Free Republic

A taboo is something that is vehemently “forbidden based on moral judgment and religious beliefs.” When confronted with a taboo, we do not consider breaking it. The line is drawn so clearly that we dare not cross it. Incest is a good example. It is condemned in every culture. The idea of sexual relations with a sibling or one’s child is abhorrent and rejected as a matter of course. We are horrified by it. We recoil from it. It is off the table. We totally close the door to it. This keeps us out of trouble. The power of taboos...

HARARE (Reuters) - Former congressman Mel Reynolds has been arrested in Zimbabwe, an immigration official said on Tuesday, after state media reported the convicted sex offender had been found with pornography at a local hotel. Police and immigration officials were investigating Reynolds for living in the southern African country without a valid visa, Francis Mabika, an assistant regional immigration officer, told Reuters. Mabika said Reynolds has been in Zimbabwe since November, but declined to give further details. Reuters was unable to reach Reynolds for comment. A spokeswoman for the U.S. embassy in Harare declined to comment. The state-owned Herald newspaper...

In the Gospel for this Weekend’s Mass we are well into the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), and today we cover a good deal of Chapter 5. In a way the Lord is drawing a picture for us of the transformed human person. He is presenting a kind of slide show of what sanctity really is. In understanding this rather lengthy text we do well to reflect on it in three parts.I. The Power of New Life in Christ – We have discussed before that an important principle of the Christian moral vision is to understand that it is...

'm very frustrated. Over the last several years, I've done quite a few presentations in different Christian communities (Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta) on sexuality and pornography. Each time I've given the presentations, I've changed them quite a bit, adding things I've learned, tweaking it based on the needs of the community and the feedback I've gotten. I've gotten anonymous emails detailing the struggles of porn addicts in Christian homes, and had anonymous letters stuck in the door of my home. The more I hear from the men and women and youth in the communities where these topics are presented, the...

A former Georgia Tech associate professor has been found guilty of 76 counts of sexual exploitation of children. Faiz Al-Khayyal was convicted by a jury Thursday in Fulton County Superior Court and will be sentenced at a later date. “Possession of child pornography is a heinous crime that exploits the most vulnerable members of our society,” Attorney General Sam Olens said in a news release.

The former chief of staff to Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn) arrested on child pornography charges last month has been found dead, according to police. Jesse Ryan Loskarn, 35, died in an apparent suicide in his parents' house in Sykesville, Md., two other sources familiar with the matter said. A release from the Carroll County Sheriff's Department said Loskarn was found in the home's basement and was unresponsive when authorities arrived after 12 p.m. A preliminary investigation indicated that Loskarn had committed suicide, the sheriff's office said in a release. It said Loskarn's body had been transported to the State Medical...

I have been down with a nasty cold for the last few weeks. The good side of that is that I have been catching up with my reading, which included the last couple of issues of "Analog...Science Fiction and Fact". I was reading along and enjoying the stories, until I got to "Not for Sissies" by Jerry Oltion in the March 2014 issue, at which point my jaw dropped. This story is nothing more than gay pornography. The first line is: "Nathan was eating breakfast in the kitchen when his husband, Greg, announced that he was going to die." And...

BROOKLYN, December 19, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Pornographer Al Goldstein, a onetime millionaire who pioneered hardcore pornography in print, died today in a Brooklyn hospice at the age of 77. In 1968, Goldstein launched Screw magazine, widely touted as the first magazine to publish photos of sexual intercourse. Six years later, he began a late night pornographic talk cable program called Midnight Blue, which ran for decades on New York cable. Al Goldstein Al Goldstein Both ventures brought him into scrapes with the law and would transform America's cultural landscape for decades to come. Even his defenders could not excuse the...

Al Goldstein, the scabrous publisher whose Screw magazine pushed hard-core pornography into the cultural mainstream, died on Thursday at a nursing home in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn. He was 77. The cause was believed to be renal failure, his lawyer, Charles C. DeStefano, said. Mr. Goldstein did not invent the dirty magazine, but he was the first to present it to a wide audience without the slightest pretense of classiness or subtlety.

FULL TITLE: Father, 32, and his domestic partner 'kept son, 9, captive for 8 months and sexually tortured and abused him and used him for child porn' Two Alabama men have been charged with imprisoning and filming their sexual abuse of a minor for use in child pornography made with the son of one of the accused. Domestic partners Charles Dunnavant and Carl Herold face a litany of charges ranging from sexual torture and sodomy to exposing a person to an STD and child pornography production. Authorities are seeking a $1million cash bond for each of the accused, the boy...

The statistics are truly shocking. Children aged 12 to 17 are one of the largest consumer groups of online porn. Experts say this early exposure to sexually explicit video can hook kids on hardcore and often violent imagery. Shelley Lubben is a former adult film actress turned anti-porn advocate. In 2008, she created the pink cross foundation which offers resources for teens struggling with porn addiction. "We are raising a whole generation of porn addicts," says Shelley, "When you view pornography, it creates a chemical reaction in your brain, and for a youth who is in puberty, it's like a...

A veteran University of Colorado Denver administrator is under investigation and has been placed on paid administrative leave for apparently operating a phone sex business at the same time she has been getting paid by the university. “The University of Colorado Denver takes this allegation very seriously,” said CU Denver Vice Chancellor of Communications Leanna Clark after learning about the phone sex business from CBS4. She said the University “has initiated a thorough internal investigation.” (VIDEO-AT-LINK)The university began its probe this week after learning a CBS4 investigation would air into the moonlighting activities of Resa Cooper-Morning, the cultural diversity coordinator...

(CNSNews.com) – The White House is not commenting on then-Sen. Barack Obama’s 2007 ‘portrait session’ in his Capitol Hill office with Terry Richardson, a photographer who was already known at that time the man who “took 1970s porn esthetic and made it fashion chic.”Ben LeBolt, who served as Obama’s Senate press secretary at the time of the 2007 photo session, and later served as a spokesman for Obama’s 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns, is also not responding to questions about it. For a week, from Nov. 18 through Nov. 25, CNSNews.com placed repeated calls and sent repeated emails to the...

Those seeking to overcome lust face a unique problem. Not only must they resist new temptations that come their way, but they must also deal with things in the past that they have seen and done. Years ago, a pastor at a men’s retreat called this his “drawer full of memories.” He bemoaned things he had seen and experienced and that the memory of these caused him enduring problems. When he least expected it, these memories would pop out of the drawer and cause him to lose his way.

FULL TITLE: Nudist father facing child porn charges says naked photos of his daughters were 'familyA South Florida nudist facing child porn charges has claimed photos of his three daughters, aged 8 to 12, are family portraits. Brian Martens, who lives at a Palm Beach nudist colony, claimed there was nothing sexual about the photos, which were taken by a neighbor who has since been convicted of child pornography. Martens admits he gave professional photographer Leslie Grey Vanaman permission to take pictures of his daughters, but at least one photo was a close up of a girl's genital area, investigators...

Last year, I wrote a series of articles about the campus “porn culture”—the depraved, anti-woman atmosphere that dominates far too many campuses. As I said then, “Women are constantly degraded on campus. They are valued for their looks, bodies, and sexual prowess—not their minds. They are often required to watch hardcore porn in class and encouraged to participate in “porn star lookalike” contests during “Sex Week,” the biggest event of the year…[this is] a real war on women—and it’s being waged by sexual liberationists who control the academy.” After I published these articles, many readers expressed their loss of...

I just read this article on the struggles that many conservative Christian pastors are undergoing, with internet pornography: http://www.christianpost.com/news/pornography-and-pastors-103931/ I believe that easy availability of free porn on the internet has lessened the taboos that Americans traditionally had, when taking about perverted sex acts. People who have viewed internet porn, feel hypocritical when they condemn gay marriage. Porn is a form of prostitution, and prostitution is illegal in 49 out of the 50 states. Why does local law enforcement prosecute pimps, hookers and johns, for street prostitution, but leave out the millions of incidents of prostitution taking place in all...

Following Jesus means being transformed—changing—progressively becoming more like Him. Dealing with the sin of lust is a good example of how this works. Anyone who has struggled and failed when it comes to lust and then later enters into victory over it knows what this is like. A fascinating and important byproduct of this transforming process is that it “proves” God’s will. Who—you may ask—are you proving this to?

A California college has invited a speaker to teach students that eating meat is misogynistic, and that our society degrades fish because "we don't view them as individuals." The lecture, titled "The Sexual Politics of Meat," will take place at the University of Redlands on Monday, and is to explore the "relationship between patriarchal values and meat eating by interweaving the insights of feminism, vegetarianism, animal defense, and literary theory," according to the official website of the speaker, Carol J. Adams. The lecture will be based on a book she wrote by the same name, which explores "the hidden connections...

The image above is borrowed from the ad campaign “This is Your Brain on Drugs” that is indelibly etched in most of our minds. Piggy-backing on this, the phrase “Your Brain on Porn,” has gained popularity. Google that phrase and you will bring up a multitude of websites and videos from Christian and non-Christian sources. This is because pornography use—especially via the internet—has been demonstrated to be extremely destructive and habit forming. In fact, Cambridge researchers reported last month that the brain scans of heavy porn users were similar to the brain scans of drug addicts. This brings us to...