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.
To all those who watch porn. ( I am not accusing you of anything Ostlander.)
May your daughters become a porn star and may your son grow up to be the owner/operator of a sleezy adult video store in a slum.
It would serve you right!
Wow, what a dilemma for fascist liberals. Encourage porn to destroy traditional morality and culture, making Americans easier to control, or encourage harsh anti-porn measures to put Americans in servitude.
Decisions, decisions...
Buy it? I heard somewhere it was free on the internet.
And you would hit the ceiling if you had a daughter and you found out she was a porn queen. Porn is DEGRADING for the watchers and the watched and it is NOT good for anyone.
Yes, ironicaly, people's houses open to porn become subject to perverted state and feminist scrutiny, THE VERY AGENTS PROMOTING IT! and they hate religion's and friends' ability to free people from it.
Government is a very DANGEROUS UNWANTED GUEST but pornography is its little helper and denouncer. "It's for the children" motto is the type of thing getting CPS into homes without a warrant, completely illegal and preposterous pretext. They do not care for kids. They want your house and you to be their slaves.
While a naked body may be inviting honorably, it becomes often an unwanted guest who has too much claim to due attention. It also opens a pandora's box of state and widespread social interference in one's life.
True, true. What do you think is more likely to happen? Active promotion or draconian restriction?
1. Ladies, how would you feel about your guy if he was getting off on porn?
2. Guys ... ?
Porn isn't really "sex", right?
when you go to stores and they have it staring at you on shelves barely covered up(grocery stores) it gets noticed very easily by children-it affects everyone some differently-porn takes away inhibitions-like bill said it was not realy sex-so some kids are trying it-so much crap is thrown at kids nowadays they don't know what is normal-better when people believed idle hands were devils work
No, but I also wouldn't have sex with my wife with my mother, father, or sister in the same room, either. There isn't anything "intrinsically wrong" to having sex with my wife, is there??? Your other points are valid.
Actually, I detest porn. Sex should be sacred, not profane.
I just find myself in the unpleasant position of defending the porngraphers' First Amendment rights, just as I have to hold my nose and defend the rights of Neo-Nazis , Black Panthers, Communists and Klansmen.
Funny you should ask that! Just this week, a friend I hadn't seen in a while sat on my porch telling me about her divorce last year.
And I'll preface this with she's very pretty, gorgeous body and just a fun good ole girl. Not prissy, not prudey.....and oh yeah, she's one of my dance students.
Hubby was into porn, she found out when they got married, and her reaction was "That's like another woman in our marriage!" but he insisted he 'needed' it because his drive was so much greater than hers.
(Say what?!?.....That knocked her socks off as well as mine, cuz she's got drive, lots of it...) Anyhow, Seems hubby got to where he would flatly refuse sex with her, but she'd wake up at 3am and find in my the living room watching porn. She'd go to be and cry about it, but try again later.
Time passed, and the next time she found him in the Living room, he was into stuff so off the wall that she basically moved out the next day.
She looked him in the eye and said "You're at a point where 'normal' sex with your 'normal' wife won't do it for you anymore" and the jerk agreed.
Oh well, She's dating a River Pilot now who thinks she hung the moon.
Oh yeah, and my biggest complaint with porn is that most of it's actors would disappear if all child molestation and incest stopped. Granted, not ALL of it's actors, but most....expecially those without one itty bitty shred of self esteem left (That is why it creeps me out).
When is someone going to have the guts to study what porn does to adults?
". . .you're attempting to rationalize it by making it appear to be a personal freedom issue instead of what it actually is, and that's a sordid medium which degrades and abases a most beautiful act, the physical expression of love between a man and a woman."
The two aren't mutually exclusive. It's both a Constitutional issue (First Amendment) and a really nasty garbage heap.
What I'm trying to say is, if nobody bought the smut, and women (and men) refused to pose or perform, the entire porn industry would dry up and blow away.
Prohibition of alcohol was a complete failure- it took individuals making responsible choices and drinking less to change the "booze culture" in the US.
If we stop buying drugs, the entire drug industry will dry up and blow away.
We could wipe out venerial disease in a single generation if everybody followed Judeo-Christian sexual morality.
BTW, porn is not a hobby of mine, and I never implied that porn is victimless- just constitutionally protected, and not the universal social ill that you claim it to be.
lj has been busy the last few days, I've taken the liberty to ping the M/A ping list.
If yo want on/off the M/A pinglist Freepmail little jeremiah
I've heard this story so many times. Us guys (and our decadent, sex-addicted society in general) can be very hypocritical when it comes to porn. It seems to be much more common with guys, but if our lady does the same thing?!?!? Oh, well, hell, she must be a "slut" or a "tramp". I'm glad to hear life seems to be working out for your friend. I've known how her new guy feels. It can only be good for both of them. :)
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