Should we ban pornography?

[Xelsis]

Given that the point being argued against is that incompatibility is permanent...

Where did either of us claim that incompatibility is permanent? I challenge you to find either of us making that claim.

Here.

Look dude sex is extremely important in a relationship. If I'm not sexually compatible with someone it's generally not going to work out.

Not "If I'm not sexually compatible with someone, I'll need to become compatible.

If compatibility can be modified, it is, for general intents and purposes, simply preferences, which is my point.

[Alvecia]

Where did either of us claim that incompatibility is permanent? I challenge you to find either of us making that claim.

Here.

Look dude sex is extremely important in a relationship. If I'm not sexually compatible with someone it's generally not going to work out.

Not "If I'm not sexually compatible with someone, I'll need to become compatible.

If compatibility can be modified, it is, for general intents and purposes, simply preferences, which is my point.

It's not that modifiable. Sexual tastes can be quite broad, but I think you'd struggle to get someone to do an about face.

[Xelsis]

Once again, arguing that freedom of speech goes, in some cases, beyond speech, does not mean that it goes beyond speech in all cases. Some jurisprudence was earlier cited on the specific matter of pornography.

And I'll repeat this for those who didn't read it:

The Supreme Court's consistent position has been that "obscenity is not within the area of constitutionally protected speech or press"Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476 (1957)). Nevertheless, there has been substantial discussion about empirical evidence justifying this conclusion.

Setting out the scope of the inquiry:

United States v. Roth, 1956, 237 F.2d 796

Roth had been convicted in a district court of distributing material alleged to be "obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy and of an indecent character", and had been imprisoned for five years; on appeal, he claimed that the statute he had been convicted under violated the First Amendment.

The judge in this case, Judge Frank, was responsive to social science evidence. (Eight years earlier, in a trademark case, Triangle Publications v. Rohrlich, 167 F.2d 969, he had conducted his own impromptu survey of "adolescent girls and their mothers and sisters" to establish whether there was likelihood of consumer confusion between a magazine and a girdle called "Seventeen" and "Miss Seventeen.") He was of the opinion that Congress could legitimately limit the sale of publications if there was "moderately substantial reliable data" showing that reading or seeing those publications "conduces to seriously harmful sexual conduct on the part of normal adult human beings".

However, in his opinion there was no such data. Judge Frank did not cite a particular study but an overview of contemporary psychological literature that suggested no research evidence either to prove or disprove the assumption that "reading about sexual matters or about violence and brutality leads to anti-social actions." It is notable that violent material and sexual material were not separated out for the purposes of this literature review, which distorts its relevance to the specific issue of whether exposure to obscenity increases delinquency.

Paris Adult Theatre 1 v. Slaton and Stanley v. Georgia: does the question fall within the remit of social science at all?

Despite Judge Frank's call for "thorough-going studies by competent persons which justify the conclusion that normal adults' reading or seeing of the obscene probably induces anti-social conduct", the use of social science evidence to answer this question was not necessarily a given....

In Stanley v. Georgia 394 U.S. 557 (1969), the Supreme Court held that a Georgia statute forbidding possession of obscene material was unconstitutional, distinguishing the holding from Roth on the grounds that the individual in question had not sold or disseminated the allegedly obscene films, but merely possessed them. "If the First Amendment means anything," wrote Justice Marshall for the Court, "it means that a State has no business telling a man, sitting alone in his own house, what books he may read or what films he may watch."

Notably, the state of Georgia did not raise any social science evidence in support of its prosecution. The Court wrote, "there appears to be little empirical basis" for Georgia's assertion that "exposure to obscene materials may lead to deviant sexual behavior or crimes of sexual violence", citing the same literature review cited by Judge Frank in United States v. Roth, and another article considering behaviour science investigations in this area, "Sex Censorship: The Assumptions of Anti-Obscenity Laws and the Empirical Evidence" (46 Minn.L.Rev. 1009). This second article concludes that that although there is some empirical evidence that sexual cues do lead to sexual behaviour, [color=#FF0000]there is no data on whether it leads to criminal behaviour,[/color] and as the state of empirical evidence was not changed from Roth, the court was justified in citing it in response to Georgia's claimed justification for the statute.

Social science evidence as legislative fact: Report of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography (1970)

The holding in Stanley v. Georgia prompted Congress to set up a President's Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, with the aim of establishing, among other things, the relationship of pornography to crime and other antisocial conduct. Its conclusion, based on the empirical research it had both commissioned and reviewed, was that exposure to erotica materials was not a factor in the causation of sex crime or sex delinquency.

This conclusion was based on several empirical studies. A 1970 study (Kupperstein and Wilson) compared the increasing availability of sexual materials in the United States between 1960 and 1969 with juvenile crime statistics for the same period, finding that although the number of juvenile arrests increased dramatically during the period, the number of arrests for sexual offences decreased by four percent, accounting for changes in population. The study's authors conclude that there is no support for the hypothesis that increased availability of pornographic material leads to an increase in sexual crime among juveniles.

A similar study is cited from Denmark (Ben-Vestiste 1970), comparing statistics on reported sex offences from 1958 to 1969. There was a steady decline over this period, despite the fact the Danish Parliament had voted to remove erotic literature from its obscenity statute in June 1967 and to repeal the statute altogether in 1969.

The Commission's legislative recommendations, therefore, were that federal and state legislation concerning the dissemination of sexual materials to consenting adults should be repealed, with some restrictions on what sexual materials could be provided to children. They based the former recommendation on the lack of conclusive evidence linking sexual materials to criminal behaviour, but argued that the paucity of empirical evidence regarding children in particular indicated caution.

....

Although the Supreme Court's position on First Amendment protection of obscene material, as articulated in Roth, has not changed, there is still little conclusive evidence produced in courtrooms concerning the harm done to justify this lack of protection. A possible reason for this lack of notable further developments is that obscenity prosecutions are in a steady decline, from 74 federal prosecutions in 1990 to 34 in 2000 to 6 in 2009 (source: Bureau of Justice Statistics), and it might also be seen from the research compiled here that a significant problem in courts and legislatures using social science evidence in this area is the value-laden nature of the inquiry, and the danger of accusations of "moral bankruptcy".

http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/por ... protected/

http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/por ... obscenity/

Reading the first line of that should help.

Obscenity has not been ruled as Constitutionally protected speech. Most of the rest of what is there provided are arguments that pornography is fine (with one example on non-distributed pornography being considered protected, which doesn't apply to the majority of the ban discussed here), without anything demonstrating a full First Amendment protection of pornography, as has been being argued in-thread.

[The New California Republic]

Where did either of us claim that incompatibility is permanent? I challenge you to find either of us making that claim.

Here.

Look dude sex is extremely important in a relationship. If I'm not sexually compatible with someone it's generally not going to work out.

Not "If I'm not sexually compatible with someone, I'll need to become compatible.

If compatibility can be modified, it is, for general intents and purposes, simply preferences, which is my point.

Thermy never claimed that the sexual compatibility/incompatibility is permanent though. You are reading something into it that isn't there.

[Xelsis]

As before, only from a perspective of subjective morality. If you believe that each person has their own individual morality, then you do not believe that one person's spiritual guidance applies to others. If one believes in objective morality, they believe that their spiritual guidance applies to all, regardless of belief.

In essence, "God says so" is not a valid argument if you already believe "God says so" is not a valid argument, and it is essentially the same from the other side as well. Taking a position on whether "God says so" is valid is just that-showing one's already-held position.

The First Amendment disagrees.

The First Amendment says exactly nothing on the nature of subjective versus objective morality.

Here.

Not "If I'm not sexually compatible with someone, I'll need to become compatible.

If compatibility can be modified, it is, for general intents and purposes, simply preferences, which is my point.

Thermy never claimed that the sexual compatibility/incompatibility is permanent though. You are reading something into it that isn't there.

Again, if you can modify "incompatibility", it was never incompatibility in the first place, just preference.

A bull in the wild can't impregnate a mouse no matter what they do. It's incompatibility. A person preferring a certain style of sex and another person not isn't incompatibility-it's exactly what it sounds like, preference.

[The New California Republic]

Thermy never claimed that the sexual compatibility/incompatibility is permanent though. You are reading something into it that isn't there.

Again, if you can modify "incompatibility", it was never incompatibility in the first place, just preference.

Different sexual preferences lead to sexual compatibility issues between people...

[Alvecia]

Thermy never claimed that the sexual compatibility/incompatibility is permanent though. You are reading something into it that isn't there.

Again, if you can modify "incompatibility", it was never incompatibility in the first place, just preference.

A bull in the wild can't impregnate a mouse no matter what they do. It's incompatibility. A person preferring a certain style of sex and another person not isn't incompatibility-it's exactly what it sounds like, preference.

You can shave the corners off a cube to fit it in a round hole, but that doesn't make a cube any less compatible with a round hole.

[LimaUniformNovemberAlpha]

If they're THAT impressionable, they shouldn't be allowed using the Internet at all. Be glad it ended with them finding porn and not with them finding ISIS propaganda.

Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure some kids do.

Not the ones whose parents take away kids' Internet access once they find the porn.

However many that may be.

Honestly, ISIS propaganda is just one example. A medium free from both corporate and government censorship is great for media-literate adults, but the potential for misuse makes it not so great for impressionable children. Porn should be the least of our concerns, as at least it's already generally known to be fictional.

[Kiger]

Which God? Because the Christian God sure as hell does not have the objective morality. People who have the objective morality don't stone people for collecting wood on the wrong day or for going to bed with the same sex, and they sure as hell don't unleash a plague on his own subjects because SOME of them were GRUMBLING against them. A God containing the objective morality doesn't break the rules they set, so they shouldn't kill, steal, lie or become envious.

There is only one God and frankly it's ridiculous for a human to act as if they understand morality better than the creator and definition of morality. It's like arguing to the universe "but 2+2 isn't 4, I know it!"

And which god would be the "One God"? "Frankly it's ridiculous for a human to act as if they understand morality better than the creator" mate, you don't even know which God is truly real, that's up to 4,200 religions in the world, have you studied every single one of them? I doubt it but yet you would claim that the one that you believe in is apparently the real one. That's just stupid, and you don't even have proof that there is a creator, that there is a god, the only reason you believe in a religion is either A. you were indoctrinated or B. I don't even know, maybe you're easily fooled. You see if I were to say that you had gum in your hair if you have any, you'd check if there were any gum instead of completely believing me, but yet little to no religious people check if there's any evidence if God even exists and that it's not just a creation of the human mind. And since you do believe in a God, and I'm going to assume it's the Christian god, he has a pretty messed up set of morals if you ask me, creating such a world, bone cancer in children? Literally, bone cancer in children? What kind of wicked being would do that? Oh right, God would seeing as "he has everything planned", that's what a lot of people tend to say, but then again, if God has everything planned, do we really have free will then?

[Ifreann]

Porn should definitely be a part of sex ed. Specifically, students should be taught about how porn is fundamentally a show put on for the viewers and thus rather different from actual sex in a variety of ways.

Oh my god, seriously. I had a "Psychology of Human Sexuality" course in college (fascinating stuff, highly recommended, btw,) and the unit on pornography could basically be summed up as "This is not representative of real ANYTHING. Porn actors are not representative of realistic penis size, endurance, positioning, etc etc. A lot of people end up with all sorts of confidence and performance issues because with crappy sex-ed a lot of people wind up looking to porn for sexual guidance, which is about as effective/accurate as using WWE as a how-to for real hand-to-hand combat."

And not just that what you see on screen is far from representative, but also that there's a lot you don't see on screen at all that's really important. They probably didn't bother to film the male actor putting on a condom, or agreeing with his co-star ahead of time that he wouldn't use one. They definitely didn't film the female actor taking the pill that morning, or the STI checks they both get regularly. They didn't film the script reading where they hashed out who would be doing what to whom and with what. Et cetera.

[Kiger]

-It creates emotional bond with artificial world

Doesn't gaming do that? Doesn't anything that's "fun" create a emotional bond to the artificial world? So by that logic then I guess we should ban the artificial world.

-It results in a short term high, eventually results in feelings of emptiness, low self-esteem and deep loneliness, similar to drugs

Possible I guess but is there actually proof of this ever happening? And if so is it with everyone?

-Means you can’t get aroused by just your spouse

Proof?

-Porn wrecks your libido

Proof?

-Porn makes you sexually lazy

Proof?

-Makes regular intercourse seem mundane

Proof?

-Makes it difficult to last long during sex

Proof? How would watching porn make it difficult to last long during sex? And what's the point of lasting long during sex if the main point is making a baby, and not to pleasure yourself and your partner? You're the one that basically implied that sex shouldn't be done to pleasure one's self.

And what's so bad about having sex to pleasure yourself? It's idiotic that we shouldn't do that, there's no reason other than being told not to in a book that's older than everyone here (obviously). Now that doesn't make it obsolete of course, but I'd prefer not to take orders from a book that's so old and has no proof that it's contents are even accurate and happened (some of them did happen right? Not so sure about that one). Honestly

[Ifreann]

I'm sure many kids think WWE is real

If they're THAT impressionable, they shouldn't be allowed using the Internet at all. Be glad it ended with them finding porn and not with them finding ISIS propaganda.

It's not a matter of being impressionable. We aren't born with the knowledge of what fiction is and how it works. We have to learn it. And even knowing what fiction is, we don't automatically know what is and isn't realistic about the fiction we consume. Wrestling isn't real. But wrestlers have died in the ring.

[Kiger]

Oh my god, seriously. I had a "Psychology of Human Sexuality" course in college (fascinating stuff, highly recommended, btw,) and the unit on pornography could basically be summed up as "This is not representative of real ANYTHING. Porn actors are not representative of realistic penis size, endurance, positioning, etc etc. A lot of people end up with all sorts of confidence and performance issues because with crappy sex-ed a lot of people wind up looking to porn for sexual guidance, which is about as effective/accurate as using WWE as a how-to for real hand-to-hand combat."

And not just that what you see on screen is far from representative, but also that there's a lot you don't see on screen at all that's really important. They probably didn't bother to film the male actor putting on a condom, or agreeing with his co-star ahead of time that he wouldn't use one. They definitely didn't film the female actor taking the pill that morning, or the STI checks they both get regularly. They didn't film the script reading where they hashed out who would be doing what to whom and with what. Et cetera.

What happened to sex education? I thought teenagers when they hit the age of puberty started learning about it in school, atleast that's in my country.

[Reploid Productions]

Oh my god, seriously. I had a "Psychology of Human Sexuality" course in college (fascinating stuff, highly recommended, btw,) and the unit on pornography could basically be summed up as "This is not representative of real ANYTHING. Porn actors are not representative of realistic penis size, endurance, positioning, etc etc. A lot of people end up with all sorts of confidence and performance issues because with crappy sex-ed a lot of people wind up looking to porn for sexual guidance, which is about as effective/accurate as using WWE as a how-to for real hand-to-hand combat."

The question then becomes why people find porn more convincing than WWE.

Everybody already knows WWE is staged! When your sex education consists primarily of "Sex before marriage is bad don't do it," the whole "porn is also fake/exaggerated" memo is missed entirely. I suspect if someone were kept sheltered from the tropes about wrestling and told "Fighting is bad don't do it" and for some reason they needed to find out how to fight they would similarly take WWE at face value as realistic.

[Thermodolia]

A lot of people end up with all sorts of confidence and performance issues because with crappy sex-ed a lot of people wind up looking to porn for sexual guidance, which is about as effective/accurate as using WWE as a how-to for real hand-to-hand combat."

Some of the characters in WWE, on the other hand, can be used as a substitute for porn in a pinch, so they are not completely useless!

Like John Cena. Hubba hubba

[Thermodolia]

Where did either of us claim that incompatibility is permanent? I challenge you to find either of us making that claim.

Here.

Look dude sex is extremely important in a relationship. If I'm not sexually compatible with someone it's generally not going to work out.

Not "If I'm not sexually compatible with someone, I'll need to become compatible.

If compatibility can be modified, it is, for general intents and purposes, simply preferences, which is my point.

Can you not understand the English language? Because the word "generally" doesn't mean not ever or never going to happen.

[Petrasylvania]

Some of the characters in WWE, on the other hand, can be used as a substitute for porn in a pinch, so they are not completely useless!

Like John Cena. Hubba hubba

John Cena in porn. "You said I can't see you, but I'm seeing something here."

[Salandriagado]

Oh my god, seriously. I had a "Psychology of Human Sexuality" course in college (fascinating stuff, highly recommended, btw,) and the unit on pornography could basically be summed up as "This is not representative of real ANYTHING. Porn actors are not representative of realistic penis size, endurance, positioning, etc etc. A lot of people end up with all sorts of confidence and performance issues because with crappy sex-ed a lot of people wind up looking to porn for sexual guidance, which is about as effective/accurate as using WWE as a how-to for real hand-to-hand combat."

And not just that what you see on screen is far from representative, but also that there's a lot you don't see on screen at all that's really important. They probably didn't bother to film the male actor putting on a condom, or agreeing with his co-star ahead of time that he wouldn't use one. They definitely didn't film the female actor taking the pill that morning, or the STI checks they both get regularly. They didn't film the script reading where they hashed out who would be doing what to whom and with what. Et cetera.

Which is why amateur porn is usually better (from a practicality standpoint: I'm way too far outside the intended audience to comment on the entertainment value).

[Ifreann]

And not just that what you see on screen is far from representative, but also that there's a lot you don't see on screen at all that's really important. They probably didn't bother to film the male actor putting on a condom, or agreeing with his co-star ahead of time that he wouldn't use one. They definitely didn't film the female actor taking the pill that morning, or the STI checks they both get regularly. They didn't film the script reading where they hashed out who would be doing what to whom and with what. Et cetera.

Which is why amateur porn is usually better (from a practicality standpoint: I'm way too far outside the intended audience to comment on the entertainment value).

If there's funding going I'm totally willing to do an in-depth study of the degree to which amateur/homemade porn imitates the professional stuff made in studios.

[Petrolheadia]

First Amendment, though.

It's a damn good thing I hate the waste of paper that is the constitution

I could make worse.

I've got a printer, can print your posts out.

[The Parkus Empire]

I do not believe any judge has ruled the First Amendment covers pornography, and probably never will, because it was never intended to and never has.

https://courses2.cit.cornell.edu/social ... ndment.htm

You believe incorrectly.

"the Supreme Court's position on First Amendment protection of obscene material, as articulated in Roth, has not changed"

[New Dumnezeu]

I guess it's fine to just let adults watch porn at their own risk, but we can't let children watch porn. Watching porn as a kid can make you kind of addicted to porn, and that's not good.

[The Parkus Empire]

I do not believe any judge has ruled the First Amendment covers pornography, and probably never will, because it was never intended to and never has.

they can ban "obscene" materials as they are explicitly not covered by the first amendment. which exact kinds of pornography count as obscene at any given time, however, is a crap shoot. realistically, it's a bullshit "we want free speech but woah hold on there we don't want it to be that free" clause that shouldn't exist in a modern country but we're unlikely to get rid of it specifically because it's so useful as a way of avoiding the first amendment on controversial issues.

Understanding free speech to cover porn is as asinine as understanding right to bear arms as covering chemical weapons.

[Ifreann]

they can ban "obscene" materials as they are explicitly not covered by the first amendment. which exact kinds of pornography count as obscene at any given time, however, is a crap shoot. realistically, it's a bullshit "we want free speech but woah hold on there we don't want it to be that free" clause that shouldn't exist in a modern country but we're unlikely to get rid of it specifically because it's so useful as a way of avoiding the first amendment on controversial issues.

Understanding free speech to cover porn is as asinine as understanding right to bear arms as covering chemical weapons.

[The Parkus Empire]

Understanding free speech to cover porn is as asinine as understanding right to bear arms as covering chemical weapons.

I will be sure to bring some to the next meeting my mulitia troop has on Obama.