Porn Destroys

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 21:20:09 GMT

How is everyone doing? Haven't heard from many of you for awhile!

Male Lust & the Objectification of Women Book

Wed, 06 Sep 2006 14:35:48 GMT

Could someone recommend a good book on male lust and its objectification of women?

I have heard a male person in my life say, "I have nothing against lust. I think lust is wonderful." He sees that, since conservative Christians find it wrong, then it must surely be right and liberating.

I need a book that explains that, while for men it may seem liberating, feeding male lust contributes to a much larger paradigm of oppression.

Using Nearly Nude Pictures, Child Sex Sites Test Laws

Sun, 20 Aug 2006 17:02:22 GMT

Using Nearly Nude Pictures, Child Sex Sites Test Laws
By KURT EICHENWALD
Published: August 20, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/20/business/20model.html?pagewanted=1

In the photograph, the model is shown rising out of a bubble bath, suds dripping from her body. Her tight panties and skimpy top are soaked and revealing. She gazes at the viewer, her face showing a wisp of a smile that seems to have been coaxed from off-camera.

In just over seven months, the model has become an online phenomenon. She has thousands of fans from around the world, membership lists show, who pay as much as $30 a month to see images of her. According to the posted schedule, new photographs of her — many clearly intended to be erotic, all supposedly taken that week — are posted online every Friday for her growing legions of admirers.

The model’s online name is Sparkle. She is — at most — 9 years old.

Sparkle is one of hundreds of children being photographed by adults, part of what appears to be the latest trend in online child exploitation: Web sites for pedophiles offering explicit, sexualized images of children who are covered by bits of clothing — all in the questionable hope of allowing producers, distributors and customers to avoid child pornography charges.

In recent months, an array of investigations of the child pornography business — by the Justice Department, state and local law enforcement and Congress — have contributed to wholesale shutdowns of some of the most sexually explicit Internet sites trafficking in child images. But they have been rapidly replaced by a growing number of these so-called model sites, Internet locations that offer scores of original photographs of scantily clad under-age children like Sparkle, often posed in ways requested by subscribers.

More than 200 of the sites have been found by The New York Times through online advertising aimed at pedophiles, and a vast majority focus mostly on one child. Almost all the children appear to be between the ages of 2 and 12.

Based on descriptions in online customer forums and in Web pages showing image samples, the children are photographed by people who have frequent access to them. The sites often include images of “guests”: children who are described as a friend of the featured child, but who appear for only a day. The sites say the children come from different parts of the world, including the United States.

Based on the images and wording from online advertisements, the sites show toddlers wearing tight thongs, and slightly older children posing evocatively while wearing makeup and feather boas. There is even a site that offers images of girls and boys who appear to be 5 or 6 years old, wearing just diapers.

In online conversations observed by The Times over four months, pedophiles portrayed model sites as the last of a shrinking number of Internet locations for sexual images of minors.

”I considered the authors of those sites as leaders of a rebellion movement for child porn,” a man calling himself Heartfallen wrote in an online site for pedophiles, discussing the decline in the number of sites featuring images of naked minors. “They’ve vanished. There is much less freedom on the Internet now. We still have a rebellion made up of nonnude child modeling sites. But are they going to suffer the same fate as their predecessors?”

Insight to the Ramsey Case

The secretive world of child exploitation is in the spotlight because of an arrest last week in the 1996 murder of JonBenet Ramsey, a 6-year-old beauty pageant princess. The suspect was a fugitive from charges of possessing child pornography and had exhibited a fascination with the sexual abuse of children.

While many of the recently created sites are veering into new territory, the concept of for-pay modeling sites using children has been around for years. They first appeared in the late 1990’s, when entrepreneurs, and even parents, recognized that there was a lucrative market online for images of girls and boys.

Sites with names like lilamber.com emerged, showing photographs of children, usually modeling in clothes or swimsuits. Their existence set off a fury of criticism in Congress about possible child exploitation, but proposed legislation about such sites never passed.

The sites that have emerged in recent months, however, are markedly different. Unlike the original sites, the newer ones are explicit in their efforts to market to pedophiles, referring to young children with phrases like “hot” and “delicious.” The children involved are far younger, and the images far more sexual, emphasizing the minors’ genitals and buttocks.

Some modeling sites have already attracted the attention of law enforcement. Earlier this year, prosecutors obtained a guilty plea on child pornography charges from Sheila L. Sellinger, then of Shoals, Ind., who had been selling illegal photographs of her 10-year-old daughter on a modeling Web site. Last month, Ms. Sellinger was sentenced to almost 12 years in prison.

Ms. Sellinger, who earned thousands of dollars a week from the pornographic yet clothed images of her daughter, cooperated with law enforcement, leading to the arrest of two men who had been assisting her with her site and had been running several more, court records show.

To attract subscribers, central marketing sites, called portals, list scores of available modeling sites that accept money in exchange for access to children’s images. The portals promote the busiest sites, ranking them by the number of hits they receive.

Such a marketing approach proved effective for some online child pornography businesses that have disappeared over the last year, including those that offered illicit videos of children generated by Webcams.

The Times did not subscribe to any sites, which it first saw referenced in online conversations among pedophiles. The Times followed a link posted in those conversations to forum postings and images on freely accessible pages of the modeling sites. Because those sites appeared to be illegal, The Times was required by law to report what it had found to authorities. Federal law enforcement officials were notified in July about the sites.In contrast to their advertising, many of the sites portray themselves on their main pages as regular modeling agencies trying to find work for their talent. But executives in the legitimate modeling business said that virtually everything about the sites runs contrary to industry practice. Most child images for genuine agencies are password-protected, the executives said, with access granted to companies and casting agents only after a check of their backgrounds.

These executives said that real modeling agencies would refuse to use the types of sexualized images of children sought by pedophiles, not only because they are exploitative and illegal, but also because they would be bad business.

Such images on an agency Web site would drive away many parents who might be seeking representation for their child, executives said; indeed, most photographs of child models are nothing more than head shots. And the legitimate agents provide the phone numbers, addresses and names of their executives so potential clients can contact them; most of the sites aimed at pedophiles not only provide little or no means of contact, but even hide the identities of the owners behind anonymous site registrations.

“These are clearly not bona fide companies, and it’s obvious these are just Web sites for people to go on and view children in an unhealthy manner,” Bonnie Breen, chief booker for the Bizzykidz Agency, a prominent modeling agency for children based in London, said when provided with a description of the emerging modeling sites.

Despite repeated statements on the sites that they are lawful, they may well run afoul of American law. While the issues are far from settled — thus leading to the attempts by Congress to clarify the law — courts have worked over the last two decades to define standards for what constitutes potentially illegal images of children.

‘Lascivious Exhibition’ Standard

Under law, for an image that does not involve a child engaged in a sex act, a court must find that it entails “lascivious exhibition of the genitals or pubic area” of a minor to determine that it is child pornography. As a result, courts have ruled that images of naked children were not automatically pornographic, and thus not illegal, while also holding that the mere presence of clothing on a photographed child was not, in itself, adequate to declare the image lawful.

Instead, the courts often apply a six-pronged test, developed in a 1986 case called United States v. Dost, to determine whether an image meets the “lascivious exhibition” standard. That test — which requires a court to examine the child’s pose and attire, the suggestiveness and intent of the image and other factors — includes one standard on whether the child is naked. However, no single standard under Dost is absolute, and courts must continuously examine potentially illegal images while considering each part of the test.

The leading precedent on child pornography involving clothed minors is a federal case known as United States v. Knox, which involved a pedophile who obtained erotic videos of girls. In that 1994 case, the Federal Court of Appeals upheld the conviction of the pedophile, Stephen Knox, saying explicitly that clothing alone did not automatically mean that images of children were legal.

“The harm Congress attempted to eradicate by enacting the child pornography laws is present when a photographer unnaturally focuses on a minor child’s clothed genital area with the obvious intent to produce an image sexually arousing to pedophiles,” the court’s ruling says. “The rationale underlying the statute’s proscription applies equally to any lascivious exhibition of the genitals or pubic area whether these areas are clad or completely exposed.”

While adult pornography has some First Amendment protections, there are no such protections for child pornography. Still, some experts have expressed discomfort, in general, at criminalizing clothed pictures of minors.

“This is a difficult area,” said Michael A. Bamberger, a First Amendment specialist at Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal, based in New York, who filed a brief on behalf of a booksellers’ group in the Knox case. “The whole history of the exception from First Amendment protections for child pornography is based on the harm to the child. But there is in my view a free speech issue with respect to designating photographs of persons under the age of 18 who are clothed as child pornography.”

But Mr. Bamberger expressed uncertainty about whether his concerns applied when told details of the model sites found by The Times. “To me, it sounds as if you are really talking about nude equivalents, almost like cellophane clothing, and that’s not clothing at all.”To distinguish between illegal images and, say, photographs of children posing in underwear for a store catalog, the court said it had to apply the Dost standards and review a range of facts, like the nature of the images and whether the marketing was intended to appeal to pedophiles.

For example, the court noted, a potential customer could know the images of minors were illegal if they were marketed with statements proclaiming that they would “blow your mind so completely you’ll be begging for mercy.” Explicit listing of the children’s ages, along with sexually loaded terms like “hot,” could also be used as evidence of illegality, the court said.

The modeling sites reviewed by The Times incorporated many such references to encourage viewers to subscribe.

That is true for one of the most successful collections of sites, according to some portal rankings, run by an entity called PlayToy Entertainment. On its central site, PlayToy holds itself out as a company that helps children start modeling careers. There is, however, no phone number, address or prominent e-mail address available for companies that might seek to hire the girls or for parents who might want their children to be models.

The central PlayToy site originally located by The Times contained links to as many as six sites featuring little girls. In recent days, the central site has been redesigned, removing the links to the girls’ individual sites.

Those sites still exist, however, including the one for the girl called Sparkle. Another site features a prepubescent girl named Lolly — a widely used online code word for pornographic images of girls. There are even sexualized images of a girl called Baby, who appears younger than 5 and whose photographs seem to go back as far as her second birthday or earlier, when she was still in diapers.

The marketing makes clear that this is no typical modeling company.

“Call 911 before viewing!!!” proclaims the site for Sparkle, which shows her in a thong so revealing that she appears to be naked below the waist. The ad for the site uses words that echo those cited in the Knox decision, reading, “Only 9 years old! Hot!”

Other PlayToy sites are more explicit. “Feel her breathe on your face, take a gentle touch from your screen, open your mind and push the limits,” reads the site for the girl called Lolly. “If you are ready to handle this trip, PlayToy Lolly is calling.”

An advertisement for another PlayToy site, featuring a girl called Peach, declares, “A peach has never looked so delicious.**8 years old**.”

The site includes a picture of the young girl wearing a tank top pulled off one shoulder. Directly below that is a purple emblem with the company name and the words, “Nonnude website: 100% legal.”

But experts said that assurance was almost certainly not true. Based on the ages of the children, the marketing words and customer comments on the PlayToy sites described to him by The Times, a lead lawyer in the Knox case said that the subscribers had plenty of reason to worry.

“They shouldn’t have any comfort that they are not breaking the law,” said Edward W. Warren, a partner from the Washington office of Kirkland & Ellis who helped to argue Knox as a representative of 234 members of Congress who joined the case. “This sounds worse and more graphic and more grotesque than what we were dealing with, particularly given how young the children are.”

The assurance by the company that the sites are lawful is irrelevant to any potential prosecution, experts said. Indeed, in the Knox decision, the court held that defendants could be found guilty if they were aware of the “general nature and character” of images that they bought involving clothed children in sexual poses.

“The child pornography laws would be eviscerated if a pedophile’s personal opinion about the legality of sexually explicit videos was transformed into the applicable law,” the court held.

In their comments on PlayToy’s site, which can be viewed without registering with the company, the subscribers make clear that they are aware these are sites for pedophiles, not legitimate modeling clients.

“I think it would be awesome to have the models start off fetchingly clothed, and then strip down to tops or panties (or thongs!!),” a customer calling himself head2fat wrote on the forum.

Another client, calling himself ludwig66, instead requested that the girls appear in stockings, “ending up removing them to reveal bare feet and legs.” And still another customer, calling himself littlefeet, asked the site owners to pose the girl known as Baby in bare feet with her toes pointed, “so all of those beautiful wrinkles show!!!”

While PlayToy’s management and its members repeatedly assure themselves online about the legality of their images, they did not hesitate to post images from known child pornography sites. For example, when Ms. Sellinger was arrested this year for selling photos of her daughter, PlayToy members — and even the site operator — posted messages of dismay, referring to both mother and daughter by name. They also composed a photographic homage to the girl in the forum discussion, using images from the site that had been deemed illegal.

PlayToy’s sites have been online since October, company records show. But in that short time, the records show, 6,000 people have subscribed to view the images of the girls. Each subscriber is paying $30 a month for each site; that means the operators have collected a minimum of $180,000 in that short time, assuming every subscriber bought only one site for one month.

The cash has been collected either by credit card — processed through a company called Advanced Internet Billing Services, or through Western Union payments — as well as through an online money system called e-gold. A Tortuous Digital Trail

Attempts to learn the identities of the people behind PlayToy suggested many possible locations. Payments through Western Union were processed through Ukraine. An administrative e-mail address suggested the company was based in Russia. Using a commercial software program, The Times traced messages sent by the PlayToy sites back to servers in Germany and obtained what is known as the Internet protocol address of that online host.

An examination of the registration documents for the sites’ names led to a company that is essentially a front, permitting its name to be used as the registrant by people who wish to remain anonymous.

The Times then obtained business records about the site prepared by someone involved in its operation.

If true, the records show the name, address, telephone number and other personal information of a man in Florida who is involved in running the site. An e-mail address listed in the records was traced to postings that appeared in pedophile conversation sites, including comments praising child pornography and images of young girls in thongs. Because of the possibility of identity theft, The Times has elected not to publish the name of that man or of associates who also appear to be involved in the business.

The Florida man did not return a voice mail message left on his cellphone or respond to an e-mail message.

Still, even if the operators of PlayToy are positively identified and compelled to shut their sites, the growing business of model sites would probably continue to thrive. PlayToy’s many subscribers, a large number of whom identify themselves on the site as living in America, could simply drift over to other model sites, all offering similar fare.

There, on each of those hundreds of competing sites, the subscribers will find at least one other little girl who, every few days or so, is dressed in panties or thongs, placed in a bathtub or posed on a bed, while a nearby adult snaps pictures for the delight of a paying audience of thousands.

Links Concerning Pornography

Fri, 21 Jul 2006 23:26:11 GMT

I'm searching for sites dealing with the subject of pornography, particularly anti-porn (but either really, since it's good to read up on both "sides"). I'm trying to compile a more comprehensive list for this community, since it's currently scarce.

Please share the best you've found! It will be a good reference for all of us.

Thanks! :)

The Culture of Pornography & Committment Phobia

Sat, 15 Jul 2006 17:24:08 GMT

Someone suggested I read this article, so I have provided some excerpts which I thought we might discuss. You're free to read the rest of the article, which is based in Catholicism. I hope that as a community (no doubt based in a variety of faiths and worldviews) that we are free to discuss religious (and non-religious) based texts concerning pornography...to examine this subject, pornography, without becoming divisive over gradations of faith. I feel that any resource concerning pornography will provide insight into the subject and foster a more well-rounded perspective.

http://www.catholic.org/featured/headline.php?ID=1616

Excerpts:

So the man who begins a fantasy sexual life in his early adolescence, as so many men of today have, with the use of soft-core pornography, such as Playboy magazines, gets a habit deeply ingrained in his psyche linking a false idea of female perfection with an ideal fantasy harem. None of the members of his fantasy harem has any qualms about his fantasizing about another woman, and even seem to approve, because that is all the woman’s eyes in those photographs ever communicates. She is all approving, all understanding, and lovingly naked—for him. His stable of concubines is a big happy family who exist all and just for him. If one has rounder breasts, or another a cuter face, or another a firmer derriere no one minds! No one gets hurt or jealous. Hence he is free to always search for that more perfect woman—each month. But always has the old ones to fall back on and they never mind.

Now, translate this mindset, firmly formed, and deeply linked to this man’s patterns of needs into the real world of real women and real love affairs. At first he is all hearts and flowers, candy, cards, presents, dinner and dancing, until she starts to like it and believes he really cares for her—and he does. But can he commit to just one? To her alone? Or is he always scanning the horizon for something (as opposed to someone) “better”? Is he capable of truly loving a woman or merely addicted to adolescent romantic fantasy linked to sexual gratification—which is now unquenchable by one woman?

He will weep with sincere frustration that she can’t tolerate his desire for more and others. He is accustomed to the unquestioning sweetness and acceptance of his paper harem, and genuinely can’t understand himself, and feels guilt over the sense that he is using this real live woman, unconscious though it may be, in the same way. She’s fed up, he’s in terror, facing more rejection, shame, and terrible loneliness, doesn’t know what happened, and can’t help himself.

We are whole beings, and our sexuality cannot be split off from the rest of our instincts for permanence, love, and family, for the sake of temporary pleasure without tragic results—anymore than the procreative aspect can be split off from the unitive aspect of our sexuality without damaging that very union. A fragmented self cannot commit, much less give.

just a reminder

Sat, 10 Jun 2006 00:55:08 GMT

Hello everyone--

This is just a little "FYI" that exists in the community info, but I thought I'd reiterate here:

If you want your posts to stay inside the community (i.e. only members can read them), make sure you mark them as "friends only." If you don't mind who reads them, that's fine also.

For those of you who lurk in the community... ;) ...and have added it to your community friends list but haven't joined, remember that you may be missing out on being able to read "friends only" posts or participating in the conversation. So come on inside! I'm sure you have great thoughts to share on this subject and we would love to hear from you.

That is all. Carry on.

:)

This makes me mad

Thu, 08 Jun 2006 21:46:10 GMT

Why is this woman being 'irrational'?

That is stupid

http://news.yahoo.com/s/dear_margo/20060602/en_dm/margo_howard20060602;_ylt=Aig6BpPKyf4_0TgFRuuXYcT9mc0F;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA--

i have to let something out.

Wed, 17 May 2006 23:51:35 GMT

it's been festering inside me for weeks now. since this will be pure emotion, i don't know how coherent this will be, but i expect it to be profane, and i also will talk blatently about my sex life. i'm sorry if this offends anyone, it's just how i'm feeling right now.

a few weeks ago, my fiancee cheated on me with a movie. a movie with one of the most beautiful sluts in america. her face is on every magazine, and her body is available in many downloads. i've been keeping this in for a long time. i came home to find the movie on my cat's cage. i wated for him to come home, and confronted him with it. although we had agreed that nothing like the movie was to be viewed, he watched it anyway. i tried to kill myself that night.
we took a break for a while. i went to my parents house. we decided that we were going to try to work things out. i'm back home with him, but i often feel that our relationship is greatly changed. before i felt loved, and beautiful, and like i was his prize. silly, maybe, but it was one of the reasons that i felt sure that we would be happy together for the rest of our lives.
now i feel that i have to be sexy for him. that my waiste must be smaller, my breasts bigger, my legs longer, my lips fuller. in essence, i feel that i should look like her.
i also see a difference in our sex life. i feel i need to be more agressive. today i dressed up in an outfit like the one she was wearing in one of the scenes to greet him at the door when he came home from work. he worked late tonight, though, and i ended up taking the outfit off before he got home.
mostly, i'm just so fucking hurt and confused. why did he do this to me? why must all of my relationships go through this? i don't want to give up on us, but i'm so hurt. and i feel that i need to hide the hurt from him. what i want to do is tell him what scum he is for doing this to me, but what good would that do? it wouldn't erase the past. he still cheated on me.
i've never been in a relationship where i wasn't cheated on. because of this i've had to gaurd my heart, and i've become very cinical of men, even those closest to me.
pornography fucks everything up. it's just that simple.
i feel like if i looked like her, if i acted like her, he wouldn't have cheated.
and the worst part about it is, he was doing this long before i caught him. i don't know what to do. i used to brag around these types of forums that i had a fiancee who understood, and who respected the boundries. looks like i lied.
i don't know what else to say.
--
Aliz

The Beauty Myth

Fri, 03 Feb 2006 15:32:07 GMT

It's likely this article has already made the rounds, but I've not yet seen it in an lj community. The more conservative readers might disagree with certain points. Overall, it's definitely worth reading.

http://www.wesleyan.edu/synthesis/culture-cubed/cashman/was_research.html

I have to say, I'm very impressed by the grace and insight within this group, it's members, and it's moderators. I feel safe here. Thank you for creating this place.

Links

Mon, 16 Jan 2006 01:45:23 GMT

- Links -

The information provided by any site whose link appears in this community does not necessarily reflect the entirety of views held by individual members of this community. The links are provided for their relevance to the topics of pornography and sexual addictions only.

Feel free to suggest additional links by replying to this post.

A link to this list is available on the community information page.

Blogs
Porn War

Consumerism
Clean Hotels

Faith-Based
Christian, general
     New Life Partners
     Porn-Free
     Porn War (blog) (agnostic/atheist friendly)
     Pure Life Ministries
     Pure Online
     Sexual Purity
     Fact Sheet, Pornography
Latter Day Saints
     Church Publications
     Help for Users
     Pornography's Effects
     Preventing Pornography Problems

General
One Angry Girl
AntiPorn Disclaimer
Porn Destroys Women
XXX Church

Help
No-Porn
Recovery Nation
Sexual Addiction Recovery Resources

Information
FAQs from Mental Health Library

fell again

Wed, 04 Jan 2006 16:46:57 GMT

so i called earthlink today to cancel myinternet provider and the guy was like the internet is free until march 7, 2006 and i told my mom that and she really liked the idea so i said forget about cancceling theinternet. Then after i hung up i felt really bad so i told my mom that it's not a good idea for me to have the internet because it's a distraction and she said keep on untill march 7. and today i watched porn and read erotic material. All i remember was attempting to study and memorize lines for a monologue I have to do tomorrow in acting and i was doing fine but then my brain seemed to get jumbled up and i couldn't remember a thing Ihad memorized then i tried to do my english homeowrk but i couldn't understand (unusual, english is my best subject.0 i tried praying-but i was to hyper and my mind wasn't working so i turned on my computer and looked for porn. i'm going to try and convince my mom to get rid of internet.
i'm so stupid.

cause it's all in my head...

Fri, 30 Dec 2005 07:29:41 GMT

so this has been in my mind the last few days. should i get rid of my internet connection at home or not? Why should I get rid of it? well because it is a very strong tempation-it is cleary my weak spot. no matter how hard I try or pray-whenever a trying moment comes into my life- i turn to porn as my escape. in favt today i have spent hours on the internet watching porn. there is this passage in the Bible where jesus says that if your eyes is causeing you to sin, it is better to gouage it out and enter heaven with one eye than to have your whole body thrown into the pits of hell. i have become so desentized that i can't feel god's presence anymore. There this other Bible verse in timothy where paul is telling timothy to flee all youthful lusts. and in the old testament, when joseph was tempted by potiphers wife he ran-why? wouldn't god help him? yes, God would ahve helped him-but sexual tempattion can be so strong that people-even christians don't look to God for help. God's not stupid-he kows that sexual temptation is one of the hardest things to beat.
why should I keep it: i need it for school. weakk argumennt because i spend hours looking at porn-not really helping my school work is it.
I'm afraid-porn has been my escape-without it i will have to face my problems-head on. god is there for me-but I still get scared. i think it's time I start the new year-off rightt. 2006. A new year-a new chance to start over. and after mid-terms a new semester-a new chance to start over. pray fo me.
Thanks to everyone who commented on my last post! It's nice to know that there are people who support me!

A new porn filter, free for home use

Fri, 30 Dec 2005 01:04:23 GMT

I recently found about a new porn filtering system for both home and business computers.
Right now, it is free for home computers.
If you want to download it, go to:
http://www.k9webprotection.com/index.html

my story

Thu, 29 Dec 2005 22:24:57 GMT

hello, my name is Naiomi Gonzalez and I am 16 years old and I have been struggling with porn since I was 12 years old.
It started by accident. i didn't mean to watch porn. One night I was flipping through the channels when i saw people having sex. i was not a Christian than and like any pre-teen I was interested in sex so i kept on watching. Every weekend I would sneak to the livingroom (until i got a Tv, which made access much easier) and stay up late watching porn.
at 13 I became a christian and felt like a new person, but every few months I would slip-up and watch porn. (which i would find out later, I was viewing softcore porn)
at 15, i got internet accces in the computer in my room. Big mistake! A new level of porn was reveled to me, hardcore pictures and erotic literature, in addiation to the soft core porn I would watch on TV. but soon the internet had to be canceled because my compter was old and could not support it.
But this past semptember I got a new computer, intertnet capable. These past few months have been the hardest. Softcore porn no longer interests me, so i basically spend all my time online. I have now seen hardcore videos, and erotic stories with audio and have gone into self-gratification. My grades are slipping and my homeowrk is piling up. i go to a competive private school, and I am seen as the "goody-two-shoe, christian girl". i am also on a scholarship-so the pressure is immense. Because my grades are down and my homework is piling up, I get really nervous and anxious and depressed, which causes me to view porn as an escape. but the more I view porn, the farther I fall in school, the more farther i fall in school, the more porn i view. combine that with all the guilt and sadness I feel.
i have tried not watching porn but it only works for a few days. I have joined a website that helps people break free from porn and I have decided to see if one oo fmy friends could set up parental controls on my computer.
My advice- the best way to avoid porn is ti never see it. We have to do somethhing to make porn less abaviable to kids and teenagers. Guys are not th eonly one falling into porn, i'm a girl and I view. porn has effected my views on sex. god made it to be a holy, and loving, experience between two people in love, but i view as nothing but a disgusting, act, that for some strange reason i can't stop viewing.
but i pray that God will help me overcome this.
-

hello everyone

Fri, 02 Dec 2005 20:46:42 GMT

i'm new here, i'm glad to find that i'm not alone in how i feel regarding porn and the hurts it gives humans, but i'm very sad that so many of us have been hurt. i want to share with all of you parts of my life that apply here. i hope that you can find encouragement from my life, and i hope to give help and advice- and most of all a listening ear to those who need it. i realise i haven't lived long, and am not the most intellegent or well-spoken person that ever graced the earth, but i want to help however i can. that said, here's my story.
i've grown up around softcore porn. my father had many playboy pin ups in his den in the basement. i never understood why he had them. i was only four or five when i first saw them. i don't think my father is a bad man, i just think he's succomed to one of the most primal, and strongest, instincts that humans have. i don't hate him for what he watches, but it hurts me deeply. when i was a child, about 8, and my brother was about 11, my father let us watch a woody allen film called "what's up tigerlily." thoughout that movie, there are topless women dancing in the background. he let us children watch it. when we were a few years older, about 9 and 12, he let us watch "true lies"- in that a woman does a strip tease. my brother had to cover himself with a pillow because he was embarrassed of being aroused.
when i was fourteen, i had my first boyfriend. he was a senior and i a freshman... a few months after we started dating, i asked if he still watched porn. he told me that he did. i asked him why, and he said that he liked looking at the women. i asked why i wasn't enough, and he told me that i was. at that point, i asked him to give up porn. after a twenty minute fight, he consented. a few weeks later, he came over to my house and brought a maxim magazine. some of you may not consider this pornographic. it's softcore, i know, but the intent was there. he was still looking at other women. [side note: i think that this was about the time i was diagnosed with chronic depression, and body dismorphic disorder.] i told him that what he had brought over was still porn, and he said it wasn't. i asked him if he was still looking at porn, and he told me he was. we fought for hours.
it continued like this for months, until the next summer rolled around. i finally convinced him to burn all his porn on out burn pile- and he brought over a huge box of it. i asked him if that was all, and he swore it was. a few weeks later, i found out he had kept all his tapes. when i confronted him about it, he claimed it was because he thought they wouldn't burn.
during this time, he was pressuring me for more sexual activities. i had told myself that i would stay a virgin until i got married because i wanted only one man in my life. i'm sad to say that even though we did not actually have sex, i allowed him to pressure me and manipulate me into giving up more than i had wanted to.
for two and a half years it went on like this. multiple times i found out that he was still looking at the porn even though he said he wasn't. multiple times he told me that if he went a few days without looking at it, he would reward himself with it. i tried to get him to go to counciling, but he refused. he did consent to going with me to my therapist a few times, but nothing really came of it. he wouldn't talk.
finally, i broke up with him.
my next boyfriend was a self proclaimed porn-addict turned porn-hater. i was foolish enough to believe him.
after many bad relationships, i met a friend of a friend over the internet. Bob had gone to school with one of my friends from church camp. we talked for months. he was in Korea with the army, and i was still here in central illinois. i told him about my history, and for once, it didn't feak someone out. we had a few intense discussions about what is porn and what isn't, and in the end, he agreed with me- there are some things that are definatly porn, and are dibilitating for anyone to view. there are some things that are dibilitating for some, and not for others. but the strange thing is... he agreed with me that if people are in a relationship, and one thing is dibilitating for one member but not the other, the one that is hurt by it is in the right.
eventually Bob came home, and although our relationship has had its share of downs, i know that i can trust him to change the channel when certain things come up. we're engaged now.
now, i want to say to everyone here, whether you've read my story or not-

if you are in a relationship where your significant other is cheating on you, you don't deserve it. you did nothing to make him or her do this to you. it isn't your fault. i know it feels like it is. i know the pain you're going though. i'm here if you need someone to listen. keep this in mind, please- if you are feeling like there is no man or woman who doesn't look at porn out there that would be interested in you, take heart, because there is. to those of you who are being hurt right now by an addict- i urge you to seperate yourself from that person. sometimes that is the only way. i have experience with that, as well, although the addiction was not porn.
take heart, take comfort, allow yourself some hope. but know that you have the power to change your circumstances, and let the addict in your life know that he or she has the power as well.
--Aliz

Hello!

Tue, 23 Aug 2005 01:48:51 GMT

Hi! *scans posts briefly* Well, by the fact that I don't see any, it doesn't seem that an introduction is necessary, but it just wouldn't feel right joining a group without doing so, therefore...

Name: Peter
Age: 17
Sex: M
Religion: Roman Catholic
Position/situation regarding the obvious topic: Recovering porn addict, currently in the process of converting into Roman Catholicism. Every so often, despite every effort, I do slip up with the pornography and look at it, the odd thing being that, while I'm looking at it, I know fully that I don't want to be doing so and that it's a complete abomination, but can't seem to stop it. I can certainly say that it's got every quality of an addiction as bad as, if not worse than, many common drugs used today. It literally feels like losing control over one's own actions, even while the mind is entirely functional and capable of thought against the very thing you're doing. Hopefully being here will help me to recover from this problem (won't feel right being baptized and taking communion until this is 100% overcome...), and I'll be able to give back to it equally.

Anyhow, I've talked enough it would seem. Unfortunately, I have nothing to add to the issue of pornography itself to make this post somewhat useful in that regard as well, but I'll be posting anything I find in the future.

Cheers! ^^

Definition of Pornography...Objective/Subjective

Mon, 22 Aug 2005 03:26:38 GMT

It seems that many people are defining pornography objectively--such as "material whose primary purpose is to cause sexual arousal" or something similar. But to what extent is the definition of pornography subjective (particular to a given person)? (Based on the disagreements about what is and isn't porn...it seems that there is a large element of subjectivity pertaining to the subject.)

Consider these definitions of "objective":
1 : of, relating to, or being an object, phenomenon, or condition in the realm of sensible experience independent of individual thought and perceptible by all observers
2: undistorted by emotion or personal bias; based on observable phenomena;

And "subjective":
1 a : relating to or determined by the mind as the subject of experience b : characteristic of or belonging to reality as perceived rather than as independent of mind c : relating to or being experience or knowledge as conditioned by personal mental characteristics or states
2 a : arising from conditions within the brain or sense organs and not directly caused by external stimuli b : arising out of or identified by means of one's perception of one's own states and processes and not observable by an examiner

Is it just the intent of the material that defines it? (And if it is, isn't that hard to judge?) For example, what of the following...
1. An artist creates a painting of a nude person(s). The intent was not to arouse, but many viewers are in fact very aroused by it. Is it pornography?
2. An artist creates a painting that has pornographic qualities, and for some people it's arousing but for others it's just art. Is it pornography?
3. An artist creates a painting, and his/her main intent for the piece was to sexually arouse the viewer. Is it pornography?

And, if you state that any or all of these are / are not pornography...how do you delineate between them?

prevalence of pornography

Wed, 03 Aug 2005 19:01:21 GMT

I'm going to start compiling a list of examples of the prevalence of pornography (since spacelover_it brought it up and it's an important factor in the discussion of pornography). If you have any good resources, please share them here.

"4 Secrets You Should Keep Forever"...unless you value honesty

Wed, 03 Aug 2005 18:54:37 GMT

This was on the Netscape homepage news today; this is just one of the "4 Secrets You Should Keep Forever"

Your Cheatin' Heart

Ah, the mother of all big, fat secrets. If it was in the past, one-time-only and you feel appropriately miserable about it, do not let your guilty little conscious confess your infidelity to your partner. Not only will it not make you feel any better, it will make your partner feel as bad as you do. At best, you'll have to endure plenty of bitterness; at worst, you'll find yourself single again. Don't risk it.

So what's the advice being spewed? If you've cheated, keep it to yourself--because ignorance is bliss and failing to be entirely honest avoids a lot of pain. Keeping life running smoothly is more important than being honest with your partner.

I couldn't disagree more.

feedback needed

Mon, 18 Jul 2005 10:40:47 GMT

I've posted the beginnings of information concerning pornography in the community information. If anyone could visit the links below and provide feedback (such as additions, suggestions, comments) I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you.

Portrayal of Women
What it Promotes
How it Hurts

Pornography's Portrayal of Women

Mon, 18 Jul 2005 10:32:18 GMT

Pornography's Portrayal of Women

demeaning stereotypes about female sexuality
women as "sex toys" and "playthings," not people; objectification of women
women's primary value to be as sex objects
exploiting women's bodies as if they are merely body parts--breasts, buttocks, crotches

What Pornography Promotes

Mon, 18 Jul 2005 10:26:04 GMT

What Pornography Promotes

Pornography propagates the idea that women exist only to fulfill men's desires, and that this is a woman's main role. This idea objectifies women.

Pornography encourages and inspires fantasies, not realities.

When these fantasies aren't met, real sex becomes dull and boring.
The frustration over unmet fantasies and un-fulfillment can lead to other negative outlets, such as violence toward real people, including abuse and rape.

How Pornography Hurts

Mon, 18 Jul 2005 10:17:06 GMT

How Pornography Hurts

objectifies women
claims that only appearances and sexual gratification matter
numbs men to women's humanity (and vice versa)
reduces men's sensitivity toward women
destroys intimacy and relationships (because of sexual unfaithfulness)
distorts ideas of love, love-making, relationships, and sexual pleasure
does not provide education about real sex, sexuality, or sexual relationships
diminishes one's ability to form secure relationships with others, which leads to a lack of fulfillment
can destroy marriages, relationships, families, and trust
easily addictive; pornography is as addictive as drugs in many cases, and causes all the symptoms of addiction
alienates the viewer from reality
reduces humankind to sexual acts and ignores all other aspects of humanity; degrades humans
creates unrealistic fantasies, which leads to a lack of fulfillment in relationships and sex

Internet Porn: Worse Than Crack?

Sun, 03 Jul 2005 11:21:13 GMT

Internet Porn: Worse Than Crack?

Researchers tell a Senate hearing that internet porn is more addictive and harmful than street drugs. One calls for government-funded research into the "erototoxins." By Ryan Singel.

Internet Porn: Worse Than Crack?
By Ryan Singel

Internet pornography is the new crack cocaine, leading to addiction, misogyny, pedophilia, boob jobs and erectile dysfunction, according to clinicians and researchers testifying before a Senate committee Thursday.

Witnesses before the Senate Commerce Committee's Science, Technology and Space Subcommittee spared no superlative in their description of the negative effects of pornography.

Mary Anne Layden, co-director of the Sexual Trauma and Psychopathology Program at the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Cognitive Therapy, called porn the "most concerning thing to psychological health that I know of existing today."

"The internet is a perfect drug delivery system because you are anonymous, aroused and have role models for these behaviors," Layden said. "To have drug pumped into your house 24/7, free, and children know how to use it better than grown-ups know how to use it -- it's a perfect delivery system if we want to have a whole generation of young addicts who will never have the drug out of their mind."

Pornography addicts have a more difficult time recovering from their addiction than cocaine addicts, since coke users can get the drug out of their system, but pornographic images stay in the brain forever, Layden said.

Jeffrey Satinover, a psychiatrist and advisor to the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality echoed Layden's concern about the internet and the somatic effects of pornography.

"Pornography really does, unlike other addictions, biologically cause direct release of the most perfect addictive substance," Satinover said. "That is, it causes masturbation, which causes release of the naturally occurring opioids. It does what heroin can't do, in effect."

The internet is dangerous because it removes the inefficiency in the delivery of pornography, making porn much more ubiquitous than in the days when guys in trench coats would sell nudie postcards, Satinover said.

Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kansas), the subcommittee's chairman, called the hearing the most disturbing one he'd ever seen in the Senate. Brownback said porn was ubiquitous now, compared to when he was growing up and "some guy would sneak a magazine in somewhere and show some of us, but you had to find him at the right time."

The hearing came just days after a controversy over a sexually suggestive Monday Night Football ad that has many foreseeing a crackdown on indecency by the Federal Communications Commission.

It is unclear what the consequences of Thursday's hearing will be since it was not connected to any pending or proposed legislation.

Brownback, a conservative Christian, is also scheduled to be rotated off the sub-committee in the next session.

When Brownback asked the panelists for suggestions about what should be done, the responses were mild, considering their earlier indictment of pornography. Several suggested that federal money be allocated to fund brain-mapping studies into the physical effects of pornography.

Judith Reisman of the California Protective Parents Association suggested that more study of "erototoxins" could show how pornography is not speech-protected under the First Amendment.

The panelists all agreed that the government should fund health campaigns to educate the public about the dangers of pornography. The campaign should combat the messages of pornography by putting signs on buses saying sex with children is not OK, said Layden.

However, as the panelists themselves acknowledged, there is no consensus among mental health professionals about the dangers of porn or the use of the term "pornography addiction."

Many psychologists and most sexologists find the concepts of sex and pornography addiction problematic, said Carol Queen, staff sexologist for the San Francisco-based, woman-owned Good Vibrations.

Queen questioned the validity of the panel for not including anyone who thinks "pornography is not particularly problematic in most people's lives."

Queen acknowledges she can name people who have compulsive and destructive behavior centered on pornography, but argues that can happen with other activities, such as gambling and shopping.

Queen also criticized the methodology behind research showing that pornography stimulates the brain like drugs do, saying the research needs to take into account how sex itself stimulates the brain.

"There's no doubt the brain lights up when sexually aroused," Queen said.

Queen too would like to see more money devoted to research on sex, but thinks it is unlikely that researchers on either side of the divide are likely to receive large grants any time soon.

Studies intended to show the harmful effects of pornography must contend with ethical rules prohibiting harm to human subjects, while sex researchers have a hard time getting any funding, unless their study is specifically HIV-related, according to Queen.

Bush to Dine with Porn Star

Sun, 03 Jul 2005 06:00:57 GMT

Bush to Dine with Porn Star

And the articles at the bottom of that link.