All men watch porn, scientists find.

[brekin]

Simulist wrote:

Thanks, brekin. I had no idea that some public libraries were like that. Our public library outright censors such sites from access. (My only initial problem with that was, "What other sites are also being censored?" But when I decided to look, everything but porn seems available.)

Although I see pornography as a free speech issue, and think that those who want access to it should be free to view it on their own as they choose, I also think that public libraries (and taxpayers) have positively no obligation to supply the material.

(And anyone who wants to look at that stuff in a public library needs his head examined.)

What I remember was quite a few libraries choose not to be in compliance with something like a Child Internet Protection Act because most of the required filters at the time were over-censorious or didn't really work and so the gates were (are) left wide open. The Library I worked at chose to have some filtering for the Children's Library wing though.

Quite a number of the people who did openly view the stuff were homeless and/or mentally ill. Before they went to an automated timed system there were quite a few verbal and physical fights over people cutting or going over their allotted 1 hour. I'd say for most the free hour of porn was the highlight of their day.

[Nordic]

I'd say for most the free hour of porn was the highlight of their day.

I can relate to that.

[Username]

~
Gawker

SEC Employees Were Masturbating to Kiddie Porn While Your Economy Tanked
[but that's okay, because SCIENTISTS FIND - ALL MEN WATCH PORN. ]



SEC Employees Were Masturbating to Kiddie Porn While Your Economy TankedOver the past two years, more than a dozen Securities and Exchange employees and contractors have tried to view pornography on government computers at least 8,273 times. Here's what they were looking at while the global financial system cratered.

The Washington Times broke the story of the SEC's porn problem, which became the subject of numerous inspector general investigations, last month. And Dealbreaker subsequently published one report of an inspector general investigation into an SEC regional supervisor who viewed transvestite porn at work as stress relief.

Now we've obtained reports of 16 investigations into porn-surfing by SEC employees and contractors (one of them is a woman!), including one man who said his daily porn viewing at work was limited to "no longer than an hour and a half a day." The man told investigators that his porn habit grew out of looking at photos of men in bathing suits, which is sometimes known as "gateway porn":



It's unclear from the investigation report precisely what the man did (or does) for the SEC, but it's clear from the context of an interview transcript that he attended graduate school and works in a professional capacity. Two video files found on his computer were referred to the FBI because investigators suspected that the men depicted having sex in them were underage:



Anyway, here's the full list of sites referenced in all the investigations. Enjoy!



UPDATE: While the Washington Times was the first place to obtain detailed investigation reports into the SEC porn issue last month, the good people at ProPublica noted the existence of the investigations last year.

Send an email to the author of this post at john@gawker.com.
~

[compared2what?]

I deleted a post here, but my username is still on the index indicating that I posted. The dissonance was freaking me out. So I'm posting.

[semper occultus]

hey Username thanks for those sites - it'll take me well over an hour & a half to get through that lot.

[psynapz]

As someone who does work in the industry, I can tell you right now I've never once felt exploited by the folks I worked with. I've also posed for pornographic & fetish pictures & by golly, I must say, I enjoyed it.

How long ago?

(Resisting the temptation to reply "pics or it didn't happen")

[Peregrine]

As someone who does work in the industry, I can tell you right now I've never once felt exploited by the folks I worked with. I've also posed for pornographic & fetish pictures & by golly, I must say, I enjoyed it.

How long ago?

(Resisting the temptation to reply "pics or it didn't happen")

heh, no way am I posting pics... but I've done a few photo shoots over the course of a year. The last one was in February, done with a girlfriend. Nothing tasteless or crass, mind you, I've never found the explicit crotch shots tasteful at all, but quite fetishy & loads of fun.

[semper occultus]

The last one was in February, done with a girlfriend.

OK now you're definitley just messing with our heads.

[JackRiddler]

Bet you didn't know that I also had a prior career as an art-porn star. I don't usually talk about it, but since it's on-topic, here are (clothed) stills of me from two of my favorite performances:





That's me on the right, of course.

[§ê¢rꆧ]

I think it is safe to say the OP is another way of saying 'all men masturbate,' because that is usually what watching porn leads to. I've been wondering about this bit of self-love and indulgence: is it wasting your chi, conditioning yourself not to take pleasure in real relationships, or a healthy stress reliever and exerciser of the prostrate, the ultimate in responsible, safe-sex?

It seems to me a good case could be made for both arguments. Certainly as a young hormone-addled boy I found great benefit from the use of porn, in that I could get my sexual desire out of the way and think clearly. Without it, I probably would have like ten kids, or something.

When I was fairly young I found those porn books disguised as pop psychology by Nancy Friday, in which people describe their sexual fantasies anonymously, and then the author psychoanalyzes and comments on it. The thing I took away from those books is that people are way fucked up sexually, have the craziest, sickest fantasies, and that in most cases, it is probably all right. That's what fantasies are for, they really should be beyond judgement, like dreams or fiction. It actually made me feel better about my own sexual fantasies, because they were far less taboo than the ones in those books.

Porn is just sexual fantasy for the unimaginative, or the lazy, or the more visually inclined. I don't think all men watch it, but then I suspect that most of them do, in gradations of porniness. Women seem to prefer to read porn, whether disguised as a romance novel, or dressed up as erotica, or just those little reader's letters magazine booklets. My own taste in porn has followed a bell curve from tame to outrageous and back to tame again, at least anecdotally disproving the idea that softcore porn is like a gateway to 'harder porn,' constantly leading to worse depravity because it takes more and more disturbing imagery to get off.

[norton ash]

Porn might also provide a safe and vicarious form of adultery or promiscuity that satisfies the instinct to have sex with all the partners you can. One sees the "new and different" faces, bodies, experiences that one is wired to crave. Porn and fantasy can actually be helpful to a more stress-free monogamy. (Adventuring and living lies can be really stressful; lack of catharsis for the secret self can be stressful; ennui and the feeling that you're missing out can be stressful.)

But then, one of the few things I took from David Hare's not-so-good play "My Zinc Bed" was the cyncial older tycoon's assertion that monogamy and marriage was a bad idea for the young, and that marriage should only come after 35 or 40, IIRC. I think there's some truth there.

[Cordelia]

Wow Jack, What beautiful/interesting pictures. They're really you? The RI board seems full of people with very diverse interests & backgrounds. (I was reminded of Kate Blanchette top and David Bowie bottom pic.)

[JackRiddler]

Wow Jack, What beautiful/interesting pictures. They're really you? The RI board seems full of people with very diverse interests & backgrounds. (I was reminded of Kate Blanchette top and David Bowie bottom pic.)

On the top pic I was going for Tilda Swinton, so thanks, CB is in a similar vein.

Okay, your generous response shames me to confess: no, those aren't me, silly. Those are two I wish I was, or at any rate embodied physically.

[Cordelia]

^^Ok, smart-ass, very funny--I took the bait

Actually I thought first of Tilda but couldn't remember her name.

Edited to ask--But is that David Bowie?

[barracuda]

those aren't me...

That's fucked up, considering I'd already begun engaging in a rather elaborate fantasy involving those images and certain improbable events backstage at an imaginary 911 Truth symposium. Oh well, reboot.