children accessing porn; adults turning off filterware

[brian stone]

Dianne,

You make some good points. This problem is primarily a guy thing.
Perhaps that is why you understate it. This is not just an issue of
young boys driving their parents crazy. If we allow all children access
to pornography, some will not be damaged, but others will. How many kids
should be sacrifice to this problem?  Should we make heroin legal
because only a small percentage of the population will abuse it? It may
be small, but it will be larger than it is now. You may think that this
is not a valid comparison but both pornography and heroine can lead to
addictions that can ruin peoples lives.

I'm guessing here, but I suppose the "adult men with low self esteem"
you  might mean men who have a problem with pornography. If so, why
would any of us want to contribute to an increase in that population.
The "low self esteem" men of today were the confused adolescents of
yesterday. Does anyone believe that these men are better fathers,
husbands or role models than those without "low self esteem"?

A subscription to playboy does not help a young boy develop a healthy
attitiue towards women. What's available on the internet is much worse
and can cause much greater harm to young minds. I want my kids and your
kids to grow up whole. It is not their responsibility to make correct
choices, it is ours. If the kids are damaged, it is our fault.

This is a very big problem. Why do you think that porno sites are by far
the most popular sites on the web. It's way beyond being explained by
Curiosity.

Libraries should not be part of this problem. No one should expect that
it is their right to access pornography in their public library. There
are many places better suited for this.

Intelligent filtering works. At least better than any other solution
that has been suggested so far.

Dianne L Parham wrote:

> I don't think you're talking about children accessing porn.  Do you
> really think most girls have much interest?  Eliminated 50%+ of
> the children who are disinterested females.  Then there are boys who
> quickly
> recognize pornography is boring and ridiculous and are far
> more interested in sports, science, and other normal events.  So
> basically
> you are talking about filtering for a minority of male children who
> want to drive
> their parents crazy because they know this is an issue that they can't
>
> deal with.  And this minority is forcing filtering onto the majority
> of
> the public.  So the reason I'm agin it, if not for free speech, is
> because I don't think any minority has the right to make decisions on
> behalf of the majority...especially if that minority is theoretical.
> No
> one has given any figures on children accessing pornography.  I
> suspect
> the main people interested are adult men with low self-esteem and a
> high
> need to get attention from any source, no matter how pathetic.
> Pedofiles,
> who are a real hazard, would be disguised more innocently.  Dianne
> Parham,
> who as always speaks for herself and not for her organization and
> happily deletes all flames
> without reading them so she doesn't keep getting angry about this
> tedious
> subject but goofed this time
>
> On Tue, 8 Jul 1997, earl young wrote:
>
> > Pardon me, but the real issue for this thread is kids and porn.
> There
> > were a couple of messages from others yesterday stating in passing
> that
> > "there was a case to be made" in favor of allowing such access, and
> I
> > merely asked them to make the case.  This isn't First Amendment,
> CDA,
> > filters, or much of anything else.  I merely wanted to know what the
>
> > case is for such access in libraries.  The excludes access in homes,
>
> > excludes the issue of whether such material belongs on the 'net in
> > general, and for that matter anything else.  This isn't rhetoric mpr
> an
> > attempt to diminish rights.  What is the case in favor?
> >