Just had a call from Rasmussen;

All of the questions were on the economy. However, they included 2 'push questions.'

1) Will the increased cost of gasoline make you curtail your summer vacation plans this year?

2) Will the increased cost of gasoline cause you to have less money to pay your bills this year?


NOW I know how Rasmussen gets their Republican leaning poll numbers.

On the other hand, I gave the economy pretty good marks for all questions. I said NO to both of the above questions. PLUS, I said I was a small business owner, Republican, children living at home and I made a LOT of money. I'll be an outlier but...

Naked woman questioned at Denver International Airport

PORN

This topic has been in the forefront of the news lately. The big news that I've read and seen on this board is Mr. Chomsky's interview where he came down on the side against it. The Religious Right has always been against it, but not for the same reason. They go with what they say is in the Bible, something about don't do adultery.

What is porn? I recall Supreme Court's Stewart's response to his interpretation to the explanation of porn, "I know it when I see it." The definition in Wiki; porn is the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual arousal and erotic satisfaction. WTF is wrong with this?

Well, when I was growing up, the pictures in National Geographic would get a 'rise' out of me. In my early teen years, Victoria Secret catalogs did me well. I 'discovered' the 'girlie' mags a few years later and am now in my 50s and still enjoy naked women, alone or in any number of sexual poses/acts. Does this make me bad? NO! Does this make me a supporter of the sex trade and/or the selling of women? NO!

The Religious Right has used the concept of nudity as a weapon for so many years. Religion uses sex as a way to control people (what other human force is as powerful?). They believe that all nudity, whether it be pictures, video, 'up close and personal' and even the written word where the reader supplies their own concept of nudity is a sin.

What are the consequences of eliminating porn? We'll go back to pre-1960s when Playboy was such a big thing. Where the showing of a woman's bra at the movies would have earned it a condemned rating from the Catholic Church. Pornography would go underground. Go back even further and you have women of the 19th century who dared not show any part of her body. They wore so many layers of clothing that they had showed NO sign they were women other than longer hair than the men. the women of Victorian England, if they showed an ankle, were considered to be naked.

I enjoy looking at naked women. I enjoy looking at the human sexual act. If prostitution were legal in the US then these men and women would be free to make any sort of video on human sexuality without anyone calling them out for sex slaves and/or underage girls.

America is so obsessed with sex, but in the bad way. Conservatives HAVE sex but they think anything other than the Missionary position for and only for procreation is an affront to their god.

Come out of the dark ages my fellow DU'ers. Let porn, in whatever form you deem it to be, have a place in our culture. There will always be people exploited but if we legalize victim-less crimes, prostitution, etc... then porn will lose it's stigmatization and become what it really is; a healthy libido enhancer.