Why Are Adult Sites Still Legal in the USA?

[Math Is Hard]

Is it not technically possible to locate the source of these sites and disable them?

Nope. If you're hosting the site in a country where this material IS legal, there's not much the FBI can do. Another thing people do is make the servers of legitimate businesses unwitting hosts of this content. A few years back we found out that our servers were taken over and used for content - not porn in our case - but this type of strategy is frequently employed by these shady operations.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I'm talking about banning porn on the web. The more demand there is for porn the more of it that is made. If yanking all porn from the web meant less child porn would be made, then I could live without the legal porn.

You may speechify in defense of your freedom to look at porn but don't forget your freedom to look at porn provides a nice, anonymous, legally protected privacy, for the people who rape children, film it, and put it on the web. I realize they're putting it on the web illegally, but no one seems to be stopping them. If[/color] banning web porn helped cut down on the number of kids made to participate in this stuff, then[/color] I could live without the legal porn on the web. Since it is illegal I don't understand why any site with child pornography isn't already automatically shut down.

The 800 pound gorilla sitting on top of the porn issue isn't the morality of sex, it's the issue of the people, particularly in foreign countries, who are forced to participate. When these are children, I can't believe anyone wouldn't have something more productive to remark than the shrug: "Well, banning porn isn't going to stop child abuse anyway, so whatdaya want?"

You keep missing the point. Child porn is already illegal. You can speechify in defense of a policy that might seem like a good idea, but this would only make the problem worse. It would only drain already limited resources.

 

[Goalie_Ca]

I don't know why people always look to the government for answers. If anything this needs to start at the other end of the system. Drugs, violence, terrorism, child porn, drunk driving, ... are all damn illegal and adding more laws doesn't prevent anything.

20% of people will always be honest and do the moral thing.
20% of people will always go against the moral thing and follow their greed
60% of people will sit somewhere in between, if the chance comes they'll capitalize if they don't think they'll get caught.

I heard this from an economics proff.

 

[Loren Booda]

Since my Arlington, Virginia libraries decided not to censor Internet access, all web porn there is potentially in full view of children. I wouldn't be surprised if kids use the libraries as a government-sponsored peepshow (in my day I would have, when without supervision). I'm not against most erotica, but I would like to apply the standards of print and film media adult-only availability to the more gratuitous computer obscenity.

 

[Averagesupernova]

Could the OP please answer my question about how you are able to tell the difference between incest sex and normal sex just by the pictures?

Thought I'd add something else to this as well. About 3 years ago I got an email from one of my friends with a link to what I would call a run of the mill porn site. Yes, I went to it. On this site there was a spot to enter your email addy to receive porn every day. Sooooo, I went to yahoo and created an account just for this purpose. Well, now I get so much darn porn stuff it is unbelievable. But, none of it is really that big of a deal. Lots of boobs and that is about it. I still check it every day because there are a few other things I use the account for that are somewhat important. Every day there are about 100 messages in there concerning porn. I delete every one of them without even looking. The times that I have checked, there are links to porn sites and they want your money. They show nothing but boobs unless you can provide a c/c number so they can 'verify your age'. LMAO Yeah right... I have yet to see a wide open crotch in this spam.

The other night I was in an adult yahoo chat room and kept getting a response from this woman who wanted to view my cam. I said I won't turn it on for them unless they have one and then I wasn't going to show them anything 'fun' anyway. They kept bugging me and bugging me and I said not without a cam of your own. Finally they gave in and turned theirs on and low and behold there was this 12 year old Asian boy behind the cam. Sooooooo, banning porn sites on the internet is not going to keep kids from viewing things you may think they should be viewing. You can ban your kids from chatrooms, but strangely enough, kids can find a way around just about anything. Especially concerning computers. Oh, incidentally, have you looked at some of the profiles on yahoo with pictures? Oh my word some people have incredible imaginations!

 

[Moonbear]

As has been pointed out many times, making something illegal doesn't get rid of it. Drugs are illegal in the US, yet, kids still buy and use drugs. Every time you add a new rule and need to enforce it, it takes manpower away from enforcement of other rules because there are only so many police to go around.

On the other point made about checking kids' history on the computer, and them being able to erase it, a pretty good sign of a kid guilty of viewing pages they know they shouldn't be is an empty history! It's sort of like coming home to a sparkling clean house when you've left the teenagers home alone for a weekend...you know they weren't suddenly inspired to clean, they had a party and cleaned the mess to hide the evidence!

I think kids have way too much privacy nowadays. When I was a kid, there was no such thing as a TV and phone in your own room, no less your own phone line. If I was on the phone talking to a boy, I was sitting in the middle of the kitchen with the rest of the family listening in. There was one TV, and we all sat and watched the same shows together. Same for the stereo, we had to listen to whatever our parents were willing to put on. Earning the privilege to talk on the phone while the rest of the family went to a different room was just that, a privilege, not a right. Children are given far too many liberties before their parents have ensured they are mature enough to handle them.

 

[BobG]

On the other point made about checking kids' history on the computer, and them being able to erase it, a pretty good sign of a kid guilty of viewing pages they know they shouldn't be is an empty history! It's sort of like coming home to a sparkling clean house when you've left the teenagers home alone for a weekend...you know they weren't suddenly inspired to clean, they had a party and cleaned the mess to hide the evidence!

Moonbear,

Try this. Open your history window. Right click on any item in it (like one of the pop-up ads or something. You get the option to delete just that item. It doesn't take much sophistication for kids to figure that out. Hence the value of the temporary internet files folder. That's harder to manipulate without at least a risk of making it incredibly obvious (depending on how often you check it).

 

[zoobyshoe]

As for child pornography, this is already illegal (banned and unlawful to view and distribute). It still occurs. As I said, if there is a market, unfortunately there is some creep out there to exploit it.

What is preventing the FBI or whoever from turning these sites off? Is it a technical impossibility? I would think they had the authority and technical means to do this.

 

[selfAdjoint]

It is the interpretation of the US Constitution. Porn is protected by the First Amendment. And I am sure glad it is, though I never read it. The last thing I would want is for the FBI to be the judge of what is "dirty".

 

[zoobyshoe]

It is the interpretation of the US Constitution. Porn is protected by the First Amendment. And I am sure glad it is, though I never read it. The last thing I would want is for the FBI to be the judge of what is "dirty".

I'm not talking about porn. I'm talking about psychological and sexual abuse of children. This is already illegal.

I could link you to photographs of children being abused in this way that I have come across inserted into otherwise "consenting adult" porn. It would be illegal for me to create such a link, apparently, and yet no one seems to be able to shut these sites down.

Someone's making money somewhere off of raping children and photographing it. These kids lives are being ruined before they have any real chance to get started. You think these kids are going to just shake this off and put it behind them someday? You think they're going to get themselves into a good school and learn physics and become researchers and teachers? If you do, you're quite naive. Think rather: severe depression, personality disorders, drug and alcohol abuse, prostitution, suicidal tendencies. Could you think about that before you sit and complacently express gratitude the FBI isn't making decisions about what's dirty?

Perhaps banning porn would be ineffectual in cutting down on this abuse of kids, but I am becoming increasingly alarmed and irritated that people's responses seem to have to be filtered through the muck of their own petty rights before there is any thought about how completely defenseless kids are having their lives ruined. I get the feeling some of you people wouldn't pull someone out of a burning car if it happened on your coffee break because you have a right to your coffee break.

 

[BobG]

Perhaps banning porn would be ineffectual in cutting down on this abuse of kids, but I am becoming increasingly alarmed and irritated that people's responses seem to have to be filtered through the muck of their own petty rights before there is any thought about how completely defenseless kids are having their lives ruined. I get the feeling some of you people wouldn't pull someone out of a burning car if it happened on your coffee break because you have a right to your coffee break.

It's an ironic bizarrerie that today's politically correct existensialism, in which culture is reduced to only that which offends no one, puts so much effort into protecting such an offensive form of free speech.

But, in this case, the others are right on two fronts.

The internet is a global phenomenon. One country can't control what goes over the internet, nor can it control the treatment of children in other countries.

As much of a pain as it is to keep porn off the family computer, the harm in strict controls on internet traffic would be worse.

As it is, in the US, you can be prosecuted for making child porn movies, selling or distributing child porn either over the internet, through videos, or magazines, or for possessing any the preceding. Quite a few do get caught, which is why so much porn and gambling comes from off-shore sites specializing in things which would be illegal in the US.

 

[Loren Booda]

zooby,

Do you think selfAdjoint was responding to your post previous to his? If so, your response is warranted.

 

[selfAdjoint]

I'm not talking about porn. I'm talking about psychological and sexual abuse of children. This is already illegal.

I could link you to photographs of children being abused in this way that I have come across inserted into otherwise "consenting adult" porn. It would be illegal for me to create such a link, apparently, and yet no one seems to be able to shut these sites down.

Someone's making money somewhere off of raping children and photographing it. These kids lives are being ruined before they have any real chance to get started. You think these kids are going to just shake this off and put it behind them someday? You think they're going to get themselves into a good school and learn physics and become researchers and teachers? If you do, you're quite naive. Think rather: severe depression, personality disorders, drug and alcohol abuse, prostitution, suicidal tendencies. Could you think about that before you sit and complacently express gratitude the FBI isn't making decisions about what's dirty?

Perhaps banning porn would be ineffectual in cutting down on this abuse of kids, but I am becoming increasingly alarmed and irritated that people's responses seem to have to be filtered through the muck of their own petty rights before there is any thought about how completely defenseless kids are having their lives ruined. I get the feeling some of you people wouldn't pull someone out of a burning car if it happened on your coffee break because you have a right to your coffee break.

As you pointed out child pornogrraphy is illegal, so its continuing presence online is a criminal justice problem. The police can never eliminate crime, only make arrests where they have evidence and can identify the offender. I believe that voluntary display of child ponography is grounds already for a site to be shut down. Why don't you notify your local FBI office when you detect some?.

 

[Artman]

What is preventing the FBI or whoever from turning these sites off? Is it a technical impossibility? I would think they had the authority and technical means to do this.

I imagine that they have to infitrate to get proof that it is happening. I'm just guessing, but I would imagine that they disguise them fairly well. The FBI probably does shut down many of them. I really don't know.

 

[Goalie_Ca]

I just read today in the paper that China started a crackdown on porn around july 16th. They've sent people to jail even. They said they didn't want to corrupt the minds of the young people.

So, how about you go live there? Sounds like they got everything under control and just the way you like it.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I had a friend from another country that has an extreme cultural bias against pornography. We were playing chess while his cousin and her kids watched HBO [early HBO, this was in about 1987]. A soft porn movie came on - probably the equivalent of an R rated movie today. The mother went nuts! "Oh my God! Don't they know that kids are watching at this time of day?" She was just beside herself and quickly grabbed for the remote control to find something appropriate for the kids.

They then watched a Terminator-like movie! I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Personally, I think people blowing each other heads off and dismembering each other, and scenes of people taking joy in killing does more damage to a young mind, and society in general, than any nudity that I ever saw on HBO.

Edit: I still can't get over this. AMAZING. On HBO two people were making love, or at least doing something perfectly natural, but the preferred option was something horrid, sickening, and very unnatural.

Saint, do you like Terminator movies?

 

[Prometheus]

I just read today in the paper that China started a crackdown on porn around july 16th. They've sent people to jail even. They said they didn't want to corrupt the minds of the young people.

So, how about you go live there? Sounds like they got everything under control and just the way you like it.

In some of the larger cities in China, access to some web pages is disabled. Enforcement is not uniform across the country, fortunately.

I personally feel good that Big Brother is protecting me from access to porn, or to anything else that might be deemed by those in power to be detrimental to them.

 

[Saint]

Can someone give me some convincing reasons why do people need porn?
How can porn be good to people's mentality ?

 

[Prometheus]

Can someone give me some convincing reasons why do people need porn?
How can porn be good to people's mentality ?

You lead such a sheltered life. Go ask your mother.

 

[LENIN]

This may not be enough for Saint but for guys that can't get girls and don't want to waste mony on prostiutes porn is a easy way out.
And here is another idea if young people would watch enough porn the world population wouldn't grow this fast (don't take this seriusly) .

 

[griffin]

I suppose that there is no really good reason that Poeple actually "need porn". I don't think that It is required for a person to have a good mentality. Having said that, when trying to change a law or socially accepted institution, the burden of proof does not lie on that institution to defend itself, the burden of proof lies on the force that wants to cause the change.

just out of curiosity is there any difference in your view between two or 50 consenting adults rent a gym and lock all the doors and look at each others naked bodies or an adult well within the rights of the law sitting at his or her computer searching for picturs of those same two or 50 people?

 

[meteor]

Well, we as animals have necessity of sex. I don't see why if somebody wrote a book 2000 years ago saying that this is obscene/sinful we should then put a stop to our instincts

 

[Marijn]

Well, we as animals have necessity of sex. I don't see why if somebody wrote a book 2000 years ago saying that this is obscene/sinful we should then put a stop to our instincts

Did they?
According to what i know of that novel called bible,
Jesus had no problems talking to or being in the presence of a prostitute.
Nor did he have a problem with what she did for a living.

@Saint
Then of to why porn isn't a problem.
Agreed some pron does require you to have a peculiar taste to say the least.
But what is wrong with that?
Heck, its the smae stuff you and you wife did, afteral you have a kid, and those don't grow on fertile soil now do they.
Also you probably didn't mind creating your kid.

So what is wrong with watching it?
My parents had no objections with me watching erotic scenes in movies (they didn't go as far as to encourage me to whatch porn).
Point its, why not educate your kids about it, starting when they are young.
It will make them familiar with what sex is, makes them aware of the risks (pregnancy, sexualy transmitted diseases e.g.) and teaches them to protect them self.
Because trust me, the more you tell a kid he can't watch something, the more he'll WANT to see it.
Then looking at porn (or even plain nudity) will become something secret (in effect creating a taboo) and your kid will associate sex with secrecy and dirty for the rest of his/her life.

AND THATS WRONG!
Sex is healthy, fun, probably one of the ultimate forms to show your affection to someone.
Ohh and did i say fun already?

Ohh and the final question.
You believe in God, right?
God is almighty? I'm right on that one again, aren't I?

THEN WHY ON EARTH DID HE ALLOW PORN IF HE DOESN'T LIKE IT!??!? :surprise:
Ouch, that one struck a nerv didn't it?

 

[aychamo]

This thread is pretty humorous, people debating the intentions of a 2,000 year old mythological creature.

 

[Saint]

Sex is private, why disclose it on the net for others to see?

 

[Gokul43201]

Sex is private ? Says who ? The Saint ?

 

[enigma]

Sex is private, why disclose it on the net for others to see?

Because others want to see it.

Most likely, those performing want others to see it.

If you don't want to see it, don't go looking for it.

If you don't want your kids to see it, be a parent and watch their internet activities or get a porn blocker.

What is the problem?

Nobody wants you, the government, or the church in their bedrooms, so STAY OUT.

 

[Saint]

Humans are civilized beings, therefore they wear clothes.
But it seems that humans have degraded to the level of animals, exposing their genitals proudly to people!

 

[Monique]

I agree there is a tumbling of morality going on, the redefinition of values. I have my own values I hold on to, luckily.

Saint: there are many things on the internet that are objectionable, but it is a free medium. There's a freedom of speech, a governmental censor would take away one of the basic rights. Ofcourse a thing you could do is start an action group and collect signatures and present that to the government: if they feel there really is a conflict in morality, action might be taken.

 

[Kalimaa23]

Humans are civilized beings, therefore they wear clothes.
But it seems that humans have degraded to the level of animals, exposing their genitals proudly to people!

Please explain your perceived implication between the wearing of clothes and civilization. I'm rather puzzled.

Aftertought : Using bold script does not lend weight to a statement, merely to the annoyance of those reading it.