Making Pornography Illegal? (possible triggering)

I would say ban it 100%
It really twisted my perspective of sex etc.
What I wonder is if all forms of P had never existed from the beginning of time, what would people be like? The same regardless? Or more appreciative of eachothers gender.

 

In countries where porn is illegal, it is still rampant. Men will do anything to watch porn.

 

Ah yes but only because they are driven by the knowing of it's existence. I'm on about what if it never existed.

 

I would like to see it banned but there are the freedom of speech and press to consider. If anything, a health warning banner should be placed on all porn informing users about PIED, long term brain function changes, and risk to personal and family relationships.

 

In my country there is a proposal for age verified access via official age verification methods like national ID cards etc. It would be great if it's passed through.

 

Do some research on the prohibition.

 

We are still a long time from the medical community admitting that there is any problem with porn.

 

I generally don't like the idea of censorship. As soon as the government has control over what you can read or consume, you have lost your freedom. Ask people in countries like China or Saudi Arabia.
Alcohol causes a lot of problems as well, but the prohibition did not work out so well. Smoking causes more death than porn, but it is legal.

I would rather education about porn problems be discussed. But where and by who. And even before that becomes considered, it would have to be generally accepted knowledge porn is bad. We are in own little bubble here where everybody in the room knows the damage of porn. This is by no means common knowledge.

 

Prohibition and existence are 2 different things.

 

Prohibition can work. Just because it has failed at times and places doesn't mean it will always fail. I think one of the major flaws with drug prohibition is it created this huge criminal underworld funded by drug money. Also, Hollywood in movies television and music massively promotes drug usage. So while they are making it illegal they are still encouraging its usage.

The Elephant in the room [ or the obvious truth that no one has addressed] is forms of porn that are already illegal. Prohibition of them has been very effective and they are not widespread all over the internet popping up uninvited into people's computers and there are not big conventions for it.

As for "freedom of speech" what does porn have to do with that? Is drug dealing a form of "free speech" as well?

I don't believe that any nation is "free" although people have different ideas about what freedom is. Many think they should have the right to pay employees pennies an hour and work them to death, they will hire illegals or offshore work instead. Sweatshop owners think they have the right to slaves. One man's freedom is another's tyranny.


In the USA the government already controls what we can consume at least with prescription and illegal drugs. As for what you can read if you want to be a big time author pretty much there is a script that you will have to follow otherwise you aren't getting published. Meaning there is a lot of at least "soft censorship". Television and movies, for example, are not full of alternative ideas, instead, they all follow the same sociological script. I'm not one for hate speech, but people get persecuted for it, and it is close to being illegal in the USA and is illegal in many nations. Hate speech and other crazy ideas are things some people believe but these things are censored on mainstream major television at least along with porn.



I think this delusion of "freedom" and "free speech" has been used to usher in a lot of harmful and just plain evil things.


Porn isn't alcohol. If it became illegal to produce it would definitely harm the industry and reduce the amount of porn being produced.

 

In the mean time they can post warning about viewing porn in public places. The other week in a bar, there was a group of guys passing around porn images on their phones. It was pretty obvious by their remarks what they were looking at, and they seemed to think it was OK.

 

I don't think making it illegal is a viable option. It would never fly in the West. It is, in theory, only substantially destructive if it abused. Same can be said of alcohol, foods or anything that is addictive. I think the real issue lies in the fact that Porn addiction is still such a new, and largely misunderstood epidemic, that people are not fully aware of the ramifications, just like smoking in the 50s as another member mentioned. I think education is the key. People need to know about the severity of it.

 

Hi,
great idea to start this topic. I had similar ideas and thoughts.
But that raised also A LOT of questions.

In general, what do we have:
One of the problems, porn shares similarities with drugs (physical substances), especially the negative effects/addiction. And it has to be "produced"/created.
On the other hand, it's often virtual / like information. (I just guess, that the biggest part of it is stored on servers on the internet/private harddisks. The only real tangible objects of it are printouts and storage mediums/DVDs, I assume, that you can't get hold of the webservers, because the content just can be transferred everywhere else on the planet)


So my first idea was to ban porn, too:
But how & what will we achive with this ?
What should be the penalties? (and for what? producing/distributing it?)
Should people be really put in prison for producing/distributing porn (compared to punishment for real drugs) ?

@Dr.NoFap
Also totally true. That banning won't be effective / enforced.

To the problems/similarities with drug prohibition (@Themadfapper, @feo1966):
There is this TED talk I really like.
So the approach with (harder) punishments is probably wrong. The portugal solution sound awesome, to redirect all the money into prevention and helping the addicted people to recover. So we are doing here the right thing in the forums.

Banning it is also some sort of difficult from the technical viewpoint.
You'd need some piece of hardware, which prohibits your system from doing something.
Or Internet Filters like in Britain, China, the muslim countries etc.
I would NEVER want that. Far too much potential for abuse (especially by governments / political motives)! (Totally agree with @feo1966)

And if you ban it, it there will be this "exitement of doing something forbidden" or what you call it ...
(years ago, curiosity led me to this, too)


My current view:
(which may change after discussion and/or with time )
I think it's totally comparable to smoking in the last century. (There are obvious dangers, but society seems to ignore it)
So we are doing here the right thing (,again ): Increase awareness of the downsides and dangers as much as possible.

Next thing should be to push legislation, at least like with cigarettes
* educate everyone about the problems PMO causes
* stricter access control, to protect the younger ones, so they stay safe as long as possible (similar what @RepentMySins said)
* (like Tobacco packaging warning messages) Before each clip there has to be this giant warning message with the downsides.
That would be the minimum, I'd demand.

Probably targeting the production would have some effects (but it needs to be coordinated worldwide) ...
If we think that banning is not possible: Then TAX porn heavyly, probably at both production and consumption.
(downsides: needs to be applied worldwide as well, and the taxes have to be only used for measures against porn, help for addicted people and finance the nofap, YBOP sites .
Otherwise it's like all governments taxing alcohol and smoking: officially they say it's bad for you, but in reality they like the tax income it generates)

At the same time, of course I'd be happier at the moment, if all forms of porn are completely eradicated from the planet. At least this will guarantee that I can't & wont relapse anymore

 

Love it or hate it, porn is protected under the 1st amendment, I would stand on the side of keeping it protected. I care about losing my individual rights a lot more than losing porn. We can't dial back our rights here and there when public sentiment shifts one way or the other. See prohibition, which others have already mentioned. Banning anything only creates a black market, which in turn creates more crime, and a greater need to enforce it, which calls for increased policing...etc. Who would be in charge of deciding if it's banned or not, Congress? Are we really going to trust our elected officials with our rights? It's bad enough half of them want to strip us of the 2nd amendment. As I see it, the only viable solution is for we addicts and like-minded people to get education out there and inform people of it's harmful effects. Using information as a weapon goes much further than simply using the government to make blanket actions against things. Just my $.02 here.

 

One big issue with this is that Porn addiction cannot kill, or even really be proven to cause any physical health problems (aside from maybe ED). The negative affects are nearly 100% psychological. Things like helmet & seatbelt laws (and arguably drug, cigarette & alcohol laws) are justified by the fact that they save lives. To a lot of people, the idea of porn addiction, and even ED is laughable.

 

I think where the real leverage exists is with kids: the fact that many innocent 12 year olds are falling victim to this. And when they do, they fall much more deeply into it, having their sexuality formed this way, rather than just realigned as an adult addict. Taking adult porn addiction seriously is a tough sell (most porn opponents are probably hypocrites!), but when parents start realizing that their kids are falling victim to this, they will demand that something be done. I have a girl, but if I had a boy, I'd be really concerned. What we need is a way to have much better control over porn access. Not just the piddely safe-search controls we have. Make it illegal & difficult for minors to access.

 

Porn should be illegal on the internet. If people really need it that bad they should have to buy it in the P-store, read P-magazines etc. It shouldn´t be sold to under 18 year olds.

Banning porn would never work in our societies and probably wouldn´t keep people from watching. Also, even just theoretically it couldn´t be possible to completely ban porn as it would go against the fundamentals of our laws.

Porn, I think it´s bad too. It should be restricted to Dvds, Magazines and that was it.

 

Do you also think that the currently banned/illegal forms of porn should be unbanned legalized, or do you concede that banning those forms of porn has been effective?

 

Lets be clear: currently banned/illegal forms of porn are that way because they are exploitive.