Should authors avoid writing about a subject because a minority might emulate it?

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Horseshit.

I read a novella last night thats filled with all kinds of depictions that arent allowed here and are guaranteed to make many of you deviants squeal and chew your nails like Methodist bishops. Its a mainstream book available everywhere, and came out almost 17 years ago. I was bored by it.

LIT isnt avant-garde, it isnt even state of the art; its a vanilla backwater designed to offend nobody. Vanilla may be a bit extreme, NEAPOLITAN is closer to the mark.

 

[evanslily]

Wrong thread, oops!

 

[Epmd607]

Horseshit.

I read a novella last night thats filled with all kinds of depictions that arent allowed here and are guaranteed to make many of you deviants squeal and chew your nails like Methodist bishops. Its a mainstream book available everywhere, and came out almost 17 years ago. I was bored by it.

LIT isnt avant-garde, it isnt even state of the art; its a vanilla backwater designed to offend nobody. Vanilla may be a bit extreme, NEAPOLITAN is closer to the mark.

James, were you reading Deenie and other assorted Judy Blume novellas in bed last night?

"This book, like many others written by Blume, has been banned in schools for themes deemed inappropriate for adolescents; in this case, talk about masturbation and sexuality. Deenie is on the American Library Association list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990-2000 at forty-sixth. [1]

The passages that are most frequently cited as reasons for removing the book from libraries are: "[That week] I touched my special place practically every night. It was the only way I could fall asleep and besides, it felt good." [p. 90] and "Usually I take a shower and get out as fast as I can, but I liked the feeling of relaxation and I rubbed my special spot with my wash cloth until I got that special feeling." [p. 97]

These, along with a discussion about menstruation and masturbation on the following few pages led by a gym teacher, are the core of the objections to the novel. The book is otherwise usually described as insightful and accurate in portraying a young girl dealing with her diagnosis of scoliosis, as well as coming of age."

 

[Hugh_Mungo]

More studies

Pornography and Violence Against Women - Experimental Studies
http://www.ncjrs.gov/App/Publications/abstract.aspx?ID=70550

Pornography, Erotica, and Attitudes Toward Women: The Effects of Repeated Exposure
http://www.jstor.org/pss/3812977

FOR THE GOOD OF OTHERS: CENSORSHIP AND THE THIRD-PERSON EFFECT
http://ijpor.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/8/2/163

Exploring the Connection Between Pornography and Sexual Violence
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/springer/vav/2000/00000015/00000003/art00001

An Empirical Investigation of the Role of Pornography in the Verbal and Physical Abuse of Women
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/springer/vav/1987/00000002/00000003/art00005

Pornography, public acceptance and sex related crime: A review
http://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...serid=10&md5=419897ad62b7ab401e37d9477b0b34da

Voluntary Exposure to Pornography and Men's Attitudes toward Feminism and Rape
http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst?docId=5001519224

Debriefing Effectiveness Following Exposure to Pornographic Rape Depictions
http://www.jstor.org/pss/3812404

Pornography and sexual aggression: associations of violent and nonviolent depictions with rape and rape proclivity
http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=4183867

Pornography and the Limits of Experimental Research
http://books.google.com/books?hl=en...q=studies on pornography and violence&f=false

The role of pornography in the etiology of sexual aggression
http://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...serid=10&md5=d30059761a0a1ae49ebd285bce088216

Pornography: Research Advances and Policy Consideration
http://books.google.com/books?hl=en...q=studies on pornography and violence&f=false

 

[Epmd607]

More studies

Pornography and Violence Against Women - Experimental Studies
http://www.ncjrs.gov/App/Publications/abstract.aspx?ID=70550

Pornography, Erotica, and Attitudes Toward Women: The Effects of Repeated Exposure
http://www.jstor.org/pss/3812977

FOR THE GOOD OF OTHERS: CENSORSHIP AND THE THIRD-PERSON EFFECT
http://ijpor.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/8/2/163

Exploring the Connection Between Pornography and Sexual Violence
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/springer/vav/2000/00000015/00000003/art00001

An Empirical Investigation of the Role of Pornography in the Verbal and Physical Abuse of Women
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/springer/vav/1987/00000002/00000003/art00005

Pornography, public acceptance and sex related crime: A review
http://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...serid=10&md5=419897ad62b7ab401e37d9477b0b34da

Voluntary Exposure to Pornography and Men's Attitudes toward Feminism and Rape
http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst?docId=5001519224

Debriefing Effectiveness Following Exposure to Pornographic Rape Depictions
http://www.jstor.org/pss/3812404

Pornography and sexual aggression: associations of violent and nonviolent depictions with rape and rape proclivity
http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=4183867

Pornography and the Limits of Experimental Research
http://books.google.com/books?hl=en...q=studies on pornography and violence&f=false

The role of pornography in the etiology of sexual aggression
http://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...serid=10&md5=d30059761a0a1ae49ebd285bce088216

Pornography: Research Advances and Policy Consideration
http://books.google.com/books?hl=en...q=studies on pornography and violence&f=false

"The difficulty of this research is highlighted in a discussion of operational definitions of the term pornography"

All of these focus on professionals in performance pornography. Your point was talking about the written story. I can't believe this discussion is still going on. The other thread already hit on every point four times over.

 

[Hugh_Mungo]

"The difficulty of this research is highlighted in a discussion of operational definitions of the term pornography"

All of these focus on professionals in performance pornography. Your point was talking about the written story. I can't believe this discussion is still going on. The other thread already hit on every point four times over.

The majority of them did deal with film/video. However a few dealt with written stories, particularly those that wanted to study the effects of violent and rape pornography. Probably that's because there isn't a lot of rape depiction in video porn.

I didn't happen to come across any study that compared the effects of porn in different media. I got the impression the researchers weren't very concerned about the distinction. They either studied one medium, probably because they didn't have the resources to repeat their experiment several times for different media, or aggregated several different media together. For example the Japanese study considered the effect of manga, video, and magazines, but generally couldn't distinguish which was responsible for any effects, since the effects studied were on the whole Japanese population.

My guess is that there isn't much difference between the effects of one medium of pornography or another, except in degree perhaps. It would be better to have data than my guess, of course.

 

[3113]

Not trying to be a dick, but I'm quoting from Dr. M's story Haight-Ashbury 1969, which begins:

".... To many, it looked like the revolution had finally begun."

and ends, "Everything was perfect."

This has to do with fantasy, it's a pretty stereotypical idea of the era. I'm sure there are some hippies left over that would get mad about how you've romanticized their history, taken the carpet of significance out from beneath their feet to use for an erotic story setting.

Um...while I'm not in total agreement with Dr. M's assessment on this topic, I don't think your critique of his story is fair. The first paragraph ends with, "To many, it looked like the revolution had finally begun." It doesn't say, "The revolution had finally begun" presenting this as an arguable fact, one romanticized, idealized, and stereotyped by the writer. It clearly indicates that the writer knows that it wasn't the start of a revolution in fact, nor that everyone saw it that way. Just that it looked that way to some.

This would indicate to me some objectivity about this era and event on the part of the writer.

And the final line about everything being "perfect" is from the perspective and point of view of the heroine. Just because some would take issue with her view doesn't invalidate it for her, especially as it comes after a sexual encounter that's left her fulfilled.

Let me put it another way: I read this sci-fi/fantasy author once who had a lot of scenes of characters getting canned and beaten in his story. Now the question was, was he, the author, into S&M, or was he just presenting the way his society worked--no comment on whether he, personally, approved or was into that sort of thing? From the reading of one book, I couldn't tell. But after reading a second in the series and one from a very different series of his, all of them featuring similar beatings and floggings and such, it became clear that, yes, he was into S&M. Why was this clear? Because no matter what society or situation he created, characters being whipped and saying that it made them better people was always prominently featured.

So that seemed to be something that the author believed, not just his characters thanks to their socio-cultural background.

Which is to say, before I'm going to accuse Dr. M of romanticizing the hippies and the late 60's, I'd like more evidence from more of his stories. "Perfection" might be the character's judgement of those times, not the author's.

That said...what was your point in quoting this and questioning that story's perspective on the 60's?

 

[Dragonlipz]

Horseshit.

I read a novella last night thats filled with all kinds of depictions that arent allowed here and are guaranteed to make many of you deviants squeal and chew your nails like Methodist bishops. Its a mainstream book available everywhere, and came out almost 17 years ago. I was bored by it.

LIT isnt avant-garde, it isnt even state of the art; its a vanilla backwater designed to offend nobody. Vanilla may be a bit extreme, NEAPOLITAN is closer to the mark.

You are so-on-the-edge that it's giving me a hard-on so that I can't even focus......!!!! James! B! Johnson! The thrills just keep coming..........................................

 

[sr71plt]

You are so-on-the-edge that it's giving me a hard-on so that I can't even focus......!!!! James! B! Johnson! The thrills just keep coming..........................................

Naw, he's just still ticked he can't post pedophilia here. (And I don't think I'm joking about that--he's certainly laid enough hints.)

 

[Epmd607]

Um...while I'm not in total agreement with Dr. M's assessment on this topic, I don't think your critique of his story is fair. The first paragraph ends with, "To many, it looked like the revolution had finally begun." It doesn't say, "The revolution had finally begun" presenting this as an arguable fact, one romanticized, idealized, and stereotyped by the writer. It clearly indicates that the writer knows that it wasn't the start of a revolution in fact, nor that everyone saw it that way. Just that it looked that way to some.

This would indicate to me some objectivity about this era and event on the part of the writer.

And the final line about everything being "perfect" is from the perspective and point of view of the heroine. Just because some would take issue with her view doesn't invalidate it for her, especially as it comes after a sexual encounter that's left her fulfilled.

Let me put it another way: I read this sci-fi/fantasy author once who had a lot of scenes of characters getting canned and beaten in his story. Now the question was, was he, the author, into S&M, or was he just presenting the way his society worked--no comment on whether he, personally, approved or was into that sort of thing? From the reading of one book, I couldn't tell. But after reading a second in the series and one from a very different series of his, all of them featuring similar beatings and floggings and such, it became clear that, yes, he was into S&M. Why was this clear? Because no matter what society or situation he created, characters being whipped and saying that it made them better people was always prominently featured.

So that seemed to be something that the author believed, not just his characters thanks to their socio-cultural background.

Which is to say, before I'm going to accuse Dr. M of romanticizing the hippies and the late 60's, I'd like more evidence from more of his stories. "Perfection" might be the character's judgement of those times, not the author's.

That said...what was your point in quoting this and questioning that story's perspective on the 60's?

One line of questioning I had was with Dr. M's assessment that people get mad at stereotyping in stories. As far as I can tell we all do it heavily in our stories to bring the reader in, to fulfill the requirements of what's an acceptable, pleasurable story. He said a homosexual would get mad if I wrote a story making fun, belittling their lifestyle/struggle. I'm sure I've read Gay Male stories that seem to present stereotypes of gay males that have been received well here. This was just the first example in his stories that I saw that represented a stereotype well and was also well received by the reader.

To me the point is never whether the eye of the story is questioning the female's perspective that everything is romantic and perfectly ideal. The reader will read the first paragraph and subsequent paragraphs and come to the conclusion that 1969 Haight-ashbury was a romantic era, which it really wasn't at all for most people who lived through it and got to experience their ideals collapse beneath their feet. To a hippy the struggle against the war was part of who they were as people, gave an all encompassing vitality to them. They'd get mad that Dr. M's taken the struggle and made it a marginal character just to tell an erotic story. I like the story, I'm just trying to bring back the point that most erotic stories don't say original things, most rely on stereotypes and already accepted ideas to draw the reader into the pleasure zone.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

James, were you reading Deenie and other assorted Judy Blume novellas in bed last night?

"This book, like many others written by Blume, has been banned in schools for themes deemed inappropriate for adolescents; in this case, talk about masturbation and sexuality. Deenie is on the American Library Association list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990-2000 at forty-sixth. [1]

The passages that are most frequently cited as reasons for removing the book from libraries are: "[That week] I touched my special place practically every night. It was the only way I could fall asleep and besides, it felt good." [p. 90] and "Usually I take a shower and get out as fast as I can, but I liked the feeling of relaxation and I rubbed my special spot with my wash cloth until I got that special feeling." [p. 97]

These, along with a discussion about menstruation and masturbation on the following few pages led by a gym teacher, are the core of the objections to the novel. The book is otherwise usually described as insightful and accurate in portraying a young girl dealing with her diagnosis of scoliosis, as well as coming of age."

No. I dont read Judy Blume. The book I read came from my local library.

MOTHER SR71PLT
If you wanna get self righteous stick your nose in books by Stephen King or John Irving or William Styron; apparently my tastes are in good company.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

One line of questioning I had was with Dr. M's assessment that people get mad at stereotyping in stories. As far as I can tell we all do it heavily in our stories to bring the reader in, to fulfill the requirements of what's an acceptable, pleasurable story. He said a homosexual would get mad if I wrote a story making fun, belittling their lifestyle/struggle. I'm sure I've read Gay Male stories that seem to present stereotypes of gay males that have been received well here. This was just the first example in his stories that I saw that represented a stereotype well and was also well received by the reader.

To me the point is never whether the eye of the story is questioning the female's perspective that everything is romantic and perfectly ideal. The reader will read the first paragraph and subsequent paragraphs and come to the conclusion that 1969 Haight-ashbury was a romantic era, which it really wasn't at all for most people who lived through it and got to experience their ideals collapse beneath their feet. To a hippy the struggle against the war was part of who they were as people, gave an all encompassing vitality to them. They'd get mad that Dr. M's taken the struggle and made it a marginal character just to tell an erotic story. I like the story, I'm just trying to bring back the point that most erotic stories don't say original things, most rely on stereotypes and already accepted ideas to draw the reader into the pleasure zone.

There arent 8 million stories in the Naked City; most lives conform to 6 or so fixed scripts, and its no big mystery who the players are when you recognize the script.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

One line of questioning I had was with Dr. M's assessment that people get mad at stereotyping in stories. As far as I can tell we all do it heavily in our stories to bring the reader in, to fulfill the requirements of what's an acceptable, pleasurable story. He said a homosexual would get mad if I wrote a story making fun, belittling their lifestyle/struggle. I'm sure I've read Gay Male stories that seem to present stereotypes of gay males that have been received well here. This was just the first example in his stories that I saw that represented a stereotype well and was also well received by the reader.

Oh no. I'm not saying that people get angry at stereotyping. I said that people can get angry at stereotyping. But more to the point is the contention that the stereotypes we create or perpetuate often take on a life of their own and become patterns or surrogates for reality. This is one of the ways in which art and literature affect life.

At the heart of this argument in porn and behavior is the debate on whether art reflects life or shapes our interpretation of it. Does it reinforce what we already know, or does it challenge that certainty and make us reinterpret it?

Of course, it does both to a greater or lesser degree, but to my mind, the best art has a good deal of challenge in it. It changes the way we see the world, and you walk away from a great story with your understanding of your own world subtly changed. Stories have power. They take the random and mostly meaningless occurrences in our life and give them meaning and context. Stories are patterns we cast over the raw stuff of reality in order to make it understandable.

This may sound rather grand for porn, and maybe it is for most of the fuck-stories here, which are basically no more than descriptions of people having sex. But there are a lot of stories in Lit that rise above the level of cliche and open new insights and understandings, or at least open possibilities for them, and I can't see how anyone can deny that these stories can have real-world consequences.

I joke about just being a porn writer, but I usually take my stuff pretty seriously, and consider the best of it to be not just porn, but real sexual literature, meaning that it explores the experience and meaning of human sexuality and isn't just about flesh-on-flesh. In my best BDSM and non-con stuff, I attempt to convey the experience and give the emotional rationale for D/s, and I know from feedback and fan mail that I've occasionally actually managed to open some people's eyes to the possibilities of BDSM as an expression of their own sexuality. I've explained it, expanded upon it, and given them access to something they wouldn't have had before. In these cases, at least, I've certainly affected change in someone.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Uh, yep, better writing does tend to rotate the barrel of the kaleidoscope, making new arrangements of old information. O'Henry started it, I think.

But in real life what you daddy does on the weekend gives you up, and the stereotype is accurate about 75% of the time.

 

[xssve]

Criticisms of porn are largely based on cultural risk theory - that certain people, acts or media pose a risk to "society" as a whole. The Dr. is more accurate in calling this "status quo", which often identifies itself as society.

Didn't look at those studies, more recent studies correlate a lower incidence of rape with internet porn. As I've told Verdad, if you weren't around in the 80's, what's going on might seem scary to you, but back then, rape and violence were at historical highs, it's the era of date rape and roofies, coke whores and High School domestic violence, and there wasn't even an internet yet.

From my observations, the current echelon of teenagers is better behaved by orders of magnitude, even the gangsters are more social.

One danger signal for me is when it becomes competitive: studies show that males competition for females are subject to literally, a swelling of the testicles and an increase in gonadal behaviors including violence.

Sex itself doesn't do this, competition does. In fact men in secure relationship tend to have lower testosterone levels and are less prone to violence, and consequently receive social benefits from being more sociable.

Similarly, adolescents in steady relationships, including sexual ones, are at significantly lower risk for at risk behaviors like drug and alcohol abuse, crime and violence, etc.

In short, divorced of external pressure, sex is a highly socializing influence, it requires a certain amount of discernment and negotiation.

Part of it comes from acceptance - one or more of the studies above was probably commissioned or performed by radical feminists, with an agenda and preconceived conclusion that porn degrades women.

Thing is, women have been degraded throughout most of history, so if you look for it, you're going to find it - there is no way to control for what is the influence of porn vs. what is the influence of the nexus of Christianity and Blackstone, and the cultural scripts that came out of that, which are still being played out, and pervade everything, including porn, although on the decline since the sexual revolution.

In porn, as in most media, the status of the thing as fantasy is established from the beginning, thre is seldom any attempt to portray it as reality, unlike religion, philosophy and law, which argue from the corner of authority, and not only attempt to influence the materialist dialectic, but fully expect it to do so, and an enforce it when it doesn't, regardless of how fantastical it may be.

In short, if you wanna actually tear some off, you have to talk somebody into doing it with you, you can't force enthusiasm, and acceptance of this particular urge means the pressure is taken of both ways - the female is under no particular pressure to either refuse or acquiesce, other than the vagaries of whatever localized cultural influences prevail. The male is doesn't lose status if she refuses, he might even get points just for trying

By contrast, up until the early 80's, if you needed a piece of ass from your wife, you just took it; her opinion on the subject was legally and socially irrelevant, and that was culturewide, enforced by law.

It's a no brainer then, from that angle, why radical feminists might be tempted to define all coitus as rape.

When it comes to something like the recent rape in California, again I seriously doubt a porn influence, such things have been going on as long as I can remember, the big difference is that the fact that cell phones were involved in this one mean that it made the media, and if you step back and examine that for a second, it should occur to you that modern networks may be a means intervening or preventing it in the future, properly employed.

It's media that has changed, it's become ubiquitous and democratized, it's going to invade every aspect of human behavior, including the darker corners that "mainstream society" often pretends doesn't exist, and thereby, perpetuates.

I'm not really a Utopian, there are pattens, but much of the detail is random, bad shit is always going to happen to good people, and the converse as well - that's because good and evil are human concepts, based on ethical and moral value assignments, nature is only applicable in terms of reproductive potential - if whatever behavior you choose to engage in, acceptable or no, your success in the Darwinian sense is limited to whether you can raise your children to survive and reproduce themselves, the how is irrelevant.

Still, as it turns out, social and co-operative behavior offers some excellent advantages, and that's going to be hard to rub out by any means, it's directly coded into the paleomammallian cortex itself, predating even the cerebral cortex.

The most successful attempts to override mammalian inhibitions against intragroup violence have invariably been political/religious: media is, by it's nature, democratic; it blares out it's message to anyone listening, it has no discretion, keeps no secrets.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

XSSVE said: From my observations, the current echelon of teenagers is better behaved by orders of magnitude, even the gangsters are more social.

If teens behave better today its because abortion culls their cohort of the problem children. Females with conduct disorders and antisocial personality disorder abort more often than other female groups. Bad girlz arent having bad boys.

 

[Epmd607]

...

The most successful attempts to override mammalian inhibitions against intragroup violence have invariably been political/religious: media is, by it's nature, democratic; it blares out it's message to anyone listening, it has no discretion, keeps no secrets.

I'd add Division of Labour to a list of inhibitive human constructs against violence.

Media has always blared out a constructed message, it only keeps secrets. Business and government want to present reality in a certain way, so the message becomes unquestioningly the truth, no possible alternatives, no better products or services. In 2001 there was no question, we had to attack Afghanistan even from the most popular liberal viewpoints. 2003 we had to attack Iraq, the questioning was marginal and trivial, such things as "Do they really have WMDs?" "Is he really torturing soccer players?" There was no questioning whether it was right invading a sovereign nation and removing a dictator, just for the fact that he was dictator we had the right to invade.

There's a distinction between art and pornography. Pornography is almost by definition something that doesn't make people think, only feel. Art is supposed to push boundaries, but it gets commodified and distributed as if it's pornography. Transformers is sold and distributed as if it's pornography, most movies and music use the 80s-90s model the porn industry developed.

Art and pornography can reveal alternative lifestyles, but for the most part they only conceal real alternative ways of living. Maybe I make the distinction too narrow, because if I ever read a porno story that really opened my eyes to an alternative lifestyle, that I didn't already know existed--I probably wouldn't be calling the story pornography.

Now that everything is digital it's even harder to find the truth of things. It doesn't matter if you have anything of value to sell, people sell branding, sell selling on the internet. Something like a couple hundred new porn sites go live every day. They aren't pushing boundaries in any artistic way, they're trying to sell something slightly different, maybe kinkier as to get that ad and subscription money. I think that's similar to how people write stories for this site. People will write stories that interest them, no one reads them, then they'll go write an incest story. I don't think those writers are making incest more acceptable, just writing incest has become more acceptable, so has showing simulated rape on websites. The reality porn became popular earlier this decade, they're selling reality the same way the Bachelor sells reality; make-believe reality.

 

[xssve]

XSSVE said: From my observations, the current echelon of teenagers is better behaved by orders of magnitude, even the gangsters are more social.

If teens behave better today its because abortion culls their cohort of the problem children. Females with conduct disorders and antisocial personality disorder abort more often than other female groups. Bad girlz arent having bad boys.

Uh, that's a lovely hypothesis, except that these behaviors tend to increase with socio-economic status, not decrease - the hood rats can't afford drugs, lawyers, or out of court settlements to keep things out of the papers, and for that matter, have little incentive for doing so.

 

[xssve]

Media has always blared out a constructed message, it only keeps secrets. Business and government want to present reality in a certain way, so the message becomes unquestioningly the truth, no possible alternatives, no better products or services. In 2001 there was no question, we had to attack Afghanistan even from the most popular liberal viewpoints. 2003 we had to attack Iraq, the questioning was marginal and trivial, such things as "Do they really have WMDs?" "Is he really torturing soccer players?" There was no questioning whether it was right invading a sovereign nation and removing a dictator, just for the fact that he was dictator we had the right to invade.

Mainstream media, not media in general.

There is no question that the status quo has a vested interest in controlling all interpersonal communication, in any coup, the radio and television stations are the first target, and speech restrictions are usually among the first laws to be enforced - that's not a function of the nature of media, media is merely a means of extending communication - that's just the uses to which it's being put.

It's why we have a first amendment, and why it's the first One.

The Nuremberg rallies were a media event, doesn't mean some media elsewhere was not taking a different POV.

In fact, one reason porn is often targeted is because it isn't "mainstream", and thus operates outside status quo control structures - Larry Flynt is almost as well known, maybe moreso, for his political activism as he is for naked women.

 

[xssve]

The tendency to blame media for bad things you would not have been otherwise aware of except through media is called primacy effect. all of the stuff you see in media has always been there, you just weren't aware of it's existence until media revealed it to you.

Watching TV

 

[Epmd607]

Yes, I agree about the information being there all along. Although, I don't think I was blaming media, just trying to describe how it functions. The picture of the world is revealed to us via commercial media, commercial and governmental satellites. The thing about the Internet is there's no special information on the Internet, just reinterpretation of the picture we're all given via mainstream media. Indymedia can't give us better information on the ground, they'll never have the resources, their point is in reinterpreting the coverage given by government and business media.

Business media is very good at giving a monolithic presentation. Noam Chomsky talks about it endlessly. Business media represents the interests of business, government represents the interests of government/business, and that's how the big picture is presented to us, the consumer of media. Once in a while something like Health Care will come up and the picture will come out fuzzy, because you can't always only represent your own interests without the masses starting to question your purpose. Fox News deals with it well, they're the best at making a section of the country believe they represent their interests over the interests of some very real elite(that they happen to be a major part of.)

Incest, rape, bestiality stories are more about jacking off than reinforcing a world view. If rape stories become more popular it's only because there's more jacking off over rape stories, has nothing to do with rape as an act becoming more popular. If there are more bestiality stories and then we ask why and find out bestiality is more prevalent, there's still zero reason to believe the stories had any hand it the real life surge in bestiality.

A lot of what we do is just jerking off, stuff that doesn't add positive or negative value to our lives. Watching college football, or world cup soccer is just jerking off to me. What value is a winning baseball team or state championship high school football team to your life? It's really just an equivalent to the pleasure you derive from jerking off, fleeting, sometimes memorable. Playing in such events, or materially benefiting from such events is of value, but most of us are suckered into believing that if our college football team wins or loses it's of real importance to our lives.

I've read stories on this site since 2001. There have been a few that made me think about things differently, but for the most part the stories were about jerking off. And there's nothing wrong with jerking off, but it's delusional thinking that most of what we take pleasure in has real positive or detrimental value.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

XSSVE

Uh, no, dear.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22689931/

 

[xssve]

Uh, no dear, your hypothesis is based on the assumption that anti social behaviors are concentrated among minorities, and second, that the fall in crime rate is directly correlated with abortion.

The first assumption is not, and has never been the case, they just get caught more often. All this study proves is that more minority women get abortions due to difficult economic circumstances.

The second assumption explains neither the spike in the crime rate in the Late Eighties, nor it' s sudden and precipitous drop in the early to Mid Ninties, the time frame is too narrow.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

XSSVE

Sociopathy isnt limited to minorities or poor women, and affluent sociopathic women get abortions, too, but jails & prisons are mostly filled with poor and minorities.

As to the drop in crime in the early 90's; count forward 18 years from 1973 and ROE Vs. WADE....thats 1991. Crime went down because the criminals were aborted beginning in 1973.

http://www.hli.org/index.php/eugenics/404?task=view

Here ya go.

 

[Epmd607]

James, there's a conflict in your two different references. Msnbc that you linked said:

"Half of the roughly 1.2 million U.S. women who have abortions each year are 25 or older. Only about 17 percent are teens. About 60 percent have given birth to least one child prior to getting an abortion."

The pro-life website said this:

"Unmarried women and teenage girls account for 80 percent of all abortions obtained in the United States, and 55 percent of all unmarried women's pregnancies end in abortion, as compared to less than 10 percent of married women's pregnancies (see Facts of Life Chapter 19, "United States Abortion Statistics").[121]"

Someone's fudging statistics about teen girls and abortions.