I believe that if this was in place at the beginning of the net, it may have relieved a lot of problems we have now with children being exploited.  By implicating this proposal, there  will be consequences for not obtaining these government warning labels.  One of these consequences is that site operators can face 5 years in prison for violating rating system intended "prevent people from inadvertently stumbling across pornographic images on the Internet. The other great thing about this rating system is that the government wants to track these sites and the net must retain their records to aid in prosecutions.  I believe that this is a move forward and is a great idea.  I know that this will at-least reduce the number of junky porn sites and hopefully a lot of the child porn sites.  This can only be a positive movement in government.  Without this, porn sites are soon going to take over the net.  In addition, hopefully it will rid of a lot of the cases of children exploitation around the world in not just in the US.  Someone needed to put their foot down and change the way the Internet was running, and thankfully Gonzales did before it was too late.  I believe this is a great proposal and should defiantly be enforced.  

 When trying to find a blog, I stumbled upon this blog that talked about a new law that is going to affect the citizens of South Carolina.  This law is a obscenity law that prohibits the sale of sex toys in the state.  If prosecuted for selling any sexual objects, the person prosecuted can face up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. If caught purchasing these materials the person may receive a felony on their perminit record. This measure would add sex toys to the state’s obscenity laws, which already prohibit the dissemination and advertisement of obscene materials. 

I was shocked when I read this blog.  The thing that is even more shocking to me was, that this was already a law in some other southern states.  Why should the government care if people have sex toys?  It's not like it is a danger to other people.  Who really cares what people do in their own homes?  Doesn't these states governments have more important things to worry about than sex toys?  I believe that sex toys are completely harmless and in some cases can be seen as helpful in some marriages and relationships.  I think that it is a invasion of people's privacy and shouldn't be a law at all.  For goodness sake, what is the US coming to?

"In my experience, offenders in general have a heavy exposure to pornography. I cannot tell you what the general population's exposure is, but it's available for them in different forms.

Many times when you've been looking for a person for a while, particularly for a serious crime, whether it be sexual in nature or not, well, when you arrest the person you ask, "Well, where were you for four days? What did you do for four days?" "Well, I had committed the crime, I had to get out of sight." "Well, where did you go?" "I went to a sleazy motel, got a prostitute to come in, or one of these motels that have X-rated videos constantly going on 24 hours a day…" And that's how they relieve their tension.

And it was not just once or twice. Over and over again it would be, "I went up to my friend's apartment, I had a girl come up there for a while, and we watched videos." "What did you watch?" "Pornographic videos," or violence-oriented videos — Schwartzegger movies — Terminator seemed to be a favorite one, anything with that violence there."

He even went on to say that about 75% of the people arrested for sex crimes had in their possession pornography.

I somewhat do agree with what Mr. Pierce said about the stats and that majority of people who do commit sex crimes watch porn and engage in risky sexual behaviors.  I don't believe though that all people who watch porn will go out and commit a sex crime.  Yeah, some of the people who watch porn may become addicts but I wouldn't go as far as saying they may engage in a sex crime.  Many individuals who are sex addicts and who are addicted to porn, you wouldn't even know they were addicts.  Many are able to function and go on with their lives.  Yes, there may be a few who are porn addicts who then go onto engaging in sex crimes, but I only believe its a few individuals who do this.  If your going to commit a crime, I believe you do it because it is in you to do.  I don't think that just out of the blue one day that a person who's never committed a crime before would wake up and be like "Today I think I may rape someone."  I believe it's predetermined and thought about for a while.  So do I believe watching porn and sex crimes are related?  Yeah and No.  In someways they could have a correlation but in many ways there is no correlation between the two. 

Information from ObsenityCrimes.Org

Pornography has been around for years and years and plays a large role in many people's lives.  People use it as entertainment or for personal pleasure.  But is porn changing the way men look at females.

Pornography can be addictive and many men who watch it believe that everything they see on these videos are real.  Many men even search for girls you look just like these porn stars.  Now it buts a dilemma on both sexes because no one can live up to the males expectations of the women and the women feels as though she needs to try to meet his expectations.  This only leads to the cycle that females feel they need to look like these stars so they do anything to look like them.  No matter how drastic their behaviors are.

Now not only are looks high on the agenda but also is behavior.  Men (and sorry to be implying only men but women also) like the girls to act like these stars and try to incorporate parts of the videos into their sex lives.  This makes it also had to compete with.  The females then feel as though they need to do everything on the tape making sex less enjoyable and more like a job. 

The other problem with porn is that men are now having difficulties when with real women.  Due to the fact that they are used to getting off with porn, it makes it hard to do in real life.  Many men have difficulties performing unless they can watch their porno's too.  The age group that we see this happening most in, is college students.  

I guess the point is, is try not to watch porn so much that it becomes a problem.  When it starts to become a problem, try to make sure it doesn't become your life.  Porn can cause difficulties in relationships, families, and work.  Watching porn in moderation is OK and can even be seen as healthy sometimes.

He spoke about how he was molested by customers, how he got into drugs, and how he is emotionally suffering today.  His reasoning is to confront with his problems is to help end sexual exploitation of children.  He has been on trial to catch the people involved in child pornography and putting the people in jail that have bought, supplied, and molested Justin as well as others.  The saddest part of this trial has been that his father had gotten involved and profiting off of Justin.  When Justin turned to his father for help, he decided to get a cut of the business also.  

How does this happen, one might ask?  This continued for almost 6 years so how many other children are doing the same?  Justin wanted help but no help was given.  Is this why there are so many children in porn?  Why does this happen?  And how can it be prevented?  You can’t just take away the internet and TV forever.  What else needs to be implicated to end child pornography?  

  Internet and video pornography has begun to corrupt these people’s lives. These addicted individuals have an addiction that threatens their jobs and families.  Their addictions can lead to a job loss because of accessing porn on the job or due to lack of sleep because of watching porn all night.  Their addictions can ruin families causing divorces.  These addictions can also lead to dysfunctions in people’s sex lives.  People who are obsessive with porn sometimes try to incorporate porn videos into their sex lives.  Also some of these individuals with this problem have difficulty getting an erection with another person due to them pleasuring themselves so much or they may have problems with pre-ejaculation.  

Ways to get help if a porn addict would include getting help by going to sex addict’s recovery meetings, block sites so they don’t get the porn, hook up with a buddy to check your emails for porn to limit the temptation, or getting help with a sexual therapist.  It’s important to know that porn addicts are not alone.  Millions of people are addicted to porn. 

Below is a list similar to the DSM –IV on lists for various addictive disorders and derived are these general characteristics:

• Recurrent failure to resist impulses to engage in a specified behavior.
• Increasing sense of tension immediately prior to initiating the behavior.
• Pleasure or relief at the time of engaging in the behavior.
• At least five of the following:
  • Frequent preoccupation with the behavior or with activity that is preparatory to the behavior.
  • Frequent engaging in the behavior to a greater extent or over a longer period than intended.
  • Repeated efforts to reduce, control, or stop the behavior.
  • A great deal of time spent in activities necessary for the behavior, engaging in the behavior, or recovering from its effects.
  • Frequent engaging in the behavior when expected to fulfill occupational, academic, domestic or social obligations.
  • Important social, occupational, or recreational activities given up or reduced because of the behavior.
  • Continuation of the behavior despite knowledge of having a persistent or recurrent social, financial, psychological, or physical problem that is caused or exacerbated by the behavior.
  • Tolerance: need to increase the intensity or frequency of the behavior in order to achieve the desired effect, or diminished effect with continued behavior of the same intensity.
  • Restlessness or irritability if unable to engage in the behavior.
• Some symptoms of the disturbance have persisted for at least one month, or have occurred repeatedly over a longer period of time.

These criteria can be applied to almost any behavior, and would seem to characterize an excessive and uncontrollable involvement regardless of the particular behavior. They thus provide one reasonable definition of what a pornography addiction would be (Wikipedia).If any of these symptoms are what a porn addict is experiencing they should try to get help if they want it as soon as possible.

In the beginning this Act well.  Until around 96 and 97, a couple cases made revisions on the CDA.  The reason for the changes is due to the fact that these laws infringe on the freedom of speech. 

However, I believe that if the CDA did not have revisions to it, I feel that this Act may have reduced the number of child pornography and the abundance of porn found online.  Yes, I can see how it may infringe on a person’s free speech but it may have reduced the number of pornographic sites online.  Even when people are just browsing through the net, at least two pop-ups for porn come up.  It is too easy today to access.  No wonder children are accessing porn sites.  It’s just too simple.  Something needs to be done to make porn harder to access.