Posted on 10/20/2005 4:56:55 PM PDT by wagglebee
A contributor to Time magazine says contemporary society has been misled into believing pornography is harmless entertainment. According to Pamela Paul, author of Pornified: How Pornography Is Transforming Our Lives, Our Relationships, and Our Families (Times Books, 2005), what was once hidden in dark alleys and seedy theaters is now being glorified and mainstreamed by today's "pornified" culture.
"There's an idea that pornography is cool and that it's perfectly normal for men to look at pornography -- that they are biologically programmed to want to look at pornography," Paul says.
And, she notes, women have been "a serious target of this message in that they are told pornography is a guy thing, and that it's not their right to complain."
In fact, Paul says, the mainstreaming of pornography has taught a generation of women to believe that porn is for the independent and liberated. But that idea could not be more wrong, she asserts, because in reality porn victimizes women, poisons men, and causes children to grow up too fast.
In her book, Pornified, Paul assembles a compilation of surveys and other research as well as anecdotal evidence of the problems porn causes. Of particular concern, she points out, are stories of young children and teens accessing pornography from school computers.
The Time magazine feature writer says it is "very disturbing" that researchers are not exactly sure how exposure to porn is going to affect children down the road. "But it's clear that kids develop sexually during adolescence," she adds, "and they learn what their sexual cues are -- what's exciting, what's appealing" to them.
"If kids are looking at hardcore pornography online and learning that this is what's normal and that this is what is supposed to be exciting and this is what they're supposed to aspire to, they're learning a very scary lesson," Paul says. And her own research indicates that the damage caused by youngsters' exposure to porn could be both extensive and long term.
In a survey the author conducted herself, the overwhelming majority of respondents cited a long list of negative effects from pornography use, including poor relationship skills and serious trust and loyalty issues. Responses also indicated that porn can lead to negative body image issues in women and can distract men from their partners, detract from their sexual skills, and damage their relationships.
Paul contends that pornography is obviously a poison and that it has unfortunately seeped into many people's everyday lives. She hopes her book will help dispel contemporary society's misconceptions that pornography is in any way normal, hip or harmless.
For everybody that buys into this fight, the entire argument is revolving around men looking at pictures of women or of heterosexual behavior. That isn't all of it.
Nobody is discussing gay porn, which will NEVER be touched legally or otherwise. It is a huge, but under the radar part of the porn world. You can crusade til the moon turns blue against the heterosexual variety, but as with their bathhouses, the gays will never give up theirs.
When I was a kid, we routinely hung out in the porn theatres and adult bookstores. I'm going to provide a different point of view here. The internet glut of porn is preferable to seedy theatres and bookstores that used to poison neighborhoods and attract vermin.
Now, parents can control porn a lot easier than in my day. For many youngsters, sneaking online looks at the forbidden will be very much like looking at your sordid uncle's Playboys or video collection. Parents can very often control what is seen and viewed in their own homes. They set the limits, as it should be. In my day, my folks had no idea where I was hanging out.
As with abortion, practically speaking, the eradication of pornography has to take place by changing a mind at a time. Men are going to look at women, sometimes in provocative ways. The desire to do that will not be eradicated in this world. Right now, it's controlled very nicely. Where better than in one's own home should sexual appetites be controlled and limited?
Midge Decter, the wife of Norman Podhoretz, once said that men who use pornography are caught in long lasting puberty. Society is not going to make pornography illegal, despite the unique combination of left and right demanding it to do so. (The feminists hate it for their own reasons.)
We should encourage our young men to be chivalrous gentlemen, growing into good husbands and fathers. My own sons have absolutely no interest in adult materials. And fewer and fewer young men will as my own polluted, oversexed generation dies out. But take it away entirely and you create a massive new interest in the forbidden.
Good point! I'll add this point to my list of reasons to legalize prostitution!
And this is also a woman who refused to allow her children to go to the Nelcon Atkins Museum of Art (she refused to go as well - That was the place I suggested we meet on a first date, rather than a shopping mall. The reason didn't come out until our discussion on "porn"), due to the fact that there are nudes there. In addition to Playboy, she didn't approve of Michaelangelo. Her kids were in their teens. Her problem was with nudity of any sort, not porn. She had enough baggage to open a luggage store.
Mark
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