The Rape Show with David Letterman

I already did my opposite week thing for the pro myths. So everything here is how I actually feel.

After reading the Morgan article, I was unsure what to think.  On one hand, she did seem to have some valid points, but on the other, she seemed like kind of a man hating bitch.  What bothered me the most, is that fact that she is almost making light of domestic rape by saying any time a woman has sex with her husband and she's not in the mood that it's considered rape.  I did some research and what I found actually surprised me. 

• In the National Violence Against Women Survey, 7.7% ofU.S. women reported that they had been raped by an intimate partner in their lifetime. (Extent, Nature, and Consequences of Intimate Partner Violence.U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice. July 2000.)
• Violence against women is primarily partner violence: 76% of the women who were raped and/or physically assaulted since age 18 were assaulted by a current or former husband, cohabitating partner, or date. (Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence Against Women.U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs. November 1998.)
• Compared to other sexual assault victims, marital rape victims are more likely to be injured or seriously assaulted, but less likely to seek medical help. (Mahoney, P. High Rape Chronicity and Low Rates of Help-Seeking among Wife Rape Survivors in a Non-clinical Sample. Violence Against Women, 5, 993-1016. 1999)

All of these statistics are of real acts of violence and rape towards women in a relationship.  I think it’s sad that Morgan is trying to pad her argument by making an actual comparison of these acts with a husband who is just trying to “get some” before he goes to bed.  I agree with Morgan that rape victims need the help first and foremost before the attacker and I agree that society shouldn't try to some how try to say the victim was "asking for it", but when it comes to domestic rape Morgan might want to check the facts first before she starts pointing the finger. 

Not only does the lack of support for her "The Late Show" raping theory hurt her domestic rape argument, it also brings down her entire argument.  Like I said, I do agree with her points, but it seems like she is trying too hard to get them across.  This seems to be the case with many women trying to shed light on serious topics such as rape.  They say you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar.  Maybe they should try the same thing.

Porn myths…err Porn Facts 101

The porn myths really opened my eyes on the views of how good pornography actually is for us.  I chose two myths to focus my attention on.

The first myth that "Porn actually enhances relationships" is dead on.  First, by bringing in pornography into relationships actually opens some doors that would probably remain closed other wise. To help support this I present this information.  In a representative sampling of 688 young people aged 18 to 30, researchers found that 98 percent of men and 80 percent of women had viewed porn. About half of those women used it at least once per month. Men used it much more often. About 38 percent of men used it three times per week or more.  If this many people are viewing porn, why not do it together.  By trying new things, the relationships are only going to grow stronger.  Imagine being able to perform new sex acts with your partner that you have always wanted to perform such as a "cumshot".  If your partner allows you to do this on her/him, you would defiantly be grateful and really enjoy sex much more.  Being able to try new things that you like also isn't only going to make you happy, imagine how happy your partner would be to be able to fulfill your fantasy.  Hey, maybe she'd be into something like a threesome and you'd both end up happy.  Also, by viewing porn some new conversations could start, just as they have in our class.  Maybe serious topics like violence and rape could come up and those conversations will just bring you closer knowing you both feel the same way. 

The second myth that “Men like women so porn use helps a man stay faithful to his wife” is also a fact rather than a myth.  By having the capability to view porn with all kinds of women from blondes to brunettes, Blacks, Asians, Hispanics, big boobs, small boobs, nurses, secretaries, old, young….excuse me just got carried away, a man won't need to look outside of his own marriage or relationship to pursue such women. By being able to take care of business on his own, it will be easier to be faithful to his woman.  Strip clubs are just another extension of that was well.  Sometimes porn isn't quite enough and seeing the real thing in person is needed.  By going to the local strip club, a guy can get to look at other naked women without having to unfaithful.  Another plus to the strip club is when the man goes home he is going to be ready to do a better job and lets face it ladies, that is a good thing for you.

Best in Porn

After weeding through a good majority of the posts, I found three of the top contributors in our media grabbing class.

barizzo- I really enjoy reading this blogger's posts.  The amount of useful outside information helps to build strong thesis’s that are fun to read.  Also, when commenting on other's posts, this blogger is fair even when in disagreement with their posts.  I always look forward to what barizzo has to say.

Excuse me sir but you balls are showing…bumblebeetuna- First I love the name.  More importantly, he defiantly has original posts with great statistics to help back him up.  Some of the stories he included are hilarious and go hand and hand with what we have been learning as well.  Keep up the great work.

Must Read Internet- What I like most about Must Read's posts is the conviction in the writing.  These are all fresh, honest ideas that are coming from the writer's heart and doesn't care if the reader agrees or not.  This should be the blue print for the rest of us. 

Too much to cram into her box.

To add on to what this post is saying, porn is nothing more than a reflection of our society.   The reasons we have different genres of porn is because people are into different kinds of lifestyles and tastes.  I agree with the principal that porn probably wasn't intended to reach as far as it actually has, but at the same time isn't porn something that was meant to stretch the limits in the first place? 

I'm sure nobody was intending for children to be abused or have violence occur because of it, but lets not pretend porn was based on any kind of moral values either.  If one wants to make a comparison, the original porn’s, i.e. "The Kiss" and films of that ilk were like opening Pandora's Box.  Now that the box has been opened there really isn't anyway to put everything back in.  As long as there is money to be made, more and more porn is going to be produced.  Not only is more going to be produced, as anyone who views porn on a consistent basis knows, new kinds are going to be made because we no longer get aroused by the old stuff. 

Pornography has become something that is almost larger than life.  It's widespread and mainstream it's just going to continue to grow.  Like any other business, more and more brilliant minds are going to come up with new ideas to shock and arouse us.  All producers have to do is take what they see in our society and spin it into a new type of porn.  Since these new genres are tailored to, our tastes we are just going buy it and keep fueling the market.    

Maybe we need to realize that the box has been opened and there isn't anyway to go back and change it.  Let's face it, the only way to stop the growth of porn is to stop buying it, and we all know that isn't going to happen anytime soon. 

Everyone likes child porn

With all this talk about child pornography my memory was jogged to a situation that occurred when I was a senior in High School four years ago.  The father of a classmate of mine that graduated a year before I did, actually was caught on a department store camera going into a dressing room with a young child to commit a sexual act.  The child reported it and the man was caught.  
 

It was surprising because was that everyone in the school knew the teen and his father was known too.  What this shows you that anyone is capable of committing such an act.  We think we know people better than we actually do.  We all have this assumption that pedophiles live by themselves and are people we don’t see everyday.  This only proves that everyone from doctors and lawyers to teachers and priests can be pedophiles.  
 

Knowing that there are people from every facet of life that desire to commit sexual acts against children and that some actually do just makes the problem even scarier.  It’s sad when you can’t even trust a family doctor or family friend because of what they might want to do.  Since we don’t know who wants to do these things, we need to teach children to be more careful, along with being more careful ourselves to watch the actions of people who are around kids.
 

Unfortunately, since so many people do enjoy abusing children they are just going to keep fueling the child porn industry.  With the demand for child porn rising, the suppliers are just going to try to keep up.  This just means more and more abuse of children.  By the look of it, this cycle just continues to grow and grow.  It seems to me that the best way to break the cycle is to stop the abuse and desire and the rest of the pieces should fall into place.   
 

Not enough violence in porn

As to the effect of whether or not watching pornographic material makes someone violent towards women could simply be answered with a no.  So many factors contribute to cases such as the Brian McCutchen one, it is impossible to just blame pornography. 

Now I don’t think there is any question that many people do want act out what they see in porn videos, but when a person is already looking at material such as rape or other violent depictions, the predisposition is probably already there.  The pornography only makes them want to live out their fantasy even more.  I don’t believe that porn actually creates the desire for violent activity.  

Look at the Ted Bundy example discussed in class.  Even though he didn’t blame porn for what he did, he said that viewing porn at a young age was partially to blame.  Personally, I saw porn when I was around 12 or 13 along with many others and by the look of how many people raised their hand in lecture; much more saw it at a younger age than that. I, along with most everyone else however, don’t have any desire to commit a violent sexual act. 

They say guns don’t kill people; people kill people.   Porn kind of works in the same way.  We are so quick to blame the pornography rather than the people who are committing the crimes.  Again, I’m not saying that porn isn’t a contributing factor, but I can’t be convinced that it is the main factor contributing to the crimes.  These people have serious psychological problems and to point the finger to the porno industry just gives them a way out.  

We all have to be accountable for our actions.  We can’t blame TV, movies, or video games for what we do.  We do things because we want to.  The people who commit violent acts towards women have to be just as accountable as you or me.  Porn doesn’t make them do it they do it because they want to.  

Let’s put our community to work

After watching lecture, reading some posts, and watching the news, it seems like a consensus has been made that we’re just never going to be able to stop the distribution of child pornography and we are just going to have to try to contain it.   It seems that biggest problem with stopping the child porn epidemic is that there isn’t enough money and man power to put towards the problem.  Seeing that “our community” is bigger than theirs there should be something we can do to help contain the problem.  I came up with some ideas even if they aren’t greatest they do help us get in the right direction, maybe if more people think of ideas we might create some ways to help contain the problem
What I would be suggesting is that since law enforcement can’t do all the work themselves, we set up more watchdog groups to help monitor and detour the distribution of this material.  I know that there are probably already groups out there, but we need more groups with more specific objectives.  What those objectives are, I honestly don’t know because I don’t know how the groups work, but we should be able to hire Law enforcement and IT professionals to help show the way on how to track the distributors and users down. 
Another idea would be to take hackers who are serving jail sentences to help trace down users and producers of the material.  As an incentive to hackers, officials could treat them with better living conditions, small monetary rewards, as well as knowing this would look good for them if going in front of a parole board.  Obviously, there would be complications with this and getting their full co-operation, but hey, it’s a start.
 I guess what I am trying to say is that even though we will probably never be able to stop child porn we all could play a small part in slowing it somehow.  I know we all think it’s not “our problem”, but stop and think if it was Your little bother or sister, or Your little cousin, or even Your Own child in the future, wouldn’t you like it if someone was able to prevent them from being a victim of child pornography.  Remember our community is bigger than theirs is and we all can play a part.
 

Stay in your House Old Man!!!!

I’ve always been torn on my feelings about Hugh Heffner and I really do have to agree with this post.  As a guy, I wish I could be with any of his three girlfriends, but there is still a part of me that wonders why we pat this guy on the back.  Maybe we let him slide because he is the genius behind playboy or maybe because he has a ridiculous mansion and throws outrageous parties, but I really have a hard time saying good for you Heff.  

The fact that the E network helps promote his lifestyle makes me dislike him even more.  I think a large part of it is that I don’t think he even appreciates what he has.  He goes through blondes like you or I go through pens.  Sure, we use them for a couple of weeks, until they run out of ink or we just lose them.  After that, we just move on to the next one and forget all about the last one.  Basically, my comparison is easy.  He treats women like objects and to me that’s not what’s so disturbing.  What disturbs me is that the women actually like it. 

How many girls or should I say self respecting girls actually would share their man with two, three, or more girls?  I’ll answer that for you.  Not many.  I think that’s what I dislike about Heff and his lifestyle the most.  He uses these girls for his needs and they use him for theirs.  Now they say they do love each other and I’m sure after time there are some strong feelings formed, but for them to say it’s a strong, true love is a joke.  If you really loved someone, you would make him or her compete for your love.  

Thanks to reality T.V. shows like the Bachelor and people like Hugh Heffner, we are making an impression on our youth that these kind of like styles are okay and that it is okay for men and even women sometimes, to treat the other sex as an object and that we should try and get the most out of them that we can.  Maybe we need to take a step back and revaluate our values and teach or children how relationships really work. 

 

Do I really need to wake up and go to bed with porn????

Of the three A’s talked about in lecture I would have to say that the access is the biggest factor of them all.  The affordability and amenity fall into place after that.  I can say from personal experience that access is the hardest part to overcome.  I find myself going online to do school work or just check the news and end up spending half and hour to an hour looking at porn.  If porn wasn’t so readily available, I think the addictions would drop off. 

Now with that being said I know people would still go to the video store and other outlets to get their porn fix, but in a day, an age of wanting everything here and now, people wouldn’t be as apt to rush to the store to get it.  Also by having, porn right at our finger tips we just lose our discipline for looking at it.  Any addiction whether it be drugs, alcohol, or in this case porn discipline is needed to beat the addiction.  If you can wake up and take a drink or snort a line you would never break the addiction, you would just make it worse.  The same is true of porn.  If you can wake up and look at it and then look throughout the day and then again at night, the addiction is just going to be fueled more.  

Unfortunately, the availability isn’t going to die down anytime soon.  It’s just going to increase over the next few years and unless we as individuals learn some discipline from looking at it, we are just going to become obsessed with it and the ideas it raises.  Just like any other addiction, this one can destroy lives and relationships.  Just imagine watching threesome porn with you girlfriend or wife and then trying it out yourselves only to find that it tears you apart.  If you didn’t continually watch it maybe, you never would have really tried to pursue it.