A definition of porn

[gr82bart]

Oh what the heck, here goes .... this is an article from the LA Times:

From L.A. Times Wire Reports
February 5, 2007

More children are seeing online pornography, mostly by accidentally viewing sexually explicit websites while surfing the Internet, researchers say.

University of New Hampshire researchers found that 42% of Internet users ages 10 to 17 surveyed said they had seen online pornography in a recent 12-month span. Of those, 66% said they did not want to view the images and had not sought them out. The researchers' conclusions appear in the February issue of the journal Pediatrics, due out today.

Pornography was defined in the study as images of naked people or people having sex.

Did you read the last line? THAT'S the definition of porn? Good grief.

Regards, Art.

 

[Petzi]

Of those, 66% said they did not want to view the images and had not sought them out.

Sure... If I was a teen, I would say that, too...

 

[Bob F.]

Me, myself, and I have personally been deeply shocked at the amount of mindless violence in the APUG galleries.

For the purposes of making daft people sit up and listen and to justify my enormous research grants, I have defined images of "violence" as including images of streams, trees and the malicious and gratuitous use of a rock, anywhere in an image.


Merry Christmas, Bob.

 

[Ray Heath]

and in my day some vast percentage of 10-17 year olds would have said they saw nudie/porno photo's in dad's/uncle's/granpa's/? garage/secret stash/hiding place but they didn't really mean to look

 

[John Bartley]

This is bad news. Almost all the guys I know who have garages and work on their own cars are going to jail .....

Which makes me wonder ... do single ladies with garages who fix their own cars have PlayGirl centrefolds on the walls .... ?

 

[noseoil]

It sounds like a perfectly scientific study to me. You first choose a target population, then define things in broad terms in order to achieve your supposition. You must say that all nudes are porn. This opens the gate a bit wide, but it certainly skews the numbers well. "People having sex" would be closer to the mark, but the nudity definition would classify much of tv advertising as porn. In these terms, I wonder how many tv commercials could be considered porn?

This is similar to the studies defining global warming, only with a twist. Focus on a narrow interpretation of "warming" (not broad) and disregard that last few million years of climate study. Disregard the influence of the largest contributor to heat in general on the globe (the sun's output and its cyclic rate of change). Disreagrd the latest ice age termination data and its timing with respect to man's activities. Now, focus on the real problem on the earth, man and his habits. I do agree that man is the greatest problem on our little globe, but not with respect to warming. tim

 

[arigram]

pr0n is anything that makes you happy

 

[Petzi]

The "study" basically says three things:

1. Nudity is evil. Nasty. Filth.
2. The Internet is evil and full of the filth.
3. Our children can't be protected from the filth, other than perhaps denying them access.

Certain groups of people are quite susceptible to this. It feeds their prejudice.

 

[Dinesh]

Interesting article Art. By the way, what are you doing up and on your computer at 2:45 in the morning?

 

[jovo]

Jokes and sarcasm aside, nudity really is very difficult for young kids to deal with, especially when purveyed by adults. Whether or not desensitising them would be a good idea, (because, as far as I am concerned simple nudity is something that should definitely NOT be considered pornographic) is another discussion. In our (US) present culture, however hypocritical and multistandard it may be, kids should not have to encounter nudity, let alone explicit sexual activity when innocently using the web. It's an individual family's decision from there on how they should handle such powerful stuff, and at what age, and within the law. I suspect the adults on this site who either do not have children or do not work with them may find that a puritanical and obsolete notion, but I disagree with them entirely.

 

[Petzi]

Jovo, I have never encountered porn accidentially when browsing the web.

 

[JBrunner]

Unsupervised web browsing is not an appropriate activity for the children of parents who would find a naked body offensive. The problem is not the internet. Government has no place, and no ability to legislate morals, nor should it. What a crock. I mean, how difficult is it to supervise your children? If you're to much of a dolt to do it, why is it suddenly everyone elses problem? Fundies. It boggles.

 

[jovo]

Jovo, I have never encountered porn accidentially when browsing the web.

Not so long ago, the URL "whitehouse.com" was a porn site. Kids seeking information on the American presidency commonly made the mistake of using that URL rather than one with .gov or .org. Some, of course, thought that was a great joke and went there knowingly, but others, and usually the more or most innocent among them, went there entirely unaware of what they'd encounter. Such things happen...Janet Jackson's boob brouhaha for instance...and, however ridiculous the hype about it turned out to be, the fact that some people were taken where they didn't want to go without their consent or permission was a mistake that TV network paid a rather large fine to atone for, and I'm sure some heads rolled as well.

It's easy to ridicule extremes of hypermodesty, but it's the quiet, average family who are not to be discounted by those who's standards are much more liberal and who control the content of media. That's not censorship in my view, but rather the opportunity to choose what to encounter in accordance with one's standard of taste and morality.

 

[Rolleiflexible]

Jovo, I have a twelve-year-old daughter. It is terribly hard to generalize about stuff like this. Different people have different views about nudity. And, obviously, different cultures have different bents.

My general impression about the US is that we as a culture are whipsawed between prudishness and prurience. I chose to photograph my series of nude portraits to explore that dichotomy. I suspect someone from a country where nudity doesn't sound alarms might find my photos completely uninteresting.

Sanders

 

[jovo]

Government has no place, and no ability to legislate morals, nor should it.

Oh really??? Try walking down the street naked then. Let me know how you fare.

 

[jovo]

It is terribly hard to generalize about stuff like this. Different people have different views about their bodies and being naked. And, obviously, different cultures have different bents.

I agree entirely with all three sentences.

 

[JBrunner]

Oh really??? Try walking down the street naked then. Let me know how you fare.

Straw man. Never fails.

 

[jstraw]

"nudity really is very difficult for young kids to deal with"

I disagree with you almost entirely. How kids deal with *most* things has everything to do with the cues they're given by the adults in their lives.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

This is bad news. Almost all the guys I know who have garages and work on their own cars are going to jail .....

Which makes me wonder ... do single ladies with garages who fix their own cars have PlayGirl centrefolds on the walls .... ?

John- I'd say they more than likely have the centerfold from "On Our Backs" instead Or at least the Binford Tool calendar

 

[Joe Lipka]

I'm reading this thread with the really nice portrait of Summer by Sanders McNew as the latest gallery photo.

I find the combination of that photograph and this thread mildly amusing.

I really don't have anything substantial to add to this discussion.

 

[Ed Sukach]

Jokes and sarcasm aside, nudity really is very difficult for young kids to deal with, especially when purveyed by adults...

Having been the curator of an art Gallery that has the occasional nude (NOT pornographic) work, and is in the same building as our Visitor's Center, I've noticed that "pre-teen" children do not react very intensely - if at all - to nudity.
It is only during the teen years... and more especially among ADULTS, that we've noticed the tell-tale signs: blinking eyes, sudden inhalations/ exhalations, widening eyes, etc.
Given the situation, I/ we monitor all reactions, and comments closely, and endeavor to stay well under any threshold of "offensiveness".
In ten years, or so, of operation, we have NEVER had to censor anything, or modify our one cardinal rule: NO Violence.

It is, to me, amazing - we hide some sexually explicit videos behind swinging doors in the local Video Rental places, and VIOLENT gore-filled videos (Actual Scenes of Violent Accidental Deaths- People Burned Alive- Ripped to Pieces!!!) are in the areas accessible to all ages ...

Am I the ony one who has the opinon that this doesn't make sense?

 

[Antje]

Jokes and sarcasm aside, nudity really is very difficult for young kids to deal with, especially when purveyed by adults.

This is entirely culture dependent. Sweden, Norway and Finland aren't what I would consider unsafe, aggressive countries. The Swedes I know are rather introverted and nice, friendly people. Yet most of them have been dragged to the sauna from early age.

Antje

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

Porn is just such a subjective experience that it is almost impossible to define. Look at the controversy over images I've posted here. I would say that certainly by any American legal standard, nothing I've posted here, even the most controversial image, qualifies as pornographic. That doesn't stop the controversy, in the US, anyway. There is also a terrible double-standard with regards to the "definition" of pornographic - it is possible to send a postcard depicting the exposed breasts of a woman through the US Mail without putting it in an envelope. Try that with a nude male.

 

[KenS]

Porn

Porn is just such a subjective experience that it is almost impossible to define. (snip)

It is somewhat 'interesting' to see this subject arise just a few days after Telus (one of the major telephone and internet access providers in Canada, announced that they were strongly considering their latest idea (or at least 'flying a balloon' to rest puplic response) of supplying individual daily porn images to their cell phone customers for only $4.00 a crack (no pun intended )

Ken

 

[catem]

"Pornography was defined in the study as images of naked people or people having sex."

I have to say this sounds a little like sloppy journalism to me - I'd have to know a bit more about the report itself to make any comment.

Internet pornography is quite a complex issue, is it not, I don't think the issues can simply be divided into two camps... i.e. whether nakedness is "good" or "bad", for children or anyone else.