It's Always the Family - Whoever said that pornography is a victimless crime?

New Oxford Review ^ | January-February 2010

[GonzoII]

It's Always the Family

January-February 2010

Whoever said that pornography is a victimless crime?

"The family is usually the first to suffer from pornography," said Pope John Paul II in an address to the Religious Alliance Against Pornography back in 1992. "Con­sequently," he continued, "as the primary cell of society, the family must be the first to champion the battle against this evil."

It is apt, then, that the Family Research Council would authorize a study on "The Effects of Pornography on Individuals, Marriage, Family and Community," released this past November.

By 1992 the porn industry in the U.S. was firmly established, having emerged from the seedy, back-alley urban environs to which it was largely confined in the 1970s. The home-video boom of the 1980s (of which porn was arguably the cause) offered Americans the opportunity to welcome porn discreetly into their own bedrooms. Still, when John Paul identified it as a "serious threat to society as a whole," porn had yet to burgeon into the mammoth industry it now is.


The decade of the 1990s marked the beginning of the current golden age of pornography. Pornographic culture rippled all the way into the Oval Office, resulting in the impeachment of President Bill Clinton. And once the Internet took hold of our daily lives (thanks, Al Gore), pornography became America's open secret. Indeed, it could be argued that pornography fueled the success of the 1990s Internet boom.

[autumnraine]

By arguing when a person is a “consenting adult” is not the point. At all.

The issue is that in AMERICA, a “consenting adult” to be filmed sexually is 18, and the same applies for viewing.

Therefore, that is my response.

[Mrs. Frogjerk]

I don’t understand how porn is even legal in the first place?

How is it any different than prostitution which is illegal in just about every state and with good reason!

I have unfortunately had very, very bad things happen in my life that were directly related to porn! It is not harmless in any way. Even if it is viewed in supposed moderation.

I had been victimized as a child and I was shown a pornno mag showing who else, the lovely Ron Jeremy. I am still trying to recover from this assault on me and it happened over 30 years ago. Porn was also in my household. It was hidden, yet I still found it. Seeing those disgusting images as a child also altered my mind and soul in very negative ways. It directy caused problems between my parents as well.

This goes way beyond a liberty issue. This stuff is lethal in more ways than I can even count.

I live in Jersey and occasionaly drive on 1 & 9 when coming home from visiting my parents and am continually heartbroken by the sight of the very young women walking there as prostitutes. The girls that are in porn are very young as well(I am assuming). They can try to say that they like what they do, but deep down they hate themselves. This is why they do what they do.

Anyway, I am getting really long winded, but please everybody, take this stuff seriously for your own sakes. It is evil. I have experienced it for myself!

[allmendream]

Well, before pornography a leader of a large nation would NEVER have recieved oral satisfaction from a young thick lipped chubby girl who was not his wife. NEVER HAPPENED in the entire history of the world.... until pornography. Thus it was axiomatic that the “pornographic culture” was responsible./s

[Mrs. Frogjerk]

A gun can be used to protect yourself, your family, and your country.

What positive thing could come out of looking at porn?

I understand where your coming from with your argument, but porn is just a completely negative thing. How can a person use porn responsibly? How can watching graphic scenes of women and men having sex not effect somebody in a very negative psychological way?

[Mrs. Frogjerk]

Even if you take Jesus out of the equation porn is extremely bad!

It demeans the “actors” or “models” involved, and basically screws with you mentally.

Like I said in another post, it is no different than prostitution. You may not be paying for sex, your just paying to watch someone have sex. How is paying to watch someone have sex normal?

This stuff will harm you as bad as any drug that you can abuse.

I love liberty too, but we are still a nation of laws. Laws put into place to protect us. Even if it is from ourselves.

I am not telling you and anybody else on this site to lecture anyone. I just don’t want to see anybody else get hurt from this stuff.

[dsc]

“It’s not your right to use the force of Law to prevent my wife and I from enjoying them in the privacy of our own home.”

It is not the right of any single person, but it *is* the right of any person to promote the adoption of laws that criminalize the production and consumption of pornography.

The actors, and particularly the actresses, are engaging in a kind of prostitution. They perform sexual and perverse acts for money.

Since you apparently don’t understand that God exists, I’ll move right past the fact that they are facing spiritual death, which is often the consequence of obdurate and grave sin.

Even from the standpoint of a so-called atheist, the things that porn actors and actresses do are degrading when done for money and with little or no choice in partner, as is all prostitution. The fact that these things are watched by huge numbers of people compounds the offense against human dignity.

Despite the “best efforts” of the porn-mongers, diseases are passed around. One of them is fatal all by itself; repeated infection with the others causes permanent harm to the body.

Porn actors and actresses are harming themselves, psychologically and physically. And don’t bother telling me how happy they say they are. Denial is not just...etc. Ask them how happy they are when they can no longer work because of age, disease, or mental and emotional problems.

What was that line from the song about a porn actress? Something like, “Have you ever had to take drugs so that you could have sex without crying?”

When you pay money to view pornography, you become an accomplice to this—you enable it, you perpetuate it. These people are debasing themselves, putting themselves at great risk, and all for your pleasure. How are you any better than a Roman sitting in the Colosseum howling for blood?

[dsc]

“NEVER HAPPENED in the entire history of the world.... until pornography. Thus it was axiomatic that the “pornographic culture” was responsible./s”

It may have happened, but it was kept behind closed doors out of respect for peoples’ sensibilities.

Never before in the history of the United States have the people been willing to give a leader a pass for doing such a thing...until pornography.

My stars and garters, the Lewinsky adultery was their *diversion.* It was regarded as such a trivial thing that they *chose* to make it public and focus attention on it, to draw the attention of the public away from Beelzebubba’s serious crimes (with the criminal collusion of Ken Starr).

It used to be illegal to do that even with your wife. Maybe we don’t want to go that far in law, but for a president to do it out of wedlock, in the Oval Office, while conducting the people’s business, is a disgrace with which we should have had no patience.

Thus it is axiomatic that the “pornographic culture” is responsible for broad-ranging deletorious effects on the character of the American people.

[John Leland 1789]

Saving

[John Leland 1789]

Freedom will not endure when a nation, defending “freedom” tacitly condones the bondage of licenteousness.

[Le Chien Rouge]

“I understand where your coming from with your argument”

I respect your opinion on porn and understand that it is not for everyone.

“but porn is just a completely negative thing. How can a person use porn responsibly?”

Mrs Le chien Rouge and I(as do many other couples) OCCASIONALLY watch porn to add a little ‘spice’ to our night life.

“How can watching graphic scenes of women and men having sex not effect somebody in a very negative psychological way?”

I believe it effect people in different ways. Some become addicted like some become addicted to alcohol. Others become warped at their outlook on women/men and the relationship between them.

Porn is definitely not for everyone and by all means should be kept away from children. It is an ADULT entertainment and should be enjoyed by the individual in an ADULT manner.

Just my opinion....

[dsc]

“When you live in a garbage dump, no matter how clean you keep your own house, flies, rats, stink and disease will enter your home. Hedonists are turning the entire world into a garbage dump and their argument is “clean your own house then”. Let them do their dirt in the closets and leave the rest of the world alone. They don’t own the world. Although they’re trying to. Plus, the argument that everyone watches porn is a lie.”

Well phrased. Me steal.

[allmendream]

A King or leader never paraded his mistress around?

King Henry II had his mistress Rosamund buried in a church he paid for. After the King's death the prelate of the Church had her dug up and reburied outside the Church, because she was an infamous adulteress. Her name was Rosamund “Rose of the World”. They put a new inscription on her grave...

Here lies a Rose of the World
Not a clean Rose
She no longer smells Rosy
So hold your nose.

Now if everyone in the kingdom, even a dozen years after the King's death, knew that Rosamund was his mistress; that was hardly being kept “behind closed doors”.

The criminal collusion of Ken Starr? Stock up on tinfoil much?

Maybe we don't want to go so far with the law that receiving oral satisfaction from one's wife would be illegal? Maybe? Do you see a “compelling government interest” in regulating such behavior? Do you see it as authorized under an expansive reading of the “interstate commerce” clause? Do you feel that this position is compatible with the notion of limited government?

[Lurker]

just not the right of people to govern themselves and live by their own laws.

When those laws conflict with the Bill of Rights you're damn straight I disagree with them.

In truth, you believe in license and the right to impose your immorality

How did I do that? I never said the Government should waltz into your home and force you to watch something you consider offensive.

The truth is, you're full of cr**.

[Lurker]

Even if it is from ourselves.

C.S. Lewis had people like you pegged almost a century ago:

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. — C. S. Lewis

[MHGinTN]

If you wish an answer, it would be no and no. You see, your syllogism is flawed in it's fundamental assumption, twisting the essence of freedom. Allow me to illustrate:

Do you have a God given right to abuse your children or kill a neighbor? Should America endorse the right of Moslems to murder their children when they rebel against the family father's rule?

The way you've posed your syllogism, you open the door to any behavior that can be done, being a God given right. In my Bible, the Old Testament, it is clear that 'uncovering the nakedness of others is not acceptable bahvior in God's calculus.

I would start by asserting that making or viewing pornography is not a God given right, but you've tried to posit the issue that way. I would go on to state that a community has the unalienable right to set the moral standards for that community/society where setting standards does not violate unalienable rights of individuals.

[GonzoII]

"This goes way beyond a liberty issue."

You got that right. Freedom is not license.

My sympathies concerning your story.

[Antoninus]

When those laws conflict with the Bill of Rights you're damn straight I disagree with them.

And yet, the most devastatingly ironic thing is, the men who wrote the Bill of Rights would agree with me on this issue, not you.

You do know what Thomas Jefferson thought the penalty for sodomy should be, right?

[Antoninus]

C.S. Lewis had people like you pegged almost a century ago:

You aren't seriously using C. S. Lewis to defend the ubiquity of porn in our society, are you? The busy-bodies of his age were those who thought it was immoral to chew gum.

If he knew you were using his quote to defend the "right" of people to view close-up videos of guys shoving fruit up their butts, I think he may have punched you in the mouth. Be careful--he may yet do it from the beyond.

[Antoninus]

Gosh, My writing must be entirely unclear because you and I agree 100%. Try reading my posts again from the viewpoint of someone who is on your side. :-)

[Antoninus]

The issue is that in AMERICA, a “consenting adult” to be filmed sexually is 18, and the same applies for viewing. Therefore, that is my response.

A lovely statement of doctrinaire legalism without the least bit of philosophical insight into the actual moral issue at hand.

Well done!