Downloads of Net Porn hit Record high - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

ratbastid · 05-29-2006, 06:13 AM

In other news, pornography demonized by moralizing British press...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/liv...n_page_id=1770

Quote:

Downloads of Net porn hit record high
09:25am 29th May 2006

Record numbers of people are downloading pornography from the Internet, a survey revealed yesterday.

And campaigners fear that as computer porn becomes more widespread it will give more men unrealistic expectations of their love lives and threaten couples' relationships.

There are also concerns that the growing number of people hooked on adult sites will fuel demand for illegal material such as child abuse.

More than nine million men - almost 40 per cent of the adult male population - logged on to sex websites last year, more than four times as many as the estimated two million in 2000.

The number of women downloading Internet porn soared 30 per cent to 1.4million.

Forty per cent of couples having problems with their relationships say Internet pornography is at least partly to blame.

Relationship experts said women have to compete with 'perfect' models online, which could lead to an explosion of young people unable to hold down normal relationships.

Christine Lacey, a senior counsellor with the relationship advice service Relate, said: 'On the Internet there are no bounds.

'You can look at the most perfect bodies doing the most unusual sex practices and having sex whenever you want to watch.

'What normal woman can compete with that? If people are watching this sort of thing all the time without contact with other people, it can normalise it.' Clinical psychologist and author Oliver James said: 'If a man looks at a lot of pornography - in which women are essentially slaves - it interferes with their ability to sustain a real relationship.'

The findings were made in what is thought to be the first definitive study of Internet pornography, for the Independent on Sunday by analysts Nielsen NetRatings.

The research found men and women who visited such sites spent 40 minutes on average each month looking at images.

One in four men aged 25 to 49 - around 2.5million - had viewed online hard-core images in the past month alone.

And the explosion of Internet pornography has also resulted in more than half of all children viewing adult images 'while looking for something else'. Liberal Democrat health spokesman Sandra Gidley said she was 'alarmed' by the material available and particularly how easy it is for children to be exposed to it.

The MP added: 'I'm concerned that the boundaries are being pushed on what is acceptable. Some of the hard-core stuff is quite shocking.'

Men tend to prefer picture-based websites while women prefer erotic chatrooms - although they are more likely to view using porn as an act of betrayal. The UK porn industry is now worth around £1billion. The business is valued at £20billion globally.

Unlimited free access with broadband technology is largely behind the growth in pornography on the Internet.

While it appears to be killing off Britain's soft-core porn magazine market, which has halved to 500,000 sales each month since 2000, many critics believe it has opened the way to the adult movie market.

A total of 28 R18 movies were passed by British censors last week, compared with 25 for the whole of 2000.

There are now 6,500 titles available in Britain.

Yesterday, the Internet Watch Foundation, the online child abuse watchdog, warned the popularity of Web porn is leading more people into child pornography.

Thaddeus Birchard, a psychotherapist, said: 'It is infinite. It's like falling into a vortex. 'There is a tendency for users to go for hit after hit and eventually get totally caught up in it.'

The scale of the problem has been highlighted by Operation Ore, a United States-led investigation into an online service offering thousands of images of abused children.

More than 7,250 British subscribers were identified from their credit card details, leading to 2,000 prosecutions.

Okay, so let's see. Pornography:
- Interferes with men's ability to have normal relationships
- Makes normal women have to compete with perfection
- Makes women into slaves (!)
- Is killing the soft-core porn magazine market
- Leads people into child porn

Sounds like bad stuff. And oh my god, more and more people are seeing it! Next step: censor it and shut down its evil producers, right?

Effing ridiculous. Blaming porn as the cause of people being unable to have relationships work is totally absurd. A porn fixation might be a symptom of a relationship that's not working. Relationships are mostly a function of whether communication is working, not whether somebody is looking at porn or not. And I'm not convinced that children seeing pornographic images is damaging to them--I've got to think it's not as simple as that.

I know I'm largely preaching to the choir here... But what are your thoughts?

Willravel · 05-29-2006, 07:32 AM

Porn = normal
Media trying to control people and push an adenda = normal
Politics sticking it's nose in every facet of life = normal
The ability to access billions of bits of pornographic content at the click of a mouse = priceless

CSflim · 05-29-2006, 09:13 AM

Dude, it's the daily mail. That's the most laughable excuse for a serious newspaper in the country.

Also, I just love the way that the article oh so subtly makes out that looking at pictures of naked people will turn you into a paedophile.

NotAnAlias · 05-29-2006, 10:30 AM

That reminds me of prohibitionist/wowser rhetoric from the early 20th century. What a load of shit.

ASU2003 · 05-29-2006, 07:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ratbastid

- Is killing the soft-core porn magazine market

This is the only one I would agree with. And even then I used to read the articles most of the time in Playboy.

Also, at least 50% of the guys surveyed lied about looking at it in the past month.

As for me, I'll admit that I don't know how to have a relationship, but that is more because nobody ever taught me how it worked. Almost no one was in a relationship at my (conservative) high school. I only have one friend who is married and I've seen plenty of examples of what appear to be perfect marriages to the first person they've asked out. I know nobody that has ever gone though a break-up, bad date, or the dating process. I've seen it on TV a few times I guess.

Part of the reason I haven't dated or made more friends is that I had some physical imperfections that have gotten in the way, that I am still getting over. It should be all good by August, which is good since I've been dealing with acne, weight(being too skinny, but with 10lbs too much fat in the mid-section), voice level, lack of money, no job, conversation ability, and some other things (that I've fixed in the past year) since about 1994. I don’t know what I will do with myself when I don’t have anything ‘wrong’ with me.

If there was no internet porn, I'm not sure what I would do. Ideally it would have forced me to interact more with real-life girls, but after getting rejected over and over again, I would probably be better off not trying. I would have probably spent a lot more money and time at strip clubs.

Toaster126 · 05-29-2006, 10:24 PM

Wouldn't downloads of internet porn be at an "all time high" every second? I mean, more people on the planet being made, getting internet access, more porn being made, etc.

Moyaboy · 05-30-2006, 04:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

Porn = normal
Media trying to control people and push an adenda = normal
Politics sticking it's nose in every facet of life = normal
The ability to access billions of bits of pornographic content at the click of a mouse = priceless

HAHAHA
Love that one!!!

05-29-2006, 09:13 AM	#3 (permalink)
CSflim Sky Piercer Location: Ireland	Dude, it's the daily mail. That's the most laughable excuse for a serious newspaper in the country. Also, I just love the way that the article oh so subtly makes out that looking at pictures of naked people will turn you into a paedophile. __________________

05-29-2006, 10:24 PM	#6 (permalink)
Toaster126 Extreme moderation Location: Kansas City, yo.	Wouldn't downloads of internet porn be at an "all time high" every second? I mean, more people on the planet being made, getting internet access, more porn being made, etc. __________________ "The question isn't who is going to let me, it's who is going to stop me." (Ayn Rand) "The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers." (M. Scott Peck)

05-29-2006, 07:32 AM	#2 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	Porn = normal Media trying to control people and push an adenda = normal Politics sticking it's nose in every facet of life = normal The ability to access billions of bits of pornographic content at the click of a mouse = priceless

05-29-2006, 10:30 AM	#4 (permalink)
NotAnAlias Tilted Location: Auckland, New Zealand	That reminds me of prohibitionist/wowser rhetoric from the early 20th century. What a load of shit.