Posted on 01/24/2006 2:50:39 PM PST by SmoothTalker
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.
Not too long ago, pornography was a furtive profession, its products created and consumed in the shadows. But it has steadily elbowed its way into the limelight, with an impact that can be measured not just by the Internet-fed ubiquity of pornography itself but by the way aspects of the porn sensibility now inform movies, music videos, fashion, magazines, and celebrity culture.
Braving the inevitable accusations of prudery -- which they reject -- critics such as Paul are sounding the alarm. They say the current hypersexualized climate distorts the attitudes of young people toward sex and relationships. In particular, they contend it has a damaging effect on the self-image of young women and girls, who are confronted with a culture that objectifies them while disguising it as female empowerment.
''Our culture once glamorized cigarette smoking to a large extent. It was promoted by the medical establishment, the film industry, TV," she says. ''But once the evidence of harm began to be disseminated by the government, and by schools and the private sector, the number of people who started smoking went down. My hope is that once people realize the negative effect that pornography has on individuals, their children, their wives, and society as a whole, there will be a mind-set shift."
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
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.
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.
"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.
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.
You named it "Little Elvis???"
You're weird!
Do you always use ad hominem and personal attack or do you actually make an argument of substance?
Beauty is temporary, but stupid holds its own. :P
Since when do we care what the Europeans think or do? They aren't even smart enough to reproduce.
Sounds like this guy had a pretty fun weekend.
Excuse me! I suppose your opinion of Jessica Simpson IS worthy of a serious discussion.
WTF was I thinking???
Or female? Or neutered? What a body! Great pic, too.
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
Dark Skies, I have to agree with you on your choice of sexy.
lol. Oh heck...competition. She's a hunk!
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.
"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.
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