It looks like the Republicans are not going to wait to make me regret voting almost straight ticket two weeks ago:
Comparing pornography to heroin, researchers on Thursday called on Congress to finance studies on “porn addiction” and launch a public health campaign about the dangers.
“We’re so afraid to talk about sex in our society that we really give carte blanche to the people who are producing this kind of material,” said James B. Weaver, a Virginia Tech professor who studies the impact of pornography.
Internet pornography is corrupting children and hooking adults into an addiction that threatens their jobs and families, a panel of anti-porn advocates told the hearing organized by Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., chairman of the Commerce subcommittee on science.
Brownback, a father of five, said when he was a boy, the typical kid’s exposure was limited to occasional peeks at dirty magazines illicitly obtained by a buddy.
Now, he said, pornography seems pervasive. Children run across it while researching homework on the Internet. Vulgar ads arrive unexpectedly by e-mail. Some of his middle-age male friends limit their time alone in hotel rooms to avoid the temptation of graphic pay-per-view movies, Brownback said.
Mary Anne Layden, co-director of a sexual trauma program at the University of Pennsylvania, said pornography’s effect on the brain mirrors addiction to heroin or crack cocaine. She told of one patient, a business executive, who arrived at his office at 9 a.m. each day, logged onto Internet porn sites, and didn’t log off until 5 p.m.
Looks like instead of the war on terrorism, we are going to spend the next four years fighting the war on dirty pictures.
Josh Martin
Don’t you think your reaction is a bit overwrought?
Comparing pornography to heroin, researchers on Thursday called on Congress to finance studies on “porn addiction” and launch a public health campaign about the dangers.
So researchers “called on Congress” to drop some cash on research and maybe launch a “public health campaign.” And this upsets you why? You were expecting all those public health employees over at HHS to patrol the Iraqi-Iranian border maybe?
platosearwax
1958? This is the 80’s man. We got Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld. War on Porn. A deficit. The new Moral Majority. We even have Duran Duran with a new album and a revival of Band Aid and possibly Live Aid.
I’m dustin’ off my Dead Kennedys records as we speak.
Justin O.
Last call for ass and titty, last call for ass and titty.
Kimmitt
Looks like instead of the war on terrorism, we are going to spend the next four years fighting the war on dirty pictures.
You gotta have your priorities.
jack
Aren’t we in the lame duck seesion of congress right now? What matters it if some Dworkinesque lefty harasses these people about porn? Don’t they always do that?
Mikey
Just cheap publicity for Congressional committees that no one, not even a C-SPAN addict, would pay attention to. (Got your attention, didn’t they?) Posturing is what Congress does best, and running their mouths over nothing is the second.
Easily ignorable, incredibly forgettable.
BLG
No Republican politician (please note that I said “politician,” some everyday Republicas in the public are a different story) wants to rid our society of porn because it simply wouldn’t be in the economic interest of our country; porn sells, and it sells big. I also think that you’re overreacting a bit here, as this is clearly not an attempt to fight porn, but rather to fight porn addiction – two vastly different things.
paul a'barge
“researchers on Thursday called on Congress ” does not equate with “Congress agreed with researchers and voted to…”
You’re a tad overwrought. Now, grab one of those magazines and some toilet paper and head out back to the woodshed.
See you when you get back.
jerry
Thank you John Cole for being a member of the party of useful fools. Idiot.
sidewinder
Can we look forward to a sort of anti-porn Volstead Act in the next few years??
Down with Demon Porn!!
enoughtoknowbetter.
It seems perfectly aligned with managing other people’s choices.
“Some of his middle-age male friends limit their time alone in hotel rooms to avoid the temptation of graphic pay-per-view movies, Brownback said.”
Seems to me that being responsible for your own actions and behavior is not enough – let’s legislate it. I think it is horseshit and others attempt to whitewash this is naive at best. If someone can’t stay on task at their job they should be fired. We don’t need to waste money to make the prudish feel better.
Bloggerhead
John, I wouldn’t let this get me too worked up, if I were you.
Let’s say that Congress appoints a commission to study this matter & they come back with legislative recommendations, & Congress enacts them. Can you imagine the Thomas Court ever finding such anti-porn legislation constitutional? I mean, it’s not like members of the current court haven’t ruled in accordance with their personal preferences before.
Sure, I guess Thomas could be made to recuse himself, but according to Anita Hill “recusing himself” is something old Clarence is only too happy to do without prompting.
Ricky
Bloggerhead,
So, NOW we’re going to give credence to sexual harassment claims?
Maybe we can get Paula Jones or Kathleen Willey or Juanita Broadderick to chime in.
What do you think….is the can of worms open enough?
Andrew | BB
Dick
Lay
Bush
– the signs were there, man you just didn’t see them.
Fighting porn addiction? How do you think I got to this site :) “Balloon Juice”
What with raising the debt sealing higher then Mariyln’s dress, giving DeLay a metaphysical BJ on the floor of the Senate it’s Congress Gone Wild.
Ricky
Comment of the day, Andrew…..comment of the day. :)
Paul Orwin
But you had no choice. After all, John Kerry said he was in Cambodia on Christmas, but it was really a couple of weeks after (in 1968-69) You can’t let him get away with that!
SGT Dan
It’s the small things like this that make me regret the Republicans are the only viable option for the conservative voter.
Robin Burk
Mary Anne Layden, co-director of a sexual trauma program at the University of Pennsylvania, said pornography’s effect on the brain mirrors addiction to heroin or crack cocaine.
I think you will find that Dr. Layden is coming from the left feminist side of the aisle, not the social conservative Repub side. She has long spoken out against showing pornography in college classes, arguing it desensitizes men to the effects of rape.
Kimmitt
It’s the small things like this that make me regret the Republicans are the only viable option for the conservative voter.
I’ve long noted that honest conservatives who aren’t fundamentalists are pretty much completely hosed. The Libertarians are just too far out there, you’re marginalized within the Republican Party, and the Democratic Party is off to your left. I don’t know if you should splinter off and form your own permanent minority group or if you should form some kind of “integrity caucus” within the Party.
Bob Love
COuntermeme: “You can’t legislate morality, fuckheads!”
What are the Shrubbers doing about gambling addiction? Alcohol addiction? Sex addiction? Internets addiction? Addiction to Power? Don’t get me started!
S.W. Anderson
The storm of repression is only gathering now. It’ll make landfall with Bush’s first Supreme appointment that goes through. Full force will directly follow approval of his second appointment.
Then it’s back to the future. Study up on the uptight, buttoned-down ’50s, when bikini-clad twentysomethings were considered really racy and the raw stuff, usually showing only airbrushed “nudies,” was only available from under the counter of a place on the wrong side of the tracks
Toren
Anyone who thinks Congress can do jack-diddly about porn is on crack. Ever hear about this thing called the internet?
And indeed, let’s not forget the far-left feminists are just as down on it as the far-right morality police. With any luck they’ll kill each other in the crossfire.
Finally, let us also not forget the “everything you like to do is addictive” crap comes to us courtesy of the usual leftist intellectual suspects.
Kimmitt
Looks like the war on terrorism is less important than the war on Democrats, too.
Hastert said the two chief opponents of the compromise were House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) and Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.). They persuaded scores of GOP colleagues to join their opposition in a sometimes emotional closed-door meeting of House Republicans. There, in a Capitol basement room, Hastert tried in vain to find enough votes to pass the bill without relying mainly on Democrats, a scenario too embarrassing for Republicans to endure.
I hereby dedicate the next four years to you, the non-fundie Republican voter who refused to see what was plain.
Justin O.
My letter to Mary Anne Layden
Hello Mary Anne Layden,
I was reading over this proposed legislation to ban forms of pornography…..and I must say that I think your flawed studies have led you to believe something that is just not humanly correct. This country already holds enough barriers on people as it is, and now we need to worry about not being able to pornography? I mean, I think some people admit it, some people don’t.
In the case below where you described the man who logged 8 hours on the internet scaling porn, that’s an isolated case that probably only effects a small certain percentage of the population, and that’s because he is just simply sexually disturbed in some way or hasn’t had enough sexual encounters in daily life, and the best of us can’t always get those sexual encounters, even if your in a relationship.
You know when I start a new relationship, I tell the girl, “Hey I look at porn”. Not like it matters, not like anyone really cares unless they are some twisted overly religious nutcase.
This country does many things to restrict people, by telling what they should and shouldn’t do. Banning pornography would only make this country more restless than it is, and I can’t even believe this even needs to be talked about, it’s ridiculous. Do we need a public health message on porn? NO!
As there should be no war on drugs, there should be no war on porn, well in case if it’s child pornography, even then, someone tries to research the subject and our flawed security systems will go after a band member of The Who.
Everyone needs sexual release, mostly daily, somehow or someway. We are human, we have sex, it’s not a crime to want to have sex or imagine it in our minds, pornography actually probably makes people more creative in what they can do in the future in bed, since they aren’t having an actual person right there…….
But we’ve masterbated for centuries and will continue to and porn only helps that along…….
It’s not like crack or heroin…….
It’s like sex……just without the other mate, but you still do get that release. I proudly masterbate almost everyday, and I don’t need someone like you telling me how healthy I am for doing it.
It’s just very humorous to me to see such ‘health messages’ actually being anxious to take place…….
I think we all need to have more sex in this country actually, because ‘we don’t have real sex, foreign countries do’ as described in an interview by Matt Stone and Trey Parker. They do alot better at it at catering to different sexuality lifestyles than this country does, we are so plain, and we already restrict ourselves daily as much as we do by simply putting clothes on everyday…..clothes aren’t made for warmth anymore, they are made to cover our bodies from other eyes, which we shoudn’t be worrying about in the first place…..what’s so harmful in another eye seeing your private parts?
The John Lennon and Yoko cover somehow shocked people however that may be to see a naked man and woman. Now we got Janet’s titty that totally messed everything up, as OH NO! KIDS SAW A BOOB! WE MUST ACT FAST AND KILL ALL SMUT! Now another planned NFL incident, and we have more ridiculousness in the eyes of the people who just wanted to watch some football, but they still want their boobs, just after the game.
IN 2004, I believe we need more sex in society than we currently do have, as it’s pretty lame when we already face ridicule from the FCC and such. This is undeeded, and it smashes our free speech liberties more than ever in present times, and needs to be halted. I want to see the day where a person doesn’t have to worry about saying “Fuck You” on radio. Is it really a dirty word? No, it’s a word that strongly expresses yourself, and the FCC just can’t have anyone that strongly expresses themself right?
I think we also worry about the children way to plainly fuckin’ much, that if they see one titty, their eyes will burn a way they never have before. Yes I had to add the ‘fuckin’ to properly explain myself. It’s just our society has become so twisted from our natural habitat and we’ve created this obstruction of information even to children, that sex is evil.
I could have a conversation with you for hours and hours on sex…….
As I am 21, going to be a future film-maker……
I think I have more knowledge on human nature and sex than you do, no matter how much you studied. You just don’t understand people, and you can’t get too scientific on this issue and make outrageous claims like porn is like crack or heroin.
I’d love to chat with you openly on a messenger or something if you have one, because I very much disagree with your thoughts, and wondering what you’d bring to the table with your views, because this is helping support strange legislation that I think we all should fight, not support.
Talk to you Later Mary-Anne……….Have a gay ol’ porn bashing time
Please write me back as I’m almost as anxious to hear from you as I am of Jenna Jameson’s next project.
“Mary Anne Layden, co-director of a sexual trauma program at the University of Pennsylvania, said pornography’s effect on the brain mirrors addiction to heroin or crack cocaine. She told of one patient, a business executive, who arrived at his office at 9 a.m. each day, logged onto Internet porn sites, and didn’t log off until 5 p.m.”
Oh yeah, check out what the wonderful blog http://www.balloon-juice.com has to say about this issue, I think John Cole has you nailed down on this one.
I will be posting this letter on the site……please write back again…..
HAHA
Rochambeaux
MORAL VALUES, bitches! Prepare for an all-out assault on porn, contraception, homosexuality, et. al. Funny how the party whose stated mandate is “moral values” just can’t seem to keep its nose out of other people’s bedrooms. Those fundies sure are sex obsessed.
syn
“It’s just sex” Yeah, tell the to the hundreds of thousands of underage females around the world who are forced into the sex-slave trade and porn industry who are providing a means for “your release.”
As a single 43 yr old liberated American female “who loves a great fuck”, most males do not know how to have real sex, they are so porned-out they do not have a clue has to how satisify a women.
Yeah, you guys are real sexy. Hot oh so hot.
Justin O you have a long way to go baby. Sex isn’t evil, having sex with overly confident, soon to be filmmakers who believe they really know how to fuck because they are big porn lovers is what is EVIL. Boys like you will never get it if you continue to believe that porn is going to get your there. Pornstar wantabees are pathethic lovers. The problem with porn is that the average guy starts to believe they are as hot and sexy as the fantasies they watch. Well, you’re not.
A hint to the porn idolizers, because it all in your heads you are losing the art of real fucking.
Porn creates lazy, uninspired, boring lovers. We don’t need more sex, we need better sex. Quality over quanity is preferred.
Mr. Cialis
Syn,
Please keep going, I’m so close…
Justin O.
Syn, HAHA, did you see any sense of humor in the letter?
Oh you musta thought I was gonna start directing porn movies eh?
Justin’s first film, “Quadruple Anal Penetration is Possible!”
Yes quality over quantity is preferred. That’s why so many guys will watch the 7 minute Paris Hilton sex tape over and over again and pay fifty dollars for it.
I’m gonna be serious, and I’m sure 99 out of 100 men would agree, that other one percentile is guys like Sen. Sam Brownback, no matter how beautiful the woman is as your lover, we are always going to love our porn, it’s here to stay.
Now I know how to make love, I watch General Hospital also.
So I’m guessing you’ve had sex with a pornstar wannabe before syn? haha