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.
I have a wife, daughters granddaughters, sisters and nieces that have to live in the village, its bad enough already for decent women to have to walk through the supermarket and be molested mentally and subjected to cat-calls and hit on perpetually at every turn. Then you walk in to the 7-11 and there's a hundred copies of sluts-whores-and-perverts- R-US right at eye level at the check out counter.
Not to mention every time you watch the TV every 5 minuets there's ol' Bob peddling "natural male enhancement supplements", and what's her name riding her bike singing "it's a brand new day" ecstatically about her new herpes medication... Then, after you've had enough of that, you log onto the net to read your email and your inbox is chock full of viagra ads etc, etc...
But I forget, you enjoy all that so it'll do me no good to tell you how offensive it is to decent folk..
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." -- John Adams, October 11, 1798
It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ! For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship.
Patrick Henry (1736-1799)
"Our laws and our institutions must necessarily be based upon and embody the teachings of the Redeemer of mankind. It is impossible that it should be otherwise; and in this sense and to this extent our civilization and our institutions are emphatically Christian."
– U.S. Supreme Court 1892, Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States
What is the responsible and ligitimate use of soap operas? What is the responsible and legitimate use of chocolate?
You are the one who belittles responsibility when you attempt deny your fellow adults the ability to exercise theirs by prohibiting things that offend you personally.
And with the internet, there is no way to keep it away from children and that includes teenageers.
Your "it's for the children" rationale is more appropriate for liberal forums.
It ruins lives, ruins innocence, and just my own knowledge of several people (more than a small handful) of ruined lives is evidence. I'm sure many reading this know people whose lives have been very adversely affected as well.
So what? Must we all be prohibited everything that has ever caused anyone harm?
If anyone wants to have sexual gratification by masturbating in front of images of prostitutes doing really weird stuff, they're mentally ill.
Isn't that how the Soviet Union defined insanity? If you disagreed with the commies in charge then you must be crazy.
Ypu think Senators should get involved in plamsa and LCD standards? Because I really don't. What is the conservative argument for that?
#24 and #25 on the list of known goals of Communists. Were there actually laws against obscenity at one time?
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
EXTENSION OF REMARKS OF HON. A. S. HERLONG, JR. OF FLORIDA IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Thursday, January 10, 1963
Mr. HERLONG. Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Patricia Nordman of De Land, Fla., is an ardent and articulate opponent of communism, and until recently published the De Land Courier, which she dedicated to the purpose of alerting the public to the dangers of communism in America.
At Mrs. Nordman's request, I include in the RECORD, under unanimous consent, the following "Current Communist Goals," which she identifies as an excerpt from "The Naked Communist," by Cleon Skousen:
[From "The Naked Communist," by Cleon Skousen]
CURRENT COMMUNIST GOALS
1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.
2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.
3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament [by] the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.
4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.
5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.
6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.
7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.
8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.
9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.
10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.
11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)
12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.
13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.
14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.
15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
18. Gain control of all student newspapers.
19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."
29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.
34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.
36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand [or treat].
39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use ["]united force["] to solve economic, political or social problems.
43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.
44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.
45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction [over domestic problems. Give the World Court jurisdiction] over nations and individuals alike.
Last Updated: 18-Jan-05 12:11 am
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And she's probably also a proponent of Women's Lib.
The assumption of her presentation was that men looking at porn on the internet was a root cause of the behavior about which she is complaining.
Much of the rhetoric from women/TV/News/Commercials is that white, european men are the root of all evil. How long do they expect men to listen to that sort of crap before they reach the damned if I do and damned if I don't stage?
This "presentation" is just a continuation of the same theme: It's all the dirty men's fault :)
Jill should have spent a bit more time in some hard sciences or even statistics rather than the soft science of sociology etc... she may have learned the correlation doesn't imply causation.
It's funny because I never notice it. Then again, I'm not on the lookout for it like you seem to be.
But I forget, you enjoy all that so it'll do me no good to tell you how offensive it is to decent folk..
You have no idea what I enjoy but I'll take a moment to enlighten you. I enjoy making decisions for myself and taking responsibility. That's what I enjoy. "Decent folk" don't come into my living room and tell me what I may look at. You sound as if you'd be quite content serving the British aristocracy of the late 1700's -- they were just your sort of decent folk.
You *do* know this is a conservative site, right?
How would you classify my post?
If looking at pornography turns people into killers, the murder and rape rates would be skyrocketing - especially based on the allegations about its pregvalence today. But if anything, they are receding.
That statement by Bundy makes as much sense as somebody saying he was turned into a murderer because a gun was available.
I'm not saying that pornography is a good thing nor a desirable thing. Its not. Its evil. But I have even more fear of our Congresscritters getting their fingers into the internet than I do of any the fall out of the effects of this insidious material. I don't want them to touch it, and I don't want them to tax it. Its a free and open and unregulated medium of exchange for information which can combat liberalism - and I want to keep it tht way.
It will be interesting to see how the McCain-Feingold- Bush II monster functions in regulating political speech on the net.
FreeRepublic may need to set up its server in Greenland or Burkina Faso to allow us to continue to discuss political issues.
"The First Amendment was never meant to protect pornography."
Exactly true. But McCain-Feingold-Bush II has subverted the intnet of the First Amendment,
"I personally know a number of people whose lives have destroyed be pornography. And that includes some children."
I could say the same of liquor, cigarettes, gambling and other vices. Should we outlaw these too?
Public choice theory in action - this is the stuff that gets them campaign donations.
I have no idea who these "decent" British folk you mention were, but from the looks of things over there now they must have gone extinct. The Brits are going at it like dogs in the streets. Seems to be all the rage there now.
She sounds fun...though "flinging three gates open" is something I'd almost expect Howard Stern to say.
Note my comments above.
Nope. My nose is right where it's supposed to be, thank you very much. Like alcohol and drugs, porno can become addictive. It can make life uncomfortable, and it can also become dangerous. Grow up, I'm not talking about Playboy.
Occasionally, we get misguided ladies who think a conservative political forum is the place to spam their "boudoir pics". Imo, this is not the place.
My bf and I have first hand experience on the negative affects of porn addiction in a married relationship. We won't tolerate it.
Yea, get rid of God, and the pornography, and then everything will be perfect.
ROTFLMAO! That is funny!!!
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