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You rang?

Just a few thoughts about this article, really not so much thoughts as questions.

...the largest group of Internet porn viewers are children between the ages of 12 and 17 and he said that many parents are totally unaware of the fact that their children might be exposed at all. How do they know that 12-17 year-olds comprise the largest viewing audience of porn, when most parents themselves don't even know?

...the average age that children first come into contact with pornographic material is 9 years old. What type of porn does a 9 year-old come into to contact with/exposure to? SI Swimsuit Edition? The lingerie section of the JC Penney catalog? Just what is their definition of porn? How do they calculate the average age and what was the sample size?

While I'm sure it would dismay the good Cardinal, evidence indicates that internet porn has led to a decrease in the number or reported rapes.

In short, a reader doesn't have any idea what or who was sampled and what definitions/criteria are used. The definitions of porn could be so broad that seeing the swimsuit portion of the Miss America Pageant could qualify, who knows? In all likelihood, this is typical alarmist BS coming from a denomination that has no room to lecture anyone on sexual impropriety. I'm sure you think differently, oh well.

In all likelihood, this is typical alarmist BS coming from a denomination that has no room to lecture anyone on sexual impropriety.

I suppose your logic is that if one member of an organization goes rogue, then the whole organization is bad, right? The Church should say "Oops, we had some members of the clergy commit crimes, therefore we should abandon our duty to promote scripture." Is that your thinking? I hope not, because that kind of thinking is beyond stupid, so maybe I just misunderstood what you were trying to say.

As it is, pornography violates the scriptural views of relationships between men and women, and therefore the Church is bligated to warn against it.

Those "studies" are purely a case of confusing correlation with causation. The author even admits that clinical experimentation can't reproduce similar results. Without that kind of support, it's not hard to imagine that the authors of those studies are just playing with crime statistics to get what they want. It wouldn't be that difficult. And I'll bet I could find you plenty of case studies of rapists who use porn regularly.

I'm sure that any good psychologist will tell you that indulgence in porn won't decrease sexual appetite, but increase it. It's like indulging in desserts or candy; it's satisfying for a while, but soon you'll be raiding the frozen section for ice cream yet again. You'd be better off abstaining from sugary desserts if you want to keep the urge away.

You do raise a good point with the definition of pornography. Many people consider Playboy to be pornography, but the technical definition of pornography is a depiction of people performing sexual acts. Playboy isn't known for showing people in sexual congress; what you see is naked women not having sex. I wonder how broad a definition was used as well, but expecting the Catholic Church to stay silent on pornography is out of the question.