The Red and Black

Originally posted by

Blaise Parker

As a feminist psychologist who studies sexual identity development, I appreciate any attempts to raise awareness of the incidence and causes of sexual violence, so let me begin by saying thanks for writing this column. However, I would personally be reluctant to base an argument on the work of Judith Reisman. Although she has billed herself as a research expert on pornography, the majority of the work I have been able to find by her is published in books rather than peer reviewed journal articles of the sort that are the general standard for research presentation in the social sciences. She also advances several other "theories" that have been largely rejected by professional sexuality researchers, including the idea that there is a great deal of overlap between homosexuality and pedophilia and the belief that Dr. Alfred Kinsey sexually molested children in the name of scientific research. She also believes that pornography creates "erototoxins" in the brain that act on the brain as drugs might.

Overall, when I examine the work of Reisman I find it difficult to give her much credibility. This is not to say that pornography is not problematic (although I also do not favor censorship). But if you want to make this argument, I think there are better researchers to rely on than Reisman.

rieisman is like a lot of people with strong opinions,hey read every thing they can find on a a subject that agrees with them and blast or down play any any opinions that is counter her opinion,which I suspect, is helping her make a living! I am a a christian and I dont even approve of children selling cars for their father. But society is being tore apart by this child exploitation thing ,laws are being passed by the thousands, as a result men can not safely stay home with thier own children,it doesnt take but one accuser to ruin his life because when accused of a moral crime you are socially guilty and all the innocences in the world can't save you. This mulitude of exploitation laws are passed because legislatures are scared of a negative vote because then they might come under accusation. Being male these days seems enough to make you a suspect.

Dave,

In cartoons, not photos. But before you dismiss cartoons, let me ask you this. I have some religious tracts that are cartoon oriented. They explain the gospel, but with cartoon pictures.

Since they are cartoons, they couldn't possibly be influential, so let's put them in classrooms or give them out to children.

Each form of media has some effectiveness, and Playboy's cartoons and other editorial content influence men--especially young men. It is a slow warp.

Dave,

Just about every PhD I have studied under in the Grady College is much further left than I am, but that does not taint their research in my eyes. They are experts in their field, and they are professionally objective for the most part. Sure, their left bias may ooze out occasionally, but academic writing is far superior to opinion writing. The PhD I cite in this Playboy research should be treated the same way by you, Dave, unless you have specific instances where she is in error.

The academic respect must be maintained. I am on my thrid degree at UGA and greatly respect my liberal professors because of the lifetime of knowledge in their field.

Dave, we cannot dismiss a PhD and her research just because we don't like it. There must be a level playing field here.

Hank,

Why don't you go on Amazon and buy her book, Soft Porn plays Hardball?

It seems like before you lash out against a PhD, you would at least read the material.

Hoping for a reasonable, curse-free discussion with no ad-hominem attack.

Research is great as long as it agrees with your worldview, huh? What happened to all of this open-minded talk?

You want me to sit in my courses at UGA under liberal professors and accept their research with an open mind, yet when something that challenges you comes along, toss it out?

I continue to be baffled by liberals and small minded people who cannot have a discussion with someone different than them without name-calling and personal attacks.

Originally posted by

Jed Clampett

Look up Dr. Dobson's interview with Ted Bundy, serial rapist/murderer. He says some things about the effect that porn had on him.

Look up Charles Manson's comments about the effect that the music of The Beatles had on him. Damn youngsters and their rock music!

No, I don't think people are getting caught up in peripheral issues at all. The question is not whether Echols quoted shocking statistics from Reisman. The question is whether Reisman's research is honest and accurate. For one thing, I would question exactly what sort of methodology Reisman used to identify these alleged 6000 images of child pornography. There is no way the magazines themselves would state that they were featuring child pornography. Modern pornography makers are required to guarantee that all their models are over 18. So, if she didn't get that data from the publishers, the only other reasonable way to get it would be... guessing. Looking at the pictures and trying to guess how old the models are. Which is not, in my mind, the soundest research method in the world, particularly when there are magazines that explicitly specialize in making legal models (18+) look young (e.g., Barely Legal). So if the models in those magazines looked younger than 18, well, that's the point. It doesn't mean they are.

Similarly, the claim that photos of a Santa Claus raping an animal was featured in Playboy is outrageous. At the most (and even this is pushing it) they might have such an image in a cartoon, but I think we can all agree that is rather different than a photograph of Santa engaging in bestiality. Playboy has NEVER been a hardcore magazine and would never feature such pictorials as described by Reisman.

Now, if those details aren't true (and how on earth could they be?), maybe the quote regarding virginity was made up, too. And even if it wasn't, it's no different from the sexist claptrap peddled in Maxim and a million other "lad" magazines that don't even feature nudity. A sexist attitude towards women in a men's magazine you say? No, really? Shocking. Does that prove that soft-core pornography leads to sexual assault? Not at all.

Originally posted by

Annie

I think some people are getting caught up in peripheral issues in this article. While I agree that some of the research might have been biased or unreliable, certain facts seem very clear cut - such as the fact that even in soft-core pornography, 6,000 images of child pornography were found. There is also a quote about how men should exploit virgins or young women that is taken directly from Playboy. I agree with Echols, I don't believe anyone can be inundated with sexualized images of young women and not be affected by what they see. I believe this is the point he was trying to make.

The research that she did was not rocket science, just simple content-analysis. The images in question were cartoons as well...which is exactly the point of the article. Playboy has a philosophy they are selling, and the content of the cartoons cannot be ignored.

The slick photos may be just naked women, but the "Playboy" philosophy comes through loud and clear and is something that is hurtful to women.

Originally posted by

Fratty

Would some legal type tell me if this is correct:

I can have consensual sex with a 16 year old no problem. But if I have a video of a naked 17 year old on my computer, I'm screwed?

Not a legal type, but that is in fact the case. The age of consent in Ga is 16. Federal Child pornography laws forbid the depiction of persons under the age of 18. Hell, if YOU were 17, and had naked, suggestive pics of yourself on the computer you would technically be a sex offender.

Weepul, who is surely a pseudonym, identifies himself/herself as a current student at UGA. I wonder whether we will see a more sophisticated and logical student after he/she completes the sophomore year.
Like many, and quite predictably, Weepul tries to shoot at the messenger whose bears a message he dislikes. However, he is a terrible shot.
I can assure Weepul that were he to seek a psychiatrist for any help with anything of importance, he would be ill served to find a professional who merely echoes his age specific views. Indeed, what he needs right now far more than a psychiatrist is the help of a logician, though capable psychiatrists have to deal with unfounded premises and illogical processes, too. May I suggest he attend Phi Kappa Society and learn to debate. Among the things he might learn is to avoid ad hominem fallacy in argument.
As to frightening him? My comment was on the state of society right now. If his bones are added to the growing pile at the bottom of that metaphorical cliff, that will be his own responsibility. He is cocksure and might well think a stop sign is an attempt to limit his choices. God forbid. The gene pool is ever adjusting itself.

Stephen W. Edmondson, M.D.

Edmondson,

While you are entirely entitled to your opinion, I find your position appalling, both as a practicing psychiatrist, and as a graduate of this University. To discount Kinsey's work in its entirety is ill-conceived at best, if not completely obtuse. While some of his research methods may be questionable by today's standards, he made tremendous strides in the field of human sexuality, many of which have since been tested and further substantiated. He helped lead the positive movement away from regarding sexual behavior as dirty and sinister act and to seeing sex as what it really is- a key component of human behavior. If we are to criticize any of the "academics" in this discussion, it is most definitely Ms. Reisman for reasons noted in above posts.

Your assertion that, "We are at the edge of a cliff in our society, with a free fall ahead if we do not walk away from it" is nothing more than an absurd and irrational attempt at fear-mongering. If you are going to use scare tactics to drive your point, at least try to differentiate it from the perennial argument that "today's youth is corrupt" and "we're heading towards disaster if we don't go back to how things used to be."

Lastly, your assertion that, "surely, the University has produced thinkers with more candle power than some of the messages posted here," could not be more on point, particularly in regards to your post. As a practicing psychiatrist, your value-judgments and narrow-mindedness is alarming and embarrassing to me as a current student of this institution. Should I, or any friend or close relative, require psychiatric treatment, I will surely steer clear of your practice.

In regards to the article itself, I would advise Mr. Echols to 1.) Use more credible sources in his opinion pieces and 2.) to use stronger inductive reasoning in his logic- many of your premises are tangential to your conclusion that we need to enact more legislation regarding the issue of child pornography.

And lastly in regards to the statement, "Reisman found that over that same 25-year period, 'soft porn' magazines published 6,004 images of children under 18," I pose perhaps an obvious question: were these 6,004 images of children under 18 at all pornographic in nature? Or did Reisman simply count the number of non-sexual images of children in these magazines, including advertisements, cartoons, and news articles?[/QUOTE]

First of all, thank you for the advice regarding research. Since you like these magazines so much, maybe you can take and do a content analysis where my researcher left off. She looked at every issue of Playboy from December 1953 until December 1978. Why don't you start at January 1979 and go for 25 years to January 2004? Make up your own categories as you look at the ads, the cartoons, the articles, the editorial opinions, the letters to the editor, and of course the pictures.

Here are some suggested categories that may get you started: cheating on wife, sex with suspiciously younger people, fooling girl's fathers, sex with virgins, more sex with virgins, sex with animals, sex with multiple partners.

Wow, see how wholesome this magazine is.

Kinsey, who was a great influence on Hugh Hefner, was engaged in research that involved sexually arousing children as young as one-year old. There is a name for people who do that kind of thing, and it is not "researcher." That research is not questionable, it is criminal.

We should "out" these folks for what they are--a plague on our society.

Funny you should mention the fallacy of Ad hominem in your counter "argument." I think even a sophomore logic student could recognize the irony and contradiction in your post.

Again, I am baffled by people who cannot have a discussion without name-calling. Why don't you write a thoughtful response refuting my main premise--that is that Playboy has an agenda and it involves teaching men to exploit women. Can you refute that one point based on the evidence in their magazine these almost 60 years?

John,

Again, my primary point in not anything about modern day society--rather, it is about the agenda of Playboy. No one reading my article or replying seems to want to acknowledge that Hefner has a devious agenda, that he hates marriage, that he wants men to roam from woman to woman taking what he can get, etc.

That is why it is a dirty little secret.

Danny,

Here is one more take on this from Chuck Colson.

In a newsletter column, Chuck Colson talked about the prisoner abuse scandal in Iraq and how it could have happened: "As I've tried to figure out how this travesty occurred, I've considered my own experiences in the Marine Corp. Had I been in charge of the brig in a time of war and the intelligence officers ordered me to "soften these guys up for interrogation," I would have made them sleep with their lights on all night; I would have awakened them every fifteen minutes; I would have played loud music, as we did in Panama to rattle the nerves of Noriega and his henchmen who were hiding out. I would have given them a rifle butt in the stomach if they gave me any sass. And I would have harassed them and made their lives so miserable they would want to tell us what we wanted to know.

"But not in my wildest imagination can I conceive of ever doing what our National Guardsmen did to the prisoners in Iraq. Even if it had occurred to me, it would have been so repulsive I can't imagine I would have acted on it. And I was no paragon of virtue in those days; that was before my conversion.

"Why did it even occur to our soldiers today to molest and embarrass these prisoners sexually? I think it is in part because we live in a pornography-soaked culture. You can't turn on the television without seeing it. The number of movies that you can watch is minimal because so many are filled with moral rot, four-letter words, and brazen sex acts. The Internet is full of pornography, and when we make efforts to curb it, the courts strike them down. And so our kids are raised in this kind of garbage.

"Then when they become MPs in a prison in Iraq, they don't pull out the fingernails or set off loud radios to harass prisoners. Instead they strip them and make them pose in pretend sex acts - just like pornography. And then they film it - incredible . . .

"Have we allowed the environment to be so polluted with pornography that we have young men and women putting on the uniform and behaving in this reprehensible, lewd manner? A good question for the public debate at the moment is whether we have brought all of this on ourselves by our addiction to or toleration for pornography."