Does pornography "damage the brain"?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Schmika @ Apr 5 2006, 12:02 AM) [snapback]235078[/snapback]</div>

http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/pornography Pay attention to 'intended'. If things happen that aren't intended, it's not pornography. No, really, it's not. Read the definition. Ask someone who makes R-rated movies. They'll tell you.

I always wanted to run a test: have a movie show a married couple eat dinner then go to bed. (No perversion in watching people eating from some omnicient viewpoint, but that's another story.) Have them talk in bed, like any soap opera or PG movie can, then progress to full-on sex. While the movie plays out, people in the audience will push a button when the movie has become 'pornographic'. Some will push it when the couple enters the bedroom, some will wait until some 'inappropriate' touching happens, some will wait for nudity, some for some for stronger stuff.

Which group of button-pushers is most right? If the movie was edited so that it was only pornographic when 51% of the people had pushed the button, was it REALLY not pornographic? If I find people who manage to use it as if it were pornographic anyway, did the editing fail?

If we use 'denegration' as the button-pushing point, would anyone who pushed the button when they simply went into the bedroom be right? Should we be forced to conform to the opinion of the earliest pusher? If a certain audience doesn't ever push the button, do we throw out those results since anything involving sex is expected to denegrate somebody?

As I said before, punishing sin is not a human job, but for some humans it is an obsession...

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dsunman @ Apr 5 2006, 09:02 AM) [snapback]235207[/snapback]</div>

You make my point. You are not describing porn, yet you are using it to say "one man's porn is another man's art". Peeshawwwww!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Schmika @ Apr 5 2006, 10:24 PM) [snapback]235631[/snapback]</div>

Pardon my french, but when you look at your own cock do you sin therfore wallow in filth as well?

Puritanism has no mercy, dark ages are coming or perhaps some have never left it, gee I thought this was 600 years ago. :blink:

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dsunman @ Apr 5 2006, 11:10 PM) [snapback]235661[/snapback]</div>

I have no CLUE what you are getting on about. What the bloody %&$# does looking at my own body have to do with ANYTHING I said.

You must be a seller or maker of X-rated films are are somehow involved in the porn industry (even if it supplying them lots of money as a customer)

It is apparent we are not communicating. I have tried to make my point...you do not see it. Fine.

BTW, it is kind of hard being a "Puritan" in my business. My experience is not THEORETICAL, it is PRACTICAL.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Schmika @ Apr 5 2006, 11:44 PM) [snapback]235685[/snapback]</div>

I guess your previous reply didn't convince me about how far does one differentiate in-between nudity and porn. I was implying that even Vatican and other religions (Hinduism) have certain ambivalence in making a clear delineation and very often contradictory. In other words, questionable dogmatic movements vis a vis cultural and religious control of human behavior.

As far as me working for X-film industry, I only wish (not acting though, would settle for marketing or else) as I would be loaded and chilling now in Negril or Montego Bay or other place where rich and beautiful tend to gather, actually on the deeper thaught not my choice for having meaningful life.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Schmika @ Apr 5 2006, 11:44 PM) [snapback]235685[/snapback]</div>

And when all of your practical experience is bad, no one else's experience matters?

Isn't that how stereotypes are born: every ______ I met did this, so they all must do that?

Can we ban the stuff that kills the most people first, then work our way down? OR would that ban something you want?...

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dsunman @ Apr 5 2006, 11:10 PM) [snapback]235661[/snapback]</div>

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Edit: this thread has become pornographic because all this talk about porn is making me think about porn.

...then again, I suppose this is nothing new.... :lol:

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(mikepaul @ Apr 6 2006, 08:54 AM) [snapback]235775[/snapback]</div>

Who said no one else's matters???? Where did I stereotype anyone???? When did I say BAN anything??? Hey, don't jump into the middle of conversations (or arguments between me and that weird cat hat guy)

Disease kills the most people, let's ban that. People kill an awful lot too...Ban them. I don't think porn has ever killed anyone...so I guess it is safe.


PORN- It's YOUR life........just don't say it is good for anything.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(mikepaul @ Apr 5 2006, 08:31 AM) [snapback]235212[/snapback]</div>

That is an idea for a great study. Then compare results from different demographics and cultures. Get some government funding and do it

 

Did I mention that this thread is useless and divisive?

Oh, yeah, I did.

 

Hey, can't porn be considered useful therapy for various sexual afflictions?

<_<

 

Time for a small rant.

Despite what I said above, I hate porn. I'm as liberal as you'll find, but that has nothing to do with it. Porn, and the accelerating degradation of US "pop culture" in my lifetime of which it is but the most egregious example, hurts my "spirit" (I'm not qualified to speak of souls). And, as it becomes more mainstream, it drags us all down. That's what pop culture has increasingly become: finding a new "lowest common denominator", usually as a byproduct of greedy egotists who want nothing if not to "push the envelope", culturally speaking.

Have I looked at it? Especially when I first got my computer ('95) and wanted to see what all the fuss was about, yes. The debate was already raging about whether women were "empowered" by porn or degraded. I started out thinking it was degrading. I've ended up thinking that the female participants in porn have exploited it as much as the purveyors.

I am shocked at how many thousands of American females participate in filmed porn. There are so many, it must be true that you and I know someone who has "done porn", even if we don't know that about them. I don't see needle tracks on most of those chicks.

After all, most women, citing their sexual liberation in the aftermath of the "women's movement" had by the early 80's rejected the "sex object"-ification arguments of well-meaning male liberals (and a handful of females). They decided they LIKED being objectified, but on their terms. It was OK to habitually dress provocatively, so long as society promised never to hold it against them to partially explain rape as a crime of overstimulation. Society committed to stop calling provocative dress (and accompanying behavior) "slutty", and even gave the green light to its inclusion as acceptable in junior high school. (In the 80's the country started its inexorable slide into becoming a soft-core-BASED culture.) That was a good enough deal for most men.

By the mid-90's, the most celebrated single cultural event---both by women and men---was the introduction of the "wonder bra". Those not helped even by this technology were given a pass to the nearest breast enhancement surgeon. Cleavage became King.

Porn rewards the culture's obsession with body parts over "lovemaking" (quaint, eh?) and sex-as-gymnastics, even slightly violent and/or kinky. SIZE started to become as important with reference to men's penises as women's breasts. (Guys: receive any penis-enlargement e-mails lately?). Women could unashamedly ogle Playgirl. Fair's fair.

Would I ban porn? Except for the kiddie variety, nope. I think it has some value for the thousands of poor slobs who are the losers in a culture of sexiness-and-good-looks. Many can never taste face-to-face love, or lovemaking. Let them fantasize and masturbate in peace.

In fact, I don't think we'll ever have reliable stats on it, but I'd bet hard-core porn prevents much more sexual violence than it triggers. It's an outlet.

I hate the hip-hop-and-rap scene, too. We just can't fall all over ourselves fast enough to prove that we're cool, and especially that we love anything minorities can dish up.

I'm a Romantic; what can I say. I despise the dumbing-down, the coarsening of a culture in which, as a kid, I enjoyed the label of "rebel" because I grew Elvis sideburns in 1958. I never dreamed it would come to this. Sexuality is distorted and degraded, and people reading these words under the age of 40 were raised in a country desensitized systematically compared to the one I knew. They probably don't know what I'm blathering about.

BTW, my new heroine is Ariel Levy, a gutsy writer for "New York" magazine, who last year wrote Female Chauvinist Pigs...Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture. She may sound like a starched, naive Jewish princess to some, but I think she's right on.

 

Ghost, I respect your reasoning and even agree with some of it.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Schmika @ Apr 6 2006, 07:23 PM) [snapback]236032[/snapback]</div>

Sorry, when comments like:
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Schmika @ Apr 5 2006, 12:02 AM) [snapback]235078[/snapback]</div>

get thrown around like they have merit, I get annoyed.

http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?va=denigrates

Since most Organized Religions belittle sinners to shame them into mindlessly following the herd, the opinion that sinful sex is belittling should be expected. Or even non-sinful married sex if anyone else gets to see it.

Good depends on opinion, so I guess there's zero chance of you accepting any good I'd mention. I sleep well, bother nobody, and always wonder why criminals who decide to 'warm up' with a video before they go rape someone give a bad name to a product that, if used correctly, would leave them fairly uninterested in sex.

Once upon a time, I went through megabytes of arguments with folks into BDSM, pointing out the harm in convincing people they would like pain if they only tried it. I'd consider being used by someone else as the receiver of sadistic exploitation to be belittling, but it'd take more than a casual dismissal as 'filth' for me to accept the stuff I like is belittling.

Perhaps it's also that stereotype thing again, where I dislike being pre-judged. 'Wallowing' and all...

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(mikepaul @ Apr 6 2006, 11:57 PM) [snapback]236160[/snapback]</div>

"Good" is a pretty well understood term....go ahead...what good????

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(ghostofjk @ Apr 6 2006, 11:40 PM) [snapback]236150[/snapback]</div>

Well, so much for the losers.

Ummm, you did set aside a few non-loser slots in there somewhere, right? I'm being nice in giving you the benefit of the doubt here.

Watch this (non-porn of course) video on "mirror neurons".

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/video/3204/q01.html

People with sufficient mirror neurons like watching TV and videos. They 'become' one or more of the people they see, and perhaps like what is being done. See someone eating ice cream and smiling, think about getting some. See sex, think about how the experience would feel.

Other people seem to have fewer mirror neurons, and just don't get it. Why bother watching someone do something? See a guy get hit in the crotch on "America's Funniest Videos", and just shrug. Probably go read a book or something.

So people who GET something out of porn have a difficult time explaining it to those who don't. Those who might get it, but are programmmed to call it 'filth' in a knee-jerk reaction no matter what is depicted, is another story. Maybe someday the right story would be OK, but I doubt it. Kinda sad.

I do not feel a reason to call something 'filth' until I've seen it and decide the name fits. I don't go to the BDSM section of video stores because the stuff there fits. I don't want to have sex with guys, so I avoid that section too without calling it names.

Now, I'm sure a few non-losers like me are out there. When we watch Harrison Ford we want to 'be' Harrison Ford. When we watch John Holmes, we want to 'be' John Holmes. Perhaps the folks who don't get it are the losers?

Nah, calling people losers would be cruel...

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Schmika @ Apr 7 2006, 12:05 AM) [snapback]236163[/snapback]</div>

Ummm, I sleep well, I bother nobody.

I sort out what looks like something good to do from bad. Sex is good. Beating someone to get a few thrills is bad. Knowing what amounts to 'harm' and what amounts to 'fun' is good.

We can discuss the fraud in calling masturbation a sin if you want. Repeating a lie billions of times doesn't convert it into a truth...

 

"I'm like a freak in heat, a dog without warning, I have an appetite FO sex, 'cause me so horny..."

- probably the BEST musical lyric EVER!

:lol:

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Schmika @ Apr 6 2006, 08:48 PM) [snapback]236155[/snapback]</div>

I can drink to that.... I like Ryans Cream......

 

Maybe we should turn the discussion towards women who look at porn, thereby degrading men.
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:lol: