posted on 12:47 PM | permalink

The Ministry of Justice in Great Britain has just released a report on the effects of consuming EPM (Extreme Pornography Material).

The results:

• The REA (Rapid Evidence Assessment) supports the existence of some harmful effects from extreme pornography on some who access it. These included increased risk of developing pro-rape attitudes, beliefs and behaviours, and committing sexual offences. Although this was also true of some pornography which did not meet the extreme pornography threshold, it showed that the effects of extreme pornography were more serious.
• Men who are predisposed to aggression, or have a history of sexual and other aggression were more susceptible to the influence of extreme pornographic material. This was corroborated by a number of different studies using different methods and different samples.
• The REA found no formal research studies of the effects on those who participate in making extreme pornography.

In short, the exponential growth and accessibility of obscene or "extreme" pornography is something we shouldn't take lightly. The study is dramatic evidence of the effects upon men especially those who have a history of aggression.

Labels: child pornography, rape, science, studies, violence

posted on 7:33 AM | permalink

Nazi Porn

As if Nazism didn't have enough of a bad reputation. A new documentary examines booklets published in the 1960s (in Israel of all places) depicting pornography, rapes and killings at the hands of SS soldiers. The New York Times notes:

Mr. Libsker’s 60-minute documentary puts the Stalags under a spotlight for the first time and exposes some uncomfortable truths. One is that the Stalags were a distinctly Israeli genre, created by Israeli publishers and penned by Israeli authors, although they had masqueraded as translations from English and were written in the first person as if they were genuine memoirs.

When Political Correctness goes very badly

A homosexual couple, posing as model foster parents, were finally found to be sexually abusing the young males put in their care and producing child pornography videos to boot. As the investigative panel concluded:

Despite growing reservations by staff and complaints from the mother of two of the boys, the two men were treated by the authorities as "trophy carers" who, because of their status as homosexuals were regarded as beyond scrutiny. An independent investigative panel has found that officials of Wakefield Metropolitan District Council, controlled by the Labour Party, allowed "the fear of being discriminatory" to lead them to "fail to discriminate between the appropriate and the abusive."

Chalk one local win up for decency

Fairview Heights, Il voted to deny adult businesses in their community. Kudos.


"It's all in my defense"

A defense lawyer was accused of letting his client, an accused pedophile and child pornographer, spend too much time examining the evidence against him. In other words, the accused was ogling the porn he created that got his arrested. Ugly.


Speaking of ugly. How about some stats.

One software platform for family internet use put out some stats that should wake up any concerned parent:

* The average age when the children encounter pornography in the internet is 11.

* The age of the largest pornography consumer group in the internet is Between 12 to 17.

* 85% of children between the ages 6-16 encountered pornographic content intentionally or unintentionally (most of them while preparing their homework).

* 25% of children between ages 9-17 will freely disclose their home address in the internet.

* 60% of children who committed suicide, declared their intentions online directly or indirectly.

* One in five children who use the computer chat rooms has been approached over the internet by pedophiles.

* Only 25% of youth who received sexual solicitation told a parent.

Salary for appraising pornography: $300/hr

Laura Henkel spends her days living on a houseboat and appraising erotic art. Nice work if you can get it? But I really don't get it.

Henkel worked for 18 years as a legal secretary in Miami and San Francisco before changing careers and getting a doctorate in human sexuality at San Francisco's Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality.

She is now leading an effort by the Exodus Trust, the institute's parent organization, to set up the Erotic Heritage Museum in Las Vegas by next January.

In other unspeakable news

A man faces extradition to the United States after filming the rape of his daughter. While we can all disagree on the effect of pornography we can at least agree what should happen to this guy.


Google Brazil: Help us fix it

In a first for Google, Sao Paulo authorities will be able to help monitor and capture illegal content on Orkut, Google's social networking platform.

Labels: erotic art, homosexuality, nazism, news, online pornography, rape, stats

posted on 8:07 AM | permalink

You know porn is a bad for you when...

This week in the New Yorker magazine, Naomi Wolfe vindicates her feminist anti-pornography counterpart Andrea Dworkin. In a stunning a admission for the queen of American sexualization, Wolf declares:

As she [Dvorkin] foretold, pornography did breach the dike that separated a marginal, adult, private pursuit from the mainstream public arena. The whole world, post-Internet, did become pornographized. Young men and women are indeed being taught what sex is, how it looks, what its etiquette and expectations are, by pornographic training—and this is having a huge effect on how they interact.

As always, Wolf is a bit more nuanced in her denunciation of pornography but we welcome her to the fight. Like Professor Jensen, Wolf asserts that Pornogrpahy strips men of their masculinity.

Keeping porn off the cellphone

Last week AT&T launched parental controls for cell phones. While it might seem a silly and pithy thing consider this man busted after he list his PDA which contained over 500 child pornography images. The article points out that the software is not full proof but it does provide some decent controls for concerned parents.

HBO welcomes the Full Monty

We're not talking about Monty Python either. In a first for primetime paid cable, HBO is launching a new series called "Tell Me You Love Me" depicting the sex life of several couples and featuring full frontal male nudity. I'm sure the polling indicates some demand for this? One media pundit notes that there has been nothing like this before, not even on HBO.

50 Cents, Model Father?

In a revealing interview with an Aussie magazine, 50 Cents, the renown rap artist, had this to say about his son, his lyrics and pornography:

His son now attends a private school. Is he a strict father? "You know, his mom runs his life right now. But I'll allow him to listen to my music because he knows it is just entertainment. He knows what the difference between me and what is being said on my records is. If you were worried about my lyrics, you should also be worried about what your kid's watching on television. Same with magazines. I look in your magazines and I see women topless and it's great. But in the States, they consider it soft pornography. They have a whole different vibe over there. The Bible belt."

His attitude is not at all surprising considering the content of his last hit. Personally, I like topless cars.

"He hasn't been able to really answer that"

The above quote is from the lawyer of a man who took explicit picture of his own pre-teen daughter trying to answer the question "why" he did it. That seems to be the answer of many men who have been addicted to pornography. Of course, Dr. Reisman can tell you exactly why this response is so frequently cited by porn addicts.

A bad, bad combination

At the Lighted Candle Society we often compare the addiction of pornography to drug addiction or alcohol abuse. The sad combination of these three led to the violent and terrible rape and murder of a nursing student in Canada last year. It appears that the murderer was drunk, high on marijuana and "consult[ed] the Internet for violent pornography" at the time of the offence. I should note that not all porn addicts are rapists but almost all rapists are porn addicts. The combination of even two of these elements is quite enough. We would argue that porn alone can do you in.

When all else fails?

We've mentioned before the unique approaches that churches are employing to help people with porn addiction. This Decatur, IL church uses a slightly suggestive billboard and registered the domain: mybestsexlife.com" to bring awareness to the issue. A good debate can be had pro- and con- this approach but it certainly indicates that what has gone before hasn't worked. Which is why the Lighted Candle Society is business.

The Top Ten List

I love making top ten lists... but this is one I plan to avoid. Jon Schillaci is the 488th person to join the FBI's top ten most wanted list. This is one of the first wanted persons whose crime is pedophilia. Read about this case here and if you see this man get him locked up now!

Labels: 50 cents, crime, fbi, hbo, judith reisman, media, naomi wolf, news, rape, reisman, violence