How hard is it for the law to ban porn or at least put them out of business?

[Infidel]

You think that a little girl wearing bikini is a perversion, this proves my point that porn takes away innocent mind, because you have prejudice toward human (woman) sexuality.

Wow. Talk about a lack of understanding! A 2 years old girl is not a sexual being. Putting a bikini on her pretends that there is something wrong about exposing her little nipples (or “teats”… btw the regular spelling of this word “ea = i” would be filtered out by censor program… hehe). The perversion is to teach her that part of her body is somehow “sinful” to expose to view. In a very good sense that is “porn”.

If you are innocent, you would not mind such a simple thing for women do wear bikini at the beach, what’s the matter with training a little girl in a women’s beach attire?

Because she is not a “woman” yet. She is just a kid. Putting that extra piece of cloth makes her something she is not - and starts to “teach” her about sex very prematurely - which is exactly what you seemed to oppose in your previous posts. About time to think about it.

You think such thing is sick because you think woman’s body is a bad thing and that women must wear full attire even at the beach.

You got to be kidding! Do you really think that is what I say? On the very contrary. I say that human body (be it male of female) is prefectly ok to put on display on the beach. Especially if that body is young and in good shape.

 

[Warrenton]

Warrenton:If it not religious or moral issue then what is it?

It is commercial speech, at best. Personally, I would define it as sui generis: it is a distinct act that is accomplished through visual media.

As such, it is not really protected expression. It is simply conduct that the government may regulate, just like it regulates traffic, or interstate commerce, or shipping.

 

[Warrenton]

[Only according to Christians. Other societies (especially the Oriental cultures) have a much healthier attitude toward sex. There is a good old saying: “For Christians sex is an obsession. For everyone else it is a simple fact of life”. If you look at the threads in the Moral Theology forum you can see that the majority of them deals with frustration concerning sex, masturbation, non-traditional expression of love (oral sex for example), feelings of guilt (especially the poor teenagers). An incredibly sad sight.

Patently false. All cultures regulate sexual conduct. You are ignoring the billion or so Muslims, the 3/4 billion or so Hindus, and you are ignoring the fact that the orientals regulated sex at least as much as Christians, if not more. Why do you think the Imperial Palace was full of eunuchs, because the Celestial Emperor didn’t care about chastity?

Next thing, you will be saying the Japanese didn’t have weddings until the Europeans arrived. And don’t even consider trotting out the old cliches about Polynesian Islanders and Margaret Mead. They had different sexual customs, but even they could - and were- violated. Many of the HMS Bounty mutineers learned that the hard way.

If you think that sexual conduct has no meaningful repurcussions, then you just have not spent enough time in the foster homes, battered women’s shelters and jails of this great nation.

 

[valentino]

You see this stuff walking down the street? Are you strolling the Vegas strip? Personally I’ve never, ever seen porn just lying around somewhere. And believe me, as a teenager I would’ve liked to. But I believe you; maybe you’re just going through a bad part of town.

Well I would say they aren’t the best neighborhood’s in the city but they are in the city andd not suburbs.So even if you do happen to live in a good neighborhood there are still otherways in which children are exposed like i’ve mentioned.No one cannot be exposed to immoral literature or pictures in this time.I once babysat for a couple and they had bad magazines exposed.Even at cheap discount store or goodwill’s you can come across trashy magazines.I don’t know you or you’re age but you can’t tell me you’ve never seen pornographic material by surprize at one place or another.

 

[karow]

What are the obstacles? So again what is the possibility to ban porn by the secular law?

If you want to know the obstacles, one comes immediately to mind: MONEY.

If you’re talking about a complete prohibition like the 18th Amendment, I can’t even begin to imagine how much money it would cost to adequately enforce laws making pornography illegal, and adequately prosecute pornography makers, producers, distributors, and actors. Adult pornography was a 97 billion dollar worldwide industry last year (euroweeklynews.com/2010081882239/news/spain/spanish-porn-industry-in-decline.html). I don’t have the source at my fingertips, but I remember reading not too long ago that adult pornography was a 13 billion dollar industry in the US alone in 2010. Do you think the typical American taxpayer is going to want to adequately fund a fight against such a leviathan?

The War on Booze (i.e., Prohibition) was an expensive, dismal failure. The War on Drugs cost the US 15 billion dollars last year alone (Drug War Clock | DrugSense) and more than one trillion dollars since its inception in the 1970s (stanford.edu/group/progressive/cgi-bin/?p=521), and is considered by both liberals and conservatives to be an expensive, dismal failure. Do we really need to add a War on Smut to our list of expensive, dismal failures?

Many years ago a political science professor told our class, “Governments can’t legislate morality between consenting adults.” He was right, in my opinion.

 

[LemonAndLime]

I would protest against any laws that aim to severely restrict or remove porn entirely. Not because I think porn is okay, but because of my fear of where the ban would lead in terms of freedom.

Let’s look at prostitution. It’s illegal in my country, but has it stopped? No, it still happens and women are MORE vulnerable than they are in countires where it is legal, as they’re forced to work underground where people like health professionals can’t help them. The same will happen to porn - it will go underground where it is harder to monitor and regulate.

 

[karow]

Infidel;7878521:

If you think that sexual conduct has no meaningful repurcussions, then you just have not spent enough time in the foster homes, battered women’s shelters and jails of this great nation.

I would add the following: strip clubs, prostitution walks, and homeless shelters. All three are chock full of women in whom a male (usually, but not always, a father figure) took a little too much interest when they were growing up.

 

[karow]

A 2 years old girl is not a sexual being.

That’s simply not true. We’re all of us sexual beings starting when we’re in utero. Anyone who’s parented children can tell you that.

What we’re not, and what we shouldn’t be until we’re mature, are sexualized beings.

There’s a huge difference.

 

[Holly3278]

I think it would probably be pretty difficult to get porn banned by the law since it is considered “free speech” or “free expression”.

 

[Infidel]

Patently false. All cultures regulate sexual conduct. You are ignoring the billion or so Muslims, the 3/4 billion or so Hindus, and you are ignoring the fact that the orientals regulated sex at least as much as Christians, if not more. Why do you think the Imperial Palace was full of eunuchs, because the Celestial Emperor didn’t care about chastity?

Because they wanted to reserve the wives for their own use. Otherwise there was a nice and healthy attitude toward sex. It was considered a normal activity aimed at pleasure most of the time. Can you imagine a Kama Sutra issued under the auspicies of the Vatican? I sure cannot.

By the way, since you brought it up, there was another great phrase… to wit: “Of all the sexual perversions, the most unnatural one is chastity”. It is pretty deep and serious. Think about it.

 

[MC_taters]

Patently false. All cultures regulate sexual conduct. You are ignoring the billion or so Muslims, the 3/4 billion or so Hindus, and you are ignoring the fact that the orientals regulated sex at least as much as Christians, if not more. Why do you think the Imperial Palace was full of eunuchs, because the Celestial Emperor didn’t care about chastity?

Just wanted to say the Imperial Palace was full of eunuchs because the emperor did not want to be usurped. A eunuch could not continue their line through heirs, and therefore would see no reason in killing the emperor.

As far as banning porn, (assuming you are in the U.S.) it is borderline impossible due to the 1st amendment. My suggestion: if you don’t like porn, don’t look at it.

 

[francisca]

How about restriction, would you agree that porn restriction is a good thing? If not why not?

 

[TimothyH]

Ya’ll come down south! We don’t take too kindly to porn stores near our neighborhoods and it’s funny what conincidences can happen.

The owner of the porn store might find that his car takes a while to get fixed. You know how it goes… Mercedes sometimes puts those hard to find parts like oil and spark plugs on back order, know what I mean? And those keys sometimes get lost.

And it’s funny how the police start a ticket blitz right around the time that the porn store opened too, and set up the drunk driver checkpoint right in front of the store. Man, what a coincidence! And the local TV station covered the whole event - had camers everywhere and one of those vans with the dish antenna on the pole and everything.

And zoning laws can chage like the weather down here. You never know. One minute you are zoned industrial and the next minute they find one of those endagered species nearby or an underground aquifer and suddenly there is a bond on the ballot to buy the land up for greenspace.

And then there is public safety. At any time there could be a road hazard that requires emergency construction. They don’t build them roads like they used to. Some of that road repair equipment is tough to move around and I’ve seen it block the entrance to store parking lots for extended periods of time. It really is a shame for the porn… er… store owner, but the safety of our motoring public comes first down here.

Yea, these things happen sometimes. It’s a shame but here in the South, we believe that everyone has to pitch in don’t really mind having to take one for the team once in a while.

-Tim-

 

[francisca]

So what are you saying? That it’s a shame for the store owner?

 

[francisca]

If you want to know the obstacles, one comes immediately to mind: MONEY.

If you’re talking about a complete prohibition like the 18th Amendment, I can’t even begin to imagine how much money it would cost to adequately enforce laws making pornography illegal, and adequately prosecute pornography makers, producers, distributors, and actors. Adult pornography was a 97 billion dollar worldwide industry last year (euroweeklynews.com/2010081882239/news/spain/spanish-porn-industry-in-decline.html). I don’t have the source at my fingertips, but I remember reading not too long ago that adult pornography was a 13 billion dollar industry in the US alone in 2010. Do you think the typical American taxpayer is going to want to adequately fund a fight against such a leviathan?

Imagine how many men and women participated in the production in such a big number of dollars.

Yes, so I’m no longer talking about banning anymore.

So, restriction would not close down any porn business. Those who comply with the rules will still can operate safely. It is possible that restriction would cause their business go down temporarily but after everything become stable, they may pick up again. The goal of restriction is only to regulate their practices: the main goal is to make sure that porn can only be seen by mature interested adult customers, not by general public. This is mainly to protect children and young people their right to grow according to their natural sexual behavior without interuption from risky content materials that is actually a big and aggressive business.

Restriction will not interfere with porn business. Restriction basically is to introduce new rules for the business to follow. Their business will go on as usual and may up and down as usual. It is also possible that supposedly after the regulation (restriction), many people decide not to consent exposure, so who knows, porn sales may go down because of it. No body knows what will happen, it depends on the people’s choice how their business will go just as much as now, it depends on people, except that now the exposure of porn has not much been regulated, so that the exposure of porn may go to the wrong targets, those are children, young teen, uninterested adults.

The War on Booze (i.e., Prohibition) was an expensive, dismal failure. The War on Drugs cost the US 15 billion dollars last year alone (Drug War Clock | DrugSense) and more than one trillion dollars since its inception in the 1970s (stanford.edu/group/progressive/cgi-bin/?p=521), and is considered by both liberals and conservatives to be an expensive, dismal failure. Do we really need to add a War on Smut to our list of expensive, dismal failures?

If we narrow our angle of point of view to the economic reasoning, then yes, it will be costly to possibly lose some number. On the other hand, if we think further, if the gov and the community do not govern (regulate, manage) indecency or even obscenity, we may pay higher price with our children and the next next generation to come. The next advance technology may ravage humanity completely. Imagine that we have youtube television now. Virtual reality may be the next one at our homes.

Many years ago a political science professor told our class, “Governments can’t legislate morality between consenting adults.” He was right, in my opinion.

Yes.

 

[francisca]

Hi again

I feel guilty that I started this thread and talking about regulations and human authorities. So, I’ve just made a poem. This is an intermezzo for me. The words just flowed out of my limited english vocabulary like water and I typed it in my notepad as if without thinking. Just want to post it here too because this coming to me as I was thinking about this thread. God bless you all.

The Crying Church - by francisca
18-May-2011 4:47pm GMT+8

I will write my sadness
So that the world may know
That I am lamenting myself
and my children
Just exactly as Jesus said to
those women in Jerusalem
“Do not lament for Me, but
lament for yourselves
and your children”

I used to be pretty
I was trusting and good
God loves me
I live in His favor

But I was disappointed
for I thought husbands do not love their wives anymore
They say we all born of harlots
those kind show off their nakedness for money
and built their altars in high places
Offer sacrifice for their idols
of pride and rational thoughts

So I thought, what’s the use of love?
At least I have money from my lovers
My money and beauty saves me

So I harden my heart
I belive that no man can ever love me
for they prefer naked pictures

So I lose trust in the favor of faithfulness
I surrender myself to faithlessness
because I know that soft heart of love gives no life
Only my effort will save me

So I try to be holy
eventhough I know
I am born of a woman
Whose men has left her
and she has failed to love me
because her many men failed her

So I ask, how do I
ever love my children
born of flesh from the seed of men
whose money I sought none love?
Why have I ever thought that
I am capable of loving?

So I search for power
Regulations and politics will save me and my children
Be kind to one another mortals
You are free to speak up your opinions
Morality governs our mortality

At least it wouldn’t be that bad
that we live a short orderly life
So I give up my immortality
for politics and power to regulate
a small sum of life in the world
of secularity

Suddenly I realized that
My wisdom has misled me
My strength has betrayed me
What have I been thinking?
I shouldn’t be here
I have known somebody else:
Have you ever heard of “The Holy Spirit” ?
Have you ever known her?

They say without her there is no church

For she is the good church
whom conceived by the good news from the angels
whose message “My soul proclaim
the greatness of the Lord.
My spirit exults in God My Savior
He has looked upon his servant in her lowliness
And people will forever call me blessed”

She has forever lived
in God’s favor therefore
she was without blemish
for she put her hope and trust in the Lord
So she sing and dance joyous songs
in the presence of the Lord

She has loved her children
because her Husband loves her first
He has never left her nor forsake her
the whole *time He was with her
Through thick and thin, sun and rain
Till death do them part
Then new life has sprung out
The one everlasting

Then I praise the Lord forever
Sing and dance His praise forever
Shed off all my tears away
Shake off all my ways
replace them with God’s way

So no longer I harden my heart
No longer I believe in power and human designs
Destroy all my idols Lord
My pride of my own wisdom
Human authority power and glory
No longer I harden my heart
neither trusting power and money
Greed has no longer live in me

I desire only love Lord
The one faithful and good
and not because of my effort
but because he truly love me

So don’t let me down Lord
Let me find the good one
whom you have prepared for me
since the begining of time
to love me
till death do us part

and then we shall share
the glory You shared since the begining of time
when you first created us
together with the whole universe
and put us into our mothers wombs
and brought us forth
on the day we were born

until the day we meet and fall in love
under the silvery moon light
we bless Your Name on high
for you have created love so pure
that we know the reason why
we ever have to live this wonderful life
to witness and see
the wonderous deeds You do
and to proclaim them to the next generation to come
all the wonder You have done

so that all human race will ever be your praise
just as You have planned it to be
according to your will
since the beginning of time

 

[Warrenton]

Because they wanted to reserve the wives for their own use.

Stick to the point, for pity’s sake.

First you said only Christians regulated sex. I proved this false. Now you say other cultures regulate it but only for sexist purposes. Pray tell, is that better or worse than moral regulation? And what about cultures that permit multiple husbands but not wives, such as in rural Mongolia and Tibet, where presumably, male mortality is much higher than womens?

Otherwise there was a nice and healthy attitude toward sex. It was considered a normal activity aimed at pleasure most of the time.

Other than gangs of slave women in the harems, other than child prostitutes, other than living immolation after the husband’s death, I am sure it was delightful. No doubt, after the shock of being captured from a burning village, “the earth moved” for all of them.

The Kama Sutra was written for nobles and aristocrats. The untouchables and brockomen of the old orient were not spending their time between abuse, grinding poverty, and chattel slavery practicing up on the flying monkey position. They were searching for a spare grain of rice, and selling themselves to get it.

Though I hate to burst the bubble of romantic optimism, after the kids and the bills come, Mrs. Infidel is not going to want to contort herself into the Divine Lotus position at the end of a relaxing day preparing meals, seeing that you catch the 7:15 train, and dealing with all the things a wife and mother needs to deal with all day long.

Can you imagine a Kama Sutra issued under the auspicies of the Vatican?

No more than I can imagine ancient India producing a St. Francis.

By the way, since you brought it up, there was another great phrase… to wit: “Of all the sexual perversions, the most unnatural one is chastity”. It is pretty deep and serious. Think about it

.

We agree - that is a great phrase, (although not serious, I think! ) penned by Aldous Huxley of “Brave New World” fame. What makes it great, as with all Huxley’s observations, is its irony.

Caveat Emptor!

 

[Warrenton]

Just wanted to say the Imperial Palace was full of eunuchs because the emperor did not want to be usurped. A eunuch could not continue their line through heirs, and therefore would see no reason in killing the emperor.

You have got to be joking.

As far as banning porn, (assuming you are in the U.S.) it is borderline impossible due to the 1st amendment. My suggestion: if you don’t like porn, don’t look at it.

 

[KostyaJMJ]

Then how was it regulated between 1789 and 1970?

 

[karow]

Ya’ll come down south! We don’t take too kindly to porn stores near our neighborhoods and it’s funny what conincidences can happen.

The owner of the porn store might find that his car takes a while to get fixed. You know how it goes… Mercedes sometimes puts those hard to find parts like oil and spark plugs on back order, know what I mean? And those keys sometimes get lost.

And it’s funny how the police start a ticket blitz right around the time that the porn store opened too, and set up the drunk driver checkpoint right in front of the store. Man, what a coincidence! And the local TV station covered the whole event - had camers everywhere and one of those vans with the dish antenna on the pole and everything.

And zoning laws can chage like the weather down here. You never know. One minute you are zoned industrial and the next minute they find one of those endagered species nearby or an underground aquifer and suddenly there is a bond on the ballot to buy the land up for greenspace.

And then there is public safety. At any time there could be a road hazard that requires emergency construction. They don’t build them roads like they used to. Some of that road repair equipment is tough to move around and I’ve seen it block the entrance to store parking lots for extended periods of time. It really is a shame for the porn… er… store owner, but the safety of our motoring public comes first down here.

Yea, these things happen sometimes. It’s a shame but here in the South, we believe that everyone has to pitch in don’t really mind having to take one for the team once in a while.

-Tim-

Brick and mortar commerce is dying on the vine, my friend, especially in the adult entertainment sector (Brick-and-Mortar Retailers Moving Business Online as Foot Traffic Declines). Even Las Vegas is having trouble keeping their adult bookstores running!

Municipalities can harass small business owners and patrons until the cows come home, but that’s just going to drive folks online faster and in greater numbers, which is where most of the action is now anyway (pun intended).

The interwebs have brought us a brand new world, my friend.