<p>Oh, and I almost forgot. Anybody who says that</p>
<p>*
you can’t combine 2 (or more) bodies in any more ways than it’s already been done over the past hundred thousand years
clearly has never seen a really good porn. Some of the configurations they manage these days… you’re just like, damn.*</p>
<p>Again- haven’t studied much history?</p>
<p>How long ago was the Kama Sutra translated from Sanskrit- let alone written again?</p>
<p>Long time before my * grandparents* were born.</p>
<p>What passes for
“pornography” isn’t even titllating for adults- it is masturbation with another body- big deal.</p>
<p>The center of excitement and pleasure isn’t between your legs, it’s between your ears.</p>
<p>I never argued that it was because teenage boys “can’t control” their urges. Look at it this way - would you rather have your teenage son masturbating to porn, or going out and engaging in promiscuous sex to satisfy those same urges? Not saying those are the only choices, but for many teenage boys who don’t have the benefit of a stable relationship that comes with sexual benefits, those are the two by far most common ones. You can sit there and say “well I’d rather he just control the urges” but that ignores the reality of the extremely strong biological urges that underly teenage male sexual behavior.</p>
<p>And the fact that grown-up, mature older women would run the other way at that kind of immaturity is all well and good - but these teenagers aren’t going out with mature older women, and they aren’t mature older men - they’re TEENAGE BOYS! And, more importantly, mature older women have that ability because it’s pretty reasonable to expect middle-aged men not to have such strong sex drive as to need satisfaction as frequently as women cannot provide (yes, too much information, sort of) which is not the case with teenage boys.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Good to know that you aren’t using the issue of where money used for drugs goes as a justification for prohibition - I too think that is a primary reason for legalization.</p>
<p>My point about effectiveness was not to say that a priori the issue should not be approached because it will not be effective but rather that saying “no more porn” is unlikely to stop her son watching porn, and will certainly cause some degree of alienation, so that cost-benefit analysis must be done very carefully.</p>
<p>As for the type of porn, I agree. There is some stuff that should probably be off limits. But, again, I think it’s fair to generalize that almost every teen boy has watched more than softcore porn, and saying “Victoria’s Secret catalogs are the most hardcore you can go!” won’t change that.</p>
<p>My perspective is that saying “no porn” is in reality like trying to stop an avalanche by lecturing it, and that while it’s all well and good to say “if he’s a good song he’ll listen”, a fine line needs to be walked between the goal of having him not watch porn and the goal of him not regarding his mother’s pronouncements as irrelevant and to be ignored. I think that line is what needs to be regarded as of paramount importance.</p>
<p>1of42: I’ve said it before. I don’t like porn, however defined, and I don’t want it in my house. What my son chooses to do on his own time, in his own apartment, is his own business. I won’t discuss it with him, and I ask him to keep it out of my house. But he’s 21, a college graduate, and I no longer pay any of his expenses (woohoo!).</p>
<p>Just read this thread and it made me sad. Maybe I’m one of the few romantics left in America, but I’ve tried to teach my kids that the human body is beautiful and sex is a wonderful experience to be shared between two people who care a lot about each other, blah blah blah. </p>
<p>I’ve watched porn, and it usually portrays a sleazy disco-dude treating a silicon filled mannequin like a piece of meat. There is no relationship or emotion involved. Even Playboy seemed to celebrate women’s beautiful bodies in a respectful, iconoclastic way (altho I haven’t looked at it in 20 years - maybe that is changed too). </p>
<p>I just think its sad if young boys “learn” about how to treat a woman and experience sex from these cheesy real-life portrayals. I’d rather my son look at photos of nude women in a magazine, and fill in the blanks with thoughtful, emotional fantasies. Wishful thinking, apparently.</p>
<p>Thanks for this post, Bay. You’re expressing the middle ground here. Males are visual creatures and I’m not going to go hunting between the mattresses in my son’s room, but I really would rather he didn’t see the unforgettable and misguided images from video porn. </p>
<p>My husband is in charge of discussing “normal” magazine images and sexuality to him and we’re on the same “page” as you. His sisters and I are in charge of kidding around with him and teaching him about what women/girls really value in guys, and it isn’t what porn movies tell them.</p>
<p>I think the vast majority of boys can figure out the difference between porn and real life women. Give them a little credit. Boys learn how to treat women primarily by watching how Dad treated Mom. By the time the hormones are raging and they’ve moved up from the Victoria’s Secret catalog things are pretty well set. Nice boys are still going to be nice, obnoxious idiots are still going to be obnoxious idiots. </p>
<p>I don’t think males operate on “thoughtful, emotional fantasies” the way women do. It’s nice to say the brain is the primary sex organ but that point of view may not be shared by young men. The quick, no-strings release of self-gratification hardly means they won’t be able to have deep, loving relationships with real women. It’s apples and oranges.</p>
<p>I would like to throw out one consideration that is perhaps a bit different, or maybe a question. Do today’s young people consume enough variety of fictional material to enable them to put porn (and violence, for that matter) into a broader context? Do they read books and see movies that portray romantic love, strong family life, committed marriage relationships, dates that don’t end in sex, conflicts that are resolved peacefully. etc.? To me, porn, violent video games, shock movies, etc., are like the extreme junk food in a person’s diet. They, like pork rinds, can be absorbed with minimum damage as long as they are consumed along with lots of other healthy food. But if somebody eats only pork rinds, the consequences are dire.</p>
<p>This is an interesting ,revealing thread. An anthropologist could have a field day with these posts. </p>
<p>As a great many have noted, behavior and thoughts aren’t separate entities. One often leads to the other and back again. We are a pathetic lot for sure. But hey, if it feels good, why not. None are hurt, right?</p>
<p>I don’t think Victoria’s Secret catalogues are soft porn, nor do I think anyone hear meant to convey that. Rather, pictures of women portrayed in magazines wearing lingerie has been the “visual” of choice for some men, prior to the easy access of broadcast porn.</p>
<p>I would call the porn I’ve watched and described earlier, “soft porn”.</p>
<p>oh ok Bay that clears that up. See I thought everyone here considered Victoria’s Secret soft porn. In my mind if you think that’s soft porn then I can only imagine the real hardcore stuff is going to horror the eyes. When I think of soft porn I think of the kind of shows they used to have on showtime or cinemax. I don’t know if they have those anymore. Victoria’s Secret is just a girl’s magazine in my head for lingerie. Nothing I’m concerned with unless I was picking something out for a girl. not sure why a guy would be ordering their magazines.</p>
<p>perhaps i know too little. it’s 2008. when porn-related material is so easily gotten on the internet, why use a magazine like victoria’s secret? even then there’s a lot of other magazines that could be used. but victoria’s secret? idk, it just sounds weird to me.</p>
<p>peaceout, yes, some of us have read Anais Nin and Henry Miller. Why do some of you posters insist on seeing us ‘moms’ as uneducated, unknowing idiots?</p>
<p>BP, my old boss used to find Victorias Secret catalogs under his sons matress when the son was 13-14.</p>
<p>As someone who routinely uses the phrase “food porn” to describe Gourmet magazine, I have to say that my definition of “porn” includes many things that many people don’t consider pornographic. I use porn to mean any written/visual/audio material that is intended to arouse the sexual part of the brain (the old-fashioned verb would be titillate). In my opinion, Victoria’s Secret catalogs and some television shows do exactly that, and I have to include those as porn. </p>
<p>The line between objectionable and acceptable porn is individual. I don’t care about the VS catalog coming into my house, but I have refused to allow my husband to Tivo Law and Order SVU because it’s about violent sexual deviance, by definition. (If he watches it away from home, I don’t know about it.) (And don’t want to know.)</p>
<p>Oh, and BB, the reason to use a magazine or catalog is simple. Privacy. Everything you do on the internet can be tracked. Even erasing history doesn’t make it go away completely.</p>
<p>The whole Law and Order SVU thing surprises me more than a little.</p>
<p>It’s a make-believe TV show. Do you really think that just by someone watching that, they’re going to go out and rape women? </p>
<p>If that were the case, it would’ve been taken off of the air long ago, along with quite a few other shows and movies (and musicals, for that matter, such as Sweeney Todd).</p>
<p>Again, it’s your house and I’m sure you have a reason for the rules…I’m just not sure what the need to block that is all about. Would you rather everything was all rainbows and puppies all the time and your kids had no idea that these types of violence occurred? Would you rather they be shocked and mortified the first time they turn on the news in their college dorm? Ignorance is not always bliss.</p>
<p>Is life really that black and white for you HGFM?
Making it clear that an offensive television show is not to be watched is hardly the same as plugging the eyes and ears of everyone in the household.</p>
<p>Just because there is a market for entertainment that is vulgar/vindictive & violent doesn’t mean that we have to watch it.</p>
<p>We have become desensitized as a culture to objectification of women especially very young women. Men do change their behavior as a result of what they view as acceptable.
Dressing seductively - what does that mean? If you are big breasted- that may mean wearing a t-shirt that fits.
Is that grounds for rape?
<p>I don’t watch Law & Order myself cause I don’t watch TV although I have in the past & I like Ice-Ts character but I would also say that one of the reasons I don’t watch TV is because it seems to appeal to the prurient interest of the viewer and not much else.</p>