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.
I don't have to read any articles or studies to see that there is a direct correlation between pornography and sex crimes, murders, marital difficulties, etc.
Men seem to be more vulnerable to it addiction-wise, although some women seem to enjoy indulging male fantasies which may be acted out in real life and also making money in so doing.
Of course it could. Media has been used to whip people into action. Everything from Nazi Germany to Klan literature to articles about Korans in toilets.
I'm fine with that.
What constitutes art is subjective I guess. Child porn is not art IMO.
You'd love something I saw a couple of weeks ago, driving through Virginia (I think, maybe WV or PA). For several miles, there were billboards for a porn store at an upcoming exit. When the exit came into view, I saw the concrete block building from about a mile away with its big sign, "VIDEO" or whatever. Just before the store, there was a farm with a lot of highway frontage. On the farm, just before the store, was a large handwritten sign, something to the effect of "Protect your loved ones, avoid the scourge of pornography."
The challenge was to cite an instance of an auto manufacturer being held liable for the CRIMINAL actions of its customers.
What you cited were product defects of the MANUFACTURER. Of course the manufacturer would be liable.
Look at all the porn you want. Would you want YOUR female children in the porn industry? I sure wouldn't. I don't want anyone else's daughters in that business either. How can a marriage be holy with porn? Just some questions for you to think about. Very interesting I call porn wicked and you have the nerve to ask me if I think it's okay to kill people *LOL*
I thought you just said that shifting lines are bad? Have you changed your mind in the past ten minutes?
Or is shifting the line ok when you're the one doing the shifting?
For an anti-porn thread, there sure is a lot of jerking off going on here.
There was a time when a woman's ankles were considered obscene. If all involved in said "pornography" are consenting adults and no laws are broken, live and let live, I say.
What BUT_MONKEYS? Did I say you had to give up your beloved porn? Don't by all means unless you have an explanation as to how a marriage can be a christian marriage with porn.
They were as a result of the actions of the manufacturer. There are many instances of media influencing people into CRIMINAL behavior. Look up a guy named Kotmair who advertised that people didn't have to pay income taxes.
FWIW, I have conducted an informal poll in my office. 8 men, all civil engineers ages 34 to 49, all married at least 4 years.
8/8 of us own porn
8/8 of our wives watch porn with us.
One of the guys volunteered his wife loves the girl/girl porn, and another says his wife likes the anal porn (eeewwww)
FWIW.
But it's the line. For those who have said or implied that there are no lines or no standards, there is a line, there is a standard. It's just one that you don't like.
Don't know where you are spiritually but if you are actively looking at porn and think it's okay, it's probably safe to say you are a dead corpse spiritually speaking for the Holy Spirit alive in you would be deeply offended at this. Whatsoever is good, lovely and pure, think therefore on these things. I appreciate your honesty and know you are speaking for many people (otherwise girlie clubs and all these magazines and such would not be such a huge industry) but if the Bible is true (I believe it is), then God has written the Law on your heart and you know what many on this site are saying to you is true and that is that this is not a harmless sport or indulgence, not to you or to those (even those willingly) engaged. What father wants his daughter to grow up and be a porn star or porn mag editor and so on; it's because we often don't want to be "intolerant" of others yet deep inside we know this is not good. I hope you will pray and think about it. This subject is very sad for me. God bless you.
Where?
I hate to tell you, but it is a slippery slope. There is little or no distinction in the long run. Sickos like David Westerfield began with adult porn. However by it's very nature pornography is forever titalating, but never satisfying, so the serious porn addict has to delve deeper and deeper into more and more perverse imagery in the quest for thrills. Child pornography is one of the readily available routes on the Internet today for them to take, as Westerfield did.
I see three Republicans on this panel. So where are the Democrats?
So does feeding young children Big Macs. Obesity is FAR more damaging both physically and emotionally to young people yet for some reason theocons choose to ignore it. That kind of destroys the idea that they are really in this to "protect the children".
Some people want to shift the lines in the sand such that everything they disagree with is banned. They want to live in something similar to a Muslim state, one where their religious laws are made state law. They want anyone who violates their particular version of morality to be arrested. Of course to them their version of morality is not a "version" at all, it is the is the only way, the right way, and anyone who deviates from it must be punished. There have always been people like this, and there always will be. They come from all religions and different denominations. They may not agree on all the particulars, but they are all the same.
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