Florida Lawmakers Buy Into Pixels Panic

Dealing with the pressing problems of the state, lawmakers in Florida House of Representatives made fools of themselves. Amanda Prestigiacomo reported on it at The Daily Wire:

On Tuesday, Florida lawmakers in the House of Representatives declared pornography a public health crisis.

We've been over this. It isn't a public health crisis.

The approved resolution states that "there needs to be more education, research and policy changes to protect Florida residents from porn," reports the Associated Press.

More "research". Yeah. How many of those lawmakers are already "researching"?

In January, Republican Rep. Ross Spano addressed Florida's House Health & Human Services Committee about the dangers of porn, which he said includes a correlation between porn use and mental illness and dangerous sexual behavior.

Oh, for sure. It drives some irrational wives crazy & she might bite her hubby.

"Research has found a correlation between pornography use and mental and physical illnesses, difficulty forming and maintaining intimate relationships, unhealthy brain development and cognitive function, and deviant, problematic or dangerous sexual behavior," said Rep. Spano.

Most of this is misleading or a lot of bunk. The "research" has all sorts of flaws, and as has been pointed out over and over and over again, correlation does not prove or establish causation. Is the problem really compulsive people? Media in general? Fornication? Masturbation? Male sexual nature?

The Daily Wire then cites... The Daily Wire (Matt Walsh).

Some studies have also linked sex crimes and porn use:

Oh really now?

One research study analyzed the various arguments and data presented by other studies that contended the lack of reliable connections between pornography and aggressive sexual behavior. The study concluded that, in fact, there was existence of reliable associations between frequent pornography use and sexually aggressive behaviors, particularly for violent pornography and/or for men at high risk for sexual aggression (Malamuth, Neil et. al., 2000).

Sounds like the problem was that some men are sexually aggressive and they watch porn, especially "violent" porn.

Another study collected from 100 survivors at a rape crisis center discovered that 28% of respondents reported that their abuser used pornography and that for 12% of the women, pornography was imitated during the abusive incident (Bergen, Raquel Kennedy, 2000).

100 people. That's a ridiculous sample size. How do they know porn was being imitated??? If something is in porn, it is there because someone thought it up. Someone thought it up before it was in porn.

"The physical appearance or flaws of his real-life woman, compared to the perverse or perfect bodies he habitually views, is an issue that hampers his getting an erection, but there are other factors that lead to dysfunction," writes Stephen Arterburn.

Arterburn is someone who makes his living on porn panic, it seems like. Notice nobody seems to care that women are always seeing men on screen their boyfriends or husbands could never live up to. It's easier to blame pixels for erection problems than to say "I don't find your attractive anymore because you're bitchy and have gained 70 pounds."

I could go on and on, but in addition to the links embedded above, I've already written about these topics in these entries:

Motivations Against Adult Media

Hugh Hefner and Hysteria

Stop Using Stupid Arguments Against Adult Media