Pornography

Doing some research into the effects of and censorship of ponography...
Permit me to rant...

It is frequently objected to on the grounds that it is "obscene" Ex: "The Attorney General is reinterpreting the obscenity laws" ... to specify what exactly obscenity is and how it is related to pornography....
It is:

1) designed to incite to indecency or lust
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

2) Obscenity has several connotations. Obscenity and its parent adjective obscene take their derivation from the Greek terms ob skene, which literally means "offstage". This is because violent acts in Greek theatre were committed off stage. It then descends into the Latin word obscenus, meaning "foul, repulsive, detestable", (possibly derived from ob caenum), literally "from filth". ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obscene


Since the second definition is relative to culture standards, we must rely primarily on the first definition.

Indecency:

1) the quality of being indecent ... or... an indecent or improper act wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

2) A dictionary definition of Indecent, not conforming with accepted standards of behaviour or morality. not appropriate
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indecency

Since, again, the second definition is relative to culture standards, we must rely primarily on the first definition which refers back to the root word of "indecent"

Indecent:

1) not in keeping with accepted standards of what is right or proper in polite society... or... offensive to good taste especially in sexual matters... or... offending against sexual mores in conduct or appearance
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn


That seems pretty clear... it is, once again, relative to culture standards. Even defining the one word in question "mores"

Mores:

1) customs.
www.willdurant.com/glossary.htm

2) Norms seen as central to the functioning of a society and to its social life
enbv.narod.ru/text/Econom/ib/str/261.html


To summarise: The objection to pornography on the grounds that it is obscene basicly means that it is not "culturally accepted." So we don't accept it because it's culturally unacceptable. Yeah, that helps...

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"He maintains that obscenity and child pornography are not protected speech under the First Amendment and should be eradicated."
http://www.enotes.com/pornography-article/42977

We have just exposed that there is no reason for "obscenity" not to be protected since the only reason it is considered obscene is because it is not "conforming with accepted standards."

I find lots of claims that pornography is harmfull, but nothing to back it up. On the other hand, you cannot censor something that one doesn't like on the basis of them not liking it, no matter how painful.

We have as much right, and as much reason, to censor pornograpy as we do violent movies.

Basicly, I understand it to be like commonly accepted violence on tv, or alcohol, where as it may desensetize a person, and be an unwise to use or permit one's self to be exposed to, but does not actively (or inactively for that matter) voilate, or cause anyone else to violate one's rights and therefore we have no concrete reason to censor it.

http://www.mhhe.com/socscience/english/allwrite3/seyler/ssite/seyler/se04/censor.mhtml ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Statistics: Average

Statistics:
Age of first Internet exposure to pornography 11 years old
Largest consumer of Internet pornography 12-17 age group

http://www.familysafemedia.com/pornography_statistics.html