[QUOTE] [b]pittrek wrote:[/b]
So these bastards did it :-([/QUOTE]
What did the bastards do?
I am glad I live in the USA where we are not so uptight about sex ... ;)
Saint Jiub
Thread
Posts in chronological order
magicalfreddiemercury
[QUOTE] [b]Panchgani wrote:[/b]
[QUOTE] [b]pittrek wrote:[/b]
So these bastards did it :-([/QUOTE]
What did the bastards do?
I am glad I live in the USA where we are not so uptight about sex ... ;)
[/QUOTE]
Update here - (with the headline "EU Votes to Reject 'Porn Ban' Proposal")
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57573771-93/eu-votes-to-reject-porn-ban-proposals/?Media
[QUOTE] [b]pittrek wrote:[/b]
So these bastards did it :-([/QUOTE]
What did the bastards do?
I am glad I live in the USA where we are not so uptight about sex ... ;)
[/QUOTE]
Update here - (with the headline "EU Votes to Reject 'Porn Ban' Proposal")
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57573771-93/eu-votes-to-reject-porn-ban-proposals/?Media
waunakonor
[QUOTE] [b]Panchgani wrote:[/b]
[QUOTE] [b]pittrek wrote:[/b]
So these bastards did it :-([/QUOTE]
What did the bastards do?
I am glad I live in the USA where we are not so uptight about sex ... ;)
[/QUOTE]
I think I'm going off on a bit of a tangent, but here I go...
In some cultures long ago, people weren't uptight about sex or nudity whatsoever. In ancient Mesopotamian cultures (around the area of Iraq and such) the temples would have a bunch of female "priests" who were basically spiritual prostitutes. Read the epic Gilgamesh; it's fascinating. Now, that area is dominated by Islam and that sort of thing would never be acceptable either, and it's pretty much that way in most of the "civilized" world.
I really wouldn't have a problem if I lived in a world where people didn't feel much of a need to cover up or treat sex as a taboo subject, and for more reasons that just to see attractive women walking around with little to no clothes on.
[QUOTE] [b]pittrek wrote:[/b]
So these bastards did it :-([/QUOTE]
What did the bastards do?
I am glad I live in the USA where we are not so uptight about sex ... ;)
[/QUOTE]
I think I'm going off on a bit of a tangent, but here I go...
In some cultures long ago, people weren't uptight about sex or nudity whatsoever. In ancient Mesopotamian cultures (around the area of Iraq and such) the temples would have a bunch of female "priests" who were basically spiritual prostitutes. Read the epic Gilgamesh; it's fascinating. Now, that area is dominated by Islam and that sort of thing would never be acceptable either, and it's pretty much that way in most of the "civilized" world.
I really wouldn't have a problem if I lived in a world where people didn't feel much of a need to cover up or treat sex as a taboo subject, and for more reasons that just to see attractive women walking around with little to no clothes on.
pittrek
The strange thing is that all our media report that pornography was banned
magicalfreddiemercury
[QUOTE] [b]pittrek wrote:[/b]
The strange thing is that all our media report that pornography was banned [/QUOTE]
Odd. Maybe they're (purposely?) confusing the issue since, although that clause was removed, the rest of the report was voted up. ???
The strange thing is that all our media report that pornography was banned [/QUOTE]
Odd. Maybe they're (purposely?) confusing the issue since, although that clause was removed, the rest of the report was voted up. ???
Mr.Jingles
[QUOTE] [b]mooghead wrote:[/b]
Completely unenforceable.[/QUOTE]
They can't even fight the war against drugs, and now they want to fight porn?
Completely unenforceable.[/QUOTE]
They can't even fight the war against drugs, and now they want to fight porn?
GratefulFan
[QUOTE] [b]magicalfreddiemercury wrote:[/b]
[QUOTE] [b]pittrek wrote:[/b]
The strange thing is that all our media report that pornography was banned [/QUOTE]
Odd. Maybe they're (purposely?) confusing the issue since, although that clause was removed, the rest of the report was voted up. ???
[/QUOTE]
Not so odd perhaps. It was essentially my point that the way we talk about ideas in this culture too often results in concepts so narrowed and ideologically filtered that they obscure both fact and purpose . Substance traded for the assurance that we're absolutely right. The new media landscape is so often a race to the bottom and too many have concluded that this is exactly how we like our editorial news: skewed, dumbed down and ideally righteously angry. Who can blame them? Looking through just this thread I see "there is absolutely NOTHING WRONG about pornography if people are adults", choosing a career in porn is "empowering", gender equality is "complete bullshit". I respect the intelligence and engagement of people on this thread. Full stop. But these statements surely must be recognized as imbalanced and incomplete? There is never anything wrong or harmful about porn? The porn industry whose mainstream could not be more open or more consistent with the fusing of sex and female degradation is a reliably empowering career choice? Gender equality is not a fuzzily defined social challenge that's been met with a mix of success and overreach, but "complete bullshit"? In this internet and infotainment age we have collectively bought into an awful template for thinking and talking about things, and like a funhouse mirror it warps and reflects back at us thorough our media and our politics. The slow and unresponsive political process we have is the one we deserve when the shrill default message on most things that make us even remotely uneasy is to do nothing in the name of liberty rather than risk getting a little messy and maybe getting it a little wrong before we get it mostly right.
Most see the striking of the proposed action plans on pornography in the media as a victory of common sense and democracy. I don't know what it was. Certainly a reinforcement of the sense that government intervention in this realm is above all intrusive. Maybe a belief both spoken and unspoken that concerns are just so much hung up feminist or religious screed. But the radical changes in the character, ubiquitousness and accessibility of pornography in the digital age are, as one researcher put it, "one of the fastest moving most global experiments ever unconsciously conducted". It's unlikely that the inevitable leaks into our society, our relationships and our private worlds have been uniformly positive. There are not too many of us I don't think who wouldn't acknowledge that consumption sometimes edges into darker places that are not necessarily a net gain in value in all the things we collect in our heads over a lifetime. We're probably particularly vulnerable when we're lonely or depressed or angry. From a scientific perspective more and more emerging information seems to confirm that the spike in men in their 20's and 30's suffering erectile dysfunction is related to neurological processes involving dopamine and reward paths that have been short circuited by specific and common practices in porn consumption that grossly over stimulate the normal response system in the brain. Counter intuitively, men in their 40's and 50's with porn related ED can recover normal function significantly more quickly than younger men, making this of particular concern to those who may have had their entire neurological sexual circuitry primed on internet porn. Most fascinating, use by young men was so common that they could not initially put together an experimental control group to study any of the physical and psychological effects in that standard way. Again, fascinating and thought provoking given the unknowns. Their control groups now are made up of ex porn users who now abstain because of the harmful effects they experienced with their specific consumption patterns. Anecdotally the stories are sad. Young men on Viagra who still struggled with erectile dysfunction for years who now expect years more to unlearn what they learned from contemporary porn.
Now of course that is just one bit of information affecting only some people and not a broad statement on pornography or a case for a "ban". It may be along with some of things the EU resolution wanted to address however a canary in a coal mine. It is I think an argument that pornography and a culture increasingly saturated with it is fact very much like those sugary drinks referred to earlier in the thread. It's like cigarettes, and like gambling. The manufacture of vice. The people who make it make it deliberately with the knowledge that they are creating an addictive product and they want you to want their version and ideally more and more of it. They ramp up the number and character of the stimulants to that end, and they do that for profit. Some will be hurt by that and its addictive potential means it should perhaps be considered that it shouldn't be relegated entirely without qualification to the realm of adult choice. It is exactly these factors that have historically justified information campaigns and government regulation and a demand for responsibility and accountability from industries in the form of warnings and limits and contributions to education and assistance programs.
Few want cigarettes and gambling and junk food banned, but fewer than that would think of them first in terms of empowerment and freedom.
[QUOTE] [b]pittrek wrote:[/b]
The strange thing is that all our media report that pornography was banned [/QUOTE]
Odd. Maybe they're (purposely?) confusing the issue since, although that clause was removed, the rest of the report was voted up. ???
[/QUOTE]
Not so odd perhaps. It was essentially my point that the way we talk about ideas in this culture too often results in concepts so narrowed and ideologically filtered that they obscure both fact and purpose . Substance traded for the assurance that we're absolutely right. The new media landscape is so often a race to the bottom and too many have concluded that this is exactly how we like our editorial news: skewed, dumbed down and ideally righteously angry. Who can blame them? Looking through just this thread I see "there is absolutely NOTHING WRONG about pornography if people are adults", choosing a career in porn is "empowering", gender equality is "complete bullshit". I respect the intelligence and engagement of people on this thread. Full stop. But these statements surely must be recognized as imbalanced and incomplete? There is never anything wrong or harmful about porn? The porn industry whose mainstream could not be more open or more consistent with the fusing of sex and female degradation is a reliably empowering career choice? Gender equality is not a fuzzily defined social challenge that's been met with a mix of success and overreach, but "complete bullshit"? In this internet and infotainment age we have collectively bought into an awful template for thinking and talking about things, and like a funhouse mirror it warps and reflects back at us thorough our media and our politics. The slow and unresponsive political process we have is the one we deserve when the shrill default message on most things that make us even remotely uneasy is to do nothing in the name of liberty rather than risk getting a little messy and maybe getting it a little wrong before we get it mostly right.
Most see the striking of the proposed action plans on pornography in the media as a victory of common sense and democracy. I don't know what it was. Certainly a reinforcement of the sense that government intervention in this realm is above all intrusive. Maybe a belief both spoken and unspoken that concerns are just so much hung up feminist or religious screed. But the radical changes in the character, ubiquitousness and accessibility of pornography in the digital age are, as one researcher put it, "one of the fastest moving most global experiments ever unconsciously conducted". It's unlikely that the inevitable leaks into our society, our relationships and our private worlds have been uniformly positive. There are not too many of us I don't think who wouldn't acknowledge that consumption sometimes edges into darker places that are not necessarily a net gain in value in all the things we collect in our heads over a lifetime. We're probably particularly vulnerable when we're lonely or depressed or angry. From a scientific perspective more and more emerging information seems to confirm that the spike in men in their 20's and 30's suffering erectile dysfunction is related to neurological processes involving dopamine and reward paths that have been short circuited by specific and common practices in porn consumption that grossly over stimulate the normal response system in the brain. Counter intuitively, men in their 40's and 50's with porn related ED can recover normal function significantly more quickly than younger men, making this of particular concern to those who may have had their entire neurological sexual circuitry primed on internet porn. Most fascinating, use by young men was so common that they could not initially put together an experimental control group to study any of the physical and psychological effects in that standard way. Again, fascinating and thought provoking given the unknowns. Their control groups now are made up of ex porn users who now abstain because of the harmful effects they experienced with their specific consumption patterns. Anecdotally the stories are sad. Young men on Viagra who still struggled with erectile dysfunction for years who now expect years more to unlearn what they learned from contemporary porn.
Now of course that is just one bit of information affecting only some people and not a broad statement on pornography or a case for a "ban". It may be along with some of things the EU resolution wanted to address however a canary in a coal mine. It is I think an argument that pornography and a culture increasingly saturated with it is fact very much like those sugary drinks referred to earlier in the thread. It's like cigarettes, and like gambling. The manufacture of vice. The people who make it make it deliberately with the knowledge that they are creating an addictive product and they want you to want their version and ideally more and more of it. They ramp up the number and character of the stimulants to that end, and they do that for profit. Some will be hurt by that and its addictive potential means it should perhaps be considered that it shouldn't be relegated entirely without qualification to the realm of adult choice. It is exactly these factors that have historically justified information campaigns and government regulation and a demand for responsibility and accountability from industries in the form of warnings and limits and contributions to education and assistance programs.
Few want cigarettes and gambling and junk food banned, but fewer than that would think of them first in terms of empowerment and freedom.