So the negative team has conceded on more than one occasion now to the psychological effect of pornography on children. These effects include: increased likelihood of rape and other forms of sexual violence, sexual illnesses, sex addiction, increased sexual activity (Ultimately increased pregnancies), an increase likelihood for these children to act out what they've seen on other children (furthering the cycle), the desensitation of rape as a criminal charge, and as shown above violent crimes as well as sexual crimes.

Keep that in consideration.

You're already contradicting yourself. Read above you agreed that their are psychological rammifications for children viewing pornography. And those rammifications are above. The negative team has already conceded the harms, as both you and Philly have said you agreed. This argument is already the affirmatives.



I don't need to define publicly you've already done so in this post. The most public thing in the world is the internet, and where is it prevelant? Not to mention the fact that 2/3rd of all pre-teen internet surfers have admitted to viewing porn either intentionally or inadvertainly.

Junior High kids? Old enough for sexual activity? Is that the negative's stance?

Have 82% of Junior HIgh students tried alcohol or cigarettes. Have 82% of American High Schoolers tried either? Last time I checked their are surgeon general warnings on both products. You point out good issues that perhaps should come up in another debate, however, currently, pornography is the issue at hand, not jsut because it's in the resolution, but because it effects a greater amount of people. It's inherently the most important issue at hand. It needs to be illegalized, because it is more psychologically damaging than either of the two forementioned products.


It is not the government's job? What is the government for then? Is it not to govern the population? If it is an action between two consenting adults in the privacy of their own home, that is one thing, but when there is mass produced pornography available on virtually every street corner, and computer then it is entirely up to the government. It becomes the public's problem when the pornography is in the public. There is no dance around this, there is no "it is the parents job." It is not the parent's job to control what the public shows the children, it's the inverse. It is the government's job to enforce such laws to stop our children from viewing pornography, they have and the restrictions are not enough. Pornography is still available, more so than ever before. I'm pulling through my harms, you're allowing all those harms with the complacent attitude the negative team holds.


Your argument is the status quo is succesful and natural. As the negative team has already said our jails are crowded with rapists, murderers, sociopaths, drug users, pedophiles, and thieves. And yet our society is a succesful one? The status quo argues against you already, we are not a succesful society when our society is hell bent on killing itself.

The sugary food anology is just a nifty ploy by the negative team to try and minimize the effects of pornography. Yet they've already conceded all psychological effects of pornography. This is a moot point, and an inapplicable analogy.

The affirmative thus far has complete offense, the negative team is simply trying to defend a stance they can't win. They have no reason to change the resolution, they have no reason why pornography SHOULD stay. While the affirmative shows every reason why we NEED to change.
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Judge cross apply all psychological effects that the negative team has conceded: these effects include increases in violent crimes, sexual crimes, and rape.

They arn't making ground when they've already conceded that it's bad. The psychological effects have been conceded (yes I'm saying it again) therefor the negative team is just arguing with themselves right here. Theres no further response needed.

how many police officers don't smoke marijuana? Shoot up Meth? It's not about 100 % prevention, 100% prevention is impossible even in a utopian society, we're talking about as much prevention as possible. There is no such thing as 100% solvency. The affirmative case is just comparatively advantageous to the negative. Plain and simple. Even your over crowded jails argument is turned once you agreed that pornography leads to sociopaths, murderers, violent crimes, sex offenders, pedophiles and the like.





-----With that I'm going to bed. I'll catch up on responses when i wake up.-----

That's the problem with your argument. I never agreed to that, in fact, there has been no proof provided that there is a connection between LEGAL porn viewing and criminal behavior. This leads me to believe that these children who do turn to crime do so because of other reasons and not just from viewing porn. I know plenty of people who watched porn as teens and are not violent sex offenders or criminals. At the end of the day I believe this issue falls on parenting. Telling your child he is a loser everyday might make him angry and a bully, leading to a life of crime, yet these parents are not locked up for verbal abuse. So while there may be some proven negative or traumatic effects of a child from viewing pornography, I don't translate to it then meaning that porn breeds criminals. I think the jump is a large one and an unproven assumption at best. Hence one of the reasons why it is illegal for children in the first place. I have seen no proof that viewing porn alone corrupts children to the point of criminal behavior as I think the statement is false. There are other, more important factors in most if not all cases.

So again, just as drugs are illegal, or alcohol illegal for minors, the ones determined to break the rules will do so anyway. An industry that presently generates billions of dollars a year. To think that a black market wouldn't spring up is naive. Then because of the risk factor, the prices will go up and generate porn industry related crimes as criminals and mobsters will have a strong hold on the underground market. So if it is illegal it will still be the parents responsibility to properly educate their children about sexual relationships and prevent them from viewing porn, just as it is with drugs now, and if it is legal it should still be their responsibility. Difference being mainly that once it is illegal it is then the governments responsibility too, which then cost money, and adds more criminals to an already populated criminal system. Why waste the money? There are bigger problems to be addressed. Like the over populated and non-rehabilitating prison system presently in place.

Quote:

Psychologist Edward Donnerstein (University of Wisconsin) found that brief exposure to violent forms of pornography can lead to anti-social attitudes and behavior. Male viewers tend to be more aggressive towards women, less responsive to pain and suffering of rape victims, and more willing to accept various myths about rape.1 Dr. Dolf Zimmerman and Dr. Jennings Bryant showed that continued exposure to pornography had serious adverse effects on beliefs about sexuality in general and on attitudes toward women in particular. They also found that pornography desensitizes people to rape as a criminal offense.2 These researchers also found that massive exposure to pornography encourages a desire for increasingly deviant materials which involve violence, like sadomasochism and rape.3 Feminist author Diana Russell notes in her book Rape and Marriage the correlation between deviant behavior (including abuse) and pornography. She also found that pornography leads men and women to experience conflict, suffering, and sexual dissatisfaction.4 Researcher Victor Cline (University of Utah) has documented in his research how men become addicted to pornographic materials, begin to desire more explicit or deviant material, and end up acting out what they have seen.5 According to Charles Keating of Citizens for Decency Through Law, research reveals that 77 percent of child molesters of boys and 87 percent of child molesters of girls admitted imitating the sexual behavior they had seen modeled in pornography. Sociologists Murray Straus and Larry Baron (University of New Hampshire) found that rape rates are highest in states which have high sales of sex magazines and lax enforcement of pornography laws.6 Michigan state police detective Darrell Pope found that of the 38,000 sexual assault cases in Michigan (1956-1979), in 41 percent of the cases pornographic material was viewed just prior to or during the crime. This agrees with research done by psychotherapist David Scott who found that “half the rapists studied used pornography to arouse themselves immediately prior to seeking out a victim.” The Final Report of the 1986 Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography lists a full chapter of testimony (197-223) from victims whose assailants had previously viewed pornographic materials. The adverse effects range from physical harm (rape, torture, murder, sexually transmitted disease) to psychological harm (suicidal thoughts, fear, shame, nightmares). source: The Documented Effects of Pornography — The Forerunner

This was actually posted on the first page. These harms were uncontested what so ever. No citations towards them, no references, not even acknowledgement. That is why I say the negative team concedes the argument.

Furthermore, at the time both you and Duke were on the negative side, so as a whole you were the negative team. Once he granted me the psychological harms, that meant the NEgative team granted it. Even though Duke has bowed out for the time being, it still remains that the above statistics were uncontested. This includes both child and adult psychological/physical damages.

Porn is used in what, 40+% of all sex crimes, and you claim there's no definitive link?

The negative team has YET to show any reason we should keep pornography in the status quo, beyound the laziness and disbelief that it can change. Unfortunatly, the fact remains that it NEEDS to be changed. Furthermore, the negative has yet to come up with any offense at all on the affirmative resolution. They continue to just attempt to say the samething over again a different way and call it a new argument.

With that I need to go to bed...but I'll finish my reply later.

I never said there was no definitive link, but rather, no proof that porn creates criminals standing alone and by itself as an influence. Those stats are clearly one sided and only prove that sex offenders typically like porn. So what. That seems logical to me as they are sexual deviants, of course they would want to watch porn. Those numbers seem a lot less impressive when coupled with stats like "Seventy percent of American men ages 18–34 view Internet pornography once a month."

In terms of pedophiles, child pornography it is already illegal, so those offenders are only backing up the point that making all porn illegal will not solve the problem. Only create new ones. Which came first? the Pedos, or the cinema? The position is that these sick individuals may have gotten some visual ideas from pornography but are sick regardless. Making porn illegal does not help them get better, if they even can.

Most drug dealers like the movie Scarface but it isn't the reason cocaine is sold in this country. I like Scarface and I'm not a drug dealer. The other side of the coin being that violence on TV clearly desensitizes people to real life violent situations. I can even admit to experiencing that. SO again, where does it stop, why not make violent TV illegal as well.

So you can call it being lazy, but I call it being realistic. As I pointed out prohibition and alcohol abuse is actually a larger generator of violence and yet is now legal for adults. Learn from the mistakes of history and realize that this proposed idea would fail more miserably than that one. Especially with file sharing and the internet.

*Also, isn't entertainment supposed to be beneficial by design? I don't see how Real World is beneficial, but that is still legal.

As this debate appears to have run its course, it is time to call it.

Duke1985
SuiGeneris

You are both congratulated on your performance in this debate. You both stayed on the "high road" setting a good example. You have both been positive repped for your participation.

The use of logic by the "opposed" side was the deciding factor.

The resolution fails.

A moderator may close this thread.

Opposed, and why is because of the same reasons for prostitution: there's no reason anyone should decide anything between adults, especially when it comes to having sex for entertainment.

No one's making anyone watch porno anyway so whoever doesn't like it is free to ignore it.

"opposed".

I wouldn't say that illegalising porn is the way to go. Porn is an industry, and like all industry works on the basis of supply and demand. The demand for porn is huge and growing and illegalising it just creates a black market with the negative effects that accompany it. It is just naive to think that illegalising porn will eliminate it.

Porn itself is not the problem. Just as with everything else its the people involved that are the problem. Also banning something usually has the opposite result to what is desired. People tend to want what they can't have.

Personally, I have no interest in or need for porn, but at the same time I can appreciate that there are situations where it can meet a need.

What I think we need to be looking at is;

(a) How the demand is being met. Having porn displayed (top-shelf or not) in a general store is not appropriate for the very reason that we bring children into stores with us and they are being exposed to sexual images. Very few of us would be comfortable with our children witnessing us in the act of sex so why allow this exposure. If you want to buy golf clubs you go to a store that supplies them not your corner shop, let people who want to avail of porn go to a sex shop.

(b) The content: Sex is a normal activity but what I would have a problem with is the deviancy aspect of porn. People look at what they like or enjoy. Sorry, but if you get off on abusing, humiliating, hurting another person (sexually or not) then there is something wrong with you! NO ROOM FOR DEBATE THERE! Also, sex seems to have expanded to make non-sexual things sexual. It seems to have expanded to mean all the things that you want to keep secret become sex. Animals, sorry but I don't and never have fancied my pet!!! If I ever did I would be straight to the nearest shrink not the nearest porn supply.

(c) The production: There's a big difference between somebody choosing to participate in the sex industry and receiving adequate salary for it than some victim being forced into the industry to line the pockets of some evil soul.

(d) Exposure: I suppose this could be included in (a) but it scares me the amount of exposure and the glamourisation of porn that we are being exposed to at the moment. Films that have sex thrown in just for the sake of it when it is totally unnecessary to the story. Music videos that are now just soft porn. Children should be able to enjoy the pleasure of music, but to allow our children access to music channels is to expose impressionable minds to soft porn. They do imitate it!

The mind is the biggest sex organ and quite frankly is susceptible to exposure and conditioning. You can train yourself to get off on rubbing your elbow if you practise it on an ongoing basis and attach sexual thoughts to it. My point here is that porn users are conditioning themselves to it. Exposure to porn is having a destructive effect on our society. Users expect that potential partners should emulate what they are viewing.

Porn (images of healthy sexual activity, not deviancy) can have a benefit in our society.

* The lonely person who is having difficulty meeting there sexual needs.
* In a relationship during a period of diminished sexual activity. Most people can accept the use of porn, it may keep the relationship intact and prevent somebody cheating to get their needs met.


The point really is not to look at it in such a black and white manner but to examine how and what is being provided. The problem isn't with porn it is with people. A sexual deviant has the desire and finds the outlet for their deviancy. The issue is more with deviant material promoting and glamourising deviant behavior in an impressionable mind.

However, we cannot control the world but we can control our own personal environment. We can decide what is acceptable in our own homes and what environments we choose to interact in. Let us each accept the consequences and responsibility for our choices. We can choose to educate our children in order to protect them. We can take control and help them develope a healthy attitude to sex and porn. We can try to minimise what they are exposed to and try to influence their attitude towards exposure that we cannot control.