Only 1%?
According to a U.S. government commissioned study about 1% of the web sites indexed by Google and Microsoft are considered pornographic. This information is released as the Justice Department seeks to revive the 1998 Child Protection Act, a law which Bill Clinton signed that requires viewers to use a credit card number or some other proof of age to log onto porn sites.
The 1998 law was a watered down version of other Congressional attempts at filtering the internet. But even that law was struck down when the ACLU took it before the courts. Heaven forbid we infringe upon the rights of web pornographers and adults who want to satisfy their sexual voyeurism in anonymity.
Ordinarily, I'm inclined to take a libertarian approach and demand individual accountability. But having had a few experiences with children on the internet and knowing the dangers of viewing pornography, I believe more invasive measures are in order. Here's why:
Pornographers regularly buy domain names of misspelled search words that children and young people use. For example, if your child types "Harry Pottter" or "Pokeemon" he may very well end up on a hard core porn site. The practice is common in the industry and clearly aimed at luring children. Sellers of pornography purchase popular domain names as soon as they expire so that they have an unknowing audience in viewers who are looking for the content originally located at the original domain name.
Pornographers have a trade magazine and staff psychiatrists and psychologists who use their expertise to create teasers that will attract children and teens to pornographic material. The internet has altered the rate at which people are caught up in pornography and it is now addictive with merely a few exposures. Especially to children at certain developmental stages. Studies have been done that show that pornography can be addictive to some people with a single exposure. A 2000 copy of the magazine includes an article about how to get the addict more addicted so that he purchases pornography weekly instead of monthly. It takes two weeks for many people to become addicted and addiction is common after 3 months. Porn sellers hold conferences twice a year to set goals for sales.
Pornographic web sites use looping to trap viewers. In other words, you accidentally end up on a page with pornography and you click the "X" at the top right of your screen to escape and it opens another window on the same porn site. You are looped into seeing a half dozen hard core photos as you attempt to exit the site. Once the site has established a cookie on your hard drive, you will become the lucky recipient of abotu a hundred emails a week that say "re:Hi" or "re:come back" in the subject line with no text in the body of the message - those are to verify your email address. FYI: if you ever get trapped in one of those looped sites, immediately shut down your computer - do not click "X" just hit the power button.
Do you think that American library association is government run? Actually, they are funded by various other organizations and in July 2000 they had a session in one of their conferences about how to get more pornography in libraries without public outcry.
Pornography isn't limited to government identified magazines and movies - most magazine covers in the grocery check out have sexualized covers with articles like "How to have a better orgasm" or "Sex Secrets he wishes you knew" written across them for any child to read. They are placed at a child's height - not out of reach or eyesight. Most American children have seen sexually explicit, pornographic material before they enter Kindergarten - and it has devastating impacts. The one scene that we often excuse in an otherwise good movie shapes the way viewers perceive sex and intimacy. Study after study reveals the detrimental affects and yet the onslaught goes on untempered.
I often rail against the homosexual community for defining themselves predominantly by their sexuality. The unfortunate truth is that the same can be said for heterosexuals. Our society has come to treat sex so commonly (another word for common is vulgar) that it has been reduced to mere physiology. Even sex within marriage is depicted as being all about excitement and not about love. Magazines that cater to women tell the tale better than I can...
This morning on Cosmomag.com "Cosmo's most creative sex positions ever" and if that doesn't convince you, check out the side bar section entitled Love and Lust where one can play the Kama Sutra Match and Moan Game.
I don't think that we'll ever get sex back in the bedroom. But we must recognize the damage done to people who are taught that their entire existence revolves around arousal and sexual satisfaction and take steps to respond to the dangers of this sick denegration of the spirit. Can anything be more demeaning and dehumanizing than an ideology that professes that we are merely the sum of our reproductive parts? There is one who wants us to believe that we are no more than the dust from which we were created. As Christians, we are disciples of another teacher, one who calls us children of God.
Stand up and be counted. Call or write your congressmen and encourage them to place guardrails around pornography to keep our children safe. Call your local grocery stores and demand a magazine free aisle. Do something. Do anything. Make your voice heard!
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As a card-carrying member of the ALA, I take exception to your characterization of their motives! Yours is a typical conservative reaction: Support "free speech" just so long as it isn't speech you don't want to hear.
I was at the ALA conference in Chicago in 2000- actually was a presenter there- and I can assure you that if there had been a session on how to get more porn into the library, I would have attended. Instead, there were sessions (and there still are sessions- it is a common and important topic among librarians) on how to provide access to all the information our patrons may need without the intrusive invasions on their privacy that right-wing nut-jobs would want to shackle us down with.
That means having a copy of "Das Kapital" or "Mein Kampf" or the "Kama Sutra" on the shelves next to "Great Expectations" and "Tom Sawyer." Okay, not next to them- the last two would be shelved under fiction... but you know what I mean.
Librarians recognize that not all material is appropriate for all audiences- that's why children's books are generally shelved apart from teen books, which are apart from the fiction, and so on. But having seen even in these supposed enlightened modern times, the short-sighted view of "right-minded" censors, who would remove Twain or Salinger from the bookshelves, excuse us if we balk at your latest round of book-burning.
I do agree with your concerns about porn on the internet, and exposure to children. Despite being opposed to the Child Protection Act, libraries have gone to great lengths to protect innocent eyes. Many public libraries have child-friendly portals, web engines that prevent the user from typing in URL's, and whose search engine is designed to bring up kid-appropriate materials. Kids InfoBits is a great tool for kids K-5. Ask at your local library if they have access and can show it to you, or ask why they don't if not. (Probably because of lack of funding if they don't.)
Comment by Michael— 2006/11/15 @ 08:54 AM — (Reply)
I don't just make this stuff up, y'know
As for accessing porn from the library - well, if I am a right wing nut job then I wear that badge with honor.
What amazes me is how many ENLIGHTENED liberals believe in humanism until it comes to sex when suddenly, we are incapable of being anything but depraved animals and an 'anything goes' mentality exists - not just in behavior but in protecting the degradation of loving intimacy by depicting it as raw unrestrained biology.
The simple fact is that there are people making a lot of money off of trying to convince us and our children that it's acceptable and even natural to act out sexually with little or no inhibition. If you want to believe that people are on this earth for nothing more than this then that is your choice, but to defend peddling such a depraved idea to our children or even making it accessible to them in public libraries is reprehensible.
Do you posit that there is no harm in porn viewing? That it's healthy? Natural?
As for the free speech assumption - you and I both know that was written to protect political and religious speech not this perversion of human behavior called pornography. It may be prevalent and even acceptable in most of our society but that doesn't make it right.
We're not talking about a free exchange of ideas here - we're talking about freely distributing mental meth. A drug that is addictive and has provable correlation to a multitude of sex crimes and abuses. Does your library carry books that explain how to cook crack cocaine? How about books written by neo-nazis explaining why blacks are "inferior"? Studies have shown causality between negative attitudes toward women and porn viewing - yet where are the feminists on this? (Hardly right wing nut jobs...)
Comment by Cate— 2006/11/15 @ 11:02 AM — (Reply)
I know you don't make the stuff up. Rather, you will cite from folks I see as more dangerous demagogues intent on enflaming the masses than actually addressing core issues. And you'll note that I'm not defending pornography- I'm defending librarians who were accused in your post of trying to spread pornography.
The official position of the ALA is, and I quote:
"Librarians and governing bodies should maintain that parents—and only parents—have the right and the responsibility to restrict the access of their children—and only their children—to library resources"
We have seen how the over-sensitive has banned pornography in school districts across this nation. Clearly inflammatory, abusive works like Joyce's Ulysses, homoerotic works like Shakespeare's Twelth Night. The Grapes of Wrath, One Hundred Years of Solitude, The Catcher in the Rye, The Handmaid's Tale, Canterbury Tales... Cate, the list goes on and on. Would you like me to provide the intrinsic worth I see in these works, or will you accept the point as at least debatable?
Noone forces you to read those books, anymore than I am forced to read the Bible when I go to the library. But they ought to be there if someone wants to read them. Do you disagree with that?
Want me to defend Hustler? I won't take that stand, and neither will most libraries. Only 8 research libraries in the country have any holdings of that title, and most of the holdings are archival holdovers from back in the 70's. Want me to defend Our Bodies, Ourselves, a sex ed book often labelled as 'pornography' despite being held by over 2000 libraries, public and academic? That I can, and would, do.
I -think- you aren't that restrictive when you toss out the word 'pornography,' Cate. I like to think that you and I have a similar opinion, and desire to protect our children from an early loss of their innocence.
But when I see you parrot off an attack against librarians, of all people, as if they were part of the decline of our society, rather than one of the few remaining pillars of stability, I have to wonder just a little.
Comment by Michael— 2006/11/15 @ 01:21 PM — (Reply)
I've got to tell you that I love this comment:
Yours is a typical conservative reaction: Support "free speech" just so long as it isn't speech you don't want to hear
Liberals are the ones who want to force me to accept homosexuality, legal drug use, and any number of practices. It's liberals who want to force their ideas on my children through the public school system. It's liberals who consider the mention of God more dangerous than the depictions of objectified naked women. And yet it's conservatives who want to censor speech?
I want to censor HARMFUL speech not different speech. I haven't broken my Streisand albums or burned my Al Franken books. I've read the words of Hitler, Stalin and Marx and loved the DaVinci Code. So that accusation doesn't fly here. What we are talking about is a very real and serious contributor to the decay of our social system.
If you want to leave God out, fine. Tell my then how pornography contributes to the good of society. Tell me how it upholds a safe and decent environment for women and children. Better yet, convince me that it's neutral - neither good nor evil.
Not possible. It is one more pitiful example of how self-indulgent our society has become that we accept porn as free speech when we know it is a factor in countless sex crimes. We all know alcohol plays a major part in youthful sexcapades as well but no one wants to step up and say hey - this is wrong, either. Well, you know what I will. There is nothing good that comes from porn. Nothing.
When private morality fails to prevent men from doing what the laws of a free society allow, that society will crumble.
Comment by Cate— 2006/11/15 @ 12:20 PM — (Reply)
Now, find me a public school that lets their kids download nude pics from playboy.com. Find me a public library that forces 6 year olds to watch Debbie Does Wherever. Find me a single liberal who thinks their 8 year old should be downloading porn... heck- find me an 8 year old who WANTS to download porn, and I'll show you some f'ed up parents who aren't doing their job, and haven't been doing it for at least 8 years!
Tell me how banning Harry Potter has saved even one soul from the fires of Satanism. Tell me if banning Twelth Night has kept one potential gay-convert in the closet a few years longer. Tell me if banning Huckleberry Finn has ever stopped a child from growing up to be a rascist.
Comment by Michael— 2006/11/15 @ 01:38 PM — (Reply)
BTW, kids are way more savvy than you think. My brother also teaches computer tech classes to high school kids and they bypass the monitoring system and filters by loggin in through a range of anonymous vicarious servers like "D tunnel". It's insane.
I could treat your "how is this affecting you" question as rhetorical because I think you know the answer but for anyone who's not clever enough to see the spin... I foot the bill for the indoctrination of my neighbor's children and am forced to financially sustain a failing system that is committed to undermining basic principles I believe in. That's right... every April 15th, I write the check. I pay the bill every month in my property taxes and every time I gas up my car, I pay it when I buy groceries and I pay it when I pay sales tax on the supplies I use to teach my children at home. We won't even go into the ways we pay for the damage done to our children as a society... watching them fall behind, get medicated just because some teacher is overburdened or has poor managerial skills. Watching them get pushed through a system that is so focused on feel good politics that children never learn the feeling of real success through merit. I saw it with my own eyes, Michael.
My oldest went to part day preschool because it was the 'thing to do' in our neighborhood. I went in for the open house and saw a table display about families - a unit they'd been taught. Right there on page 7 was Maggie and her two moms. The politics of homosexuality and the cultural acceptance of it is a hugely contentious issue for adults in this country - It headlined the Raleigh News and Observer just today - and yet the 3 and 4 year olds were subtly being taught that this is normal behavior.
At 4 I tried again and put him in pre-K at the local public school - his teacher sent me a note home suggesting counseling because he was "acting out during circle time". Turns out he would sit and bang his head repeatedly with his book bag. I guess she didn't have time to ask him why he did this. When I did, he said "Gosh Mom, it's sooooo boring." No, she wanted to put him on medication. The next week I brought him in with a book which he read to the class for circle time and I made the committed decision to home school. I wish you could meet him to see how little he needs to be medicated.
FYI - I never suggested banning Harry Potter - I like Harry Potter. I suggested banning PORNOGRAPHY. How about addressing the real question which is, how does porn positively contribute to society? Can you even prove it is neutral in it's effects?
Quite dodging, Michael...
Comment by Cate— 2006/11/15 @ 05:04 PM — (Reply)
Comment by Dugg— 2006/11/15 @ 05:17 PM — (Reply)
Not foolproof and necessarily on every computer they might have access to anywhere.
Comment by Barry G.— 2006/11/15 @ 03:19 PM — (Reply)
Comment by Barry G.— 2006/11/15 @ 03:24 PM — (Reply)
Compared to even 20 years ago - I'd say it was now a moral epidemic. I've read that thousands of porn sites are added to the web each day.
It's pretty much a fact that all serial killer/ murderer types are all heavily into and effected by porn.
I've also read many times that the majority of the money that funds the porn industry can be traced back to the illuminati - who want to destroy your morals so you'll more readily accept the NWO system they are slowly instituting.
I'm done. Just wanted to show you can link anything to the NWO - down to porn.
Comment by Dugg— 2006/11/15 @ 05:05 PM — (Reply)
Comment by Barry G.— 2006/11/15 @ 05:26 PM — (Reply)
Comment by jim— 2006/11/15 @ 05:50 PM — (Reply)
Comment by Ernie Els— 2006/11/15 @ 06:03 PM — (Reply)
Cate-
I'm not dodging, I'm defending. I'm not defending porn. I'm defending libraries. Libraries are a vital necessity that should be supported, not trashed.
It was you that tossed the A.L.A. in with the peddlers of smut. And you were, I'm sure, only hawking some alarmist stuff some other nut-job was spewing.
The A.L.A. is interested in access to information, not corruption of youth or dismantlement of society. The reality is that information takes many forms, not all of which is pleasant or socially acceptable, and it is, and ought to be, parents that guide what information their children have access to.
Librarians are neither blind, nor unconcerned with the risks children face on the internet, and in the library- instead they routinely provide far more family-friendly and child-centered events than any other public institution. They have policies, technologies and programs in place to protect children, created with community input and under local control.
The only reason I posted in this thread at all was because of the association. If you wanna go after the "HairyPotter.com" of the world- I got your back. But if you try and dump libraries in as accomplices, you've not only lost an ally in your fight- you've lost touch with reality.
Comment by Michael— 2006/11/15 @ 08:21 PM — (Reply)
As for the excerpt from the Hamilton lecture, my guess is that she mischaracterized comments that were anti-censorship as being pro-porn, or quoted someone else who did the spinning. As you were in attendance, I will defer to your firsthand knowledge.
Comment by Cate— 2006/11/15 @ 08:43 PM — (Reply)
Here I have to disagree. How is an 8x10 glossy of someone's privates informative? And don't give me that "art" argument because we all know that porn is not art.
I appreciate the dilemma and I recognize the slippery slope of censorship but we can all see where not setting limits has gotten us - did you see the same Cosmo magazine cover my children did in the checkout at Kroger today? We've got Victoria's Secret commercials that would have been rated X just 15 years ago - is the fact that they now run every half hour on t.v. during daytime hours supposed to be considered progress?
(No offense, Barry, but I actually like the block quoting)
Comment by Cate— 2006/11/15 @ 08:52 PM — (Reply)
Comment by Elmers Brother— 2006/11/15 @ 08:31 PM — (Reply)