You’ve probably heard the recent tourism advertising campaign touting Louisville as “Possibility City.” I was born and raised in the ‘Ville, and I love my home town. Unfortunately, if recent trends continue, a more appropriate slogan for Louisville might be “Predatory City.”
As reported in the Courier-Journal, local and state agencies worked together to arrest 14 Louisville men in a sting in which 12 of the men met with who they thought were 12-to-15-year old children. In related news, Louisville was crowned the U.S.’s “most obscene city” by Google. The search engine measured internet searches for pornography, including child pornography, and concluded the River City is head and shoulders below the rest. To complete the triple crown of dubious distinction, only a few years ago a former FBI agent with over 20 years of experience investigating sex crimes cited our fair metropolis as one of the 5 worst U.S. cities in terms of sexually-oriented businesses. Uneasy is the head indeed.
Once again pornography advocates (who dreams of being a pornography advocate when they grow up?) will roll their eyes and rail against us uptight prudes who are letting a few bad apples tarnish the rest of the fun-loving bunch. I think the ladies and gentlemen protest too much. While not all people who regularly view pornography become pedophiles or rapists, nearly all pedophiles and rapists have a history of pornography addiction. Often it starts in adolescence, and often it starts with so-called “soft porn” like Playboy. But as with any addiction, the law of diminishing returns is triggered in many users. Eventually, the imagery needed to produce the desired effect must become more and more aberrant and depraved, until eventually imagery is no longer enough to satisfy.
I guarantee that if interviewed, virtually every one of those 14 men arrested would recount a history of pornography addiction. Does this mean they are not to be held responsible for their own actions? Of course not. Just as the alcoholic cannot blame Jack Daniels for making him drive drunk and kill someone, when an adult makes the decision to harm another adult or, God forbid, a child, he or she should be punished to the full extent of the law.
Where the alcohol analogy breaks down is that, regardless of my personal opinion of alcohol, it is a legal substance. Obscenity is not (click on “A quick primer on pornography and the first amendment”). Why the laws restricting the production and distribution of porn are not enforced is the subject for another blog on another day. Also unlike alcohol, there is no such thing as moderation when it comes to Porn. By definition the act of producing it debases the participants and the act of viewing it debases the user.
As I mentioned in a previous post, the citizens of Louisville and southern Indiana have worked hard for years to ensure that the local sex industry is regulated and that those regulations are enforced. As is so often the case, when sex businesses are forced to operate under health codes and zoning parameters (i.e., legally) they see their profit margins shrink dramatically.
The significant reduction in sexually-oriented businesses in Louisville in the past five years is heartening. However, the arrests of those 14 men provide a sobering reminder of the incredible potential for destruction inherent in the sex industry today.
Actually, that study was based on searches for the seven dirty words George Carlin cited, not porn specifically [and definitely not child porn]—that Fox 41 article is extremely misleading, unfortunately. The raw data is linked in the article I’m citing.
A not-truly-serious comment: if Louisvillians are searching internet porn heavily, well… mightn’t that be because our porn shops have been zoned to death?
You do argue that nearly all pedophiles and rapists “have a history of pornography addiction,” which isn’t true, actually. Science is showing that porn may reduce rape, and in at least one study, rapists had less exposure to porn than control subjects. And let’s also note that sex addiction and porn addiction aren’t recognized medical conditions, either [per the DSM-IV].
It’s extremely easy to demonize porn [and sex], which is a large part of why advocates exist. Consider, for a minute, that the reproductive act [and anything associated with it] actually has to be defended—doesn’t that seem a little absurd?
Also unlike alcohol, there is no such thing as moderation when it comes to Porn. By definition the act of producing it debases the participants and the act of viewing it debases the user.
… please explain. As far as I know the definition of porn [per Merriam-Webster] is material intended to provoke a sexual reaction. Are you saying that having a sexual urge/thought is itself degrading? Even if you seek it out? And there is such a thing as moderation. People do it naturally, all the time—they look at porn when they so wish, and when they’re done, they go on with their lives.
Lastly, there is an obscenity test. Per the Miller test, the material must appeal to “the prurient interest,” must be “patently offensive,” and completely lack “serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.” So, US law recognizes that there is such stuff as obscenity, but so long as we remain as diverse a country as we are, it’ll have to be a lot worse than anything sold at Theatair X, for example, to be considered “patently offensive.” Incidentally, that study from Google is actually all about this—lawyers defending producers of so-called obscenity are using local Google search data to prove the material is not patently offensive to the community.
The “porn up, rape down” link doesn’t pass the sniff test. The piece actually lists much more substantive factors that have contributed to the decline in rape–”Official explanations for the unexpected decline include (1) less lawlessness associated with crack cocaine; (b) women have been taught to avoid unsafe situations; (c)more would-be rapists already in prison for other crimes; (d) sex education classes telling boys that “no means no.”–and then uses the rest of its word count to dismiss them. And the same author lost all credibility by giving credence to the notion that “unwanted babies” that had been aborted actually helped crime rates because, you know, unwanted babies will grow up to be gangsters. What a relief we have abortion to stop them before they grow up and harm society.
Sex offenders, almost without exception, have histories of pornography addiction. I have provided links to the work of people with whom you disagree; I’m not going to rehash the same ground ad nauseum. You could also look at the work that Chuck Colson’s Prison Fellowship ministry has done for decades. As my last word on the matter, I’ll give you a paper to look up. I’m not going to provide a link here because in part it details a detective’s work on sex crimes and the details are painfully specific. Google “The link between pornography and sex crimes” by Rober Peters.
You used a poor choice of words here: “Consider, for a minute, that the reproductive act [and anything associated with it] actually has to be defended—doesn’t that seem a little absurd?”
Doesn’t it seem absurd to you to refer to the acts which people perform in pornography ‘reproductive’? Calling an act a ‘reproductive’ act suggests that the act has been performed with the express intent of reproducing life. Pornography is prostitution, which is performed only for the express purpose of selfish pleasure. It actually warps and perverts ‘the reproductive act’ into a loveless, soulless athletic spectacle which promotes objectification of women by men and hatred of men by women. THAT is what I’m demonizing.
You also wrote, “And there is such a thing as moderation. People do it naturally, all the time—they look at porn when they so wish, and when they’re done, they go on with their lives.” If you recall, I said that not all people who use pornography become sex offenders. I’m not making the argument that every person who uses looks at porn is likely to forcibly act out their fantasies on a victim. What I’m arguing is that by definition, every person who looks at pornography is harmed by that imagery, and that society is harmed by the cumulative coarsening of our attitude towards sexuality. Where you see freedom, I see slavery.
Your last point is one on which we are probably in agreement, although from opposite sides of the debate. As I alluded in my post, I recognize that the Miller test is difficult to enforce, but not because there is a dearth of obscene material to prosecute. The Miller test is so hard to enforce because of what you refer to as the “diversity” of our country. Again, you and I simply view the same world through different worldview lenses. You see ‘diversity,’ I see a moral relativism that has become so rampant, so pervasive that as a society we can no longer tell black from white, down from up, or wrong from right.
We can agree that communities have a hard time defining what ‘obscenity’ is: you think that’s great, and you think “it’ll have to be a lot worse than anything sold at Theatair X, for example, to be considered “patently offensive.” The question ROCK and many other people are asking is, Just how much worse? And how many people, how many marriages, how many children have to be harmed before you and the defenders of porn-as-reproductive-act’ acknowledge that it’s gone too far?
I’m not willing to wait for that day to come.
Naturally, if a study is going to argue against something, it will explain what it’s arguing against… and then argue against it. You’ve ignored the data in the article, and the other links I cited. Furthermore, I seriously doubt that you’ve spent a lot of time considering that interesting correlation between abortion and crime. It’s a sweet sentiment to think that anyone can grow up to do anything, but it ignores reality. Women who have abortions tend to do so because they don’t have the resources to raise a kid [or another kid]. And it is poverty, lack of resources, that often creates people who have no opportunities outside of crime. It’s not a defense of abortion, it’s noting a phenomenon. You will very rarely [if ever] hear a pro-choicer use it as an argument.
But I think it must be said that there’s a big difference in the studies we’re citing. Each time you cite something, it’s a “study” or opinion piece by a sex-negative conservative who starts off with the assumption that porn is bad. That IS NOT science. Science is done when an unbiased experiment or study is performed, and other scientists can duplicate or correlate the findings. You can dislike the data from the studies I’ve linked all you like, but that doesn’t change the data. Peters’ paper, like the other people you’ve cited, is anecdotal and filled with his biased analysis and conflations, and concludes that there needn’t be scientific evidence than porn causes problems—very convenient. The stories of the criminals in the article again and again do not strike me as regular people poisoned by porn, they strike me as sociopaths. Ted Bundy certainly was. Also the statistics thrown around in the paper seem funny to me—how is porn a risk factor if the majority of offenders don’t use it?
It’s not a poor choice of words to call it the reproductive act, because it is [well, aside from gay sex, I suppose], and because if it weren’t for the reproductive urge we wouldn’t have sex drives. But okay. Porn is not about reproduction, obviously. And I suppose if you want to shame people, sure, you can call porn consumption selfish, though plainly porn does not necessarily rob a partner of affection. But when you say, “It actually warps and perverts ‘the reproductive act’ into a loveless, soulless athletic spectacle which promotes objectification of women by men and hatred of men by women,” it sounds like rote. It ignores the wild diversity of porn and applies heteronormative/evangelical standards of judgment, which simply aren’t valid for the whole of society.
And it is not the case that porn necessarily harms the viewer. I can say with all certainty that, for instance, that Flaubert’s Madame Bovary did not harm me, and it was banned as obscene—but none of the contemporary porn I’ve watched has victimized me, either. The idea that adults should be allowed to be adults is not “coarse,” it simply supposes that adults have the faculties to think for themselves and act accordingly. That is freedom. You can have the opinion that porn enslaves people all you like, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a freedom to be able to consume it as you will.
When you talk about moral relativism, again, that comes off as rote. We all accept moral relativism to some degree, whether we acknowledge it or not. For example, the Founding Fathers were all human traffickers, but we don’t judge them so harshly because 18th century America was a slaveowning society. Culture shifts, changes, and evolves, whether we like it or not; relativism acknowledges that. Any decent person thinks exploitation and abuse are wrong—but outside of certain religious worldviews [that are not universal], there’s no reason to think porn is necessarily exploitative or abusive. The comment about Theatair X was specifically in regard to that. Their wares do not include child porn, for example.
All I am trying to get across to you is that certain sorts of porn are a symptom, but it is never the problem itself. The sociopath may seek out violent and abusive porn, or the pedophile child porn. There are problems with how sex workers are treated. That does not mean the adult industry should be eliminated, or that it is inherently malignant. It only means that there should be good regulation [that allows as much freedom as can be allowed, of course].
Thank you for an eye-opening, thought-provoking article. Look forward to more like this in the future.
jenlillith,
Interesting you bring up Bundy, as he famously spoke of his lifelong addiction to porn in a death-row interview shortly before his execution. I’m guessing you’ll dismiss that too, since his interviewer was Dr. James Dobson.
Regarding bias: do you truly think all of the studies you cite to back up your arguments are free from bias and cherry-picked data? Calling your side “science” does not automatically bestow infallibility upon the sources you provide. Alfred Kinsey was undeniably influential in sparking the so-called sexual revolution, but that doesn’t change the fact that he was a monster who used convicted sex offenders for his data pool and who included charts of the sexual responses of infants in his ‘research.’
You confidently assert that it’s not possible to get child porn at Theatair X. How do you know for sure? The whole point of the case against Theatair X is that they are quite flamboyantly thumbing their nose at established rules and regs, and allowing (if not promoting) illegal and unsanitary activities on the premises. You concede there should be regulation of the sex industry at the end of your last post; is that only regulation that you approve of? How do you define what “regulations” pass muster? Why is it unreasonable to ask Theatair X to simply abide by the same rules that every other southern Indiana business has to abide by?
Once we get past all the other topics of debate, that’s the question that nobody on your side can really answer aside from, “Stop picking on poor Theatair X!” That’s just not good enough.
Abby,
Thanks!
Bill
I brought up Bundy because he was spoken about at some length in Peters’ article, and because another ROCK representative has brought him to me up in the past. You can’t hold a sociopath up as proof of anything about porn, because sociopaths are categorically unlike regular people.
What I am trying to say, in so many words, is that if you want to prove anything, you have to use credible sources. I’ve linked stuff I think is pretty credible—you don’t like what it has to say, but you’ve yet to produce anything that actually contradicts it. Like now, you’re repeating Judith Reisman’s garbage that Kinsey was a “monster,” which is untrue. Completely untrue. Reisman is not a scientist, because she doesn’t run experiments or conduct studies for publication in peer-reviewed journals. Her one claim to mainstream fame is doing a study for the government that was so poorly done it was subsequently dismissed by both the government officials who commissioned it and her university. Her career since has been telling evangelicals what they want to hear in what are essentially opinion pieces.
Which is to say, she is not a credible source.
I can be sure you can’t get child porn at Theatair X because I’ve never seen anything like that at Theatair X [or any porn shop, for that matter], and because any porn you rent/buy begins with a sworn written statement that everyone involved in making the movie was of age. Besides that, do you realize how much worse the penalties are for child porn than for the rules Theatair X is breaking? Even if they wanted to sell it—which I can’t imagine they do, because regular adult porn does not breed pedophilia—they’d have to be stunningly stupid to risk such penalties. I don’t know if you realize this, but people outside of ROCK, even nonchristians, find child porn a disgusting moral wrong. You can’t accuse porn peddlers of child porn because their business hours are 24/7 and still sound like a reasonable person.
Personally I think some of the Clarksville regulations on adult stores should be scrapped [like the rule about not being open past 1 AM]. My basic stance is that regulation should be concerned only with making sure only consenting adults are involved in the adult industry, only adults are getting the products, and upholding sex workers’ rights and well-being. Pure pragmatism, no more moralizing needed. Theatair X should be following the rules, and probably spending some energy on getting the rules changed. That said, ROCK’s long term goal isn’t making sure Theatair X follows the rules. It’s removing the adult industry from the area and foisting an evangelical worldview on public policy. That is why the lady doth protest so much.
Jenlillith,
I don’t have the burden of proof here. You are as sure of your position as I am of mine, I have no illusions about that. It wouldn’t matter what link, report, statistic, etc., I presented. Nothing I write is going to change your mind; you are far too invested in your worldview.
I stand by everything I’ve written, especially the “rote” stuff. This blog really is for the big wide middle, people who, unlike you and me, have mixed feelings about some of these issues. It is them I hope to persuade, or at least to give food for thought.
I’m sure you’ll want the last word. I’ll try my best to give it to you. So long.
Bill