A MAD Porn Thread

[_Ray A]

He also admitted an indecent act with a bull mastiff dog.

The offending took place between 1990, when Caccioppoli was about 19, and September last year.

A source close to the Latter-day Saints told the Sunday Star-Times Caccioppoli had told church social agencies and leaders about his offending and was told to "try harder".

I suppose this brings a whole new meaning to "Hot Dog".

[_Danna]

We have a responsibility to care for the animals we have domesticated, and for animals exploited for food, we must take care to give them the best (i.e. species typical) life and least distressing death that we can. To train an animal to engage in non-species typical behaviour for the sole purpose of human gratification is no longer acceptable.

Ancient pastoralists "flipped a coin" to determine "species typical" behavior for many domestic animals: dogs, horses, cattle, sheep, cats. Ancient humans did this for human gratification, plain and simple. Animals have been made into servants and slaves, not to mention textiles and agricultural products in the name of human gratification. Now some of them are movie stars. Why not porn stars? Sorry, but I think Asbestosman has a point.

Unless it is illegal. (Relating to an earlier point of Abman's).

Who said anything about ancient pastoralists? I am talking about modern ethics. Ancient pastoralists had the idea that animals were gifted to men by God and we could do whatever we wished with them. That has been rejected along with the 'women are property' thinking they also bequeathed us.

Species typical behaviour, and instinctive animal behaviour is studied by a raft of different disciplines. Animal welfare, including for research and domestic animals is the subject of a fair bit of research. When I spent my assigned time working in the rat lab, I learned a huge list of rules which provided our wee rats with the most species typical lifestyle we could provide - in spite of the fact that we were also injecting them with E or putting IV lines through their skulls to deliver cocaine.

Just because we do exploit animals for their products or the knowledge they can give us, does not make it right for us to treat them with gratuitous cruelty. It is naiive thinking that requires someone to objectify an animal in order to internally justify exploiting it. Using or eating an animal is part of life, but we must still respect that it can suffer. Part of our growth as a human species is that we now recognise that causing gratuitous suffering to an animal is just wrong (and we now know by experimentation that interfering with species-typical behaviour is a major source of stress).

Objectifying an animal to feel better about eating or using it is as naiive as thinking that animals are sacred little fluffy cousins that should have rights on par with humans and not be exploited whatsoever at all.

If your intention was to point out that since we domesticated a number of animals, we have determined what is 'species typical', you only partially correct. But just because we have accentuated some characteristics, and bred others out, does not mean we have created objects with no capability for instinct, stress, or pain.

[Analytics]

Unless it is illegal. (Relating to an earlier point of Abman's).

Oh, that's harsh. I just happen to think that God is in a whole different category than government--almost a kind of separation between church and state. ;)

Kudos for the creative rebuttal.

[_asbestosman]

If your intention was to point out that since we domesticated a number of animals, we have determined what is 'species typical', you only partially correct. But just because we have accentuated some characteristics, and bred others out, does not mean we have created objects with no capability for instinct, stress, or pain.

What if we domesticated an animal that liked getting it on with humans and that doing so reduced its stress?

It almost reinds me of that cow in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (actually The Restaraunt at the End of the Universe) that wanted to be eaten. For some strange reason the earthling Arthur Dent lost his appetite for meat that day.

[_mentalgymnast]

So it all depends on your expert.

On that we can agree.

If there is no truth/direction from God in regards to whether or not consuming the pornographic arts is sinful, then your rational for participating in this venue of entertainment is, well, rational. If the LDS General Authorities are simply producing man made moral platitudes handed down over the generations from our puritan progenitors and conservative religious writers/thinkers, then there is no reason to take them too seriously in the final analysis.

Probably the same with Dr. Cline, since much of his internal framework of perception/experience is a result of his belief in the truth claims of the LDS church, etc.

Now OTOH, if there is a God, and if he does instruct and give counsel through modern day prophets and apostles such as GBH and Elder Oaks as it relates to porn being a serious sin and a scourge/plague to be avoided, then the whole rational for avoiding porn becomes quite obvious. Simply, there is a Father in Heaven who has given instructions/guidance in regards to the sanctity of womanhood and the female body, which if followed will bring eternal happiness/joy (rather than simply temporary pleasure and titillation) to those that chose to obey.

So yeah, there are different experts and different voices to listen to. Like most things, it becomes an individual choice based upon one's own life experience and moral compass.

You've done a good job at rationally explaining your personal reasons for considering pornography a blessing in your life. The question that sits in the background, of course, is whether there is a higher moral ground to climb for those that desire something more rewarding/fulfilling than the temporary and fleeting carnal pleasures attached to viewing pornography.

Regards,
MG

[_Ray A]

You've done a good job at rationally explaining your personal reasons for considering pornography a blessing in your life. The question that sits in the background, of course, is whether there is a higher moral ground to climb for those that desire something more rewarding/fulfilling than the temporary and fleeting carnal pleasures attached to viewing pornography.

Regards,
MG

It depends, MG, on whether you really personally hold this view, or whether you hold it because you believe that the Book of Mormon is "historical", and that the "revelations" are true. That's the caveat. I suppose you'd say that you "trust the prophets". I trust, then, that you accept the hemispheric model of the Book of Mormon, in line with the "prophets" before FARMS corrected them? I trust, then, that you believe that American Indians are turning white? And dare I even be bolder, by suggesting that "people live in the sun"? (As Paul osborne fervently believes?)

What you reject is a sign of your rationality. What you continue to accept, is a sign of your weakness, if not critically examined.

NO? Okay.

[_Danna]

If your intention was to point out that since we domesticated a number of animals, we have determined what is 'species typical', you only partially correct. But just because we have accentuated some characteristics, and bred others out, does not mean we have created objects with no capability for instinct, stress, or pain.

What if we domesticated an animal that liked getting it on with humans and that doing so reduced its stress?

It almost reinds me of that cow in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (actually The Restaraunt at the End of the Universe) that wanted to be eaten. For some strange reason the earthling Arthur Dent lost his appetite for meat that day.

Techically possible, but would it be worth the breeding and domestication process to do so - there will collateral damage with less fit animals being bred and rejected, which may raise ethical questions as well. We are breeding pigs for organ transplants now, but the ultimate good is considered worth possible problems in the breeding program. Breeding 'purebred' dogs and stunt pigeons has come under a fair bit of suspiscion lately. You would probably have to show some over-riding 'good' from the process. Selective breeding is fraught with problems:

in Animals in Translation, Temple Grandin discusses the problems with breeders choosing a single trait to dominate in their chickens. For example, they want to produce fast-growing chickens with large breasts since Americans prefer to eat white meat. (I think we had one of those Dolly Parton-like chicken breasts over the weekend. Enormous - preternatural even. I tried to imagine what that chicken would have looked like in life. Speaking of the Cloverfield monster …) The problem, though, was that the chickens they produced had legs and hearts too weak to support the enormous breasts. They couldn’t stand up. They would literally flop over from heart failure. They were also in pain: in studies they consistently chose bad chicken feed with painkillers over good chicken feed without painkillers.

So the breeders decided to select chickens that were fast-growing, had large breasts, strong hearts, and thick legs. To paraphrase Grandin: Breeders are like computer programmers. When Chicken 3.2 doesn’t work they don’t go back to Chicken 3.1, they move on to Chicken 3.3. But this single-trait selective breeding always has unintended consequences. They created rapist roosters. Seriously. Roosters are hard-wired to perform a mating dance before mounting hens. Hens are hard-wired to present themselves only when they see the dance. All this selective breeding mucked up something in the roosters reproductive habits. They didn’t do the dance, so the hens didn’t present. The roosters then tried to mount the hens by force, the hens resisted, and the roosters killed the hens with their spurs. Needless to say, roosters do not behave this way naturally. The breeders, however, began adjusting their expectations of rooster behavior as the behavior changed. They “defined deviancy down” and the abnormal became normal, until someone like Grandin came along and told them that roosters shouldn’t be killing hens.

I heartily recommend Temple's book by the way.

I guess another point is are consumers of animal/human porn healthy? At what point do paraphilias cross the line and become symptoms of a harmful underlying disorder?

[_asbestosman]

What if I like fondling big chicken breasts--before eating them?

Joking aside, I think the problem of showing more good than harm is also problematic. Should we force criminals to be used as organ donors / human gunnea pigs on the basis that it would do more good than harm? I find that to be a scary thought. Any forced harm to a human simply to save other lives with medicine or food is something we cannot bear. Yet we do it to animals. We are speciest, and I'm fine with that, but I do wonder why we protect animals from being used as porn but not from being used as food, fur, and forced experimental subjects.

I also wonder whether we could treat homo-sapiens like animals if those homo-sapiens had the intelligence of animals due to, say, being in a permanent coma like Terry Schiavo.

I guess another point is are consumers of animal/human porn healthy? At what point do paraphilias cross the line and become symptoms of a harmful underlying disorder?

I dunno. Should we consider furries as crossing the line? BDSM? Adult-babies? How about pornographic drawings? I suppose nobody is being exploited by mere drawings, but isn't it a bit odd?

[_ludwigm]

quote="Ray A"
quote="asbestosman"
quote="Dr. Shades"
/quote
Why is ok to kill animals for food, but wrong to keep them alive and let them willingly join with you in something pleasurable?
/quote
A good KFC always goes down well with me, especially a chicken fillet burger. But I reserve sex for my own species. Besides, I'd hate to be called a chicken F*****.
/quote

KFC and MAC use rats, not chickens.
They are more cheap. And taste better.

Please create the way of s#x with rats. (Traditional japs use ducks. Call Shades!)

Yes. I have a dirty imagination.

[_Dr. Shades]

Please create the way of s#x with rats. (Traditional japs use ducks. Call Shades!)

What the Hell are you talking about??