Posted on 04/01/2006 5:37:42 PM PST by Panerai
The industry's VIPs mingle at political galas and Super Bowl parties. Their product is available on cell phones, podcasts, and particularly the Internet _ there it's an attraction like no other, patronized by tens of millions of Americans.
It's pornography. And if you're a consumer, John Harmer thinks you're damaging your brain.
Harmer is part of a cadre of anti-porn activists seeking new tactics to fight an unprecedented deluge of porn which they see as wrecking countless marriages and warping human sexuality. They are urging federal prosecutors to pursue more obscenity cases and raising funds for high-tech brain research that they hope will fuel lawsuits against porn magnates.
"We don't think it's a lost cause," said Harmer, a Utah-based auto executive and former politician who's been fighting porn for 40 years.
"It's the most profitable industry in the world," he said. "But I'm convinced we'll demonstrate in the not-too-distant future the actual physical harm that pornography causes and hold them financially accountable. That could be the straw that breaks their back."
The activists' adversary is a sprawling industry that, by some counts, offers more than 4 million porn sites on the Internet, that in the United States alone is estimated to be worth $12 billion a year. A tracking firm, comScore Media Metrix, says about 40 percent of Internet users in the United States visit adult sites each month.
Porn products are featured at popular sex expositions and retail chains such as Hustler Hollywood. Major hotels provide in-room porn, and adult film stars are now mainstream celebrities. Mary Carey attended a VIP Republican fundraiser in Washington in mid-March; Jenna Jameson's "How to Make Love Like a Porn Star" hit the best-seller lists and she hosted a racy pre-Super Bowl party in Detroit in February.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
Suicide? Sex with an Aids carrier?
I think those are covered when he added "Including moderation."
legalize hookers, then you can illegalize porn.
Free?
Anyone who is a slave to their senses and the demands of the mind is not free.
You may be okay, you may not be a slave to porn, but many are. I've known a few. They are not the men they could be, they have left some ugly scenes, broke some hearts, ruined a few women. No biggie to you, I guess.
And then there's the little thing of where to draw the line, which someone asked above? Since porn is never totally satisfying, it has to get raunchier and more extreme to generate the "thrill", so there's porn out there that people couldn't even imagine a couple of generations ago. How extreme does it have to get for liberaltarians to say that it's over the line?
That's okay, it's a rhetorical question.
No...He did not say "including moderation." He said "IN moderation." I used to believe the same thing.....and it ain't true!
Do you believe that addiction doesn't really exist?
To the former agreed. So, in other words drug-addicted women, instead of getting money for drugs through prostitution, would get it through money the government took from taxpayers. I love how every solution, means more money from taxpayers. I agree that legalizing drugs would cost the taxpayers big time, but I'm not sure it would end prostitution.
Porn causes physical injury??? If you end up injured from perusing porn, you're not doing it right.
"I know a boy who got ahold of his father's porn somehow or other, and got it on with another boy who may also have seen sexual content. These were 4 and 5 yr old boys."
yes - this is happening more at our local schools.
Teachers are horrified to see young children performing sexual acts.
Time after time it turns out the child saw porn at home and were only acting out what they saw.
Why would the child think it's bad? If mommy and daddy have it at home it must be allright.
"When families are destroyed, which they are by adultery, pornography, pre-and extra marital sex, then gradually the entire society goes to hell."
Agreed. People are learning to only concentrate on themselves and to look at others as a means to an end.
With this mindset it is acceptable to mistreat/degrade/humiliate another person all under the umbrella of freedom of speech.
"Saying that if you don't like porn don't watch it is like saying you can live in the middle of a garbage dump and keep your house clean with no flies or rats. The atmosphere of sexual debauchery permeates our culture and there is no evading it. Kids are affected. Even if you turn your own TV off, throw it away, get a filter on the computer - their friends' families don't, the other kids at school don't, and so on. "
Correct...it is becoming impossible to shield the kids from the stench no matter how many precautions you take.
"When used outside of marriage commitment, it creates unwanted children, aborted children, heartbreaks, hardness of heart, and exploitation. "
Agreed. Of course some might say "I am free to have a hard heart" As if that freedom is supposed to make up for the loss of honor, goodness, kindness and compassion.
They've nailed a woman's breasts to a board on NBC? They've sewn a woman's genitals shut on Fear Factor? Would you be OK with that if they did, on prime time television? Yes or no.
Yes, I get your point. I don't think it's a good thing on Fear Factor, either. It's the same sort of mentality that drove those Bum Fight films. Just because people are stupid enough to consent to hurting themselves does not mean that it's right for other people to pay them to be stupid and hurt themselves.
If you want a real good example, look at VH1's Surviving Nugent. In one episode, he put the contestants in cold mud for hours to see who could endure it. Can you say "hypothermia"? One of the contestants had to go to the hospital. And, yes, I think he should have been charged if she had died.
Because child sex is considered a non-consensual act. Note that porn with adults portraying children or fiction involving children having sex (Lolita for example) are considered free speech.
easy for you to say.
I doubt the parents of a raped and murdered child would agree.
Perhaps... But their tragedy does not give them the privilege to take away my rights.
Carolyn McCarthy has based her congressional career on opposition to the second amendment, due to her husband having been killed and son wounded by gunman on their train. Her tragedy does not make the 2nd Amendment go away.
Liberaltarians out in full force. They don't want to see the truth of what pornography does. For a variety of reasons. I know a boy who got ahold of his father's porn somehow or other, and got it on with another boy who may also have seen sexual content. These were 4 and 5 yr old boys. These are seriously screwed up kids now. If anyone thinks that children or adolescents can see hardcore porn and not be harmed by it, such a person has no moral principles. Such people also think that one night stands, sex without marriage and commitment are harmless. When families are destroyed, which they are by adultery, pornography, pre-and extra marital sex, then gradually the entire society goes to hell. Kids are aborted, or if they manage to run the gauntlet and get born, often turn into adults that also cannot commit to marriage. What to speak of the stepfather/boyfriend molestation rates. Saying that if you don't like porn don't watch it is like saying you can live in the middle of a garbage dump and keep your house clean with no flies or rats. The atmosphere of sexual debauchery permeates our culture and there is no evading it. Kids are affected. Even if you turn your own TV off, throw it away, get a filter on the computer - their friends' families don't, the other kids at school don't, and so on. Sex divorced from marriage is destructive, that's its nature. It's like fire - which can cook food and warm the house, or burn down buildings and cause pain and death. Sex is one of the most powerful bodily and mental urges, and when in the confines of marital commitment, creates families of children and bonds husband and wife. When used outside of marriage commitment, it creates unwanted children, aborted children, heartbreaks, hardness of heart, and exploitation. Anyone who disagrees with me is a fool.Hard to argue, well said!
"Anyone who is a slave to their senses and the demands of the mind is not free.
You may be okay, you may not be a slave to porn, but many are. I've known a few. They are not the men they could be, they have left some ugly scenes, broke some hearts, ruined a few women. No biggie to you, I guess.
And then there's the little thing of where to draw the line, which someone asked above? Since porn is never totally satisfying, it has to get raunchier and more extreme to generate the "thrill", so there's porn out there that people couldn't even imagine a couple of generations ago. How extreme does it have to get for liberaltarians to say that it's over the line? "
You have just described a friend of my husband's. At one time he was welcome in our home, we enjoyed his company, and he was very kind to our children.
We knew he had a porn problem. He always had it in his car, in his gym bag. And it was really raunchy.
As the years went by he confided that he was no longer aroused by real women. He could not have a real relationship with a real woman. The only way he could get aroused was to keep viewing raunchier and raunchier pornographic images.
A couple of years ago he was kicked out of a stip joint for attacking the strippers because they weren't performing to his liking.
A mutual friend informed us he now has started to view children.
He is no longer welcome in our home.
I grieve for the man he could have been, and I pray he won't hurt anyone.
Porn hasn't gotten any raunchier. The raunchier types have become more accessible. Ever read Victorian porn? It's got stuff in there that makes today's stuff look tame. I haven't read De Sade, but I've heard tell that stuff was even more extreme.
I'm not as familiar with the history of visual porn -- but I've seen stuff especially from the late 19th and early 20th century that is on par with what is output these days.
By the way, I have another anecdotal story about "finding the parentss stash". When I was in second grade, a boy (I do remember his name and the incident very clearly) not only made those two naked valentine's figures that were popular in the 1970s anatomically correct but also walked around class one day, while the teach was out, exposing himself to the girls. Apparently, he had studied his parents' stash and wasn't as disinterested as your son. I didn't really understand everything he said or did until I was older (e.g., I didn't understand the public hair he drew), but I get it now. It sounds like you are a decent parent but a lot of parents out there are not and a lot of children are not as disinterested. Also, as I mentioned in another thread, a friend talked to an 11 year-old while playing an online shooter. He asked the kid if he was worried about his mother seeing curses on the screen if she walked in and he replied that he was more worried about her finding his porn collection. Do you think that's a problem (even if you think the problem is simply bad parenting)? Do you think bestiality pornography or torture pornography is OK? If you had found such pornography in your parents' stash when you were a child, what would you have thought?
I think parenting is the key factor. Bad parenting will result in the child having problems, whether or not there is porn around. Good parenting will teach the child how to conduct their lives, even if they run across -- even if they have an premature interest in -- porn.
"Because child sex is considered a non-consensual act. Note that porn with adults portraying children or fiction involving children having sex (Lolita for example) are considered free speech."
It is considered free speech now - but hopefully as our country grows increasingly aware of the harmful affects of pornography this will be reconsidered.
"Perhaps... But their tragedy does not give them the privilege to take away my rights."
And what about the rights of the innocent to live their lives unmolested by porn addicted perverts?
" Her tragedy does not make the 2nd Amendment go away."
No - but tragedies like hers do cause people to look at steps that can be taken to prevent criminals or mentally ill people from purchasing guns.
On the other hand, whenever we read another story of a child abduction/rape/murder we will inevitably see a common theme we have seen over and over, year after year....drugs and porn.
And here we have people here suggesting we legalize the drugs and keep the porn.
A recipe for disaster.
So if they choose to be sexually tortured for pay rather than pleasure, that's OK with you?
Yes I know how easy it is for children to get porn, I'm part of the Internet generation. I'm only 20, and when I was 13 most guys I knew had computers and downloaded porn. It probably isn't the best thing for a kid but nobody I know turned out to be a sexual deviant.
How do you know? You are only 20. It doesn't necessarily happen overnight.
You can't change the biological fact that young men are driven to have sex, even when people told them they'd go blind if they masturbated, they still did it.
People have all sorts of urges. We can either encourage them to control those urges, or not.
Your never going to keep young men from porn.
Have I called for the banning of all porn? Watch the American Porn Frontline episode. I'd be pretty happy with a return to the Reagan-era standards of decency and indecency prosecutions.
We live in a free society, unless my actions directly infringe on your rights you have no business telling me what I can do.
That's the dream "free society" that libertarians want to live in. It bears little resemblance, as libertarians will freely point out when pressed, to the society we actually live in. Try telling the police officer, the next time he pulls you over doing 100 in a 55 zone that your actions don't directly infringe on anyone's rights and that he has no business telling you what you can do.
So do a good job at parenting and your kids won't be exposed.
Yes, I should restrict my liberty so you can excercise yours. That's a good deal for me how, exactly?
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