If We Can Ban Terrorism Campaign, then Why Can't We Ban Porn?

[francisca]

The federal government has used its power to make it hard to get pirated media content. It hasn’t made it completely disappear. But it takes much more effort to get. You can’t casually find it like you can porn. I think at least making it hard to get would help.
In the case of porn the biggest channel is the Internet. It would be easy to restrict access because the majority of people get it through just a few providers. I imagine this is also the reason it doesn’t get stopped. The government isn’t about to burden ISPs unless it is for the profit of major media companies, which often times are the same company as the ISP.

Exactly. If they can fight piracy and terrorism, they should be able to fight porn too, technically.

I think there are many people see the harmfulness of porn and want it to stop, but the problem is in the detail of the law and the operation of information business itself. How to be fair for everyone, to uphold first amendment but to do censorship/ content blocking.

Up to now I think (I may change my mind later) that censorship/ content-blocking is not the way to go. Rather, we define porn as something malicious/ harmful for our existance so that it won’t stand equal with other non-malicious/ harmless information.

 

[francisca]

I mean, sure we can still try to block them as much as we can: request ISP blocking, file complaints for community standard, but it has shown evidence that its not very effective (for the latter, it seems very tedious, who has time to do it one program by one program). I am saying if we want to ban them completely, then censorship and content blocking can’t really do it, unless they provide easier way to file complaints (like youtube buttons), then it may be effective tool to set up community standard in a powerful manner: just one click every time obcenity/indicent content appear.

 

[frangiuliano115]

Isn’t it rather tedious to everytime file a complaint for every single program on specific day/time describing the dialog and so on.
I think youtube way to report malicious content is good because the button is provided. Youtube is very resonsive. In the past my youtube was littered with nudity (korean 18+ movies, european programs can appear from nowhere). After I reported two three times, it disappear completely).

Went to Edwest’s link.

And, yes, you’re right Francisca. It can be very tedious to file a complaint every time on an individual basis. Know why?

So many programs on TV meet the 3 prong test for indecency!

Sad, isn’t it?

Not much more to add. I’ll be following along.

Fran

 

[friardchips]

Hi. Been following this thread on and off. Decent points that have been raised on this forum before. I remember the last thread I was totally up for porn being banned at the start. Then I thought about how it is that education has such a powerful part to play in fostering virtue and that not everyone has the same experiences in life making it easy to just drop something and replace it with something else. Evil to good. Eventually I decided that it is up for the manufacturing of porn to be regulated otherwise it is the consumer, and not the wealthy businessman (they get away with it), who pays the price. One poster on here I know supports absolute banning of porn. But I think we have to be careful about who we are putting pressure on.

Is it up to us and the government, to enforce a person’s desire except in the cases of actual crime, or is this our Creator’s role in guiding the individual’s morality and fantasies away from vulgar pleasures?

Is it the consumer who for whatever reason might find staying away from porn hard (or in some cases doesn’t care) when stuck in vice or is it the producers who are the ones that are responsible here? Check the facts:

Producer

• Manipulates actors and actresses into doing what they do.
• Possibly takes advantage of slave trade.
• Knows full well they are manipulating and perverting the individual’s natural sexual inclinations and possibly causing them to be disordered - actors and consumers.
• Would put pressure on people who wish to leave to stay.
• Possibly involve themselves in other businesses also against the common good.
• Making money.
• Destroying lives.
• Promotes a business that is the cause of diseases and sometimes death and abortions.

How many top-level business people get away with real orgies? How many foreign businessmen are let into these countries and given business extras while security turns a blind eye? How many businessmen in this country completely do what they want without comeback? So why should everyday people live in fear and not them? And what about people with other addictions - so porn gets banned which is okay for someone with a drink addiction but if drink was banned they’d go ballistic! Or if they are a successful person with money and they trip up once or twice with porn then all is well for them but not for others!

In my opinion, if governments want to do something about the problem then they have to begin with educating people - which isn’t likely at present because educational programmes are apparently being run in schools where children are shown sexual imagery; this is in the U.K - and also making porn opt-in with their servers or having private blogs in which people can do what they want between themselves and others they know without making it public.
If people want to go and be lusty between themselves that is up to them but we always have to be careful that whatever the cure, it is not the people at the bottom who get it in the neck, but those who manipulate and coerce and have their minds on their bank accounts.

One other thing. When porn was more behind closed doors, there were problems with BBC cover ups!, there were problems with Freemason secretive-style satanic stuff, more murders and missing persons, more one night stands and adultery, and the weird horrid things that went on behind the daily running of every day life. In fact, the moment it all went up on the net and those who were really indulging in illegal stuff were at least less likely to do it and in many cases stopped because their online dealings were, with some effort, tracked. At the moment, people with a conscience, who want to fight for good things, have an opportunity to go where people are hurting. I don’t mean to join in! I mean that people are exposing themselves. So the fact they are bring transparent about their baser desires and exposing themselves is a handy mirror held up to society that shows us there are problems that before the internet we didn’t necessarily know there were. People have a chance to put pressure on governments (as a response) to spend money on social reforms.

Porn is bad, so penalise those at the top of the power ladder, and educate those at the bottom.

 

[friardchips]

…otherwise, where do you draw the line? Should Yoga be banned? Should gym-wear be banned? Should everything promiscuous be banned? As another poster said: should 18-rated films be banned? If people are educated in the ways of love and morality then no one will view the stuff anyway. Let’s not give governments yet another easy and lazy way out of their share of the responsibility with their usual blanket persecute-the-general-public solutions!

 

[Rohzek]

As much as pornography is immoral, I am surprised that people continue to believe in the myth that it increases divorce, fornication, abortion, etc.

Any dude here who has masturbated before hanging out with a girl knows that 9 times out of 10, it makes you less interested in doing anything with her etc. Why? Because afterwards, you have a refractionary period. And if you aren’t interested in the girl during this period, then chances are, the only reason you were interested in her in the first place was because of your libido, not because you found her personally interesting.

 

[friardchips]

As much as pornography is immoral, I am surprised that people continue to believe in the myth that it increases divorce, fornication, abortion, etc.

Any dude here who has masturbated before hanging out with a girl knows that 9 times out of 10, it makes you less interested in doing anything with her etc. Why? Because afterwards, you have a refractionary period. And if you aren’t interested in the girl during this period, then chances are, the only reason you were interested in her in the first place was because of your libido, not because you found her personally interesting.

There are accounts of women who in the slave trade in which women are sold as sex workers have gotten pregnant and been forced into having abortions.

I bet you there are wives and husbands who have split due to porn. Or when porn has been viewed the spouse decides that the grass is greener elsewhere, maybe when the couple is going through a difficult stage.

Also, people get immune to what they see. For example, in the days of page 3 and saucy TV programs, people probably made do with those things. A certain amount was left to the imagination. Porn comes on the scene and suddenly it is not enough for a nude to stand there exposed from waist upwards, no, suddenly there has to be more and more and more until…one might as well be in the room with them (as a PM sensibly once said). Porn develops dark tunnels in the mind and then festers away in these newly found unlit rooms of the subconscious. satan likes to take advantage of people’s weaknesses and psychological trauma and so we have to do our bit by stopping that from happening…

…the world is in need of healing and pornography is the proof.

 

[exnihilo]

Exactly. If they can fight piracy and terrorism, they should be able to fight porn too, technically.

They absolutely can technically fight porn. They choose not to. I don’t think it is in the states interest to fight it, thus they don’t.

Is it up to us and the government, to enforce a person’s desire except in the cases of actual crime, or is this our Creator’s role in guiding the individual’s morality and fantasies away from vulgar pleasures?

Is it the consumer who for whatever reason might find staying away from porn hard (or in some cases doesn’t care) when stuck in vice or is it the producers who are the ones that are responsible here?..

In my opinion, if governments want to do something about the problem then they have to begin with educating people - which isn’t likely at present because educational programmes are apparently being run in schools where children are shown sexual imagery; this is in the U.K - and also making porn opt-in with their servers or having private blogs in which people can do what they want between themselves and others they know without making it public.
If people want to go and be lusty between themselves that is up to them but we always have to be careful that whatever the cure, it is not the people at the bottom who get it in the neck, but those who manipulate and coerce and have their minds on their bank accounts.

…

Porn is bad, so penalise those at the top of the power ladder, and educate those at the bottom.

It is the governments job to enforce morality to some extent. All laws have a moral basis. It might not be prudent to involve the state in some aspects of our lives. It might not be pragmatic to. I don’t think the government should be involved in education at all. I think it should simply enforce laws. Leave it to parents, the Church and other institutions to teach morality.

The thing about porn is it is very attractive, and addictive, to many people. The law regulates or punishes all sorts of things that are considered addictive and bad for you. You can’t buy cigarettes if you are under 18. And when you do you are forced to see labels that tell you how bad they are. How much worse for you is the pornography that comes unrestricted into the homes of children? How much worse is the porn that young kids can get on the mobile devices so many now carry?

The government can regulate films for content. The government can regulate TV for content. Why can’t it regulate the internet for porn content? The catechism defines porn as:

Pornography consists in removing real or simulated sexual acts from the intimacy of the partners, in order to display them deliberately to third parties.

I think this is a pretty simple and clear definition. I think we can pretty well know what pornography is. There might be some edge cases. But we can define a huge amount of content as pornography.

…otherwise, where do you draw the line? Should Yoga be banned? Should gym-wear be banned? Should everything promiscuous be banned? As another poster said: should 18-rated films be banned? If people are educated in the ways of love and morality then no one will view the stuff anyway. Let’s not give governments yet another easy and lazy way out of their share of the responsibility with their usual blanket persecute-the-general-public solutions!

You draw the line at pornography. It really isn’t that hard to figure out. If a teacher were to show a pornographic film to his students would there be any doubt that is a wrong and would there be any possibility that not be prosecuted as a crime?

 

[friardchips]

They absolutely can technically fight porn. They choose not to. I don’t think it is in the states interest to fight it, thus they don’t.

It is the governments job to enforce morality to some extent. All laws have a moral basis. It might not be prudent to involve the state in some aspects of our lives. It might not be pragmatic to. I don’t think the government should be involved in education at all. I think it should simply enforce laws. Leave it to parents, the Church and other institutions to teach morality.

The thing about porn is it is very attractive, and addictive, to many people. The law regulates or punishes all sorts of things that are considered addictive and bad for you. You can’t buy cigarettes if you are under 18. And when you do you are forced to see labels that tell you how bad they are. How much worse for you is the pornography that comes unrestricted into the homes of children? How much worse is the porn that young kids can get on the mobile devices so many now carry?

The government can regulate films for content. The government can regulate TV for content. Why can’t it regulate the internet for porn content? The catechism defines porn as:

Pornography consists in removing real or simulated sexual acts from the intimacy of the partners, in order to display them deliberately to third parties.

I think this is a pretty simple and clear definition. I think we can pretty well know what pornography is. There might be some edge cases. But we can define a huge amount of content as pornography.

You draw the line at pornography. It really isn’t that hard to figure out. If a teacher were to show a pornographic film to his students would there be any doubt that is a wrong and would there be any possibility that not be prosecuted as a crime?

I meant teach morality, not show immorality!

 

[Rohzek]

There are accounts of women who in the slave trade in which women are sold as sex workers have gotten pregnant and been forced into having abortions.

I bet you there are wives and husbands who have split due to porn. Or when porn has been viewed the spouse decides that the grass is greener elsewhere, maybe when the couple is going through a difficult stage.

If a simple video destroys a marriage, then it wasn’t much of a marriage in the first place. Either that, or there were other serious problems in the relationship. Porn is rarely the sole factor except in the extreme cases when one spouse spends tens of thousands of dollars on pornography. That’s an exceptionally rare case though.

Also, sex trafficking is not the same as pornography. Furthermore, pornstars hardly ever get pregnant because they use birth control.

 

[edwest2]

As much as pornography is immoral, I am surprised that people continue to believe in the myth that it increases divorce, fornication, abortion, etc.

Any dude here who has masturbated before hanging out with a girl knows that 9 times out of 10, it makes you less interested in doing anything with her etc. Why? Because afterwards, you have a refractionary period. And if you aren’t interested in the girl during this period, then chances are, the only reason you were interested in her in the first place was because of your libido, not because you found her personally interesting.

The pornographers knew what would happen when graphic pornography became available throughout the West in so-called “Adult Bookstores” starting in the 1970s.

catholicnewsagency.com/resources/life-and-family/pornography/the-harmful-effects-of-pornography/

catholiceducation.org/en/marriage-and-family/sexuality/executive-summary-the-effects-of-pornography-on-individuals-marriage-family-and-community.html

Ed

 

[friardchips]

It is the governments job to enforce morality to some extent. All laws have a moral basis. It might not be prudent to involve the state in some aspects of our lives. It might not be pragmatic to.

Yes, but the enforceable laws are the ones in which, by means of obtaining said-thing or committing said-crime, someone is getting obviously hurt or some boss somewhere is profiting. Yes, porn does hurt someone down the line and businesses make money and so it is right businesses could be targeted but for much of it it is not about physical hurt but lust and this is through people’s consent.

I don’t think the government should be involved in education at all. I think it should simply enforce laws. Leave it to parents, the Church and other institutions to teach morality.

So the government should stop people looking at pornography and yet not care about morality. So why is the government involved at all then. They are not the police.

The thing about porn is it is very attractive, and addictive, to many people. The law regulates or punishes all sorts of things that are considered addictive and bad for you. You can’t buy cigarettes if you are under 18. And when you do you are forced to see labels that tell you how bad they are. How much worse for you is the pornography that comes unrestricted into the homes of children? How much worse is the porn that young kids can get on the mobile devices so many now carry?

Again, this can be stopped by opt-in search for the internet. At the moment, there are cases of kids looking at this stuff of their friends and then being put on offender lists thus ruining their lives. Good, eh?! But businessmen can get away with organising all sorts of stuff and the security forces look the other way.

The government can regulate films for content. The government can regulate TV for content. Why can’t it regulate the internet for porn content?

It cannot regulate that which is consensual other than opt-ins where the people looking have to register with their name etc… And sex is something that one cannot criminalise in the same way as drugs or murder because it does not involve anything but the people themselves giving their consent to a bodily indulgence. Maybe publishing it could be illegal but I don’t think it will help because then businesses will just go underground where everything is seedier and ten times more dangerous again, and harder to track.

The catechism defines porn as:

Pornography consists in removing real or simulated sexual acts from the intimacy of the partners, in order to display them deliberately to third parties.

I think this is a pretty simple and clear definition. I think we can pretty well know what pornography is. There might be some edge cases. But we can define a huge amount of content as pornography.

Porn is sinful. But if it is illegal then we become totalitarian and theocratic. People need to learn not that if they indulge themselves in lust they will be prosecuted but rather that if they indulge in these things they will not learn how to be loved. The nuance here is a grand canyon of difference. People’s consciences need to grow not their fear. To me, I think pornography points out the vast emptiness people feel in their lives, not how evil and worth prosecuting people are.

You draw the line at pornography. It really isn’t that hard to figure out. If a teacher were to show a pornographic film to his students would there be any doubt that is a wrong and would there be any possibility that not be prosecuted as a crime?

Already answered. Thank you for responding to my post.

 

[Darryl_Revok]

The government can regulate films for content. The government can regulate TV for content. Why can’t it regulate the internet for porn content?

The government absolutely cannot regulate films for content. The only reason X/NC-17 films are not widely distributed is due to the pressures of the marketplace. The only reason the government can regulate television for content is because the government is the only one that can issue broadcast licenses; very early in the days of radio, the government imposed its will on the airwaves.

The reason for the failure of internet regulation is simple; any government control of the internet disappears at the American borders. You might ban internet porn in America, but how can you stop the production of internet porn in Japan, Eastern Europe, etc. etc.?

The only alternative is to throw up something like China’s great internet wall to keep foreign porn at bay. Does anyone *really *want to give the government that much power over what people can and cannot see?

 

[friardchips]

If a simple video destroys a marriage, then it wasn’t much of a marriage in the first place. Either that, or there were other serious problems in the relationship. Porn is rarely the sole factor except in the extreme cases when one spouse spends tens of thousands of dollars on pornography. That’s an exceptionally rare case though.

Okay but how do people know for sure, that those appearing in porn films are not married, or were married?

Also, sex trafficking is not the same as pornography. Furthermore, pornstars hardly ever get pregnant because they use birth control.

A lot of pornography is made in very poor countries like Taiwan and also eastern Europe. And often this has happened due to trafficking. And yes, they do get pregnant. And also catch a variety of diseases. Look up Matt Fradd. He appears on this forum and speaks about such things. He has done research speaking to women involved in the porn industry, or so I thought. I don’t about the trafficking industry but certainly mainstream. And if the mainstream is dodgy then what is the level of dark stuff in that which is not considered mainstream.

 

[friardchips]

The only alternative is to throw up something like China’s great internet wall to keep foreign porn at bay. Does anyone *really *want to give the government that much power over what people can and cannot see?

This, is the problem.

 

[friardchips]

Leave it to parents, the Church and other institutions to teach morality.

Parents - yes. They need to take a greater measure with greater concern to teach morals and restrict access to harmful material.

Church - yes. It already does but maybe could do with having a ‘Year of No Porn Witness’, or something, where Catholics can opt in to a joint agreement to not look at porn for a year, thus getting over their addictions, and non-Catholics could join in too, and people of other faiths!

Institutions - yes. Social reform. Money spent. The cards of care laid on the table. Communities sense of care for the needy and outcasts reformed.

Government - yes. To stop being Capitalist muppets that work for the wealthy to get richer and the poor to be downtrodden; instead, working for everyday people who can be valued for the fact they are human and not for their external productivity (utilitarianism) and wealth; in addition, where looking after the neighbour, and marriage and family, are shown to be good things, and rewarded, as opposed to neglect and individualism, which serves only to map out all sorts of escapist avenues, and leads often to loneliness, and behaviour that reflects this, in the lives of the general public.

 

[pnewton]

Those porn sites will complain/ sue ISP if ISP block their sites, they have the right of exposure like everyone else, under the freedom of speech protection. This can’t be done this way. ISP has no authority to do so I suppose (technically they’re capable to do so, but they have no authority to do so).

This is why it would need to be enacting. One can only sue for wrong done under the law. Change the law and no grounds would exist. Again, free speech is not universal. That is why we do not have child porn or terroristic threat legal. There is no guarantee of right to porn.

 

[pnewton]

Also, I will note, that ISPs, any business, is not required normally to offer specific services. Without the Net Neutrality Act, which can be amended or stopped completely, an ISP would no more have to provide internet access to porn that the cable company has to provide porn channels. I always thought that behind all the rhetoric of that Net Neutrality Act crept the same carnal lusts that drive so much of our society today. We wrap up our civility in a package of modernity, but the core remains the same black heart that destroyed Sodom.

 

[frangiuliano115]

If a simple video destroys a marriage, then it wasn’t much of a marriage in the first place. Either that, or there were other serious problems in the relationship. Porn is rarely the sole factor except in the extreme cases when one spouse spends tens of thousands of dollars on pornography. That’s an exceptionally rare case though.

Also, sex trafficking is not the same as pornography. Furthermore, pornstars hardly ever get pregnant because they use birth control.

Your first pp is not true Rohzek. We’re not talking about one video here.

Some women actually feel abandoned by their porn addicted husbands, some feel cheated upon, some feel intimidated, some feel there must be something lacking in the relationship for him to resort to his. Most of the time there is an addiction which is difficult to stop, thus reenforcing all of the above feelings.

And, I’m sure we’ve all read about what a real problem this is becoming - a real addiction, like drugs - not something done just for entertainment.

 

[Darryl_Revok]

This is why it would need to be enacting. One can only sue for wrong done under the law. Change the law and no grounds would exist. Again, free speech is not universal. That is why we do not have child porn or terroristic threat legal. There is no guarantee of right to porn.

Free speech is not universal, but the reason there is access to pornography is that the government has shown itself unable to discern between indecency and obscenity. The former is protected by the first amendment; the latter is not.