Porn’s back in the news. This surprised me a bit, because I assumed with the exit of Ashcroft, we’d refocus on more serious threats to the nation, but apparently pornography poses a public health risk that requires Congress’s attention:
Comparing pornography to heroin, researchers are calling on Congress to finance studies on “porn addiction” and launch a public health campaign about its dangers.
Internet pornography is corrupting children and hooking adults into an addiction that threatens their jobs and families, a panel of anti-porn advocates told a hearing organized Thursday by Senator Sam Brownback, chairman of the Commerce subcommittee on science.
Mary Anne Layden, co-director of a sexual trauma program at the University of Pennsylvania, said pornography’s effect on the brain mirrors addiction to heroin or crack cocaine. She told of one patient, a business executive, who arrived at his office at 9 a.m. each day, logged onto Internet porn sites, and didn’t log off until 5 p.m.
I don’t have much use for pornography myself. Oh, I"ll flip through it if I find it, but I don’t go out of my way to do so. I think I’ve purchased it all of three times in my life, but that was years ago and there’s none in my apartment (not even cable). It’s just not my thing.
I’m not prudish about it. I’ll enter a sex shop when on vacation with my partner, and we’ll browse the magazines, but usually something causes one or the other of us to start laughing (and then we must dash for the door, because one of us giggling sets the other off and it escalates in ways that sex shops frown upon). But I don’t normally even notice sex shops (although I frequently pass them), while going about my normal business in New York.
Something about porn just seems dead to me. So I’m confused by people who grow addicted to it. I’ve heard of how it can jump-start a lackluster relationship, and have friends who have impressive collections of it, but…it is what it is, I guess.
I don’t mean to make light of what sounds like a serious health problem for some people. I do mean to make light of anyone who’ll seize upon this to advance a "moral" objection to the healthy use of pornography. I’ve heard all the arguments about how one feeds the other, the perils of the industry, etc. etc., but as with alcohol comsumption, I don’t buy it requires draconian measures to strike a wise balance while helping those who can’t seem to say "when."
While I confess to an appreciation of pornography, I have trouble imagining surfing the web for porn for a full workday. Isn’t watching porn generally somewhat of a, shall we say, goal-oriented activity? I don’t know about this patient of hers, but achieving my personal goals usually takes a bit less than 8 hours. I think this guy may have problems other than his pornography addiction. Soreness and chafing, probably, among others.
I think blogging has seriously diminished Edward_’s quality p0rn time – He’s SINGLE-HANDEDLY keeping ObWi going the past few days.
I will admit to a downright aversion to porn. It stimulates you for a moment and it’s downhill from there. The sheer objectification of humans isn’t pleasing to me and if one has an empathic nature you can’t help but wonder who these people are and why their lives lead them to the moment they prostituted themselves. Ultimately porn leaves me feeling sad. But I have no desire to stop others from doing it, buying it etc as it’s none of my business other than not wanting to see it run by the mob or wanting saftey on the job for the workers.
As far as addiction goes, it’s no different than the worker who sits at their desk eating junk all day. Are they planning to outlaw what people ingest in their stomachs as opposed to their brains?
The sheer objectification of humans isn’t pleasing to me
Nail, Wilfred, giant hammer wielded with skill.
it’s none of my business other than not wanting to see it run by the mob or wanting saftey on the job for the workers.
And yet we must live with the results that the constant odjectification of humans has on others around us.
Are they planning to outlaw what people ingest in their stomachs as opposed to their brains?
If we move to a fully taxpayer supported health plan I’d might vote to ban Twinkies etc. In fact, I might vote to ban any final product manufactured food that isn’t healthy. You want to eat junk, learn to bake.
“If we move to a fully taxpayer supported health plan I’d might vote to ban Twinkies etc. In fact, I might vote to ban any final product manufactured food that isn’t healthy. You want to eat junk, learn to bake.”
I think this pretty much sums up why people don’t trust liberals as much as the silly porn crusade sums up why people don’t trust conservatives.
She told of one patient, a business executive, who arrived at his office at 9 a.m. each day, logged onto Internet porn sites, and didn’t log off until 5 p.m.
Substitute “blog” for “porn” in that sentence. Look familiar?
So does that mean that blogs effect on the brain mirrors addiction to heroin or crack cocaine? Maybe it’s time to add a warning label to the masthead, Edward.
A “business executive” who spends the entire workday looking at internet porn? That hardly seems plausible. When does he get his work done? Even if he were surfing sports news, or blogs, instead of pornography, it looks like he would get fired fairly quickly.
i’m much more concerned with the effect of violence on our society than sex and we can start with kids and video games where they are killing people left and right (pun intended). Who designs these things, serial killers?
So does that mean that blogs effect on the brain mirrors addiction to heroin or crack cocaine?
Excellent point Yermum.
My long-suffering partner would say it does…he calls my blogs my “bulls*&t websites” and really tries to get me to blog less on weekends. He may have a point.
Bernard: He probably was fired, or was sent for help – that’s why he’s shown up in the study.
Edward: Their dropping the pious moralism and funding research of internet addiction would be more useful, I think. Eating disorders are so difficult to handle, in part, because we cannot avoid food. Internet addiction is similar, in my opinion, because some who suffer from it are required to be on a computer connected to the internet for their work.
There’s a useful study to be done here, it’s just not about porn.
interesting comment sebastian. but what are your feelings about pornography? would like to hear the conservatives opinions on whether it appeals to them and must admit our women posters aren’t on this thread as much as i would have thought.
I don’t mind smutty pictures, though you should know that the kind I would be likely to view aren’t likely to have any impact on the objectification of women.
Hmm..what the hey. Six days a week I find porn boring and contemptible, on the seventh I spend a few hours on it. Absolutely inexplicable, I suppose. You can spend many hours porn-hunting for much the same reasons you can do the same blog-surfing. I can go thru twenty or thirty blogs, reading all the material, trying to find the piece that is stimulating. Sturgeons’s Law. Much more addicted to blogs than porn.
It has rarely been exploitative, except in so far as we are all exploited. Especially recently, when so many couples have vidcams in their bedrooms and post the material on the internet. Or so much of the stigma has diminished. When so many want to exhibit themselves, the problem is not in distribution, and won’t be solved with censorship.
I call moderate bullshit on the objectification. Shame on
me, I have some Paris Hilton videos, and it is not a generic blonde, the attraction is precisely because it is Paris Hilton, and her sweet vacuousness is as appealing on the sex tapes as it is on TV shows. If complete objectification was the point, you would only need one tape.
Big J**GS HERE NOW!
Hey, somebody had to get the obvious comment spam joke out of the way.
i’m much more concerned with the effect of violence on our society than sex and we can start with kids and video games where they are killing people left and right (pun intended). Who designs these things, serial killers?
IMO, these games have very little effect on kids. My school years (’60 and ’70s) were filled with far more violence than in the schools my children go to today, and I note that my teenaged son, a gentle and thoughtful soul who insists that I use catch and release with enormously terrifying spiders in our house rather than swat them, plays a large number of fairly violent games.
Add to that the fact that there is much less teen violence in Canada then the US, whereas video game culture is identical, as are TV and movie watching habits, and I think it’s obvious that there isn’t much relation between the two.
Regarding whether one’s political bias has an effect on the enjoyment or not of pornography, I don’t think there’s any relationship. I also think that it’s a pretty personal question, and that people should be allowed to volunteer that information if they feel comfortable discussing it.
And regarding the porn pun requested by Edward, there was a good one on Boing Boing about porn being like herion in that it leads to harder stuff.
I may have explained that adequately, making it look like a celebrity thing. Decent porn is always about the personality of the performers, because there is so little variation in the plots.
Wilfred
Isn’t the violence in video games and movies etc. just objectification of another kind? Porn and video games affect people differently don’t they?
I mean I can play team fortress or something all night and at the end be no more likely to shoot someone, while in others there is a different reaction. Likewise, some can look at tons of porn without seeing all women as simply objects, while in others it greatly affects their ability to see women as anything but a sex target.
So, if in some people porn leads to an increased propensity towards rape (date or otherwise) and in some people violent video games lead to a propensity to fight rather than talk, I don’t see how one can be seen as worse than another.
The question is whether, like my Twinkie, the weakness of a few should result in a banning of an item for all?
++ungood — Boing2‘s pun doesn’t quite work though — heroin is the “harder stuff” that marijuana is alleged to lead to.
Bob, you beat me to it, as far as the whole objectification/exploitation business is concerned.
I would go a little further even and wager that almost everybody is temporarily objectifying his or her partner during intercourse and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Violent video games are not made by serial killers, wilfred, in fact, producing a game like Half-Life or GTA is a very laborious and cooperative process, involving highly skilled programmers and very talented artists, in fact, I would call the said examples works of art. If you are concerned about gamers rushing to a store to buy semi-automatic weapons with which to wipe out their neighbourhood, I suggest you take pop in to a local LAN party, where you will in all probability find intelligent and friendly people drinking diet coke who peacefully indulge in their chosen hobby (which, to be fair, involves fragging the hell out of each other).
Boing²’s pun doesn’t quite work though …
Yeah, I realized that a nanosecond after pressing the “Post” button, dammit. The actual line was Like pot, it leads to (ahem) harder things.
I hate messing up a joke. But on the plus side, I just discovered the HTML code for a superscript two (like this: Boing²)
Don’t you think this is just another Rethug wedge issue? The idea is to back liberals into the position of defending pornography via defense of the First Amendments so the right can make themselves look moral. I think we should ignore the issue.
I do think it is worthwhile to discuss violence , over-frequent use of bad language, and over-exposure to loveless,uncommitted sex by the mainstream media and the effects of these things on children.
wow, seem to have touched quite a nerve here.
first, i ‘asked’ people to express their feelings, i didn’t ‘tell’ anyone to so i don’t get what that was about.
as for video games, don’t you all think it’s too soon to let this stuff off the hook? the new breed of these things have only been popular for a decade so we haven’t seen the long-term effect this may be having on the adults of tomorrow. the level of violence in america is far too high and much worse than our contemporaries in canada and europe which should be of interest to all,no? does anyone not agree we should be trying desperately to stem the tide of violence here?
and any video game where you must kill the prostitute to get to the next level of the game (complete with blood spilled) is totally offensive and has no business being played by a 12 year old, much less an actualized adult.
and while we are talking about ‘objectification’ and how it might lead to other things, i am sickened that our country doesn’t seem to be too worried about the fact that we’ve killed several WTC’s worth of innocent women and children in Iraq. the fact we use terms like collateral damage to describe these peoples chills me. are they all just the hookers we have to kill to get to the next level?
wow, seem to have touched quite a nerve here.
No, and I’m sorry if I gave that impression.
as for video games, don’t you all think it’s too soon to let this stuff off the hook? the new breed of these things have only been popular for a decade so we haven’t seen the long-term effect this may be having on the adults of tomorrow.
Yeah, true, but that’s speculative. You could say the same thing about anything.
…and any video game where you must kill the prostitute to get to the next level of the game (complete with blood spilled) is totally offensive and has no business being played by a 12 year old, much less an actualized adult.
Which game is that?
and while we are talking about ‘objectification’ and how it might lead to other things, i am sickened that our country doesn’t seem to be too worried about the fact that we’ve killed several WTC’s worth of innocent women and children in Iraq. the fact we use terms like collateral damage to describe these peoples chills me. are they all just the hookers we have to kill to get to the next level?
Yes, I agree that this is sickening, but the “collateral damage” concept is pretty old, and certainly predates video games, and modern concepts of objectification. I think it falls into the realm of propaganda, and how the war is portrayed by the media. The internet is certainly doing a lot to provide an alternative picture of what’s going on.
“Mary Anne Layden, co-director of a sexual trauma program at the University of Pennsylvania, said pornography’s effect on the brain mirrors addiction to heroin or crack cocaine. She told of one patient, a business executive, who arrived at his office at 9 a.m. each day, logged onto Internet porn sites, and didn’t log off until 5 p.m.”
Well, at least that executive is putting in a full eight-hour day! (excluding his [porn]lunch-break, of course – and who says the American work ethic is dead????
There are studies of the effects of TV on children which verify an increase in bad manners and aggressive behavior. It is only natural that children will follow models. many kids see the TV more than their parents, after all. I wish I could site chapter and verse on the studies, but I can’t.
The problem is deeper and more subtle than mimicking behavior. Both TV and video games effect the thought processes. Habitual watchers become maladept at processing language and overly dependent on visual stimulus. They move toward being concrete operations thinkers who can’t understand what they have not seen. Their thinking becomes shallow and nonverbal, more primitive and instinct-driven. It
s a matter of training the mind to function more like the mind of one of the higher carnivores. No I am not saying your teenager will hunt and kill. I’m saying a person who trains their mind through daily exposure to TV or video games is training their mind to be reactive, unthinking, and nonverbal.
So TV and video games are dangerous, not only because of the ocntent, but because of the interaction.
I am blessed because I grew up in a TV-less household. I literally never watched TV until I was in my thirties. Having never acquired the habit, I find TV and video games intolerable. I could read at high school level when I was in the sixth grade. If I was a parent, I would not allow TV, video games or computer games. At all.
i’m sure someone here knows which video game that is, there was something about it on the network news. my gut tells me it was Grand Theft Auto, the #1 seller. Evidently these things make more money for hollywood than feature films do now and they keep ratcheting the violence up to give the audience more with each sequel.
by the way doublepluss when i said hit a nerve, i was speaking in general on the thread, not to any one person. sorry if i gave that impression.
Likewise, some can look at tons of porn without seeing all women as simply objects, while in others it greatly affects their ability to see women as anything but a sex target.
from the studies i’ve read psychologists are finding lots of young men who cannot relate to a woman because of prolonged adolescent exposure to porn and many end up not dating and frequenting prostitutes because they can dictate their desires instead of interacting with women.
I think this pretty much sums up why people don’t trust liberals as much as the silly porn crusade sums up why people don’t trust conservatives.
While I more or less agree with the sentiment… wait, crionna‘s a liberal?
I find TV and video games intolerable. I could read at high school level when I was in the sixth grade. If I was a parent, I would not allow TV, video games or computer games. At all.
Hmm. My aforementioned son has been playing video games since he was three years old, and I have few restrictions on television. When he was six, he got a copy of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for Christmas, possibly one of the most marvelous video games I have ever seen. I had an eighty-page set of crib notes for it printed out as a guide for the game, and he literally taught himself how to read at an adult level from it over a period of two months. At twelve years old, he was tested for vocabulary, and was rated at the level of a seventeen-year-old. He is addicted to Wikipedia, and maintains a high level of interest in history, science, and politics. And Futurama and Spongebob Squarepants.
Your results may vary.
While I think that a distrust of video games and TV are probably a healthy thing, I also think that they should also be recognized for their good qualities. And children playing violent games is a very old tradition indeed, video games are just the latest version of cowboys and indians, cops and robbers, cannibals and savages.
As one of my son’s former daycare workers expressed, you can take away their war toys, but then they build guns out of Lego.
I don’t mind smutty pictures, though you should know that the kind I would be likely to view aren’t likely to have any impact on the objectification of women.
ah, but i said ‘the objectification of humans’. unless you were talking about something from the farm sebastian 🙂
from the studies i’ve read psychologists are finding lots of young men who cannot relate to a woman because of prolonged adolescent exposure to porn and many end up not dating and frequenting prostitutes because they can dictate their desires instead of interacting with women.
At least they won’t breed.
It seems to me that there is far more conclusive evidence that soccer leads to violence than that video games do. When I was a kid, back before we had easy access to video games, we played with army men and cap guns. We didn’t hit each other, or literally fight, it was all fantasy. Some kids enjoyed the same activities, and did get into fights. I suspect it was because the other kids were taught to resolve everyday disputes through violence, either explicitly or implicitly, by those around them.
Now kids (and adults) play video games. Same deal. I am all for a ratings system to help parents choose appropriate content for their kids, but I also think it is healthy for kids to have a well-developed sense of fantasy, and throughout human history this has always involved some violent material. This is not to say that a game can’t be in bad taste, but that the impact of the medium itself is being overestimated by critics, in my opinion.
You don’t have to kill prostitutes in GTA to reach the next level. There are some story driven missions where you have to kill people but once you run through the missions it’s open ended gameplay. You can kill people if you want, or you can drive around looking at scenery. My stepbrother let his little girl play once, supervised mind you, and all she did was drive around the streets. She stopped at red lights , stayed on her side of the road, and was mindful of pedestrians.
It’s rated mature also. So I’m inclined to put the burden of responsibility on the parents when it comes to video games. You should know what your child is doing.
Have you played GTA wilfred?
On note about video games – they often cause a high level of adrenaline in the player with little way to burn it off. This can result in a high level of crabbiness that didn’t exist when playing cops and robbers, as there’s a lot of running involved.
At our house, video-game-related-stress symptoms are an immediate signal that the game is over, get your butt outside now.
hey bill, video games have no allure for me (kinda like porn!) as with most violent things in general. i just don’t want to ingest those images. i understand the need for vicarious thrills but worry about the long term effects of alot of it in a culture as violent as ours. i know for a fact we do get anesthetized to violence and i resist that because, speaking for myself, i don’t want to lose that in myself.
my philosophy in general is that you are what you eat/read etc. so i try to steer toward the more constructive things but of course am a big believer in ‘everything in moderation’ too.
I’m pretty libertarian on this one: what folks view in thier bedrooms, dens, and whathaveyous is pretty much up to them. Incidentally, I buy the argument that porn “objectifies” the participants. I just don’t see how that distinguishes porn from any other media representation of humans. No media representation really captures a man in full (so to speak); rather, they all objectify some portion of him.
Porn happens to objectify men and women as sexual beings. So long as the viewer continues to remember that men and women are more than the depiction, however, the damage caused by the objectification is no greater (and likely less) than the objectification created by war/cop/robbery film numbers 1 through 9 gazillion.
Maybe that’s a bit too lassaiz-faire, but that’s my gut reaction.
This nonsense with constantly comparing things to heroin or cocaine in order to make them sound scary and dangerous — and thus requiring our nannies in Washington to curb our access to them — has got to stop. Last year it was fast food being as addictive as heroin, this year it’s porn. Here’s a newsflash: The pleasure centers are where they are, and they don’t particularly care whether it’s a Big Mac, Big ‘Uns, or a big fix that’s stimulating them. Of course these things all work on the brain in roughly the same way. Yeesh.
As far as video games and computer games, I too read at an extremely advanced level early on — my dad had me checking out sci-fi from the “grownup section” at the library when I was in the fourth grade — and I played video games and computer games from about the seventh grade on, and I certainly have never killed anyone, or even punched anyone. Granted the games then weren’t nearly as realistic, fast-moving or explicit as they are today. But I was also a big fan of gory horror movies — the other supposed instigator of violence and desensitization — and those didn’t seem to affect me either.
Porn? I can take it or leave it. I also haven’t bought much in my life (it ain’t like it’s not readily available for free if I want it), but I have no problem with others consuming it to their hearts’ content. Does it turn me on? Sure — seeing attractive women naked and engaged in sex turns me on. But so does my wife, and she’s real and right there at home with me.
Yglesias has a thread on the FCC that includes a discussion of Howard Stern. (Gilliard discusses Stern Redstone Karmazin from a business perspective)
I find Stern unbearable, but think what is going on is a little more complicated than the contemptuous degradation of women. Hard to defend. My tourist-level perception of the adult-entertainment 🙂 world is that there is a lot of apparent misogyny and degradation and contempt for women. I find it disgusting and somewhat frightening.
But it raises questions. In our society where women have more opportunities and respect than almost any in the world or in history, we have this huge porn industry and probably reactive misogynistic elements. Yet in parts of the Islamic and Asian world, women are often idealized, protected, limited, and oppressed. And porn is death-penalty material. I know it is incredibly complicated, women can be college professors required by law to modest dress in certin variations of Sharia; and Japan has both nasty eroticism and much female oppression…so culture is important.
But I also think of the Victorian era, when both porn and women were restricted, and think the relationships among these things bear looking into.
What a Rush!
Von of Obsidian Wings links to an article on “porn addiction”, in the course of which the following is said:Mary Anne Layden, co-director of a sexual trauma program at the University of Pennsylvania, said pornography’s effect on the brain mirrors
Incidentally, I buy the argument that porn “objectifies” the participants. I just don’t see how that distinguishes porn from any other media representation of humans. No media representation really captures a man in full (so to speak); rather, they all objectify some portion of him.
Excellent observation von. I believe this uncovers a cultural discomfort with sex (which I think is immature), otherwise those other objectifications would cause a similar uproar.
Coming from a rather uptight urban family environment, I was surprised when I left home and began to meet folks from all over at how matter-of-factly those who grew up on farms were about sex, seeing it or actually facilitating it among their animals on a regular basis. That helped me see that my own discomfort was taught, not natural.
Coming from a rather uptight urban family environment, I was surprised when I left home and began to meet folks from all over at how matter-of-factly those who grew up on farms were about sex, seeing it or actually facilitating it among their animals on a regular basis.
Erm, yes. From my limited experience with farms and farm animals, you really do not want to know what Red-state farmers do with their prize bulls.
I believe this uncovers a cultural discomfort with sex (which I think is immature), otherwise those other objectifications would cause a similar uproar.
Hmmm . . . arguably, they do. Spike Lee’s Bamboozled, and the (overblown) fury over Jar Jar Binks, are the racial version of what you’re talking about.
good point Phil.
It’s not usually discussed in those terms, but it seems parallel.
Eh, I have very little to add to this thread, since the attractions of porn are more or less lost on me. (There are lots of activities that are really wonderful to engage in, but no fun at all to watch. Sex is, for me, one; eating ice cream is another; and porn has about as much effect on me as watching video of someone eating ice cream.)
what kind of ice cream?
😉
well said (as usual) hilzoy.
i feel the same way about sports, fun to play but oh so boring to watch.
I was a projectionist at a porn theatre (when they used projectors). Porn is a formula based on the male desire of 2 consecutive ejaculations within 50 minutes.
No long lasting psych effects since there really is no narrative or philisophical follow through.
Steve Clemons
WNET refuses to show commercials for Kinsey because of its controversial content.
“I don’t normally even notice sex shops (although I frequently pass them)”
Oh, pu-lease.
oh rob (how laura petrie, i know).
you’d really have to live in NYC to know how true that statement is.
wait, crionna‘s a liberal?
Apparently, one of the few left in San Francisco, because even though 85% voted for John Kerry, they couldn’t see fir to join me in voting for any of the small tax increases needed to keep SF city government running.
Yep, you heard me. I live in a city of hypocrites, who, while they were spouting mightily about how horrid President Bush has been and voting for a resolution supporting the pullout of AMerican troops from Iraq, couldn’t bring themselves to add a small tax to LLPs and small business (a tax that I assumed woulda been passed to me anyway), couldn’t bring themselves to add $40 per year in property taxes onto their $million home for historic preservation, couldn’t pay an aditional $0.25 sales tax per $100 spent on their new Prius.
So, I hope that they like the city they have wrought. They voted for homlessness, more potholes, more ACL shredding gopher holes in city parks, more unemployment for hundreds of city workers, more fire station closings and more razing of historic buildings.
Funny how folks elsewhere are reviled here for voting against their economic interests and for their beliefs. I wonder what they think (if they even bother) about people who in the very city they live, vote against their beliefs and for their economic interests. I know what I think of them…
Crionna
I’d really be interested in your take on what was passed and what wasn’t. From an sfgate article comes this listing of what was on the ballot, along with the results
San Francisco Propositions
A Floats bonds to finance a $200 million affordable-housing bond. YES
B Borrows $60 million to preserve historical buildings. YES
C Changes oversight of city worker medical benefits. NO
D Revises the rules by which the Board of Supervisors operates. NO
E Raises benefits for survivors of police or firefighters who die in the line of duty. YES
F Allows noncitizen parents to vote in school-board elections. NO
G Authorizes the city to establish health plans for residents. YES
H Prevents the selling of Candlestick stadium naming rights. NO
I Requires the city to analyze proposed legislation for its economic effect. YES
J Raises the sales tax by 1/4-cent to help balance the city budget. YES
K Levies a new gross-receipts tax on businesses. NO
L Routes $10 million from hotel-tax revenues to purchase movie theaters. NO
N Calls on U.S. to end occupation of Iraq and “bring our troops safely home now.” NO
O Designates Prop. J sales-tax funds for assist low-income residents. NO
Sorry, that was what SFgate recommended. Is there a page with the results anywhere? Here is the page with the information about the ballots, but it doesn’t have the results
http://sfpl.lib.ca.us/librarylocations/main/gic/sfballot08.idc?PropTitle=&Description=&PropLetter=&Month=&Year=2004&submit=Search
LJ,
My recollection is (in small letters after your caps):
A Floats bonds to finance a $200 million affordable-housing bond. YES, no
B Borrows $60 million to preserve historical buildings. YES, no
C Changes oversight of city worker medical benefits. NO, no
D Revises the rules by which the Board of Supervisors operates. NO, no
E Raises benefits for survivors of police or firefighters who die in the line of duty. YES, yes
F Allows noncitizen parents to vote in school-board elections. NO, no
G Authorizes the city to establish health plans for residents. YES,no
H Prevents the selling of Candlestick stadium naming rights. NO, yes
I Requires the city to analyze proposed legislation for its economic effect. YES, yes
J Raises the sales tax by 1/4-cent to help balance the city budget. YES, no
K Levies a new gross-receipts tax on businesses. NO,no
L Routes $10 million from hotel-tax revenues to purchase movie theaters. NO,no (but that’s good actually)
N Calls on U.S. to end occupation of Iraq and “bring our troops safely home now.” NO, yes
O Designates Prop. J sales-tax funds for assist low-income residents. NO, no
Apparently, one of the few left in San Francisco…
Learn something every day! Thanks for the clarification 🙂
Oh, apropos of the topic: I was once offered the job of jizzmopper at the local porn store. [The owner was a regular at the bar I was tending.] Would’ve made a lot more money, too.
Would’ve made a lot more money, too.
As well you should.
Thanks for the clarification 🙂
Glad its clear to you, cause I still ain’t sure what the heck I am…
jizzmopper, yikes. Course that woulda been a great answer to the old “What was your worst job?” interview question.
I’m surprised no one’s brought up “erototoxins”, the “mind-altering drugs produced by the viewer’s own brain.”
Down with neurotransmitters! Down!
Q: I have an immediate, involuntary, visceral, negative reaction to seeing George W. Bush’s face. Can I ban him?
but this might be the silliest moment in Dr. Reisman’s testimony:
“Any highly excitatory stimuli (whether sexually explicit sex education or X-Rated films)”
Look, lady, health class sex education is NOT excitatory. It’s incredibly awkward, and the more explicit it is, the more awkward it is. And the STD unit has a better shot at discouraging premarital sex than any amount of “abstinence only” lectures–still not a good shot, but better.
Also, my spell checker says excitatory is a word, but it shouldn’t be.
For all you video game lovers: here’s something America’s children will be playing soon.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=domesticNews&storyID=6876936
The release of “JFK Reloaded” is timed to coincide with the 41st anniversary of Kennedy’s murder in Dallas and was designed to demonstrate a lone gunman was able to kill the president.
“It is despicable,” said David Smith, a spokesman for Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy, the late president’s brother.
Allowing people to evade (or believe they can evade) responsibility for their actions probably does more harm than moralists blame pornography for causing. An article on one “pro-family” web site even blamed the rape of a baby(!) by a juvenile from a “good” family on (wait for it) a dirty magazine the juvenile in question had read. Reccently, the perpetrator of a particularly vile child rape and murder in Toronto blamed his crime on the pornography he downloaded.
I don’t much like or trust the pornography industry. They make a great deal of their product in Eastern Europe, where sex trade workers have essentially no protection. That problem could use a careful government investigation. But to use the word addiction to make every bad choice into a medical problem reduces both individual responsibility and freedom.
For all you video game lovers: here’s something America’s children will be playing soon.
Wilfred, if you’re going to go that route, you are going to have to take all the book lovers to task for children reading “Mein Kampf”, or film lovers for snuff films. Is anyone here arguing that a video game can’t have reprehensible content, or that children should be playing such games?
Swiss children appearently are playing ‘catch the sperm’.