BoyWiki:Etenne's Palaestra

 The second objection (to child pornography), the ‘opening the floodgates’ (OTF) argument, appears at first to be much simpler to uphold (than the prevailing U.S. attitude, that child pornography is bad when its production or distribution harms children, directly or indirectly). It proposes that viewing child pornography loosens up the viewer’s mind, making him imagine that the scenes he sees in the depictions are possible for him to view in the flesh or even to touch and get involved in. It also proposes that the circulation of such material infects additional people with the same loosening-up of inhibitions and prohibitions. This objection has the minor problem that it is clearly involved with thought control, directly trying to regulate what people have in their minds. In practice, however, western societies have never been afraid to erect some barriers against “thoughtcrime,” as author George Orwell called it in his novel ‘1984.’ Traditional penalties against crimes like adultery and sodomy were often exaggeratedly severe in order to frighten others away from the same orgasmically reinforced behaviours. Blanket prohibitions against publishing on sexual topics – all those bans on D.H. Lawrence’s explicit novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover – also exerted thought control against sexual no-no’s.