You raise a good point about porn often being boring, not stimulating to the reader or viewer. For me, it's embarrassing to watch with anyone else, including the Mrs. Alone, a few minutes of looking at pix and I'm making little overtures to her. No go? Let it go, it'll come up again (wink, wink).
There's more than one point to be made in this discussion. I was thinking it got late in the thread before someone said let's distinguish between legal adult porn and illegal child porn.
How does looking at Sharon Stone naked make a person want to do the paperboy? Doesn't seem to make sense.
To answer another poster: 18 years old is the dividing line and courts and legislatures and town governments have the authority to set the rules.
Historically, societies have had trouble distinguishing art and porn. Courts rule. They may not get it right but at least there is a legal answer. The Pieta is art but what of Mapplethorpe? I thought it was porn and child porn but people paid their way into big art galleries to see it.
Other than the Internet, U.S. society seems to have found a balance it can live with but the web poses problems never before seen.
I'll add to that cable and satelite TV as well, and you're right, it's causing a lot of people to get their panties in a wad. The reason is access. Historically, you had to either go to the seedy side of town, or maybe deal with mail order companies. Now, with these three methods of delivery (and you could add a forth, with video/dvd porn rentals as well), you can watch porn in the privacy of your own home, and nobody outside of your home knows about it.
And that's what's driving these busybodies nuts! The fact that they can't tell you "No! You can't look at that!"
Mark
Actually, research shows that for many men, the more they look at porno, the more problems they have "getting it up" for the real thing.
Something goes haywire in the brain.
This is one of the biggest problems psychologists and family therapists have to deal with.
And if you really think about it, if a guy cannot "get it up" for a real woman, and can only find pleasure in his own hands, he's become homosexual. So, according to much research, the guys defending their use of porno on this thread, if they are "normal," are becoming increasingly impotent and unable to satisfy their wives, as they become more stimulated by a man's hand - their own.