Unlike today, criticism of pornography proceeded as if the average viewer would be unfamiliar with it. "These highly colorful magazines depict stark nudity on slick paper," Putnam patiently explained. "They often present their subject on a bed or couch, in positions indicative of intercourse or other sex acts, obviously calculated to stimulate the reader." Back then, they also thought that "the nakedness, the nudity of these magazines is defended and foisted on the people by a vociferous minority in our society," an argument even anti-porn crusaders don't make today.
February 1, 2013
"Pornography 'Weakens our Resistance to the Communist Masters of Deceit.'"
"And other warnings from the 1961 film Perversion for Profit, the Reefer Madness of porn."
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Back then, they also thought that "the nakedness, the nudity of these magazines is defended and foisted on the people by a vociferous minority in our society," an argument even anti-porn crusaders don't make today.
Well of course not. It wouldn't be true to-day.
Hah! Thanks for reminding me of that study, Balfegor.
What's really indicative of Keating & company's bad cultural criticism is that they didn't realize that the Communist Masters of Deceit were every bit as anti-porn as they were.
From the article...
But psychiatrists believe that prolonged exposure of even the normal male adult to this kind of publication, though he may not be aware of its true nature, will nevertheless pervert.
Prolonged exposure? Like some kinda Gay Ray Gun?
I'm pretty sure you were gay long before you picked up that publication.
@madAsHell,
Prolonged exposure? Like some kinda Gay Ray Gun?
No, you silly person. Like watching the Wizard of Oz too many times, which has been scientifically established.
Porn, prostitution, slavery, rape, murder all things people do that exploit other people for gain. Really evil stuff. We need to examine what our society takes lightly.
A very Orwellian tone
I find porn kind of boring, sure I watch it but not much, but I am more interested in actually participating.
I can walk out my door and actually get sex, that's so empowering. Someday I won't be able to do this and will move away from being ignored. But for now I am grateful it is just a few dog walk feet away and invited to participate.
My life is kind of pornish.
Porn, prostitution, slavery, rape, murder all things people do that exploit other people for gain.
False equivalence is a fun game for the whole family.
I don't always want to get some but it is comforting to know I can walk out my door and get it.
I could not live somewhere without that option. What a vacant life that would be.
thanks,
how are you?
I care.
tits.
One of the great ironies is that porn, dehumanizing to women as it is, was pushed by the feminists as a way of empowerment.
Or something.
When I was like 13 I would go to this bar in Madison called "Rods". It was in a basement and it was horrible but still kind of fun.
The entire place was filled with Tom of Finland pics, framed.
Then we would go to Cafe Palms for late night eats.
I loved Cafe Palms so much.
The entire complex burned down in a fire-it was definitely Satan's hand.
I also went to the clubs Jeffrey Dahlmer hung out in in Milwaukee. The places were in awful neighborhoods with names like Ce La Vie. I actually knew one of his victims-his name was Oliver and he was black, with Sally Jesse Rafael glasses. But he was deaf so it was sometimes hard to understand him. Oliver was in a big barrel of acid when the caught Jeffrey. Jeffrey is also a gay broadway play. But not about that Jeffrey.
So you can understand why I ran away from Wisconsin.
My first gay bar in Madison was called "Going My Way".
It was on the square and still vacant like many of the buildings on "the square".
So sad Madison.
One of the great ironies is that porn, dehumanizing to women as it is, was pushed by the feminists as a way of empowerment.
Perhaps a greater irony is how eagerly social conservatives latch onto the collectivist arguments of the progressive left.
Pay a man a hundred bucks for eight hours of voluntary labor in the hot sun and that's just good old-fashioned capitalism, the kind of thing that makes this country great. Pay a woman a thousand dollars for thirty minutes of consensual sex on camera and you're "exploiting" and "dehumanizing" her.
Funny stuff, really. Replace "having sex" with "working in a factory" and the average social conservative is indistinguishable from a Marxist college professor. :)
if porn makes you go communist, then i am chairman mao.
it's "degrading" only to the sexually-ignorant, the sexually-repressed, and the sexually-inexperienced. to old 'commies' like me, it's just hella hot and hella fun.
Some food for thought this Super Bowl weekend:
By what definitions of "victim", "exploitation", and "dehumanization" does a porn actress qualify and a pro football player not? Remember, almost every man on the field this Sunday will suffer severe health problems from his thirties and forties onwards. Most will die young. Virtually none will avoid being seriously injured on the job at some point.
Enjoy the game.
Back in the early days of the internet, I naively searched for "big men's clothing," and got what you would expect with the primitive search engines. (Just did it now. Didn't get any porn on the first page. Of course, the cookies probably know my current height and weight.) Anyway, I remember telling a family gathering about what I thought was a pretty funny experience at the dinner table, and hearing my sisters and sister-in-law saying, "no way." They went into the den (no laptops back then), figured out how to use the search engine, and we soon heard sheiks of laughter.
I have no idea what the cultural effect of all this is, but we certainly have (collectively) a lot more experience with pornography than we used to. Of course, I grew up on a farm, delivered lots of baby lambs. So I had lots more biological knowledge than most kids get. But there is a good deal more "applied" knowledge out there than I had when I was a kid. Good? Bad? Who knows. Different.
sheiks = shrieks.
Wonder what sheiks of laughter sound like.
Well of course not. It wouldn't be true to-day.
Great.
Not intended to be equivalence, but points on a spectrum.
@Bob_R
But there is a good deal more "applied" knowledge out there than I had when I was a kid.
And it comes at us from the strangest places, too!
I was on Amazon browsing to buy a CD by an early music vocal group called the Capella Romana that specializes in Byzantine Chant. At the bottom of the page were links to 3 web sites that featured:
Capella University
A Capella Singing &
Cruise Uncircumcised Men.
Uhhhmm, what?
So, I sent Amazon the following message:
Is there some association that I'm not aware of between Byzantine chant and cruising uncircumcised men?
Now, if we were talking about Mozarabic chant and small penis humiliation --- well, everyone knows about that!
I never heard back from them.
Revenant said...
Some food for thought this Super Bowl weekend:
By what definitions of "victim", "exploitation", and "dehumanization" does a porn actress qualify and a pro football player not? Remember, almost every man on the field this Sunday will suffer severe health problems from his thirties and forties onwards. Most will die young. Virtually none will avoid being seriously injured on the job at some point.
Rev, to a certain extent, you broke the code.
The difference is the football player gets access to a free college education, is much better-compensated, and can leave any time he wants, but, yes, for many, it's their only way out of a life of manual labor.
Oh yeah! Weaken me , baby, weaken me!
Isn't that set of whole quotes pretty much true if you are liberal with the single word "foisted"?
It is a minority that openly defends it and if "foisted" is applied to those who foist it into your inbox, and on your screen anytime you misspell "fussy".
"My first gay bar in Madison was called "Going My Way""
When I first moved to L.A. at 23, I had never known any lesbians, I mean I did back in rural PA, but nobody ever talked about it or identified them then, so I really never thought of them, ever. So when I moved in next to a very popular lesbian bar in L.A. called "MI Way", I was thrilled with all the hot women I saw going there - well, a lot of them anyway, and the rest looked like they would be desperate - perfect. So I went in one night and just started being friendly with no clue what was going on. After talking to a number of beautiful ladies, one finally carefully explained it to me. So now I know. Nope, that's all there is to the story. Sorry.
I wouldn't know anything about this because I never look at pornography. That's assuming you do not consider Voyeurweb, Image Fap and Guess Her Muff to be pornography, that is.
Peter
Revenant,
At least among players who played at least 5 years from 1959-1988, NFL players don't tend to die younger.
Linemen do have higher heart disease, and maybe that is worse now with the heavier linemen, but still you have to consider many of them would probably be overweight even if they didn't play football. One could argue that NFL players, often very physically fit, are usually very healthy to begin with, and might be even healthier if they had played less, but it is hard to know because the studies aren't controlled.
What if pornography is bad, but just not in the way that the moralists think.....It certainly doesn't lead to rape or perversion, but there's a good chance it leads to...something. A certain amount of ignorance and mystery enhances the romance and terror of sex. Maybe a certain amount of sexual repression actually strengthens the libido. That's it. A Catholic education is a form of weight training, and too much porn is like consuming nothing but Big Macs.
Revenant:
Actually, all of those activities have a common theme. They all serve to degrade a human being. The last action realizes a terminal effect.
The reason people do not otherwise consider them together, is because men, and women, just want to have fun. Don't harsh their mellow.
As for equating intentional degradation of dignity and incidentally suffering physical injury, you're exaggerating for effect, right?
This is why it's possible to dissociate redistributive change from slavery. This is why it's possible to dissociate affirmative action from institutional discrimination. When there is universal equivalence, then it's possible to rationalize selective consideration.
William:
Strictly speaking, sexual stimulation is a chemical response with a powerful psychotropic effect. Whether it occurs with physical or visual inputs is irrelevant. It becomes an issue when it sabotages an individual's ability to self-moderate their behavior.
The issue is two-fold. First, that it leads to obsessive behaviors. Second, that it interferes with evolutionary fitness. The first is not good for the individual's health. While both are not good for the health of a society.
Best wishes to Ron Jeremy who is under the weather in California.
He was stricken with a heart problem and drove himself to the hospital where he had two heart operations two days ago.
Feel better Hedgehog!
Baron Zemo
I don't understand, Ron Jeremy never played pro football.
The difference is the football player gets access to a free college education
You've got an interesting definition of "free", ed. They have to put in thousands of hours of physically punishing training, in exchange for which their university gets revenue worth more than the education they're giving away. If they spent their football time working at the Gap they instead they could cover the education, have money left over, and be in better physical condition.
Secondly, porn actresses are also free to leave whenever they want, so that's not a distinction.
is much better-compensated
Not really, no. When you take into account the time they have to spend training that $800k median salary only comes out to $300-$500 an hour. That's the low end of what a porn actress makes between videos and stripping.
and can leave any time he wants
Er... so can porn actresses. People voluntarily enter and leave the industry all the time.
Sure, most wind up with herpes and have to deal with a certain amount of notoriety, but is that really worse than chronic pain, early onset arthritis, etc?
As for equating intentional degradation of dignity and incidentally suffering physical injury, you're exaggerating for effect, right?
Hm, which was the degrading one again? The one with the crowds of cheering drunks and the players carried away on stretchers, or the one where a couple of good-looking people have sex?
bagoh,
"Nope, that's all there is to the story. Sorry."
Dude. Seriously? All those hot-nsome action porn stories are just made up? How dare you disillusion us like that... on a Friday night to boot!
McT
"I don't understand..."
Now *that* was funny!
Whoa, "Communists" and porn in the prompt, 37 comments, and so far not a single reference to "precious bodily fluids"?
Can Strangelove possibly be losing its relevance?
Shockingly, there is tapir porn in the comments at that linked baby tapir article. And no, that's NOT vintage Ron Jeremy!
@YoungHegelian said "Is there some association that I'm not aware of between Byzantine chant and cruising uncircumcised men?
Now, if we were talking about Mozarabic chant and small penis humiliation --- well, everyone knows about that!"
I was unaware of the connection. There is said to be an association between small penis humiliation and big pickup trucks or expensive sports cars, however.
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