08-14-2012, 10:25 AM | #61 |
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Let's do a thought experiment. If reading books of erotica made people into sex offenders, then we would expect to see that illiterates would be less likely to be sex offenders than readers are.
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08-14-2012, 10:41 AM | #62 | |
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Also, the page I found is gender-specific and was written before same-sex marriages; it doesn't say a woman is forbidden to marry her husband's daughter. A man could marry his brother, but not his sister. (The actual law may have been amended. Or not, because despite the existence of erotica focused on incestuous and incest-like pairings, there aren't many people who actually want to marry or have sex with close family members.) |
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08-14-2012, 01:11 PM | #63 | |
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So, yes, tagging and categorizing in order to avoid dehumanizing books would be difficult if not impossible in the current market. Perhaps that was one value of the traditional publisher-driven model? Not sure, and also don't want to return to the traditional model. At this stage, perhaps simply tagging the content and offering clear descriptions is the best we can do. So, for this thought experiment, can the illiterate people view movies, surf pornography on the internet, listen to audio books, purchase adult magazines, etc? |
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08-14-2012, 01:41 PM | #64 | |
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I think the only book that's ever influenced me more than these examples would be The Martian Chronicles. |
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08-14-2012, 03:04 PM | #65 | |
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08-14-2012, 04:45 PM | #66 |
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08-14-2012, 10:19 PM | #67 | |
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(This is not to devalue the worthy insightful phrase.) I agree strongly with 2 of the above examples. Blade Runner - the initial vista (which became a de-facto futuristic standard of sorts) and then the scene where the big mutant was taking the examination with the first blade runner. (incredibly well done) Jurassic Park particularly with the music. (visual and auditory) I would add visuals just off the top of my head- 2001 - the Obelisk plus the music I would like to add that you spoke of the Martian Chronicles as a book. I dare say that the movie was better. Likewise the movie E.T. was better than the book. I have thought from time to time to get into screen or play writing but you generally have to be in one of two places all the time, CA or NY, and I just can't do that. I have participated with several writers that I know on a TV series project where they needed my expertise but the verdict is still out on that effort. Last edited by frahse; 08-15-2012 at 12:02 AM. |
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08-15-2012, 09:51 AM | #68 | |
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Also, we don't have to go back very far at all before these other forms of erotica were not available, thus the natural experiment is still valid. The internet is young, widespread access to internet porn has only been around for about 15 years. Easy access to porn movies only came about with the VCR, so that puts us back a little over 30 years. As we go back in time, and keep removing technology, all we are left with is the written word. If written erotica turned people into sex offenders, we would see that readers were more likely to be sex offenders than readers. But we don't see this, not now, and not in the past. |
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08-15-2012, 12:10 PM | #69 | |
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I don't know if there is any statistical support for the claim that illiterate people perpetuate the majority of sex crimes. And even if there were, that still doesn't disprove the idea that pornographic content has the ability to negatively affect those who consume it. As a side point, I reject the claim that "as we go back in time, and keep removing technology, all we are left with is the written word." This disregards widespread evidence of art forms that predate any known written works--for instance, statues, totems, cave paintings, dance, oral storytelling, song, etc. |
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08-15-2012, 01:00 PM | #70 | |||
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If we claim that cigarette smoking causes cancer, we would expect to see a higher incidence of cancer among smokers than of non-smokers. We do see such a higher incidence, smokers are at higher risks of cancer than non-smokers. If instead we saw no higher cancer rates among smokers, this would have been counter-evidence against the claim that smoking causes cancer. It would then be of no use to claim that the non-smokers breathed smoggy air, and that this explained why we saw no difference, because smokers breathed the same smoggy air. If both smoking and smog cause cancer, we would expect to see more cancer among those who both smoked and breathed smoggy air than with those who only breathed smoggy air. Similarly, if both watching and reading erotica leads to sex crimes, we should see higher rates of sex crimes among those who watch both watch and read erotica than those who only watch erotica. I never said that illiterates committed the majority of sex crimes. I said that there is no evidence that readers were more inclined to commit sex crimes. To say that readers are no more likely to commit sex crimes than are illiterates in no way, shape or form implies that illiterates are more likely to commit sex crimes than readers. If I said that left-handers are more likely to be criminals than are right-handers, this doesn't mean that I have said that right-handers are more likely to commit crimes than are left-handers. Left-handers and right-handers have the same crime rates. Quote:
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08-15-2012, 04:39 PM | #71 | |||
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You're not claiming that folks who are illiterate commit more crimes. You're only claiming that "if reading erotic literature causes a person to commit sex crimes, then more sex crimes would be committed by people who read erotic literature than by illiterates." Sure. That's practically a tautology. No argument needed. If eating apples caused a person to float, then we could expect that more people who eat apples would float than people who don't eat apples. And actually, jumping back a bit, this argument doesn't hold. Perhaps there are other types of fruit that cause a person to float. In this discussion, you have specifically discounted other non-literary pornographic content that could be accessed by non-readers. I'll go back to this below. Ultimately, that doesn't bear on what I was even claiming. I wasn't claiming that reading erotic literature made a person commit a sex crime. I claimed that consuming pornography affects a person and I believe that effect to be negative. Do you think that reading a book like "To Kill a Mockingbird" could affect a person's views on racism? If you do, then do you not also think that reading "Letters to Penthouse" could affect a person's views on sexual activity? I'm not saying it would make a person go out and start raping their neighbors, I'm saying that it would affect them, and I believe it would affect them negatively. Specifically, I believe it would cause them to begin viewing others as means to their own sexual ends. It would cause them to begin dehumanizing other people in the way that they thought about those people. Naturally, if you stop thinking of other people as human beings and start thinking of them as objects meant for your sexual gratification, it will affect the way you interact with them sexually. Quote:
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Last edited by djulian; 08-15-2012 at 04:42 PM. |
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08-15-2012, 04:43 PM | #72 |
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08-15-2012, 05:30 PM | #73 | ||||
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But what is dehumanizing about sex? I "use" my baker as a means to get my bread, is that dehumanizing? If someone reads some written erotica and says "That looks like fun! Maybe I can find someone who would like to do that too," what is dehumanizing about that? Throughout history, people have been persecuted, imprisoned or killed because their sex life didn't meet someone else's standards. That judgment seems pretty dehumanizing. Quote:
Last edited by QuantumIguana; 08-15-2012 at 06:19 PM. |
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08-15-2012, 05:31 PM | #74 |
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08-15-2012, 05:45 PM | #75 |
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Unwelcome search results
I understand that Amazon has to cater to all tastes, within reason, but there should be some separation of the 'adult' material from the rest of the catalog.
My beef is that I write bedtime stories. A search of 'bedtime stories' at Amazon will throw up children's bedtime stories and a awful lot of erotica, including s/m (by which time I feel like throwing up). n: In a nutshell, I think that customers should have to explicitly enable adult material in their search preferences. |
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