Should graphic pornography be banned?

[freeRadical]

How do you know that the prostitute is consenting or, in some cases, an adult?

How do you know she is not consenting or an adult?

 

[edwest2]

Iran, Pakistan, North Korea and China.

These are the countries you wish to emulate?

This is about human dignity for all, not particular countries. Countries have nothing to do with the fact that turning an intimate act into a public spectacle is degrading. It dehumanizes. It causes the person to become an object. Respect matters. These types of things are designed to remove shame or guilt and create people who are conditioned to think it’s OK.

That’s somebody’s daughter, sister, brother, wife on there. We should ban human degradation. Pornography is designed to be addictive. Read up on the Opium Wars. Creating addiction is a marketing strategy. Addictive behaviors are not healthy.

Ed

 

[freeRadical]

This is about human dignity for all, not particular countries. Countries have nothing to do with the fact that turning an intimate act into a public spectacle is degrading. It dehumanizes. It causes the person to become an object. Respect matters. These types of things are designed to remove shame or guilt and create people who are conditioned to think it’s OK.

That’s somebody’s daughter, sister, brother, wife on there. We should ban human degradation. Pornography is designed to be addictive. Read up on the Opium Wars. Creating addiction is a marketing strategy. Addictive behaviors are not healthy.

Ed

I would rather have dangerous freedom then peaceful slavery. We have free will, we have liberty. You might be okay with taking that away, but I am not.

 

[Bruised_Reed]

How do you know she is not consenting or an adult?

I would take into consideration the possibility that the prostitute was coerced, possibly violently to make herself available sexually and look like she’s into it. I would avoid any possibility that I might actually be raping someone and wouldn’t want to give the impression that using a prostitute was acceptable lest I mislead another into unwittingly raping someone.

 

[freeRadical]

I would take into consideration the possibility that the prostitute was coerced, possibly violently to make herself available sexually and look like she’s into it. I would avoid any possibility that I might actually be raping someone and wouldn’t want to give the impression that using a prostitute was acceptable lest I mislead another into unwittingly raping someone.

Which makes it easier for a prostitute to be taken advantage of? Prostitution being illegal or legal? Pushing it into the shadows does not help the prostitutes, it harms them.

If it was legal, the government could regulate it like it does any other business. Labor laws would apply and the prostitutes would have redress for wrongs done to them through the court system.

 

[Bruised_Reed]

Which makes it easier for a prostitute to be taken advantage of? Prostitution being illegal or legal? Pushing it into the shadows does not help the prostitutes, it harms them.

If it was legal, the government could regulate it like it does any other business. Labor laws would apply and the prostitutes would have redress for wrongs done to them through the court system.

Who do you think makes the trafficking of children and women so easy? Government officials.

 

[987mk]

Who do you think makes the trafficking of children and women so easy? Government officials.

Who do you think makes the abuse of children so easy in the Catholic Church? Church officials.

I can play your game just as well as you.

 

[edwest2]

I would rather have dangerous freedom then peaceful slavery. We have free will, we have liberty. You might be okay with taking that away, but I am not.

Can you define ‘peaceful slavery’?

Peace,
Ed

 

[Bruised_Reed]

Who do you think makes the abuse of children so easy in the Catholic Church? Church officials.

I doubt that you are suggesting making child sexual abuse legal so it can be regulated, because that regulation by the government was context I was replying to.

I can play your game just as well as you.

Please, understand that I am not playing a game. The movement to fight trafficking and exploitation is one I’m passionate about.

But since you think it’s a game, know that I won’t be playing it with you.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

I think it was about Larry Flint or some guy like that trying to explain to the Supreme Court that his [pornography] was art. I think in the end he won.

I mentioned it in an earlier post. It’s “The People v Larry Flint,” Sony Pictures 1996. They have the entire movie on YouTube. I would post a link, but I might be violating Catholic Forums’s content guidelines if I did so.

Mr Flint was being sued for pornography and for something he wrote to the relevance that the (now late) Jerry Falwell had his first sexual experience with his mother in an outhouse.

Some key lines from the movie:
Defense Lawyer:

Justice Scallia, there is no line between the two because really what you are talking about is a matter of taste and not law. As you yourself said I believe in Pope v Illinois ‘It’s useless to argue about taste and more useless to litigate it.’ And that is the case here. The Jury has already determined for us that this is a matter of taste and not a matter of law.

The People vs. Larry Flint:

Lawyer:

But isn’t a community allowed to set it’s own standards?

Flint:

"No, that’s just a disguise for censorship. This country belongs to me as much as it belongs to you.If you don’t like Hustler Magazine don’t read it.

Lawyer:

I don’t! But what about the innocent children who gaze upon your magazine in the grocery store?

Flint:

Well…Look…you know if a teenage gets caught drinkin’ beer in a tavern we don’t ban Budweiser across the nation.

Defense Lawyer:

You have got to go back in that room and make some decisions. And there is one thing I want to be very clear about. I am not trying to convince you that you should like what Larry Flint does. I–I don’t like what Larry Flint does. But what I do like is that I live in a country where you and I can make that decision for ourselves. I like that I live in a country where I can pick up Hustler magazine and read it if I want to or throw it in a garbage can if that’s where I think it belongs. Or better yet I can exercise my opinion and not buy it. I like that I have that right. I care about it. And you should care about it too. You really should. Because we live in a free country. You know, we say that a lot but sometimes I think we forget really what that means. So listen to it again. We live in a free country. And that is a powerful idea. That’s a magnificent way to live. But there’s a price for that freedom which is that sometimes we have to tolerate things that we don’t necessarily like. So go back to that room where you are free to think. what ever you want to think about Larry Flint and Hustler Magazine. But then ask yourselves if you want to make that decision for the rest of us. Because the freedom that everyone in this room enjoys is in a very real way in your hands. And if we start throwing up walls against what some of us think is obscene, we may very well wake up one morning and realize walls have been thrown up in all kinds of places that we never expected. And we can’t see anything or do anything. And that’s not freedom. That is not freedom. So, be careful. Thank you.

 

[Cimachol]

If it infringes on somebody else’s right to life, liberty, or property.

What, in your opinion, would justify making porn and prostitution illegal?

That I believe individuals have the right to come together and decide what kind of society they want to live in, and set rules that help to maintain that kind of society. While society must respect the rights of the individual, I do not consider immoral behavior to be a moral right.

Further, I believe society has an obligation to do what it can to protect individuals from exploitation (always following the principal of “first, do no harm,” however). Prostitution and pornography are by their very nature exploitative, robbing individuals of their dignity.

I’m highly skeptical about whether we CAN stop pornography through reasonable legislation (e.g. legislation that doesn’t require excessive individual surveillance or put excessive control over all speech into the hands of government), but I have no problem with banning pornography on basic moral grounds.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

How do you know that the prostitute is consenting or, in some cases, an adult?

My advice, if you are not confident that the person you decide to have sex with is an adult then it may be a bad idea to initiate or accept sex from that person. For people within my age group this is a non-issue. This can vary depending on country, presents absence of Romeo and Juliet laws, and so on. You may want to check out the laws in your jurisdiction to get an applicable answer. The answer to this question for where I live may not be a good answer for where you live. You may also want to check out the laws in your area for determining consent.

Though I’m not sure how on topic all of this is.

 

[edwest2]

The government argument holds no water. Legislation is not required. Please, expose government wrongdoing with facts, do the research and be constructive.

People with the ability to report and eliminate graphic pornography from the internet is all you need. And I’ll bet there are plenty of retired people with the time and knowledge to do this. Sure, pornographers will do what they can but life is a daily struggle. We’re not talking about something people need. We are talking about something poisonous. Addiction is not healthy.

Ed

 

[Bradski]

Bradski, I have decided that nearly all atheists are moral relativists. So I don’t expect to persuade you that I have moral values and common sense on my side.

Moral relativism exists because, simply put, different people have different ideas about what is right and what is wrong. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to you. Even Catholics in this thread have different opinions in regards to pornography.

I’m not sure why, as an atheist, you think that I could not be persuaded that you have moral values. Of course you have moral values. They are yours and yours alone. Most of them align with the Catholic church. The same with all Catholics. But I guarantee you wouldn’t be able to find a single Catholic on the planet that agreed with every view you hold on every subject. Even when you would appear to agree, there is always, and I mean always, a variation on what you would both nominate as acceptable.

If the church has no specific guidelines on a particular matter, are you right in all cases and everyone else wrong? Are you the only person who is capable of making the right decisions? Is a perfect world one in which you agree with every single decision? Should we all defer to you in all things?

Yes, I know you have moral values. It’s impossible to exist without them. But despite them being almost identical to most Catholics, they are yours are yours alone. And, whether you believe it or not, I fully support your right to have them. And I really expect you to support my right to have my values as well whether you agree with them or not. In fact, especially if you disagree with them.

Putting up with the Larry Flints of this world is the price of living in a free society.

 

[edwest2]

Moral relativism exists because, simply put, different people have different ideas about what is right and what is wrong. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to you. Even Catholics in this thread have different opinions in regards to pornography.

I’m not sure why, as an atheist, you think that I could not be persuaded that you have moral values. Of course you have moral values. They are yours and yours alone. Most of them align with the Catholic church. The same with all Catholics. But I guarantee you wouldn’t be able to find a single Catholic on the planet that agreed with every view you hold on every subject. Even when you would appear to agree, there is always, and I mean always, a variation on what you would both nominate as acceptable.

If the church has no specific guidelines on a particular matter, are you right in all cases and everyone else wrong? Are you the only person who is capable of making the right decisions? Is a perfect world one in which you agree with every single decision? Should we all defer to you in all things?

Yes, I know you have moral values. It’s impossible to exist without them. But despite them being almost identical to most Catholics, they are yours are yours alone. And, whether you believe it or not, I fully support your right to have them. And I really expect you to support my right to have my values as well whether you agree with them or not. In fact, especially if you disagree with them.

Putting up with the Larry Flints of this world is the price of living in a free society.

A free society is not based on opinions. Just because we can now see prostitutes in action does not change human behavior. It does not change right and wrong. Some laws that were made in the past were wrong, this is one of them.

What is moral and right is not just based on religion alone but by human experience with the same things, generation after generation. The wisdom of the ages is still with us. Believer or nonbeliever, no one has the right to call good bad or right wrong. Disagreement on fundamental human dignity is relativism and relativism leads to anarchy and a reversion to tribalism. There is nothing modern about that. Porn is not progress. It is a poison that affects hearts and minds.

All men are called from within to be the best they can be, to instill values in their children. Again, if the society is just a mass of people all going in different directions then true society will no longer exist - not a healthy society. Only tribes. No one needs my permission to do anything, but I will continue to speak against this as often as I can.

Ed

 

[inocente]

“How’s your mother Jose?”

Well, that lets the boy know that his mother just might find out he is into porn, so the saleslady is not necessarily approving.

By the way, in Spain is it legal to sell porno to minors?

It was more a “boys will be boys” smile than disapproving, .

In Spain child pornography is illegal across the board. I believe there is no age restriction on sale of adult porn, although with wide availability on the net it’s somewhat irrelevant. Apparently sites such as twitter carry adverts for porn which are displayed to children.

inocente, are you a moral relativist? Do you approve of selling porn to minors?

No to the second. As for the first, no, but it’s like me asking you, do you still beat your wife. In moral philosophy, relativism is an umbrella term for several very different positions. For example you and most people probably hold with descriptive moral relativism. So you would need to ask a more specific question rather than oversimplifying.

What do you mean by pornography? The dictionary definition is depiction of behavior intended to arouse sexual excitement, whereas CCC 2354 defines it more tightly as depiction of real or simulated sexual acts.

The magazine José bought probably only contained pictures of nudes and not pictures of sex acts, and so doesn’t seem to be what CCC 2354 means by porn.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

If it infringes on somebody else’s right to life, liberty, or property.

What, in your opinion, would justify making porn and prostitution illegal?

We do not have the right to own a nuclear weapon.

Such things are dangerous and kill indiscriminately.

We do not have a right to porn.

Porn is epidemic and kills indiscriminately. It can kill not only the body (especially the bodies of those who act in porn movies, as has been fully documented), but also the soul even when it does not kill the body. Porn make sex into a fetish, when it should be the act of loving partners and procreation.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Putting up with the Larry Flints of this world is the price of living in a free society.

No sir. Putting up with the Larry flints of the world is putting up with filth.

When filth appears on a street, most sane people would not defend its presence there. They call the sanitation department and demand that it be removed.

You don’t have to agree that porn is filth. You may even like it. Moral relativism does tend make a porn user feel justified. But I believe that anyone with morals is ashamed of owning porn materials and hides them from the world and would not be caught dead in a porn movie.

I am not infallible. But my Church is. And my Church teaches me that porn is evil and the devil loves it.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

No to the second. As for the first, no, but it’s like me asking you, do you still beat your wife. In moral philosophy, relativism is an umbrella term for several very different positions. For example you and most people probably hold with descriptive moral relativism. So you would need to ask a more specific question rather than oversimplifying.

Please define descriptive moral relativism. Thank you.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

But I believe that anyone with morals is ashamed of owning porn materials and hides them from the world and would not be caught dead in a porn movie.

The possession of porn doesn’t exclude some one from having moral convictions. Depending on one’s purpose for watching porn it may be an activity better done at home and possibly with the person with which sexual intercourse may occur if any. Being in a movie theater may be a little too restrictive.