Posted on 11/18/2004 6:16:42 PM PST by MisterRepublican
Comparing pornography to heroin, researchers on Thursday called on Congress to finance studies on "porn addiction" and launch a public health campaign about the dangers.
"We're so afraid to talk about sex in our society that we really give carte blanche to the people who are producing this kind of material," said James B. Weaver, a Virginia Tech professor who studies the impact of pornography.
Internet pornography is corrupting children and hooking adults into an addiction that threatens their jobs and families, a panel of anti-porn advocates told the hearing organized by Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., chairman of the Commerce subcommittee on science.
Brownback, a father of five, said when he was a boy, the typical kid's exposure was limited to occasional peeks at dirty magazines illicitly obtained by a buddy.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Nuts!
supposing this thesis is true (I will not agree necessarily) your conclusion must be, then, "damn the weak, just don't interfere with my right to not be interfered with." I surmise (and hope) that you do not have children.
The arguments are the same whenever the subject is brought up. Nobody's mind is ever changed.
Anything that people like can be addictive...absolutely anything. Porn, gambling, games, exercise, shopping, dieting, food, alcohol, cigarettes...anything. And addiction to ANYTHING can be destructive, or at the very least, disruptive.
The key is, as always, to keep one's perspective. Married couples and singles...males and females...all races and creeds...watch sexually explicit films. Hell, someone explain the difference between the average porn film and something like MONSTER'S BALL. The sex scenes in that were *almost* as explicit, and Halle Berry was given an Oscar.
If you watch porn for fun if you're single, or with your spouse to spice things up if you're married...just remember they're images on a screen, or on paper. They will never replace the actual touch of another person. Perspective.
Addictions also tend to run in societies which don't have bigger problems facing the individual.
Not many people in Sub Saharan Africa need addiction counseling. They are too busy scratching the dirt with a stick looking for their next meal. Increases in addictions among humans is directly linked to what we would call "modern society" and it's self celebrated successes.
Well, if it's a choice between that and "OK you can run my life and make all the laws you want to compensate for your shortcomings..." I'll have to think about it and get back to you.
Hmmmm....I find it interesting that a Congressional Committee (headed by a Republican!) holds a hearing on internet porn, but there are zero, zip, zilch, nada on illegal immigration.
Don't get discouraged. You have done well on this thread.
You have to know how it is around here. Most of the posters who advocate porn on FR are Libertarians who want no bounds of any kind on their "rights". Whenever they see a thread about porn, they ping all their buddies and take it hostage. They try to run off all the decent souls who realize how very very bad porn is for any society. They will never admit that it destroys lives, and demeans and degrades women and children.
Ted Bundy was one of many serial killers who confessed that he used porn to fuel his sadomasochistic appetites, before stalking and murdering girls.
Now there are thousands of Bundys out there, prowling the internet and getting naive young girls to meet them. Porn fuels sexual crimes today as never before.
Thanks to all the good folks who see this threat for what it is--pure evil-- and are willing to speak against it.
And thanks to men like Sam Brownback who will stand up in public and oppose pornography.
What is interesting is the difference in opinion between male and female posters on this thread.
"Porn is absolutely destroying lives."
I agree with you. Take a look at this.
http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=2618
Excerpt:
The New York Times reported yet another pedophile-seducing luminary arrested?this one a posh Manhattan private school headmaster. The Times, always clairvoyant, found it remarkable that affluent liberal parents have grown suspicious of "coaches, teachers, nannies, camp counselors."
"Parents who grew up riding their bicycles to after-school sports" now regularly "watch over soccer practice." And mod moms won't let Johnny go alone into the men's bathroom.
Really? Why? The newspaper of record is puzzled.
Another excerpt:
When "soft" pornography florished, marriages disintegrated and children become the sexual victims of choice for adults and other children.
For decades I have lectured on visual pornography as an "endogenous drug" that permanently restructures the brain, mind, memory and conduct of unthinking users. The South African Constitutional Court just agreed that pornography overrides cognition and causes dramatic changes in viewers' behavior. This can be simple coarsening, impairing the capacity to love, or it can lead to brutal sexual crimes.
Now, into this sea of confusion comes a level-headed documentary, A Drug Called Pornography that, says Randy Pitman of Video Librarian Magazine, "makes a compelling case for pornography's addictive and potentially destructive effects" querying "health professionals, convicted sex offenders, social critics and most frighteningly the man on the street."
Dr. Harvey Milkman takes the viewer "directly into the brain on a cellular level to understand how sex addiction occurs" using 3D computer graphics. The Department of Justice would find this a critical training primer for prosecutors, judges and juries.
It goes a long way to explaining why even effete liberals are now suspicious of "coaches, teachers, nannies, camp counselors." (See www.harmfuleffectsofpornography.com.)
Dr. Reisman is author of Kinsey, Crimes & Consequences and Soft Porn Plays Hardball. Her website is drjudithreisman.com.
Here is a must see site in dealing with this problem that is better than any government program. No one needs to be a slave to porn.
http://settingcaptivesfree.com/home/
Two birds and what............
i wonder if some here want to confessed that they are addticted to Free Republic.
First thing I thought also. People with useless degrees create a 'crisis' so they can make a living studying it, at taxpayer expense, of course.
Hey, there are millions of people out there with bad haircuts! Can I get a gov't grant to study the negative effects of bad haircuts?
According to your logic, there are alot of Xtians out there that use certian verses in the bible to put women into roles of extreme Islamic-like submission and promote all sorts of extrabiblical ideologies. Dosn't mean there's anything wrong with the idea, just means there's something disturbingly wrong with the person.
Now excuse me while I read my stack mature juggz ;)
Sorry KP. Not getting in to this one. Too many closed minds who only see "sin" and not the ravages of addiction to anything. Trying to talk sense to such people has proven worse than useless.
The feminists have taught generations of boys that men are all dogs and all we want is sex and we think women are meat. Boys believe these things and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. How are boys supposed to grow up into men when no one shows them how to be a man?
If it means a valid denial of an addiction to DU, I'll agree to be addicted to just about anything else on the web.
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