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the fun they're not allowed to have - especially since fun is something they're often not allowed to have at all if they want to please their gods. And so, they make up stories with the intent of crashing the party for everyone else.

The extroardinary claims of the porno-party crashers are equally unsupported and equally fabricated, though some are sillier than others. Prudes claim that pornography leads to violence, sexism, murder, and even alienation from one's own family. It causes children to look to porn stars for love and attention. It causes men to forget their wives. It causes women to be degrated, and encourages violence upon them.

None of these claims can be supported with sufficient empirical evidence or with reasoned argumentation. While porn addiction can happen, so can food addiction, caffiene addiction, internet addiction, and in feeble old ladies, housecat addiction. That people can get addicted to these things is not reason enough to ban them. People can become addicted to anything: all it takes is positive neurochemical reinforcement associated with a particular behavior, and the absence of anything better to do.

Some forms of porn are distasteful, yes, but so are other forms of art. Films like "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" and "Pink Flamingoes" are garbage, just as a crudely filmed, violent snuff film might be garbage, but that doesn't mean they can be rightly banned or censored. It's important to recognize that if we want the freedom to express our own points of view and make our own art, we must accept that the same is true others, even if we deeply disagree with what they say and do.

Those who are so deeply terrified of pornography should, instead of pushing for censorship, argue publicly against viwership. They should take a stand against choosing to watch porn by arguing that porn is harmful and by showing it to be harmful, and in order to get to the people who need their message the most, they should speak in the nude.

Learn more about this author, Currie Jean.
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