Pornography

[Ruyashie]

Discuss whether it should be abolished or left alone.  

[Rainbowfied Mouse]

It's revenue for the government, people buy it, and it hurts no one... go for it.  

[Lord Bitememan]

Anyone who's got a problem with porn, don't watch it. Anyone who wants to live in a society that doesn't let your neighbors watch it, Iran and the Taliban are a mere plane ride away. Freedom is as much about letting other people do and be exposed to what they want as you being permitted to do and be exposed to what you want.  

[Ruyashie]

Rainbowfied Mouse

It's revenue for the government, people buy it, and it hurts no one... go for it.

It has been know to lead men to rape.  

[Rainbowfied Mouse]

Ruyashie

Rainbowfied Mouse

It's revenue for the government, people buy it, and it hurts no one... go for it.

It has been know to lead men to rape.

Go back to your psychology books. It hasn't led men to rape, it temporarily decreases a person's opinion of rape being horrible. There may be some people who watch porn and go out and do things to people. Should stop extremist groups that can sometimes lead men to violence, or ban alcohol that sometimes leads to drinking and driving, domestic violence, and rape; or we should ban the internet which sometimes is abused with child pornography; should we ban the bible that sometimes causes groups to go out and kill in the name of God?

Bad things happen, and porn doesn't isn't always the cause of it, we shouldn't ban something because some people are ignorant. Their actions will be paid for in the justice system.  

[Lord Bitememan]

Pictures don't rape women, people do.  

[Ruyashie]

Lord Bitememan

Pictures don't rape women, people do.

Read these studies if thats what you think.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_effects_of_pornography  

[Rainbowfied Mouse]

Ruyashie

Lord Bitememan

Pictures don't rape women, people do.

Read these studies if thats what you think.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_effects_of_pornography

I read those studies... I don't remember reading how a picture raped anyone though...

Also, wikipedia... not the most accurate site to use.  

[Ruyashie]

Rainbowfied Mouse

Ruyashie

Lord Bitememan

Pictures don't rape women, people do.

Read these studies if thats what you think.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_effects_of_pornography

I read those studies... I don't remember reading how a picture raped anyone though...

Also, wikipedia... not the most accurate site to use.

Pornography is not just pictures  

[Lord Bitememan]

Very first line of source:

Quote:

Research concerning the effects of pornography is inconclusive on the issue of crime.

In other words, there is no conclusive evidence that pornography leads to enhanced crime rates. Next.  

[Ruyashie]

Lord Bitememan

Very first line of source:

Quote:

Research concerning the effects of pornography is inconclusive on the issue of crime.

In other words, there is no conclusive evidence that pornography leads to enhanced crime rates. Next.

Since we can not use Wiki (the Seigenthaler scandal) I fount a different site.

The Documented Effects of Pornography

By Editorial Staff
Published November 1991

In the September issue of The Forerunner (Vol. X, No. VI ), we examined the relationship between pornography and violent crime in an article entitled “Mass Murder and Pornography – Are They Related?”

Since the publication of the September issue, we have received a number of responses challenging the claim that pornography and violent crime are related. These responses implored us to use real, honest and acceptable facts in defending this position. As a follow up to the many questions generated by this article, we have decided to give a more complete overview of the research that has been done in this area.

The Effects of Pornography

Defenders of pornography argue that it is not harmful, and thus should not be regulated or banned. Citing the 1970 Presidential Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, they conclude that there is no relationship between exposure to erotic material and subsequent behavior. But two subsequent decades of research based on the increased production of more explicit and violent forms of pornography has shown the profound effects pornography can have on human behavior.

Psychologist Edward Donnerstein (University of Wisconsin) found that brief exposure to violent forms of pornography can lead to anti-social attitudes and behavior. Male viewers tend to be more aggressive towards women, less responsive to pain and suffering of rape victims, and more willing to accept various myths about rape.1

Dr. Dolf Zimmerman and Dr. Jennings Bryant showed that continued exposure to pornography had serious adverse effects on beliefs about sexuality in general and on attitudes toward women in particular. They also found that pornography desensitizes people to rape as a criminal offense.2

These researchers also found that massive exposure to pornography encourages a desire for increasingly deviant materials which involve violence, like sadomasochism and rape.3

Feminist author Diana Russell notes in her book Rape and Marriage the correlation between deviant behavior (including abuse) and pornography. She also found that pornography leads men and women to experience conflict, suffering, and sexual dissatisfaction.4

Researcher Victor Cline (University of Utah) has documented in his research how men become addicted to pornographic materials, begin to desire more explicit or deviant material, and end up acting out what they have seen.5

According to Charles Keating of Citizens for Decency Through Law, research reveals that 77 percent of child molesters of boys and 87 percent of child molesters of girls admitted imitating the sexual behavior they had seen modeled in pornography.

Sociologists Murray Straus and Larry Baron (University of New Hampshire) found that rape rates are highest in states which have high sales of sex magazines and lax enforcement of pornography laws.6

Michigan state police detective Darrell Pope found that of the 38,000 sexual assault cases in Michigan (1956-1979), in 41 percent of the cases pornographic material was viewed just prior to or during the crime. This agrees with research done by psychotherapist David Scott who found that “half the rapists studied used pornography to arouse themselves immediately prior to seeking out a victim.”

The Final Report of the 1986 Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography lists a full chapter of testimony (197-223) from victims whose assailants had previously viewed pornographic materials. The adverse effects range from physical harm (rape, torture, murder, sexually transmitted disease) to psychological harm (suicidal thoughts, fear, shame, nightmares).

The Facts on Pornography

A day-care director, now serving three years for three counts of first-degree sexual assault, confessed the he had “started picking up pornographic materials occasionally, going to bookstores … no one knew, not even my wife … now I do recognize fully the shocking facts about pornography and how it will draw you into its clutches away from God into sinful fantasies …”

Multiplied incidents like the above graphically illustrate how the $8 billion-per-year porn industry has carved inroads into American life:

* Nearly 900 theaters show X-rated films and more than 15,000 “adult” bookstores and video stores offer pornographic material, outnumbering McDonald’s restaurants in the U.S. by a margin of at least three to one.

* Each year, nearly 100 full-length pornographic films provide estimated annual box office sales of $50 million.

* Approximately 70% of the pornographic magazines sold eventually end up in the hands of minors.

* About 1.2 million children are annually exploited through child pornography and prostitution.7
 

[Lord Bitememan]

1. I never complained about Wikipedia, that was Mouse. I've never held out problems with using Wikipedia as a source.

2. It's pretty obvious you've used that as a smokescreen to avoid confronting your own previous source contradicting you.

3. The source you provided this time is far less reliable. It is from the editorial page of a publication that claims to:

Quote:

At this web site are articles from Christian newspapers published by university students from the United States, Russia, Ukraine, Latin America and China. We also host several web sites of related Christian organizations involved in promoting Revival in the Church and the Reformation of society.

That's not an impartial medical or scientific journal, it is an agenda driven body.

4. You presented a partial form of the article that avoiding showing its true agenda. In specific, you left off the section that began:

Quote:

God’s Purpose in Sex

That has NOTHING to do with science, and everything to do with sermonizing.

Now, a publication from the APA (hint, that acronym is one of a scientific body, not a theological one):

http://www.apa.org/divisions/div46/articles/linz.pdf

And its direct contradictions to the only science based portions of your article:

Quote:

These studies indicated that, in the laboratory, exposure to certain forms of violent pornography resulted in changed perceptions of rape, attitudes, and aggression against women. In the typical study focusing on short-term or relatively immediate effects on aggressive behavior, male subjects were first exposed to depictions showing the female victim enjoying or reacting in a positive fashion to sexual aggression or similar mistreatment. Then subjects were given the opportunity to administer electric shocks or other forms of punishment to a female victim. The results of these studies have generally indicated that in comparison with control subjects, male subjects exposed to sexual violence of this sort showed increases in aggression. However, the only study of this type that examined more long-term effects of such exposure (by having repeated exposure to sexually violent materials and measuring aggression a considerable time after the exposure phase had been completed) did not find increased aggression (Malamuth & Ceniti, 1986).

Other research focusing on perceptions and attitudes shows (a) changes in the perception of the rape victim (e.g., seeing her as less injured and more responsible for her assault); (b) effects on perceptions of a rapist as less responsible for his actions and as deserving less punishment; and (c) greater acceptance of violence against women and of certain rape myths (see Donnerstein et al., 1987; Malamuth, 1984, 1989). Research on exposure to sexually explicit materials that were not overtly violent but were arguably degrading to women yielded less consistent effects (Linz, 1989), but some data suggested that long-term exposure to these materials might also result in more lenient attitudes toward rapists (Zillmann, 1986).

In other words the argument that exposure to pornography over time leads to more violent sexual attitudes is not born out by actual scientific study, nor really the initial studies cited. But as a further piece of evidence, consider the relationship in society between availability and exposure to pornography and crime rates (including sex crimes) overall. With the advent of mass access to the internet coming about in the later 1990s, it can easily be concluded that society today has far more exposure to pornography than it has at any point prior in our history. By the argument advanced in the article you cited the rates of violent crime, rape in particular, should be escalating in a near direct relationship. Yet, if we examine crime rate statistics since 1990:

http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/tables/09s0295.pdf

We find that not only is this relationship not happening, but in fact quite the opposite is true. Rates of forcible rape in the United States actually reached their peak in the early 1990s, heading into rapid decline by 1995. In this same period pornography became near ubiquitous, and at the same time rates of forcible rape, and crime in general, we reaching lows throughout the 2000s that were lower than any 20 year comparison. So, empirically, society as a whole has demonstrated that there is no significant linkage between access to pornography and increases in violent crime.  

[Pumona]

The porn industry should be left alone. Like someone posted before if you do not like it then do not watch it. We do not need any more freedom (rights) taken away. As for someone mentioning an association with porn and rape. Porn does not make someone rape someone, just like guns do not make someone shoot someone. People should know what is right and wrong otherwise a lot of bad things could happen.  

[goodshot911SNK]

yes I agree porn will not hurt anyone I think people who don't watch pron are the ones more likely to rape somebody because they can not experience the act itself so they would have to do it forcefully witch then would mean porn is a anti rape measure now some porn is more sinister then others there are some pretty bad stuff and some well curiosity pron what i am saying is look at what porns these rapists are watching it is probably not your average one now I'm not a porn expert or watcher so there I find it repulsive and overrated but some people like it  

[Hallie Neko-chan]

They already have restrictions on porn, anyway. You have to be a certain age to buy it, etc. As long as they aren't going to be viewing it out in public, then there isn't any reason to ban porn. And normally, people with sense don't go around discussing it out in the open, either. rolleyes So there shouldn't be anything against porn if it's kept in private.