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
Care to answer the question that posed?
Why should my freedom be circumscribed by consent and adulthood?
Good response.
One thing we can do is to bring 'shame' back into play in the public arena. Everything about pornography is utterly shameful.
Anyone who uses porn is being a peeping tom. The only difference between being a peeping tom who actually stands outside someone's window and spies upon the people within, and the one who commits his peeping tomism in the privacy of his home, is that our disattached-from-reality secular judges have made the former a crime but the latter not. If they were logical in their reasoning, either both forms would be a crime or both wouldn't.
Cite ?
I think I'll rent a Jenna Jameson video tonight just to spite the FR bible-thumpers.
We're the victims here.
LOL
; )
marking
Do you have to?
STUDY PROVES "PORNOGRAPHY IS HARMFUL"
"Findings are Alarming"; 12,000 Participants in Study
CALGARY, March 12, 2002 (LSN.ca) - A new study has found that viewing pornography is harmful to the viewer and society. In a meta-analysis (a statistical integration of all existing scientific data), researchers have found that using pornographic materials leads to several behavioral, psychological and social problems.
One of the most common psychological problems is a deviant attitude towards intimate relationships such as perceptions of sexual dominance, submissiveness, sex role stereotyping or viewing persons as sexual objects. Behavioral problems include fetishes and excessive or ritualistic masturbation. Sexual aggressiveness, sexually hostile and violent behaviours are social problems as well as individual problems that are linked to pornography.
"Our findings are very alarming", said Dr. Claudio Violato one of the co-authors of the study. Dr. Violato, Director of Research at the National Foundation for Family Research and Education (NFFRE) and a professor at the University of Calgary, said "This is a very serious social problem since pornography is so widespread nowadays and easily accessible on the internet, television, videos and print materials".
Studies have shown that almost all men and most women have been exposed to pornography. An increasing number of children are also being exposed to explicitly sexual materials through mass media. The rise in sexual crimes, sexual dysfunction and family breakdown may be linked to the increased availability and use of pornography. The rape myth (belief that women cause and enjoy rape, and that rapists are normal) is very widespread in habitual male users of pornography according to the study.
"There has been some debate among researchers about the degree of negative consequences of habitual use of pornography, but we feel confident in our findings that pornography is harmful", Violato noted. "Our study involved more than 12,000 participants and very rigorous analyses. I can think of no beneficial effects of pornography whatsoever. As a society we need to move towards eradicating it".
The authors of the study concluded that exposure to pornography puts viewers at increased risk for developing sexually deviant tendencies, committing sexual offences, experiencing difficulties in intimate relationships, and accepting of the rape myth. Dr. Elizabeth Oddone-Paolucci and Dr. Mark Genuis, researchers at the National Foundation for Family Research and Education, are co-authors of the study that was published in the scientific journal Mind, Medicine and Adolescence.
For more information see NFFRE at:
http://www.nffre.com
# Pornography was involved in the sexual abuse of 87% of female children and 77% of male children
# 86% of rapists admitted to regular use of pornography, 57% actually imitated porn. - Dr. Wm. Marshall, Queens University & Kingston Penitentiary Sex Offenders Program
# 1980-1989 study records preliminary indication of pornography in 62.2% of the extra familial child sexual abuse cases studied (23.1% child porn, 21.6% adult porn, 17.5% adult and child porn). Concluding pornography is used extensively in extrafamilial sexual victimization of children. - Sexually exploited Child (SEC) Unit, Los Angeles Police Department
Don't even start the Communist/Socialist censorship bit. We have laws that control a lot of things, tobacco and alcohol for example. You have to have an I.D. to buy them and you can't drive if you've had too much of one of them. We have libraries with filters to keep porn off them. Porn is already monitored and providing a specific domain for them wouldn't be that big of an imposition for them, no doubt they could afford the change of domain name. As for the foreign sites that would present a problem in getting their cooperation. Sometimes out of common decency the MSM doesn't even show certain footage such as the recent hostage beheadings in Iraq.
Yes, because I'm a loser and if I don't get my porn fix I'm going to go out and maim some helpless girl, per the article posted.
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