If we’re going to investigate the impact of viewing porn, we need to consider where it usually starts–childhood. Colin Erasmus, Microsoft SA’s security manager, said the average age at which a child is first exposed to Internet porn is 11. This typically happens by accident while a child is searching for information for school projects, […]
Impact of Porn
Carolyn McKenzie: Undercover with the Viewing Booths; Disease, Intoxicants Prevalent Among Strip Dancers (explicit language)
One night in Memphis about 15 years ago, Carolyn McKenzie accompanied a vice cop on a tour of adult bookstores, strip clubs, and a “modeling studio”. This mother of four and former public-health nurse had organized protests and filed complaints with the district attorney’s office over the porn shops and strip clubs that dotted suburban […]
Detroit Police Testimony: What I Saw at the Melody Theater
Our opponents are insatiable for evidence about adult businesses and secondary effects, and we mean to satisfy them. In January 2000, Kevin Smith, detective with the Metro Street Enforcement Team (Detroit), gave this testimony to the Michigan House Ethics and Constitutional Law Committee regarding anti-pornography legislation… [We] began investigating the Melody Theater in June of […]
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Springfield License Commission to Review Alleged Capital Video Violations for Drug Sales and Lewd Activity On or Near the Premises
Capital Video claims it enjoys an “excellent relationship with its host communities”. That doesn’t appear to be the case in Springfield. Urban Compass, a blog at the Valley Advocate, reports today that Regarding the [Springfield Capital Video] store, Police Commissioner Edward Flynn put out a call recently for downtown residents to attend a License Commission […]
Hooksett, NH, 1999: Citizens Convince Property Owner to Withdraw Application for Capital Video Porn Shop
Sometimes businesspeople heed the concerns of the community and change their plans. Such was the case in Hooksett, NH, where Capital Video tried to establish a porn shop in 1999. These minutes from the Hooksett Zoning Board of Adjustment tell the story… LMG PROPERTIES LIMITED PARTNERSHIP 1318 HOOKSETT ROAD, MAP 25, LOT 64 REQUEST FOR […]
Pornography and Male Sexuality
Harry Brod explores what porn does to the male viewer in “Eros Thanatized: Pornography and Male Sexuality”. This essay appears in Men Confront Pornography (1990, p.190-206). The proper framework for discussion about the manufacture and distribution of pornography is neither sexual ethics nor civil liberties, but business ethics. Anti-pornography campaigns should be conceptualized not as […]
Rebutting ACLU President Nadine Strossen’s Defense of Pornography
Long-time anti-pornographer Diana Russell takes on Nadine Strossen, president of the American Civil Liberties Union and author of Defending Pornography. Nadine Strossen’s OBJECTIVE in Defending Pornography is to destroy the reputation and achievements of the feminist movement against pornography. To this end, she dishes up the same tired old caricature of us as anti-sex prudes, […]
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Rebutting the ‘Porn as Safety Valve’ Myth
Defenders of porn often argue that it serves a cathartic function, that porn satisfies its viewers’ desires so they feel no need to act them out in real life. Diana Russell and Natalie Purcell provide a strong rebuttal to this argument: According to the catharsis theory, the repeated exposure of males to pornography “leads to […]
Porn’s “Verbatim” Accounts of the Pleasures of Child Sexual Abuse Don’t Square with Reality
Here is the reality of child sexual abuse as described by the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry: Child sexual abuse has been reported up to 80,000 times a year, but the number of unreported instances is far greater, because the children are afraid to tell anyone what has happened, and the legal procedure […]
Knowledge: The Antidote to Porn Addiction
Like an abusive relationship, porn is a closed system. A great deal is left out. Knowledge is repressed. Break out of this mental prison, writes David Mura, there are better ways to seek fulfillment. From “A Male Grief: Notes on Pornography and Addiction”, from Men Confront Pornography (1990, p.131-141)… In imposing abuse, the abuser attempts […]