UK government cracks down on violent porn

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In a situation like that, I'd probably try to leave that country, or face arrest for failure to comply. Even when i didn't care about Christian ethics, I didn't rack up a long list of sexual exploits. This was not for lack of desire.

The difference here is that one law is enforceable, where as the one you suggest is not. It is possible to find someone in posession of rape porn and arrest them and keep them locked away for as long as a judge deems apporpriate, but it's harder to prove that someone isn't screwing around on their spouse...

 

I think you missed my point - I don't care whether its enforcable or not - replace 'adultery' with anything you might consider morally wrong and how you would protest that. Now, think of what the UK government is doing to someone who's morals say that violent porn is okay. It's the exact same thing.

 

@Aikanaro:

There's a difference between a negative and a positive order, i.e. the law forbidding a questionable practice and the law ordering questionable acts to be committed.

@Morgoroth:

Since when does a rape movie carry the "fake" mark? It pretends to be real, so if it happens to be real, it's not a real rape movie pretending to be a fake. It's a rape movie that happens to be real. Only fakes pretend anything. The same way as a child might be forced to act in a porn movie, an adult person could. You will ask, but who would go through all the risk and tape real rapes? Well, shooting porn movies with children and/or having sex with them is illegal even when it's "consensual" (a minor's consent is not legally valid).

@Carcaroth:

First, I wouldn't stick to purely. If there's anything aimed at titilation in the scene, the director, the producer and the actors involved should face the same consequences as if it were a generic porn movie, if there are any such legal consequences in their country's law (in Poland, there are, for example -- kids, animals and coercion porn is outlawed).

Besides, I am against any sexual acts being carried out on the stage. I am not saying there should be no sex in a movie. But a black-out is enough and there's no need to strip further than underwear.

Besides again, it's so unbelievably tacky to engage in sexual activities of any degree and any kind with a stranger. Or someone you know only from the stage. It really isn't much different from porn, only the purpose is marginally different. But there's more to the problem of prostitution and porn than just the purpose. There's also the problem of what it makes of people.

Another part of the problem is that someone has to be the hooker. It was probably Saint Augustine who said that prostitution shouldn't be eliminated or else decent women would take up the job. People who aren't above selling their own body will always be there. It's just these current times that they are venerated and even idolised instead of being regarded more soberly for what they do.

@Morgoroth again:

I've met a number of university students who look like highschoolers.

@Aldeth:

Every cigarette has a cathartic effect on a smoker and every bottle of booze has a cathartic effect on an alcoholic. A dose of a favourite drug has a cathartic effect on an addict. Should we provide it, so that the addict wouldn't go out to get it by force?

You would initially avoid the effects of hunger but the addiction level would grow. The perverts in question would need more and more, especially as getting it so easily would cheapen it in their eyes, until what you were according them weren't enough. Then they would either want the real thing because no porn could satisfy them anymore, or they would lose distinction either between reality and their fantasies or between right and wrong to such extent that raping someone wouldn't feel very wrong.

@Gnarff:

Yeah. Though I would also say that theocracy is better than anarchy. If a government were to give up any and all idea of good and evil, right and wrong, everything would go. At least so long as it didn't cause direct harm to anyone. This way symptoms of an illness would be eliminated but not the cause. It would be a very sad country in which the government valued perverts' civil rights above people's right to peace. A single woman's right to go out or invite people home without fear of being raped is more important than a thousand perv's right to grow in their deviation.

@Aikanaro again:

Dealing with such adventures as you presented would be quite unserious for a government. Perhaps a lower ranking institution could monitor those and make sure the weirdos don't cross certain lines. I haven't seen any graphical depictions or any realistic "tutorials" in the part I've looked through.

 

I will skip the little word play you had there before this quote since I really did not understand what it would contribute to this subject. Anyway the point in shooting child porn which is illegal is that there are naturally and unfortunately a market for it in the western world. However for rape porn there is really no such demand since the fake stuff is probably more than enough for most who enjoy that kind of porn.

Later you said that there are university students who look like highschoolers. I'll not disagree about that. It's not all that difficult to have someone who is 18 to act someone who is 14, but when we go under 14 I'd claim that the age difference is beginning to show in just about every case.

 

You'd be surprised. But the same can be said about kiddie porn: fake kids sufficing, who would care to get real kiddie porn? Case closed. Same kind of logic as you apply to rape porn, really.

 

I don't suppose you would care to attack my point rather than my (admittedly rather ****ty) analogies...?

Personally, I think pretty much anything is better than theocracy - but hey, maybe it's just me who values my right to do what I want to myself without other peole forcing their beliefs down my throat by way of a prison sentence...

 

Would you then prefer another private citizen to bump into you when his strange hunger hits a zenit? You can have the government forcing rules down your throat or you can have a perv forcing something else down your throat if you happen to be unlucky. It doesn't even loads of porn and/or violent material; it's just enough if there's no police or cameras around. See what's been happening in New Orleans. If the government doesn't force "beliefs" (some kind of universal morals), the citizens will be free to force their own very private and very non-universal whims on the weaker people. I prefer a more or less civilised government that sometimes gets too picky or too nosy, rathen than rampant bullies to keep fighting against on running from, relying on a good but random chance to avoid trouble.

 

I'm not advocating anarchy - if someone is harming others by their actions then it's the government's role to step in and stop them. Watching violent porn is not harming anyone, nor does watching it necessarily mean that you will. Therefore it should be none of the government's business.

If a perv pervs on me - it's the government's thing. If the perv is perving at home with porn - it's his own business.

 

What about developing potentially harmful addictions? Using an analogy, should the government tolerate rioters getting together (peacefully) with guns and stuff until a revolution has been declared or a first shot fired?

Censoring art sucks, I know. Political censoring sucks. But some things are not art. And not politics. Some things are downright perversion which is dangerous if left on its own to grow.

In short, some prevention is necessary. It's better to prevent disease than to cure it.

 

The gathering together of the rioters is pretty well certainly going to end up with Bad Stuff happening, which doesn't apply to looking at porn. As for addictions - well, if people want to screw themselves over - they know the risk (or should by this point ffs)

Censoring things which are none of your business sucks, I'm thinking. How does someone else's perversion affect you? Just let them be perverted and enjoy themselves by being so. Just because one perverted person goes off and rapes someone doesn't mean all perverts are rapists, in that same way that not all D&D players go off and make demonic sacrifices even though one person might have, or all people who have seen The Matrix are going to dress up in trenchcoats and kill people in a school (though some did).

 

There is a difference between causation and correlation. There is no causation relationship between violent rape and violent pornography, but there is a correlation.

By reading over your posts, it seems that you are in favor of banning anything that has a correlation to the committing of violent crimes. Okay, there is a correlation between committing violent crimes and wearing clothing. Should we ban that too?

Clearly, laws should not be made on the sake of correlation.

 

@Rastor:

If absent the element of violent porn there would be no rape, then there is causation. Causation doesn't require that a given cause should be exclusive. In most cases, violent porn will only catalyse the sick urges until the outburst happens, but in some, it will awaken them from a dormant state or even inspire such urges where they are not yet present if the subject is exposed to such material. What you are talking about is adequate causation and you are trying to prove that violent porn is not an adequate cause in cases of sexual coercion where the two correlate. However, what is essential is that both sexual violence and willingly engaged coercive fantasies feed on the same urges and that violent porn awakens hunger for real action. Therefore, even if there is no automatic causation leading to sexual coercion whenever a person watches violent porn, violent porn is still one of the contributing causes and the catalyst in all cases in which watching violent porn and committing sexual crimes combine. As it is logical and apparent that violent porn inspires violent sexual urges and that violent sexual urges lead to sexual violence if they are not controlled, the cause is adequate and there is a proper relation between a sexual crime and watching violent porn. So long as porn depits but doesn't encourage rape and there is no subliminal manipulation, this is not normally enough to put producers of that porn on trial along with direct perpetrators. However, any porn that glorifies rape is material that glorifies crime. It's already in the grey are if not beyond the line of the law.

Laws are made to ensure the proper functioning of the society and provide for a certain stability and certainty of the rules by which all have to play. Not to protect individuals with unhealthy and potentially dangerous interests from responsibility for their actions.

@Aikanaro:

How do you know? Perhaps the rioters were just throwing a big party. What makes you so certain that "it doesn't apply to looking at porn"? Do you have anything to support that idea or is it just your firm belief in civil rights and freedoms?

However, they have no right to incur any risks for other people. People with violent hobbies and addictions which put limits on willpower as well as the ability to tell right from wrong, put others in jeopardy. To that they have no right and their freedoms must be curtailed accordingly in order to protect the freedom of others against which they intrude.

Anything which affects the society is a lawmaker's business, especially if crime is involved. Even just potentially.

And let him become more and more dangerous to others and then set him free on a doctor's order because he clearly didn't know what he was doing and he belongs in the psychward rather than in prison? No. That would be too easy.

The analogies are totally flawed. D&D is not all about summoning daemons. In fact, you can have a whole campaign without any character doing it. You can't really have rape porn without rape. Matrix is not all about gunnery and violence is not the main axis of the film. Rape porn movies are made for, well, rape porn's sake. The difference is clear.

 

I found this as evidence - there are links at the bottom of it which say the same if you want to make sure that I didn't edit this in myself http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_fantasy

Have you any evidence of your own to put forward, or is this just your firm belief in moral values?

 

Going back to Aik's adultery law concept, I can address it with drug use. Your law would require the use of mind altering substances, which my religion forbids. I, like many others, would risk arrest for such refusal as in the biblical story of Daniel in the days of ancient Babylon. When the people of Israel were taken into bondage, the laws demanded that you worship their gods. Three young men (Shadrak, Meshak and Abednego) refused, and thus were sentenced to be burned alive in a furnace. I would face exile or incarceration rather than yield to the mind-altering influences of these drugs.

However, I still claim that this would be off topic, because the idea is about banning something immoral, rather than demanding the immoral. Only Chev seemed to comment on my claim that Government has the right, and I claim obligation, to enforce standards of decency...

 

In a liberal democracy, no government has a right to "impose" anything except with the consent (note: not support) of its constituents. I would go so far as to agree that there is a duty to protect the rights and freedoms of citizens, certainly; that is why this is a grey area. Rastor's argument about correlation versus causation is pertinent; unless you can prove (IMO, on the balance of probability) that something is dangerous, you do not have a justification for legislating to criminalise it. If it is undesirable, by all means restrict or regulate its availability, and encourage people not to partake of it, but recognise that you do not have the secular authority to ban it until you can demonstrate its dangerousness. The vast majority won't watch or buy it anyway.

Since you can't prove that rape porn causes violent sexual criminality, there is no mandate to outlaw it in the name of protecting society. You can't/shouldn't ban something on the basis that it is offensive to you; you need a causal relationship, which you can't prove. You can deter, dissuade or morally condemn it, certainly - but you don't have the "right" to ban it. If people are acting on it and you can prove causation, then you'd have my unqualified support in banning it. I don't believe that such proof exists; it is clouded by too many other factors to attribute this to violent porn alone.

To play devil's advocate for a moment (quite literally - first example I could think of): I could argue that the Catholic Church, through its ban on contraception and its teachings, is responsible for the AIDS epidemic in Africa. While I have no irrefutable proof of causation, I can list the correlating factors. This, however, would in no way prove that it was responsible; I have drawn the inference from observation and supposition, rather than from a demonstrable causal link (which may be there, but which I cannot show or prove). Ergo, I have no evidence, which means I have nothing to support my case except my personal moral indignation, and no right to enact laws to "protect the community" by banning Catholicism.

Maybe that's a bit too close to the bone for some; I apologise if I offended people. It's just an example, but one which illustrates the fallacy of "imposing moral values" on a heterogenous society. Unless you can prove the need for removing freedoms and liberties from people, don't expect them to support it. For what it's worth, Chev/Gnarff, I'm as disgusted by this material as you are and feel it has no place in civilised society. I do not have the right to stop people from watching material which I find offensive, however.

Certainly, though, anyone involved in promoting or consuming such material is not acting on a healthy or desirable impulse, IMO. If there is anything to suggest that the actors have not given free and informed consent, that the people involved need to be investigated and dealt with appropriately. That should go without saying.

 

Elected officials are assumed to have the consent of their constituents. Therefore, they have the right--even the obligation to do this. Pornography is listed as undesireable, and as such, it is restricted (not available to minors, other limits to content in place). The debate here is on what restrictions ought to be placed on this. Chev and I (as well as some others IIRC) are advocating an additional restriction.

Offensive to just me? Then no, but if it is believed that the majority is offended by something, then the Government should act on the will of the people. If they are wrong, the people will let them know.

Your point about the RCC is unfair, because not only do they condemn the use of contraceptives, they also advocate strict chastity, which means no sexual relations outside of legal, lawful heterosexual marriage. If the policy of strict chastity were to be followed, then that would reduce the risk of getting AIDS because you would not be engaging in promiscuous or dangerous sexual activity. Further, IIRC, they have also condemned drug use, thus further reducing the risk of getting AIDS to those that obey. Aside from being grossly off topic, your point about the RCC is poorly constructed...

 

Well, I did say I was playing devil's advocate...

Your point about my argument re: the RCC is quite accurate - it is a poorly constructed argument full of gaping holes (which I could probably plug with counter-arguments, unnecessarily), and deliberately so. It is not off-topic, primarily because I am using it to demonstrate how a biased and under-informed commentary or opinion of something is no justification for banning it. The correlating links between violent pornography and violent sexual crime may be closer to truth than my hypothetical supposition about the RCC and AIDS, but that doesn't qualify it as causal proof.

I guess we just have differing views about the nature of democratic government, Gnarff. I don't have enough faith in the concept of democratic representativeness (in a two-party state like Australia, at least) to believe that politicians move with the will and consent of the people. If there was evidence that violent porn is causally criminogenic, then there would be overwhelming demand for its banning and criminalisation. As it stands, there is no such proof, only a claim which seeks to pathologise something and remove agency from people who would actually commit such sickening acts.

 

I think part of the reason that such a movement is not very widespread is that people don't go out and look for that **** (referring to violent porn), so they simply bury their heads in the sand and assume that it doesn't exist...

 

Let us take a look on the entry that Aikanaro has provided. First, it's obvious that the Wikipedia definition comes from an opinionated source and I wouldn't bet my money on the author's authority to use the word "scientifically". It's also quite obvious that the author is more politically than scientifically involved, as well as he probably has already started enjoying certain specific pastimes. Let me quote a couple of things:

http://www.dictionary.cambridge.org: (fantasy)

a pleasant situation that you enjoy thinking about, but which is unlikely to happen, or the activity of thinking itself

http://www.dictionary.com (fantasy, among others)

An imagined event or sequence of mental images, such as a daydream, usually fulfilling a wish or psychological need.

Even if there is no wanting, there is wishing and/or a need. Wishing for rape is not healthy, neither is having a need for it, whether as a victim or a perpetrator. Whoever thinks rape can be pleasant is likely beyond medical help.

What? Experience and not their choice? Come on, that's bloody inconsistent. A rape night dream is something that isn't your choice (do I need to tell you I have never had a night dream about raping anyone or being raped?). If I were able to laugh, this would be the best laugh in ages. Whatever you choose to enjoy is your choice. Any fantasy you live out is your choice. There is only no choice when you are sleeping and dreams are passing through your mind. But we aren't talking about night dreams: we are talking about violent porn.

Ah, one more think: whenever the category of choice is applicable, so is the category of guilt.

Yeah, it's not real. But everything starts in people's mind, from most heroic deeds to most heinous crimes. Also, there is some difference between imagining yourself in the given situation and getting off on the images of other people undergoing what you believe or fancy to be a real sexual assault.

Fantasies, as anything that goes in a person's mind, affect the person's personality and as such are bound to reflect on the person's behaviour, whatever the intensity of the effect. It is widely claimed that people having an obsessive fear of being victimised, mostly by being beaten up, are more likely to attract said beating. So why do "scientists" now claim that "oh, sex is different" and that people who not only obsessively fear something but also indulge in the visions of it happening, as something pleasant in a sick way, are not any more likely to attract said victimisation than normal people are? Logically, they should be more likely to become victims of it as much as kids who fear beating are beaten more in school. Next, most false rape claims in courts have not been filed by strictly malicious people but by seemingly normal people living in a fantasy world.

That's . What about the frequency? Let's try:

This does not correspond with observed scientific evidence, however; while murderers usually fantasize about murder, so do normal psychologically healthy people.

Hmm? Also, what about the frequency and intensity of such fantasies? Whenever we are talking about violent porn, it isn't even any longer unconscious, subconscious or semi-conscious fantasies. It's getting off on imagery of rape.

While every sane person has some quirks, someone who has a history of vivid fantasy of anything is not exactly what one should call a healthy person. What happens once or twice is not exactly the same as the same thing that happens often and is not even welcome but outright sought. Especially if harm of others is involved.

Yeah, tell me more. Sure.

(hint: What's my field?)

So what, am *I* now the one more likely to commit sexual assault than a perv who gets off on it? Especially as I don't even know if I have the ability because I wouldn't use it if I had it, with my belief that conscious use of fantasies for gratification is masturbatory behaviour and thus a selfish and in consequence a materially evil act?

Note: if we are talking about the ability to "use fantasies for gratificaion," we can't speak about "not their choice." To use something consciously is to make a choice to use it. The author is somewhat inconsistent again.

It would be rude to go into the author's bedroom with a magnifying glass but something's obviously in connection.

Let me tell you one thing: what two people heavily overtaken by hormones come up with in their bedroom and find enjoyable is one thing. What perverts sick on websites, tapes and CDs is a whole new story and we all know this.

It's perfectly true that your normal, average male has some thoughts of control. He was made that way. It's also true that your normal, average female wants a powerful male figure in her life other than a father figure. She was made that way. Human mating customs are all about the chase and it's usually the male who does the chase, for a reason. Subtle hints of overpowering are quite omnipresent, even in such expressions as, "to conquer someone", plus all the winning over of princesses etc (I don't need to tell you I'd rather die childless than find a mate through anything remotely related to intimidation or will-breaking). However, the idea is that the male is the physically stronger one because his job is to protect the female. That's the proper use of all the advantage in strength: to protect the female, not to enslave her in whatever way or degree imaginable.

@NonSequitur:

Where is that in the constitution? Yours or mine, whatever. Nowhere does it say we have a liberal democracy.

Not any more than laws forbidding homicide and bodily harm are responsible for unresolved conflicts and social tension.

Indeed. First, the RCC teaches that no sex is to be had outside of marriage. Should the Church tell people to ignore her teachings as they see fit but at least use a condom so that they wouldn't contract AIDS? Even if there actually happens to be a lawful marriage between the people involved, not even condoms can eliminate the risk. Would you sleep with your mate if you knew you had a carnally transmissible mortal illness? I wouldn't. I wouldn't put my wife away if she had it, but I wouldn't sleep with her if I had it and she didn't.

The first assumption in this case is that people will do it anyway. So because they will do it anyway, we should let them? That's no argument. No valid reason. The Church could as well tell people to covet their neighbour's wife so long as they don't touch, at least do something meaningful on Sunday if they don't bother coming to church, to lie in Confession a little but no too much, not to bear false witness unless the accused is a real bastard and so and so forth.

If you want to blame the RCC for the spread of AIDS, you have first to blame the teaching that sex belongs in marriage.

Somehow, I've never had the problem of venereal diseases...

[ September 07, 2005, 08:10: Message edited by: chevalier ]

 

Chev,

Read my most recent post - I think it outlines my point very clearly. I wasn't blaming the RCC for AIDS in Africa; indeed, I stated plainly that:

Why make an argument with holes that people could drive a truck through? For the sake of comparison, and to make the point that my opinion and some correlating evidence is a long way short of the standard necessary to criminalise behaviour. Trust me, Chev - with you and Gnarff around, I wouldn't advance a case like that seriously without having plenty of evidence to support my claims. In fact, I went so far as to say that such a claim to criminalisation of something was BS in the original post, on the grounds that no demonstrable proof of the link exists.

Re: liberal democracy - well, having just skimmed through the Australian Constitution, I couldn't find a specific reference to it. A brief search on Wikipedia pulled up a decent definition, which I think fits Australia quite nicely (in theory, which is all the political concept is unless people act on it).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_democracy

While we don't have an entrenched Bill of Rights (and our elected representatives are frequently more concerned with their own personal and political advancement than good government), there are implied rights contained within Section 51 of the Constitution (pertaining to the powers of the Commonwealth Government to make law; an inclusive rather than exclusive list). I'm sure someone in the UK can comment on how accurate such a description as this would be for it.