Thoughts on pornography...?

This is interesting. I almost wish I weren't on my way out! (I say "almost" because I'm on my way to therapy, and I really need it today!)

I'm thinking about the training-bodies-to-respond-to-particular-themes idea. I actually don't think that's a real risk. I think S&M (or D&S) tendencies are not caused by watching porn. And if you don't have tendencies in that direction, you're not going to gain them by watching. Like, for me, I have no tendencies towards same-sex interest, and no amount of watching same-sex porn would do anything to change that. I do have domination/submission tendencies, but they were not caused by pornography (though I do enjoy reading porn on those topics). I think the porn is not designed to create specific interests but to allow those who have such interests to enjoy sexual arousal from them.

I want to write more but gotta go see T...

Sidony

Well sure, I guess one could try and say that experiences don't impact on us in terms of memories... And that emotion (and sexual response associations) aren't learned by pairing stimulus with response...

But that would of course fly in the face of research that behaviourists have done since the 1960's.

People typically accept that phobias are acquired by people pairing fear with a specific stimulus (spiders or snakes etc).

People typically accept that fetishes are acquired by people pairing sexual response with a specific stimulus (shoes or minors or whatever)

But of course violence on TV (and violence on the sportsfield) doesn't at all show children that violence is an acceptable part of society which is of course to encourage it.

And of course pornography doesn't at all show people that what is pictured is an acceptable part of society which is of course to encourage it.

NOTE: I don't know why people are stuck on the 'pornography causes people to rape' issue.

There are lots of harms other than rape... Aren't there?????

With respect to interests... So porn is designed to allow people who have fantasies about sleeping with their step-daughters etc to enjoy sexual arousal from that. To allow people who have sexual fantasies about raping someone and them enjoying it to enjoy sexual arousal from that. Er... How isn't this fairly clearly an expression of a sickness in society?????

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alexandra_k said:
People typically accept that phobias are acquired by people pairing fear with a specific stimulus (spiders or snakes etc).

People typically accept that fetishes are acquired by people pairing sexual response with a specific stimulus (shoes or minors or whatever)

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Right. My point was that these associations are acquired long before watching porn! And I'll use myself as an example (sorry if this falls under the category of too-much-information!). I'm sexually aroused by themes of domination/submission, and very specifically by teacher/schoolgirl scenarios. I've been aroused by these since roughly the age of 9. Certainly I'd never seen porn at that age. But I found that I was fascinated by the power differential between teachers and students and that had a profound effect on my sexuality. I didn't understand it at the time, but I understand it as an adult. The porn that falls into this category is for those of us who always had this particular bent to our sexuality. Fetishism starts early in life. It's not a result of what you see as an adult (unless I'm strongly different from the norm, which I doubt). Now perhaps if small children were to watch porn, it could change their sexuality. That's quite possible, and I'm all in favor of keeping pornography away from small children. But I don't think it's teaching adults to respond sexually to stimuli that didn't already excite them.

Just my thoughts on this. I hope my dialogue doesn't offend (I've marked this with the trigger).

Sidony

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I guess that what I'm trying to say is that traumatic experiences can limit ones ability to make a choice that is free or rational or in ones best interests. That is part of what is so very tragic about people having abusive traumatic experiences.

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Alex, I was never in a porn movie, but I can assure you that, at one time, past traumatic experiences did limit my ability to make good choices concerning sex......

everyone has a different story to tell and i respect your story, oh yes i do.

some phobias are acquired early in life. little albert and his phobia of furry white things and so on and so forth. other phobias are acquired later in life, however.

one notion is that the initial pairing may occur early in life... but then later pairings serve to reinforce the response. basically... neural circuits that fire together wire together. if one walks out on a swinging bridge and mummy panics and screams then one might pair fear (a response to mummy screaming) and heights (or swinging bridges or whatever). then, later in life as one approaches the height ones fear response kicks in (due to the early association). one might then... have an even more intense panic response at the thought of fainting and falling from the height. later experiences have the power to reinforce (strengthen) the associations.

later experiences also have the power to alter (extinguish) the associations, however. one technique that has been tried with sexual offenders is administering an electric shock when they have a physiological response to minors. the idea is that you show them a picture of an adult and if they have a sexual response (there is measuring stuff on their penis) then that is okay... if they have a sexual response to minors then a shock is administered, however. the idea is to... extinguish the pairing of sexual response to minors.

does it work?????

not particularly. how come? because one thing that is really important is to have that punisher administered EVERY time the sexual response to minors occurs. that simply doesn't happen. when the person runs through fantasies in their head and they aren't followed by a punisher then that undoes the training work. when the sexual response to minors occurs (while watching tv or when released) and the training equipment isn't on them then that undoes the training work. but remember that these training techniques were used on people who were convicted of pedophilia. the most severe cases. how much better would individuals do if they knew a little something about how associations are formed and broken and if they were able to monitor things for themselves.

would society be better off if people didn't have sexual responses to abuses of power? i think so.
would society be better off if people didn't think that women enjoyed rape (something conveyed in porn)? i think so.

the associations may well have already been acquired (in some or even in most) of the people who watch that kind of porn. porn still serves to strengthen the neural associations, however. but, on the other hand, if it is the case that only SOME of the people who watch that kind of porn aren't initially interested in those themes but they come to be due to porn exposure then would that constitute a harm to those people (and the people who they interact with)? i think it would. how many people does that need to be true of before the harms outweigh the benefits of porn? how many associations need to be strengthened?

i'm not trying to say that the strengthening of associations inevitably results in rape or anything like that. I AM saying that the strengthening of associations has a significant impact on peoples conscious beliefs and, even more disturbingly, their tacit beliefs. There are more subtle harms. More subtle harms. But still harms IMHO and harms that should be seriously taken into account when deciding whether to limit peoples freedom.

Of course there won't be major limitations on the porn industry. How come? Same reason there won't be major limitations on the oil industry or the gun industry and so on and so forth. Big business interests... Part of the sickness of society, I say...

In relation to your firearms example, nothing even comes close to automobiles as a cause of death and injury. By owning a car and driving, one can accidentally cause injury or death to people who do not choose to get hit. Should we scrap our cars and all start walking?

Lets try and use the same strategy of doing a cost - benefit analysis.

PORN.

benefits: getting ones rocks off faster and / or in a more enjoyable way and / or more frequently.

cons: the individuals who participate might be acting out past traumas and hence their ability to 'freely choose' to participate might be limited and / or absent. pornography might serve to reinforce and / or train ones body to respond to sadistic / massochistic themes, abuse of power themes, etc. this can show up both explicitly and implicitly in how one relates to others. pornography might be part of the cause of explicit and implicit attitudes of 'women enjoy being raped' and 'one doesn't need to use a condom' and so forth. it might also contribute towards people sexually abusing others.

AUTOMOBILES.

Pros: people are able to commute large distances in a short amount of time such that they have a greater range of employment opportunities. emergency response teams (police, fire, etc) are able to respond in good time. people who live in isolated areas are able to work / travel to greater regions.

Cons: a number of people are killed due to motor vehicles each year.

if one outlawed motor vehicles then society (as we know it) would fall apart. do you think that the costs of outlawing porn would be comperable to the costs of outlawing motor vehicles?

i think that the costs of outlawing motor vechicles would be significantly greater because i think one benefits a great deal more from motor transportation than one benefits from porn. every individual? of course not, but generally speaking.

There's a lot for me to address here, so if I miss something, I apologize.

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I guess that what I'm trying to say is that traumatic experiences can limit ones ability to make a choice that is free or rational or in ones best interests. That is part of what is so very tragic about people having abusive traumatic experiences.

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I'm not arguing that isn't so. 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.

I don't think you understand the laws and practices in the United States. People do care about not hurting others, as a whole. Caring about individual rights doesn't exclude that. People want responsible gun ownership. True enough, there are a lot of irresponsible gun owners, but those who can handle guns safely, should be allowed to.

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. Some criminals even make them. How the hell can people defend their homes when gun-toting criminals break in? How can they protect themselves (or at least, have a chance of protecting themselves) elsewhere? Yes, guns can end up in the wrong hands, even when they started in the right hands. But you have a better chance of protecting yourself from someone who has a gun if you have one yourself. This is one of the reasons cops carry guns. Criminals get guns on the street and underground. Lots of things happen underground. How do you propose finding and stopping such crimes?

Far more children die in swimming pool accidents than by guns in homes, yet I'm willing to bet you'd be more concerned about a gun in the home than a swimming pool in the yard.

You don't have a right to hurt someone physically or infringe upon their rights in the US. You imply otherwise. The US is based upon our Constitution, which gives us the right to bear arms. We have the right to protect ourselves, even from the government itself (that's the idea, anyway; the government has too much power over the people in these times, however).

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. Some people have argued that we should have the right to yell, "Fire!" in a theater or whatever, and if harm comes as a result, we should be responsible for that. That's about absolute free speech. I'm not saying I agree with that, but there are other ideas than what you typically hear.

It's debated as to whether sex with minors harms every one. Most believe it does hurt every one. But there are a lot of adults that have sex with minors who don't get punished for it, and I don't mean those who don't get caught. I've seen many parents who don't have a man arrested for having sex with their daughter, and sometimes even support them. (Don't get me started on that.)

Some people feel being a Goth hurts the Goth and sometimes others, in the sense of upsetting one's parents. The point is, if someone disapproves, I don't feel they should have a right to make decisions for the Goth because they feel s/he has mental problems or something and is incapable of making the "right" decisions for him/herself.

I'm not arguing that abstinence-only programs are screwed up and harming kids. (By the way, not all schools use them; some have refused the government's money and chosen to continue teaching more accurate sexual information.) That's something that needs to be fixed.

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.

I have seen condoms used in porn, albeit rarely. Again, sex education is important. I'm absolutely all for porn stars using condoms, though.

Rape fantasies are common among women, so I have no problem with seeing them in porn, depending on the kind of rape fantasy. For a long time, I thought all rape fantasies were basically the same: As you often see in the older romance novels, a man might rape a woman (not necessarily violently, but as in one scene I remember, where the heroine was asleep nude outdoors, and the hero, who didn't know her then, came upon her, and found her beautiful, began kissing and touching her, causing her to moan in her sleep, eventually leading to intercourse, which is when the pleasure for her ended, as he broke her hymen and she snapped awake), and her body aches for him. Some of these scenes are a turn-off for me, some aren't. But then a woman shared her rape fantasy with an adult fantasies group I used to be in, and it really shocked me. Her fantasy involved being in a club, being drugged and taken from said club, and violently raped. In the romance novel fantasy, the heroine enjoys it, but in her fantasy, the victim does not, but it turns her on, nevertheless. I admit, I don't relate to that kind of fantasy. But there is indeed rape porn, and I don't mean like romance novel rape. I haven't seen any of these movies, but I've seen ads for them, where women are not only raped violently, but tortured, hung on hooks, and had horrible things done to them. I don't get that. And I admit, I'd wonder about anyone who wanted to watch it. But I wouldn't blame the porn on his or her actions; I think there was something wrong with the individual to begin with.

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?

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.

I disagree that rape fantasies, in and of themselves, are "sick." Most sex experts agree. In a rape fantasy, the fantasizer is in control of everything that happens, and there are no dangers. People like to fantasize about giving up control, or having it taken away, but in a safe way.

Sidony spoke well. I agree with her points.

Porn has more benefits than that. You may choose not to accept it, but many people have improved their sex lives and overcome problems with porn and sexual stimuli.

People who do stunt work, extreme sports and other such things for a living might be acting out past traumas. Shall we outlaw those, too?

Do you honestly think outlawing porn would do much to stop people from getting it? Of course, outlawing drugs has worked pretty well, so who knows? And who gets to define what's porn and what isn't? Some people think any nude depiction is porn. Some don't like sex talked about in health terms. And I'll be on the frontlines defending free speech.

> 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.

the Texas legislature passed a "make my day" law this session. i can now shoot you if you come into my "space" (be it a parking lot or my living room) and i "feel" threatened. the first person to use the law was a legislator who is also a lawyer...................

go human rights!

Wow this got heated! I don't think I'll touch the firearm discussion. I'll just mention pornography. I'll maintain my belief that pornography is designed to appeal to certain sexual tastes rather than to create them. I just think sexuality develops too early in life for that to be a factor (provided underage children aren't looking at porn). That's because I doubt seriously that I'm unusual and somehow not representative of the norm. And I know that no amount of looking at porn would change any of my sexual tastes because they've been ingrained since childhood (I know, I said that already). So I don't think pornography is trying to persuade anyone to like any kind of sex that they didn't already like (& why would it? there's already a huge audience). Yeah I know some sexual tastes include rape fantasies, fantasies of being humiliated, etc. And I can understand that those fantasies offend some people. A lot of fantasies are self-effacing and politically incorrect AND don't correspond to something the person actually wants to do. Plenty of normal people have sexual fantasies that they would never act on in real life (the fantasy of being raped is particularly prevalent). I think that porn can actually allow a safe place to explore those less-welcome fantasies. But I don't think porn causes anyone to act. Like I don't believe that violent video games cause a person to become violent (oops, strayed from the topic!). In some cases, it might even help relieve anger. I believe that a rapist was always pathological and would have been a rapist regardless of whether he ever looked at porn or not.

I certainly understand being offended by porn, and there's a definite case to be made that some of the actors are choosing that path because of past abuse. But I don't think porn changes people into something they are not.

Sidony

I don't think it is particularly heated...

I guess it is an empirical matter... Whether people can acquire phobias later in life due to experiences... Whether people can acquire sexual preferences later in life due to experiences... Whether people can acquire fetishes later in life due to experiences etc etc etc.

Similarly for violent video games, of course. One can indeed make a case for violent video games desensitising people to violence. It is a strategy that the military often employ to help desensitise people to violence, for example. How come? Cause it works, I guess.

Anyhoo...

One thing that I find interesting about this...

Is that some philosophers claim that IF people were ideally rational AND comperably informed of the relevant matters of fact THEN there would be convergence in what people think we *should* do. (That is to say that if people agreed on the facts and followed through similar chains of logical reasoning then people would agree on their moral beliefs).

It is a bit controversial, of course. Some people think that you could still get radically divergent ethical systems DESPITE convergence on matters of fact and the employment of similar logical reasoning.

What I do wonder, however, is how much ethical disputes are about disagreement over the facts and how much they would remain even if there was agreement over the facts.

For example. People who are pro people privately owning guns for self defence seem to think that gun ownership PREVENTS people committing crimes against them. People who are anti people privately owning guns for self defence seem to think that gun ownership CAUSES more harms than they prevent. The dispute seems to come down to a disagreement over matters of fact. I wonder if the empirical studies were able to tell us the way the facts actually fall if that would put an end to the dispute or whether the dispute would remain.

Similarly about porn. Those who are pro porn seem to think that minimal harm results from porn. Those who are anti porn seem to think that quite a lot of harm results from porn. Will the scientists settle the issue by finding out the relevant facts or will the dispute remain even once the facts come in?

Not sure...

well, the Texas legislature isn't known for their "smarts"........

But I don't think porn changes people into something they are not.

tell me this, if we took an 11 year old boy and let him watch the porn that his father watches......by the time he's 13, do you think he would view sexuality differently? do you think this would teach him anything about sex that he ordinarily wouldn't have learned? would it change him?

think about it and give me your gut answer?

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alexandra_k said:
I don't think it is particularly heated...

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My own baggage then... I'm very uncomfortable with conflict! One of the things I'm in therapy for....

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I guess it is an empirical matter... Whether people can acquire phobias later in life due to experiences... Whether people can acquire sexual preferences later in life due to experiences... Whether people can acquire fetishes later in life due to experiences etc etc etc.

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I guess I made my opinion known already on that one. Though I thought phobias resulted more often from traumatic events? (I could be wrong there -- not really my field of knowledge.) I do think traumatic events (rape, etc.) would impact a person's sexuality. But I don't think porn has the powerful impact of experience. Though it could certainly shock the hell out of someone. I tend to think that's more likely to result in revulsion than a decision to try to figure out how to like something that's not appealing. Even becoming desensitized to the graphics of porn doesn't make a person change who they are.

It's interesting (to me) that I'm arguing in favor of porn here since I don't much care for it myself. I do think it has its uses though. I know I've occasionally read pornographic stories in order to become aroused (when I was having difficulties with sex). That's really useful. I've also enjoyed the relief of being able to talk about some of the fantasies I'd never act on (I do have a few of those!) -- to be comfortable with having a dark-fantasy side to sexuality. Porn can help with that (for me, I prefer porn stories to graphics, but I think that's just personal preference and others might like visuals).

What I'm saying overall is that I don't think pornography has that much power. I don't think it can change what a person wants or make someone do bad sexual things. I think it's just there to gratify our tastes for the naughty (or whatever someone's tastes are!). I think there's a bigger case to be made that participants (porn stars) are involved because of abusive past experiences (which has already been discussed here), but I also don't believe that would apply to all participants -- and in any case I support the freedom of individuals to make their own choices (even if they make bad choices based on bad events from the past, even if they make choices solely for money or based on low self-esteem, etc.). And I'll toss in the fact that some people may like that line of work. I say that because of an earlier post of mine in which I mentioned that I sometimes like feeling like a sexual object etc. (I mentioned that I've thought about sharing photos from my own sex life before). It's not hard for me to imagine that someone else might be much more into the idea than I am and choose it as a lifestyle. I'll never know what other people's motivations are, but their choices are their own.

I guess all this is just describing why I'm not particularly offended by porn. But I'll always want it kept away from the kids!

Interesting discussion!

Sidony

This is all interesting discussion. If anyone read my first reply to this you know what has colored my perspective on porn.

I agree with Alex on a lot of this, and I'm honestly surprised that people would defend some of more sick fantasies in porn (sex with step daughter, rape). I don't think that porn would "make" someone rape or have sex with their step daughter, but I certainly think that it would help reinforce that these things are okay in an already sick mind. Watched repeatedly it would make these things seem normal.

I do think that porn is very harmful to the actors that participate in the activity. It makes sense that a lot were abused as children because those of us that were abused almost get the stamp on the forehead that makes others want to abuse us. It’s almost the same way children who are sexually abused are often abused by more than one person and then end up in an abusive relationship. One could say that porn is that abusive relationship.

As far as rape fantasies shown in porn I don't see how it is considered not to be sick to get your rocks off on an watching an illegal activity. If someone watched child porn and got off on that wouldn't you feel this person was sick even if he never had sex with a child? Would you leave your child with the person who watched child porn? Would you want your daughter or sister with a man who got off on watching rape and torture? I know I wouldn't. In the same way I would also be very worried about my daughter if she had rape fantasies. I would wonder what happened to her to make her have those feelings.

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fayerody said:
But I don't think porn changes people into something they are not.

tell me this, if we took an 11 year old boy and let him watch the porn that his father watches......by the time he's 13, do you think he would view sexuality differently? do you think this would teach him anything about sex that he ordinarily wouldn't have learned? would it change him?

think about it and give me your gut answer?

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Yes! I've already stated in a previous post that I think porn would change a young person (who is still going through sexual development or puberty or those types of changes). I am absolutely in favor of keeping porn away from minors!!! I am only addressing it in context of adults.

Sidony

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Gemstone said:
If someone watched child porn and got off on that wouldn't you feel this person was sick even if he never had sex with a child?

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Yes! I would think that person was sick. I am absolutely in agreement with banning child pornography. All my references to porn here are only to the type of porn that is legal in the United States. Child porn is non-consensual by definition. Anyone making it should be locked up. Anyone watching it is already mentally sick.

But in reference to adult fantasies, I don't think people who have rape fantasies are sick. I don't have rape fantasies myself, but I would guess that it's a reaction to power differentials. I was profoundly affected by watching the power relationship between teacher / student as a child. I don't know why -- it just affected me sexually. The result was that I'm aroused by domination / submission scenarios and occasionally look for that in adult porn. I was particularly aroused by corporal punishment as a child (I know, way too much information!) and that affected my sexuality as an adult (it's also the reason I'm vehemently opposed to corporal punishment). So many things can affect a person's sexuality that it's impossible to tell what causes what. But something as simple as watching a teacher tell a child what to do and realizing that the child can't say no (because of his/her lack of power in life) can lead to finding domination/submission scenes sexually appealing as an adult (it did for me). So I think rape fantasies probably come out of some equally innocent life encounter and are not an indication that the person having them is sick. I think exploring one's fantasies and realizing why you have them is an important thing to do in life.

But in all cases I am referring only to adult legal activity!

Sidony

Darn, I was determined to stay on topic and realize that that post went way off. But I'll connect it back.

I think porn can be a safe way to explore one's fantasies. Some fantasies (S&M for example) are going to be frightening to some people, but I think it's safe to explore them so long as you differentiate between what you want as a fantasy (i.e. rape, humiliation) and what you want in real life (hopefully a healthy adult sexual relationship). And porn is simply an open acknowledgment of some of these fantasies and that can be frightening.

But there are limits of course. Anyone who is looking for true non-consensual behavior (i.e. wanting to molest children) is sick and should be kept away from society. I don't think porn made them that way. I think porn exists because they are already that way. And I think anyone involved in non-consensual porn should be prosecuted to the fullest extent possible.

But the majority of porn is either adults having sex or adults engaged in portraying sexual fantasies (tying each other up or what-have-you). And as I said, I'm not particularly offended by this type of porn. I think there are some positive effects (what I mentioned about learning to accept your own sexuality), but I also think it's a good case that porn stars could have become what they are through abusive pasts. So it's not clear-cut, but I'll take the stand that legal porn should not be outlawed and that it does not have the power to turn someone into a rapist or anything that they are not already. (Ultimately I'm a firm believer that people are responsible for their own behavior and cannot blame what they're read or seen for what they've done.)

Sidony

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Yes! I've already stated in a previous post that I think porn would change a young person (who is still going through sexual development or puberty or those types of changes). I am absolutely in favor of keeping porn away from minors!!! I am only addressing it in context of adults.

Sidony

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Sidony, he will be an adult someday.

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fayerody said:
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Yes! I've already stated in a previous post that I think porn would change a young person (who is still going through sexual development or puberty or those types of changes). I am absolutely in favor of keeping porn away from minors!!! I am only addressing it in context of adults.

Sidony

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Sidony, he will be an adult someday.

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And I'm not opposed to adults looking at legal pornography. I guess I don't understand your post, but I'm in agreement that pornography would be detrimental to young people, as would violent movies, alcohol/drugs and all sorts of other things that we keep away from minors. I would never favor allowing young people access to material they are incapable of handling. But I believe adults are quite capable of handling sexual material and that it's a personal choice.

Interesting discussion! I'm away on a trip so can't add much more (am renting a computer), but it's been interesting enough to check in!

Sidony

Sorry I didn't get to comment yesterday...lack of time.

We intervene when people try to take their lives, but not when they make general bad choices. I don't think we should. This would actually be another topic, on which I have a lot of opinions, so I'm keeping this short, but I will say, what one considers a bad choice for someone and what someone else considers a bad choice, can be two different thing, and I don't want someone else deciding for me what is good or bad.

Criminals will still get guns, legally or not legally. Those who can be responsible with guns should still be allowed to have them. If someone puts a gun to my head and I, too, have a gun, chances are, one of us will kill the other. Maybe both. But at least I have a chance. What chance do I have if I have no gun or weapon, and someone has a gun to my head? It has nothing to do with honor, it has to do with protection and survival.

Statistics won't sort anything. There are statistics supporting both sides. People on both sides say the other's studies are flawed.

What good is calling the police if someone has already broken into your house and has seen you or you can't get to a phone without him seeing you? I'm not saying you should go shooting someone instead of calling the police if you have the opportunity to keep them from seeing you.

I don't really give a damn if the rest of the world has different ideals than the US. I was raised to believe in freedom. You keep talking about how bad the US is, but I don't hear you talking about other countries, many which have plenty wrong with them.

Yes, I'm positive, there are people who believe we should be able to yell, "Fire!" in a theater and whatnot. They've said it in groups I've been in. Believe me, it surprised me, but I listened to what they had to say, and they're entitled to their opinions. I wouldn't say they were "campaigning" for it, but I don't know what they do in their personal lives.

I don't understand your question, "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?" Whether people have a duty or not, doesn't mean they'll obey a law, no matter what the law. I may agree they should obey the law, but I can't make everyone obey it.

You believe porn hurts people, but you don't have any real proof. You read statistics and studies, but how many of those studies cover people who are non-violent and non-sexually aggressive who read and use porn? It's all one-sided, and often refuted by opposite and neutral parties.

Whether messages are reinforced in porn or not, does not make a man a rapist. I think these ideas he might get come from other men and even women he's had in his life, especially during childhood. How do you account for the huge number of men and women who view porn who haven't committed sexual crimes?

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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.

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I was only addressing your complaint that we kept talking about rape. If you don't want to talk about other violence, that's fine. But then don't bring up any crimes, sexual or not, in relation to pornography. We'll talk about other things that have to do with porn. What do you want to talk about on that topic, then?

You speak of "evidence," but give no sources. If you have them, please share, but don't tell me you have evidence without providing it.

What Doc John thinks about rape fantasies, I don't know. You'll have to ask him. And, if you'll remember, I disagreed with disallowing that person from the boards, too.

I don't have a problem with someone having fantasies about anyone or anything, as long as they don't act them out if they're harmful. Why more people accept one fantasy over another, I can't answer.

On violent video games...sort of...I've watched horror movies all my life. I've seen gore, slashers, chopping, hacking, sexual torture, other torture, and all kinds of things. I have never gone out and done any such thing. I don't even hit people. I freak out just seeing an animal hit by a car, and seeing violence in real life, and I am not desensitized. I get angry at the news. I have met a lot of horror fans. Friends, fans, at horror conventions, online, etc. They're all great people, and I've never known any of them to do anything violent or horrible. Doctors have to get used to some pretty horrible things, but most of them still care about their patients.

I don't think gun ownership prevents gun crimes. I think it raises the chances of a victim surviving a situation, though.

The problem with "facts"--whether about porn, gun ownership, or anything else--is, studies can be flawed, and different sides can come up with different results. Even neutral parties can come up with different results from other neutral parties.

Of course rape and traumatic events can affect someone's sexuality, fears or whatnot. But those are usually sudden and shocking events. They're also often compounded with confusion, accusations against the victim and stress.

Erotic imagery has even been found in caves, on bone carvings and on stones, suggesting that even prehistoric man had an interest in pornography. I'm not saying that makes it right or wrong, but I'm saying porn goes back to the beginning of time.

If you think porn actors are usually abuse victims and are being re-victimized, what about porn directors and others involved in making it? What about women porn directors and creators? Are only actors victims?

Watching illegal activities isn't illegal. Otherwise, there wouldn't be movies about the mafia, bank robberies, violence, abuse, theft, etc. And you wouldn't have shows like CSI...although they're more about solving the crimes, they often show the crimes, too.

If a person watched child porn made with real children, um, that is illegal. It's illegal to possess child porn, as well as to make it.

What does who I'd leave my children with have to do with an individual's right to do certain things? I wouldn't leave my children (if I had any) with a lot of people, regardless of what they watched.

I'm not saying it's normal or good to have rape fantasies (nor am I saying it's wrong or bad). But I've learned that changing one's sexual desires is near-impossible, if not impossible, and frankly, if one is okay with it, I think it's ridiculous to bother changing it to please others. Why deny yourself pleasure when life is so short?

I don't think anyone here is advocating showing porn to minors.

The main thing about rape fantasies, and I've read quite a bit about them, is, the fantasy is about giving up control. However, the one with the fantasy controls what happens, unlike a real rape.