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Does 'rape culture' accurately describe (many) societies?

oh, my bad. you called society as a whole perverted because they don't support your position.
 
Poem said:
Since you concede that all laws 'have interpretational issues', then your objection to a porn ban for the same reasons isn't tenable. I am not a legal expert - so asking me to draft what would take a panel of such experts a lengthy period of time and consultation isn't reasonable. If we can bring a law in to deal with modern slavery issues (as the UK did with MSA), then we can do the same with porn.
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Panels of experts are available. If you want support for a proposed law, you have to specify what the law will actually say. Describing a law by its intention, so as to garner support, only to pass a law based on a different covert intention (or that is so poorly worded that it has unintended bad consequences and/or fails in its claimed intention), is the oldest trick of authoritarians, fanatics, and people with axes to grind. Based on your rhetorical tactics in this thread, I would be a fool to trust you to enact a law now, figure out what it actually says later, even if that were possible. (In reality, no law can be voted on, either by referendum or by legislature, without its exact language.

Poem said:
In the UK we have:
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That doesn't list any category called "extreme."

The category called "obscene" might be what you have in mind, but the test there is based on the viewer's subjective reaction of finding something "patently offensive."

There are any number of people who find depictions of fully consensual non-violent group sex, gay sex, anal sex, or sex between people of different races "patently offensive." But those are categories of ordinary porn and are in no way extreme.

Poem said:
Not nude then.

I assume that if it isn't nude then it's not nude.
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By the same token, "not underage" means not underage regardless of how a performer might be abstractly represented via costume, makeup, digital modification, or the surrounding narrative (e.g. "look at me, I'm fifteen!"). But you regard such clearly "not underage" cases as problematic for being equivalent to underage. So, again, I have no reason to trust you to maintain clear and consistent distinctions in such judgments.

Also by the same token, "consensual" means acts that the performers have consented to perform, regardless of how the acts might be represented narratively (e.g. the scripted dialog saying "No! Stop!"). But you regard such clearly consensual cases as problematic for being equivalent to non-consensual, just because they depict non-consensual acts. So, again, I have no reason to trust you to maintain clear and consistent distinctions in such judgments.

Also, by that definition, no character in a novel can be nude (as there are no genitals visible regardless of what the words on the page say) nor can sex acts occur in a novel (as no visible sex takes place regardless of what the words on the page say). Yet you included books in your list of media subject to your definition of porn. So yet again, I have no reason to trust you to maintain clear and consistent distinctions in such judgments.

Poem said:
Lacks clarity.

As already made clear, there will never be a definition that isn't nebulous to some degree. Existing laws have the same or similar problems - and I cited the MSA to make that point.
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Now that the issue's been pointed out, you're just making excuses for laziness. Unless the laziness has a purpose, such as disguising the actual intent of the changes in law you're advocating, in which case you're trying and failing to deceive.

Poem said:
Mere assertion. You are trivialising the serious nature of the porn problem.
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How is asking for proposed legislation to be clear and well-crafted trivializing anything?

Poem said:
All countries (except the USA) are legally bound to make the internet a safe place for children (a result of signing and ratifying the UNCRC):

Children should be able to access information they can understand on TV, radio, in books and newspapers and on the internet. Governments should make sure children are protected from things that could harm them.
Children and young people should be protected from media that would be harmful to them. This includes:
- pornography,
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Go ahead and make the Internet safe then. I'm not stopping you. I'm objecting to your vaguely worded wish to ban all porn.

Poem said:
If we are talking about banning porn, then obviously it would include paid or free content.
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That provision would force me to delete the private nude photographs of my wife from years ago when we were younger, or risk prosecution. I would resist such tyranny by all available means including violence if needed.

Tell me again how the details of what should and should not be banned aren't worth the bother of specifying beforehand.

Poem said:
Those grey areas are a reality for the MSA but we still passed the law.
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If the MSA had been as poorly thought out as your porn ban, I'd have to set my dog free.

Poem said:
Are you seriously suggesting that modern society needs porn?
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Modern society includes many things that make it modern, including porn.

You could have a society without porn, and also without paved highways, passenger airlines, tall buildings, democracy, land ownership by non-nobility, refrigeration, antibiotics, telecommunications, anesthesia, computers, or electricity. Such societies not only existed, they were the norm until recently. Of course, they weren't and wouldn't be "modern" societies. More like medieval societies. But at least the children would be safe. Oh, wait, no they wouldn't be, they'd die in droves like they used to.

Poem said:
You think you don't support any laws that imprison the innocent or those that fall between the cracks?
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There are no laws that imprison the innocent. There are unjust laws that unjustly declare people guilty who have caused no real offense, and there are unjust prosecutors who prosecute the innocent (sometimes based on subjective interpretation of poorly written laws). I don't support either variety of injustice.
 
You can't ban porn, any more than you can ban prostitution or abortion. You can only ban safe porn. And I might point out that child porn and revenge porn and suchlike are already illegal in most if not all places, and yet it still unfortunately happens. And I've provided evidence that such material is not only illegal but also contrary to the terms of service of the one porn aggregator that is getting all the attention.

Humans have always made porn, and always will. The only thing we can do about it is to teach our children what it is and how to deal with it maturely. Keeping secrets from your children only ensures that they will keep secrets from you.
 
Lithrael said:
....wh... look. Okay, I literally JUST said it. Once again... The problem isn't that it can't be done, the problem is that it's not useful to charge ahead with a muddy definition.

We did NOT successfully ban slavery by just saying "Ban Slavery." Even GOOD ideas need more steps. Advocates need to be interested in thinking about the steps that will help accomplish their goals. Without creating unforseen problems!
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Keeping children safe is a first step. Essential, to do that properly, we need to make porn unavailable to them. And we are legally bound to do so (UNCRC). I don't think we can do it without banning porn.
 
arthwollipot said:
This is hyperbole. If I walk outside, I do not see porn. If I go to the shopping centre, I do not see porn. I do not see porn on billboards or on the sides of buses. Everywhere I look, there is no porn - unless I choose to look in the places where the porn is.

I don't call that "wall-to-wall" or "super-saturation".
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You keep ignoring a child's human right to access the internet and that governments are legally responsible to make that a safe place for them. The net is full of beneficial content for children. No child should be a couple of clicks away from porn. A child's naivete will impact on what they will end up seeing so their experience will not be the same as an adult. Adults know that clicking on certain seemingly tame links will probably lead, eventually, to porn.

In the real world, porn is absolutely everywhere.
 
theprestige said:
I wouldn't say you're wrong, but I do disagree with your definition of the UN. I'd say the UN is a diplomatic forum for nations to air grievances, work towards consensus, and engage in all the other diplomatic activities that support peaceful conflict resolution and international cooperation. It's not a lawmaking body. It's not an enforcement body. It's not a judiciary body. It's a diplomatic body. Its main virtue is that it gives scumbag regimes a platform to make their voices heard, without resorting to violence. And that is a wonderful thing. I'm glad the UN exists. It pisses me off that so many people have got such a wrong idea of what it is and isn't supposed to be.


I think 3point14's characterization is pretty accurate.
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Not true:

The UNCRC is a legally binding agreement which sets out the civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights of every child. It proclaims that children have a distinct set of rights and sets out the positive obligations on public authorities to ensure all children can enjoy their UNCRC rights.
 
Poem said:
Keeping children safe is a first step. Essential, to do that properly, we need to make porn unavailable to them. And we are legally bound to do so (UNCRC). I don't think we can do it without banning porn.
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We already ban and criminalise porn in the UK that features children, regardless of the format of that porn, indeed we take it even further and have criminalised material such as a photo of a naked baby in a bath if it is being distributed as porn (a picture you've taken of your own naked baby having a bath is perfectly legal of course) and we deal with such criminality in the most severe manner we can in the UK i.e. long prison sentences for such criminal behaviour. That however does not stop such porn from being accessible to anyone with a connection to the internet nor stops it being produced. Criminalisation of all porn would not achieve what you seem to think it would i.e. remove all porn.

And as ever your claim all porn needs to be banned because some children may be able to access some porn is a wedge argument to try and achieve what you actually want which is for all porn to disappear. You are not concerned about children accessing porn, you are concerned about porn. At least try and be honest in your "arguments".
 
Poem said:
You keep ignoring a child's human right to access the internet and that governments are legally responsible to make that a safe place for them. The net is full of beneficial content for children. No child should be a couple of clicks away from porn. A child's naivete will impact on what they will end up seeing so their experience will not be the same as an adult. Adults know that clicking on certain seemingly tame links will probably lead, eventually, to porn.

In the real world, porn is absolutely everywhere.
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I'd like to see one of the ways a child accidentally ends up on a porn site. Have you any examples? Yes older kids will find porn on the internet when they start to look for it.

ETA: Corrected "a porn site" to be "on porn".
 
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Poem said:
You keep ignoring a child's human right to access the internet and that governments are legally responsible to make that a safe place for them. The net is full of beneficial content for children. No child should be a couple of clicks away from porn. A child's naivete will impact on what they will end up seeing so their experience will not be the same as an adult. Adults know that clicking on certain seemingly tame links will probably lead, eventually, to porn.

In the real world, porn is absolutely everywhere.
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I have outlined a proposal that would effectively stop any child from accessing porn on the internet that does not involve porn on the internet being banned for adults.
 
Darat said:
I'd like to see one of the ways a child accidentally ends up on a porn site. Have you any examples? Yes older kids will find porn on the internet when they start to look for it.
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Are you suggesting that X isn't a porn site?
 
Darat said:
We already ban and criminalise porn in the UK that features children, regardless of the format of that porn, indeed we take it even further and have criminalised material such as a photo of a naked baby in a bath if it is being distributed as porn (a picture you've taken of your own naked baby having a bath is perfectly legal of course) and we deal with such criminality in the most severe manner we can in the UK i.e. long prison sentences for such criminal behaviour. That however does not stop such porn from being accessible to anyone with a connection to the internet nor stops it being produced. Criminalisation of all porn would not achieve what you seem to think it would i.e. remove all porn.
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None of which should stop us from trying.
Darat said:
And as ever your claim all porn needs to be banned because some children may be able to access some porn is a wedge argument to try and achieve what you actually want which is for all porn to disappear. You are not concerned about children accessing porn, you are concerned about porn. At least try and be honest in your "arguments".
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I am concerned about children - please stop suggesting I am not.

I believe that porn is having a pernicious influence on society as a whole. Much evidence has been cited that backs that up.
 
The bare minimum is that we fulfil our legal obligation (self-imposed obligation) to make sure children are safe on the net.
 
Poem said:
Are you suggesting that X isn't a porn site?
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Sorry - I should have said "porn" not "porn site". I went and corrected my post.

And yes X is not a porn site, its function is not to deliver porn. This forum has porn on it (according to some), is it therefore a porn site? And indeed there is explicitly pornographic material on this site - it is in the section called "Deep Storage" which is a repository for content that has to be removed entirely from public view for various reasons.
 
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Poem said:
No child should be a couple of clicks away from porn.
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No child is "a couple of clicks" away from porn.

Poem said:
In the real world, porn is absolutely everywhere.
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In the real real world, it isn't. It's in very specific places that you can find if you go looking for them. And to access the really dodgy stuff you have to expend considerable effort because the people who produce and distribute it go to great lengths to hide their tracks because it's illegal.

I haven't even accidentally come across porn on Reddit, and that's one of the most problematic of the sites that host porn because of its inconsistent rules and moderation. And TBH I can't speak about Formerly Known As Twitter since I haven't used it regularly for quite a few years. But when I did, I also was never able to accidentally encounter porn. You have to know what you're looking for and actively seek it out.

Also, I haven't yet seen a precise enumeration of exactly the "harm" that legal porn does to children, other than what I have already said in that it gives young people an unrealistic expectation of what real sex is or should be. And that's a problem that is quite easily mitigated by the thing I keep on banging on about - education. Make sure kids know that porn performers are paid actors playing out a role and they won't base their own behaviour on what they see, any more than they base their behaviour on what they see in a Fast and Furious movie.

There was a show when my kids were growing up called "Movie Magic". It was a short five-minute between-shows filler on Nickelodeon or something that showed exactly how movie scenes were created. It showed them, from an early age, that movies are not real, special effects are not real, and that movie monsters can't hurt them. This meant that by the time they were old enough to be horny and go looking on their own for porn, which they did, they already understood that movies weren't reality. It's as simple as that. Well... as simple as that and having open and honest conversations with them and answering their questions without deception or equivocation. You know, like a parent should do with their kids.

And now, both of them are adult (late 20s) and sexually active, and neither of them has an unwanted child, or a rape conviction, or a sexually transmitted infection. I'm proud of them.
 
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