Posted on 12/09/2004 1:16:14 PM PST by Lindykim
Pornography is Anything But a 'Victimless Crime' 12/8/2004 By Cheri Pierson Yecke How many more expert studies do we need to convince ourselves of this fact?
Jud Fry -- one of the characters in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Oklahoma! lives in a shack that is papered with pornographic images. He is a loner, lacks social skills, and is feared by his neighbors. He is clearly capable of murder. This insight into the character of a porn addict hit the Broadway stage in 1943.
Fast forward to 2004. A sexual assault and several attempted abductions of girls in the St. Paul, Minnesota, area are allegedly the work of 19-year-old Ryan Mely, who has been charged (for starters) with second-degree criminal sexual conduct. He apparently was a loner who was feared by his neighbors. Jud Fry is a fictitious character who bought his porn from an itinerant peddler. How did Ryan Mely get his start? Apparently, pornography was a family pastime. While some dads bond with their kids by fishing or playing hockey together, it appears that Mely and his father (a convicted sex offender) shared an interest in pornography. It was reported that sexually explicit material was found at the family home and on their computer.
Is anyone really surprised that pornography is involved here? It has been 60 years since a Broadway musical portrayed what social scientists and criminal analysis have now found to be true -- addiction to pornography can lead to violent sexual behavior. Dr. Victor Cline, a clinical psychologist and expert on sexual addictions, has identified four stages of progression among his patients.
The first stage is addiction, where the attraction to porn is overpowering and the viewer keeps craving more. The next stage is an escalation to more shocking and deviant images, as the earlier ones have lost their power to stimulate. Third is desensitization, where anything earlier seen as disturbing and repulsive becomes viewed as commonplace. Finally, satisfaction cannot be reached unless the perpetrator begins acting out the activities witnessed in the pornography. In effect, fantasy must become reality.
The events in which Mely was allegedly involved appear to follow this pattern. Perhaps the same is true for Alfonso Rodriguez, the man who allegedly abducted and murdered Dru Sjodin. Rodriguez apparently had an infatuation with Dru, who worked at Victoria's Secret, an upscale lingerie shop. On several occasions he allegedly called the store where she worked, asking for her by name.
Victoria's Secret is well known for its racy, soft-porn "fashion show" where voluptuous young models strut the runways in revealing lingerie. The liberal National Organization for Women called it "exploitative" and the conservative Concerned Women for America condemned it as a "high-tech striptease." Regularly protested by both sides of the political spectrum, the company announced in April that it will no longer air this event
The last Victoria's Secret "fashion show" aired on network television November 19, 2003. Dru was abducted three days later. Could it be that Alfonso Rodriguez, a convicted sex offender, watched the show and was propelled into Dr. Cline's fourth stage of sexual deviance? This is a question his judge and jury may consider.
In an interview the night before his 1989 execution, serial killer Ted Bundy revealed the influence of pornography on his life.
A case study for Cline's four stages of addiction, Bundy started his descent into sexual deviance and murder with magazines he found in the neighbor's trash. His addiction escalated until he felt compelled to act out his desires in more than 30 murders that were accompanied with violent sexual acts.
He warned Americans: "There are those loose in [your] towns and communities, like me, whose dangerous impulses are being fueled, day in and day out, by violence in the media, in its various forms -- particularly sexualized violence ... . There are lots of other kids playing in the streets around the country today who are going to be dead tomorrow, and the next day, because other young people are reading and seeing the kinds of things that are available in the media today."
Abundant evidence has demonstrated the tragic impact of pornography. How many more expert studies do we need to convince ourselves of this fact? The elections of 2004 have sent politicians the message that morals matter, so now is the time to focus on the impact of pornography -- the so-called "victimless crime."
Cheri Pierson Yecke is a Distinguished Senior Fellow for Education and Social Policy at the Center of the American Experiment, a conservative think tank in Minneapolis. She is a former Minnesota commissioner of education and is author of The War Against Excellence. This article first appeared in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Used with permission.
Concerned Women for America 1015 Fifteenth St. N.W., Suite 1100 Washington, D.C. 20005 Phone: (202) 488-7000 Fax: (202) 488-0806 E-mail: mail@cwfa.org
Wasn't Tracy Lords 14?
And yeah, I know she lied and made up a fake ID etc.
(Just remembrin';) )
14 yr olds strring on your fav porn flicks.
Uh..it's called LYING...doh!..something your friendly neighborhood porn merchant probably doesn't lose sleep over.
Internet Pornography Statistics
Pornography Industry Revenue Statistics
Size of the industry $57.0 billion world-wide - $12.0 billion US
Adult videos $20 billion
Escort services $11 billion
Magazines $7.5 billion
Sex clubs $5 billion
Phone sex $4.5 billion
Cable/Pay per view $2.5 billion
Internet $2.5 billion
CD-Rom $1.5 billion
Novelties $1.0 billion
Other $1.5 billion
Porn revenue is larger than all combined revenues of all professional football, baseball and basketball franchises.
US porn revenue exceeds the combined revenues of ABC, CBS, and NBC (6.2 billion)
Child pornography generates $3 billion annually
Internet Pornography Statistics
Pornographic websites 4.2 million (12% of total websites)
Pornographic pages 372 million
Daily pornographic search engine requests 68 million (25% of total search engine requests)
Daily pornographic emails 2.5 billion (8% of total emails)
Average daily pornographic emails/user 4.5 per Internet user
Monthly Pornographic downloads (Peer-to-peer) 1.5 billion (35% of all downloads)
Daily Gnutella "child pornography" requests 116 thousand
Websites offering illegal child pornography 100 thousand
Sexual solicitations of youth made in chat rooms 89%
Youths who received sexual solicitation 20%
Worldwide visitors to pornographic web sites 72 million annually
Children Internet Pornography Statistics
Average age of first Internet exposure to pornography 11 years old
Largest consumer of Internet pornography 12 - 17 age group
15-17 year olds having multiple hard-core exposures 80%
8-16 year olds having viewed porn online 90% (most while doing homework)
7-17 year olds who would freely give out home address 29%
7-17 year olds who would freely give out email address 14%
Childrens' character names linked to thousands of porn links 26 (Including Pokeman and Action Man)
Adult Internet Pornography Statistics
Men admitting to accessing pornography at work 20%
US adults who regularly visit Internet pornography websites 40 million
Promise Keeper men who viewed pornography in last week 53%
Christians who said pornography is a major problem in the home 47%
Adults admitting to Internet sexual addiction 10%
Breakdown of male/female visitors to pornography sites 72% male - 28% female
Women and Pornography
70% of women keep their cyber activities secret.
17% of all women struggle with pornography addiction.
Women, far more than men, are likely to act out their behaviors in real life, such as having multiple partners, casual sex, or affairs.
Women favor chat rooms 2X more than men.
1 of 3 visitors to all adult web sites are women.
9.4 million women access adult web sites each month.
Women admitting to accessing pornography at work 13%
http://www.internetfilterreview.com/internet-pornography-statistics.html
I was just speaking from experience. I haven't been cured yet.
I agree with that.
Yes capitalism is really the new stoicism. Funny, but the socialist countries I visited in the early 80's were anything but hedonistic. Grey hellholes of misery would be a better description. Absolutely nothing hedonistic about them.
Prostitution was only outlawed because it harmed our society by spreading diseases and having questionable behaviour being part of an area.
Whore houses are legal for the same reason porn is: it is controlled. Porno stars and whore house workers are all required by law to undergo frequent checkups for STDs. Most of the industry requires condoms, and all require the consent of the people involved.
Porn is an inanimate object. It no more harms others than guns or SUV's.
PEOPLE rape, molest and murder.
Excusing the foul actions of others because "porn made them do it" is not a conservative position.
You are citing stats from a website hawking internet filters? Do I really need to point out the fallacy in this?
And this is a textbook example of argumentum ad hominem, where those with weak arguments resort to irrelevant personal attacks. Those whose arguments are especially weak generally insult the appearance, odor, or grooming of the opponents, in the hopes that their opponents are similarly weak-minded and won't notice the obvious fallacy. These hopes are seldom realized.
So if someone can find themselves some consenting 14 year olds then hey, that's cool.
And here we have another textbook example of a logical fallacy, this time a straw man. You're a veritable treasure trove of fallacious argument, has anyone ever told you that? Since those who believe that freedom includes the freedom to engage in risky or morally-questionable behavior generally restrict that freedom to consenting adults, you are attacking an argument which has not been made.
Nice try though.
Well, not really.
I would be curious to see what they are considering female porn vs male (I mean, are they including Elora's Cave or 'male' sites only), vs gay sites.
There is a big difference between the psychology and presentation of the two/three.
Whether viewed on a billboard or in a million, other private homes, it is not a private activity, by any definition of the word.
Far-reaching destructive tentacles, that porn stuff.
You want to unravel society?
The level of porn that is pervasive today is a good start.
Don't care about society?
Enjoy your porn.
How silly. I don't dictate, merely discriminate intelligently. I did that before and after joining Free Republic.
Anything unhealthy that we repeatedly give ourselves to alters our way of looking at life. I recall brain studies on young men prone to violence, after the Columbine tragedy traced a young men's participation in violent video games to a mind altering brain function. I do believe that it's true...we become what we give ourselves to. The sowing to the flesh reaps corruption as Paul said in Galatians. Now for a lighter look...
(TIC) I think Mr. Kerry spoke to this situation, didn't he?
''the country doesn't know it yet, but it has created many sexual monsters, monsters in the form of millions of men who have been taught to deal and to trade in sex, and who given the chance to do sex enjoy the biggest nothing in history; men who have return with a sense of sexual angst and a sense of betrayal which no one has yet grasped.''
dascallie, rationalizations are far more important than sex ... when was the last time you went a week without a good rationalization?
Oh, adding that to my list! ;p
As has already been pointed out, your statistics come from a questionable source, one that has a financial stake in exaggerating the porn "problem". But even if the statistics are 100% reliable (which, for all I know, they are), shall I quote some statistics on the health issues associated with smoking? With fast food? With risky activities such as skydiving, bungee jumping, or crossing the street? Would such statistics justify forbidding consenting adults from engaging in these activities?
Last summer there was a story in the Philly Inquirer, (cant find link) about a 10 yo girl that was sexually assaulted and her head smashed against a wall in a bathroom in a public library. (She survived.) Who did it? A homeless person. We allow these people to come into our libraries where our children are, and access porn all day on the computer. Then, when they are rarin' to go, they grab the first innocent victim they can find. Yet we cant get the porno filters on the computers and we cant keep the homeless out of the libraries.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.