Debate Topic - P0rn

[GAME-OVER]

I think p0rn is a good thing for the ones who need/like it.

What about people who have got a rosygardenty sekslife because they are bored with the same thing over and over again. A bad sekslife can seriously disrupt a relationship. If they can get new ideas or things going because of p0rn it's a good thing.

Everyone can have their own thoughts about it but I think it's a good thing it's around.

[.•´¯`•þasђγ•._.•´]

omg i turn my back and ppl are talking orgasms

skanks !


locking shortly....new topic ideas required [/i][/color]

[Alexander]

GAME-OVER said:

LOL ;D


/me checks his trousers... what a great mind

yea, what a small brain too

[GAME-OVER]

Alexander said:

yea, what a small brain too

Luckily she was not talking about a brain but if there is something you would like to confess it's ok Alex. We already heard about yer "situation" ;D

[Alexander]

GAME-OVER said:

Luckily she was not talking about a brain but if there is something you would like to confess it's ok Alex. We already heard about yer "situation" ;D

grrrr

[GAME-OVER]

Alexander said:

grrrr

[Alexander]

*slap* dont kiss me! you didnt even take me to dinner first , lol ;D

[GAME-OVER]

I prefer to watch some p0rn

[Chuck]

I've been doing some reading on this subject, I think it would be good if I share few articles.

As you read, consider the following questionsbr]

• What role did pornography play in the violent crime studied by Bill Marshall?
  
• What were the results of the study by Dolf Zillmann and Jennings Bryant in which male volunteers were shown explicit pornography?
  
• What percentage of rapists report that they use pornography regularly?
  
• What is the four-step progression of pornography addiction?
  
• What factors have led to society's present problems with pornography and s**ual deviance?
  

The questions are not in order.

[Chuck]

Bill Marshall, is a psychology professor at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario.
In his Kingston study, Marshall found that pornography could play a number of roles in s**ual offences. In some cases, men told him that they looked at pornography with the intention only of masturbating, but then became aroused and "decided to go out and assault a woman or a child." Other offenders said that they deliberately used pornography to "prime" themselves to commit s**ual assaults. Marshall believes that the men who cited pornography as playing some role in their offences "might have been looking for excuses." But "keeping that in mind," he adds, "I still think pornography was a factor in their behavior."

[Chuck]

If you have ever loved anyone caught in the tentacles of pornography, you can relate to Laurie Hall's pain. In a recent interview on Beverly LaHaye Live, she discussed her book, An Affair of the Mind. In it, Laurie revealed the damage inflicted on her family by her husband's long-term addiction to pornography.

My husband Jack, a son of missionaries, had once worked at the White House and had been on the staff of a large Baptist church. Starting out with great potential, this "all-American" guy ended up deeply mired in pornography--and leading a double life.

The signs were a gradual deterioration. He became secretive and angry. As Jack regressed in behavior, he began to withdraw from the children and me. Slowly he lost the ability to think and feel. him lose his soul.

The Suffering Family
While the porn addict suffers in isolation, his family reaps the consequences of his sin. Even if the man is able to keep his habit from escalating into a hard-core obsession, the person he becomes is a far cry from the husband and father or son he could have been. He is unable to form a normal loving attachment with his wife. She must always compete with fantasy women who look perfect and do anything and everything he demands. No matter how hard she tries, how much she loves him--no matter how far she will go to please him--it's never enough. Kathy Gallagher tried hard to please her husband, but found that nothing worked.

About a year after we were married, we moved to Los Angeles where Steve became a deputy sheriff. There was a lot of pressure being a cop. That's when [the trouble] really escalated. One day I stumbled on hard-core--$30 or $40 magazines--and I couldn't believe my eyes. As time went on, layer after layer emerged. X-rated videos ... porn shops, prostitutes, and massage parlors. It all erupted within that first two years of marriage. It ruined me.

Steve was so far gone that he was insane with the stuff.... They know what they're doing is wrong, but they're obsessed. [At the same time] it eats away the soul of the wife as well as her husband's. His behavior shook everything I was as a person. I thought, "There's something wrong with me. I created this problem. What can I do to fix it?" So I went into damage control--trying to fix my husband--trying to fix myself. I felt like the only one on the planet with this problem. So I kept my mouth shut.

And I did things to impress him. I went all the way [doing things he asked me to do]. I'm ashamed of myself now. Once you come to the Lord and fall away, then it's possible to do things you never dreamed you'd do. I wanted my husband back so badly. I would do anything.... It took me years to figure out what an idol he had become to me.

[Chuck]

Stages of addiction

I had dated Greg for three years. But I never knew he had a problem with pornography until we were married. Suddenly it became all too clear. He let me know early on that I didn't measure up s**ually. I was never "pretty enough" or "s**y enough." And he became terribly angry if I were too tired for s**. These explosions were rare at first and he would apologize afterward. So of course, I forgave him.

One time--after we had been married only two months--I was lying in bed half-asleep when Greg grabbed me by the ankle and dragged me from the bed. I thought he was going to fling me around the room. Frantically I reached out to catch myself before my head crashed into the floor. Then he stopped and laughed. He was trying to "teach me a lesson" for "daring to go to sleep before giving him s**."

I confronted Greg about his pornography. He promised never to use it again. I so wanted to believe him. But I watched the progression: First magazines, then movies. When movies were not enough, he needed a real person. That led to phone s**. Soon, even that was no longer enough.

In time, I could tell if he had been viewing pornography simply by how he treated me. The smallest thing--from a dinner he didn't like to a disorderly closet shelf--could set him off. I never knew who would come through the door at night--the wonderful man I married or a monster. And I began to feel like a defective piece of machinery.

I wanted to get help, but I didn't want to disgrace my husband. I didn't have any close friends to whom I could turn. Finally, I found a pastor who counseled me through this difficult time. Then my husband faced a choice--his wife or his addiction. He chose the addiction.

Anne's experience aptly proves the theory of Dr. Victor Cline. As a clinical psychologist Dr. Cline has treated approximately 300 s** addicts (96% male). He found that with a few exceptions, pornography contributed to their deviations or addictions. Dr. Cline also discovered a four-step progression in pornography involvementbr]

• Addiction. Once a person gets hooked, he (or she) must keep coming back. Porn's powerful imagery is the basis for fantasizing and self-gratification.
  
• Escalation. Like drug addiction, pornography requires more. The porn addict requires rougher, more deviant, and more explicit s** to receive a high.
  
• Desensitization. The addict views acts originally thought shocking, repulsive, or immoral as normal. He thinks "everybody does it."
  
• Acting out s**ually those things he has been exposed to: Exhibitionism, group s**, rape, molestation, incest, voyeurism, visiting prostitutes, homos**ual or violent s**.
  

Kathy and other victims have discovered first-hand that addiction to pornography begins subtly. It alters one's mood in much the same way as drugs. Just as drug addicts require more potent drugs to receive a "high," consumers of pornography must have a more intense experience to achieve the same euphoric feelings as before. Playboy can be the gateway drug that leads to the cr*ck cocaine of hard-core porn and bizarre s**.

Some opponents of pornography declare soft-core porn (like Playboy) to be more insidious than the hard-core. Because the magazine features well-known writers on various issues, it appears "legitimate" by association. Its centerfolds are portrayed as the "girl next door"--giving men the impression that all women are available for their pleasure--as mere s** objects.

Pornography has been defined as "all s**ually oriented material intended primarily to arouse the reader, viewer or listener." Most people associate television's soft-core with HBO or other "adult" cable channels. But pornographic images are just waiting to invade your home--morning, noon, and prime time. Advertisers use s** to sell everything from cosmetics to cars.

And the staples of regular TV seethe with s**--and obscene violence. Midseason prime-time replacements illustrate the depths to which producers will plunge. Promiscuity and s**ual profanity abound....

This type of pornography is legal, unfortunately. However, the soft-core variety of "erotic and semi-nude" is actually more seductive in its methods than hard-core. Obscenity, child porn, broadcast indecency, and pornography deemed harmful to minors are all still illegal. Even so, the Enough Is Enough Campaign reported that America "has over 20,000 outlets selling prosecutable, hard-core pornography, which would be found illegal by educated citizens in most American communities."

Although soft-core porn nibbles away at the foundation of society like a swarm of termites, hard-core attacks like a voracious beast, gleefully feasting on the heart of its victim. Once a person has tasted hard-core pornography, he is no longer satisfied with nibbling on the soft stuff.

As this philosophy has permeated our society, the rate of rape has soared. The American Family Association reports that a woman is raped in the U.S. every 46 seconds. Moreover, 86 percent of all rapists admit to using pornography regularly. Violent pornography evokes two particularly dangerous rape myths: Violence is normal in male-female s**ual relations--and women enjoy rape. As a result, "not-guilty" verdicts for rapists are frequent, and rape victims are often blamed for the crime.

[Chuck]

The affect of pornography on consciousness

Feminist researcher Diana E.H. Russell is professor emerita of sociology at Mills College in Oakland, California. She has written and edited several books on s**ual violence against women and children. In the following text, Russell presents evidence revealing that exposure to pornography can provoke some men to rape. She maintains that pornography often portrays women as enjoying being brutalized and raped. Although pornography is not the sole cause of s**ual violence, Russell contends, it can significantly undermine male inhibitions against committing rape and should be considered an important factor in the persistence of the problem of rape.

When addressing the question of whether or not pornography causes rape, as well as other forms of s**ual assault and violence, many people fail to acknowledge that the actual making of pornography sometimes involves, or even requires, violence and s**ual assault. Testimony by women and men involved in such activity provides numerous examples of this....

Before we can address the issue of pornography as a cause of rape, it is important to know the proclivities of those who read and view pornography. Hence, data on males' propensity to rape will be presented next.

Males' Propensity to Rape
Research indicates that 25% to 30% of male college students in the United States and Canada admit that there is some likelihood they would rape a woman if they could get away with it. In the first study of males' self-reported likelihood to rape that was conducted at the University of California at Los Angeles, the word rape was not used; instead, an account of rape (described below) was read to the male subjects, of whom 53% said there was some likelihood that they would behave in the same fashion as the man described in the story if they could be sure of getting away with it. Without this assurance, only 17% said they might emulate the rapist's behavior. It is pertinent to know exactly what behavior these students said they might emulate:

Bill soon caught up with Susan and offered to escort her to her car. Susan politely refused him. Bill was enraged by the rejection. "Who the hell does this dog think she is, turning me down," Bill thought to himself as he reached into his pocket and took out a Swiss army knife. With his left hand he placed the knife at her throat. "If you try to get away, I'll cut you," said Bill. Susan nodded her head, her eyes wild with terror.

The story then depicted the rape. There was a description of s**ual acts with the victim continuously portrayed as clearly opposing the assault.

In another study, 356 male students were asked:

If you could be assured that no one would know and that you could in no way be punished for engaging in the following acts, how likely, if at all, would you be to commit such acts?

Among the s**ual acts listed were the two of interest to these researchers: "forcing a female to do something she really didn't want to do" and "rape." Sixty percent of the sample indicated that under the right circumstances, there was some likelihood that they would rape, use force, or do both....

Some people dismiss the findings from these studies as "merely attitudinal." However, this conclusion is incorrect. Neil Malamuth has found that male subjects' self-reported likelihood of raping is correlated with physiological measures of s**ual arousal to rape depictions. Clearly, erections cannot be considered attitudes.

More specifically, the male students who say they might rape a woman if they could get away with it are significantly more likely than other male students to be s**ually aroused by portrayals of rape. Indeed, these males were more s**ually aroused by depictions of rape than by mutually consenting depictions. In addition, when asked if they would find committing a rape s**ually arousing, they said yes. They were also more likely than the other male subjects to admit to having used actual physical force to obtain s** with a woman. These latter data were self-reported, but because they refer to actual behavior, they too cannot be dismissed as merely attitudinal.

Looking at the s**ual arousal data alone (as measured by penile tumescence) rather than its correlation with self-reported likelihood to rape, Malamuth reports that:

• About 10% of the population of male students is s**ually aroused by "very extreme violence" with "a great deal of blood and gore" that "has very little of the s**ual element."
  
• About 20% to 30% show substantial s**ual arousal by depictions of rape in which the woman never shows signs of arousal, only abhorrence.
  
• About 50% to 60% show some degree of s**ual arousal by a rape depiction in which the victim is portrayed as becoming s**ually aroused at the end.
  

Given these findings, it is hardly surprising that after reviewing a whole series of related experiments, Neil Malamuth concluded that "the overall pattern of the data is ... consistent with contentions that many men have a proclivity to rape." ...

[Chuck]

The Meaning of "Cause"
Smoking is not the only cause of lung cancer; nor is pornography the only cause of rape. I believe there are many factors that play a causal role in this crime. I will not attempt to evaluate the relative importance of different causal factors in this essay, but merely to show the overwhelming evidence that pornography is a major one of them....

In my 1984 book s**ual Exploitation, I suggest many factors that may predispose a large number of males in the United States to want to rape or assault women s**ually. Some examples discussed in that book are (a) biological factors, (b) childhood experiences of s**ual abuse, (c) male s**-role socialization, (d) exposure to mass media that encourage rape, and (e) exposure to pornography. Here I will discuss only the role of pornography.

Although women have been known to rape both males and females, males are by far the predominant perpetrators of s**ual assault as well as the biggest consumers of pornography. Hence, my theory will focus on male perpetrators....

Pornography Undermines Inhibitions Against Rape
Evidence has already been cited showing that 25% to 30% of males admit that there is some likelihood that they would rape a woman if they could be assured that they would get away with it. It is reasonable to assume that a substantially higher percentage of males would like to rape a woman but would refrain from doing so because of their internal inhibitions against these coercive acts. Presumably, the strength of these males' motivation to rape as well as their internal inhibitions against raping range from very weak to very strong, and also fluctuate in the same individual over time.

There are several ways in which pornography can undermine some males' internal inhibitions against acting out rape desires....

Objectifying Women. Feminists have been emphasizing the role of objectification (treating females as s** objects) in the occurrence of rape for many years. Males' tendency to objectify females makes it easier for them to rape girls and women. James Check and Ted Guloien note that other psychologists have observed that "dehumanization of victims is an important disinhibitor of cruelty toward others." The rapists quoted in the following passages demonstrate the link between objectification and rape behavior.


It was difficult for me to admit that I was dealing with a human being when I was talking to a woman, because, if you read men's magazines, you hear about your stereo, your car, your chick.

Another rapist said of his victim, "I wanted this beautiful fine thing and I got it."

Dehumanizing oppressed groups or enemy nations in times of war is an important mechanism for facilitating brutal behavior toward members of those groups. Ms. U, for example, testified that

A society that sells books, movies, and video games like "Custer's Last Stand [Revenge]" on its street corners, gives white men permission to do what they did to me. Like they [her rapists] said, I'm scum. It is a game to track me down, rape and torture me.

The dehumanization of women that occurs in pornography is often not recognized because of its s**ual guise and its pervasiveness. It is also important to note that the objectification of women is as common in nonviolent pornography as it is in violent pornography....

[Chuck]

Some Men Believe Women Enjoy Rape
If males believe that women enjoy rape and find it s**ually exciting, this belief is likely to undermine the inhibitions of some of those who would like to rape women. Sociologists Diana Scully and Martha Burt have reported that rapists are particularly apt to believe rape myths. Scully, for example, found that 65% of the rapists in her study believed that "women cause their own rape by the way they act and the clothes they wear"; and 69% agreed that "most men accused of rape are really innocent." However, as Scully points out, it is not possible to know if their beliefs preceded their behavior or constitute an attempt to rationalize it. Hence, findings from the experimental data are more telling for our purposes than these interviews with rapists.

Since the myth that women enjoy rape is widely held, the argument that consumers of pornography realize that such portrayals are false is totally unconvincing. Indeed, several studies have shown that portrayals of women enjoying rape and other kinds of s**ual violence can lead to increased acceptance of rape myths in both males and females. In an experiment conducted by Neil Malamuth and James Check, for example, one group of college students saw a pornographic depiction in which a woman was portrayed as s**ually aroused by s**ual violence, and a second group was exposed to control materials. Subsequently, all subjects were shown a second rape portrayal. The students who had been exposed to the pornographic depiction of rape were significantly more likely than the students in the control groupbr]

• to perceive the second rape victim as suffering less trauma;
  
• to believe that she actually enjoyed being raped; and
  
• to believe that women in general enjoy rape and forced s**ual acts.
  

Other examples of the rape myths that male subjects in these studies are more apt to believe after viewing pornography are as follows:

• A woman who goes to the home or the apartment of a man on their first date implies that she is willing to have s**;
  
• Any healthy woman can successfully resist a rapist if she really wants to;
  
• Many women have an unconscious wish to be raped, and may then unconsciously set up a situation in which they are likely to be attacked;
  
• If a girl engages in necking or petting and she lets things get out of hand, it is her own fault if her partner forces s** on her.
  

In Kristin Maxwell and James Check's 1992 study of 247 high school students, they found very high rates of what they called "rape supportive beliefs," that is, acceptance of rape myths and violence against women. The boys who were the most frequent consumers of pornography, who reported learning a lot from it, or both, were more accepting of rape supportive beliefs than their peers who were less frequent consumers of pornography and/or who said they had not learned as much from it.

A quarter of girls and 57% of boys expressed the belief that it was at least "maybe okay" for a boy to hold a girl down and force her to have intercourse in one or more of the situations described by the researchers. In addition, only 21% of the boys and 57% of the girls believed that forced intercourse was "definitely not okay" in any of the situations. The situation in which forced intercourse was most accepted was when the girl had s**ually excited her date. In this case, 43% of the boys and 16% of the girls stated that it was at least "maybe okay" for the boy to force intercourse on her.