Internet Pornography

No one can refute the influence the internet has had on the porn industry. In the beginning the internet was an underground, academic-based vehicle through which traveled electronic mail. Does anyone say that anymore? Electronic Mail. Electronic Mail. Neutron Bomb. Atomic Man. E-Mail, for short. I think it would be wise to “call a spade a spade” (pardoning my previous post) and call E-Mail what it really is. All the time. It is text generated by a machine through which a network of wire, mostly owned by universities, passes from one student to another. Wow! Was there a prequel? An internet bubble that proceeded the .com start up stock market bust? There must have been someone to see the “commercial” potential of E-Mail. It was AOL, or CIA, or FBI. It was America Online before president Bush’s wire-tapping policy was enacted. “Man, if you smell like a terrorist, we can read your E-Mail, your Electronic Mail.” In the recent past private business has lobbied and earned the right to eyeball their employees’ internet activity during work. Are they watching porn? Are they sending E-mail, Electronic Mail? Stanley Jobson in the movie Silverfish spread a virus in the government’s computer network, because they were reading people’s private E-Mail. Legend? Martyr? Hurray for Stanley. Internet use, unlike any other modern phenomena, has influenced our culture. It is too early to see if it has been for better or worse. Let me start the ball rolling. Worse. Propaganda vehicle for Extreme Islam. Better or worse? Vehicle for convenient viewing and download of pornography. In this arena I must expound a little. Pornography on the internet is rampant. There is NO denying it. When a student first starts to “surf” pornography on a university’s T-3 line, it is amazing. It is not only a discovery of often free, blatant, sexual content, but a discovery of the miracle of Website design. No one probably deserves to win the Pulitzer Prize for website design more than pornographers. Like the rest of media in the United States, it appears to be owned and operated by the same people. The similarity of website name and appearance compels one to ask themselves, “How many more clever, temping, teen-oriented websites can they come up with?” It is a matrix, an elaborate labyrinth of websites linked to one another forming an erotic-tinged being that inhabits your web browser, often disabling your surfing controls. It will unscrupulously vanish your Home, Refresh, Forward, and Back graphic icons leaving your computer vulnerable to an onslaught of opening of miscellaneous pornographic websites. Whew, that was a mouthful! That is not a good thing. I don’t think so many pornographic websites is such a good idea. One could get immersed in porn, probably like some have. Pedaphiles began meeting and often visiting underage youths through internet contact. I wonder what the statistics are? Has this behavior escalated as a result of the internet, when it used to be one had to get in a car and physically seek out porn. Adult bookstores, strip clubs, your neighborhood street corner, Times Square, take your pick. Is it better to encapsulate our pornography in cyberdome, fresh for the perusal of just about anyone, any age, or have it spread like peanut butter across America’s urban landscape? That seems more real. That used to be our history. “Get your porn at Time Square.” Then Disney came in and decided to clean it up, albeit for their own monetary gain in a restart of the Broadway musical form. The Lion King, or Debbie, Queen of the Jungle from Down Unda? Beauty and the Beast, or the Devil in Miss Jones? I can’t say modernizing an aging Broadway is a bad thing. Similarly as the advent of Rock ‘n’ Roll took over croonery, swing-based, torch singing Broadway was probably meant for an overhaul. I’m just not sure “pop” was the answer. There are many other choices in the musical palette available also. Take Reggae for example, or Afro-Cuban? How about the Blues? I guess “pop” is meant to appeal to children who were supposed to drag their parents to the “theatre” like a traditional movie. How many children live in New York? Walt Disney was a seminal part of my childhood. Seeing all those animated movies, buying the books, and assimilating those endearing characters was a large part of many peoples’ childhoods. I’m not sure turning New York city’s Times Square into Disneyland was as good an idea. America needs her sleaze to show us the ‘bottom line.” With the internet snaking in almost every home in America, I’m not sure the obscuring of the pursuit of porn has been healthy for the adolescent development of our youth. Much like many traditional youth-oriented activities that act as social catalysts, the pursuit of porn maybe should not be hidden away like some embarrassing pimple. Sexuality is the major component of puberty, and it would be a shame if this crucial development continued to take place in a lonely, individual vacuum accompanied only by one’s right hand.