Internet Porn More Addictive Than Crack, Senate Told 886
applemasker writes "Wired says that the Senate heard testimony today that internet porn is 'worse than crack.' Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) called it the most disturbing hearing he'd ever heard in the Senate, saying that porn is ubiquitous now but compared to when he was growing up and 'some guy would sneak a magazine in somewhere and show some of us, but you had to find him at the right time.' Can someone submit a FOIA request for his browser history or cache?"
And in other Congressional news... (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, this being slashdot, we'll post a story about it before the vote [slashdot.org], not update it when the desired vote actually occurs, not post a new story about it passing, and instead post a story about a lone Senator's response to a University of Pennsylvania scientist's valid research opinions[1] (just as valid as, say, some sociology students alleging studying shaky, unprovable statistical anomalies in Florida voting [slashdot.org], even as the MIT/Caltech Voting Project says there was no widespread fraud, tampering, or errors [cnn.com]).
Surprisingly, a person who works at a sex toy shop called Good Vibrations doesn't agree with the researcher's conclusions!
Let's just face the facts that some people are more prone to addictive behaviors, and it can happen with anything: drugs, shopping, gambling, sex, and yes, pornography. The putative argument is that with the abundance of free porn on the internet, a porn addiction has the potential to be much more damaging, since it doesn't require the resources that other common addictions might. This is perfectly valid; it doesn't imply that everyone will be addicted to porn (or anything else), nor does it mean that internet porn will be "banned". It simply says an addiction with a free neverending supply can be harmful.
Is anyone the least bit surprised or concerned that a conservative Christian Republican senator from Kansas found the testimony "disturbing". How is this news?
(And as for the crack in the summary, believe it or not, there are some people who probably haven't had occasion to view porn on their computers. No. Really.)
[1]Mary Anne Layden, co-director of the Sexual Trauma and Psychopathology Program at the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Cognitive Therapy, called porn the "most concerning thing to psychological health that I know of existing today."
"The internet is a perfect drug delivery system because you are anonymous, aroused and have role models for these behaviors," Layden said. "To have drug pumped into your house 24/7, free, and children know how to use it better than grown-ups know how to use it -- it's a perfect delivery system if we want to have a whole generation of young addicts who will never have the drug out of their mind."
Pornography addicts have a more difficult time recovering from their addiction than cocaine addicts, since coke users can get the drug out of their system, but pornographic images stay in the brain forever, Layden said.
Crime? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sex is not a drug. (Score:5, Insightful)
Pornography leads to boob jobs? May I ask why this is being presented to the Senate Committee on Science, Technology and Space Subcommittee? Now I'm not an advocate of pornography but if I were going to argue against it, I'd try to base my arguments on less personal-value laden arguments than this. And that's leaving aside dodgy use of science. Example: Suggesting that boys and girls don't masturbate without pornography? Children masturbate before they even understand sexual attraction, let alone requiring pornography post-puberty.
But here's another highlight,
Erototoxins? Is this an attempt to re-brand a need for sexual stimulationas a medical condition again? You know that way they could overturn any constitutional protections under the guise of medical treatment, much like drug companies are pushing their drugs that render people resistant to illegal drugs. Why do I get the feeling that these people would like to be able to prevent sexual desire wherever they deem it innappropriate.
The whole basis of this article seems to be that somebody has shown correlation in the brain between pleasure from drugs and pleasure from sex... as far as I understand the article, the correlation appears to be something called, um... pleasure.
I think if you watch a lot of pornography, then that can distance you from other people and perhaps interfere with forming a healthy relationship with your parter, but who knows - it's just my feeling. I don't think anyone with a brain whichever side of the argument they fall on could see this article being anything other than bollocks.
FTFA (Score:5, Insightful)
OK, maybe that broke down a little at the end there. But the point is, porn isn't addictive - sex is.
Re:And in other Congressional news... (Score:2, Insightful)
Also, if its all right to help people quit cigarettes, drugs, or alcohol, why is it wrong to help them off porn, its not like we're banning it or forcing something on people
Here it comes... (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a lot of porn on the net and if you arent some by-product of the very culture that is so freaked-out about it in the first place you'd probably find it as boring and silly as it truly is.
What is wrong in being addictive? (Score:5, Insightful)
The researchers are very questionable... (Score:2, Insightful)
I saw this story before it was posted on slashdot, and my conclusion that, as usual, the extremists of opinion are about to strangle each other, and moderation is hardly represented.
Re:wnd why is this on /.? (Score:3, Insightful)
senators and congressman hold these kinds of hearings all the tme so they can tell their constituants that they are actually doing stuff.
Re:And in other Congressional news... (Score:5, Insightful)
They just want to keep bringing this up every 16-18 months so they will look like they are doing something.
Maybe we should be examining religious addiction. (Score:3, Insightful)
In other words... (Score:4, Insightful)
We liked it better when people were stealing magazines instead of surfing the web for free.
When he grew up... (Score:2, Insightful)
When he grew up women stayed at home and men did all the work and sex was something that was viewed as a contractual obligation to marraige.
The guy grew up in the 60s, wasnt he paying attention to all that sexual revolution business? Sucks to be him.
Congress better stay away from porn and cut it out with this "erototoxin addiction" angle. That kind of rhetoric is more damaging than porn, in my opinion. Science is the new religion, and now instead of labelling people "evil", we label them all "sick". Erototoxin. What a retarded buzzword. Worst ever.
Yeah, sex and drugs are similar in that they are both a hell of a lot of fun if you do them right.
Wait till these guys find out about Rock n Roll.
Re:Sex is not a drug. (Score:5, Insightful)
You have just nailed it. These people seek to exert control of all behavior by controlling access to pain relief and pleasure.
All drugs that are really worth anything are strictly controlled. They now wish to control sexuality. It's a ploy, and a weak one at that.
LK
Re:What is wrong in being addictive? (Score:4, Insightful)
Gah, what ever happened to personal responsibility in this country. Whenever there is a potential vice, it seems people scream for the government to get rid of the source, thus destroying the temptation I suppose. Geez, come one people, get a grip, if you don't want children doing drugs/sex/porn/whatever, be a PARENT! If my mother could raise 3 kids alone on about $35k/yr and have us all grow up to be college educated productive members of society, I fail to see how 2 parents with a combined income that stretches well into the 6 figures cannot do it.
I Fucking Hate When They Do This (Score:5, Insightful)
The other connotation of addiction is the one we refer to in common speech - when a person repeats behaviors, regardless of the consequences or his/her own inclination to do so. So we speak of those addicted to shopping, grooming, sex, or any other behavior a person focuses on for what others would deem an unhealthy period of time (this behavior is almost always a vice, or capable of becoming one in excess). This is where our definitions overlap and the problem first appears. Any thought or behavior is necessarily biological. What's more, for all of human history, people have tried to resist pleasure, such as eating or sex, that is innately tied with both biological reward and negative consequences. And in this way, the reward and the strong drive to perform the behaviors that bring about this reward are abstracted on the basis of their biological similarity (the same brain rewards both behaviors) and the strikingly similar behaviors of those deemed addicted (when you want to do something, you do it). But when we do this, we overstep the bounds of the word addiction, and soon we start regulating all human behavior associated with pleasure, negative consequences, and an obsessive quality into the category of addiction. Now, if you think that a reasonable definition of addiction is one that can apply to any pleasure-deriving activity, including every vice, that's your opinion. It just happens to be a very wrong one.
It's hard not to do the things we like. They make us feel the same (happy) as heroin makes heroin addicts feel (happy). And for all of human history, we've been trying to figure out how to suppress the human tendencies toward pleasure that can hurt and destroy us. But when we speak like this, we replace a deeper understanding of human action with the shallow descriptions of behavior we read in magazines. I used to smoke cigarettes, and I occasionally smoke pot. When I quit smoking, I felt nuts, like I was losing something that my body depended upon. When you're a smoker, you can't remember what it was like to be a non-smoker - to go a day without thinking of a cigarette. It was the hardest thing I've ever done, and if you non-smokers could imagine that suffering, you'd know what we mean we when talk about addiction. When I stop smoking pot, I feel upset that I'm not doing what I like to do, and I want to smoke. But I when I stopped smoking cigarettes, I couldn't think, my head felt like it was being smashed, and I wasn't able to register anything other than my shaking and desire for a cigarette.
There is a biological reality to real addiction. The rest is human behavior and the same attraction to vice that we've lived with for years. While this is necessarily biology, it arises naturally from human behavior, and is not caused by physical adaption to external agents and chemicals that act upon the body. This is a critical distinction, and not one easily understood by half-rate thinkers, people who read magazines, and those who've never wanted a cigarette.
This shit gets so old. First comes convincing people that others aren't in control of their actions. That's the only way a person can say "stop doing this action, even though it doesn't affect me, because I don't like it" without getting laughed at. Listen to this quote from the article: "Pornography really does, unlike other addictions, biolog
Re:Sex is not a drug. (Score:5, Insightful)
I've had more problems with books doing this to me, let alone Civ III.
Wonders of science... (Score:2, Insightful)
this would be funny, but its true (Score:1, Insightful)
Some of these fanatical people have to deal with the concept that sexuality is a natural part of us. to try to supress such strong urges seems to invite mental instablity.
The Dems are just as bad. (Score:2, Insightful)
The only difference between the GOP and the Dems is that they wish to control different areas of our lives. Neither side wants smaller goverment, both wish to control us.
Re:And in other Congressional news... (Score:5, Insightful)
And, in a similar vein, let's face it, protecting childern from porn is no different from protecting them from forms of violence. And what is more natural?
What leads to greater worries? What is more damaging? Hell, what is more informative?
Personally, I'd rather teach my kids through visual media sex than how to kill, maim, torute people.
Why do we perceive a natural act to be less suitable for our kids to view?
We let our kids see caricatures of violence, but shield them from perceptions of sex, personally I see that as being a little bit strange.
Please don't (Score:5, Insightful)
Hell, if these people in congress really believed what they say they believe they would act and vote differently.
I'm glad they have their priorities straight (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Sex is not a drug. (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a most distressing lack of scientific knowledge amongst our law makers and it is showing in everything from decisions on technology issues to the often fraudulent supplement industry, to censorship and others.
I am not supporting pornography as it is most decidedly not victimless, however, these folks on Capitol Hill are clueless about science, how science is performed and how one acts on scientific hypothesis and testimony like this only serves to weaken positions and make a mockery of the political process.
Erotoxins.......oh jeez. You have got to be kidding me. This is right up there with covering up the breasts on statues of Lady Liberty. Only perverts are this obsessed with issues like this and are more disturbing to me than people obsessed with pornography, perhaps simply because they are obsessed with what others are doing.
These folks need to read some of the basic science behind addiction and understand that anything can be addictive. Yes, some things are more addictive because of their pharmacology or biological implications, but to say pornography is more addictive that crack cocaine is a farce.
Sex ed causes brain damage (Score:5, Insightful)
This is mumbo-jumbo as far as I can tell. Note how quickly Dr. Reisman -- her Ph.D. is in Communications, and she has no education in medicine [drjudithreisman.org] -- goes from coining a brand new word to describe something she cannot prove exists ("what I dub erototoxins") to using that word as if the substance is real ("study erototoxins"). Along the way she uses partial quotes out of context, and prepends her views on pornography to a quote that matter-of-factly describes an obvious fact about the brain.
And if you missed it -- yes -- she is railing against "sexually explicit sex education." She is saying that sex ed causes brain damage.
This is the same woman who thinks the Catholic Church should sue [freerepublic.com] because priests molested children.
Re:porn better than crack (Score:2, Insightful)
What about the emotional and marriage problems it causes?
"Bus signs stopped me from fucking children" (Score:5, Insightful)
"I was gonna go fuck the neighbor boy, but the bus sign reminded me not to," testified recovering child fucker N.Curable-Sicko. "Until now, nothing had been able to stop me from having my way with them, not even the prospect of being sent to prison where I'd be raped constantly. Now, with the bus signs, I'm able to control my urges."
I think what they really mean to say is... (Score:5, Insightful)
And it has them worried.
And further... (Score:3, Insightful)
looking at images/movies of naked people to achieve sexual arousal
or
watching images/movies of people hurting and killing one another with various weapons and by various means.
I mean, if we are going to *assume* that such stimulation motivates one to act, which is the more harmful resultant action? Sex/masturbation or harming/killing someone?
I have yet to hear a single argument against porn which could not apply equally well to violence, and yet no-one bats an eye at the tremendous amounts of violence in the entertainment industry.
Our culture is truely twisted.
(incidentally, this same reasoning applies to marijuana legalization as compared to alcohol/tobacco).
Re:Please don't (Score:0, Insightful)
Most *Christians* I know have not even read (much of) the Bible, are not even aware of the mistranslating in the modern Bible let alone care about how there being counted as a Christian is being used to turn our country into a Christian police state.
If you really are Christian and you really do believe that what these people are doing is wrong, speak up. Otherwise, you give silent consent to their actions. Eventually, they will take something away you believe is valuable also.
And, yes I do speak up. It makes some people upset with me, costs some clients, but in the end, more people respect me for not being a sheep and following false prophets and false religious leaders. I know where I am going and they are not.
After all, religion is about people making other people follow their rules (or you go to Hell (or whatever said religion proiveds), not about actually following Christ (or whomever else). You do not need a leader telling you what to do to follow a leader who already told you what to do.
Re:What is wrong in being addictive? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:And in other Congressional news... (Score:2, Insightful)
Such is the way of news (entertainment) (Score:4, Insightful)
You bring the initial inklings of the story to the public's attention, bringing them to the edge of their seat and then don't follow up on it. It causes people to hunger for news as a source of entertainment. What it really becomes is terrorism, striking fear and doubt into the minds of millions of people who think that they live in the worst possible time in the history of the earth.
The more I read Slashdot... (Score:4, Insightful)
..the more I feel that I should run for an elected office and make my way up to the Senate. I'm absolutely serious. It is obvious on many fronts that our current crop of representatives have no fuckin' idea what the people want. That is what they are there for, right? To represent us?
Whether it is technological issues, societal issues, foreign policy.. Politicians seem to think that they know what's best.
Where are the blogs from Senators and other elected officials? Why do they feel that they are using technology effectively when their official website is merely a brochure for themselves maintained by some lackey, some summer "work for free" intern? Seriously.. America, especially the 18-30-something demographic seems to get ignored somewhat. It's bullshit.
Re:Sex is not a drug. (Score:4, Insightful)
In my case, however
That's your privilege (and your partner's). It's a big world with room for lots of views. My reasoning is something like this:
Other people may disagree with any of those three steps, and they're quite welcome to dispute with me here, but first acknowledge that unlike the people in this "news" story, I'm not trying to ram my views down anyone's throat.
Most people probably can't aspire to the sort of physical qualities displayed in porn films. Nor do I think they should want to. But if this is all they see, if they don't become aware of the tremendous potential in the emotional side of sex, then maybe they'll always be less satisfied than they would be if they realized they can trump the porn stars every time with just a modicum of tenderness.
imho
Re:porn better than crack (Score:5, Insightful)
and, no pun intended, i say "fuck them". go get some therapy or something and leave the internet alone for the others who either know how to incorporate porn into a healthy lifestyle, aren't interested in it, or aren't interested in other people and rely solely on porn. this desire to legislate "morality" is much more evil and harmful to a truly free society than pornography.
people always have and always will have emotional problems, but that's not my problem (or most other peoples either) so why should the rest of the world be penalized for someone's lack of ability to handle their own life? these bible-thumping right wingers sure don't mind forgetting all about personal accountability and responsibility when it's a topic they disagree with, but hey, say it loud & say it proud - sex is here to stay! put that in your communion wafer and smoke it, mr sexually repressed government tool.
Re:Sex is not a drug. (Score:5, Insightful)
Controlling a societies sexual outlets is one the major tools for controlling a society.
Just look at the TWO major things almost all religeons do(especially those that wield significant power in the world), tell you you need thier permision to have sex and tell you as long as you follow thier rules that you'll live forever (or equivilant) with rewards. They also tend to tell you that all that is wrong (painfull physically or emotionaly) in your life comes from NOT following thier rules. Governments tend to do the same.
Look at how some of the best advertising works.
Once you have a group of people by the gonads they'll do whatever you say, and probably praise you to sky in the process.
Weak? It one of the shurest roads to power for any group.
Mycroft
Re:And in other Congressional news... (Score:5, Insightful)
Breasts bad! Guns good!
Books bad! FOX good!
Facts bad! Faith good!
Environment bad! SUV good!
Freedom bad! Patriotism good!
Endangered Species Act bad! USAPAT RIOT act good!
Re:Sex is not a drug. (Score:3, Insightful)
This seems like another interesting similarity between "1984" and reality; I don't have my copy with me, so I will have to paraphrase.
The O'Brien character says something to the effect of:
We have already eliminated love and strong relationships. Soon there will be no love between people. We have only to eliminate the pleasure of the orgasm; do you think we can't? We have doctors working on it right now! Soon, there will be nothing between people, only love of people for the State. Your only pleasure will be the rapture of love for Big Brother.
It just seems like Orwell was right, it's just taking longer (we're only at the first stages), and it's a radical religious (not really in any way related to the actual peaceful/tolerant teachings of Christ) and neoconservative Party instead; Oligarchical Religous Privitization, rather than Oligarchical Collectivism as in the book.
Re:porn better than crack (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sex ed causes brain damage (Score:5, Insightful)
Is that like an Eye Doctor? Or a Budget Man?
If you're going to bother to invent technical words (erototoxins) to replace real, existing, technical words (hormones, neurotransmitters et al), or to go ahead and talk about psychopharmacological implants... it would be sensible to name the specialty whose findings you're quoting (neurologists, psychiatrists, cognitive scientists, whatever).
Particularly if you're making the case that memory is brain-damaging sexual abuse (the informed consent bit).
By that logic, to avoid leaving traces in the brain of highly excitatory stimuli, all minors should be stored in sensorial deprivation tanks to be fed approved stimuli by their parents.
It's the only way to avoid brain damage!
Re:porn better than crack (Score:5, Insightful)
Though it takes two to tango, and normally one or the other probably objects to porn.
Re:And in other Congressional news... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do we perceive a natural act to be less suitable for our kids to view?
It's about power. Sex is freedom, sex with who you want is more freedom. Sex is the purpose of everything - if you're having sex then you're winning the game. If you're having sex with more people than the president is, then in evolutionary terms, you're beating him. Wealth? For men it's a means to attract a mate. Power? For men it's a way to drive off rivals. Sex is what it all comes down to. If you want control over other people. If you want real control over them, you need to control their sex lives. Without that, you've got no hold over them that they wont break.
Violence? Violence is just a nasty little game that the powerful can beat you at everytime.
don't believe him? (Score:3, Insightful)
Then quit for a week. You'll be back at it within two days, because "it's not a problem". Just do it to see if you can last a week.
The chemicals released by human orgasm shouldn't be under-estimated in their addictive powers. Sex has been the second most powerful driving force in shaping human society, bar only power.
Re:And in other Congressional news... (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh and I'm sorry to reply to my own post, but one last thing to add to that list....
Women. Women are the key, they give or withold sex, they choose or reject the mate. At least that's the way it was in evolutionary terms. If you want an explanation about why the powerful subjugate and repress women so violently, reject female sexuality so utterly, that is why.
A woman who is sexually free determines the success or failure of the males around her by her choice and that takes away from the alpha male's power over his lessors.
Re:And in other Congressional news... (Score:2, Insightful)
"Teaching" kids through "Visual media"? Just look at how these words are being used. This is one step removed from Newspeak.
Yes, teenage (and pre-teenage) boys will usually find access to porn sooner or later, and this happened to a lesser degree even before the internet. But, there is something profoundly creepy about the thought of a father "introducing" his kids to the idea of sex through porn. This is not education, it is escapism. Porn never teaches about the reality of such things, but instead creates a completely unrealistic fantasy. I can't think of any better way to make my child unhappy for life than to teach him or her to use porn as the model for life.
Re:What is wrong in being addictive? (Score:2, Insightful)
Some people are addicted to books.
This remark inadvertently reveals part of what is ridiculous about this whole issue. Addiction is a medical term with a specific meaning applying to chemicals that produce a change in the brain causing the user to require more of those chemicals. We're talking alcohol, nicotine, heroin. Not shopping, not porn, not TV.
Any activity can become habitual, but fools like these have simply hijacked the term addiction in order to drag all of the worst aspects of that clinical condition into an argument about a habit. If I were to start describing Republicans as a cancer, most people would understand that to be a metaphor; here we see a bunch of tumors in suits trying hard to reify their metaphors.
To which, I say, we should attack these idiots with giant macrophages.
Re:Sex is not a drug. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:And in other Congressional news... (Score:2, Insightful)
On the other hand, developing bad attitudes towards violence screws up nothing in their life (since the misunderstandings are rarely so bad that it would actually cause them to go out and hurt people). That's why I would argue porn is more harmful to children than violence.
Are you on crack, too? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I'm glad they have their priorities straight (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree with you that this is a problem.
the US dollar having sunk to record lows
This part I don't think is so bad. When the dollar is weaker, it encourages other countries to buy our products, because they can get them more cheaply.
many Americans dying on the street because they cannot get health insurance
Yeah, I tripped over three dead bodies today just walking to the coffee shop! If they won't give us free health care, the least they could do is clean up all the damn corpses!
I'm glad to see our elected officials devoting their time, energy and our money to wiping out nudie pictures on the net.
Personally, I think it was just an excuse for a bunch of dirty old men to "research" Internet porn. I wonder how many recesses the chairman of the committee called in any given hour?
Re:Sex is not a drug. (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course, this doesn't make homosexuality "wrong"... it's merely one part of the vast human condition that we must deal with every day.
Re:Sex is not a drug. (Score:3, Insightful)
I've always thought the "porn will make you desensitized to or unable to feel real love" mantra was purposterous. Only an absolute idiot or someone who is already completely emotionally disfunctional could have this actually happen by simply watching other people have sex. Love and affection are natural human emotions, not some delicate and fragile artificial constructs which are somehow shattered at a mere glimpse of non-procreative sex, for instance. Analogous to your reasoning, I think, would be that watching professional sports obsessively "or at an important time in someone's life"(whenever that is), causes harm by making the viewer think that all there is to sport is harsh ruthless competition for the biggest cash payoff and most signing bonuses, and because this is all they see they will now be incapable of playing sport for the sake of enjoyment and FUN....Pretty ridiculous eh?
No, that's how it is in human society (Score:3, Insightful)
Furthermore, women don't make choices to shift power around, but instead follow existing power. 90% of women marry up. That sexual freedom is a practical if not actual illusion. This is why societies need monogomous relationships. There's nothing more dangerous than a poor, desparate and horny guy with no family. People like that crash planes into buildings.
reality... (Score:5, Insightful)
A difference of willingness is a fair bet with, say introducing a third party into the sex relationship (jealousy is very common), but I can't possibly tell you how many couples enjoy porn together, based on what I've personally observed. Models, Ivy leaguers, union members, women's college grads, Christians, Jews, blue collar workers, Midwesterners, Europeans, Asians, gay men, African-Americans, lesbians, nerds, virgins; outside of religious fundamentalists, I can't think of a single group I haven't personally observed to show enthusiam for porn (well, maybe Arabs, but I'm not ready to lump them in with their fundamentalist brethren just because I lack sufficient cultural exposure). Except for Canadians; they might just be Satan's squeaky clean naughty milkmaids. Come here, Canada; you need a spanking.
People like to alter their consciousness (with drugs or otherwise). People like porn. Get used to it, and try to minimize harm. And frankly, that is 10,000 times more important than any particular moral bugaboo (and if you think otherwise, clearly you favor societal harm over disrupting your personal mental illnesses).
Re:Sex is not a drug. (Score:4, Insightful)
Two examples that are nearly canonical now:
1) People of African descent have a significantly higher risk of sickle cell anemia. Clearly an evolutionary mistake, right? Wrong - the same gene provides significantly better protection against malaria. Some people die miserable deaths from SCA, but in evolutionary terms that's preferable to many more people dying miserable deaths from malaria.
2) There appears to be a high correlation between genius and mental illness, esp. bipolar illness. Some people think this is two different aspects of the same thing - eliminate bipolar illness and you'll eliminate genius. For all we know this is why homo sapiens sapiens has spread across the planet while all of our evolutionary forebears and cousins had limited ranges.
Re:And in other Congressional news... (Score:5, Insightful)
BDSM is not killing, maiming, or torturing. A pro football game is closer to killing, maiming, and torturing than what goes on in most BDSM scenes.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And in other Congressional news... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:porn better than crack (Score:3, Insightful)
Here's a tip: If you love porn, don't marry a woman who hates porn. She will find it. Who wants to spend 50 years pretending you don't like to watch people fuck?
Re:And in other Congressional news... (Score:4, Insightful)
The common problem is unrealism. Depictions of either can be good (in moderation) when they are realistic, and both can be damaging when they are not.
Re:Wait. (Score:5, Insightful)
Lemme see here. Someone doesn't like XYZ, so we'll make it illegal, thus driving it onto the black market, where the cost will rise by a factor of 100 and quality control will drop to null, and trade in the product will fall entirely into the domain of criminals. And when all that's done, and we're arresting 800,000 people a year for being caught holding a plant, then we'll pat ourselves on the back on what a kindly service we're doing making these expensive, dangerous, criminal drugs illegal. Do you really think heroin is illegal because it's expensive, or is it perhaps the other way around? May I remind you that hemp and marijuana at one time could be found growing in road-side ditches along half of all US roads? it's not called 'weed' for nothing.
Have you ever read some of the claims early proponents of prohibition made about drugs? They are farcical beyond the limits of credulity. The sort of things that only someone who was out to ban a product no matter what the reality would say. In fact, it sounds a lot like the outrageous claims the Kansas senator is spouting. How wonderful, Ashcroft kicks off the War on Copying, followed closely by the War on Porn. Give these guys a few more years, I'm sure they'll work their way through the entire dictionary of things to declare war on.
Re:And in other Congressional news... (Score:5, Insightful)
Porn is full of horny women who want nothing more then to have sex with you and who enjoy it immensely during the process.
You may think that's ugly but it's simply the thing males want because they don't have it. If your wife/girlfriend/randomgirl desparately wanted you and enjoyed sex with you immensely then you probably would not be watching so much porn.
Re:And in other Congressional news... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sometimes I yearn for the good old days, when "addiction" was a meaningful concept.
Used to be addiction was a definite syndrome of drug use marked by tolerance, withdrawl, continued use in the face of health problems, and repeated failed attempts to quit.
Then the drug warriors noticed that this pattern doesn't occur with some of the drugs they wanted to demonize and ban. So the concept of "psychological addiction" - i.e., you really like to do something we don't want you to do - was born.
Then the pseudo-moralists and control freaks (a group with a larger overlap with the drug warriors) noticed that this vague new definition of addiction could also be applied to gambling, porn, and other behaviors they called "sinful". Bam! Now we all get to be addicts.
Yes, there are people who engage in stupid and unhealthy patterns of behavior involving porn, gambling, love, sex, TV, music, friendships, religion, computers, the net, fandom, and pretty much anything else. But lumping these all under the label "addiction" is not helpful, except to authoritarians, the burgeoning "treatment" industry, and "twelve step" cults.
Re:And in other Congressional news... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:And in other Congressional news... (Score:4, Insightful)
What is normal? One must realize our brain changes every second to then understand why some will argue damage to the brain, whatever the reason. You injest any substance that has an effect on the brain in some way and it will change it. The question then is, what is damage. With illegal substances it is hard to get the real truth because little to no research is done on those substances beyond those supported by the same organizations that promote its illegality. With other substances like caffeine it is a little easier, but few people know because they don't read the books, rsearch journals, and non-mainstream information sources that pertain to effects of substances on the brain. So what causes damage? One would still need to explain what damage means. I've done a lot of reading into neuroscience and other brain related material and find that what some define as damage can b edescribed as the complete opposite. It is funny to hear some say "We are finding that even a single use can produce brain changes" because a single day of not injesting any "brain changing" substance can produce brain changes. It depends on the state of mind, what one is doing, is something being learned, are new thoughts producing a change in point-of-view on current knowledge, etc. If one spends an hour learning something new. Back to brain damage. A substance would have to show physical damage to the brain, such as cells being destroyed. This is not what many are using to back up their claims of brain damage. With the more advanced brain research, one could easily find data to fit their view. While one scientist may say that brain damage is occuring, another will say that the brain is using less of the brain to accomplish the same task. Whole one will say that it makes a person less intelligent, another will say it makes them more intelligent. Which one will you believe? Why not try and understand what information is being presented and why? Expect a biased opinion favoring the financier. It is difficult to provide a definitive picture of long-term effects of any substance that does not actually cause physical damage. If one speaks of social damage for example, then one would have to remove the barriers of illegality and perception of a substance. Those supporting prohibition will continue to provide "evidence" of brain damage due to a substance without acknowledging other factors. if you were supporting prohibition, would you acknowledge the problems created due to prohibition itself? Your post is misleading. It is true, but under a narrow interpretation of data.
Re:No, that's how it is in human society (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's a reason why a man might stay with a wife and kids: love. Do you really believe our ancestors were so fundamentally different in their emotions that they valued "ownership" above love?
I dispute your assertion that in "most" cases in the wild, "the strongest male has all the women and no responsibility for the children". Certainly in some cases the former is true, but not most. And the males of any species will have "biological" responsibilities; that is, they will seek to increase the survivability of their offspring.
Finally, I think your math is wrong if you believe 90% of women marry up. Where is that figure from? How many generations do you think that figure could hold?
Religion and Moral Legislation (Score:2, Insightful)
What most people fail to realize is that the idea of seperation of church and state is there to protect the church just as much as it is to protect the state. Look in history when the church and state were either one in the same or very close to one another. It wasn't good for the church, nor was it good for the state. Think Rome, Britian, Spain...
Also, I think that we have to remember that under no circumstances should we attempt to impose our moralities on others via legislation/regulation. The reasoning behind this is that if/when we become a minority in this country then we don't want someone imposing their morals on us. The best way to avoid this is to ensure that the gov doesn't have power to legislate morality.
Now of course this takes into account the ideas that your rights end where mine begin (ie - you can't infringe on my rights by killing, stealing, raping etc...).
A couple of final thoughts:
1) I wish my fellow Christians would pull their heads out of their rear ends and think about things critically. The faith is spiritual but the world is intellectual - most Christians only get the first half of that.
and
2) I wish all of these athiest/secular humanists/agnostics (whoever) would quit labeling all Christians as prudes and mental cave men. Those are extreme gross generalizations.
And to everyone out there reading this I drink every once in a while, I listen to Metallica (the old stuff), I watch R rated movies, I have a high IQ, I believe evolution is a viable theory, I also happen to worship the Lord and love Jesus. People can still have their faith and enjoy life too!
Re:No, that's how it is in human society (Score:5, Insightful)
I call bullshit, since most divorces are initiated by women [discovery.com]
Re:One at a time.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Consider the myth of Isis and Osiris, Penelope and Ulysses from Homer's Oddessy, Dido and Aeneas from Virgil's Aeneid, dozens of stories from "The Arabian Nights", and so on. You can dismiss them as just books and poems, but the audience wouldn't have found these stories affecting if they hadn't some relationship to the travails of their own lives. And it isn't just the fiction and mythology. I think if you read the social commentaries of ancient times you'll find they too remark on the conflict between marriage for practical reasons and marriage for love. Economics and politics have usually had the last word in most marriages, but marriage for love was not unknown even in the ancient world.
How do you explain the existence of anti-polygamy laws then? The powerful male with the harem is just one of dozens if not hundreds of reproductive strategies that have evolved across the living world. The fascinating thing about humans is that we employ several of them at once.
Uh huh. Look, condoms break, diaphrams leak, women lie about being on the pill, men promise to pull out. Any act of coitus between a man and a woman may result in a pregnancy. Someone has to care for his child, I don't see why your brother shouldn't be on top of the list. I'm sorry your brother got involved with a scheming woman, but it was his choice to sleep with her.
Re:And in other Congressional news... (Score:3, Insightful)
click here [thenausea.com] for more pictures of children blown away in iraq.
It does suck, it does. (Score:5, Insightful)
I get sort of conflicted about throwing kids and teenagers out of the porn section. I really don't want them down there, not because I think sex is dirty or bad, but because I don't want them to think that that's what sex is about. The stuff on our boxes is sex in the basest, sometimes most brutal terms - naked women spreading their relevant orifices and making that Porn Face. Unless you're talking about the Max Hardcore series, which involves women with "SLUT" and "WHORE" written across their foreheads in lipstick. And besides - do we really need to raise another generation of men who can't deal with pubic hair?
So I don't feel bad about getting them out of there, except that I'm very conscious of the fact that I'm a woman while I'm doing it. I worry that I'm either setting up or reinforcing the idea that there are fun, bad women who like sex and good, boring women who restrict access to sex.
I always want to debrief them. "Hey, guys, it's cool that you're curious, but this isn't the way to find out. Porn is fine, but it's not real sex. Real sex is great, and even good girls love it, but it has to be a two-way street..." But I always just end up with "Sorry, guys - come back when you're 21." Perhaps I should write a children's book. Porn Is Healthy and Fine, but Only as a Temporary Physical Release.
It's true. Most of it is just incompetent, but some of it is actively... repulsive. Well, to me at least. The "Bangbus" stuff that was so, so popular on the campus network just left me kinda icked out. Where's the fun in degrading someone like that?
Now, compare that with Buttman: The Fashionistas, in which everyone's having a grand old time beating the heck out of each other. Because the participants wear wackier clothing and hit each other, it's supposedly more perverse... but I find it a lot more wholesome than "Bangbus" or anything in a similar mold.
'Course, given that I get all my porn from the internet, or make it myself, I probably don't have a representative sample.
Perhaps I'm missing something. Is there something terribly alluring about bullying women? It's like being in high school again.
I'd like to hear uplifting and affirming stories about good porn, if anyone has 'em.
--grendel drago
What. The. Bloody. Gravy. Fuck. (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm reading this as, "when you get a hard-on, you lose all sense of right and wrong, and become a rampaging rapist".
Hasn't that, you know, not been in style since the eighteen fucking hundreds? Am I missing something here?
--grendel drago
Re:And in other Congressional news... (Score:4, Insightful)
In the end I should remark that I do not endorse exposing children to sexual acts or nudity in the media, I would just support stricter control of violence.
You thought porn was bad? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm an information addict. I spend half my day browsing various news sites (no, not pornographic) and forums to read new information. I rarely remember what I read, I just read for reading's sake. I barely get to do anything else and when I do I often want to stop pretty soon and get back to the information. If you spend your leisure time reading Slashdot (or other news sources) instead of doing other things you usually love to do (e.g. play games if you're a gamer) you are another victim.
Sources: 1 [netaddiction.com], 2 [nytimes.com] (NYTimes, reg or circumvention required), 3 [impactlab.com]
There might be a connection between these two forms of addiction, after all porn is a form of information, too, right?
Re:And in other Congressional news... (Score:3, Insightful)
How can any reasonable person really believe that someone can be "drawn into homesexuality" because of pornography? So you then believe that you personally could "turn gay" by simply just viewing gay porn? Maybe you're just less sure of your sexuality than most people.
I'd be much more apt to believe that people raised to believe homosexuality is a sin just need an excuse to explain their attraction to the same sex. Gay porn is a perfect excuse, with a great amount of plausible deniability later on. "Oh I'm not really gay, it's all that confounded gay porn! Really I'm a good person, not one of them sinners!".
I find this whole anti-gay thing one of the most shamefull things about the Judeo-Christian-Islam religion (though admitedly I'm not certain how anti-gay Judaism is). They're not all the same religion, but they all share this same belief and all believe in different versions of the same god.
I think Violence is more of a problem. (Score:2, Insightful)
I cant fathom how our congress is concerned with people, private citezens, who might look or see pornography on their computers, which by the way is no different from the 70's and 80's when all we had were tapes. The internet has simply sped up the process, as it has for everything else that it has an effect on.
Im just sick of all these high-road people who will hide every bit of sexually related material from their lives, and then they turn around and plop themselves in front of CNN and watch people die on live tv. This seems to me like the general public is more comfortable watching one person shoot another in the head than watch two people have sex. It's fine to bring your 15 year old kid into a movie theater to watch Hannibal Lechter eat sombody's brain, but how many of you would have left the theater with your kids if he threw Foster down on the table and made love to her. Values are F**KED.
Just remember that when you are browsing your teenager's internet cache looking for evidence of "deviancy" there is most likely sombody selling crack cocaine a block away from your kid's high school.
Nanny nation (Score:4, Insightful)
Learning to live in society is like being pushed out of the birds nest, if you don't learn how to deal with a reasonable amount of issues early on then you are totally fucked for life. Go look at the Taliban or Saudi Arabia, their philosophy is light-years ahead of the Christian-right, cover all women and no-one will think about sex. It doesn't work and even worse is that when someone who has been pampered into this 'zero-porn' environment leaves they have major issues. Just imagine how a child would turn out if they were waited on hand and foot from birth, never allowed to so much as cross the road or plug something in on their own because it was too dangerous, imagine they had everything handled for them and everything in their life was sugar coated; would they be able to deal with the outside world? The opposite end of that scenario is if the kid had been allowed to do anything and go anywhere from birth, nature suggests that they would probably get hit by the first car they saw.
There's a balance - people should grow up in an environment as free as possible but with enough restrictions to keep them safe enough to live and not get trauma for life. There are some things that people have to deal with and learn from or else they are going to be weaklings, deal with porn, its not going to kill you.
Re:And in other Congressional news... (Score:4, Insightful)
So do images of your children. And your wife. And your family.
So does an image of a human being being torn to shreds from from an RPG in Iraq, or a beheading, or a video of missles hitting large crowds of people, or war. But we have plenty of kids over there witnessing that.
Fucking assholes.
~X~
Re:And in other Congressional news... (Score:4, Insightful)
whoop-ti-fucking-doo
Perhaps I should clarify what I meant, then.
Firstly, the context in which I was talking was evolutionary terms. Any developments in the last two-thousand years will be marginal. Now, if you have a social group of humans, be that tribe, hunter-gatherers, town or village, then you have the males striving for a hierarchy.
But the ultimate purpose of it all is sex, reproduction. Now if a woman is free to choose her mate, to say "I want that one," then she will have power in determining status. Really, she has the strongest say in determining that status.
Now in order for a male or group of males to usurp that power and control the social order themselves, they must take away a woman's ability to choose her mates. Otherwise, the other males will not care what the 'powerful' males want. They will have mates and will fight to defend her and their reproductive rights.
Hence in a patriarchal society such as historically the Christian West, or modern day Saudi Arabia, women have no sexual freedom. A woman who expresses sexual desire is damned wholeheartedly. And that is because a sexually free woman would upset the male hierarchy that has its roots in reproductive rights.
THAT is what I meant. Contrary to what you might believe, women will not always choose George Bush (Ewww!) over a ordinary decent man they can call their own. The powerful might be able to "get laid as much as they want," but they can't have most of the women they want. I promise you.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's just put the world back to the way it was.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:reality... (Score:1, Insightful)
So we got *one* person who porn probably didn't help. That's not really a convincing argument for anything.
And that he tried to blame porn isn't indicative of anything either, he was a lying, killing, psycopathic fucker. Don't you think he'd try anything that had even a remote chance of not getting him executed?
Still, the site is pretty funny.
Re:And in other Congressional news... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:porn better than crack (Score:2, Insightful)
it's a pretty typical tactic to compare one thing to another when they're not related, in this case drugs and pornography. these are separate issues and should be handled as such. trying to lump them together under the category of "these are activities that i don't approve of" isn't going to cut it. perhaps if people would stop trying to make such broadly generalized categories such as "this is *good*, this is *bad*" they might be able to actually think a little more critically about some of these problems rather than respond with a knee-jerk "this must be stopped" mentality.
Re:One at a time.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Sex is not a drug. (Score:3, Insightful)
If, for example, it turned out that homosexuals were more prevalent in affluent societies, cities, large families, and areas where population density is higher (all the only-child gay residents of Nebraska say holler - I thought so), one might hypothesize that a genetic predisposition to homosexuality (even - or especially - if only in high-density populations) have an evolutionary advantage of reducing inter-male conflict (by removing some males from competition for available females) and increasing social survival (by having more surplus productivity due to having no children of their own to care for, or by having unattached males available to fight wars). The result might well be a more affluent society with less internal violence and better evolutionary prospects for the offspring.
There are lots of sound reasons that having some homosexual individuals in a population might have an evolutionary advantage for the population.