Why isn't porn banned ?

You can't compare alcohol with porn.

Alcohol can be good for you in small doses (red wine for example). Or it can be neutral for you. Yes many abuse it but much, much more people can easily drink from time to time, never get drunk etc.

Porn on the other hand is always harmful.

 

Haha, it's not true that alcohol is healty when taken in small doses. Every drop of alcohol is poison to the body. It wont get you killed, but it's not healty. The benefits from red wine are from resveratrol, and resveratrol is better when taken without wine.
I dont say you should not drink alcohol, i'm just saying that alcohol is in no way good or neutral for you

 

I agree with above post.

Alcohol is the drug that's most socially accepted and this often makes people think it's safer than drugs that are illegal. Trust me, alcohol is one of the most unsafe and dangerous drugs there is. The reason people have hangovers is because the body is dehydrated from the liver working overtime to get rid of the toxic alcohol (a process that uses a lot of water). Alcohol rots your body from the inside out, you can die from an overdose, an addict going through withdrawal can die, and then there's all the deaths that result from the sort of things people do whilst drunk.

How many people have died from a cannabis overdose? How many people end up in hospital over the weekend due to an injury that occured whilst they were stoned? How many people end up in a prison cell over the weekend due to a fight they were involved in whilst they were stoned? You get the idea.

I'm not saying booze should be illegal (terrible idea, look what happened with USA prohibition) and I'm not saying noone should drink it. But education and responsible use goes a long way.

I'm strongly against banning stuff, what we need is good education that educates about both the pros and cons of these things (alcohol, weed, porn etc). Scaremongering crap like the 1930s "reefer madness" doesn't work and stuff like "just say no" doesn't work. Give people the facts, edcuate them on harm reduction and let them decide for themselves. And if they feel like they are indulging more than they'd like to, there should be support available where they can talk without being judged or being in legal trouble.

One more point- if you make something illegal or ban it what you are also doing is making it a "forbidden fruit". It's human psychology to desire things we are told we can't have. You just can't stop people drinking, smoking weed or looking at porn. We must accept it's inevitable and focus on education including harm reduction, and suitable support networks for those who need them.

 

haha 'reefer madness' yeah i remember that film it's a bit of a cult classic, but goes to show how attitudes in society change over time

 

There are two reasons I can think of:

1. Prohibition isn't effective at all. Even if porn was illegal, people would still watch it anyway. Even if the government were to put technological limitations on access to porn, people would develop new technology to bypass those limitations. In America in the 1920's, we tried banning alcohol, but people still got drunk. It just isn't effective.
2. Prohibition has unintended consequences that harm society. As I stated in my first point, people would still watch porn anyway, which means that people would still make porn so that they could satisfy the demand. In other words, there would be a black market for porn, which is actually pretty nightmarish to think about. Human trafficking and other horrific activity would be encouraged just to satisfy the public demand for porn via the black market. A black market would also allow criminals to rise to the top of the food chain. Again, when alcohol was banned in the 1920's, gangsters quickly gained a financial chokehold over the country. Gangsters are already criminals. They aren't afraid of breaking the law. So, when alcohol was banned, they weren't afraid to make it. However, there were lots of law-abiding citizens who were afraid of breaking the law, so they stopped producing alcohol. Before long, gangsters had a monopoly over alcohol, and you basically had to support them if you wanted a drink. Can't you see how something similar would happen with pornography if it were banned?

JUST TO BE CLEAR: I'm not arguing that porn is healthy. I'm not arguing that porn is morally permissible. I'm not arguing that porn is okay. I've used alcohol as an example many times here, but I don't think that alcohol is healthy either. I am arguing that making porn illegal is not a solution to the problem of porn. In fact, I think I've shown here that banning porn has the potential to make things a lot worse.

 

It's all about money. I don't think people would such things if it is not for money I guess.

 

Liberty. We should be able to do whatever we want to ourselves, without harming others. People can be addicted to anything. You can't fix problems with prohibition. We should take care of ourselves without asking the governments to help us.

 

My theory is that the powerful use it to enslave us.

 

Even if all professional porn was banned and no more pro porn was made, keep in mind that virtually everyone has a smartphone with a built-in good quality camera. Huge numbers of people record their own amateur porn and share it online. Even if you put an end to the professional porn industry that wouldn't stop all the "homemade" porn.