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Utah Governor: 'Porn Is a Public Health Crisis' (cnet.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Utah Governor Gary Herbert said on his Facebook page: "Pornography is a public health crisis. The problem is rampant, yet it thrives in secrecy and silence." He emitted this thought on signing a resolution which says porn is "a public health hazard leading to a broad spectrum of individual and public health impacts and societal harms." In addition, it "perpetuates a sexually toxic environment." The resolution doesn't just stop there. It goes on to say "due to advances in technology and the universal availability of the Internet, young children are exposed to what used to be referred to as hard core, but is now considered mainstream, pornography at an alarming rate." The resolution says pornography "equates violence toward women and children with sex and pain with pleasure, which increases the demand for sex trafficking, prostitution, child sexual abuse images, and child pornography." It requests "the need for education, prevention, research, and policy change at the community and societal level in order to address the pornography epidemic that is harming the people of our state and nation." In the words of Gov. Gary Herbert, "Today's bills will start an open discussion." I couldn't agree more...

12 of 822 comments (clear)

  1. Re:No control group by TheReaperD · · Score: 4, Informative

    Especially in Utah!

    --
    "Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
  2. Re: Proof? by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 3, Informative

    There's decent science on this:

    http://bigthink.com/dollars-an...

    --
    My God, it's Full of Source!
    OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
  3. Re:No control group by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Time.

    When porn was legalized in Denmark in the 1970'es, rape went down significantly. Later studies have shown that the places with the most and best internet connections[1] have the lowest number of rape cases.

    [1] The internet is for porn[2], obviously.
    [2] Insert AvenueQ video here.

  4. Re:Proof? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    since when does feminism require proof? to them only feelings matter...

  5. Re: Proof? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Maybe not the proof you were looking for, but porn damages the viewer. You guys should really look at the quiet epidemic of "The Great Porn Experiment" (TED Talk, free, 16 min): https://youtu.be/wSF82AwSDiU

  6. Dear governor by jdavidb · · Score: 3, Informative

    I'm not sure if you are Mormon or Protestant, but either way I presume you hold the Bible sacred. My Bible says in I Peter 4:15-16 not to be a busybody or meddler in other people's decisions. It's sort of a well known passage because it's one of only three places that the Bible uses the word "Christian," but somehow I think a lot of people have missed what it says not to do.

    Being extremely religious, I take the Bible and this passage extremely seriously. I suggest you do start doing so as well. You're making things difficult for the rest of us.

  7. Cause and effect to determine public health crises by sjbe · · Score: 4, Informative

    They've all been restricted to some extent, with attempts made to expand the restrictions.

    The way you can tell if something is actually a public health issue is to figure out if it is a cause or problems or a symptom.

    The problem is that sugar is needleslly subsidized so their economic cost isn't realized in their market price. Some consumption of sugar is fine but as a society we've gone WAY beyond what is demonstrably healthy. So over consumption of sugary drinks is a public health crisis because it is a significant factor in obesity, diabetes and other conditions common in the population. Eat too much sugar and you get fat and/or diabetes and/or other illnesses. Cause and effect.

    Smoking IS a genuine public health crisis. There are innumerable diseases with clear causal relationships to smoking. It's not even a debate that it is a public health issue. Smoking clearly causes illnesses

    Porn is NOT a genuine health crisis. Arguments to that effect are people looking for an excuse to interject their own morality in most cases. At most it is a symptom of people who have genuine mental health issues but the porn isn't the cause. Porn doesn't cause mental health issues but mental health issue might result in porn. You won't make the mental health issue go away by suppressing or removing access to porn. Even nasty stuff like kiddie-porn does not cause mental health problems - it merely shows us where they already exist.

  8. Re:slippery slope by Noble713 · · Score: 5, Informative

    most nudity that is porn portrays abusive behavior

    Citation needed. If I pull up Xvideos or Redtube or some other site mega-site, most of the videos on the first few pages, which is a reasonably diverse selection of heterosexual-oriented porn, doesn't look like it features chicks getting fishhooked, donkey punched, facialed, or otherwise degraded.....well, beyond the stereotypically rapey Japanese stuff, anyway. There is some for sure, but definitely not >50%, which I would consider a minimum cutoff for "most". And given the rise of camwhore shows and amateur couples uploading their sexcapades, I'd say abuse in porn products is overall in a decline. The sort of stuff produced by the crew at Facial Abuse is not an industry standard.

  9. Re: slippery slope by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 1, Informative

    I have the right to not be forced to breathe cancer inducing air from someone who chooses to pollute their own body with such things

    No study has ever produced strong evidence that second-hand smoke carries health effects; all which have suggested such have been refuted. That's why second-hand smoke campaigns went away after the 90s, along with the campaigns about the dangers of watching TV in the dark.

    Second-hand smoke smells like ass and makes your clothes smell like ass. It's also an irritant and is painful to breathe. It's not a health hazard, which is about all you can say for it.

  10. Re:slippery slope by karmatic · · Score: 3, Informative

    I'd like to see the study that not only shows correlation, but causation between access to porn and rape statistics.

    There is a correlation, but it's in the other direction.

    http://idei.fr/sites/default/f...

    The results above suggest that potential rapists perceive pornography as a
    substitute for rape. With the mass market introduction of the world wide web in the late-
    1990’s, both pecuniary and non-pecuniary prices for pornography fell. The associated
    decline in rape illustrated in the analysis here is consistent with a theory, such as that in
    Posner (1994), in which pornography is a complement for masturbation or consensual
    sex, which are themselves substitutes for rape, making pornography a net substitute for
    rape.

    There is research that suggests porn might have a causative relationship for reductions in rape, which would make a certain degree of sense, given that there will be fewer sexually frustrated men.

  11. Re: slippery slope by adamstew · · Score: 3, Informative

    There have been numerous studies on second hand smoke and it has been shown to be quite dangerous. Even a small amount is bad and has been shown that it can cause long-term health issues.

  12. Re: slippery slope by fredrated · · Score: 3, Informative

    It's not really weird, it is a result of the suppression of their instincts and desires that religions engage in.