What would you consider a major "culture war" battleground?

[Poem]

That doesn't mean I'm wrong. Personally I think much of the establishment's prudishness regarding sexuality retards healthy sexual development by inducing anxiety and hiding valuable information.

Perhaps it has to do more with the fact that mainstream sites are rife with content suggesting sexual activity with children than prudishness. That is the where we are at. It's the corollary of legalizing porn in the first place and emphasizing the first amendment (or equivalent).

Well based on nothing other than what you say here, it is my considered opinion that Ian Critchley is an idiot.

People have blamed violence on media for decades, and never once has the connection been conclusively proved. Violent movies and violent video games do not induce real-world violence and there is no reason to think that pornography is any different.

Are you an expert? The experts I cited aren't making this up. Children are acting out in real life what they have seen in porn.

This is why it is important to have this conversation with kids

Sure.

Like I said, kids are going to find porn regardless. You can't stop it. If you try to hide it from them, they will go behind your back and you do not want kids to learn what sex is from porn alone.

No they are not going to 'find porn regardless'. Adult society made it legal and free...only then has it become an issue - so yes we can stop it.

 

[arthwollipot]

Are you an expert? The experts I cited aren't making this up. Children are acting out in real life what they have seen in porn.

I am an expert in my own children, who as I said have grown up very well-adjusted and sexually mature, so there's an n=1 of demonstration that what I say works. n=2 actually since I'm referring to two children.

No they are not going to 'find porn regardless'. Adult society made it legal and free...only then has it become an issue - so yes we can stop it.

Oh you sweet summer child. No, those times have passed.

Say you make porn illegal in America, as Project 2025 outlines. This in no way affects the massive Russian porn industry. Can you block those sources? They'll use a VPN, and in doing so they will also be hiding their activity from you and anyone else, so you will have no idea what is affecting your child.

You cannot prevent your child from accessing porn. Not without locking them down and severely restricting their freedoms, which I would argue is a Bad Thing. They will go behind your back. They will hide things from you, which is only fair, they will reason, since you hid things from them. This is not a formula for a well-adjusted and sexually mature adult.

I'm requesting a thread split, since I'm pretty sure this will not end here.

 

[Poem]

I am an expert in my own children, who as I said have grown up very well-adjusted and sexually mature, so there's an n=1 of demonstration that what I say works. n=2 actually since I'm referring to two children.

Oh you sweet summer child. No, those times have passed.

Say you make porn illegal in America, as Project 2025 outlines. This in no way affects the massive Russian porn industry. Can you block those sources? They'll use a VPN, and in doing so they will also be hiding their activity from you and anyone else, so you will have no idea what is affecting your child.

You cannot prevent your child from accessing porn. Not without locking them down and severely restricting their freedoms, which I would argue is a Bad Thing. They will go behind your back. They will hide things from you, which is only fair, they will reason, since you hid things from them. This is not a formula for a well-adjusted and sexually mature adult.

I'm requesting a thread split, since I'm pretty sure this will not end here.

Indeed, let's not derail this thread. if you want to post this here:

https://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=370195

then I'll reply. if not, no worries.

 

[arthwollipot]

[/B]

Indeed, let's not derail this thread. if you want to post this here:

https://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=370195

then I'll reply. if not, no worries.

Nope. Very wrong thread.

 

[Venom]

Who said there was anything wrong with sexual desire? Or marrying young?

That's pretty much the implication, or one of them at least. Often what is explicitly fearmongered over becomes the issue over time, seemingly just because. And I always want to ask...what exactly do we expect will happen due to this behavior or phenomenon?

 

[Orphia Nay]

That's pretty much the implication, or one of them at least. Often what is explicitly fearmongered over becomes the issue over time, seemingly just because. And I always want to ask...what exactly do we expect will happen due to this behavior or phenomenon?

"Often what is explicitly fearmongered over becomes the issue over time, seemingly just because."

Nicely put, and applies in so many threads.

Relates to what I was saying in this one about not wanting to tell conservatives what they should cancel next.

Also, when a few in one wing make a big deal about an individual extremist, a few on the other wing jump to say the extremist might have a point, and the story blows up and the issue becomes tribal on a big scale, inspiring dog whistles, buzzwords, trigger words, fake news, and urban myths.

 

[Poem]

That's pretty much the implication, or one of them at least. Often what is explicitly fearmongered over becomes the issue over time, seemingly just because. And I always want to ask...what exactly do we expect will happen due to this behavior or phenomenon?

Probably my bad Venom, but I'm not following you.

 

[Cat Not Included]

This is demonstrably false. Title IX and any other laws concerning sex equality have to be interpreted either to include trans women as women or not, and such laws predate the anti-trans laws by decades.

You're going to have be way more specific about what 'culture war' you're talking about here. "There's disagreement over how to apply a law" happens, like, constantly. Most of it isn't culture wars.

And then, like, you weirdly just mention trans women and not trans men, non-binary, intersex (which can have assorted overlaps with trans). The far right trans attack is also really harmful to intersex people. A lot of the fighting to protect trans people also protects intersex people. But is there a "culture war" about intersex people? Most of the far right won't even to begin to acknowledge that intersex people exist.

In 1821.

Hey, you could probably go farther back. Villainizing, criminalizing and murdering midwives and women medical practitioners to prevent women having better reproductive health care goes back before that. But what's your point? If a "culture war" goes on long enough you flip which side started it?

 

[Venom]

Probably my bad Venom, but I'm not following you.

Is there evidence that viewing pornography or learning about sex early leads to people doing it earlier than usual or becoming sleazy pervs is the question I think worth exploring. Our gut feeling tells us yes and I think that's where the concern comes from, but I'm not sure this is the case. We could say this more generally about other moral panics. I mean if there's evidence, then I'd love to see it.

I've just become wary of moral, ethical concerns that often become the problem, we get stuck on the concern forever but what do we actually expect if we let this behavior or phenomenon continue?

 

[Darat]

Is there evidence that viewing pornography or learning about sex early leads to people doing it earlier than usual or becoming sleazy pervs is the question I think worth exploring. Our gut feeling tells us yes and I think that's where the concern comes from, but I'm not sure this is the case. We could say this more generally about other moral panics. I mean if there's evidence, then I'd love to see it.

I've just become wary of moral, ethical concerns that often become the problem, we get stuck on the concern forever but what do we actually expect if we let this behavior or phenomenon continue?

It appears that the kids today are having less sex with fewer partners than us of Generation Slut.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-48184848

 

[arthwollipot]

I can't possibly imagine how or why more education could be bad.

 

[Poem]

Is there evidence that viewing pornography or learning about sex early leads to people doing it earlier than usual or becoming sleazy pervs is the question I think worth exploring. Our gut feeling tells us yes and I think that's where the concern comes from, but I'm not sure this is the case. We could say this more generally about other moral panics. I mean if there's evidence, then I'd love to see it.

I've just become wary of moral, ethical concerns that often become the problem, we get stuck on the concern forever but what do we actually expect if we let this behavior or phenomenon continue?

The Guardian, April 2022:

In a strongly worded open letter to the largest pornography sites in the UK, a coalition of charities and child safety experts led by Barnardo’s said the harm being done to children was so severe that the issue could not wait to be addressed as part of the online safety bill, which has yet to come into effect.

Note there is zero push back from the newspaper and no citing of any experts who disagree. Showing porn to a child is sexual abuse - which occurs as we speak care of the easy-access porn industry. This and related is discussed here.

 

[sackett]

"Showing porn to a child is sexual abuse." When a child finds porn on his own, is he abusing himself?

Maybe not right then, but later.

 

[theprestige]

I can't possibly imagine how or why more education could be bad.

... Which is why you advocate fellatio classes in kindergarten?

 

[sackett]

In post #162,

there's a longish quote from ProdJerk 2025 about porn and porn dealers. Note that it's littered with that tricky word "should," used in its sense of "ought to be." It takes a lot of truculent presumption to assert that freedom of expression ought to be curtailed -- destroyed, in fact, by a pack of reactionary do-badders.

People could live much happier lives, if they just didn't constantly should all over themselves.

 

[Venom]

I'll file this under the role of the family in the culture wars. Let's fix modern parenting a bit and don't let kids below high school go crazy with internet access. Enforcement will have to be a collective effort. I'd like to see it, but it won't be practical.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Liberals love the wolf reintroduction and happily tolerate prairie dogs in and around towns, conservatives hate both with a passion and would happily consider driving prairie dogs to extinction.

This might be the strangest framing of an issue I've run across in a long time. I think you're making a lot of unwarranted assumptions here. Specifically, I think you're assuming that this falls along political lines, and I really don't think that's the case. Most people that I know - both conservative and liberal - like wolves and approve of reintroduction. On the other hand, most people that I know that dislike prairie dogs are farmers or ranchers, and their dislike has nothing to do with their politics. Prairie dogs cause damage to fields that affect agriculture, but also present a risk to livestock - both in terms of injury but also because they carry the plague. Every few years there's an outbreak in the Navajo nation as a result of prairie dogs.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Anyway... back to the actual OP. Topics I think will end up being significant in the shaping of cultural views include:

Marxism, including the various marxist-instigated philosophies that presume an oppressor-oppressed conflict. This encompasses the children-of-marxism that fall under the heading of critical theory, including critical race theory and queer theory.

Immigration policy, including citizenry by dint of being born on US soil, illegal entry to the US, what constitutes genuine asylum, and how we mitigate the risk of terrorist and extremist ideologies entering through immigration.

The conflict between transgender and female rights, dignity, and expectation of treatment in society, as well as athletics, medical treatment, prison placement, provision of intimate care, and domestic violence and rape shelters.

Legislation and policing of the internet and social media, including not just cyber crimes like hacking and viruses, but also harassment, stalking, fraud, propaganda, disinformation, online pornography, and AI. And probably a bunch more stuff that hasn't come to mind at the moment.

 

[Venom]

The role of the family vs government institutions

 

[Emily's Cat]

The role of the family vs government institutions

Yeah, that's probably a good one. It's also got some overlap into several other topics already mentioned.