Cool, I've made it to Phase Three.
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
You drop in for TWO late posts out of nearly 400 -- one of which is to berate and accuse someone of being a "troll" -- who's debated posters point-by-point for entire thread??
Get your stupid ass outta here.
Excuse me?
Impossible. He's absolutely clueless.
Lol...you are too much.
Whew, glad the calvary finally showed up!
Cool, I've made it to Phase Three.
Yes
Well, that explains a lot. This f16fighter guy getting all over me, I have no explanation for.
He was being a gentleman, you were rude.
How refreshing.
Well, you do seem to have an unhealthy hatred of porn. I'm not going to speculate why, but I'm afraid it's for unpleasant reasons in your life.
I'm surprised Bundy didn't blame it on poverty.. Or was this the easiest blame-transfer method that he could find?
Maybe you should be the one that "gets outa here". She hasn't debated anyone "point by point". She as simply recited some talking points that she probably picked up during a sermon or a seminar. She has been corrected by multiple posters on every one of her "points", yet she just ignores the posts and continues to spout out the talking points. If you had read the thread, you'd realize that.
I've lost count of the number of times she has tried to build the 14 year old runaway strawman. She has been corrected many times in detail yet she continues to harp on it.
I've also lost count of the number of times she has tried to assert that pornography increases violence against women. She has been shown official Department of Justice statistics that totally refute what her seminar taught her, yet she continues to parrot them.
Some have been quite racy. There are some people here that always post on the "sex" threads, even to the extent of thinking people are jerks if they think marriage is not as important as a man's right to have a relationship with a horse.
Who'd have thunk it? And the "cyber pawing" on some of the threads is quite over the line...
I know you don't have a pool!
Apparently, your answer is to draw no line at all. Anything goes, right? The strong survive; to hell with the rest. I'm just glad I'm not in your family.
That's really irrelevant to this discussion. I have never claimed that pornography is the primary cause of divorce nor of sex crimes. I stand by the assertion that it contributes to both. This is borne out by testimony from those involved with both tragedies. I don't deny, however, that there may be larger issues at work which can cause fluctuations in both rates.
Exactly. And I say porn has a more powerful potential to develop into this extreme than any of the other problems you mention. Of course, this isn't true for everyone, but I think it's true for those with normal or greater sex drive.
Look at it from the point of view of those who sell porn. They absolutely know of and count on the addictive potential of porn. They are a multi-billion dollar industry, and it's not because most guys can take a few casual looks and then go on about their day.
With strong, proven, even partial causality established, contributory negligence, etc.. Why not? That hasn't been legally proven yet, but I, for one, hope it can be legally established one day.
I'm not trying to claim that porn makes men into rapists, any more than violent video games make teens into killers. However, there is a contribution there. If and when that is proven in court, I'll be cheering for the lawsuits.
Consent is the 'magic' word that absolves one from being guilty of doing something they know they shouldn't be doing? That is what you're saying. And of course, that's exactly the defense used by the German homosexual cannibal......"he CONSENTED to become my dinner......so how can there be
anything wrong, most especially since we did this in the PRIVACY of my home and I am a 'moral sovereign unto myself' just as all people are". Consent, privacy, sexual orientation, imperialist self........he hit all the right buttons, so by the standards by which you absolve yourself of commiting peeping tomism, the cannibal ought to have been absolved as well.
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.