Pornogrophy is damaging to society

Rebuttals: The Economy The distinction we must make here is whether something can be both good for the economy and bad for society. Yes porn is a massive industry with lucrative profits, but that doesn’t mean it follows it is good for society. For example Tabaco sales in 2010 accounted for revenues of close to $500 billion [1]. Despite this incredible boost to the global economy we have many social initiatives to inform young people and children of the dangers of smoking, for the purpose of eliminating it from society. Smoking is both tremendously helpful to the economy and also tremendously bad for society as a whole. One could also very easily look at the money brought into this country by drug trade and black market sales and conclude that "since they are good for the economy they must be good for society". Obviously this isn’t the case, and the harm they do outweighs the economic impact. This is the case for pornography. Health Benefits A. Masturbation (I’m tempted to call out a red herring here since we are talking about the problems with pornography and not masturbation. It is not uncommon for people to masturbate without the use of pornography. Also most studies that link health benefits of masturbation are of older men that haven't grown up with the extreme porn content that this generation is experiencing. I will address it anyways and let the voters decide if the argument is valid.) When people talk of the health benefits of masturbation they fall into a false cause fallacy. Is it really the aggressively touching yourself in front of a screen (pardon the detail) that causes health benefits or is it ejaculation that causes the health benefits? You might say well masturbation causes ejaculation and you are right but it isn’t the only way. The two natural ways people get the benefits of ejaculation are from nocturnal emissions and natural sex. In fact studies have shown that real sex does more for your health then masturbation [2]. "It appears that not all orgasms are created equally," says Tobias S. Köhler, MD, MPH, an associate professor at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine in Springfield. Study after study shows that intercourse has all sorts of benefits for men for your blood pressure, heart and prostate health, pain, and more. You'd think that masturbation would, too. But it doesn't." With these two natural ways men and women still experience the biological benefits of ejaculation without the harm of pornography. You also mention that masturbation has not negative effects, but since this is a debate about pornography not solely masturbation we can’t ignore the health risks of porn use. Porn induced ED: Porn induced erectile dysfunction is a real and growing problem as porn has become more accessible and increasingly addictive. Here are some quotes from theporneffect.com article “Porn and Impotency: What the Experts are saying” [3] “It’s hard to know exactly how many young men are suffering from porn-induced ED. But it’s clear that this is a new phenomenon, and it’s not rare.” – Dr. Abraham Morgentaler, Clinical Professor of Urology at the Harvard Medical School” “A study done at Cambridge University looking at men with porn addiction found that more than half of the subjects reported “that as a result of excessive use of sexually explicit materials, they had . . . experienced diminished libido or erectile function specifically in physical relationships with women (although not in relationship to the sexually explicit material).” “When a person is continuously strengthening the brain maps linking sexual excitement to porn, those maps enlarge and can crowd out maps linking sexual excitement to a real person or real sex.” ( Doidge, Norman. The Brain that Changes Itself. New York: Viking, 2007) You tell me why one must cling to pornography when you get the benefits of ejaculation through natural bodily functions without the harmful effects. B. Porn Reduces Stress In this argument you point out what I’ve already addressed when I talked about how porn affects the brain. Imagines that arouses us and give us pleasure release dopamine into the brain which relieves stress and makes one feel good. The problem is young men and women aren’t getting addicted to looking at “Good Housekeeping” (excuse the Step-Brothers reference) or SI swim suit editions. They are looking at thousands of imagines and movies of explicit and often hard-core porn and they are doing so for far longer than “a few minutes” As I’ve already addressed as our brains get used to the porn we look at they need more and more of a fix to get the same arousal. The assertion that looking at sexy pictures for a few minutes is equal to what is available only a few clicks away is nonsense. Listen to what celebrity Terry Crews says about his porn addiction that almost killed his marriage. “Some people say, 'Hey, man ... you can't really be addicted to pornography.' But I'm gonna tell you something: If day turns into night and you are still watching, you probably have got a problem. And that was me," he said.” [4] This is closer to the reality for most people. That is porn can take up hours of your day, not a few minutes. Decreases Sex Crimes Once again this argument is skirting around the problem that porn has caused in society and instead tries to link itself to an indirectly related topic. The supposed drop in sex crimes is not a result of all the sexual predators looking themselves in rooms and watching porn. It’s a result of the monumental underreporting of these sex crimes. Huffingtonpost.com published the article “Rape Is Grossly Underreported in the U.S, Study Finds”, calling into question to supposed drop in sex crimes. “The focal point of the study was the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) — an annual crime report conducted through household surveys by the U.S. Census Bureau for the Bureau of Justice Statistics — which counted 188,380 victims of rape and sexual assault in 2010. Another data source, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, counted nearly 1.3 million incidents that same year. Data from the FBI, which gathers its statistics on rape or attempted rape reported as a crime by local law enforcement, counted only 85,593 in 2010.”[5] The discrepancy of law enforcement reporting 85,593 to the CDC’s count of 1.3 million is massive. Either someone cannot count or there have been massive amounts of incidents that go unreported and only show up when a survey is done. Think about this logically, we want to train men and women (mostly men) to view the opposite sex as object only to be used for pleasure, often in violent and divant circumstances (which is what porn does). We will do this in order to promote healthy non-violent sexual relationships. Tell me how one follows the other… Go to any college campus and you know sexual assault and violence is a problem. We need to teach our young men to love and protect women that’s what is intrinsic to our nature*. Not train them to use and manipulate women for sex, which is what porn teaches men to do. *- When I say protect women I don’t mean women are fragile creatures that can’t stand up for themselves. Polish philosopher St. John Paul II said it best “God has assigned as a duty to every man the dignity of every woman” Thanks for the debate; I hope anyone who reads this learned something. Sources: 1.http://www.worldlungfoundation.org... 2.http://www.webmd.com... 3.http://theporneffect.com... 4.http://www.cnn.com... 5.http://www.huffingtonpost.com...