Although I didn't learn as much as I thought I would from the industry side of porn, I did learn a lot about the effects of porn on the outside world. I guess the title of the course and course description should have been more of a clue, huh?  However, I am happy to have learned more of the "adverse secondary effects" that the porn industry has on all of society.  I already new that the porn business was a multibillion dollar industry, but had no idea companies like General Motors and AT&T were actually profiting from it.  I also wasn't that aware of how prevalent that porn industry is when it comes to technological advancements.  A lot of this information isn't well known around our country so to be a small minority that does know it make this experience more fulfilling.

Also, I was aware of the obscenity laws, but not at how much pornography actually played into the formation of some of those.  I was intrigued how material that isn't considered obscene in one area such as New York or Los Angeles, technically could get someone in trouble if they mailed it and it just happened to pass through a small town in the  Midwest.  Who would have known?  The origination of the zoning laws was also a fascinating topic as well.  I found the City of Renton v. Playtime Theatres, Inc., case rather fascinating, mainly because it was somewhat an obscure situation.   

Honestly, sometimes I felt trying to blog three times a week was kind of a pain. It was an online course and I wanted to take at my own pace, but in the end, it was definitely a great class.  Anytime one is able to learn from any experience is it should be considered a celebrated accomplishment.  That’s why were here, to learn.  In the end, I'm glad we spent much more time on the other aspects of porn away from the production side.  There are so many effects from the porn industry and I feel Professor did a great job at showing what they are.    

This should be an open and shut case.  Unfortunately, we have people who feel that they need to defend all speech no matter how negative it is.  I would like to see the penalties for such offenses at the minimum of five years as proposed, but at the same time realize that even if this is made a law and somebody breaks it, the most they would probably get is probation or less than a year.  Regardless of what the penalty is going to be, it's fair for the government to step in and prevent these occurrences to happen. 

I think it's funny that there are people who actually are against this because they feel it some how is going to hurt how they use the internet.  I found this blog that talks about the same article, but at the very end puts in their own sarcastic take.  Like protecting the children is a burdensome process for them.  Now I can see how data retention can be an inconvenience for everyone. Personally, I'm against that myself, but as far the other proposed crimes, they are great ideas that should have no effect on how we use the Internet. 

Another thing, if we think online child predators are a problem now, just wait ten years.  If we sit, back and don't do anything they are going to be more prevalent and more successful at doing it.  If we think the amount of garbage children are exposed to now is getting out of hand, just wait ten years as well.  Think back to when we were kids.  We weren't exposed to half of the stuff that is out there today.  It's getting worse and worse, while we sit back and pretend these problems are going to take care of themselves. 

I read a post that stated people are good and we should trust everyone, but the problem is it's the bad people that have the most control over what our kids are exposed to.  Again, parents can't be there all the time.   Take mousetrapping for example.  It's a giant pain in the ass for you and I, but now imagine if a kid gets trapped in these series of popups.  What the hell are they suppose to think?  All because somebody wanted to putting coding into a search engine to trick the kid.   

So to the person who wrote this blog.  Why the renewed push to censor sex on the Internet? To protect the children, you prick.

Obviously, it is hard to point to one specific company or person we can point to and tell to straiten everything up, but as the article points out, there are the ISPs and online service providers, makers of personal computers, software vendors, content providers, and the adult online industry.  These industries need to be held accountable as well as pressured into taken stronger measures to protect children from all the garbage on the net.

It's easy to say how it is just up to parents to protect children from what is out there, but in reality they can't be there all the time.  We also can't expect children to police themselves at all times either.  This is where the industry needs to step up and do a better job of protecting them.  In order to get them to step up, the government should be putting pressure on them to comply a regulation of technology to protect children.  The argument that it’s too difficult to create effective software programs to do so, really doesn’t work for me either.  With the brilliant minds that created and are now maintaining the Internet, somebody can come up with user friendly software that will get the job done properly.

The main reason we aren't seeing many results is the lack of urgency by the different segments that make all this technology work together.  It's costly and time consuming and without any pressure to take great strides to improve, we probably won't see many changes.  The government should be stepping in and putting some of that pressure on them.  Not only should the government be applying pressure, but the consumer, the parents should be voicing their concerns as well.  This chapter spoke about the many aspects that need to come together to protect our youth from the Internet, but with such a sophisticated technology it's unfair to place all the responsibility on the parents and children themselves.

Do I really have to write a blog about this?  I mean do I?  Are we so desperate or board with sex that we are now going to rely on virtual sex?  Then again, this would just be another example of the porn industry taking advantage of the newest technologies.  We already spoke about that earlier this semester, so I’ll spare you. So rather than focusing on the negatives and the weird parts of it I'll take the open minded approach.

Although this might not be my thing, there could be some positive benefits from it.  For starters, when the technology is more readily available and the price is low enough we could see a decrease in prostitution and the spread of STD's.  Why go to the local five dollar neighborhood night walker, who is worn out and nasty, when we can have “sex” with any type of women we want?  Secondly, sexual assaults could drop if the assailants can take out their sexual tensions and aggression on a machine rather than a helpless victim.  Thirdly, relationships and marriages could be saved, if instead of cheating on their significant other, one partner does the deed with the robot instead of another person. 

I know there would be negative aspects from this as well, such as the creepy scene with Jude Law in the movie," AI: Artificial Intelligence", but there are going to be negatives to all technology created down the road.  We just need to take them in stride and learn how to work around them. 

As far as virtual sex, right now I think it would be somewhat weird.  However, in ten years when this stuff comes out, I'll probably be in line with the rest of you just to try it out. 

Mr. Lucas seems to be on a mission to try to get this point across to both the gay and non-gay communities.  I'm sure it's hard to do, especially when stereo types already exist.  By promoting safe sex and a healthier lifestyle to the community, Mr. Lucas is providing a good service.  As a society we want to pretend gay porn doesn't exist or that we should remove it completely and let's face it, neither is realistic or true.  The fact of the matter is that gay porn is here to stay and if it is going to be here then the producers do have a responsibility to do it with "dignity".  Don't laugh.  You know what I mean.

My only questions for Mr. Lucas would be:

1) You talked about how you were upset about GLAAD taking you off their website because you are in the porn industry.  My question to you is, since you are trying to change the way society views the gay community, have tried to reach out to the people from GLADD to try to develop some kind of positive working relationship and at the same time remove the nervousness about associating with the porn industry?

2) If you could change one thing and one thing only about the gay porn industry, what would it be?

Although I agree with the principal idea of trying to stop online predators along with porn distributors and collectors, there needs to be a point where we can say "no" to some of these policies.  If we allow the government to collect our online records, we might as well let them collect info on the other personal aspects of our lives too.  There comes a point when we have to say enough is enough and this might be one of those points.

Now much like the majority of people in this country I am all for stopping child pornography, but at the same time this isn't going to completely stop it and there is no proof that of how effective it could actually be.  Millions and millions of records would have to be saved and it would be tough to effectively use all of the information that would be saved.  For those who say "Well if you aren't doing anything wrong, then what's the problem?", the answer would be that as time would move on these records wouldn't be used as much for stopping online child porn, but more to watch us and use it against us for a variety on a variety of levels. 

Even though the idea in principal is good, there defiantly needs to be some changes made to it.  One possible changed would be, if the government wants to keep records they should start only with people who have already been investigated for child porn or molestation.  As I stated in a blog before, anyone is capable of committing these acts, but at the same time that shouldn’t give the government the right to spy on all of us.  Trust me, if police enforcement follows online activities of the already convicted and charged (all whom usually repeat their acts), they will be led to others who are doing the same thing.  

It's not right for the government to group us all together and keep records of our every online activity, even if the initial purpose is to stop child porn.  We all know how our government works and we all know that they will bend the rules until are far as they can.  It's a shame if they don’t do this correctly; because it’s the kids who will suffer in the end.

I saw that in one of the posts, how the blogger's little brother was using curse words even though he didn't even know what they meant.  The boy was just trying to be cool and fit in.  This seems to be the case with all inappropriate material.  They just want to view it, do it, or say it just because they think it's cool and bad ass. 

If parents sat down with their kids and explained why a particular show, movie, or word was indecent and gave real reasons why the material was inappropriate the point might be clearer.  When a kid is told that he can't watch a movie because it has too much violence or sex, the kid is going to want to see it even more than before.  If parents sat down and explained that the material is degrading to women or what ever the case may be, the message could be clearer to the child. 

I understand that this isn't going to stop kids from wanting to still look at adult material, violent movies and say dirty words, but at least what the parent told the child is going to be in the back of their head while they are doing/seeing it.   It's like the sex and drug talks we have with our parents.  It might not stop of from doing it, but at least we will be a little bit more careful and have a better understanding of what we actually might be doing. 

I was going through the channels a few weeks back and I came across the nineteen year old "Justin" on Oprah.  Knowing it related to class, I decided to watch for awhile.  I believe he also appeared at the Congressional Hearing, but wasn't on the clip that we saw.  If you don't know his story, but he was a F*cking moron and decided he was going to take off articles of clothing on his webcam to make some money. He eventually masturbates for them as well and they started to send more money and gifts.  It became a mess and well you can read about it, because I don't really feel like trying to explain how stupid this kid actually was. 

Now we were all his age at one point and yes the opportunity to make money and get free gifts does sound good, but most of us would have been smart enough not to actually try it.  That's because most of us are "winners" and will succeed in life.  (Sorry, but some of you just happened to slip through to this point and are going to be weeded out in the next few years, but that's another discussion.)  This is where natural selection comes into it.  If teenagers are going to be this dumb then maybe we should let them.  I'm all for protecting children from predators, but there needs to be an age where we stop coddling them.

If this idea is too harsh then another option would be that, if parents with dumb children don't want their kin to fall victim to these predators, then they need to keep a very close eye on them.  I know it's hard to track what one's children might be doing all the time, especially since parents are usually behind their kids at all things technical, but if one watches close enough a lot of the bigger problems can be controlled.  Sure, there are going to slip ups where the kid looks at the occasional porn pic or clip, but if the parents keep a close enough eye on the situation then you won't see a situation like "Justin's" happening as much.

I've seen a lot of blogs and have written a few myself of how to protect children from predators, but maybe we need to take a step back and let parents and the teenagers protect themselves.  Why should we waste our time trying to protect them if they aren't going to do it on their own?  If nature wants them gone, well then maybe just maybe…..

Now I'm not saying by any means that adult bookstores and strip clubs should be opening in within a few feet of schools or playgrounds, but after that, a line needs to be drawn.  I can understand the fear of opening such a business within a close proximity of a residential neighborhood for the fear of suspicious charters hanging around, but are we going to live in fear all the time? 

Let’s look at the alternative to allowing these businesses to open in scattered locations around cities and towns.  We could set a designated area in where all of the adult businesses operate, say just like Times Square pre-Giuliani.  Now we are going to have all of the rift raft gathered in one central location where nobody is going to want to visit.  Crime rates would rise in this designated area along with all the other adverse secondary effects.  Does that sound more appealing?  Just to try to sweep it under the rug.

Just because an adult bookstore or gentlemen's club opens doesn't mean that all hell is going to break loose in that area.  Actually, it's probably safe to say that some of the people fighting it during the day will be there later on at that night.  If there are any adverse secondary effects to be found, it's probably because of the zoning laws not because the lack of them. 

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.