Something I was remembering which is related to the discussion in general (though I won't try to pick out exactly where it's related):

When I was a small child, I once stumbled on a pornographic magazine at a friend's house. It was a lesbian magazine, and I remember finding it somewhat disturbing. But I didn't give it much thought, and I can confidently say it had no effect on my sexuality.

Another time when I was a child I found a Reader's Digest that had an autobiographical story of a woman who was raped. It didn't go into any explicit details at all, but the story was very upsetting to me. Since it wasn't specific and since I had no knowledge of sex at the time, I couldn't figure out what had happened. I imagined that it was his hand he had put into her. That affected me all the way into adult life (I have never wanted a man to finger me though intercourse is pleasurable).

I guess my point here is that there's no way to protect kids from everything that could be damaging and that outlawing porn wouldn't help. TV and other literature can be just as damaging. I think the best protection for kids is to educate them. I wish somebody had talked to me about sex when I was a little kid. I know I experienced sexual arousal at a very early age, and it would have helped me to understand what was going on with my body.

Other thoughts: The vast majority of porn is just about sex and intercourse, not uncommon fetishisms.

I do have a problem with cartoon depictions of child porn or bestiality because those depict true non-consensuality. Whereas I distinguish that from rape fantasies. My understanding is that people with rape fantasies are usually fantasizing about being raped themselves. That really isn't a non-consensual fantasy. BDSM is also a consensual practice though sometimes it can look like it isn't to people who aren't familiar with it. Sexuality is complicated.

I actually think that things like fetishism are established well before the age of consent, but I base that on personal experience and the fact that it's illogical that someone would repeatedly watch a fetishism depiction that didn't interest them.

Okay those are just some more thoughts on pornography (and the discussion at hand) to go along with the thread subject....

Sidony