I see that Castro guy who kidnapped the three girls in US has blamed porn on his actions, "I'm not a monster man, I'm just sick, it's the porn man it's addictive" Ok dude, so watching porn makes you kidnap three kids, lock them up for years and years, continually rape them and then abort their pregnancies? Glad I didn't watch that movie!
As the father of two young girls I don't agree with any porn now but I liked a good mag growing up. But the most disturbing aspects of it are that, 1) They aren't visiting pedophiles? What?!?! Someone has to get raped or killed for a visit from the cops, well, pedophilia IS RAPE. And 2) Databases are never good for the people they always have been and always will be for the good of the government. The first thing every fascist government does is catalog people and it has never, ever turned out well for anyone. We are now being sold the same ideology under the guise of it being for our protection. You're speaking out against the current establishment? Oh, he's just a pathetic cyber sex addict let's go arrest him. Oh, but not pedophiles... kinda makes you wonder who they're afraid they'll find besides a few priests, huh...?
That forum was the weirdest one I've ever visited; most active posters there were so sensitive, they might've as well been post-orgasmic dicks. Anyway, I agree that sometimes you do need to give up your rights for the greater good, namely when that right is harming others (like the "right" to punch an annoying person, the right to expose unwilling others to second-hand smoke by smoking in their immediate vicinity etc), but, for instance, you and I will never willingly give up our right to own guns just because some douche is scared by the notion of private ownership of firearms. Our firearms don't harm them, sitting quietly in their drawers (or spitting lead at cardboard targets at the shooting range that's far from civilization or, as Finns say, behind God's back). These scared sheeple harm themselves with their own attitude problems and create controversy where there is none (the whole "guns don't kill people, people do" -thing, which is true since if a person decides to kill someone, if firearms aren't available, they'll find another way since there are several relatively easy methods of disposing of someone, like building a home-made bomb after reading the instructions online), point being that they shouldn't be scared of guns, but the people intending to harm others. It's tantamount to wanting to ban ownership of electric guitars because the owner might (or just has the capacity to) turn their amp's volume to 11 and shatter the windows playing Coldplay, thus causing noise pollution and disturbing his/her neighbors (who might end up messing up an exam or an important assignment at work because they were kept up all night by the pitiable wailing coming from their neighbor's guitar amp), i.e. causing harm to others. But as long as no such thing happens, as long as it's only about the mere possibility of such an event, it shouldn't be enough to drive governments into passing laws and legislations that would restrict the freedoms of their citizens (or creating these opt in -databases), because private ownership / use of guitars, amps, guns, and porn doesn't in itself harm anyone even though all of the things mentioned have the capacity to cause harm in the hands of a person who wants to harm others. And as long as thing XX) doesn't harm anyone, it should be everyone's own choice whether they own / use / do thing X (albeit only in a way that does not, again, harm others). By the way, I've paid attention to this for the past week or so, and I've noticed a trend with internet porn ads: firstly, they usually aren't porn (I haven't seen a single one this week, actually). Most often it's a scantily clad girl (sometimes naked, but positioned so that her privates/butt/nipples don't show) with big boobs advertizing dating sites of various kinds or mundane things like online casinos and browser-based games. Secondly, they appear to largely inhabit sites that contain less-than-perfectly-legal material, e.g. sites where you can stream movies and TV shows for free, torrent sites etc. I haven't seen these ads on this board, on Amazon, Wikipedia, or google. I can only see them on a handful of sites that I frequent and even then those ads are there only sometimes: at others they have been replaced with other ads (that do not contain erotic imagery). That being said, I'm not entirely sure what the big deal about "porn ads" is? If SWIM is streaming Simpsons illegally, I think SWIM would just have to accept that there's at least some price to pay, in this case tolerating a couple of pop-up ads and a few banners with semi-erotic imagery in them. If SWIM is browsing a dating site dedicated to finding sex partners, I think a few bare breasts here and there, perhaps even a cock or two, kind of fit the picture (no pun intended). So since I haven't encountered these porn ads (i.e. ads that contain porn, such as imagery of vaginas, erect penises, intercourse etc), I'm left wondering: which borderline normal sites have these? eBay? Twitter? Pirate Bay? Rapidshare?
I've never had a problem with this back when restaurants had a smoking section. And I'm especially sensitive to this, since I suffer from horrible allergies and symptoms, and smoke is an irritant to that.
I think Filestube had some. Pirate Bay offers mainly bikini chicks (why are there no semi-naked men?!). And didn't you clickety-click something that looked "interesting" and ended up flooding the screen with all kinds of "interesting" stuff such as bare boobage and somewhat heavyset chicks with shaved cooches So yeah, internet porn is just one curious click away... The reason it's a big deal, "bad" and frowned upon have been listed pretty extensively in this thread, Jazzabel said quite a lot about the subject.
[MENTION=53403]KaTrian[/MENTION], oh, I've seen porn ads, sure, but imo they're still pretty rare since bikini chicks don't count as porn, and things like that one interesting click don't really happen to me all that often. My point is that unless you peruse some more suspect sites, it appears fairly rare to see actual porn ads. Scantily clad women are abundant in every ad medium though, but that's another issue. As for the lack of scantily clad men in sexual ads, could it have something to do with supply and demand? Meaning that, as jazzabel pointed out, far fewer women enjoy e.g. porn than men, so perhaps the number of ads with naked girls reflects how many men enjoy looking at such images and the fewer number of naked dudes likewise reflects the fewer numbers of women who enjoy looking at sexual images of men? I'd imagine that if millions upon millions of women wanted to look at visual erotica / porn depicting hot guys, there'd be more ads displaying the hunks? And yeah, I remember the reasonings why it is an issue, but now that I actually started paying attention to how often I encounter porn ads, I got the impression they are quite a bit rarer than e.g. some anti-porn articles would lead us to think, which, to me, translates as not that big of a hindrance in regards to web surfing although certainly something I'd rather live without, esp. since I don't even find melon-size boobs attractive. But this, of course, has nothing to do with the moral issues revolving around the making of porn, prostitution, or the sex industry in general (except for the fact that the ads depict sexual images).
I bet my ass millions upon millions of women do want to look at e.g. visual erotica. Why it isn't there, I'm not sure. Is this A CONSPIRACY OF THE PATRIARCHY?! Gasp! Considering how much 50 Shades sells, how crazy soccer moms went and still go over Edward Cullen and the teenage guy who played the werewolf or Michael Fassbender and his plonker in Shame (now, apparently there's something an ordinary guy can get nervy over -- oh shit what if my wife wants me to look like that! I haven't seen it, just read something on the news about it) and of course, everything the porn industry has to offer... I think there is demand. But I'm not sure, do many Western women still find it shameful to admit to enjoying porn or 'visual erotica'? Is that still shameful in comparison to e.g. admitting to be a fan of EL James? But hey, girls aren't angels, surely everyone knows that. When I was a teen, my best friend wallpapered her room with pics of cute boys making out and feeling each other up. The Christmas calendars we made for each other included salacious pictures of men printed off the internet. But somewhere down the line it changed. You display your sexuality in a similarly abrasive manner as men, and you are called "slut" and "damaged goods" by both, boys and girls. No wonder we start feeling guilty, act like our eyes are not nailed to an image of a naked guy when we see it. A good girl doesn't look.
[MENTION=53403]KaTrian[/MENTION]. I think there's a conspicuous absence of such content and I think you are right about patriarchy. It is a side-effect of misogyny which most heavily attacks the sexuality of women, and subsequently permeates our society in more ways than we dare admit. I once looked for 'porn for women', because everything my boyfriend came up with was the same old no real orgasm for the girl crap, and all I came up with was a handful of movies from the 70s.
I'm wondering what kind of porn would most of the ladies who enjoy it prefer: straight? Gay? Hard- or softcore? Pure action or flicks with stories in them? 1 on 1 or threesomes / group sex (and if so, would they prefer if it was one woman and a few guys who'd also fondle and fuck each other, or would they prefer material with lesbian content in it in addition to straight and / or gay sex)? Perhaps some BDSM (which would be more popular: a female dom and a male sub or vice versa)? Amateur or pro? Western cultures are supposedly progressive, but in this regard, they're still stuck in the past. Personally, I simply don't understand men who feel threatened by women's sexuality and its more blatant expressions. Back when I was single, I cursed the world for how it seemed to suffocate those girls and women who would have wanted to be more sexually liberal, but didn't dare to step out of line for the fear of getting branded sluts, perverts, or whatever ridiculous thing men insecure about their gadgets call them. Oh, and other girls too! More than once I've seen this at parties: one girl expresses her sexuality more openly, e.g. removes her top or whatever, and suddenly a bunch of girls turn icy cold or downright hostile towards her. Is it jealousy because she gets a lot of attention from guys, hanging around topless? Because the other girls would want to do the same but don't have the guts? Because, for some reason, they are offended by the display of female nudity? I really don’t know what’s the most common reason(s) but would like to. I’ve also noticed some inequality regarding this issue: if a girl, say, gets naked at a party (not to striptease or have sex, but just take off her clothes) and there are couples present, the female halves of these couples tend to get annoyed with / angry at the naked girl. In a way that’s understandable, but here’s the rub: if a guy decides to get naked, mostly people, guys and girls alike, just laugh and think he’s a good sport about it all. Even when there are couples present, from what I’ve seen, usually the male halves don’t really mind, and usually don’t get annoyed with / angry at the naked dude even if their girlfriends / wives are present. What’s more, this sort of spontaneous nudity seems far more common among men than women, and I’m willing to bet that at least a part of it stems from the fact that in Western cultures, male nudity is okay, but female nudity isn’t, and the girls who do show more skin are more easily labeled as sluts, slags, whatever. I’d imagine it takes a bit of digging to find the kind of porn you’d like if you don’t enjoy the average sort. The safest bet would appear to be amateur porn although there’s so much of it (as well as “amateur porn,” i.e. professionally made and just labeled as “amateur”), it’s a chore to find quality material. Perhaps a good starting point would be porn that’s been made by women for women; nowadays there's an ever-increasing number of women who produce porn with the female clientele in mind although from the few interviews I've seen in documentaries about porn, it appears quite a few of these producers are catering specifically to lesbians.
I love a woman that is able to tell you exactly what she wants, where she wants, and when she wants it. Life is more fun that way.
My guess is that it's more about the "visual" part. I think - and of course I could be wrong - that women more often need context, story, personality, character, in their erotic situations. The average photo or porn film doesn't offer a lot of that. Bazillions of women do read bazillions of romances, which do offer context, story, blah. (I may not be impressed by the quality of the story, but at least it's there.)
One of David Cameron’s most high-profile celebrity advisers, Wiki co-founder Jimmy Wales, has branded the Prime Minister’s plan to restrict online porn in the UK as “an absolutely ridiculous idea that won’t work." http://www.ultraculture.org/wikipedia-founder-esoteric-site-ban-absolutely-ridiculous/ Jimmy Wales basically said, that if the PM wants to curb paedophilia by blocking porn, all the paedo has do it call his ISP and opt back-in - so what's the point? He also that all normal porn consumers will be profiled as potential criminals. It seems that while all the headlines were about porn, the real stuff they want blocked slipped in under the radar such as esoteric material - the wiki definition of esotericism is quite interesting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esotericism - ISPs will also be forced to block violent material, extremist sites, pro-anorexia and pro-suicide sites, alcohol, smoking, and web forums (?!) http://www.ultraculture.org/uk-to-censor-esoteric-websites/ excerpt from the above Wiki link Examples of esoteric religious movements and philosophies include Alchemy, Astrology, Anthroposophy, early Christian Mysticism,[4] Freemasonry, Gnosticism, Kabbalah, Neoplatonism, Magic, Merkabah mysticism, Mesmerism, Rosicrucianism, Taoism, Theosophy, Swedenborgianism, Spiritualism, the Alawites,[5] the Christian Theosophy of Jacob Böhme and his followers, and the Theosophical revivalist movement associated with Helena Blavatsky.
So did it really end up getting banned? I'm from the U.S. Porn in one form of another has been around since some of the very first recorded moments of human life, with cave drawings. It only becomes a problem when it is misused or becomes addictive. This is no different of a problem than anything else that is misused or someone becomes addicted to. The cure isn't ridding the world of everything that people could use in a negative way, but to use safe guards to realize when someone is getting out of control and educate people about it. Taking it away will only make things worse, as people will see it as a forbidden fruit, or simply divert their addictive personality on to some other unhealthy act.
