Slashdot Mirror
Pr0n's Effect On Society
Rytis writes "An article at the Financial Times is analysing the growing impact of internet pornography, the phenomena itself and the problems that it causes to our society. Surveys within Great Britain have shown that more than a half of 9-19 years olds have seen pornography online. From the article: 'To some men, Haynes argues, clicking on porn is simply a way to pass the time. It's a hobby. Once they'd idly play solitaire; now they idly click on a porn site. Others, though, succumb to addiction: Most addictions are to do with internal emptiness, wanting to fill up dead space, and addiction is always destructive.'"
I wonder what the split was along gender lines?
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
However, now we have a completely different context. The prevalence of porn is amazing and so is its accessibility.
It is becoming very clear that teenagers are conducting themselves (sexually) in a very different way from their parents or even probably older siblings. The recent case of the (Georgia?) teen who was convicted of a sex crime that was videotaped is a good example of this. I'm not debating about whether or not he committed a crime--I'm just discussing it in the context of the video.
In the seventies we had makeout parties, sure, but it was really rare to have people taking their clothes off and having sex in the open, orgy-style; it obviously was even more rare to take photos or film it, since the technology to view those photos or films without them being developed outside the home was absent.
What if we ignore 18 and 19 year olds?
.xxx domain for, however adults viewing it is none of our concern. It's their right, shut the fuck up about it. Thus to include young adults in with children is just not useful, and the only reason I can see is to try and bias a statistic that the researchers didn't like.
The reeks of a delibratly skewed statistic. I mean why would one pick that particular age range? Why would you include 18 and 19 year olds, who are adults in every country I'm aware of, with teens and children?
The reason is most likely that if you narrow the paramaters to 9-17 year olds, you find that the number who have viewed porn drops significantly. Of course the idea is to try and generate outrage "OMG t3h childrens are viewing t3h porn!!! Ban it!!!!!" This leaves the reader with the impression that "half of all children have viewed porn." However the reality might be something more along the lines of "10% of children 9-17 and more than 50% of 18-19 years olds have seen porn online."
How many children get access to pronography is a concern, at least when they do so without parental permission, though not one that we should mandidate filtering or something liek a
A long time ago, in the early seventies, politicians in several countries were concerned enough about pornography to commission studies to see just what was going on. These studies were commissioned in the USA, UK, Canada, and Denmark. There may have been others. In 1972 the President's Commission on Pornography issued its report, now nearly impossible to obtain (lots of good pictures), detailing thirty studies of the effects of pornography. 29 studies showed no correlation between pornography and aberrant behaviors, i.e.: crime. The Commission therefore recommended that laws against pornography be abolished. Though the study was commissioned before his term of office, Nixon was President at the time, and he totally rejected the conclusions of the study. The same conclusions were reached by the studies in the UK, Canada and Denmark. Canada and the UK reacted similar to the US. Denmark did not. Instead, they took the study results at face value and de-criminlaized pornography.
Then an odd thing happened. Within a single year sex-related crimes in Denmark went DOWN over 60%! See: "The effect of easy availability of pornography on the incidence of sex crimes: The Danish experience" Journal of Social Science, Vol 29:3 (1973), pp. 163-181. For a fuller accounting see "Porn Alley: Now at your local public library," by yours truly. Computers in Libraries, Vol 19:10, November-December, 1999, pp. 32-35. This may be available online.
There was a second commission on pornography in the US headed up by attorney general Meese. They had half the amount of money over ten years later, meant a few times, had some public meetings, went to some adult bookstores, and concluded that porn was bad. The history of this farscical commission is a real hoot to read. The commissioners in this case claimed exposure to pornography was damaging, but their year-long exposure to such somehow unaffected them. I wish I could cite the book that details this, but darned if I can find it. If only I had the software slashdot talked about a couple of days ago....
Now, if you have a moralistic issue about pornography, that is still valid, so all the folks who are posturing about porn treating women as objects and how unfair nature was to wire men and women differently, and how God doesn't like it, well, you just go for it. But if you're talking in scientific terms, the evidence would suggest that pornography does not create more crime, but it does create less crime. Nearly every study done suggests that is true and a whole country has proven it in real time. If you're going to assail the scientific evidence, you're going to have to do a lot more than just voice your opinion. That's not to say that a big political uproar cannot be made by rousing the ignorance and moral outrage of the populace, but the entire issue is based on nonsense.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
There are things that are genuinely physically addictive like hard drugs
I wouldn't be so sure about even that one.
I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman
My question: how many were looking for it when they found it? How many of those 9 year-olds who had seen porn (assuming that any of those 9 year-olds fall into the 50% mentioned) were looking for stuff on Pokemon or Cardcaptors?