Gentile said:
It has perhaps unintentionally become the main outlet by which children get introduced to sexuality these days.
Really? I'd say the prevalence of television still has a lock on that. I have trouble believing teh pronz are more a part of the problem than racy programming and even exposure in public.
Which seems to give public schools greater incentive to lower the grade in which sexual education begins.
Oddly enough, the "lowered grades" seem to be higher than when I was in school.
My take on your normal teenager in high school is that they are essentially hedonists, although most try to hide that fact. If you have any historical perspective on this sort of thing, its actually a recent development in the free world.
That's like saying homosexuality is new because of the lack of historical prevalence in our culture. Teens have historically been hedonists; what's changed is how honest we are about it. Rates of STIs and teen pregnancy are lower in places with a more open policy towards sex for some odd reason.
I could go on to talk about the effect of the industry on the actors and actresses involved, but i'm sure we can all agree that we would definitely not wish for anybody we care about to be involved in this business for their own good. What with all the chances of diseases, unwanted pregnancy, physical and emotional turmoil, and such. Right? :]
Where to begin....
I'm not sure where all this came from, honestly. Assumption? Everything I've read on STIs in the porn industry indicates it's an amazingly self-regulating industry. There's probably a good reason for that: One AIDS outbreak could virtually destroy them. There doesn't seem to be much pregnancy outside of fetishists, and that's hardly due to any form of rampant sex. And to both issues, the rise of the number of condoms used in porn is pretty self-evident.
As far as physical and emotional turmoil, there's a tendency for porn stars to come from broken homes, but I know of little to support the notion that porn causes emotional turmoil. People aren't readily forced into porn outside of socio-economic reasons, and hardly made to stay if there's abuse involved. And honestly, I'd rather my child grew up and decided to become a porn starlet than grew up being the product of a broken home.
I'd rather neither, but the problem isn't so much the industry as it is why they tend to be there.
I can see arguments against pornography. I can see the argument that it's exploitative and degrading to women (I disagree, at the very least that it all is). I can see the argument that it creates unrealistic expectations (I agree) and promotes unheathly body images (Agreed, but considering other media does the same....). I can see the argument that it's disgusting (but all good sex should be), and so on. But I'm not seeing the plausibility of your case against porn.
And this isn't just because I enjoy porn. It's because it seems as specious as the "video games cause violence" argument.