Posted on 12/09/2004 1:16:14 PM PST by Lindykim
Pornography is Anything But a 'Victimless Crime' 12/8/2004 By Cheri Pierson Yecke How many more expert studies do we need to convince ourselves of this fact?
Jud Fry -- one of the characters in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Oklahoma! lives in a shack that is papered with pornographic images. He is a loner, lacks social skills, and is feared by his neighbors. He is clearly capable of murder. This insight into the character of a porn addict hit the Broadway stage in 1943.
Fast forward to 2004. A sexual assault and several attempted abductions of girls in the St. Paul, Minnesota, area are allegedly the work of 19-year-old Ryan Mely, who has been charged (for starters) with second-degree criminal sexual conduct. He apparently was a loner who was feared by his neighbors. Jud Fry is a fictitious character who bought his porn from an itinerant peddler. How did Ryan Mely get his start? Apparently, pornography was a family pastime. While some dads bond with their kids by fishing or playing hockey together, it appears that Mely and his father (a convicted sex offender) shared an interest in pornography. It was reported that sexually explicit material was found at the family home and on their computer.
Is anyone really surprised that pornography is involved here? It has been 60 years since a Broadway musical portrayed what social scientists and criminal analysis have now found to be true -- addiction to pornography can lead to violent sexual behavior. Dr. Victor Cline, a clinical psychologist and expert on sexual addictions, has identified four stages of progression among his patients.
The first stage is addiction, where the attraction to porn is overpowering and the viewer keeps craving more. The next stage is an escalation to more shocking and deviant images, as the earlier ones have lost their power to stimulate. Third is desensitization, where anything earlier seen as disturbing and repulsive becomes viewed as commonplace. Finally, satisfaction cannot be reached unless the perpetrator begins acting out the activities witnessed in the pornography. In effect, fantasy must become reality.
The events in which Mely was allegedly involved appear to follow this pattern. Perhaps the same is true for Alfonso Rodriguez, the man who allegedly abducted and murdered Dru Sjodin. Rodriguez apparently had an infatuation with Dru, who worked at Victoria's Secret, an upscale lingerie shop. On several occasions he allegedly called the store where she worked, asking for her by name.
Victoria's Secret is well known for its racy, soft-porn "fashion show" where voluptuous young models strut the runways in revealing lingerie. The liberal National Organization for Women called it "exploitative" and the conservative Concerned Women for America condemned it as a "high-tech striptease." Regularly protested by both sides of the political spectrum, the company announced in April that it will no longer air this event
The last Victoria's Secret "fashion show" aired on network television November 19, 2003. Dru was abducted three days later. Could it be that Alfonso Rodriguez, a convicted sex offender, watched the show and was propelled into Dr. Cline's fourth stage of sexual deviance? This is a question his judge and jury may consider.
In an interview the night before his 1989 execution, serial killer Ted Bundy revealed the influence of pornography on his life.
A case study for Cline's four stages of addiction, Bundy started his descent into sexual deviance and murder with magazines he found in the neighbor's trash. His addiction escalated until he felt compelled to act out his desires in more than 30 murders that were accompanied with violent sexual acts.
He warned Americans: "There are those loose in [your] towns and communities, like me, whose dangerous impulses are being fueled, day in and day out, by violence in the media, in its various forms -- particularly sexualized violence ... . There are lots of other kids playing in the streets around the country today who are going to be dead tomorrow, and the next day, because other young people are reading and seeing the kinds of things that are available in the media today."
Abundant evidence has demonstrated the tragic impact of pornography. How many more expert studies do we need to convince ourselves of this fact? The elections of 2004 have sent politicians the message that morals matter, so now is the time to focus on the impact of pornography -- the so-called "victimless crime."
Cheri Pierson Yecke is a Distinguished Senior Fellow for Education and Social Policy at the Center of the American Experiment, a conservative think tank in Minneapolis. She is a former Minnesota commissioner of education and is author of The War Against Excellence. This article first appeared in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Used with permission.
Concerned Women for America 1015 Fifteenth St. N.W., Suite 1100 Washington, D.C. 20005 Phone: (202) 488-7000 Fax: (202) 488-0806 E-mail: mail@cwfa.org
well written...
# 86% of rapists admitted to regular use of pornography, 57% actually imitated porn. - Dr. Wm. Marshall, Queens University & Kingston Penitentiary Sex Offenders Program
# 1980-1989 study records preliminary indication of pornography in 62.2% of the extra familial child sexual abuse cases studied (23.1% child porn, 21.6% adult porn, 17.5% adult and child porn). Concluding pornography is used extensively in extrafamilial sexual victimization of children. - Sexually exploited Child (SEC) Unit, Los Angeles Police Department
But there's still no causal relationship shown here...
For instance, in the case of #2,
# 86% of rapists admitted to regular use of pornography, 57% actually imitated porn. - Dr. Wm. Marshall, Queens University & Kingston Penitentiary Sex Offenders Program
a more telling statistic would be "Of all the regular "users" of porn, what percentage become rapists?" In order to prove a causal relationship, that's where you need to start.
Mark
Is that peeping on somebody who consents to be peeped on is not a crime.
Following your rationale, me looking at my wife while she's naked should be a crime.
Read the transcript of the Bundy interview. It's mostly Dobson expounding and Bundy saying, "Yeah, you're right." Of course the fact that Bundy was angling for a reprieve a couple of days before his date with Sparky didn't have a thing to do with his sudden willingness to tell Dobson exactly what Dobson wanted to hear.
>>Are you asking me to believe such a person would be a responsible family man if only virtual sex were not available?>>
No, but it is part of the cocktail. A 24x7 ubiquitous part.
Firehosed into our lives (for those of us online). Part of the overdone permissiveness that goes along with adultery, promiscuity, rattionalized self absorbed, sensation driven behavior.
>>You're the one who's been offering detailed and graphic descriptions of the most depraved sorts of things, right?>>
That graphic stuff is just the facts--you know it too-- what many, many millions are feeding on all hours of everyday and night.
Exposure to high intensity content manipulates behaviors, forms ideas--this is the basis on advertising after all, all marketers know the power of this.
Again, common sense-- humans are hardly impervious to impressions that stir them so viscerally. There's the danger when those impressions are so damned dark, destructive and relentless and reward the viewer with the narcotic-like high of orgasm.
No matter how hard you may argue to the contrary, the pervasiveness of this stuff is negative in every respect.
Again, I cannot imagine how a thinking individual can defend such awful stuff on any grounds.
Better to be honest about one's lust for it and try to refine one's appetite upward a bit toward less damaging stuff.
[peeking head out of hermit cave], who the hell is Jenna Jamieson?
Really? Uh, yeah, you pretty much have to be in a cave not to have heard of her... And I don't watch that crap. She's a 'star', she's made millions, she's getting out of the business, getting married, writing a book. She's clearly the exception. But she's glamorizing and inspiring women when the reality is that most just end up as, well, someone's trash, as in when they are used up or not young or 'pretty' enough (by impossible standards) or some 'prettier' thing comes along (no pun intended), they are tossed out of the 'club', if they don't die of AIDS or drugs or other disease.
stepping down from soap box...
Maybe the most successful porn star ever.
Classic!
Lame.
Google Images is a powerful tool.
Ooooh, so we can tell by the posts who is into porn. This should be interesting.
Our local priest said that porn is the # one confessed sin. AND it is the cause of many ruined marriages. It is an addiction.
Then how do you explain the drop in sex crimes coinciding with the explosion in porn?
Again, I cannot imagine how a thinking individual can defend such awful stuff on any grounds.
Same goes for those who believe junk social science.
Better to be honest about one's lust for it and try to refine one's appetite upward a bit toward less damaging stuff.
I wish you success.
Yep, it's true---wake up and smell the burning toast.
Women have been manipulated by men from time immemorial.
Check your history. Just because men can be 'led' in moments of erotic daze, in general they have shaped this world according to their wants--and women have been the support system. Men have had the access and power to do it. (something about not being encumbered with child bearing and rearing--ask any anthropologist)
Dont come off like such a simpleton--THINK!
You're equating "addictions" of the complicated psychological powder-keg vulnerabilities of the human sexual passion, with the comparatively prosaic emotions of "gambling, gaming," and other so-called hobbies?
Go waaay to the back of the classroom. You're not close to getting this right.
One small fallacy:
Peeping Toms watch others WITHOUT their consent;
"Users of porn" watch others WITH their consent.
That funny personal freedom issue comes up again...
"Consent" of an underage 14 yr old runaway strung out on dope dispensed by her porn merchant pimp--yeah, that is some crisp, coherent consent...(well, if it makes you feel better in putting more money into that porn merchant SOB's pocket...)
You guys will say ANYTHING to keep your damn porn...selfish and outrageous.
Cannot imagine how any civilzed, intelligent, self-proclaimed 'humane' man would ever defend this poison..Shows the power of it's insidious addiction."
In a nutshell.
Of course addicts or "mere users" always deny any deleterious effects or bondage to said substance.
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