of morals I don't see any other way as being consistent with being a decent person.
I believe the purpose of the state is to promote personal liberty. That is consistent with American values.
You on the other hand flat out admitted that you believe in big oppressive government to be used to prevent personal liberty.
Don't get pissy at me because your position is inconsistent and basically really nasty at heart.
There is nothing in the least extremist about my position.
Now you, on the other hand, are an admitted extremist. So much so that you are entirely unable to defend any of your positions which I destroyed with a small application of logic and knowledge.
So, when your hypocricy and your extremely poor understanding of politics was pointed out to you in an honest and undeniable manner, you took the standard course of your ilk by screeching "leftist" in an entirely inappropriate context.
Seriously, little troll. If your position is indefensible, then it is not my fault. It is yours.
Let's see some of that great personal responsibility hogwash your type is so loud yelling about until it actually comes time to step up.
Seriously Dude.
Your entire argument was shredded and this is the best you can do?!?
I believe the purpose of the state is to promote personal liberty. That is consistent with American values.
Then define liberty. Different men define it differently. For example, John Adams defined freedom as not wanton right to do what brings one the most pleasure, but the right to do what one ought to. Others, like Ayn Rand, define it as a call to anarchy. There are numberous other definitions which reasonable men disagree.
You on the other hand flat out admitted that you believe in big oppressive government to be used to prevent personal liberty.
Really? I said nothing of the sort. The only thing I can assume you are referring to is my statement that I'm pro-life -- which is thouroughly consistent with my other beliefs. I don't think the children murdered in abortion clinics would consider this stance oppressive...
Now you, on the other hand, are an admitted extremist. So much so that you are entirely unable to defend any of your positions which I destroyed with a small application of logic and knowledge.
I believe that the government has one objective, and one objective alone: to protect its citizens from force and fraud. Anything beyond is frivilous. This is a simple and self-consistent philosophy -- far easier to discern from yours, of which I have to pick between your rantings.
Also, I wasn't trying to defend any of my positions. My positions are irrelevent, and given only as an example for the argument against your assertion that opinions of right-wing thought should not be present in this forum.
Lex orandi, lex credendi.
You simply don't understand. It is not "acceptance of a fetish". Porn represents this not as a "fetish" but as a normal activity which the recipient is supposed to enjoy. And the rejection of this act is equated to rejection of the person by the rejectee.
And we don't even have to go as far as the extremes of fetishes. When "normal" gets expanded through desensitization, the one who has not been desensitized isn't going to accept this as normal just because someone tells them to.
When you ask someone out to the movies and they say "no", do you assume they don't like movies, or that they don't want to go to one with you? If you do this repeatedly, to the point that you can rule out simple schedule conflicts, then what it left? If this is not "rejection", then why is rejection such a painful part of the adolescent process, to the point that boys are paralyzed into inaction? Why is it a stereotypical teenager who says "I'd like to ask her out, but she'd just say no and I'd be embarassed"?
If the porn is the cause of the apparent rejection, then while there may be more serious issues, the causal factor is still the porn.
That's the whole point i'm trying to make with my several posts here... it's not the porn that's the problem, it's that some people can handle it, some people can't.
Nope. It is not a problem that some people can handle it. It is a problem that it creates mythic figures that we wish to see in others, and by doing so lessens our ability to see others as what they are.
Some she liked the idea, others she didn't. Neither way did that hurt our relationship any.
Once again, a single anectode is being used as proof.
The real problem isn't porn, but insecurity, closed mindedness, or a host of other things.
Yes, if we were all perfect, porn would not be a problem. But it is that "perfection" that porn shows us that makes imperfection just that much more of a problem.
When I can have a "girlfriend" that never says no to even the most bizzare and humiliating acts; who never argues with me, always does for me what I want done, and doesn't rip my clothes to shreds after a bitter breakup, why in heaven's name would I dare try for the real thing? It is that disconnection between real people and the real fantasy that is the problem. Would I be better off with the fantasy, or with a (series of) real person? I can answer that: the latter is much better, but when the former is so readily available, it's often too much work.
eally? I said nothing of the sort. The only thing I can assume you are referring to is my statement that I'm pro-life --
I was referring to your anti-gay stance.
I believe that the government has one objective, and one objective alone: to protect its citizens from force and fraud.
Which is 100% inconsistent with this attitude.
Look, either you believe that the purpose of the government is to prevent force and fraud (like you said) or you do not believe that. You by your stance on gays do not believe this. Further, you believe that a valid purpose of government is to use force *against* its citizens.
That is an insurmountable contradiction.
This is a simple and self-consistent philosophy
Certainly, but it isn't your philosophy no matter how much you try and tell yourself that it is.
The fact is that you can believe one or the other, but it is not possible to believe in both due to the simple fact that they are contradictory positions.
My positions are irrelevent, and given only as an example for the argument against your assertion that opinions of right-wing thought should not be present in this forum.
You're totally missing the point.
I didn't say that they shouldn't appear.
My point was that there is a clear moral distinction between the two philosophies which I clearly laid out. Additionally I demonstrated by a simple application of the definitions of the freaking philosophies that one is inherently morally superior as a philosophy regardless of what happens in practice.
Now, you can't even come up with an internal philosophy which is consistent for which you're trying to blame me instead of actually either changing your attitudes to actually reflect your morals or drop the act that you hold such morals.
Anti-gay stance? What anti-gay stance? I said nothing of homosexuality. I mentioned the following issues:
From prior post:
I'm pro-life, but anti-death-penalty. I despise huge government programs, but also despise the war in Iraq (and America's general feeling that it should be the world's police force). I find pornography to be disgusting, but see no justification in censorship (with exception of kiddie porn and snuff films and the like).
If you're confusing me with someone else, I'm sorry. I think government should have NOTHING to do with marriage, etc. I mentioned nothing about homosexuality.
Additionally I demonstrated by a simple application of the definitions of the freaking philosophies that one is inherently morally superior as a philosophy regardless of what happens in practice.
No, you listed some things wrong with some people who subscribe to one of the philosophies. Many would have no problems living in a nation that implements such rules you have problems with.
Lex orandi, lex credendi.
the amount of kiddie porn, however you measure it, is irrelevant. the number of people who produce and consume KP is growing because access is so much easier. And I doubt they are just reselling old pix taken in 1995.
Now that wasn't so hard to figure out, was it? Never assume that past under-reporting is the only factor in rising statistics.
Corollary to Moore's Law: The IQ of new computer owners is declining.
You simply don't understand. It is not "acceptance of a fetish". Porn represents this not as a "fetish" but as a normal activity which the recipient is supposed to enjoy. And the rejection of this act is equated to rejection of the person by the rejectee.
And we don't even have to go as far as the extremes of fetishes. When "normal" gets expanded through desensitization, the one who has not been desensitized isn't going to accept this as normal just because someone tells them to.
Nope. It is not a problem that some people can handle it. It is a problem that it creates mythic figures that we wish to see in others, and by doing so lessens our ability to see others as what they are.
This still reflects a form of escapism from reality, of which, porn is one of many different ways to do. The fact that people need this isn't an indightment of porn, it's a simple fact of life. People WANT a fantasy, people want to see things that are more than themselves. Personally i think Professional Sports and Hollywood are as much if not a greater problem when dealing with escapism. They build up unreaslitic heroes. Either way, that's the world we live in and we need to understand the difference. If we don't we get affected by it. To attack porn as the cause is ignoring the real problem.
When you ask someone out to the movies and they say "no", do you assume they don't like movies, or that they don't want to go to one with you? If you do this repeatedly, to the point that you can rule out simple schedule conflicts, then what it left? If this is not "rejection", then why is rejection such a painful part of the adolescent process, to the point that boys are paralyzed into inaction? Why is it a stereotypical teenager who says "I'd like to ask her out, but she'd just say no and I'd be embarassed"?
This is a completly different issue here. You were trying to explain how Bukkake could ruin a relationship. This situation isn't even yet a relationship. When you ask soemone out and they reject you, that just means they aren't attracted to you. You were originally talking about two peopel already in an established relationship and one of them thinks that a rejection of a fetish they have is a rejection of their love. On the other hand, I am saying, that roots down to a big problem with their psyche that would exist with or without the porn.
If the porn is the cause of the apparent rejection, then while there may be more serious issues, the causal factor is still the porn.
That cause of the rejection is NOT porn, the cause of the rejection is that one person and the other have different tastes. People need to learn to deal with that. The porn, in this case, is just an expression of that different taste.
Once again, a single anectode is being used as proof.
All i need is one example to demonstrate that the author's 100 is not conclusive proof. The authour chose 100 negative examples and only gave them... no examples of zero affect or positive affect. To me, that is being dishonest. It tries to represent those 100 as some kind of conclusive evidence. How do we know that they didnt' survey 1000 people, or 1,000,000 and just picked the 100 worst example? Considering the millions of people who watch porn, 100 people is just as useless an example as one.
Yes, if we were all perfect, porn would not be a problem. But it is that "perfection" that porn shows us that makes imperfection just that much more of a problem.
When I can have a "girlfriend" that never says no to even the most bizzare and humiliating acts; who never argues with me, always does for me what I want done, and doesn't rip my clothes to shreds after a bitter breakup, why in heaven's name would I dare try for the real thing? It is that disconnection between real people and the real fantasy that is the problem. Would I be better off with the fantasy, or with a (series of) real person? I can answer that: the latter is much better, but when the former is so
I believe sex is highly over rated... unless it involves me
How do you figure? Let me clarify and expand on my original comment. What I should have said was; has the amount of child porn and child porn producers/consumers increased or has the Internet made it easier for the FBI to find them, leading to the increase in cases above. Where it would have been neccessary prior to the WWW for the feds to infiltrate kiddy porn rings the net gives them much more anonymity and easier access.
I have no doubt that the number of consumers of child porn has increased, thats not at issue. I'm questioning the 26 fold number. What would be interesting is to run a comparison of kiddy porn cases and cases of child sexual abuse in that period and see if the increase is comparable. To simply cite the increase in the number of FBI cases and to claim a cause with no further evidence is incorrect reasoning and proves nothing. Correlation does not imply causation
My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle...
Anti-gay stance? What anti-gay stance?
That would be the anti-gay stance of a different poster in a different thread. Mea Culpa.
Sorry about that.
Many would have no problems living in a nation that implements such rules you have problems with.
Many had no problems living in Germany in the 30s and 40s, but I fail to see how that makes it a philosophy on equal footing with many others.
My point there stands if you completely ignore the holocaust as well.
You must move in different circles than I. In mine there is a big dsitinction between "soft" and "hard" drugs, not chemically but socially. Most of the people I went to university with used pot, I don't know any that went through this gateway you keep on about.
The gateway drug argument has a lot of weight.
No it doesn't, see above. You want to blame pot smokers for your opiate problem.
I don't think cannabis is considered gateway because it introduces people to getting high, they may have gotten high at the dentist. It introduces them to illegal trafficking networks where they obtain access to other drugs.
Your belief that people will tend to stick with one drug is complete nonsense, it has no foundation. You are speaking from your own experience, your use of the word "preference" makes it sound as though it is an addiction. You typically move on to something else for the same reason you started using marijuana in the first place.
This "review" was a biased advertisement stroking the right-wing conservatives egos that their missionary-position bi-monthly sex acts are acceptable and even encouraged while their co-workers' healthy and exciting sex life is deviant and unacceptable.
Please get a grip on your emotions. Do you have anything to back up that statement about conservatives?
Erotic is using a feather. Kinky is using the whole chicken.
No it doesn't, see above. You want to blame pot smokers for your opiate problem.
I am offended by this comment, I never had an opiate problem. Marijuana was the problem. I told you it led me to opiates. The opposite is hardly ever the case, that someone starts with opiates and ends up using marijuana.
You don't take marijuana seriously enough. That is where our discussion ends.
If opiates weren't a problem, what are you complaining about then?
I think you need your eyes checked. The parent poster specifically said that nobody is condoning criminal rape. What your father allegedly did to you would be criminal. What your husband did to you may have been as well (though it doesn't sound like it).
What a male and a female pornstar engage in, however, is not criminal, and you're in no position to speculate (quite incorrectly, from what I've heard) about the supposed coercian of women in the porn industry.
Nobody is defending rape. What we are defending is consensual sex between adults, and consensual viewing of that sex by other adults. I hope you can overcome your own past personal experiences to realize that those crimes are not what anyone here is defending.
His point was that it was not a scientific study and therefore we can't draw any conclusions yet, I think. In fact, I don't know of any legitimate research that has found any seriously detrimental effects of pornography, which means it's just a tad early to start running around saying the sky is falling.
In point of fact, the book cites controlled studies that, as best as I can tell, were legitimately and responsibly executed. Pamela Paul never claims that the anecdotes from her interviewees prove porn is bad; they're just illustrations to make the results of the scientific studies more vivid.
c id=13498342
c id=13498176
In other posts here, I have summarized some of the methodology in these studies
http://books.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=161288&
and listed some of the sources that Paul cites
http://books.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=161288&
I haven't read them (the studies, not the posts), so I can't accurately comment (and neither can you). If I get around to it, I will hit the library for some of these studies, because I'm curious. But my point before (as I noted in a previous post) was that the vast majority of "research" into the subject is so clearly politically motivated that it often seems doubtful any legitimate efforts are even being undertaken.
Like I said in that post, when a leading "expert" on the supposed malignant effects of pornography (Dr. Judith Reisman) has to turn to pseudo-science like "erototoxins" to make her point, I have to wonder why her argument would be so weak if there were really the evidence out the wazoo backing that position that anti-porn activists claim there is. In other words, if the apparent leaders of said movement can't come up with a good argument (and they're clearly the ones most incentivized to do so), there probably isn't a good argument to be made.
Can't comment on Riesman; she may be as bad as you say or even worse. Note that Pornified does not cite Reisman, so it would not be fair to tar Pamela Paul by association.
Paul had an essay on Eric Alterman's blog yesterday, talking about the warring studies on porn. It overlaps with some material in the book and should give a pretty good idea of her writing style, objectivity, etc.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3449870/
(part way down the page)
That's an interesting read, to be sure. I take issue with her characterization of the "debate" over porn as drawn upon clear political lines; regulating pornography is as much a libertarian/authoritarian issue as it is a Liberal/Conservative one (indeed, many vocal feminists are even quicker to condemn pornography as degrading to women as the Conservatives mentioned here). Ultimately, whether or not it is an interesting area of sociological study (I tend to think it's not, because I strongly suspect the motives and methedology of those involved), it doesn't even deserve a place at the table when discussing social policy. If anti-porn crusaders admit that it does not cause criminal behavior like sexual violence (and not all admit this, but Paul, to her credit, seems to), then they have no issue that the government should take interest in. Marriages, relationship counseling, or unrealistic sexual expectations are not something it is within our power to legislate.
Paul takes a fair number of cheap shots here, though. Calling out "progressives" as defending corporations is more than a little ridiculous; this is a First Amendment issue, and assuming all Liberals are knee-jerk anti-corporates makes me question Paul's supposed Liberal credentials.
But unfortunately, this bit doesn't touch on any of her supposed research, so I'm going to have to resort again to asking for the hard data. I guess perhaps I shouldn't trust the reviewers who say her methedology (interviewing 100 Fark users?) is flawed and just see if I can find this book at the library. I'd rather not buy it and give her my money.
Marijuana. God you're thick.
Marijuana. God you're thick.
Maybe you need something to calm you down.
In order to get porn on the net you have to: a) procure a computer b) procure an internet connection c) search for porn via google or some other method, and d) click on said link. Noone is forcing porn on you nor are they taking out the time to mainline it into your veins.
It seems to me that your real beef is that it isn't hard to get. The fact of the matter is that it takes an act of will (and computer technology) to obtain it now. There is little meaningful difference between that and adding a password to the whole business.
As to the implied point that kids can get it easily, I would point out that we have laws regularing the flow of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs and yet minors are still able to obtain them. On a good day such laws slow things down, a little bit. With porn as with underage drinking it is up to the parents to monitor their children and not the rest of the world to involuntarily alter its behavior on the off chance a child will get in.
Do not think that this is a flippant point or that I am insensitive to the difficulty in controlling children. My point is that mandated adult-checks and so on are not a viable solution because then we are still left arguing about what is "adult" and who gets to apply the standards. I would argue that most news and virtually all of the Bible constitutes "adult" matetrial but I would also argue that we gain nothing by locking that behind closed doors.
The bottom line is that:
Problem is that we tell kids all the time "don't do it" without telling them why. We say "don't smoke weed". They ask why. "Because it's bad for you." There's either absolutely no description of what's so bad about it, or an attempt to explain why that's not fully informative (perhaps because the parents don't know why themselves?). Then, during the teenage years, when kids go through puberty and try to separate from their parents (this is perfectly normal and, in fact, it's not healthy for it not to happen to some degree), some teens try doing drugs, alcohol, porn, and sex and what not to rebel against their parents - because, so far, their opinion of these things is just based on their parents' opinions, rather than their own opinion formulated by facts they have heard from their parents and other people.
Maybe if we actually taught why premarital sex and porn are so bad, we wouldn't have such a big problem. If you tell your kids about what happened to you with your porn addiction, I'm sure they'll be much more likely to not look at it than if you just tell them "don't do it because it's bad".
www.linuxpenguin.net
T --> P.
P --> T.
It's obviously a loop. A circle. Sure! Technology drives porn, and porn drives technology. It's only a question of *how much*. Why not?!!
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.