> I'm saying, even so, a person has to be free to decide for him/herself, even if past events color those decisions. And even if the choice one makes is detrimental to oneself.

We intervene when people want to kill themselves and sometimes we intervene when people want to hurt themselves too. Mental health act kind of intervention. We are much more likely to intervene if someone wants to act in a way that harms others. I'm attempting to argue that this could be viewed as a comperable case.

> but those who can handle guns safely, should be allowed to.

That is one way of looking at it. Another way of looking at it is looking at the number of harms that would be prevented if people weren't allowed to have legally owned firearms.

> Everytime I hear this anti-gun attitude, especially from those outside the USA, I never here this point addressed: If you removed every gun from everyone registered to own one, you'd still have the criminals having them.

We had a discussion about this before over on general. I addressed your point over there at the time and I'll now address it over here. The criminals probably would continue doing what they are doing. Of course the USA could decide to crack down on crime (how much money spent looking for WMD???) but it seems to have other priorities. How much criminal activity is prevented from legally owned firearms. If someone puts a gun to your head and you try and draw your legally owned one then what tends to happen? Both get shot? How does that help? If someone breaks into your house (and they have a gun) and you have a gun and you pull on each other what tends to happen? Both get shot? There is some interesting stuff on 'culture of honour' and there is an argument that Southern Americans have a culture of honour in virtue of being descendents of herders who had portable property. Southerners are much more likely to state that 'violence is extremely justified in some circumstances' than Northerners. It might well be that... Southerners don't really care about both being shot. So long as the bad guy gets a bullett too. One of those honour things...

> How the hell can people defend their homes when gun-toting criminals break in?

I'm not convinced that lawfully owned firearms help people protect their property. I've said it before and I'll say it again. Statistics could sort the issue out if we are solely having a disagreement over the facts.

You could protect yourself how we do over here: You call the police.

I'm talking about private gun ownership not police owning guns (at this stage).

> I never said our freedoms were unlimited. But we should have as much freedom as possible, as long as it doesn't infringe on another's rights.

That is a distinctively western ideology and one that isn't shared by the majority of places in the world. The US is big on rights and individualism whereas other countries are big on duties and collectivism. I find the differences interesting. I do think that from a collectivist point of view the USA is focused on individual rights to the extent of harming the collective. Different values, perhaps.

> Some people have argued that we should have the right to yell, "Fire!" in a theater or whatever

Really? Are you sure? People are actually campaigning for that?

> It's debated as to whether sex with minors harms every one.

But how many have to be harmed in order for people to have a duty to obey the law which states that they should refrain from it?

> Some people feel being a Goth hurts the Goth and sometimes others, in the sense of upsetting one's parents.

Ah. My beef with porn is not that it merely upsets people. It is that it ACTUALLY harms people.

> I don't think porn has anything to do with a man feeling he shouldn't have to stop if a woman says no. I think that goes to deeper issues, and the still-prevalent-in-some belief that men are superior to women. Also goes to selfishness.

And you don't think those messages are reinforced in porn at all?

> Rape fantasies are common among women

Do you wonder why rape fantasies are common? Are they more common in women who have been raped do you think (a kind of repetition compulsion kind of thing)? More common in women who have been otherwise sexually abused? More common in women who view porn with those themes?

> so I have no problem with seeing them in porn

Ah. You really think that this is completely unrelated to attitudes prevalent in society such as 'she likes it really' and 'no means yes' etc etc?

> But I wouldn't blame the porn on his or her actions; I think there was something wrong with the individual to begin with.

You know that there is this distinction between THE cause and A cause - right? Roughly, there really isn't a great deal that has a SINGLE cause. What we most often find is a contributing factor here a contributing factor there.

I can only reiterate the stuff on how exposure can strengthen neural connections. Reinforce pathology. And how behaviourism learning principles show us that associations between stimuli (e.g., rape scenes, sex with minors) can indeed be learned by experience. And pornography surely seems capable of being the kind of experience that does that. It really would be more surprising if porn were completely unrelated to the development and maintenence of pathology.

> I suppose people are sticking with the "porn causes people to rape" thing because it's sexual, and rape uses sex as a weapon. Do you want to make an argument about other forms of violence?

I've said repeatedly that rape is one of the harms. I've also repeatedly stated that there are other kinds of harms that I'm concerned about too. I'd prefer to focus on just this subject of pornography than rant about ALL the ills of the world, thanks.

> If someone wants to sleep with their step-daughter, they had a problem before porn. Being turned on by porn isn't going to change what they already were.

Those are empirical questions and the evidence strongly suggests that porn is capable of being a significant factor in the development of pathology and of course in the maintenance of pathology.

> I disagree that rape fantasies, in and of themselves, are "sick."

I'd be interested to know what doc john thinks about that since we found out what he thinks about sex with minor fantasies already...

And...

We found out that a great number of people on these boards were really very averse to someone having fantasies abotu having sex with minors. why are rape fantasies considered more acceptable?

i dont' understand.