Posted on 11/11/2005 7:16:29 PM PST by wagglebee
(AgapePress) - Women and children aren't the only victims of pornography. That's what one witness told a Senate hearing on Thursday (Nov. 10) that examined the impact of pornography on America and the options for dealing with it. The Senate panel also heard about the negative trends in society resulting from Internet porn.
The issue before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution was "Why the Government Should Care About Pornography." Among those testifying before the subcommittee was the author of the book Pornified and a sociologist from Utah who is an expert in the area of Internet porn.
Pamela Paul's book offers a compilation of surveys and other research as well as anecdotal evidence of the problems porn causes. Of particular concern, she points out in the book, are stories of young children and teens accessing pornography from school computers. But Paul told the Senate subcommittee that men are also victims of the scourge of pornography.
"Men told me they found themselves wasting countless hours looking at pornography on their televisions and DVDs -- and especially online," the author stated. "They looked at things they would have once considered appalling."
According to Paul, it also affected how those men viewed women in general. "They found the way they looked at women in real life warping to fit their fantasies," she said. "Their relationships soured; they had trouble relating to women as individual human beings. They worried about the way they saw their daughters and girls their daughters' age."
In addition, said the author, those men's lives were interrupted, their hobbies tossed aside, and their family lives disrupted. The result was a high price paid by families, she said. "Some men even lost jobs, wives, and children."
Ms. Paul told the subcommittee that her surveys found that 60 percent of women feel pornography dictates how men expect them to look and act in today's culture -- and that more than 11 million teens regularly view porn online. The effects, she said, are far-reaching.
"It is terrible enough that adults are suffering the consequences of a 'pornified' culture," she said, "but we must think about the kind of world we are introducing to our children. Certainly everyone -- liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans -- can agree with the statement" 'It wasn't like this when we were kids.'"
Researcher Jill Manning of Brigham Young University, who also is a fellow with the Heritage Foundation in Washington, DC, outlined for the senators her research showing six negative trends taking place in the U.S. as a result of exposure to Internet porn.
"Increased marital distress and risk of separation and divorce. Decreased marital intimacy and sexual satisfaction. Infidelity. Increased appetite for more graphic types of pornography and sexual activity associated with abusive, illegal, and unsafe practices."
She continued: "Devaluation of monogamy, marriage, and child-rearing. An increasing number of people struggling with compulsive and addictive sexual behavior."
Manning said the trends are getting worse. Both she and Ms. Paul urged Congress to take action to eliminate the exposure of pornography on the worldwide web.
Incorrect yet again, but logic isn't your strong point. The owl wanted to question my fidelity to the founders of the nation. I wanted to know the same about the owl. I wanted to know if the owl would pick and choose what parts of the founding document were good and which were bad, while attempting to impugn me as unAmerican.
He's probably saying that because some of the founders had slaves, they advocated slavery, and are therefore wrong about many other things as well. In a while I'll get out my quotes file and find some stuff George Washington said about slavery.
Laredo, you're clutching at straws. You have nothing with which to support your slimy use and promotion of pornography except the miserable desires festering in the darkness of your mind.
Just be honest, it'll save you a lot of trouble. You want it because you like it, and there is not a shred of support from anything other than the likes of Larry Flynt and the ACLU. They have now forced everyone to accept rampant uncontrolled pornography and local communities can do nothing about it.
Thanks, porn producers and the ACLU!
My apologies, I mixed up the owl with li'l jerry.
When reprobate degenerates turn our country into a "cesspool" we have no choice but to wallow in it. I prefer not to let the place get a level of total depravity because sexual psychotics have to keep lowering the bar to achieve satisfaction when the excitement of the last perverted fad falls out of fashion.
My, aren't we self absorbed. The last time I looked, this thread wasn't about you personally. Studies prove that while everyone who views pornography is NOT a danger to the community, everyone who has proven to be a danger is addicted to pornography. I've seen first hand how dangerous it is to certain individuals. I don't even go to church, but sometimes you have to step up and testify.
Congratulations on having a perfectly fine and decent life.
Ooops....: (
(I've been in an extremely foul mood lately.)
Actually you aren't being honest. If you were, you wouldn't make assertions you can't back up.
On the other hand, I will be honest. I'm not offended by our sexuality but there is a great deal of "pornography" that I don't care for in the least -- not all of it I would guess, but if you produced a list of pornographic themes, I would find the majority distasteful.
What I detest more are the tendencies some so-called conservatives have toward tyranny. If you check my posting history, you will see that I often join smoking threads to condemn no smoking laws even though I have never smoked. So don't assume I take positions to rationalize my own activities. I do have a dog in this fight, and that dog is liberty. If you can ban one thing, you can ban everything.
You believe pornography is wrong or evil or whatever. You believe prohibiting it produces good. You do not account for all the problems that generates. After all, those who prohibited alcohol weren't to blame for any murder, any destruction of property, any corruption of officials - that was all fault of those whose "miserable desires [for demon rum] festering in the darkness of [their] mind[s] held them in such abject slavery they would do all those things just for a sip of beer.
No, prohibitionists have no responsibility to examine what harmful effects might come from telling others what they can and cannot do in their living rooms. All wars have been fought because someone sought to restrict the liberty of someone else. That's a helluva a lot of harm, and it all rests at the feet of those who restrict.
You were the one who told me to go to hell. I guess I took that personally.
Congratulations on having a perfectly fine and decent life.
Does that mean I don't have to go to hell anymore? ;)
Don't be ridiculous.
I prefer not to let the place get a level of total depravity because sexual psychotics have to keep lowering the bar to achieve satisfaction when the excitement of the last perverted fad falls out of fashion.
In my entire life, to the best of my knowledge, I've never met or been adversely affected by "sexual psychotics." Nor has anyone I know. I'm not saying they don't exist or that they do not cause some level of harm, but there is no extensive danger. They are not running wild in my state casuing folks to quiver behind locked doors. You really do have an obsession. You might want to get that checked.
Look, I don't have a problem with you. The problem is that folks don't seem to realize that porn isn't just about "Debbie Does Dallas", silly movies about nurses, or Ron Jeremy. That is one hairy dude.
I have a problem with people who steadfastly deny that addiction to porn produces negative reactions in some people. "Go to hell" is an expression, and I didn't mean it literally. Feel better now?
I'll bet the FBI statistics and the NCIC data would say otherwise...
"You really do have an obsession. You might want to get that checked."
Same argument as homosexual advocates. "Wow, you're so against homosexuality. You're a homopbobe, something wrong with you (not with us! We're nature's noblemen), you must have a secret attraction...." etc.
Transparent.
Many children who are molested have been molested by men who "use" porn. Later if I have time I'll look up some stats.
So I guess the number of violated children have to reach a certain number for it to bother you.
Those are just convictions, or arrests, and for what geographical area???
Neither. They are victim reports from the NCVS.
...and for what geographical area???
The United States.
Inaccurate...
Why?
A society which bans Christianity from its schools, which glorifies the killing of the unborn, and which mocks marriage and the traditional family, will not last long. Moral degeneration leads to tyranny and the collapse of civilization.
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