Cyberporn in Retrospect

This class has been very interesting. It has had its ups and downs, with some topics being much more interesting than others. For me the ethical issues, and historical cotexts to pornography in general were my personal favorites. It still continues to baffle me that it was the Adult Industry that fueled technology wars, helping to decide the fates of things such as VHS vs. Beta and the boom in the use of camcorders and home entertainment systems. Pornography and sex in general have been a part of our lives since the dawn of conciousness.

Again, for me, I frankly was much interested in the production side of pornography. Yeah, I liked hearing the actors or “models” (as Mr.Lucas called them)point of view, however the set up of web pages and their corresponding points did not do much for me. Though it is intriguing who much you really have to market yourself in the Adult Industry to really make any kind of money. I also found it baffling that the actors don’t get royalties and yet I would be willing to bet that people like Ron Jeremy or Jenna Jameson have a bigger following than people like Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie. The are the true king and queen of the screen.

By far though, the topic I found to be most inthrawling was the Sex Slavery topic. I had no idea how bad and far reaching this arena still is today. It is sad that most people think that slavery was over period after the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation. I was one of the naive concerning this. I mean sure, I knew it still happened in some smaller countries like Rwanda when there are tribe wars, but I had no idea there was still slavery that probably effects someone in every country imaginable. And to think that everyday peole go on vacation to “see the sights” and to participate in these lewd acts. Those poor girls are affect for life if they get tricked or sold or forced into this kind of business. Still, just thinking about the PBS special we watched, boils my blood at some of the things that are carried out by these people, and right under the noses of the “concerned”. The whole concept closely mimics Quentin Tarantino gusher, Hostel. Though I thought the movie dragged on a bit and closely resembled a soft core porn for the first hour, the movie touched upon how many travel and simply just dissappear off the map, like the poor girl in Aruba.

All in all, the class was fun and highly enlightening. It definitely rates in the top 5 for me, of classes taken here at UB. It saddens me that we were the last to enjoy the wonder insight that Dr. Halavais provided into this area. That not another class will be disallusioned , thinking that they are going to watch porn in class. That no one else will have the fun task of trying to explain the class and their motives for taking it. I am glad I took the class, and have truly learned in the process. ( though more porn would have been nice, ha ha).

Not in the Occupation Description

    I happened upon this blog while searching for relevant blogs to this class that I strongly agree with. It is by a librarian who goes on a 'rant' (her term not mine) concerning a recent discussion that has come up at her job. That discussion is about banning myspace.com from the computer, to, why else, "protect the children". In her opinion, this is ridiculous. She states that kids will continue to hear profanity and talk about sensitive issues such as nudity and sex. It is simply just a part of life. It surrounds them in the media, in their conversations with their peers, on thousands of other mediums on a daily basis.Kids will be kids, and the media won't stop. She also states that it is up to the parents to instill good moral fiber in their kids and then let them be, to trust them. If they are concerned it is up to them to watch their children, not hers or any other librarians (or anyone else besides teachers, babysitters, family and maybe older siblings). 

    She also touched upon the fact that banning certain site would be like banning books. As she states that is against everything a librarian stands for. I agree. It should also be what a majority of America should stand for. It is our first amendment right. The websites (well a t least some)  are products that someone put their hard earned time into to create. It is someones opinion and their work. Last I checked we have a fundamental right to expression. We do not have a fundamental right to be lazy parents and bestow our responsibilties to others. We do not have the right to rely on the government to handle it for us. It is up to the parent to raise their child and to try to lead them down the appropriate path, no one elses.

It seems as if Michael Lucas is very educated of the issues he chooses to raise his voice about. I agree with alot of the issues he did raise. I liked the point he made concerning the representation of the gay population in mass media. I don't know about the use of the term "clowns" but there is no real depth shown to any of the characters I can readily call to mind. Even Will and Grace a shown the seems to rotate around the dting worl and the stresses of life, never really show Will or Jack engaged in a relationship or with a lover. For them it is all casual affairs. Whereas there are a plethora of shows in the media depicting this for heterosexual couples. Even now there is a show called The L Word about lesbian relationships. Now to quote Lavar Burton:don't take my word for it,that is currently all I know of the show. Also, I don't have access to any of the homosexual channels currently being aired so I don't know what they offer, but judging on Mr. Lucas's remarks even they are lagging in their images of the gay male population.

   I guess if I had the chance I would ask Mr. Lucas what he thinks is the next real obsticle that society at large, or the Gay Community must over come on its path to equality and correctness. I would also want to know if he thinks that lesbian porn offers the same benefits that he states that gay male porn offers its audiences.

“Insidious” Reasons

    The Congressional Hearing was rather interesting, and yet boring at the same time. However, it seemed to me that alot of their reasonings were not very moving as to why it is such a huge threat to society.

    Senator Blanche Lincoln made alot of good points. She states that parents are the fronline of defense for children. Then she turns around to point out the fact that society and our neighborhoods are very different from what our parents grew up in. So times have changed and parents can't  do it on their own.  Back then, parents could rely on their neighbors and on local townspeople to help watch their children It was more of a community. Times have changed and things have evolve. There are always good and bad things for every advancement and new technology. Her bill, though she seemed to be more advertising it then to be explaining it seems to on the right path however. She said essentially it would help cops fight this, help legislate, and help to bring in the pedophile, which is what we are all truly scared of. She would like to also see better age verification requirements for these websites to ensure that underage or young children are not accessing these sites.I agree with her on this point. Sure, it would be a slight hassle to both the intended user and the website owners but it would sure cut down on wide spread use by young children as well as probably help to curb child abuse in these videos or pictures. For instance, require social security verification with better security measures. This would allow us to catch people looking at wrong things, or help to locate sites better that post these pics or videos. Or if it is a means of security that is a problem, maybe some sort of identity verification system could be built into the actual computer and that would help set up age related censoring. Also, her bill's idea of setting up a Child Protection Fund througan excise tax, I belive is eading in the right direction. I didn't catch how much the tax would be but I believe she said it would be aimed at the pornography industry in some way. This fund would be used to create better blocks, better education concerning the dangers that can be found on the world wide web, and also lead to better ways to legislate. 

    Soon after in the preceding, an FBI Agent got up started to read of and descibe a lot of scary stories of some extreme  examples of what can possibly go wrong. However there are many thing we freely use nowadays that these same scary exmples can be given for. GUns are still legal and look how many children have accidently killed themselves or a friend with one. Drinking is still legal and thousands die from related accidents a year. Cars are still legal and many fresh young drivers experience an accident in their first year of driving, and again there have been some horrible incidents involving cars.  Just because something has some negative aspects or side affects, just because one what if statement can be answered in a contrary manner, does not mean that we should ban it all together. We obviously don't practice that concept so why bother discussing it here. We legislate it to the best of our ability and then hope it works out, and change what doesn't. We can't control everything. LIke somone mentions at the hearing, what we need more than anything, is public awareness.
   At  one point in the preceding, the statistic,"52 cases have been opened by the FBI since 2004"( I don't know when this was broadcas) was quoted. My question is whether the actual cases are increasing or is it simply that the new technology makes it easier to catch or have the cops and other law enforcement agents gotten smarter themselves about how to catch them? I don't know the answer to that , but I would sure love to know the answer.

    As a side note, I entitled this blog "insdious" reasons because that seemed to be the popular theme in the hearing. I swear everyone that spoke used the word, and some more than thirty times. Next time, they should bring a thesaurus and try using a different adjective.

Warning! May contain Indecent Material

   I have just finished reading the Debate on the CDA reading in the book.Most of the article had me laughing or slightly shocked at its ludacrisness. The senators statement was that they were trying to make the "information superhighway a little bit safer for families and children to travel( p.148)". Now this end seems resonable, however it is the things that got attached along to this concept that made the Communication Decency Act ridiculuos and ultimately what made the supreme court deem it unconstitutional. Apparently the act attempted to make it a felony for anyone caughtnot only sending obscene messages to another person, but apply the same penalty tothe sending of an e-mail that contains indecent words or materials. It wouls also be a felony to send or RECEIVE obscene materials. (Ha! Like if we could, we wouldn't, try to control those oh so fun spammers!)  The act just went too far, and was holding people responsible for things they in no way had any control over.

    I thought that the Senator who was counter arguing the act, (I couldn't find his name, did they give it, or am I completely wrong?), made some very valid points. For instance he claims that the best solution to the problem is not to rip apart tyhe internet, which is what would have happened, but instead to let the parents own up to the responsibilty. There are program that allow parent to monitor their kids usage that could be used. Is in invading their privacy, yes. But if they want to risk your computer with getting all the viruses that usually accompany those sites then screw 'em! No but really, if the parents, who are the ones responsible for their children's moral well-being, are so worried about it then it is their responsibilty to handle it. He states that "in a matter of days, there were 35,000 petitions!(p.152)"

   The article goes on to quote the article by James Gleick titled "This is Sex?"  In it he states, "Still, if you look hard enough, there is grotesque stuff avilable(p.153)".Well, yeah! if you look hard enough anywhere depravity can be fond. In the real world it is reedily found on many streets in the inner city. So why should something that can really only be found with intent have the possiblity to ruin someones life because adults want to look at it and so do adolescents. He also goes o to say that, "your local newstand is a far more user-friendly source of obscenity than the on-line world…(p.153)".

   I mean what do they expect to do? How could they possibly employ enough people to monitor the "100 million new words that go through the Internet everyday(p.154)"? To prove that there was intent to expose children to the material? For the creator to say that they honestly they tried to create barriers and get away with it? The entire thinking was faulty.

    I also enjoyed their comparison to the telephone and it's lack of restriction. If you think about it, the internet is probably most like the telephone. It requires atleast two parties to be involved, its most common uses are for communication and info gathering, and it has helped to bridge the gaps we face in our physical world.  Both are hard to monitor and to control. There are no realistic indecency laws against the telephone, so how can we yet, try to impose on peoples right of this widely used medium?

   It is crazy to think what the Internet would be like today if this act had actually gone through. I think everything we know about it would be different.

  
 

The Intercourse of Things

  So I know taht this is a little behind topic, but I have been thinking about the concept of whether or not cybersex and phone sex are in fact sex. I am still unsure as to exactly what I think. It is a fuzzy line that we all had to cross with ourselves during the Clinton Trials. I don't honestly think I could answer in my own words as to what sex is let alone what exactly falls under that umbrella term. I do know that for me there are definitely qualifing objects for an act to be considered sex. I think it should involve two people, gender regardless. But after that is where it gets cloudy. Should an orgasm be involved? Should it be required by both parties or just one? Do said people involved need to be aroused or not(don't forget about ritualistic or habitual sex in older age). Is there an age limit? Do you have to explicitly understand what is happening? These are tough questions to answe

       I am taking a Reproductive Ethics clas and we have touched on this very subject multiple times. Once anyone really thinks they have an answer, then another point is brought up (my teacher plays continual devil's advocate) and you have to re think it all. I do know that I don't consider oral, foreplay or petting sex. So, no I don't think that cybersex or telephone sex is truly sex per say. What exacty they are then, I don't know. 

     I do know however that I would consider allof the above cheating. I agree with the girl who spoke up in lecture when she said, "If you have to hide it, then yes, it is cheating." If you are felling guilty about what you are doing thats a pretty good sign the other person won't like it so much. Studies have shown that men indicated that they tend to feel worse when their partner was found to be physically cheating with some one elese. Whereas women indicated that they are more hurt to find out that their partner was emotionally involved with another person. I'd be interest to hear evryones definitions as to what "sex" is.

Crooked Role Models

   After reading through some of your blogs, a few in particular spiked my interest and "got the wheel rolling". In specific, Laura's Blog and StefieSays.  In sum, both talked about teachers getting caught doing naughty things ( or at least trying to) with a student. I know one of the teachers in the middle school I attended was kicked out due to alleged contact with a couple of the male students. (If you ask me, they were too nice it ruined a boy's life when it leaked that he was a victim.)This kind of occurence seems to be popping up more and more often in the media. Maybe it is because what we have been talking about and the material is on the Internet for them to access and therefore provoke them to follow these urges. Or possibly, considering this all started happening after the story came out about the teacher in California who had one of her 14 year old student's babies (yeh… eww),  it is due to it being fresh in our minds. We all know once we hear about something, other examples stick out more profoundly in our minds. What do I think? I don't exactly know. This is because on top of the inappropriate relationships taking place in the schools, there are alot of stories also being brought to our attention concerning catholic(mostly)priests and their indiscretions with boys of the church. I'd be interested to hear what everyone else thinks concerning this topic. 

  Another example or our role models being anything but is the CNN.com article about the homeland security personel getting arrested in a child sex sting.  He was caught initiating sexual conversation with a detective posing as a 14 year old girl. He wanted to send her nude photographs in return for some of her own,sent hard-core porn, had sexually explicit phone conversations, and used great detail in describing the lude acts he wanted to perform on her. The article states that, " Doyle, a deputy press secretary(which he freely and boastfully told the assumed girl),will be placed on administrative leave, although it is unclear whether or not he will be paid, said a department official."

   There is an obvious trend starting here and the reasons may allude us but the depravity doesn't.

Oh to blog a day in the computer chair of a feminist

The Porn Myth's website was full of alot of relevant and interesting information. Instead of writing a hugeblog and trying to cover each,which would be especially hard with "being a feminist" for the blog, I chose to work with just one myth. Myth # 3.

     I am sure you have heard people claim that porn as a vehicle is innocent, that if anything it serves as an outlet for me, detering them from peforming what otherwise would be heinous and immoral deeds. Well, the studies have proved otherwise. As researcher Edward Donnerstein was quoted as saying on Porn Myth, "The relationship between particularly sexually violent images in the media and subsequent aggression…is much stronger statistically than between the relationship btween smoking and lung cancer." For all you smokers and vehement non-smokers out there you know those statistics are high. 

     According to Porn myths, the prevelance of porn has greatly increase in the last few decades and along with it the rape rates, by 500%. Studies have begun to show the large negative impacts porn have on society and particularly against women. They have shown that viewing both violent and non-violent porn has increased the acceptance of the rape myth profound. It has increased male aggression toward their female counterparts, along with the acceptance of this. It has decresed society's sensitivty to these ertainent issue, as was violent movies was shown to do with our children. The viewing of porn also has increased men's proclivity to rape women, along with alter their perceptions as to what normal or "common" sexual acts are therefore leading to many wife's to be raped by their husbands. It hasdecreased one's sexual satisfaction with themselves and their partners leading to more warped and hostile fantasies based on porn viewed. THe worse effectof all is that porn has largely led to a decreased support for women's rights, so wecan't even stand up for ouselves against all this tyranny and be taken seriously.

    This increased acceptance of porn in our society has led to women to be degraded and reduced to a mere object of sex. It is unfair to us women! Some women, caught up in this mass hysteria, have broken to the pressures. The pressures that is to look the part of a porn star; always on, always beautiful and always willing and ready. This has led to a growing trend of older women going out and getting a vaginoplasty performed. For those of you that don't know what this entains, it means having cosmetic surgery on your vagina, often "tightening' it up and even possibly lengthening it and dolling up its outer appearance. That is how far society has pushed us. Never once have we asked men to "pretty" themselves up. 

    To make it more relatable, look at how you treat women and degrade them to sex objects; then ask yourselves this question: What would you do to the guy you found out was doing that to your daughter? 

For those who inspire…

Dr.Halavais has asked us to pick 3 people's blogs that we think have done a good job thus far. This question I find especially hard since with the sheer volume of those of you who actually do participate, it is hard to keep up with everyones posts.But looking back through my blogs as to who I linked to and trying to remember by glimpsing through a few here is what I have come up with:

    Softer Than A Porn: who always has something intriguing to say.

     Durk Diggler: who always keeps up with posts as far as I can tell, and has interesting points to make.

    Daily Dose Of Porn: Whose titles may be lacking but the content never is.

Well those are my three choices. You 3 have helped to keep me well entertained through out the semester so far and I thank you. 

Sex:What floats your boat?

After reading the Fisher and Barak reading in the book, it raised a few questions for me. On page 118, they bring up the point that there is a “nearly complete absence of research on the central and obvious issue of consumer preference for different types ofsexual content.” Is there much research into this area currently? and if no, why not? It would surely tell us alot about the nature of hman sexuality and the interplay of fantasy.

Granted, researchers would run into the fact that doing this type of research would probably be just as hard as finding out how much porn is out there. But if Kinsey can walk around knocking on people’s doors and getting them to tell all(true it is only self report) about their sex lifes then why can’t we figure something out for this? I think the results would be interesting to say the least. It would have to be some sort of annonymous survey, or people would likely not own up to some of the more “depraved” or “abnormal” turn ons.

The authors do quote one research in this area. Bogaert conducted research with undergraduate males(there you go again with us undergrads; and I personally think girls should be included as well in the study). He offered to let them watch 14 videos depicting common sexual acts, novel sexual acts, sexually insatiable females, sexual violence, or child porngraphy. Amazingly the majority, 51%, choose not to watch a all. As the author point out this could simply be due to disinterest at the moment or it being uncomfortable, I’m sure they weren’t expecting this at all. The other suprising number was that 3% wanted to watch child porn. Who admits tis, especially with the air surrounding this topic?? However,it also said that 8% wanted to watch the novelty sexual acts that included scenes with animals!!! Maybe the author just didn;t note it, bit unless Bogaert gave clear definitions of what exactly each category entailed I probably would have picked this one at first glance as well, never knowing that meant animals and not just new or different sexual positons or the like.

So if anyone knows of any research into the subject specifically what types of pornography rate the highest, I would be greatly interested to hear of it. I would put my money on straight(heterosexual missionary any day kinda)sex, or lesbian sex scenes.