Forum Post: Banning porn and all violent entertainment
Posted 11 years ago on Dec. 15, 2012, 6:16 p.m. EST by 3roundmagsonly
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This content is user submitted and not an official statement
Why not? Do we NEED porn? Do we NEED violent video games?
Dumbest idea I've ever heard. Would you then arrest people after the ban? I'm sure the private prison complex would love that. They already love the marijuana ban. Gets them all sorts of profits.
Do we need peanuts? Peanut allergies can kill people. Let's ban peanuts from all stores and homes.
There are many perspectives on porn, sexuality, nudity, sexual preference, and tolleration of sexual affairs of our Executives. I used to look to Europe for how to treat these subjects. Or at least I looked to older Countries and older cultures.
1) I think European Culture tried to make allowances for humans to be humans ...which means they are sexual beings, with human urges, and humans have a large variety of sexual behavior. The gist was that sexual behavior is part of the personal life and the personal life doesn't need big brother or some patriarch to say what is right.
2) The right to self Determination is in question by your statement above.
3) Privacy is invaded by your question above.
4) Nudity can be separated from porn, but in the USA nudity is considered porn. The fact is that conservative forces want to monitor your activities, and want to tear down any creation that has to do with sex or nudity.
5) Conservative Forces also want to motitor your other activities and tear down, criticize, destroy your works, and ostricize you if they don't feel innocent minds are protected. Just look at our History book, we are protected from our own History ... I mean we don't get the truth in K-12 grades from teachers ...or from Text books. (it is America)
6) There are control concerns here about smart people wanting the public Interest groups fighting each other. Marijuana doesn't hurt people. Hemp doesn't hurt people. The war on Drugs actually sustains the problems of hard drugs. The political campaigns or public camapaigns seem more about "fluff" and about dividing people ...than addressing real problems of poverty, jobs, nutrician, homelessness, mental illness, high health care cost, high costs of education, high corruption in US Investment Banking, Politicians taking Money, accepting Lobbying, and Corporations and Soft Money getting into US Elections and US Politics.
BUT Yes, You are Right. We should limit exposure of Violence to our kids. We should limit ourselves in watching US Football and sports. We should take care that all kids are taught how to Value themselves and their future above ... military service ...video games ...and the sexualization that is very common in US Media.
Sorry... I'm sure I missed a lot of Points.
Can anyone Else help answer this question?
Yea I can. What porn is actually doing is teaching young adults about sexuality. But that which sells, as statistically determined by the spyware on our PCs, as a primarily male market, more often frames sexuality in a very unrealistic light. In porn, women typically serve men, and the reality in a normal relationship is generally far different.
Young women are also influenced, not only by the visual example of the unrealistic, but also in their desire to attract and please men, by the now porn influenced male.
Its overall effect has been to push us farther from the norm, farther from "balanced." And balance is important in relationships.
Good points. Self determination can almost be a principal that is almost out of reach. The models we are shown in Media and Culture and in peer groups shape us. Porn certainly is artificial. Porn is unbalancing as you are pointing out. Firstly, young people can be overly focused on images and sexuality. Secondly, they would be unbalanced or changed by the "Learning".
Agreed. The leaders of the porn industry have what might be called an 'anti-sexual' agenda. Straight women are never hired in order to present the portrayal of all women as being either lesbian or bisexual. Both women and men commonly spit on each other's genitals and as a standard, scenes end with men ejaculating on women from the touch of their own hands. When it isn't done, it's given the special designation of being called a 'creampie' as to imply that it's a special act apart from the norm. Then there's the emphasis on anal sex simply for the purposes of being graphic and ass to mouth acts that are meant to degrade women as a whole (as women are never shown sticking their thumbs up some man's ass and then sticking it in his mouth to suck). And even as far as being 'women' are concerned, pubic hair is commonly shaved as if it's unnatural to actually have the badge of sexual maturity.
The porn industry doesn't just show the loveless sex that many narrow minded busy bodies have a problem with. The porn industry goes out of its way to portray sex in disgusting and dehumanizing ways as a standard for all to embrace as the norm.
I think there is a tendency in all visual arts to continually recreate novelty in the effort to titillate. But without getting graphic, I see sexuality as more of a push and pull, a give and take, a balance which continually shifts. I think there's this thing about pleasing, or the male desire to please, which pornography completely ignores. And it has effected both sexuality and gender roles.
I do think porn desensitizes people to humanity, but thats just me. The first person shooter games are very scary in terms of violence.
Yes, trust your instincts. Our US Minds are different from Europe. I would try to protect ...or rather teach ... as i have seen Europeans teach ... teach kids to trust their own insticts & feelings ...teach them that the feeling of envy is wrong ...teach that the feeling of greed is wrong ... teach that holding power over another person is probably wrong ... teach that seeking getting drunk is wrong ... teach that much of drug activity might be a kind of self abuse or an escape.
And in the USA maybe I have used movies to escape from life. There is value in seeing the feelings we have in the present. They teach. If I eat food or watch TV to escape feeling ... then maybe that is wrong ...maybe I am not dealing with life in the here and now.
I don't mind making the subject broad, because it is personal to me. Hope you understand.
Probably US people take everything to the extreme. And maybe I don't have any answers to this point. There are many Spiritual ideas in the USA ...but we get a lot of negative feed back about them, we live in a science based society, we value pseudo-science soemtimes more than spirutal idea, competition often seems to a putting down of spiritual ideas or spirtual seeking people... I totaly agree that porn will desensitize people or many people.
I would like to support the discussion about your ideas. I have only my limited experience as any one person does.
I would say that we probably are hiring people in the US Defense Department to fly drones ... they are killing people from a distance... probably like WWII pilots, but closer and on camera. But it is a push button war. It is a desensitized war. People will pay internally and suppress their feelings and thoughts.
There is also an Ethical Question about War in Space. To escalate war and take it to space expands the definition of war. It may be a push button war. It may remove human questions from killing other humans. Like it is easy death. easy killing from a distance. But with far reaching questions about the expansion of war from the ocean and air and land to space.
we need freedom of speech
what is "porn"
to me it is a "man of God" on TV asking for money
violent video games are all over the world -
it is America with the second amendment crazies and the nra
Everyone will probably laugh at what I'm about to say but here goes: I wasn't allowed to watch the Roadrunner Cartoon as a kid ( I'm 51 now) because my mother believed it sent the wrong message about violence. She explained to me that it didn't matter if it was a cartoon with a bird and a coyote because the message was that their antics were harmless fun and that it's ok to constantly tease and harm someone and once they "quickly" recover, we can do it again and again and again without any concern.
I've never understood the need or desire for porno but I know I'm in the minority. I remember an interview with Ted Bundy years ago where he stated that pornography was the fuel of his desire to inflict heinous sexual acts on his victims. I suppose if a person is predisposed to some sort of psychological obsession then it could easily become a compulsion. I found a video where he discusses this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6VAN7ELkk0
Sex appeal sells anything in this country. Many young men and women have been made to believe that if they are not sexual athletes they are inadequate and undesirable people. I'm blown away at the number of 21 year old men that 'need' viagra and young beautiful women who feel the need to alter their natural appearance at such young ages. I've listened to young people discuss their sexual expectations and disappointments in relationships and it seems that there is a severe lack of emotional substance in the way couples relate. These shallow attitudes and expectations will not sustain a relationship or marriage. Divorce has long term emotional, physical, financial and economic consequences on children that can range from poor concentration and diminished academic performance, lack of trust and toxic relationships, poor health due to stress that significantly shortens lifespan and a higher chance of not obtaining financial security. Children from divorced homes are also at a higher risk for abuse by step parents. So we desperately need to create a more family friendly economic and social climate that fosters healthy and well-adjusted family and social relations. I've heard it reported that corps are complaining that young adults entering the work force lack the social skills necessary for the workplace.
Parents leaving pornography around the house used to be considered child abuse even as recent as 2000 but I doubt that is true anymore given that we have shows like Toddlers and Tiaras. In my opinion, the parents of those little girls should be charged with child abuse. Did we not learn anything from the Jon Benet murder? What about the reality shows that glorify and encourage teenage pregnancy ( which is also another common side effect of divorce)?
We are such a broken country in so many areas and it's difficult to know where to begin making repairs and healing. If anything is going to change, it's got to start with the individual TODAY.
Free speech and free expression need constitutional protection. This the land of the free and home of the brave. Consider that the Coloseum of Ancient Rome provided regular state sponsored and subsidized blood baths for public consumption, violent video games are much more civilized.
The statistics indicate that Americans want to enjoy porn. Every 39 minutes: a new pornographic video is being created in the United States.
http://www.familysafemedia.com/pornography_statistics.html
The mass murderers do not seem like the types that were into porn or video games. It could be possible to have mass murders by machete as in Yuba City CA.
Machete mass murders
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=888&dat=19710528&id=TwgwAAAAIBAJ&sjid=33UDAAAAIBAJ&pg=7166,1745296
Conversations with mass murderers
http://www.salon.com/2005/07/20/hatzfeld/
Four Teens Charged in Small-Town Machete Murder of Mom
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-5368772-504083.html
What the country needs is more empathy, compassion, improved mental healthcare. And more control over army surplus that is available to the public. Control, but not a ban.
Naw, let's not try to divert this into an anti-free speech issue. Damn you gys are see-through! Every time I look at one of your posts, all I ask myself is, "what falacy/diversion are they trying to push now?
When seen in this light it takes me about1/10th of a second to see through the bullshit.
Speaking for myself:
I don't know Yes, very much No not at all
Slippery Slope.Once you start banning things the trend can't easily be contained.That is why gun owners don't want assault weapons banned.
People need them because people like them. Whatever your opinion on the material, intelligent people will know the difference between porn and rape; and they will know the difference between violent games and reality
Pornography is the exploitation of women in the same way that prostitution is exploitation. Almost every piece of pornography is little more than a recorded depiction of an act of prostitution because there is money changing hands. People (women) do not as far as is discernible produce pornography for any other reason that their own poverty and powerlessness. If women received equal pay for equivalent work and capital did not over accumulating so that there was a full employment economy at family wages and people still wanted to make depictions of sexual congress that would be different. Money makes it different and prevents porn from being the act of human love and beauty that legitimate sexual expression is.
Unfortunately there is the issue of free expression and the censorship of the press. A system powerful enough to determine by state force what you can view or read is a state that can censor what you read. Like North Korea.
There is also the issue of the harm that it does. The viewing of porn is not a separate act from the production of porn you can not watch porn or pay for porn without engaging in its production. In the 19th century New England abolitionists refused to consume the products of slavery which was cane sugar and instead they ate maple sugar produced by free labor.
A moral person would not buy porn. A moral person would not hire prostitutes. But personal moral decisions did not emancipate the slaves. Likewise it may take more force than personal moral persuasion to effectively oppose the exploitation that porn mostly is.
As for free love, anarchist have always been for the freedom to determined their own sexual conduct. You gotta ask yourself is porn free love ? It is not free love for the poor exploited women churned through the mill of the porn industry.
That said there is another issue: that as the rise of cheep pornography coincided with one of the most striking reduction in sexual assault in America. An interesting correlation, perhaps it could be a dependent correlation? Perhaps a causality of the lower level of sexual assault is the availability of pornography? If this is the case, and don't look to me as to how to test the theory, but if it is a dependent correlation then you gotta ask the next question: What is the least worst option? Clearly it is the case where potential rapists channel their sexual urges into pornography and not into sexual assaults.
As for violent video games if we can see this as an outlet for desires to act out violently like pornography is for sexual violence then perhaps the same argument applies?
Of course both arguments overlook the greater question Why are there so many people feeling violent and sexually violent urges? In what situation would these people not have these urges? Surely the answer is self evident. If everyone had the material prerequisites of family life. A full employment economy at family wages that would allow all people to have housing, food and some degree of material security so that they can afford to satisfy their sexual urges and overcome their social frustrations by having children and not feeling socially powerlessness because their relationships are not torn apart by financial strife . Need? we don't 'need' porn we don't 'need' violent video games. We survived a long time without them. They are sad often alarming symptoms of a larger political problem.
said there is another issue: that as the rise of cheep pornography coincided with one of the most striking reduction in sexual assault in America.
Really? Where did you get that from?
I was going to say. perhaps if you took the profit out of porn you would find support. I mean if you pay a woman over 22 years of age to pose nude only for picture taking... You could inluence the business by saying, "No, you cant sell nude photos in this community or country"
And many people globally would consider suppoting a law like that. So for greater support, ...You should set out to make illegal pictures being sold that depict actual sex.
But the resistance might be from people that actually know how supressed sexuality is, how suppressed the variety of sexuality is, how male sexuality is suppressed in general, it is like the cat is out of the bag as far as sexuality goes ...Maybe we all don't like to look at human sexuality ... but we know people that get hurt because they have an unpopular sexuality.
Maybe that is the real issue with your Proposal. Many people have unpopular Sexuality. They may have been hurt or ostricized by popular opinions. So unpopular sexual practices are targeted by a majority. Not that it is like natzis exactly. But doesn't the law have to protect the minority religion, nationality, ethnicity, race, creed, or color from the Majority?
Minority sexualality is very sensitive. You have a third sex. Even beyond homosexual sex, you have people that are born with traits of both sexes ... or who were born of one sex and feel they are the other sex. I'm guessing that your proposal would prohit people from exploring their own sexuality... and from finding happiness and love. ...the pursuit of happiness as the constitution goes.
I look at coorelation and causation. Porn is epidemic, violent video games are popular, religion is waning. Mass murdering is rising. Causation? Coorelation? Do we still see people as human? I dont know.
You might be right. Trust yourself. We have had more school shootings ...and they say the trend is not on an upward swing ... I guess that means that we have more people, so we hear more of these massacres.
Sexuality changed in the US in 1960s. There was a masters & Johnson Report and a Hite Report. Turns out that this lady Hite was totally destroyed in the USA, she had to move to Europe because she publicized a report on Sexuality. She is no longer a citizen of the USA at all. The US is very ...Punitive about nudity or sexuality.
Politically, I guess you could say the US is very Right Wing Relgious. That means ... the Right wing will go after you and make life hell I guess.
So you want to burn up the Constitution. Check. What will replace it?
Really stupid idea, we have them because people have the right to.
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People exaggerate when it comes to the influence of violent video games. The future market for video games is games for adults and adults want stories and decision making that effect the outcome of the game. Unfortunately the top games do contain a lot of violence because it's much easier to program the shooting/combat than it is to program good stories. There's a market for murder mysteries with gamers. Does that mean we should ban reruns of Matlock and Columbo on TV? Gamers understand the incredible amount of work it takes to produce a good game so we wait patiently for something that goes beyond the typical violence. In the mean time we settle for hunting Deathclaws in Fallout-New Vegas. Those things still scare the hell out of me.
First person shooters look pretty desensitizing. Again, more and more realistic HD violent games, and with it, more and more frequent mass murders. Causation? Coorelation?
It's hard to say. There's a definite downside to gaming. There's the choice of the game and also the amount of time you spend playing it to consider. In some cases these mass murderers may have been heavily influenced by video games and in others games played no part.
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You mean the Baptists and Revivalists have to go too? I'm shattered.
If I don't connect before the end of this year, I hope you have an enjoyable festive season, ZD.
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Yeah, I give conifers as gifts.
Pot them up myself.