The pornification of America

Boston Globe ^ | Don Aucoin

[chae]

A good friend of mine married a guy who was addicted to porn. The night before the wedding, he was downloading intenet porn. We all tried to tell her this was not good, but she married him anyway, because it wasn't an addiction, just a fun little pasttime. Fast forward two years later and she's upset that he depleted her checking account to pay for his "Barely Legal" porn.

[little jeremiah]

In many ways I lead a "sheltered" life (ie I'm more or less a hermit) but I have known at least three men who've been porn "users" and they are all screwed up to the maximum, their wives are miserable, one child saw some porn and acted out with another kid what he saw, one of the men had a fiancee leave, then a wife leave, and the amount of deception and dishonesty that seeps out into all relationships is a lot.

Like many mental addictions, they just can't stay away. They always want more. One of them did the same thing - ordered some stuff that automatically got taken out of the bank account.

Porn ruins people and families.

[webstersII]

"A lot of our ancestors left places such as France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands and more to get away from the societies there"

That's true. But my point is that even with their more open attitudes they don't have the obsession with this whole issue as seriously as America does. It seems counter-intuitive but the discrepancy still exists.

[MillerCreek]

Perhaps "America" is just more curious. It's fascinating just how wrong some of our history is, and how little a lot of people know about what is proven or at least now suggested as to human history.

I think it's just plain old curiosity that motivates a lot of people about these things...how civilizations were formed and by whom, when, reformed again later, etc.

[wireman]

dominated by "little elvis."

You named it "Little Elvis???"

You're weird!

[Dark Skies]

Heard that last week on FR.

Do you always use ad hominem and personal attack or do you actually make an argument of substance?

[ashtanga]

Pornography, from "the writing of prostitutes" is shady business, or should be. If it were kept in the industrial areas, tucked away in the cul-de-sacs, then I could live with the product. It is its dissemination via television, Hollywood and radio that is frustrating. I have seen horrible things on television, implied of course, things far coarser than porn valley's offerings.

[Constantine XIII]

Beauty is temporary, but stupid holds its own. :P

[Constantine XIII]

Since when do we care what the Europeans think or do? They aren't even smart enough to reproduce.

[Hank Rearden]

Actors having real sex in art-house movies. Erstwhile child star Lindsay Lohan appearing barely clad on the cover of her new album. Teenage girls strolling down Main Street USA attired in ''Porn Star" T-shirts. A bikini-wearing Jessica Simpson bumping and grinding in the music video for ''These Boots Are Made for Walkin.' " College-age women flashing for the ''Girls Gone Wild" video series with nonchalant exhibitionism.

Sounds like this guy had a pretty fun weekend.

[MississippiMasterpiece]

Crikey. Bikinis aren't pornographic. Here's a link to the Jessica Simpson video if anyone's interested. Jessica Simpson video

[wireman]

do you actually make an argument of substance?

Excuse me! I suppose your opinion of Jessica Simpson IS worthy of a serious discussion.

WTF was I thinking???

[swain_forkbeard]

Or female? Or neutered? What a body! Great pic, too.

[pollyannaish]

Yes and no.

I let my preteen son flip through a computer magazine a couple of years ago. Figured what could possibly be wrong with that. It had a photo of a mother board on the cover. It wasn't a gaming magazine. It was a nerd magazine.

A few months later, he came to his dad and me very upset because a photo he had seen was really bothering him and he didn't understand why. We were a bit confused because he couldn't quite explain what was going on in the photo, or exactly why it was bothering him.

We looked and looked for it. When we found out what it was, frankly, we were stunned. There was no doubt it was pornographic and the kind of stuff I didn't even know existed until I was into college. It really ticked us off. It was in an ad. It wasn't necessary. It was disgusting and it was an image that will be in my son's head for the rest of his life. He was NOT old enough to choose to have it there.

Needless to say, I am getting ANGRY about porn proliferation and worse, porn glorification. We know that we are the parents, and we know that we are responsible for what our children see. We fully support the right of adults to do, see, act in anyway that does not harm others. BUT it is beginning to harm others.

We should not have to follow them around obsessively every time they open a magazine, or turn on the television before 9 pm. Or hide their eyes when we walk into a clothing store. Or preview every magazine, every issue including children's magazines, before they look at them. Porn is everywhere. There is NO HEALTHY REASON a six year old needs a thong. NONE. Once we walk out of the house, we are being assaulted by it, and that does not even count the media or the Internet who often do a fine job of assaulting us in our own home.

I genuinely don't care what grown ups do in their own time. BUT it is time for this to get out of my face and away from my children.

Interestingly, I spoke to some of my college age students about it this week. Since they are the first generation that is growing up with this crap, I was curious to see how they felt.

They are feeling angry and feel like it is being forced on them. Both the guys and the girls said (in different ways of course) that it is robbing them of something, although they couldn't quite express what that is. They felt like it was going to be extremely difficult to have a normal relationship later in their lives. One guy said that he felt like people who were messed up are trying to mess up everybody else's lives so they will feel better about themselves. Frankly, that is just plain odd. When sex obsessed college student's are getting upset, we've got a problem

Sorry for the rant. I hate opening myself up for accusations of prudishness. But much like the whole gay thing, just get it out of my face. I would really appreciate a world in which sex is a healthy and vigorous part of what and who we are, not ALL that we are. I genuinely fear for our kids.

/Rant

[pollyannaish]

Good rant.

On a personal note: I am sorry your generation is having to deal with all of irresponsibility of those of us who are older. I am not quite a boomer, but just on the trailing edge. And I know that I should have fought harder sooner, but I was too afraid I would be labeled a prude, or narrow minded, or racist or phobic. I was wrong.

You give me hope for the future. Thank you.

[Nowhere Man]

This is the inevitable result of forty years of social libertarianism and market capitalism. The market will ruthlessly exploit the dark side of human nature to market products. It does so efficiently and with ever increasing effectiveness. Each step downward numbs us to the next one.

I used to be a libertarian. But I concluded some time ago that no society can combine social libertarianism and market capitalism successfully for long. Inevitably, the degradation of the human spirit that accompanies this combination will result in the return of the jackboot.

Nothing I have seen in the past forty years gives me any comfort that I am wrong.

I think much the same thing. I used to be somewhat libertarian for a while and something snapped me back to my current views. I think it was the combination of this stuff, 9-11, getting my left hand cut open, infected and operated on, homosexual marriage in Canada and the fight hereover it among other things that has gotten me closer to God and Jesus. I used to be a South Park junky but not as much now. I agree they are still worth a giggle or two but not much beyond that. I do admit to being very conservative socially, militarily and morally but an economic centrist, because the dark side of human nature is there to be exploited, I think that is the main reason why I tend to distrust free market capitalism because of that appeal to the lowest common denominator.

The dark side has always been with us but as a society, the people tended to regulated themselves well enough to keep it at the sidelines. It wasn't perfect, but good enough 99% of the time. Then the 1960's happened and throughout the last four decades, we see what we are seeing now.

I was watching "Star Wars - Attack of the Clones" where young Anakin Skywalker (the future Darth Vader) told Padme, "the Republic is broken," and when I take a look around, there are times I feel thesame way about our society. Somebody will come along and try to fix it or claim to, it depends on the true motives of this hypothetical Anakin that is down the road. Nature abhores a vacuum and although we need to take the bull by the horns in each of our lives, there is a lack of leadership on our moral problems right now although sooner or later, there will be some Anakin who will step in. I admit, there is an open question in my mind, should I oppose this Anakin/Darth Vader..... or should I support him?

I don't know at times, but with the current social libertarianism and market capitalism that goes for the lowest common denominator, a society cannot survive and will fall at some point.

[Nowhere Man]

Dark Skies, I have to agree with you on your choice of sexy.

[Dark Skies]

lol. Oh heck...competition. She's a hunk!

[MillerCreek]

Sorry, previous, I meant as to curiosity in civilizations and originations of groups of peoples, not the thread theme of "pornography."

I was writing about a tangent, anyway, so, having just reread what I wrote earlier seems to wrongly suggest I was discussing the thread theme ("pornography") when what I was discussing, rather, with you was as to civilizations and such, history or known history of how people migrated, settled and founded civilizations.

[webstersII]

"The U.S.A. is in this sense, "superior" as civilization to at least continue to contend with the protections of some degree of public decency. I think most of Europe stopped trying a while ago, certainly Paris and the Netherlands did."

My point is that they don't have to have registers of sex offenders and such because they don't have near the problem with it that we do. I'm not drawing any specific conclusions here about why that is, I'm just saying that doesn't make any sense to me. I would expect our society to be better in this regard.