Chaitali

What a great piece. Thanks for some really eye opening statistics. Truly the net is one of man's greatest discoveries but like everything else it carries the power of transformation and with it the power to perpetuate man's dark side too.

Have more to comment on...will be back.

love

Dear Chaitali,

Very important and much needed topic to be discussed and understood. Great read Chaitali!

I guess technology, like anything else, can be used and misused. As human tendency goes, we end up crossing the line and turn a blessing to a curse. Take anonymity for instance, it can be put to good use like forming support groups etc. But it can also be used to swindle....

I think its upto us, the net users to be alert enough to sense anything fishy and not behave like babes in the woods in this day and age. We cant control anyone except ourselves.

So here's to awareness :-)

Hi Chaitali,

Very well written and a timely piece. I am going to take a deviation not totally unrelated to the topic you discuss. I hope its okay.

I live in the US which at the moment is uniquely wholly tilted towards the 'conservatives'. All 3 forms of government - President, House and Senate, and the leaning of the Chief Justices are 'conservative'. The so-called issues of abortion and pornography are central on their agenda, at the cost of real and pressing matters like a crumbling health care system and the erosion of environmental safeguards. The administration's motivation to meddle in these personal spheres expose an unabashed intent to legislate morality.

Specifically in pornography, the administration is slowly but surely starting a witch hunt eerily reminiscent of McCarthyism (when people were arbitrarily prosecuted for communist leanings in the 1950s) with so-called "research" efforts into child pornography. There is no transparency into the process and even basic identification and qualification discussions of who those "researchers" are and what their means entail are never provided! You might have
heard of the sub-poenas the administration issued to search engine companies in
order to get user's search results. All, purpotedly, to stamp out the scourge of
child pornography. MSN, Yahoo! and AOL, acquiesced in cowardly fashion, complying
with these legally dubious directives, without a peep to the press, or disclosure
to their millions of users. Google refused, and it has become a contentious issue.
In spite of the perfect alignment of all 3 forms of government, Google are able to make
this increasingly difficult for the wretched administration, thanks to some unbiased and
incorruptible people serving as federal judges. With shareholder pressure to control
law suits and the issue primed to catapult into the Supreme Court, who knows how long
even they will hold out? Nothing would please the administration more than a
raging debate on porn and morality - to distract from the more meaningful matters concerning
outright trampling of civil rights, the Geneva Accord and discarding UN recommendations.

Once access to such sensitive data is in government hands, it becomes very simple to
classify people into convenient groups and target them. Whether they are for and against
the Iraq war, for and against torture in Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib, et cetera. It sets the
stage for very effective profiling of individuals on a large scale. Their ability to
access all this information is triggered by tapping into people's inherent and
natural aversion to child pornography, and the general queasiness of most normal
adults to stand up for their unequivocal right to access and enjoy pornography.
They use this to tap into people's feeling of guilt and shame and gain unrestricted access
to sensitive and private data that stretches well beyond pornography. Then, in a heartbeat,
they will abuse the privilege and data-mine details out of the mountain of data to satisfy THEIR reprehensible and illegal perversion.

What most miss is that with illegal and deviant behavior, child pornography in this instance, you will not find an explosion of people indulging in it because of the internet. The same perverts indulged in it prior, and now technology allows a dramatically different form of access. The perverts no longer stalk the streets and schools, instead they habit chat rooms to prey on victims because it is simpler. This has a lot of positive implications if viewed another way. Monitoring chat rooms even on a massive scale (through automatic software analysis of what people are typing) can be distributed with the responsibility shared by moderators, ISPs and ultimately law enforcement. Contrast this with non-scalable physical surveillance and monitoring required in the non virtual world. An important question that no one bothers researching is whether the number of perverts has increased with the expanse into virtual territory. I am fairly sure it has not.

With mainstream 'legal' pornography involving consenting adults, no one seriously discusses the revenue trend and finances of brick and mortar strip joints and porn video stores. If one does, it will show a significant drop since people can now access material with a point and click in the privacy of their own homes. But with pornography available on the internet, I think the net consumption actually increases, unlike the child porn deviancy mentioned earlier. This is because the shyness and shame factor are largely removed when one surfs in the privacy of one's own home. And this is as it
ought to be. The shame and embarassment factors with overt sexuality and sexual expression
came in only because some petty minded cabals want to control and dictate how others should lead their lives.

In general, I think pornography is healthy provided the supply side of the equation does not involve coercion, and is engaged in by adult individuals. In many adult night clubs in the US, ownership is increasingly shared by the performers themselves, which is a good trend.

Societally, so many of our preferences are but a thin veneer over sexuality. Extraordinarily successful sitcoms like 'Three is Company', and more recently, Friends' and even 'Seinfeld' are filled with sexual innuendo and are pregnant with sexual images, implications or thoughts. Lets not even talk about Bollywood. That is all acceptable and supposedly a sign of mainsteram culture and education. Yet if one finds marginal stimulation from such innuendo, cuts to the chase, and sees what is desired when it is desired in undiluted form from the numerous adult entertainment sources, in privacy, it is regarded as both puerile and shameful. Today, thankfully, such freedom is still alive in America., threats and all. Sadly, it is illegal and a punishable crime in India. The insecure, hypocritical freaks in the US are hell bent on leading us the Indian way.

Pardon me for the excessive space consumed, the tangent, and if my views are really hurtful to your sensibilities. I look forward to a future article on this blog that discusses the role of pornography in our society.

Dear Harvinder,

That was a very interesting discussion. Must say it brought out many more issues related to the Internet.

I totally agree with you that any 'research' or efforts that are being made which involves- directly or indirectly- people's freedom of expression and their right to privacy must have transperancy as it's first and foremost priority.

No sensibilities hurt hear :) And your request has been noted :)

Hey Chaitali

Great piece, cool statistics & interesting trivia.

"Mary Ann Evans wrote under the pseudonym of George Elliot" Wow that's a cool info.

Well I did more than my share of research on internet and various sites [esp during my college days with pals ;-)]..I was amazed..It's got something for everyone.The sheer magnanimity of the medium is awe-inspiring.

Your piece brought them out very well and in fact much more. Kudos !!

Hi Harvinder

Hmm...a prolific argument and not without a tonne of complexities. At the outset I would say that confusing the U.S government's intent to 'control & manipulate' the internet for varied reasons and the issue of pornorgraphy to me is like throwing out the baby with the bathwater. It echoes the same sentiment that pro-life people give, especially in the U.S, if you want to talk about the rights of the mother what about the right to life of the foetus. And I guess like your argument they too have a point. However I have always felt clearly that dialectics is in itself a dangerous arena when it comes not only to problem solving but firstly even identifying the problem clearly. The intellect can use everything, including data like the oft repeated truism that are you using a lampost to shed light or to prop up a staggering drunkard? For me pro-choice should mean the logical stand of offering a much longer span to an unborn child of a healthier, happier life. Since the foetus may have the 'right to life' but the truth of the matter is that the mother, her well-being, desire and the home she is able to provide really decide the 'quality' of life, then pro-choice indeed should subsume pro-life. But you see the word 'life' becomes sacrosanct here, is hijacked by the dialectics of debate and the matter continues to confuse and stall everyone.

I feel 'right to privacy' becomes a similar 'sacrosanct' debate chewing up both the wood and the trees. It has dogged pronography long and hard even when the net did not exist as an option. For me the question about whether the 'supply side of pronography' is kosher in itself becomes hypocritical since we all know what the realpolitik of these films is. Child pornography on the other hand which BTW, leads the cyber porn trends, is a mystifying angle to get subsumed in 'right to privacy'. And the real dangerous part of your argument Harvinder is that you make sweeping generalizations on whether confined to the 'privacy & anonymity' of the home, porn somehow does not lead to "The perverts no longer stalk the streets and schools, instead they habit chat rooms to prey on victims because it is simpler. This has a lot of positive implications if viewed another way.."

There is no data to support this argument and the statitics world wide both on child sexual abuse and rape per se show no correlation to substantiate what you said. In fact, Anusheh will be doing a piece on how net has actually become a far more dangerous way to coerce, especially children, into sex work and abuse.

Social hyprocricy does not begin and end with access to pornography. Sexuality per se is disturbed/violent/coercive and rife with darkness. Modern times epitomize a proliferation of sex bars/sites/materials/scandals/violations/abuse only because the lid of social control so to speak has been blown off and 'perversion' is often being applauded as a measure of 'freedom'.
Unfortunately those that it victimizes seriously are the ones who neither have the articulation nor the freedom to hold opinions like you and I do.

Pornography, like fantasy becomes the root of desire. Watching children and women being debased sexually as a form of excitement cannot be waved away magically as 'personal preferance' like a flavour of ice cream for e.g. Somewhere, sometime the desire will play itself out. And that is the larger question. Understanding the root of pornography (especially child pornography) why its content is largely misogynist, abusing and violent and why that rules human desire.

Women come to chat rooms to exude the power of their sex (in anonymity) which in all probability their husbands or boyfriends have discarded/ ignored (rightly or wrongly).
They shun any frontal statements on sex, sexuality- yet that is the thought that brings them there.
Men come to chat rooms looking for the above kind of women.
My take on the subject.

Now I await to be bombarded! possibly beaten up :-)

Dear Rajiv

I think this piece was written on your request. So why would you fear being beaten up?:-) You're probably right about both the men and the women. And that is why the net has become such a popular place, giving people space for their fantasies.

Its when the fantasies start giving way to some concretized reality- thats when all hell breaks loose.
Anusheh:-) Thank you for your kind words.

Dear Chaitali,

amazing info and post...yet again. :)

its funny , I was discussing about this same topic with a friend of mine a day ago.

this technological boom is very scary...we dont realise it becoz we are in it. its happening at a tremendous pace all around us.

I was telling my friend...its hard to miss someone now...there is email, chat, net phone , video chat etc.

what I am interested in the spiritual aspect...what has internet to do with morality, with solitude, with indulgence.

I feel it is like a pandoras box of oppurtunities never before.

what do you think?

Dear Chaitali,

Always good to read such Informative & researched shares. :-)

A piece with many interesting facts & provoking aspects for the reader to think about the issues/perceptions you point at.

It got me thinking on - How to make the best out of so much information & technology around us without being influenced / obsessed by its triple A's? How to use it to help others?

I feel its important that we keep a check on the 'self' on - How we see things around us & What we learn from them? With a positive frame, we trigger a healthy/positive cycle of understanding and then we automatically won't cross that fine line / border.

And I guess whether we have such positivity, it depends on what experiences we carry from our childhood & our family's contribution to it. The support & access system provided to us as a child by our family are pretty important for our growth as a child & as an adult.

This way it seems to form a Circle - Our family & our childhood leading to our perceptions/attitude. Which in turn leads to the way interpret & learn from everything around us (from internet or other means). We pass on this attitude by way of our interpretations / learnings to children and hence contribute to their experiences / learnings throughout their childhood. Which creates their frame of mind and now they also follow the cycle when they grow up with these interpretations to pass it on to their young ones.

(Its probably becoming complex? :-( )

Dear Jasjit,

As always your comment brings out some dark corners of our being as you point at the larger Questions, I got thinking about this when Jasjit in her share (as always -
Dear Chaitali,

Always good to read such Informative & researched shares. :-)

A piece with many interesting facts & provoking aspects for the reader to think about the issues/perceptions you point at.

It got me thinking on - How to make the best out of so much information & technology around us without being influenced / obsessed by its triple A's? How to use it to help others?

I feel its important that we keep a check on the 'self' on - How we see things around us & What we learn from them? With a positive frame, we trigger a healthy/positive cycle of understanding and then we automatically won't cross that fine line / border.

And I guess whether we have such positivity, it depends on what experiences we carry from our childhood & our family's contribution to it. The support & access system provided to us as a child by our family are pretty important for our growth as a child & as an adult.

This way it seems to form a Circle - Our family & our childhood leading to our perceptions/attitude. Which in turn leads to the way interpret & learn from everything around us (from internet or other means). We pass on this attitude by way of our interpretations / learnings to children and hence contribute to their experiences / learnings throughout their childhood. Which creates their frame of mind and now they also follow the cycle when they grow up with these interpretations to pass it on to their young ones.

(Its probably becoming complex? :-( )

Dear Jasjit,

As always your answers bring out some dark corners of our being to light as you point at the larger Questions. They help one see Child abuse through/in Pornography as much as by their own family in many ways - intentionally and some unintentionally too. Its all about our contribution to their growth.

Children are so vulnerable. We should be careful not to inflict any bad-thoughts ('slow poison' in their growth) upon them. We should be attentive to their Questions/actions, support them thru. It is these learnings/experiences which they grow with and then give back to the society in their own way. Thus, paving way for a future - good or bad.

Interesting (in some ways) - how our perceptions pass on to next gen. to shape up their future - a visible cycle in our society.

I wish we can pass on something good to our next generation and hence lay the seed for a better tomorrow.

I don't know if it all makes sense guys, so please pardon my ever restless mind.

Just felt a connection between the information around us - how we percieve it - how it passes on to next generation (in good/bad ways) - how they pass it on further - and how this cycle affects our society and then that also becomes part of the ever growing knowledgebase for the generations to come.

Isn't it!?

Maybe I need to think more but just thought I'd share all this anyway with my Clan.

:)

Good Morning All

Surya
Indeed many, many aspects of modernity need to be contemplated for how they shape and change our world and that of our children. While the net is truly an awesome technological jump (quantum in a true sense) in the last century, undeniably it brings alongside a fantastical side to communication which will naturally burgeon first and foremost with our wild side. I guess many of the 'aberrations' which are spinning out of this technology are just a reminder of power and responsibility. I always feel however that we ain't seen nothing yet. In the next decade the net is taking us to a whole new level of virtual reality and Lord knows how that is going to 'freak out' our public and private lives.

Dear Jasjit, Thanks for your response. I agree with some points you raise and realize the complexities inherent to many of the issues I hastily touched on. Your pointing out of the sweeping generalization is not lost on me.

One question: do you know if there is an inverse correlation between rape/physical abuse of women and liberal/extremely permissive laws on pornography and adult entertainment? Or do you believe data suggests it is quite the opposite? Or is any correlation confounded by externalities that are impossible to isolate away?

Dear Harvinder

This is a complex question. There is no recorded data for it would be difficult to make such correlations. However their is enough recorded data on pedophiles/rapists to suggest that the 'desire' was fuelled by child sexual abuse, violence, pornography, anger and a desire to 'lash out'. Analysis done on people like Jack the Ripper and also films like (Psycho) fictionalized from apparently true stories of rage against mother from childhood, exposure to the 'sordidness' of sex in childhood led to acts which were primarily responses of misogyny.

Sweden is one country that comes to mind where the so called 'liberalism' in sexuality/materials/ pornography etc was said to create a fairly sexually non-violent society. However I remember a case about a decade ago which rocked the world where a father who had been abusing his two young daughters was given a 'rap on the knuckles' by the Swedish court and let off, arguing that since his wife was not 'available' his desire got in the way- asking him to behave responsibly!!

I think the point to ponder here is that when we refer to adult entertainment and pornography what is the content we are referring to? In a world where sexuality is not nurtured from childhood in any wholesome/open/reflective way the pornography industry cashes in by creating stereotypes/images/scenarios which are hardly 'wholesome'. If you are enjoying/fantasizing about these as 'entertainment' then does it not become part of your sexuality too? How can that not be played out in your spaces. Surely sado-masochism/snuff pornography/child pornography can all be termed adult entertainment. SO if I am 'entertained' by them why would I not want to live them out too if I can? I guess that really becomes the elemental question.

Don't know if this helps! :-)

Good afternoon all!

Dear Rajiv,

Yes men and women come to chat rooms which serve for them as outlets of their fantasies and desires, which otherwise don't get the opportunity to be played out or get suppressed. But then we need to be careful that we don't make the virtual world our 'real' world and live in it as virtual beings.

Dear Aachi,

Internet is such a two-way technology. It is your companion in solitude and yet many a times it isolates you from those around you and even yourself.

Indulgence with the Internet yet agian has both a healthy and an unhealthy side to it.

As for morality and Internet the thought that comes into my mind is where, how and who draws the line?

Dear Jasjit,

Thanks for that response. Very true - "With great Power comes great responsiblity".

Thank you for being you :-)

Dear Chaitali,

"As for morality and Internet the thought that comes into my mind is where, how and who draws the line?"

Just as Shubhosree said: It for us to be 'aware' enough to see the line & learn to draw it whereever it feels apt enough. (Though its easier said than done) But still a thought.

Love all,
Surya. :)

Hi Harvinder

Found some interesting data on effects of pornography so am sharing it here.

Psychologist Edward Donnerstein (University of Wisconsin) found that brief exposure to violent forms of pornography can lead to anti-social attitudes and behavior. Male viewers tend to be more aggressive towards women, less responsive to pain and suffering of rape victims, and more willing to accept various myths about rape.1

Dr. Dolf Zimmerman and Dr. Jennings Bryant showed that continued exposure to pornography had serious adverse effects on beliefs about sexuality in general and on attitudes toward women in particular. They also found that pornography desensitizes people to rape as a criminal offense.2

These researchers also found that massive exposure to pornography encourages a desire for increasingly deviant materials which involve violence, like sadomasochism and rape.3

Feminist author Diana Russell notes in her book Rape and Marriage the correlation between deviant behavior (including abuse) and pornography. She also found that pornography leads men and women to experience conflict, suffering, and sexual dissatisfaction.4

Researcher Victor Cline (University of Utah) has documented in his research how men become addicted to pornographic materials, begin to desire more explicit or deviant material, and end up acting out what they have seen.5

According to Charles Keating of Citizens for Decency Through Law, research reveals that 77 percent of child molesters of boys and 87 percent of child molesters of girls admitted imitating the sexual behavior they had seen modeled in pornography.

Sociologists Murray Straus and Larry Baron (University of New Hampshire) found that rape rates are highest in states which have high sales of sex magazines and lax enforcement of pornography laws.6

Michigan state police detective Darrell Pope found that of the 38,000 sexual assault cases in Michigan (1956-1979), in 41 percent of the cases pornographic material was viewed just prior to or during the crime. This agrees with research done by psychotherapist David Scott who found that "half the rapists studied used pornography to arouse themselves immediately prior to seeking out a victim."

The Final Report of the 1986 Attorney General's Commission on Pornography lists a full chapter of testimony (197-223) from victims whose assailants had previously viewed pornographic materials. The adverse effects range from physical harm (rape, torture, murder, sexually transmitted disease) to psychological harm (suicidal thoughts, fear, shame, nightmares).

Chaitali nice article.

Yeah anonymity is both a boon and a scary thing. I mean even if you take dating sites and marriage sites where the parties communicate through e-mails one really never is sure whether the person on the other side is real or not. For many it is a great way to have 'fun', play with emotions and feelings of others. One needs to be very careful even on these sites.

Anusheh,

Those were very distressing data. And to imagine that all that porn is readily available to people through the Internet.

Hi Anusheh,

Thanks for the data. I noticed that this data is from an article that appears on multiple web sites. I gathered that the original author is Kirby Anderson, President of Probe Ministries, "a non-profit corporation whose mission is to reclaim the primacy of Christian thought and values in Western culture through media, education, and literature." http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/pornplag.html

The word 'primacy' rattled me some :-) Of course it doesn't mean that all he says and the articles he quotes, if they are all accurate, is invalid.

Back to Chaitali's stats: '1 in every 3 visitors to porn sites is a woman'. That line surprises me. I wonder how they got the stats in the first place. With shared computer access and varying ISP disclosure policies, identifying the end surfer as a woman is fraught with inaccuracy. And if the sites post a survey, you only have to read Chaitali's description to see what users will say :-) But if true, it further weakens the domination mindset point when 1/3 of the broadcast audience are women in voluntary capacity. What motivates women to check it out? And how does one explain the fairly successful male strip joints like Chippendales? I think the natural curiosity and non-perverted voyeuristic (if you will even accept voyeurism as normal!) factors underlying porn are huge. As Chaitali's stats mention in the Norway study, it attributes adolescents behavior to outright curiosity and hormones. It may not be the healthiest form of enquiry, but it does not seem all terrible either.

I am simplifying a lot and ignoring the bad sides here. And I think it has pluses and minuses, with the net balance not being clear at all to me. I will hasten to add I am not referring to porn in countries like India: more from the European and American angle, only because I have lived here most of my life. Jasjit, Sweden is an interesting case. Perhaps I can share my experiences there, sometime. I lived in Linkoping during my formative years of 10 and 18.

Thanks for the discussion and your thoughts.

Hi Anusheh, that is some distressing data indeed....

Hi Harvinder

Well I did notice the source of the article and wondered whether you would point that out:) However I decided to go ahead for the simple reason that whatever this man's motivation may be, doesn't in my opinion take away from the data that he quotes, since its not data he's created.

Would love to hear more about your experience of Sweden. I did a three month course in Denmark on sexual torture and rehabilitation so am somewhat aware of the kind of sexual 'liberalism' that exists in those countries. It would be interesting to hear your experiences of that.