Slashdot Mirror
Iceland Considers Internet Porn Ban
Onymous Hero writes "With the printing and distribution of pornography already banned in Iceland, further measures to stop internet porn are being considered by Iceland's Interior Minister Ogmundur Jonasson. From the article: "Iceland is taking a very progressive approach that no other democratic country has tried," said Professor Gail Dines, an expert on pornography and speaker at a recent conference at Reykjavik University. "It is looking a pornography from a new position — from the perspective of the harm it does to the women who appear in it and as a violation of their civil rights.""
This is dumb, as a woman who's various parts are all over the internet I think this is bullshit.
This is like being on a boat in the middle of the ocean and trying to declare water illegal.
...to the internet proxy industry :-)
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
"It is looking a pornography from a new position..."
Meh. I've seen all the positions (and done most of them).
Months after this measure goes into effect, sex crimes will skyrocket. What other idiocy does iceland have?
The women who work in porn are there of the own free will and many of them make a decent living from it. Same with strippers. The only victims in a strip club are the guys blowing their paychecks to see a naked woman.
Dilbert is coding protection software to keep minors from viewing porn.
Dogbert: So, you're pitting your intellect against the collective sex drives of every teenager on the planet?
Dilbert: Yes.
Dogbert: Did you know that if you put a little hat on it a snowball can last a long time in hell?
Just another idiotic moral panic. Where's the actual evidence of harm to either porn consumers or producers?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Foisting your old-world belief systems onto the Internet is neither Progressive nor innovative.
Done correctly, sex doesn't hurt anyone. It's a simple biological process that does not itself degrade or injure. A few minutes of having a dense set of nerve endings correctly modulated to produce an instictively programmed pleasure response is simply not a problem for humans.
It's people like you Mr. Jonasson that make it a problem, people who look at women as degraded if they have sex in front of cameras, you are the problem. Your judgement, sexual frustration and jealousy of those who have the sex you deny your self is all the darkness that is brought to the table.
I'm glad everyone in my life has enough fun sex that we don't have to be up tight about this old-world garbage. I treat pornstars and nuns no better or worse than I would treat the Queen of England.
So if the women are being harmed and their civil rights are being violated for voluntarily participating in porn, where's the outrage over the harm done to the men in the same videos performing the same acts? Just curious.
Leave gay porn legalized!
I don't think Icelanders are any more or less sexually moral than any one else. There are indeed abuses of women in porn, and the sex worker trafficing problem is huge.
However, this is a moralist in disguise. He doesn't mention as an example, gay/lesbian porn. He's thinly disguising is contempt for porn in general. Consenting partners, unencumbered and free to make the choice, make porn all of the time. He's just interested in making sure no one watches it, for his sense of moral satisfaction.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Performing in porn is free expression, and banning that expression is an infringement on the civil rights of the participants. The only "harm" resulting from porn is not from the porn itself, but from a society that is reactionary and overly judgmental. This is total bullshit to call this "progressive".
In the name of health and safety, children, civil rights and stuff.
Not 'christians', fundies, conservatives or anyone else you've been trained to hate.
The ruling class deciding how you'll live with no help from the church at all.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
This is progressive like Catholicism. "Won't somebody think of the women?" They're not children and there is no coercion (if they are or there is, that's a real crime). The real story here is Iceland thinks women are not equal to men, and may not have equal power of choice.
Professor Gail Dines, an expert on pornography and speaker at a recent conference at Reykjavik University.
How exactly did this gentleman become an expert on pornography?
It is looking a pornography from a new position â" from the perspective of the harm it does to the women who appear in it and as a violation of their civil rights."
What if they unconsciously want to appear in it? Isn't democracy the right to choose your destiny, good or bad?
Freedom collides with democracy again. "Progressive" democracy that can conjur reasons to remove freedom to the applause of people.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Never mind the fact that at least some of the participants of either sex many not be being exploited any more than the would if flipping burgers for minimum wage while their PhD is being reviewed.
Rgds
Damon
http://m.earth.org.uk/
except for the ones involving more than one person.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
A place that has a Phallic museum should not be trying harder than Al-Quida to ban naked women.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
So Professor Gail Dines is an "expert on pornography?"
I'm sure there are quite a few other "experts" out there who will take a counter position. Or two.
Censorship is progressive now, huh?
It's 2013 people.
"Progressive" now means that we'll tell you how to think and what to think.
It's great, I mean - look at all the burden that's taken off the individual!
(On a serious note relevant to the OP: (http://newsroom.unl.edu/blog/?p=1202) "The research, published in the European Journal of Social Psychology, found in a series of experiments that participants processed images of men and women in very different ways. When presented with images of men, perceivers tended to rely more on "global" cognitive processing, the mental method in which a person is perceived as a whole. Meanwhile, images of women were more often the subject of "local" cognitive processing, or the objectifying perception of something as an assemblage of its various parts." This was happening with both male and female survey subjects.
-Styopa
Art and freedom of expression are at risk here. This law is no different than the Taliban imposing extreme sharia law on their hapless victims, it is one small group determining everyone else's choices.
I mean, what else is there to do in Iceland other than watch porn? Poor, poor bastards...
Paternalistic, sexist bullshit. I don't see them whining about the civil rights of men in porn. No, it's only women who need protection.
Only a complete fool would buy this as anything other than a bald faced lie.
The pursuit of absolute tolerance leads to the most rigorous and ludicrous intolerance. - REX MURPHY
They need the money right. Make porn companies pay for access to Iceland.
What do you lose if porn is banned? You lose PORN. Something that - when performed willingly, which is almost all of the time - doesn't harm anybody, but instead offers many people a good time. In other words, something that improves society. There's also the whole thing about how availability of porn is negatively correlated to occurrence of rape. I'm sure you can agree that rape is bad for society.
What do we lose, if porn is banned?
The freedom to choose.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
Who the fuck are you to decide what improved or degrades society, and even if you're right, it's peoples rights to be degraded or harmed or view that content if they want. The state is not infallible and neither is the majority.
I think the question should not be what do we have to lose. But whether there is any gain legislating on that.
Why not banning lolcats? lolcats do not (typically) have polical speech or social commentary, so let's just ban it. For sure we are not losing anything of much value. But why do that? People like lolcats.
If you were making anonymous polls to keep either lolcats or porn, I think cats would go out.
The article says this is a "very progressive approach".........which means it can only be for your own good.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
Pornography is mostly produced by willing people in the US/EU. But icelandic politic rather than admit they have a big dildo stuck in the ass and are conservative wanting to censure why they don't like, rename the issue as "progressive" and paint women doing porn as poor poor fragile forced doll unable to decide for themselves and which have to be protected against themselves and ban porn. In other word people stuck in the middle age thinking women are unable to decide for themselves, or horror , wanting to work in porn. *shrug* if the icelandic people keep electing conservatist, their problem, it is a democratic society, but calling the decision "progressive" irks me.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Porn is almost as bad for the mind as fluoridation. Do you realize that in addition to fluoridating water, why, there are studies underway to fluoridate salt, flour, fruit juices, soup, sugar, milk, ice cream? Ice cream, Mandrake? Children's ice cream!...You know when fluoridation began?...1946. 1946, Mandrake. How does that coincide with your post-war Commie conspiracy, huh? It's incredibly obvious, isn't it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual, and certainly without any choice. That's the way your hard-core Commie works. I first became aware of it, Mandrake, during the physical act of love... Yes, a profound sense of fatigue, a feeling of emptiness followed. Luckily I — I was able to interpret these feelings correctly. Loss of essence. I can assure you it has not recurred, Mandrake. Women, er, women sense my power, and they seek the life essence. I do not avoid women, Mandrake...but I do deny them my essence.
Just leave the gay porn. It's not as if any males were ever exploited to make porn. No. t the frail, fragile little women-folk who need to be protected from their own decision making capability.
Is trafficing huge?
Clearly, a significant number of women are moved for sexual purposes.
However, a russian prostitute offered a job (admittedly extra-legally) in another country, and who moves there consensually may be counted as having been 'trafficed'.
Kind of like assuming everyone in the country illegally was smuggled their without their consent by people trafficers.
Don't forget the odd Tower Records or MVC
Also, not all porn is photographic. There's a huge art industry in porn that stands to be affected by any attempt to ban it. Is a free society really going to tell artists what they can and cannot draw?
Exactly. What about porn made by men, staring men, only men, with an audience of men, and no women involved in the production process at all?
It's really easy to have good safe porn, without exploitation. Yes, it's certainly true that a lot of porn exploits the actors (men, women, etc.) involved. But that doesn't mean that Internet porn is all bad. And certainly the stuff that two consenting couples film, and then voluntarily put up on the Internet is not bad.
HELP MY ACCOUNT HAS BEEN HACKED BY AN ILLIBERAL ART STUDENT SET TO DESTROY THE INTERWEBZ!
I don't think Icelanders are any more or less sexually moral than any one else.
I'd argue that the banning of pornography and stripping makes Iceland significantly less sexually moral than other countries. Prudery is not moral. Freedom, and respecting the rights of people who use that freedom even if you don't like it, That's what real morality looks like.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Last time I heard, Iceland was the new haven for free speech online. What happened?
...the harm it does to the women who appear in it and as a violation of their civil rights.
This is not progressive at all. What it really is, to be blunt, is incredibly sexist. Professor Dines clearly views these women as too stupid and ignorant to make such decisions on their own, or even know that their civil rights are being violated. If that is not sexist, I don't know what is.
Just a quick FYI, people:
This ban is aimed at violent porn, not porn (as in naked people having sex). So, just to be clear, images depicting naked people having sex will be a-ok, whereas images depicting, say, women being raped or abused would not. It's the consenting adults principle, if you will.
How do I know this? Well, first of all, it's in the article: " "We have to be able to discuss a ban on violent pornography, which we all agree has a very harmful effects on young people and can have a clear link to incidences of violent crime," he said. " The "he" here is Ögmundur Jónasson, the Interior Minister. Also, he's discussed this on his homepage (which is in Icelandic, but here's the link: http://www.ogmundur.is/fra-lesendum/nr/6571/) where he specified that his concern is violent porn, NOT porn itself.
That said, I'm pretty skeptical about this being possible in practice, but I'd love to hear Slashdot's opinion about if people here think it is.
I am not a vegetarian werewolf.
Wait, what? I'm an expert in pornography. Been researching it since 1995
Sorry, despite anecdotal circumstances that seem suspect, there are still a huge number of involuntary sex workers in porn video. The statistics are available, and the sampling methods not suspect.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Sure we do -- we lose the right to do things without someone else deciding that it's morally wrong and forcing us not to do it.
Ah, but whose standards? Are you suggesting your standards are so awesome the rest of us should be legally required to adhere to them? Because anybody who suggests something is half way to becoming the problem as they'll want to make it illegal to do anything they disagree with.
Humans have been crass and supportive of outright destructive ideas for millenia. And humans are a diverse group who believe all sorts of stupid shit, believing otherwise is stupid.
And people tend to define "outright destructive ideas" as anything they don't agree with.
The best you can do in society is to try to balance the needs and wants of everybody -- not take one group and make what they think is Divine Immutable Truth and make everybody else follow it.
Who do we pick? The loudest? The most numerous? The ones who have always been in power? The first born male child?
Little old ladies who think a skirt should never be above the knee, people who believe a woman's face should be covered, or that dancing is the work of the devil -- those people are all entitled to their beliefs, but that doesn't confer any obligation on me to adhere to their beliefs. No more than anything that I choose to do that they disagree with confers any obligation on them.
The only obligation here is to shut the fuck up and mind your own business. Freedom of speech says "you can disagree, but you can't stop it" -- and quite frankly, it's a far better situation than a bunch of fanatics trying to make it law that the rest of us live up to what they believe.
I'm not going to adhere to your beliefs just because you want to, and I'm not going to listen to anything you say that says "god told me we can't do this" ... and at that point, you hold your tongue, and I'll hold mine. But if you think your beliefs gives you the right to tell me what I can and can't do -- then your beliefs are shit.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
What exactly make one an "expert in pornography" ?
While I agree with your sentiments, you judge all 300K+ Icelanders by the whims of one moralist minister.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
If porn gets banned, we don't lose anything that will improve our society.
We lose the porn. I like porn, and losing porn would make this society worse for me. Just because *you* don't value porn doesn't make it worthless. This is why we have freedom, because people have different values.
In the name of freedom of speech, expression, etc. we have permitted ourselves to become crass and to support outright destructive ideas, and in fact force them on others
Yes, destructive ideas like censorship are being force on Icelanders. This is a serious problem. Far more serious than porn.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Is trafficing huge?
I watch Law and Order Special Victims Unit, and yes, it's huge. The entire female population of Russia has been kidnapped and forced into prostitution in New York City.
I also learned that all Russian women are gorgeous, all Russian men are angry, and video games make teenage boys murder people.
The only thing I've noticed to be actually true is that there really are a lot of good looking Russian women. something in the water over there?
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Where's the actual evidence of harm to either porn consumers or producers?
Careful there, all it takes is one porn producer or consumer to sincerely say "looking at or being involved in producing porn hurt me" and your argument collapses.
It's far better for everyone to admit that IN SOME CASES porn involving only consenting adults and viewed only by consenting adults is harmful and IN SOME CASES it is not.
Absent scientific studies, we are free to argue about who is harmed and how much harm is done. Within reason, we are even free to argue the definition of harm.
In a democratic society whose constitution or basic law doesn't address the issue of porn or freedom of speech/publication/art, it's the job of the lawmakers to listen to the people, examine the facts, and pass laws or decline to pass laws accordingly.
Assuming and anti-internet-porn law would be legal and in practical terms enforceable, it's the government's job to weigh the harm being done by the status quo against the harm done by increased regulations, and to take into account the will of the people in the process. Not an easy job.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
The Register says
First off, just what is the law? Various guides - including an official release from the Ministry of Justice - make it clear that pictures will fall foul of the new law if four components are present. The pic must be pornographic, or produced for sexual purposes. It must be realistic. It must contain certain specific imagery, including necrophilia, bestiality, activity depicting serious harm to breast, anus or genitals or life-threatening activity. Finally, it must be grossly offensive, as determined either by a jury or magistrate.
All those components must be there. Poster your walls with the most grotesque, the most blood-spattered out-takes from Saw or Hostel and unless someone can prove you actually get off on them, no prosecution could follow. That, of course, highlights one of the first of many question marks hovering over this legislation: is "produced for sexual purposes" defined relative to the motives of the originator of an image, or the motives of the person who downloads it to their hard-drive? Lawyers suspect the latter: so in fact, the out-takes in question might or might not fall foul of the law depending on your personal sexual tastes.
An englishman was recently convicted of possessing extreme pornography, but the BBC article does not go into the details-- and while The Sun has also covered the story, they have merely tarted up the details, reconfirming their utter worthlessness,.
Even among feminists, there's significant disagreement about whether porn is inherently exploitative of women, or whether it's fine if all the performers have consented to participate (if they haven't then it's sexual assault at least). And this debate has been going on for several decades at least, with some (e.g. Andrea Dworkin and Gloria Steinem) taking the anti-porn side, while others (e.g. Ellen Willis and Susie Bright) taking the view that women should be able to express their sexuality on film if they want. The key problem: There's no scientific data to support any position on the subject, so it's come down to gut feelings with various rationalizations on both sides.
My own take: I'm not going to support passing laws to deal with purely theoretical problems. If the anti-porn side can demonstrate some actual documented harm, then I'll change my mind.
I am officially gone from
Have you seen the women in Iceland? #!$( gorgeous. I'm shocked that anyone would want to look at porn in Iceland.
both of them.
jsut athnoer menagiensls ltitle psrhae for you to dcoede. Why do we wtsae our tmie dnoig tihs?
I see a possible future where the entirety of Iceland's international internet traffic is easily handled by a single 56kbps dialup modem.
Ban porn. LOL. Try banning the air that you breath. You cannot legislate a person's morals no matter how much you wish to. At best, these efforts will slightly inconvenience people who want porn. Have they not heard of SSH tunneling?
The most gainful activity that a government official can engage in is composting another government official.
If you can sample them, how about just liberate those kidnapped women? Oh, that's right, they're back working within a few days.
Johnny-cum-lately!
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
There is a valid argument for banning paid pornography because of the difficulty in ensuring that performers are not coerced into the profession
What a load of bullcrap. The only thing "coercing" me to going to my regular run of the mill job is my paycheck. It doesn't mean that I'm there unwillingly or that I'm being taken advantage of. It just means that my employer has stuff that needs to be done and I'm more than willing to do it for that check. That's the way employment works.
Porn is much the same way. No, most of them don't necessarily just love to do gangbangs or multiple strangers all the time anymore than I want to write another damned SQL query. Saying that they're not allowed to do it for pay though is insulting, restrictive, and more importantly jeopardizes their ability to provide for one's self.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Oh, that's NOT right. One is slavery, the other is freelancing. Major difference.
There's a serious clue waiting for you if you'll look into the matter. Subjugation is real, and it's plainly awful. That said, porn is made up of subjugation to a small extent, not a huge one. Your mysogny is miscast.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
"the harm it does to the women who appear in it"
So male gay porn is OK?
My studio - www.graylands.ca
We lust so much for pretty much any other nation. Russians usually are hot for Czech women.
Friend stayed in Russia for several years. He also claims women there are hot, until they are traditionally beaten with an ugly stick at the age of around mid 30's.
I don't see why a profession which damages women should be outlawed for that reason alone ... I guess these pencil pushers haven't done a menial job in their fucking life. Between chemical exposure and repetitive strain both the duration and quality of my life has been substantially reduced ... all in perfectly legal jobs these assholes have no problem with.
Is porn an ideal job? No ... so what, most of us have far from ideal jobs.
A sexual partner?
And certainly the stuff that two consenting couples film, and then voluntarily put up on the Internet is not bad.
What am I talkin' about? I'm talkin' about sex, boy, what the hell you talkin' about? I'm talkin' about l'amour! I'm talkin' that me and Dot are swingers, as in "to swing." I'm talkin' about wife swappin'. I'm talkin' about what they call nowadays open marriage. I'm talk...
Enigma
there are still a huge number of involuntary sex workers in porn video
And driving the porn industry further underground will certainly help reduce those numbers...wait...ummm...
Who is John Galt?
Be sure that your lesbian porn is authentic, and not aimed at titillating the male psyche.
Im Icelandic so straight from the hourses mouth.
Seriously nothing to see here...
There was a poll where if i remember correctly (citation needed) 80 % were against it, men and women alike.
His party the left green coalition was really down in the dump at that point and had gone below 10%.
This was a "huge one man" public stunt that happened over a week ago and most people over here have already forgotten about it.
No ideas came forth as to how he intended to manage this, with what methods or laws and without much congressional support to boot.
The same congressman/minister has come with crazy ideas of a moral internet police regularly for the past 10 years, and always been left standing alone even by his own party members.
But then again it is one way of trying to grab that minority vote.
There is no valid argument for banning paid pornography any more than there's an argument for banning paid work in a fast food restaurant. They're providing a product that people are willing to buy, and the workers who help produce the product get compensated for their effort. How can it even be called a "profession" if people volunteer?
If the only coercion is the promise of a paycheck for engaging in entirely legal behavior, it's not "coercion".
As a woman who is proud of her sexuality, this offends me. There are many other things that can be done to improve equality than ban porn. If anything, banning porn may well increase sexual violence.
That is, hands down, the single dumbest argument I've read in all my time on Slashdot. In fact, it gives some of the dumbest arguments I've read anywhere on the Internet a run for their money.
If you don't like the way the majority sees things, you just move? And that's perfectly reasonable? If other things, like my family, friends, job, and the life I've built are *so important* to me, I should willingly give up other less-important but perfectly harmless things, because you and some other fools don't like it? What if your job were outsourced and you had trouble finding work that was as satisfying? No problem, right? You should just accept it and move to Mexico?
I'm not making a direct comparison here, because those are two different things, but I would argue that I've got more inherent right to enjoy porn if I want to, than for you to have security in a job that you enjoy. I'm just trying to get you to think about how ridiculous of a suggestion it is that someone should-not choose, but be forced to (a very important distinction)-relocate to in order to maintain some aspect of their life that's harmless.
Paid sex, filmed or not, is not a normal job and it is insulting to compare the miseries of your desk job to the degradations of a sex worker. Sex is intimate, invasive, and can seriously affect your health.
Very few people wake up in the morning with the choice of being a rocket scientist or a porn model, and actively choose the porn job. For most people it is something they actively avoid unless circumstances force them down that route. The worry with sex workers is those circumstances can be so bad they don't feel that they have any choice in the matter. As I said, not all sex workers will be in that position, but we have to give thought to those who may be, and legislate to protect them (perhaps even from themselves).
As to the problem of supporting oneself, it is the responsibility of us all to ensure that we provide a helping hand for those in dire circumstances, not to rely on coerced sex (i.e. rape) to pay the bills of vulnerable people.
Agreed 100%. And while I hate to be that guy, the reaction in the US over one single nipple appearing versus say the reaction to various wars says that Iceland is far from alone.
Obviously no "civil rights" are being violated. But JUST PRETEND:
What about news and reporting over people who are being abused all around the world? Should such NEWS be banned, as it clearly documents civil rights violations?
What about history books that cover past tragedies? Those were "civil rights" violations (and often much worse). Should their mention be banned?
The difference, of course, is that porn titilates the viewer. That's really all this is about. Their logic falls flat on its face, as the documentation (and pictures of) "civil rights violations" have never been subject to ANY manner of censorship (with the occasional exception of a government trying to hide what it is doing by preventing proof of it from getting out).
The idea here is that a person (presumably a man, because underlying any law like this is the assumption than men, and men's thoughts, are evil), sitting at their desk at home, is capable of injuring someone through their thoughts. Men aren't just evil in the eyes of someone writing such a law- they are evil WIZARDS!
It just requires relocation, much as if you want to view child porn today, you have to go outside the first world.
You are either an idiot or a troll. Possibly both.
Child porn is a totally different bag, because children cannot consent to sexual activity of any sort. Therefore, by definition, child pornography is coercive and exploitative.
"Regular" porn can also be coercive or exploitative, but the vast majority of the time, everyone involved in the activity is there because they want to be there.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
But print and TV porn is already banned in iceland. The moralist minister is simply extending an existing mindset.
os just trying to save women and forget about the poor men who are just stunt cocks? Don't male porn stars make less than female porn stars?
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
"If porn gets banned, we don't lose anything that will improve our society."
I don't follow your argument. If we ban porn, then we lose something that will improve our society, because porn improves our society. What exactly do you mean?
The population of Iceland is about 320,000. Yet it seems to get a fair amount of attention. Preston in Lancashire never gets told to fuck off for having some weird loitering laws. Countries threaten war with Iceland when it changes its fishing policy.
I imagine your weather is shittier than ours (here in Scotland). Do you while away the dark months planning the overthrow of the world? We just moan a lot. You seem to be a great country. (I may be prejudiced. I was brought up on the BBC program, Noggin The Nog)
There is a sad lack of utilitarianism these days
Utilitarianism is what I'm asking for. Provide evidence of the utility of banning porn.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
If I want to live in a porn-free society, that's my only option. Are you OK with that?
Children can consent to many things, including porn. Just ask them.
Whether that's the case legally is another matter, but the past 50 years have shown us that legal standards change quite a bit regarding sexuality.
If NAMBLA contributes a few million to an election campaign, it could be legal sooner than you think. Free speech!
What are the actual stats on people being trafficked to make porn? There have been a LOT of documentaries about sex trafficking in the last decade and they all exclusively talk about trafficking being for prostitution or slavery. Who are these people supposedly kidnapping and trafficking people to produce porn? And where are these websites the porn is being sold on? And why would you even ever bother kidnapping someone to force them to make porn when the world is fucking filled to the brim with people wanting to do porn for a living, willingly, as a career?!
In other words, short of people being kidnapped and trafficked to create the sort of hideous pornography that is already illegal (you know, kids or snuff or other sick stuff) where is all of this porn-industry trafficking that is allegedly happening?
This is entirely disingenuous. There are innumerable jobs that depend on the resources you were born with, from sports to modeling to soldiering to becoming an astronaut or a scientist. You're trying to make some kind of exception if the sport is sexual, and it doesn't hold up.
These roles in society are not corrupt; they are based upon perfectly natural and reasonable preferences that we have for one another. Would you prefer an ugly, smelly, stupid companion, or a beautiful, naturally pleasant, brilliant one?
Would sports fans prefer an "athelete" who had a poor physique and could not win? Would the actresses in Hollywood be of such great interest to everyone if they were ugly? Would a stupid person make a good scientist? We are what we are, and if someone else were lucky enough to be gifted with some physical resource that they can market, who are you to say this is a bad thing?
It is ridiculous to attempt to make the case that only earned skills and knowledge have value, or, conversely, that those things we are lucky enough to find innate, do not.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
You might consider starting here: http://www.unescobkk.org/index.php?id=1022 and consider that in some countries, even the US, some of the actors aren't making a career out of this.
These include what might otherwise be consenting adults, engaged in consensual activities, but instead, they're victims of human trafficking. The porn industry is different in the US than in other areas.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Then give us the statistics. And where are these websites that this is occurring at? Are you telling me that legitimate porn businesses and websites are kidnapping people to make porn? Do you realize how absurd that sounds? There are more than enough people throwing themselves happily into the porn industry. There are no shortages of men or women eagerly wanting to be in porn. So, what, Bang Bus is filled with kidnapped women? Brazzers? Are all those chicks Rocco Siffredi has been banging for a decade or two secretly kidnap victims?
Or are you talking about the shady illegal sites doing shady illegal shit that almost nobody will ever stumble across on the internet that are doing things like that? In which case, they're already breaking the law. What does banning content that your Vivid entertainments and random amateurs online are making have to do with that other stuff? It's a poor justification and silly excuse.
I mean, seriously, who is alleging this stuff? People who think that every scary internet hacker movie they've ever seen is real? That there's really some secret bogeyman on the internet that has live cameras running to film some kidnap victim that is tied to a chair with a bag over their head that is going to be murdered by the internet as soon as the hit-counter reaches a million?!
What you are talking about are -- if existent at all in porn -- extreme fringes and should be dealt with specifically -- not used to justify a more broad and open-to-interpretation "violent porn" (which, to some people, could simply mean any sort of sex, frankly).
And, finally, this isn't talking about "involuntary sex workers" anyway. It's talking about "violent porn". Whatever that is. It doesn't say "porn is only illegal if it shows a depiction of rough sex AND has a kidnap victim in it". That the focus in the coverage of this is all about "depictions of violent sex" rather than "sex trafficking human beings to make porn" sort of makes it clear that it has nothing to do with that. It's just an excuse to excuse the pushing of an agenda. Sex trafficking is already illegal.
But seriously. Give us some status. Better yet, if it is so rampant, give us some notable examples. Lots of them. There are a jillion people making porn, so it must be easy to trip over these people.
This ain't wikipedia. Do your own damn research, or say fie to everything you see and hear.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
I'm an Icelander here and this is just outragious. I haven't even heard about this yet myself! I definetly know 'most' of my fellow Icelanders aren't going to be happy about this. I mean how often do you go searching for porn? We do it just as much as you the-rest-of-the-world would. My goverment is being unfair again.
...the following rule: If a porn movie is made, there is an investigation. If the investigation reveals that the women war forced in any way it is a life sentence for the producers. If the women voluntarily participated to make money they are mutilated in a way that no man can ever look into their faces again without throwing up. Sounds crazy? Not much crazier than what I hear from feminazis from time to time.
I am not sure scientific data is the right basis for a position on this issue. The issue both sides are arguing is whether the choice for women to appear in porn is or can be a free choice in a meaningful way.
"What is freedom?" and "how can we have it?" are questions that are not amenable to scientific analysis.
For the record, I think banning porn because some performers are coerced/exploited is as stupid as banning mortgages because predatory lending happened. And by that I don't mean to imply blaming the victim, but rather that one should go after the bad apples who are duping vulnerable people.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
I'm talking about the most common type of 'amateur/home'-made porn on the Internet. Obviously there is porn that is made by people who aren't getting paid, and are just sharing sexy fun time, where that porn has more than two people involved. But my unscientific survey says that most of it is just two people.
HELP MY ACCOUNT HAS BEEN HACKED BY AN ILLIBERAL ART STUDENT SET TO DESTROY THE INTERWEBZ!
While I agree with your sentiments, you judge all 300K+ Icelanders by the whims of one moralist minister.
He is playing for votes, there is an election coming. His left wing party, where he is part of an isolated radical faction, will probably be voted out in favour of the neocons that brought us the 2008 financial collapse and a populist right wing party that wants to build toll barriers and promotes xenophobia so that's where this crusade is likely to end. Conservative as these right wingers are they are no more keen than the rest of the Icelanders to become known as the only western democracy in the 'Enemies of the Internet' club along with countries like China, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Syria.
Now gamers in Iceland will have much better ping times and lower latency, plus much more time for WoW!
The outcome of the elections are made more interesting. Vote porn? Doesn't seem like much of a foundation to base an opposition upon. Iceland's financial crisis ought to be more clear in the public memory, although I suppose the public forgets quickly.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
The only thing I've noticed to be actually true is that there really are a lot of good looking Russian women. something in the water over there?
Natural selection.
According to OSC's Enderverse....
Then stop using negative regulation to trash my society, which influences a lot more than either of our noses.
Internet people are amazing. They repeat the same things over and over again, even when oblivious to context, and assume it somehow makes them profound.
Philosophically, it's no different than copypasta.
What do we lose, if porn is banned?
What would we lose if you were arrested for making that comment? I find it rather disgusting, and I don't find it very useful.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Aside from the issue of exploitation of women who participate in pornography, we should ask ourselves what pornography does to all the men who consume it. And no, I'm not talking about how it warps men's perceptions of women, because I don't think it necessarily does, or, even if it does, I don't think that that is the most important thing at stake.
What are we doing to our teenagers if we tell them that sex is wrong and bad and dangerous, and therefore that they should abstain? Teenagers (particularly boys) will find a sexual outlet, and so is it better to let them engage in the real thing (albeit with better education than currently exists about pregnancy and disease and tumultuous emotions), or is it better to let those desires unfurl in evolutionarily novel ways, like via pornography use? What happens when men spend years fapping to unreal images of women in magazines, television, and the internet?
I think porn is highly addictive. Not in obvious ways like alcohol cravings to a long-sober man, but in more subtle ways, like the inability to stop drinking after the first sip. If porn should be blocked, I think it should be for the sake of men, not because of some babble about harming women. Of course, then you have to deal with all sorts of sexualized female imagery in media and adverts, and I think the genie may be permanently out of the bottle on that..... I guess I just don't think you can take away pornography without maybe having a real, serious talk about how much more actual sex teenagers may and ought to begin to have, and how society should deal with that. Granted, I think that may be the better discussion to have.
Yeah... we Americans think that the pursuit of pleasure is the meaning of life. Like, if it feels good, how can it be wrong? And I think we've taken the wrong attitude towards pornography: I feel like pornography was a natural thing to evolve, but then we came to justify it by saying, "Oh, it's a reaction against all the Puritanical bullshit, and it feels good so it _must_ be good!" And certainly that Puritanical mumbo-jumbo _was_ bullshit, but I think the real answer was just to have more sex and focus on real relationships, not to help a generation of young men waste their time with technology-enhanced masturbation.
But aren't there many other things that contribute just as little to society as porn? (Violent) sports for example. How does society benefit from seeing guys smash into each other or hit each other? Doesn't that desensitize us to violence? Or religion that desensitizes us to stupidity.
Unless we're willing to ban anything that is not For The Common Good, then don't start banning things just because you don't like them.
First, you're not providing any support for your claims. You're saying that producing pornography is likely harmful, and like a whole lot of statements on sexual matters I'd like to see some real arguments.
Second, I really don't care what most women think of being porn actresses. I care that it's voluntary, and that nobody's forced into it. If we supply enough of a social safety net, nobody actually has to take a dangerous or unpleasant job, and can choose to or not depending on individual preferences, pay, and the like. If, under those circumstances, no woman wants to work in porn or prostitution or stripping, that's how it goes. I don't want anybody pushed into sex work for money any more than I want them doing any other bad job for money.
If people feel compelled into work they find extremely distasteful, or consider immoral, we need to consider that situation and deal with it (much like a military conscript might be assigned equivalent non-military duties if he or she is morally opposed to war). Dealing with it by cutting of opportunities for legal work does the desperate no favors. If they were desperate enough to take up a job they abhor, they're desperate enough to do that illegally.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Strippers and ladies who accept money for sex with strangers, while not mutually exclusive, are predominately damaged and/or drug-addicted and/or predisposed to promiscuity. Should they be able to make a living doing what they do? Absolutely. Are they a bright, oppressed underclass of women struggling to better their station in the long run using those shallow physical characteristics most men find attractive in a woman? Infrequently. Do the night's plans revolve first around securing the means to get high and paying for that night's motel room. Very often.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Yeah, I known what you were saying, but you originally said 2 couples, not 2 people. Two couples is a different ball game.
Enigma
He's just interested in making sure no one watches it, for his sense of moral satisfaction.
No. His handlers very much want - and expect - the Icelandic population to violate this law, thus transferring more control over them to a select few (a select few who are very likely miffed at the big FUCK YOU the Icelandic people delivered to The Powers That Be (tm) in recent years)...
Oooh yeah, Czech women too!. I'm beginnig to think maybe I just like women. Except for the mom on "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo", she scares me.....
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
It is. But more fundamentally, it's a freedom of choice issue: freedom of women (and men) to choose whether they want to be involved in making pornography, and freedom of everyone to choose whether they want to view it.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
Someone said it very well recently: Isn't it the most hostile-to-women thing you can imagine to treat them all the time as if they are not sexual creatures, too? To claim that every time women and sex meet, there has to be something evil going on?
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
2. Initiating force against an adult woman to forcibly prevent her from being allowed to do what she actually voluntarily wants to do, is 'protecting her rights'.
If that's "progressive" thinking then I think I prefer "regressive" thinking.
My other UID is three digits.
That still won't work, Fuck Democracy. This is a perfect example of tyranny by a majority. Some poor homely bastard, too homely to buy an illegal prostitute, is now too homely to get a little internet pr0n to wax his dolphin with. He'll just have to settle for the Montgomery Wards underwear ad or the Nat'l Geographic.
Bombed back to the stone age by Democratic decision. No Chalupa for YOU!
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
I have no expectation that the public space (or anyone else's private space) will be tailored to my liking. The only place I expect things to go my way is inside my home, and to a much more limited extent, within the borders of land I own. If someone wants to make a lot of noise, paint their house like a Dr. Suess story, board up all their windows, or swim butt-ugly naked in the town center fountain, I wish them well. Men can wear skirts and women can wear pants, anyone can marry anyone else or not, and the "acceptable" number of tattoos and piercings, no matter how unlikely or crude, shall be unlimited. I don't agree that it is legitimate that people have the right to regulate anyone else's actions in the public space, unless those actions actually cause direct physical harm or direct financial injury to a non-consenting party.
No. When in doubt, it's best to do nothing and let individuals decide for themselves.
I absolutely can tell you it would lead to a better world. The arguments are many and extremely well founded, from reduction in harm done by evil legislation (such as huge jail sentences, ruined families, lost opportunities), to tax revenues, to personal liberty issues, to healthcare issues such as appetite enhancement, to elimination of it as a viable income source for gangs and cartels, to replacement for alcohol as a much, much safer intoxicant.
You are entitled to your opinion. You are not entitled to my opinion.
You know nothing of the sort. You have an opinion you want to inflict on everyone else. For my part, I absolutely support your choice to not engage with porn on any or all levels. But that's where your liberties end and the liberties of others begin.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Because it doesn't fucking exist, that's why.
Paid sex, filmed or not, is not a normal job and it is insulting to compare the miseries of your desk job to the degradations of a sex worker.
Yeah, getting to have sex all day sounds horrible. Writing banal SQL queries sounds like much more fun.
Like what?
Eh, good pick up. I didn't even notice that you'd highlighted that. Too much, err, not enough sleep. Yeah, that's the reason.
HELP MY ACCOUNT HAS BEEN HACKED BY AN ILLIBERAL ART STUDENT SET TO DESTROY THE INTERWEBZ!
When porn is common, everyone gets desensitized to porn and lets it shape their worldview.
So this is a reason to ban it? Rock Music is popular, everyone is desensitized to it, so lets ban it. Baseball is popular, lets ban it...
It should really read "Onanymous Coward".
A violation of their civil rights? Come on! It's a violation of their civil rights if someone holds a gun to their head and forces them to take their clothes off while taking pictures of them. That is not how most porn works. Someone gives the girl a couple hundred bucks to take their clothes off or have sex with someone in exchange for the ability to record it and sell the recording. That's part of what we in the US call free enterprise. It does not indicate a violation of your civil rights if you agree to do it.
First you think regulation can destroy our society, now you're claiming it's weak.
What exactly are you arguing here?
No, it's not. I want to live in a society without the effects of legal pornography. Every action has effects, remember?
In the same way, if society legalized child porn, I'd want to live in a society without the effects of legal child porn, which would be a slow but steady legitimization of intergenerational underage sex.
In the same way, if society legalizes the Holocaust, and decides to put Jews in death camps, I can personally not put any Jews in death camps, but that doesn't change the result and the consequences for my society and myself.
What necessary function does porn serve?
What does it contribute?
Religion seems to be a mixed bag, in that a lot of good comes of it along with the alleged bad. Porn has no such record.
It's definitely not Iceland as a whole doing this; Ögmundur Jónasson will probably be voted out before this can come to pass. However, the reason this is a thing at all is because of the "nei ýðir nei!" (no means no!) popular movement in response to increasing reports of rape against women by inebriated men.
Having said that, in my humble opinion, internet porn and the numerous adult toy shops should of course continue to be available as healthy outlets for consenting adults; on the other hand, Iceland's ingrained binge drinking culture should be held up to scrutiny, which seems to be bolstered by the government monopoly on booze not sold in restaurants nor bars.
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And the Angel said unto me, "These are the cries of the carrots! The cries of the carrots!"
Paid sex, filmed or not, is not a normal job and it is insulting to compare the miseries of your desk job to the degradations of a sex worker. Sex is intimate, invasive, and can seriously affect your health.
I'm curious to know what you define as "normal" job. I'm also curious what it is about the work that is degrading.
1) Sex is intimate for most people, but not for everyone. I don't see where this contributes to the argument even if they are paid to have sex and they do see it is intimate. They choose to do it. They are not being forced. If they are forced, then that is something else entirely. Having sex and getting paid does mean a person was forced to do it. 2) The word "invasive" implies that they don't want to have sex. If they didn't want the job, they don't have to take the job. 3) I think people know that sex can affect people's health. Those who willfully have sex with others get STDs without getting paid. I"m not sure what that second sentence does to support the first.
I think it is well worth comparing desk jobs to sex work. I nearly stopped writing programs due to repetitive stress injuries about 12 years ago. After that, I was having health related issues due to stress at work where I wrote programs day in and out. I had to quit that job. It can also be a lot of fun. It also presented me with a certain amount of rock-star status at times. There are times I hide my inner nerd in certain social groups -- where I really can't talk about what I do because of how people will respond. At times, it has also been quite humiliating and degrading.
Would I work in front of a camera in the sex industry? No, that's not for me. I also doubt programming is for the majority of people too.
I'm sure I can find more study references, but here's one, referring to one (of many) studies showing that access to port *CUTS* violence against women.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-sunny-side-of-smut&PHPSESSID=b78ca943dd5e6cf79c6baa2504c1b47b >
And I believe others have noted that the states that repress port also have high violence against women rates.
Sexuality, if repressed, is going to come out in some other way....
mark
If men do not have access to porn, they will not know about sex. Then they will spend all their time fishing instead of hurting gals.