Fight Against Pornography (POV)

[standing_alone]

Originally Posted by Booko

You can say the same thing about alcohol, SA.

And so we do put some limits on the use of alcohol.

I don't frame this issue as a nanny state thing, where the gov't has to protect individuals from themselves.

As Becky has framed it, this is about the state protecting innocent individuals from having to be molested by the very people who can't handle it, and who got their strange notion of human sexuality when they were very young.

Our society does things to help keep kids from growing up to smoke and do drugs and have bad diets. Why is it so hard to imagine that we should do something to help prevent kids from growing up to have these unhealty attitudes about sex that Becky cited?

I don't see the problem in principle with ghettoizing porn on an .xxx domain. Those who want access to it can have it, and those who don't, won't have it stuffed in their face.

In practice, I have no idea who's gonna be the Internet porn police and enforce keeping stuff on the xxx domain where it belongs. How would you enforce it? It may be an unworkable solution for that reason.

I get what you're saying and am inclined to agree. I have no problem with putting porn in xxx domains. I think it's a good idea. If things stay the way they are, I'm not going to feel like it's that bad. And why is this focus only on internet porn? Certainly children can stumble across porno mags as well. I did when I was a kid. Didn't cause me any harm, but I'm only one person, I guess.

[jeffrey]

Originally Posted by Booko

Which still treats women as sex objects and dehumanizes them.

So do topless joints, but women still choose to work there for the money. And the women that do the porn, no one forces them. They do it for the money and becasuse they want to.

[Revasser]

Originally Posted by Polaris

If my child were to ever be the victim of molestation, or rape, I would consider that suffering. Evidence shows that such sex offenders are influenced by pornography.

The evidence shows that a high percentage of sex offenders report looking at pornography. I think you'll find a high percentage of the general population would report looking at pornography, and probably many of those that wouldn't report do too.

The evidence presented does not show that sex offenders are influenced into becoming sex offenders by pornography, it shows that they use it. The two do not equate.

Do you honestly think that allowing kids to view pornography is not harmful to them?

In general, not to the level that it would require government intervention at such an invasive level, no. If it can be objectively shown that there is real, quantifiable harm to the majority of children, then punish parents who allow their children to access it.

I don't care at what level the protection is implemented. The point is pornography should not be openly accessible by default. Those that wish to view it can sign up (much like pay-per-view TV subscriptions), the rest of us can be more confident in the safety of our childrens internet use.

Why should it not be accessible by default when only adults can legally sign up for access to the internet? If that adult let's their child use their access account, fine. But if you want to be confident of the safety of your childrens' internet use, then supervise it. The rest of us shouldn't have an added expense because some parents want to use a computer as a babysitter.

What? You totally missed the point. We wouldn't pay for a filtering service, those who wish to subscribe to xxx domains would pay for the access.

No, I think you missed the point. The whole idea of having to pay to bypass a filtering service when, by rights, those who actually use the service should be paying for it is what I was objecting to. When you pay for internet access, you pay for access to the network and that network contains pornography. If you want it filtered at the ISP level, you should pay for that service.

[Sunstone]

Originally Posted by Polaris

There has been significant evidence provided as to the harmful effects of pornography. Have you just chosen to ignore it? I could provide studies all day, but its obviously not going to change your opinion. Of course I'm going to attack pornography -- I believe it contributes to sexual crimes, and the evidence that myself and others have provided supports that.

I'm taking a break from this thread to read others, and also to check out the evidence provided for your position. I'll return later with what I think of that evidence. In the meantime, enjoy the thread, Polaris. And for the record, I agree with you that it would probably be a good idea to place porn in an xxx extension.

[jeffrey]

Originally Posted by standing_alone

I get what you're saying and am inclined to agree. I have no problem with putting porn in xxx domains. I think it's a good idea. If things stay the way they are, I'm not going to feel like it's that bad. And why is this focus only on internet porn? Certainly children can stumble across porno mags as well. I did when I was a kid. Didn't cause me any harm, but I'm only one person, I guess.

Originally Posted by Booko

You can say the same thing about alcohol, SA.

And so we do put some limits on the use of alcohol.

I don't frame this issue as a nanny state thing, where the gov't has to protect individuals from themselves.

As Becky has framed it, this is about the state protecting innocent individuals from having to be molested by the very people who can't handle it, and who got their strange notion of human sexuality when they were very young.

Our society does things to help keep kids from growing up to smoke and do drugs and have bad diets. Why is it so hard to imagine that we should do something to help prevent kids from growing up to have these unhealty attitudes about sex that Becky cited?

I don't see the problem in principle with ghettoizing porn on an .xxx domain. Those who want access to it can have it, and those who don't, won't have it stuffed in their face.

In practice, I have no idea who's gonna be the Internet porn police and enforce keeping stuff on the xxx domain where it belongs. How would you enforce it? It may be an unworkable solution for that reason.

I agree with this too. I get porn sent to me in one of my email addresses, and have no idea how they got it. MSN groups, you will have porn sites pop up there were children of any age can view it.

[Booko]

Just as "I want to do what I want to do!" is too often the catch-cry of people who don't give a d**n how difficult it is to raise a child in any decent environment in these times. It's the cry of the selfish.

(I omitted any quote or reference specifically avoid the idea this remark is aimed at any individual. It's not.)

[Booko]

Originally Posted by Revasser

Yes, there are irresponsible parents in the world and unless you are one of them (and I trust you are not), I fail to see how your children will suffer in any practical sense because of the bad parenting of others.

My children suffer very frequently from the bad parenting of others, most especially my daughter.

[Revasser]

Originally Posted by Polaris

Here's a link.
http://www.moralityinmedia.org/index.../wrapBetty.htm

There are many similar studies but this is the one I made specific reference to.

You're not honestly trying to foist off "Morality in Media" as a reputable, objective source, are you?

[jeffrey]

Originally Posted by Booko

Just as "I want to do what I want to do!" is too often the catch-cry of people who don't give a d**n how difficult it is to raise a child in any decent environment in these times. It's the cry of the selfish.

(I omitted any quote or reference specifically avoid the idea this remark is aimed at any individual. It's not.)

We do our best to keep porn away from or kids too. In 5th grade in public aschool, or son went into the computer room to have one of his classmates pull up porn on the school PC. We went ballistic.

[Flappycat]

Originally Posted by Polaris

While I admit that pornography alone is not responsible for the sex crimes that are prevalent in our society today, I firmly believe that in many cases it has served as a critical stepping stone. If we really want to protect our children, and future children, pornography must be dealt with today. If I had complete control, pornography would be entirely outlawed, unfortunately that's not possible in today's world. We can however do a much better job of controlling it.

Obviously there are many good software programs that can block much of that which is most dangerous. But that's not foolproof, and it requires that parents make the effort to purchase and enable it. To really protect our children we have to take it a little further. I heard of a plan a while ago that I thought made a lot of sense and unfortunately I haven't heard much of it since. The idea is that all pornographic internet sites must register with the .xxx extension. This significantly facilitates filtering that could be done at the IP provider or at a level even higher. By default .xxx sites would not be sent through to the end user -- to enable such traffic would require a fee and a sign-up process. Any pornographic site that is not properly registered would be subject to a large fine.

What is keeping something like this from being done? I'm confident that if enough people express their concerns regarding this issue to their government leaders, they'll find a way to make it work.

How much pornography do you have on your machine?