Make pornography history
John Beyer, the Black and White Minstrels Fan who likens himself to Saint Paul, has called upon the G8 leaders to crack down on internet pornography. Reacting to a report by the Audit Commission (reported in The Times) which revealed the 47% of public sector “IT abuse” was porn related, Beyer says:
The Audit Commission report is further evidence, if any were needed, that the Obscene Publications Act 1959 is in need of strengthening. It proves again that the criminal law is failing and the pornographers are continuing to exploit the situation. Pornography is immoral and undermines human dignity and the report shows that accessing this material is costing the country millions of pounds in wasted resources. We appeal to the Government again to strengthen the law and reach an international agreement through the G8 group of countries so that this abuse of the Internet is stopped as soon as possible. It is clearly in the national interest that some action is taken.
Isn’t it cute how he still capitalises “the Internet”?
The commission has called for anti-porn software to be installed in all public service computers. But that won’t stop adults who chose to view it in the privacy of their own homes, will it?
I find the very concept of trying to prevent international transfers of pornography so laughable that I’m nearly falling off my chair.
Beyer says it is in the national interest that pornography is stopped on the internet. Exactly who’s interest is that? Maybe just his own.
Beyer belives crimianlising people for developing and distributing adult material depiciting lawful and consensual acts is good for our society. He is badly mistaken!
He comes from a moral authoritariain angle, that he knows what is and is not best for us. Is it really any of his buisness that Joe Bloggs might be looking at a blue movie in his own home? No it aint!
The Internet wouldn’t be where it is today without porn. It is widely accepted that the adult entertainment industry, porn in particular, has driven the development of secure e-commerce systems. We might have got there eventually but we would almost certainly have taken a few more years.
Dan-
Where do you think it will stop? So far it has done nothing but increase. Supposing we get to the point where one can’t use the internet without ten popup pictures coming up, will you still be standing there defending civil liberties?
I enjoyed your letter in the ‘Mail’, by the way 😮
Has it increased? Frankly I get a lot less porn spam than I did five years ago (a lot more dodgy Christian Singles sites and pyramid marketing schemes, but a lot less porn). Pop ups are pretty much dead with the advent of Firefox/Opera/IE SP2.
There’s lots of porn on the internet. But it’s a pretty indefensible point to say it’s becoming more intrusive into “normal” surfing.
Anyway, you can’t see any decent porn without handing over your credit card details.
Er, apparently…
(I capitalise ‘Internet’ – what’s so Bad about That?)
It’s all a function of the time of history in which one lives. We need just one thing: more historical imagination. We are so jaded now (seen it all) compared with the pre-mass-porn generation. If anyone thinks being jaded is a good thing, then my name’s Britney Spears.
Yes, that makes sense. Trivialize something you disagree with. Good strategy.
So do you think being jaded is a good thing, Jesse?
Do you think your assertion that porn on the internet will intrude more into regular surfing was anything other than nonsense?
I have no idea whether it is increasing or decreasing. It matters little, when even one pop-up picture is too much.
In post 4, you say “it has done nothing but increase”.
Changing your mind again Doc?
In my experience, as long as I stay on normal sites, I never get any pop ups advertising porn. I only see porn pop ups if I visit porn sites, or any “dodgy” sites. Maybe this is what you do with your time on the internet Christopher.
If you don’t like pop ups, there is alternative browsers, and plenty of software to stop them if you insist on using IE.
Indeed, IE itself stops them as of XP service pack 2. The only way you’ll see pop up’s nowadays is if you’re using outdated software.
I thought it was increasing (not that I would know – and certainly as you imply it is a problem that one encounters in cafes rather than at work). & I may be wrong regarding the last year or two. Just as I am right if the time-period in question is a longer one.
But surely you agree that this is irrelevant. If the thing is a bad thing in the first place, why play devil’s advocate in refusing to admit the obvious overriding point that even one instance is too many?
The issue is not popups (which are just an example) but the way that (a) the internet makes pornography more widespread and (b) what is widespread then comes to be regarded (on what grounds, I am not sure) as ok.
Every new entertainment medium makes pornography more widespread! Cinema made it more widespread, Video made it more widespread, DVD made it more widespread, Digital photography made it more widespread. The next form of entertainment media will also be hijacked by the porn industry.
As has already been said, porn has actually helped the internet. Porn sites were the first to have secure log on systems of the type now used by on-line banks and the like.
If you don’t like porn on the internet, don’t look at it. Simple really. Nobody is forcing you to, and it’s impossible to stumble across it by accident, unless you’re a complete idiot.
It’s not impossible. People frequently go into internet cafes only to be beset with the problem of popups – whether because of a previous user or for whatever reason.
As I have often mentioned, none of this is a matter of likes and dislikes (emotional). This is a common misconception. Rather, it is a matter of facts, reason and statistics: which things prove beneficial and which things do not.
I agree with your para 1.
Re your para 2, you are again showing a tendency to be more eager to speak a good word in favour of pornography than a bad word against it: this is odd.
It’s not odd at all to say good things about pornography. I consider pornography an active social good. Pornography improves people’s lives, and if your tenous links that promiscuity is caused by it’s acceptability rather than the massive social changes of the last century were even remotely true, then that would just be another argument in it’s favour as far as I’m concerned. It’ll certainly never cause the destruction and ruin religion has.
So why have all the negative things gone up in the same period when it has been widespread? (divorce, promiscuity, sex crimes, STDs, younger intercourse, more extramarital intercourse / adultery / unfaithfulness, abortion).
If one adopted your positive outlook, one would predict that good results ought to accompany pornography. But in that case, why has the reverse happened re all things that can be statistically measured.
Even happiness and laughter have apparently decreased.
Let’s have a look at your “negative things” – divorce? Extremely positive compared to people staying in failing relationships for long periods. Promiscuity? Brilliant thing, lots of fun. Sex crimes? Have sex crimes gone up? The evidence that they have (rather than being more widely reported) is non-existant. Indeed, it is entirely possible that the amount of sex crimes committed has gone down. STD increases in reality are also more difficult to prove, rather than just increases in discovery due to wider awareness. Younger intercourse is yet again tricky to prove as any figures for the 50s are unquestionably innaccurate, but even if has seems to carry no intrinsic harm to anyone (indeed, congrats to the kids who are successfully getting laid before I did). How was your data on the previous level of infidelity take place? By going up to couples in the street and asking them if either of them were by any chance having an affair?
Meanwhile racism and institutionalised homophobia have decreased, sexual repression has gone down, domestic violence has become less acceptable, sexism has been dramatically decreased and persecution of the sexual active has decreased. All seem pretty good to me.
Para 2: I agree.
Para 1: You’re right! All these things are beautiful, wholesome, exquisite, beguiling, adorable & inspiring reverence.
He didn’t say that. Yet again you’re building a straw man so flimsy that even you can knock it down.
What Andy L did was to provide rebuttals to your argument, to which you responded with typical childish petulance. Where’s the debating you’re so fond of banging on about the importance of? eh?
You constantly talk about the things you see as bad as having increased and say how the stats back you up, but you never provide any actual figures. At the risk of sounding like a drunken Delia, let’s be ‘avin’ them. Where’s the figures sheel, you wanna cite them, then let us see the raw data. And preferably from a reputable source, not some dodgy christian vanity publishing site.
Gulp! Figures are readily avgailable from a number of sources – even from me if you wish. But the only trends I have cited are uncontroversial ones, that no-one would disagree with in the first place.
Who thinks divorce has decreased – or even just slightly increased – since the 1950s? I gather it has increased (percentage-wise) by roughly a factor of 20. But no-one is denying that – they are just claiming that this is not a bad thing. Odd – when it ranks second stress-wise to bereavement.
Who thinks abortion has decreased (rather than increased fourfold or so) since the first year of its legality? No-one: the figures are readily available.
Is there anyone in Britain who would deny that teenage conception and pregnancy have increased in the same period (the period of sex education)? If they haven’t increased, why are there initiatives to decrease them, and tables always being published to show that we are the teen pregnancy capital of Europe?
No-one would call cohabitation a more stable type of partnership than marriage – figures published on the Times front page in Feb suggest a factor of 10 (10 times less stable/lasting, with all the ramifications, e.g. for children). But that’s not a contentious point – is it?
I thought the general trends, therefore, were both clear and uncontroversial. Is this not the case?
The rates you cite in your above post are indeed uncontroversial, but you use this genuine credibility in citing figures to lend a spurious credibility to your citing of more controversial figures and, crucially, the arguments that you hang on them, which often amount to little more than the misrepresentation of views that you ascribe to the public en masse then use your figures to disprove. For example, in the post above you state “No-one would call cohabitation a more stable type of partnership than marriage”, when I’ve never heard anyone argue this. I have seen arguments to the effect that it is not inherently less stable than marriage, and it is one that I can see a great deal of merit in, both from a logical viewpoint and from the experience of my friends and family.
I’ll have a look at the Times article and get back to you with either a response in a bit.
Scratch my last line. Christopher, do you have a link to the article? The times only allows free archive searching for articles from the last seven days. For anything further back one has to have a subscription to timesonline, and i don’t want to give any of my money to the evil murdoch
Oh dear – I wish I did.
Im afraid that neither logic nor limited personal experience counts for anything here – merely stats.
In any case, whichever source/survey one accesses from whatever date will give a similar picture. If the two success-rates were similarly strong, it would be one thing, but when we are talking of factors in double figures.
Now – I do have February in my mind. Was it mid-February? Im pretty sure that a brief foray into cohabitation stats of any kind will produce similar figures.
It could not easily be otherwise, since cohabitation by definition can begin and end at any time.
That is: in cohabitation there’s always an easy get-out clause, which is unhelpful for people who will never produce high standards unless there is some expectation of (or pressure to produce) high standards – and particularly for men who will often use this as easy-going atmosphere as an excuse for ‘accepting’ all the privileges and none of the responsibilities.
This is precisely how by definition cohabitation differs from marriage.
If I find the article – or any other relevant article – I will let you know. But the article was old ‘news’ anyway.