Ruth Institute Blog

by Patrick A Trueman

An exclusive focus on prosecuting child pornography cases ignores a well known fact about adult porn.

Note: This essay is part of the 2012 Election Symposium on The Public Discourse.

Since President Obama took office, the Department of Justice has not initiated one adult pornography criminal case. The reason, we are told, is that investigators are overwhelmed with child pornography cases. Problematically, a growing number of law enforcement officers and investigators report that consumption of adult pornography leads to consumption of child pornography. Read more…

by Robert P. George

Every member of the community has an interest in the quality of the culture that will shape their experiences, their quality of life, and the choices effectively available to them and their children.

Theorists of public morality–from the ancient Greek philosophers and Roman jurists on–have noticed that apparently private acts of vice, when they multiply and become widespread, can imperil important public interests. This fact embarrasses philosophical efforts to draw a sharp line that distinguishes a realm of “private” morality that is not subject to law from a domain of public actions that may rightly be subjected to legal regulation. Read more…

by Charlie Butts

According to Morality in Media (MIM) president Pat Trueman, it is “a major step forward from an influential country that could have worldwide effects,” as the idea is to shield children from explicit material. To help accomplish this, parents and guardians will be able to use a site called Parentport that allows them to complain about websites, products, services, or programming that they believe is not appropriate for children. Read more…

by Jennifer S. Bryson

Captured caches of terrorist material often include pornography. Could pornography pose a risk to national security?

A federal grand jury recently indicted Army soldier Naser Jason Abdo, age 21, on three charges related to a plot to attack soldiers near Fort Hood, Texas. When authorities arrested him, they found in his possession bomb-making materials, a gun, ammunition, and the article ”Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom,” from a recent issue of al-Qaeda’s English online journal Inspire. Initial questioning of Abdo indicates that his intended targets were U.S. military personnel… Read more…

by Patrick A. Trueman

Ending child pornography is as much a matter of vigorously prosecuting those who distribute adult pornography as it is a matter of prosecuting child pornographers. Presidential candidates should pledge to initiate adult pornography criminal cases and fund research into the adult-child pornography link. Read more…

Internet porn is everywhere; even “nice” guys are hooked. So where does that leave their girlfriends?

By David Amsden

For Jonathan—an attractive, Ivy League– educated musician and adjunct professor—it all started a couple of years ago, when he was working as a temp in the sleek offices of a Madison Avenue ad agency. There he was, seated at his desk, half-heartedly going over pitches for new accounts, when a colleague tapped him on the shoulder. Read more…

In the end, porn doesn’t whet men’s appetites—it turns them off the real thing.

By Naomi Wolf

At a benefit the other night, I saw Andrea Dworkin, the anti-porn activist most famous in the eighties for her conviction that opening the floodgates of pornography would lead men to see real women in sexually debased ways. If we did not limit pornography, she argued—before Internet technology made that prospect a technical impossibility—most men would come to objectify women as they objectified porn stars, and treat them accordingly. In a kind of domino theory, she predicted, rape and other kinds of sexual mayhem would surely follow. Read more…

These researchers are probably not members of the Religious Right.  They are
probably old-fashioned feminists who worry about the over-sexualization and
exploitation of women.

Popular media’s hypersexualization of women may be worse than you think

BUFFALO, N.Y. — A study by University at Buffalo sociologists has found that the portrayal of women in the popular media over the last several decades has become increasingly sexualized, even “pornified.” The same is not true of the portrayal of men. Read more…

by Charlie Butts

While congratulating the Department of Justice on a recent child porn bust, one anti-porn crusader argues investigators need to ascertain the roots of suspects’ desire for child porn. Read more…

This is an older article I thought I’d repost since the topic has been kicking around here quite a bit lately.

by Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D.

As the author of a book called Smart Sex, I have become an expert on many forms of Dumb Sex. One of the weirdest to come to my attention is pornography addiction. I know, I know, we all have First Amendment Right to view just about anything we want, as much as we want, any time we want. But that doesn’t mean that every legal activity we choose is intelligent. If you’d rather view pornography than have a relationship with a real person, you’ve got a personal problem. And if you’ve got a nation full of young men mesmerized by porn videos, sex will become a spectator sport. That’s gotta hurt the birth rate. And it’s hard to believe its ultimately as much fun or as satisfying as the Real Thing. Read more…