To those that think this administration isnt out to prosecute normal adult porn better think again.
By Brian Alexander
MSNBC contributor
Updated: 7:08 a.m. ET Sept. 29, 2005
We have the War on Terror, the War on Drugs, the War on Crime, and now, the War on Porn.
In a Sept. 20 story in the Washington Post, writer Barton Gellman revealed that the FBI has signed onto the Bush administration?s War on Porn by recruiting agents for a special anti-obscenity squad.
And they won?t just be looking for child porn, either, but pornography for grown-ups, made by grown-ups, featuring grown-ups.
Critics say the specter of 10 G-Men hunched over video screens watching porn princess Raylene diddle the pool boy may not be the best use of the FBI?s time. Advocates say it?s long past time the government cracked down because pornography can turn people into sexual predators.
Anti-porn crusades have been tried before, of course. During the Reagan administration, for example, attorney general Edwin Meese III convened a controversial study panel to examine the effects of pornography and suggest ways to prosecute purveyors. In the end, nothing much came of it.
Certain fundamentalist religious groups and strains of feminists never gave up, however, and now Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, spurred by congressional legislation, has taken up the cause.
But if sources for the Post story are any indication, FBI director Robert Mueller may have a tough time finding agents who take the job seriously. Not only are they more focused on, say, rooting out terrorists and making sure CEOs don?t run off with the shareholders? dough, but an awful lot of the FBI no doubt have some personal experience with porn.
?Honestly,? Gellman quotes one, ?most of the guys would have to recuse themselves.?
A danger to society?
Of course, if porn really is such a danger to society, the effort might be worth it. The problem is, the research doesn?t support the worry. And if recent studies by Danish psychologist Gert Martin Hald of the University of Aarhus stand up, it?s not likely to.
Hald recently conducted a yet-to-be-published study on the usage of porn by men and women in Denmark that showed porn has become a part of the sexual lives of most people.
We?re not talking Playboy, either. Hald didn?t count such images as pornography. For the purposes of the study, porn included ?any kind of material which aims to create or enhance sexual feelings or thoughts in the recipient and, at the same time, (a) contains explicit exposure and/or descriptions of the genitals and (b) clear and explicit sexual acts such as vaginal intercourse, anal intercourse, oral sex, masturbation, bondage, sadomasochism, rape..." (Interestingly, this is pretty close to the definition used in many obscenity statutes.)
?Especially we were surprised that so many women had used pornography and used it on a regular basis,? Hald told MSNBC.com. Men don?t have much room for an increase. ?Ceiling effect,? Hald joked.
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