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.
Well I have to be honest but if porn was made illegal, I would be thrilled. Realistically, porn will never be made illegal though so porn lovers on FR rejoice. Humans have been wallowing in moral decay for a long time. No reason they'll stop now. I'm glad I don't have children and don't intend on having any in this post-modern moral soup.
It is also one of, if not THE primary engine driving advances in the internet.
Not a strawman, just a logical extension of your reasoning.
Guy can only get it up to porn=homosexual.
Therefore, a guy who can get it up for a real woman but also enjoys porn= bisexual.
Therefore, 14 year-old boy who masturbates to porn= bisexual pedophile.
Is that true or is that a massive urban myth?
Hey, you jsut made me think about something. My porn spammer must have gotten shut down becasue I jsut thought about it and I have not been getting any spam e-mails lately offering to enlarge my penis. For years I was on the "make your penis bigger" spam list and jsut now I realized I haven't been geeting them lately. Thanks for your post. That is some good news for me!
What is a Straw Man? I see that all the time on FR and I ahve no idea what it means?
Well, in fairness, I already knew that was the answer, I just wanted you to admit. You chose your words differently, but you essentially said in the above that you believe Bundy because what he said affirms your preconcieved notions. Exactly as Dobson did. As I said, Dobson believed Bundy because Bundy told Dobson everything he wanted to hear.
I would not at all mind banning porn, simply becasue I don't consume it.
The difference here is that you recognize the liberalism of the above and correct it yourself when you say:
However I think I have to go along with the argument that probably millions of people utilize/consume pronography and they don't commit crimes becasue of it, so we should not deny people the freedom to use it if they want.
Unfortunately, not everyone in this thread has been able to think their way past the initial, "It doesn't effect me" so let's ban it mentality, as you have.
It is a logical fallacy: Strawman
Well what porn? What do you want to ban?
Huslter?
Playboy?
Victorias Secret catalogues?
Nabakov?
D.H. Lawrence?
Where do you want to draw the line?
I never said I wanted to ban porn myself. I did say I wouldn't be upset if it was.
Is it edifying? Does it make us better? Does it help us accomplish anything? Is it good for us? I would think that we could all agree that the answer to all of these is no. From the opposite side- Does it influence people to commit crimes? in some cases. Does it break up marriages? it has. Why keep it around?
good questions
The evidence seems to suggest it's true, that the massive demand for porno on the internet has driven most of the advances in internet technology.
Internet Pornography Statistics (2004 TopTenREVIEWS, Inc.)
Pornographic websites 4.2 million (12% of total websites)
Daily pornographic search engine requests 68 million (25% of total search engine requests)
Monthly Pornographic downloads (Peer-to-peer) 1.5 billion (35% of all downloads)
Worldwide visitors to pornographic web sites 72 million annually
If my husband starts consuming porn then I must not be holding up my end of the marriage. 30 years porn free, i wish it for everybody. Porn is just not good for you, not sure how I can say that being as I don't have any experience with it, but my compass knows that it is not a good direction to take. It is jsut not healthy. MUCH better to be creative with your lover and experiment around that way than to watch it on celluloid or in print. I do beleive that if people threw out all their porn they would have a better life.
No such luck on your part. I'm a happily married man who while he has nothing against porn, just isn't intrigued. Call it my lack of voyeuristic tendencies. Probably the same reason I don't like to watch sporting events either. I'm just not a watcher.
When a grown man's wife is longing for intimacy but he can't get it up for anyone but his five-fingered-mary, he's a perv - admit it. And that's where addiction to porn takes you, ultimately.
That would be a problem, granted, but from what I gather, the conserve is more typically the American problem.
You can apply this argument to alcohol, tobacco, gambling, fatty foods and pretty much any other human vice.
Then why did you mention it?
Well then you had better do something about making heroin and LSD legal.
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