Posted on 05/19/2005 11:05:47 AM PDT by .cnI redruM
On February 2, 2003, when seven-year-old Danielle van Dam disappeared from her family home in the middle of the night, every mother’s nightmare was played out on national television for almost a month while authorities searched for the girl. When Danielle’s body was found at the end of that month, the police and prosecutors discovered a frightening story about a neighbor of Danielle’s who had computer files filled with child pornography and even a sickening cartoon video of the rape of a young girl.
According to a report by Robert Peters, president of Morality in Media, on the link between pornography and violent sex crimes, the prosecutor in the Danielle van Dam case said “The video represented [the defendant’s] sexual fantasies and inspired the abduction, rape, and murder of Danielle.” According to Raymond Pierce, a retired NYPD detective who worked on the sex-crimes squad for many years and is now a criminal-profiling consultant, about 80 percent of rapists and serial killers are heavy pornography users. I was a victim of an attempted rape by a disturbed man who turned out to be involved in pornography.
May is Victims of Pornography Month. Today Senator Sam Brownback (R., Kan.), Rep. Katherine Harris (R., Fla.), Rep. Joe Pitts (R., Pa.), and leaders from the values community will participate in a summit to explore the troubling connection between pornography and violence against women and children.
Florida attorney general Charlie Crist advises parents that “we must never lose sight of the fact that sexual predators make the online world a dangerous place for innocent children. Parents must be ever-vigilant to make sure their children are not exposed to images and messages that would have been unthinkable just a generation ago.” Crist warns that we cannot allow the Internet to be a “pipeline for pornography aimed at children.” But while parents can use available means to protect their children when they are in their own homes, there is a cultural climate surrounding our children that threatens them the way Danielle van Dam was threatened. Because of the availability of pornography online, there is no way of knowing what lurks in the hearts of our neighborhoods.
More needs to be done to evaluate the connection between violent predatory behavior and pornography, and to crack down on these violent predators. Police and law-enforcement officers across the country report brutal instances in which those addicted to pornography utilized its sadistic images on their female and child victims.
Just this past February, the New York Times reported a story about a teenage babysitter who had raped three young children he was watching in their homes. According to the Times, his pattern was to watch pornographic videos with the oldest of the children, a 12-year-old boy, and intimidate them all by torturing them with a knife and threats to their family members. Perhaps one of the most notorious serial killers, Ted Bundy, participated in an interview with Dr. James Dobson shortly before he was executed. In the interview, Bundy explained, “I’ve lived in prison for a long time now. And I’ve met a lot of men who were motivated to commit violence like me. And without exception, every one of them was deeply involved in pornography — without exception, without exception — deeply influenced and consumed by an addiction to pornography.”
Since 1956, the Supreme Court has made clear that the First Amendment does not protect obscene materials. If we know from the perpetrators themselves how obscenity contributes to violence against women and children, what can we do?
We need to fund more studies of the addiction to pornography and its effects on violent behavior. Parents can install filters on any computer used by children and keep the family computer in a central location, not in a child's bedroom or someplace where parents might not regularly see it. We need to demand tougher law enforcement on the state and federal level. The Bush administration is stepping up federal enforcement of obscenity laws. This is a good first step. Contact the U.S. attorney for your district and ask what they are doing to enforce the laws. We need tougher state penalties against both possession and distribution of child porn and passing any kind of pornographic material to kids. Experts indicate that pornography is often used by pedophiles to break down the resistance of child victims. Parents should check out their state’s penalties for child rape and make sure offenders are going to jail and staying there for these offenses. Florida, for example, just passed a tough new law after the tragedy involving Jessica Lunsford, whose killer was a recently released violent offender. We should pass legislation to address the threat to children on the Internet. This includes chat sites, websites, spam, and peer-to-peer networks. Peer-to-Peer networks are of particular concern because they are widely visited by kids and offer porn for free without any age verification.
As Rep. Katherine Harris has pointed out, "Pornography displays human beings as objects, obliterating the wall between an individual's sick fantasies and the compulsion to act upon them. Often, the monsters who hurt women and children start with this malignant desensitizer." We need to all work together to find better ways to protect women and children against this violence.
Dead Corpse posted "I like porn"
Hence your screen name. Dead is dead. Sucks to be you
Are you saying that automobile manufacturers have never been held liable for the problems that occur from the use of their product? I seem to remember quite a few cases.
What percentage of the population watches "porn"?
What percentage of the population are sexual predators?
It seems many on this thread are confusing CHILD pornography with ADULT pornography.
I think that you need to be more specific in defining pornography, then.
Is Playboy porn? Penthouse? Hustler? R-rated movies (just sex, no violence)? How about violent R-rated movies (no sex). How about non-violent X rated movies?
I guess the problem is where is the line drawn. One man's obscenity is another man's pleasure.
Mark
No but by being a customer in the larger market, and keeping up demand, you help make it available to the sickos who really do harm. Of course it's your right, but you are in denial if you think the porn isn't affecting you in some way.
Abortion is murder. So you're saying porn is murder ?
What color is the sky on your planet ?
Lines need to be drawn or we will spin into chaos. Moral relativism leads to chaos.
Shifting lines in the sand are a tool of the left to break down society.
I don't care what other people do BUT I want a holy,christian marriage and pornography has no place in it. Think about the number of things in porn that are bad for a marriage. Plus, if it doesn't occur to you that a husband watching porn and not paying attention to his wife is disrespectful then I wonder.
And do think it was right?
Yep watching abnormality on tv is indeed part of a normal lifestyle... NOT! I agree with you.
Suppose the brain is like a muscle in that it adapts to its environment.
If you lift weights repeatedly, and stress your muscles, they will respond by making such a lift easier.
If you run thoughts through your mind repeatedly, especially ones that are obsessive, after a while it gets hard to stop those thoughts.
Now, how do we control thoughts? Should we even try?
I say no. But we *do* inform people of the consequences of engaging in pornography, and we *should* be able to define it as destructive to society and thereby ban its sale and distribution.
If someone wants to imagine sick thoughts..or even draw them for personal use (destruction) I guess its a free country. If they want to distribute their sickness, it should be within the right and responsibility of society to stop that.
Now how do we define pornography? I think that anything that links children, violence or animals or sex in any combination is subject to consideration as pornography.
Abortion is murder. So you're saying porn is murder ?
What color is the sky on your planet ?
The point being that if you replace the word porn with any other illicit or immoral behavior you get the classic leftist argument that anyone should be able to do anything as long as it is regulated by the state.
They're both wicked in my mind. Has no place in a marriage, not a christian one anyway.
Prostitution is socially unacceptable.
Pornography is just videotaped prostitution.
If prostitution is illegal, videotaping prostitution should be also.
I never said it couldn't. But could it cause someone to get violent? Well, sure, I suppose it could, if you're a muslim. But civilized people... Hmmm...
So tell me... If I were to send you an email with a photo of a naked woman, would you then go out and rape a woman?
Maybe you should be locked up, or maybe we should just outlaw email, or maybe we should just have everyones' eyes put out.
Mark
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