Science: More porn = less rape

Pornography is an insidious, pernicious and malignant spiritual, moral and relational cancer on our society. It causes significant harm to almost everyone in our country. No one involved in pornography can honestly, factually claim it is harmless to them, their intimate partners, their family and society as a whole.

I cannot in this limited space and this format list the innumerable negative effects of pornography on our society; but I can say with absolute confidence that it is hardly a harmless activity. In virtually every case when someone has gotten involved in pornography, they can never be satisfied at viewing simple nudity or normative sexual intercourse for long, they easily find what they are viewing to be tame and they no longer feel stimulated; and so they must advance to more explicit forms of pornography, with the extremes being bestialty, sadomasochism, and pedophilia.

In my many decades of life I have witnessed a change from soft pornography, burlesque and very few sources for more degenerate forms of sexual behavior to extreme forms of pornography that just a few decades would have been considered unthinkable and deplored. But, let me give you an example of how such activity always degenerates: In San Francisco (late Fifties) on North Beach they had burlesque (striptease) and a few adult magazine stores, then came topless bars, then topless waitresses, then topless/bottomless dancers, to simulated sex acts on stage, to audience participation lap dances (dry F*#%king), and in between they had gay bathhouses with places for casual, unprotected sexual liaisons, and all of these places attracted prostitution, straight and gay and even transsexual prostitution. All of this happend within a few decades. Those attracted to such activity demanded more extreme forms of pornography to stimulate their sexual desires. Meanwhile the people involved were more often than not cheating on their spouses and/or significant others, destroying their relationships, spreading disease, helping finance a multi-billion dollar a year adult entertainment industry and creating a demand that has produced verbal and visual pornography in our every day lives that are inescapable – even from our children. Just listen to the music of our young people, look at their video games, look at the chat rooms, watch a top rated action or love movie on television or movies, and even at our commercials and pornography is everywhere.

As to this study, let me suggest: State paid prostitutes on demand for any citizen would probably cause rape to decline even further; and making some children, those into really perverse sexual activities available and rapes would probably go down to zero!

When we can commit such acts (pornographic in nature) absent a social stigma being attached to those involved and a penalty for distribution, there is nothing so low and vile that we, as a society, will not soon demand be tolerated and with time demand be accepted as normative human behavior. I know, I have witnessed the moral/spiritual decline of this nation at warp speed over the past four+ decades.

Umnumzana on August 25, 2006 at 8:23 PM

Pablo: It is, in my opinion, a vain and useless exercise to argue cause versus effect. It is akin to ‘what came first the chicken or the egg?’ To get at the root cause of all evil, all perverse human behavior, we are forced to go back to something previous as the real cause; like WW-II and women entering the work force, the subsequent emancipation of women and the psychological emasculation of men. That answer not being fully satisfactory, then we look further back for a another social change being the real cause. I agree with many that we can look to Darwin and the scientific evolution of the species movement, which denied the existence of a Creator and ultimate Judgment, as a marker for the drastic change in moral behavior of human beings.

The truth is, in my opinion, that there is no evil of which we human beings are not capable, and with time we will find the excuse and opportunity to act out on those base impulses. Despite the protests of atheists and secular humanists, without our being answerable to Divine Justice, all restraints on human behavior are removed and the path to continual moral degeneration of the human race is inevitable.

Umnumzana on August 26, 2006 at 10:41 AM

I am stunned how many of you are at least mildly illiterate!

Watcher: I mentioned bestiality, sadomasochism, and pedophilia as extreme, therefore not a common result. Nonetheless, I stand by the fact that virtually no one engaged in viewing pornography can be long satisfied with milder forms, but inevitably progress to more perverse forms in order to gain the necessary/desired sexual stimulation.

In reference to San Francisco, apparently you do not understand the concept of an example of something, in this case the progression, degeneration of pornography. I guess you think NYC, Miami, Boston, Chicago, Houston and other major cities in America have all avoided such progression or descent into perverse sexual behavior?

A penalty for distribution: You said, “What the hell are you talking about… throwing people in jail for selling Playboy? If that’s the way you feel, then maybe you should think about moving to Saudi Arabia. We have something called the 1st Amendment here.” As to your invoking the 1st Amendment, does it sanction the distribution of snuff films or child pronography? Of course not! Free Speech does not provide license for many forms of base, dangerous behavior or speech. Free Speech involves ‘political speech,’ and some rather bizarre Supreme Court rulings notwithstanding, pornography has nothing whatsoever to do with political speech. In the case of pornography the very fact that some forms are illegal, means that those people engaging in the distribution of these materials can be subjected to criminal penalties. For the good of society, I believe that all forms of explicit, gratuitous sexual activity in print or video/film should be illegal and distribution should be a crime!

Honora: If you read my post more carefully, you would discover that you and I agree almost completely that pornography is a symptom and a cause. Further, I agree with what you said: “the true problem is the moral relativism and the death of shame. Things that once would have made you a social pariah [in the past] are now simply “alternative life choices. Remember when being an unwed mother was a horrible shame, and your family would send you away to Aunt Lucy until you had the baby and gave it up for adoption?”

We do not disagree as much as you appear to think, and I believe it is because of your bias against me, and not based on a fair reading of my posts!

Umnumzana on August 26, 2006 at 3:58 PM