Bow Chicka Bow Wow Bill (Debating)

[Badger]

As it is the right of Senators to call witnesses to testify on a bill (I think), I would respectfully ask the Senate's permission to address the chamber regarding this bill. Thank you.

(And no, I don't plan on making a habit of this; the DUI bill and this are just two that hit close to home--or work at least).

[Badger]

I call on Badger to testify

Thank you Senator Hashemite. If it fits the chamber's schedule I hope to testify possibly as early as tomorrow evening, or otherwise by Saturday.

[Badger]

I call on Badger to testify

Thank you Senator Hashemite. If it fits the chamber's schedule I hope to testify possibly as early as tomorrow evening, or otherwise by Saturday Sunday.

Corrected for accuracy. Real world took precedence today. Sorry for the delay.

[Badger]

Senators:

Understand that I'm a proud ACLU member for many years, and have zero objection to adults viewing whatever pornography (not involving children or non-consenting adults, of course) they wish. Attempts to restrict same are an insult to the discretion of consenting adults and smack of censorship. The key word here, however, is "adults". Adolescents are simply not sufficiently developed in their sexuality, psychologically or physiologically, to warrant unrestrained legal access to pornography. Hence I oppose this bill and urge the senate to vote it down.

I first have to ask, what does the bill mean by "pornography"? Hustler and Playboy presumably. Maxim? Sports Illustrated's Swimsuit Issue? Presumably not these. I assume it's similar to current law which basically prohibits nudity (including bare T&A) designed for sexual stimulation and lacking artistic or cultural merit. So copies of National Geographic and the local art museum's display of nude oil paintings would be exempt. (Isn't it amazing how the law makes even porn boring?)

I have mentioned before that I am a prosecuting attorney. Part of my job is I am the juvenile prosecutor for my rural county. The largest category of felony offenses I prosecute are sex offenses, often involving older adolescents--usually 14-17 years old--molesting younger children. I have prosecuted dozens of such cases and reviewed the reports of multiple psychologists, counselors, and other experts in the field, and questioned several different such experts at classification hearings. So, no, I'm not a psychologist, but I've interviewed, questioned, and reviewed the work of a number on the issue of adolescent sexuality. More than one of these experts reports even dealt specifically with juveniles dealing with exposure to pornography.

For the purpose of this bill I'm going to try distilling the summary of these experts down to the basics. First, children are different from adults. That might seem a "no duh" sort of statement, but this bill utterly ignores this obvious fact. The brain of adolescents doesn't finish fully developing until around 20. The parts of the brain dealing with sexual development are still very much in flux until the very end of the teen years. This is not just an issue of judgment, but of actual physical development. Adolescents of this age span also have not fully psychologically matured in their sexuality. If anything their sexuality is closer to nascent at this period, particularly 14 and 15 year olds. Thus while we deny 18-20 year olds the right to consume alcohol based on a lack of maturity and judgment rather than a physical inability to process alcohol, pornography affects both the psychological and physical immaturity of adolescents.

And what do these experts report the effect of pornography on the sexual development of adolescents is? In a phrase: "not at all good". Very simply, repeated studies have shown exposure to porn to have generally negative consequences on adolescents in general when measured in terms of not only committing sexual offenses, but views on gender issues, relationship development, and sexual development in general compared to juveniles with more limited exposure to pornography. 

Now before anyone asks, yes I questioned these experts and, no, they do not claim that looking at a Playboy centerfold is going to screw up a teenager for life, nor will watching an inordinate amount of porn on-line turn directly turn kids into child molesters either. These are of course generalities, but fact-based generalities regardless. And this bill likewise deals with those same generalities by allowing full legal access to porn for all 14-17 year olds. Just because there is probably a 14 year old out there who is going to be the exception to the rule and not be measurably affected by looking at porn a lot doesn't change the fact that many adolescents would suffer detriment at such unlimited exposure. For this reason I urge the senate to defeat this bill.

There is no ideological inconsistency in calling for this protection of minors. John Stuart Mill, the father of Utilitarianism, while radically in favor of social liberalism held that children were a reasonable excepted class of persons necessary of legal protection and restriction from full expression of their desires, even when they do not immediately affect others.

Now I realize I am pitching this to mostly college or high school age males who came of age with wide exposure to the internet. Restricting legal access to porn for juveniles as old as 17 will probably be greeted with some hostility. But I argue against this bill because it's the right thing to do. I ask you all to vote against this bill as it reads as it is likewise the right thing to do.

At a minimum, the Sentate should at least modify the bill to only allow the possession or pornography for juveniles with their parent's consent, and limit this to only 16 or 17 year olds. Otherwise this bill only allows unfettered legal access to porn for an entire bulk of the adolescent population before they are physically and psychologically developed enough to handle such unrestrained exposure.

I thank this worthy chamber for its time and am open to any questions or comments.

[Badger]

If you're against this bill, your ACLU NAMBLA membership should be revoked.

Corrected. The ACLU doesn't support 14-17 year olds drinking, voting, having access to porn, or joining the military. Kids have rights, but obviously not the same full freedoms as adults. Full legal access to porn is one of the last of these rights that any adolecent should "enjoy".

[Badger]

Badger only gave us the opinion of some psychologists on the effects of pornography on juveniles. What do the majority of psychologists and other relevant professionals think? I don't think conclusive studies have been done on the effects of pornography. There is also the issue of pornography being more available to today's youth due to the internet than in years past. Have the incidences of juvenile rape and other sexual misconduct gone up correspondingly? I would think not.

To be fully accurate, I gave a summary of the testimony and reports of multiple psychologists regarding what the bulk of scientific research in their field shows regarding the effect of pornography on juveniles. None said that glimpsing a single Playboy centerfold as a teenager would transform a kid into Ted Bundy. The same way that a single cigarette, or even a single pack, will likely give a kid lung cancer. But the demonstrative bulk of professional literature reported negative effects of prolonged pornography exposure to juveniles.

[Badger]

Anyways, this argument is going to be cyclical anyways, as studies on the issue have been inconclusive, according to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_effects_of_pornography)

I still hold to my theory anyways, and you may to yours. But without any conclusive evidence to support your side, I don't see what the issue is. You have to prove pornography is a bad thing to make it illegal, but it doesn't need to be a benefit to be legal.

As much as I generally dislike quoting from Wiki, the "inconclusive" evidence referred to in the article did not involve research with juveniles. Of the research that mentioned it in this brief article:

According to the study, "Pornography Use as a Risk Marker for an Aggressive Pattern of Behavior Among Sexually Reactive Children and Adolescents", Sexually reactive children and adolescents (SRCAs), also referred to as juvenile sexual offenders, "may be more vulnerable and likely to experience damaging effects from pornography use." According to the study,the SRCAs who used pornography were "more likely" to display aggressive behaviors than their nonusing counterparts.[

The issue isn't whether isuch a law will remove every dirty website or magazine from the hands of kids, but whether it will make it less likely juveniles can obtain such materials, particularly those with the strongest, and arguably most unhealthy appetites for such materials.

[Badger]

Let me get this straight- I am a hypocrite because I smoked and drank when I was 14, but I still don't think it should be legal for 14 year olds to do those things.  Well, call me a hypocrite, then.

While I have nothing but respect for you, Senator, I don't see how you can construe this as something besides hypocrisy. Believing that an act should be illegal means that you believe it to be an unsuitable behavior that should be discouraged through direct legal disincentives. If you, believing this, still engage in such behavior, you are quite literally saying one thing and doing another. The only alternative is that you find it prudent that laws shouldn't be obeyed, but if so then what's the point of having the law anyway?

If someone opposes a change in a law one has personally broken, there's a difference between admitting to having done something illegal versus having done something illegal and believing it was perfectly fine, but still opposes changes in the law. The latter may be hypocrisy, but the former is merely acknowledging succumbing to temptation in violating the law and does not necessitate believing the law should be changed because of our own moral lapses. FWIW, the former is what I'm hearing from posters here, saying they drank, smoked, etc. underage and don't support lowering the legal age for that activity. I.E. "Yes, I did that underage. It was wrong then and should be wrong now".

How many readers here have driven above the speed limit in the last 24 hours? Does that mean those people must support raising the speed limit for everyone to accommodate their own temporary lapses in judgement? Of course not. It means that if any of those people were validly caught speeding they could just pay their ticket for personally violating the law and with complete consistency still support the current speed limit.