Pornography: good clean fun, or the root of all evil?

[arysteia]

[Wherein I mix the humorous with the serious, and honestly don't mean to offend anyone.]

I was rummaging through some boxes at school today, and found an interesting video. No, not that kind of video. Get your minds out of the gutter.

On the contrary, it was titled: Pornography: the slippery slope from sex to death. I kid you not. I flipped it over and read the blurb. Which claimed excessive pornography turns you into a serial killer.

Naturally I had to watch it.

It really was hysterical. A no-doubt well-meaning American (unidentified, but I assume he was a church/youth group leader) was lecturing his young charges on the wages of sin. Yes, he actually said so. And yes, they are death. He drew a flow chart (like no flow chart I have ever drawn) on the blackboard, and it led, sure enough, from softcore to hardcore porn, to rape, to perversion (unspecified), to serial killing.

I was chuckling most of the time, and yet it did make me think, which I suppose was its purpose. Specifically, I started thinking about my relationship with pornography. And then I thought, huh, research, I should find out what a sample of my peers think. So voila this poll.

This is neither academic nor scientific, obviously, and I haven't been as careful with the wording of my options as I probably should have been. I have used tickboxes rather than bullets though, so you can mix and match. And I included lots of text boxes too, so you can say what you want. Of course, you can feel free to skip certain questions too.


[Poll #708759]

Comments

[zeenell]

Also, comparitive anylasis shows that countries with less strict laws regarding porn have less sexual violence towards women. Japan and Denmark have some of the lowest rates of violence towards women and the lowest rate of sexual crimes. Every year that the laws regarding pornography became less strict or less enforced, the rate of sexual violence dropped.

On the other hand, countries such as Singapore have some of the highest rates of sexual violence towards women. It's illegal to own pornography there. This same link is found in many other countries, such as America.

And a really interesting book to read about this is Porn 101: Erotiscm, Pornography and the First Ammendement.

[unlovablehands.livejournal.com]

I have heard said, however, that Japan has a whole lotta under-reporting going on in respect to sexual crimes, but I don't have any sources for you off the top of my head.

[matcha.livejournal.com]

Japan also has some fucked-up porn laws, which I believe are what lead to their crazier porn.

[fatuorum.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, countries such as Singapore have some of the highest rates of sexual violence towards women. It's illegal to own pornography there. This same link is found in many other countries, such as America.

I'm curious about this. May I know if there are any specific reports or articles that you are quoting this information from?

[zeenell]

You have to love LJ with the non-sending of comments until a month later. *stabs LJ a little*

I know some of it was information I came across when writing a paper in poli sci on censoring pornography. *ponders and tries to remember exact locale of that source*

It was mentioned in that book I stated at the bottom of my orginal comment, which is not unbiased (but nothng truly is)

It was also mentioned in some other books and it was mentioned in several internet articles.

*so procrastinating from studying for finals*

[(Anonymous)]

some slash? f/f

[arysteia.livejournal.com]

I think it was pretty clear from context that I was defining slash narrowly to mean m/m, and using femslash for f/f. Not to open a philosophical or semantic debate, but as an easy means of differentiation. Part of the point of this poll was to consider links between pornography and violence *against women*. What I was looking for then, among other things, was how/if women who read m/m slash separate it from mainstream pornography. Femslash was irrelevant to this question.

[zvi-likes-tv.livejournal.com]

Except in the way that mainstream pornography definitely includes girl-on-girl. Comparison of girl-on-girl for men, lesbian pornography, and femslash might be academically interesting.

Also, comparison of gay porn and m/m slash is probably interesting, too.

[arysteia.livejournal.com]

Okay, now this point I definitely take. Further questions for round two, perhaps.