Utah declares 'war on smut'

Re: "War on Smut"

Don't forget the War on Terrorism. Look at how that's made the world a much safer place!

Re: "War on Smut"

Not forgetting how successful prohibition was too.

Re: "War on Smut"

It's similar to the 'war on drugs' as, in a way, it's really just pointing a finger and saying: "this is the reason for our problems" and then using it as a political football.

The dissimilarity, however, is that there is hard data to back up the addictive nature of many illegal narcotics (not all) and the associated negative impacts to society but no well-supported evidence of 'addiction' to pornography being a real thing, even less so of consumption of pornography (whether casually or routinely) being detrimental to society as a whole.

Whenever the issue is raised, the question is how to correct the 'harm' rather than whether there is, actually, any harm. And that's because the people who push these issues already assume that there is harm and they do so because it accords with their ideological, and often religious, beliefs. So what 'evidence' and 'studies' they seek out (or have brought to them by lobbyists) are those which confirm their pre-existing opinions.

Of course, this happens all the time in politics - an issue is taken to be self-evidently true so that politicians can get right in there with strong words and policies to 'get tough' while simultaneously accusing those who call for a more measured and fact-based approach as being ogres who support whatever harm is being alleged.

Oppose vague, unrestricted new powers of surveillance and privacy invasion? Well then you are supporting terrorists/pedophiles/rapists/drug dealers/etc . . .

It's just so much easier to assert that a problem exists and that it is as Big Problem™ than it is to find out what are really worth spending effort and public money on. The unfortunate thing is that the public tends to just accept that and prefer the sound of a politician calling for action than one calling for understanding.

Japanese Fart Porn?

The legislature is also concerned that watching naughty vids “is linked to lessening desire in young men to marry

The young men that I've discussed this with aren't keen to marry because the majority of marriages end in divorce. Most of them are afraid that in a divorce they'd lose pretty much everything. If there are kids involved it's worse, they see fathers being expected to pay maintenance and having little or no access to their kids. If you want to make young men keener on marriage you need to make marriage a more attractive proposition to them.

(oh and for balance I know some women who've lost big time in divorces too)

Re: Seriously though,

Yeah, I know. The one article where a 'hero photo' at the top would have been a good thing.

Re: Seriously though,

But not impossible...

Re: I thought they tried that before

Stigmatising sex before marriage will lead to an increase in faps. Simple.

Re: I thought they tried that before

...something like an hour of paid porn per household per day on average. Utah has 700K households or thereabouts - that equates to about a quarter of a billion per year in revenues.

Can we get that in Reg units?

knuckle shuffles per capita-hour?

swimming pools of...erm..."discharge"?

// open for suggestions here

// seems like too good an opportunity to let it pass by

Re: I thought they tried that before

I've visited Utah. There's sweet FA to do there apart from look at scenery - which, whilst it is stunningly beautiful, doesn't help the long winter evenings fly by. And alcohol is banned in at least half the state too (or was when I was there). So, hardly surprising they turn en masse to, erm, online scenery.

Re: Foolishness

Adults seem to forget what it was like during puberty, with hormones raging through their bodies.