Quote:
Originally Posted by djulian
The question centers, after all, on whether people who frequently consume erotic/pornographic content continue to think of sex the same way as people who don't. I believe they do not continue to think the same way--what they consume affects them, and that after viewing pornography on a regular basis, they think about sex differently than before. If I'm right, then those people would likely reject my claims--they don't think that their thoughts on sex have changed or been affected in any negative way. They're just fine with the effects.
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As you said, prolonged exposure to erotic/pornographic content may indeed change a person's outlook. That doesn't automatically mean it is changed for the worse.
It sounds as if many people in this thread are suggesting that most people cannot overcome negative or violent messages, or for that matter any messages, nor can they separate them from real life. I say this is not the case, and further, that most of those who embrace negative and violent messages, or incorporate them into real life, do so
consciously and voluntarily; they are perfectly capable of avoiding that behavior, but they choose not to.
These people are proof of the fact that it is irrelevant to censor media at their level; such people will do bad things regardless of the media, the most media may do is offer them new ideas and encouragement for bad behavior they already intend to do.
Most rational people have perfectly functioning moral filters in place, originally created by exposure to family and friends and further refined by exposure to society. Those moral filters automatically kick in when thoughts of actions enter violent or anti-social territory, temper people's decisions and attitudes, and mediate actions to an acceptable-to-society level.
In the case of, say, pornography, those moral filters allow a person to be titillated by a racy or dangerous sex scene, but will prevent them from trying to act out the same scene in reality. It is clear to them the difference between erotic entertainment and real life.
Censorship is often applied at a societal level, when all parties could agree on a Universal Sameness that dictated what should be censored. But this was always a false premise; everyone isn't the same, because if they were, no one would have been creating censorable material in the first place.
Today, we much better recognize that there is no Universal Sameness, so there is no reason for censorship, except for protecting children whose moral filters have not yet been fully developed by family, friends and society. For those adults whose moral filters either haven't developed due to sickness or mental deficiency, or who actively ignore those filters, there are better tools than censorship to deal with them (including medical support and, in some cases, institutions).
For the rest of us, we can be left to make decisions and follow our internal moral filters on our own. Censorship is an outmoded tool in the 21st century.
(Wow... did I just say all that?)