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
And that is relavant how? Non-pornographic images case chemical "reactions" in the brain for everyone - we call them emotions - when a picture makes us sad, angry, smile, etc...
Pretty much anything in society has an ability to affect us all in different ways. For some people, Food triggers that "Pleasure Center", for others it's music, for some it's candy, or religion, for some people it's nothing, or... on and on and on.
Should we ban all that too, because they may have an adverse effect on an individual, thereby causing a breakdown in society?
At least try to stick to reasonable arguments, ok? :)
Written by a man who used slaves to finance his lavish lifestyle and either used them for sex or allowed his family members to do so.
Trying to get some people to wake up about the destructive efffects of porn is like trying to convince a junkie that he needs to kick his heroin.
This is a tremendous threat to all of us in more ways than concrete acts of violence.
Godless, soul-raping.
But don't bother the porn aficianado with all that--he's busy gorging himself.
"I recently saw a report that boys aged 9-14 "
BOYS? If women didn't participate, there would be no "porn". Do the women performing become murderers?
I agree it's gone too far, but it's a 50/50 degradation. Why do so many hundreds of thousands of women degrade themselves daily in porn movies, strip clubs, escort services, street walking?
They call Sharon Stone a "movie star" when she gets banged by Michael Douglas in Basic Instinct, yet strippers who don't get touched are considered whores.
The whole thing is a mess of culture.
Now we ain't Japanese, thank G-d. I'd expect that our response to porn is different than theirs. But this theory that porn eventually results in murder -- it's bunk.
Porn can become murder to the soul -- that is more often the case, and the porn industry is not a long-lived one for those in it. Still, the thesis is here is that porn means murder, and that's not true, and easily shown so.
I dearly want their to be less porn! It is taken TOO lightly in many places. It is a real problem. But it is not murder, and to overreact this way to it will hamper the battle against it.
A porn thread on Free Republic? Now I've seen everything. ;)
I tend to agree. Something was going to get to these people one way or another. Some people are just bad seed, and there's nothing that can be done. You could make the argument that by having access to pornography prevents them from acting out their desires in more harmful ways.
For some reason I'm more concerned with what Osama did to New York than what Debbie did to Dallas.
Yup. That's why I oppose giving other men more power over how I live my life.
This is not a flame, just a reasoned response.
I agree with what you posted 100%...
Local obscenity laws banned porn in most of the country 30 years ago but I don't recall it being any police state.
"Obscenity", as vaguely defined as it is, is still illegal.
Porn threads are a dime a dozen. ;0)
Now there's potential tagline material.
of course we know that all crime is really caused by poverty.
listen to the the jail interviews that have been played by
Dr.Dobson featuring Ted Bundy or David Berkowitz (aka "son of sam")It's good food for thought. I believe the 3rd part
of the Berkowitz one is on Focus on the Family tommorow.
I don't think porn is the sole cause of sex offenders and murder, but is often a contributing factor.
I'm just cynical about the whole AA and NA group therapy idea. My sister-in-law is a good-for-nothing junkie and all those groups do for her is give her a place to hang out with other junkies.
It just seems like a bad idea to put a bunch of people with the same addiction around each other.
Don't give me your silly logical fallacies---you sound like a liberal.
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