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

Should we shut it down?

  • Total voters
    9
Over four days and still no one (except for me) is willing to say 'yea'. And those hypothetical kids keep on coming.
 
On every street corner there is a self-service 'establishment' (loosely defined) that stocks porn. A sign on the door says 'over eighteens only' but anyone entering can do so safe in the knowledge that they will be alone and unobserved. It is well known that children regularly go there.
 
Ok, since this is in Social Issues and not R&P, I'll take the practical approach::

Sounds like more of a legal issue. If this was somehow legal, I would assume it was through a loophole, and society didn't actually want these things everywhere. Thats a lot of unecessary clutter on already crowded streets. So you go to zoning and move to have them banned?
 
Thermal said:
Ok, since this is in Social Issues and not R&P, I'll take the practical approach::

Sounds like more of a legal issue. If this was somehow legal, I would assume it was through a loophole, and society didn't actually want these things everywhere. Thats a lot of unecessary clutter on already crowded streets. So you go to zoning and move to have them banned?
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There's no mention of whether the establishments are legal or not - and given that 'nay' is an option then this isn't about that. But you do have the power to make a difference.
 
Poem said:
There's no mention of whether the establishments are legal or not - and given that 'nay' is an option then this isn't about that. But you do have the power to make a difference.
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Whether the things are legal.or not makes a major difference in the approach. An illegally installed public Masterbation Station is easy enough to have removed by the city, I'd think.
 
Thermal said:
Whether the things are legal.or not makes a major difference in the approach. An illegally installed public Masterbation Station is easy enough to have removed by the city, I'd think.
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It seems that in the scenario, only people like you and me can make the shut down happen...or not.
 
Cheap analogy to Internet porn.

A little hint to teenagers: you think you are unobserved, but your parents have to tidy up after you, and they were in puberty once, too.

Answer, as always: can you make a cure that won't be my much worse than the disease?

Minors NEED space, time and perceived privacy to explore their sexuality. Porn is a generally safe way to do it compared to alternatives.
 
Poem said:
On every street corner there is a self-service 'establishment' (loosely defined) that stocks porn. A sign on the door says 'over eighteens only' but anyone entering can do so safe in the knowledge that they will be alone and unobserved. It is well known that children regularly go there.
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This would appear to be an issue for the parents to address. Given that in this scenario it appears there is no illegality or available legal remedy. Given that in this scenario the children will be alone, there appears to be no risk of molestation or assault, and as they are unobserved there is no issue of images of them being recorded.
 
Poem said:
If the hypothetical establishment in the analogy only proffered content that avoided such extremes...what then?
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If the hypothetical only had happy people having vanilla sex? Then I wouldn't feel particularly bothered about getting it shut down, no.
 
Poem said:
It seems that in the scenario, only people like you and me can make the shut down happen...or not.
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The scenario is unclear on that, especially if it is so unclear that we don't even know if these things are legal or not.

If this is supposed to be analogous to whether we need to shut down internet porn, there's a big difference between what is done in the privacy of a home, and what is done out in the open on every street corner. Sex, generally, falls under such an umbrella, and we e could get into all kinds of goofy analogies about every street corner having a Nooner Nookie Nook.
 
Thermal said:
The scenario is unclear on that, especially if it is so unclear that we don't even know if these things are legal or not.

If this is supposed to be analogous to whether we need to shut down internet porn, there's a big difference between what is done in the privacy of a home, and what is done out in the open on every street corner. Sex, generally, falls under such an umbrella, and we e could get into all kinds of goofy analogies about every street corner having a Nooner Nookie Nook.
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The question is to you and everyone - do you want it shut down or not?
 
For context, this is coming from the "Does 'rape culture' accurately describe (many) societies?" "Does porn need to be banned and why is the answer yes?" thread. It's the first half of an appeal to analogy. Hilariously, it's also presented in the form of a leading question with only one correct answer.

If you want to follow along at home:
  1. You must agree that streetcorner porn stores that sell to children should be shut down.
  2. Streetcorner porn stores that sell to children are properly analogous to online porn sites that children can access.
  3. Therefore, since you agree that streetcorner stores should be shut down, you have already agreed by analogy that online porn sites must be shut down. Checkmate, hedonists, free speech advocates, and pornographers!
This all arises from the unfortunate circumstance that Poem is tired of trying to get people to accept their proposal that all pornography must be banned. Instead of letting people make up their own minds, they've resorted to this nonsense to try to force a win for their side of the debate.

I've already told Poem that everyone can see this kind of heavyhanded "argument" for what it is, and nobody likes to play along with such rhetorical games. Maybe an analogy-lover will shortly prove me wrong, though.
 
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If they're on every corner how can they do enough business to stay afloat? Or are some of them 'spite porn shops' opened up to siphon off customers from the neighboring shops? I'm assuming they're all independently owned, as not even Starbucks saturates the market to that degree.

If they're brick and mortar I'm assuming that means they sell physical media. Why then hasn't one of the competing shops done a Netflix and turned to 'streaming only', to reduce the need to pay rent on a physical location?

Also, given the number of shops that exist, competition must be so great that prices have been driven to near or at dealer cost. That alone should drive a few out of business.

Oh, and again due to saturation, have any of the locations which didn't switch over to streaming branched out to sell other items? Not just adult toys and the like, but snacks and such? Have there been any studies which look at what additional offerings pull in the most customers? E.g. is a porn shop which sells pizza more popular than one which sells ice cream?

And that might answer one of my questions above - if they branch out to other items, they can stay in business by selling the porn at cost, but marking the hell up out of the other items (kind of like movie theaters and concessions). So then we'd need to study just how much more people would be willing to pay for that convenient pizza when getting their porn.

Then I guess we'd need to know if any of them opened up a drive through option. I know the Starbucks I pass by on the way to work every morning always has a huge line of cars at the drive through window. But since they're on every corner, what would that do to local traffic patterns, and would people be more or less likely to sit in a line to get porn at a window vs coffee?

I think we need to study the above questions more thoroughly before we can start talking about closing any of them.
 
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Joe Random said:
If they're on every corner how can they do enough business to stay afloat? Or are some of them 'spite porn shops' opened up to siphon off customers from the neighboring shops? I'm assuming they're all independently owned, as not even Starbucks saturates the market to that degree.

If they're brick and mortar I'm assuming that means they sell physical media. Why then hasn't one of the competing shops done a Netflix and turned to 'streaming only', to reduce the need to pay rent on a physical location?

Also, given the number of shops that exist, competition must be so great that prices have been driven to near or at dealer cost. That alone should drive a few out of business.

Oh, and again due to saturation, have any of the locations which didn't switch over to streaming branched out to sell other items? Not just adult toys and the like, but snacks and such? Have there been any studies which look at what additional offerings pull in the most customers? E.g. is a porn shop which sells pizza more popular than one which sells ice cream?

And that might answer one of my questions above - if they branch out to other items, they can stay in business by selling the porn at cost, but marking the hell up out of the other items (kind of like movie theaters and concessions). So then we'd need to study just how much more people would be willing to pay for that convenient pizza when getting their porn.

Then I guess we'd need to know if any of them opened up a drive through option. I know the Starbucks I pass by on the way to work every morning always has a huge line of cars at the drive through window. But since they're on every corner, what would that do to local traffic patterns, and would people be more or less likely to sit in a line to get porn at a window vs coffee?

I think we need to study the above questions more thoroughly before we can start talking about closing any of them.
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I think you are pissing off the OP.
 
Well now, let's not commit the old "fallacy of the absolute" here. Porn is a pretty
big field. Some kinds of porn will repel some people and not others; some porn
will delight some people (probably a lot of people; c'mon, we all know that)
and bore the rest. And so on; plenty of nuances to go around.

Seems to me that we need to elect a Master in Pornography to oversee
this here social endeavor. A studious expert is called for, someone who's
sampled, studied, and assessed porn and its impacts on every damn thing
everywhere.

Who do I nominate for this great overarching rôle at the forefront of social
and moral and legal and psychological reform? Myself? Noooo.

The name starts with a P. That's all I intend to say. Call me coy if you wish.
 
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