It's Always the Family - Whoever said that pornography is a victimless crime?

New Oxford Review ^ | January-February 2010

[GonzoII]

It's Always the Family

January-February 2010

Whoever said that pornography is a victimless crime?

"The family is usually the first to suffer from pornography," said Pope John Paul II in an address to the Religious Alliance Against Pornography back in 1992. "Con­sequently," he continued, "as the primary cell of society, the family must be the first to champion the battle against this evil."

It is apt, then, that the Family Research Council would authorize a study on "The Effects of Pornography on Individuals, Marriage, Family and Community," released this past November.

By 1992 the porn industry in the U.S. was firmly established, having emerged from the seedy, back-alley urban environs to which it was largely confined in the 1970s. The home-video boom of the 1980s (of which porn was arguably the cause) offered Americans the opportunity to welcome porn discreetly into their own bedrooms. Still, when John Paul identified it as a "serious threat to society as a whole," porn had yet to burgeon into the mammoth industry it now is.


The decade of the 1990s marked the beginning of the current golden age of pornography. Pornographic culture rippled all the way into the Oval Office, resulting in the impeachment of President Bill Clinton. And once the Internet took hold of our daily lives (thanks, Al Gore), pornography became America's open secret. Indeed, it could be argued that pornography fueled the success of the 1990s Internet boom.

[philetus]

It’s not your right to use the force of Law to prevent my wife and I from enjoying them in the privacy of our own home.?

Actually, if there are laws that would prevent you and your wife from enjoying XXX film in the privacy of our own home, then it would be her right.It would be nosey, bussybody,rude, prudish, and probably because she had a lousy sex life herself, but a right.

[Persevero]

Wikipedia’s entry on serial killers notes:

“From an early age, many are intensely interested in voyeurism, fetishism, and sadomasochistic pornography.”

Fantasies do affect behavior, by altering sexual preferences. In the normal progression of the addiction, pornography addicts eventually act out their fantasies. Law enforcement authorities find evidence of ties between pornography and individuals engaging in sex crimes in eight out of 10 cases.

From Stanley Rachman The Psychological Record, 1968:

“According to Dr. Victor Cline, who has treated more than 3,000 sex addicts and sexual offenders, the common course of unchecked porn addiction advances from addiction to escalation to desensitization to acting out.

Masturbation to deviant images is a surefire means of acquiring a deviant sexual compulsion or fetish. Stanley Rachman demonstrated in the laboratory how sexual deviations could be created in adult male subjects. He was able to condition, in two separate experiments, 100 percent of his male subjects into a sexual deviancy (fetishism).*”

From UnitedFamilies.org:

“Pornographers have not made adequate attempts to minimize the exposure of minors to obscenity. Children are viewed as current porn consumers.

Scores of online pornographers have embedded the names of popular children’s toys in their websites so that Internet users are directed to their site when searching for toys.

Most children have encountered online porn and one in five has been sexually propositioned by adults or other children forwarding porn to them.

Some children’s websites are besieged by pop-up ads for adult sites. It is not uncommon for “children’s” video games to feature pimps, prostitutes and full nudity. (my kids have been treated to full on porn ads popping up on my computer - Persevero)

Boys in the 12-to-17 age range constitute pornography’s largest consumer group. It is not then surprising that the number of treatment centers for juvenile sex offenders has risen exponentially in recent years.

[Persevero]

I agree that you and your wife can do what you want together.

I’d draw the line at commerce of pornographic images. See my post above for a few of the reasons.

[Lurker]

“Pornographers have not made adequate attempts to minimize the exposure of minors to obscenity.

That's not their responsibility. And who gets to define 'adequate'?

Scores of online pornographers have embedded the names of popular children’s toys in their websites so that Internet users are directed to their site when searching for toys.

Give me a list of names of websites that do that.

Most children have encountered online porn and one in five has been sexually propositioned by adults or other children forwarding porn to them.

Source?

Some children’s websites are besieged by pop-up ads for adult sites.

Which ones? (my kids have been treated to full on porn ads popping up on my computer - Persevero)

Pretty irresponsible parenting if you ask me. My kids computer has free a filter on it so that stuff doesn't happen.

Boys in the 12-to-17 age range constitute pornography’s largest consumer group.

Source?

[narses]

+

Freep-mail me to get on or off my pro-life and Catholic List:

Add me / Remove me

Please ping me to note-worthy Pro-Life or Catholic threads, or other threads of general interest.

[Pinkbell]

Marking this article for later reading. A quick skim showed the usual liberaltarians showed up.

[redgolum]

Good points.

Porn can be an addiction, and I know of alot of people whose lives have been shattered by it.

[annalex]

Interesting. So, a local government cannot implement a law againt vice, but the federal government can use the force of arms in defense of vice.

That is freedom?

[Persevero]

I named all my sources in my post, already.

[Salvation]

 

2779 Before we make our own this first exclamation of the Lord's Prayer, we must humbly cleanse our hearts of certain false images drawn "from this world." Humility makes us recognize that "no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him," that is, "to little children." The purification of our hearts has to do with paternal or maternal images, stemming from our personal and cultural history, and influencing our relationship with God. God our Father transcends the categories of the created world. To impose our own ideas in this area "upon him" would be to fabricate idols to adore or pull down. To pray to the Father is to enter into his mystery as he is and as the Son has revealed him to us.

The expression God the Father had never been revealed to anyone. When Moses himself asked God who he was, he heard another name. The Father's name has been revealed to us in the Son, for the name "Son" implies the new name "Father."

[InvisibleChurch]

Um... it is if it involves children. And even if it when it is “legal” it still destroys marriages, relationships, lives, throws women, young girls and young boys and men into sex trades. Open your eyes.

[Salvation]

 

 

 

Nine Pages of References on the family

from the Cathechism of the Catholic Church

 

[GonzoII]

"Condoning freedom is NOT condoning child abuse."

Condoning pornography is condoning child abuse, it perverts their minds.

[GonzoII]

"When you live in a garbage dump, no matter how clean you keep your own house, flies, rats, stink and disease will enter your home. Hedonists are turning the entire world into a garbage dump and their argument is "clean your own house then". Let them do their dirt in the closets and leave the rest of the world alone. They don't own the world. Although they're trying to. Plus, the argument that everyone watches porn is a lie. "

Bump.

[melsec]

I would love to live in a world that didn’t have porn or many other things - I would also like to live in a world were I was not tempted by these things.

I am however realistic enough to know that I have to take responsibility for my own actions and try to guide those I have charge over. I have no doubt that this stuff changes and harms younger minds and maybe even older ones. It is hard to shut the whole world out - Maybe becoming a Monk is the only answer but even they probably have internet access.

My only real thoughts, other than my own ponderings and confessions (above), are : fight your battles were you find them; try to help those weaker than you and don’t expect to change the world, rather overcome it in yourselves first!

Mel

[Wolfie]

Child porn is illegal. As for the attendant problems, sounds a lot like alcohol.

[dead]

Pornographic culture rippled all the way into the Oval Office, resulting in the impeachment of President Bill Clinton.

What the hell does that statement even mean?

What did pornography have to do with that pig president and his sleazy actions. Did they make a film together and sell it?

Or does "pornographic culture" include anybody having sex with or without cameras? We could outlaw that, but only for one generation.

[Antoninus]

Do you believe that a few porn-hounds in the city have the right to call in federal government to have the ordinance overturned?

Absolutely.

So you claim to believe in liberty, just not the right of people to govern themselves and live by their own laws. Curious, to say the least.

In truth, you believe in license and the right to impose your immorality on others. Whatever that is, it's not liberty and never has been.

[Antoninus]

Yet what you tried to posit was a transmogrification of unalienable rights and community sovereignty. Want to try again?

My apologies. Perhaps I wasn't clear enough. In the case of this hypothetical local community, do you believe that by passing an ordinance prohibiting pornography, they are violating someone's God-given rights to consume the stuff? And, in your opinion, would such a violation require redress from the federal government?

Better?

[Antoninus]

That is so not even the same, I don’t know how you could possibly think so.

Please read post 21 and respond to that.