pnwmom (1000+ posts) Sun Oct-09-11 11:47 PM
Response to Original message
2. I think the ban is wrong. This isn't an ordinary workplace.
This is a workplace that is also the only place of residence for the prisoners.
And it seems to me that any woman who is a guard in a men's prison has a lot more to deal with than worrying about magazines.
I don't even know where to begin with this one.
People with no self-control or sense of moral obligation should be given sexually objectifying materials so female prison guards can feel safer?
Warren DeMontague (1000+ posts) Mon Oct-10-11 01:08 AM
Response to Reply #5
10. It is a relatively harmless item that could make an intolerable situation SLIGHTLY more bearable
Who is REALLY harmed by these guys who are cut off fropm the company of actual women, being able to look at pictures of them?
I'll tell you who: no one. And the 'work environment' argument is just an excuse, an excuse for people who think the miserable experience of being in prison isn't uite miserable enough. It's the "Sheriff Joe" mentality. And honestly, if our prisons were REALLY full only of violent, hurtful people, I might be more inclined to agree. But we've been letting murderers out to make room for pot smokers.
So as long as we insist on filling our prisons with non-violent drug offenders, I think we should cut them some slack.
Intolerable?
Tell that to the recidivists.
Of course it all boils down to a complaint about drugs.
Matariki (1000+ posts) Mon Oct-10-11 07:09 PM
Response to Reply #3
26. I really hate the "cost of being criminals" argument
It's cruel and ignorant. Following that logic, would you have people who are in prison be put into little cages with only bread and water? It seems like your argument is ALWAYS applied to any sort of idea that people held in prison deserve the least bit of comfort or humanity.
Pretty much.
Warren DeMontague (1000+ posts) Mon Oct-10-11 09:00 PM
Response to Reply #26
33. Some people just want to ban porn, period, but since they can't stop everyone from looking at it
people in prison are a good place to start.
It has zero to do with safety issues in the prison, and everything to do with a petty attempt to make these guys' lives even more miserable than they are IMHO.
Soldiers aren't allowed to have girlie posters in the male barracks.
Apparently its sexual harrassment or something.
Warren DeMontague (1000+ posts) Mon Oct-10-11 01:00 AM
Response to Original message
7. Jesus. Let them masturbate, for ****'s sake.
I would think that would contribute to a generally less tense atmosphere in the prison and a SAFER environment for the guards.
markpkessinger (1000+ posts) Mon Oct-10-11 04:07 AM
Response to Reply #9
16. In many prisons, if a prisoner is caught masturbating . . .
. . . it is treated as a disciplinary infraction.
Obamanaut (1000+ posts) Mon Oct-10-11 07:57 PM
Response to Reply #23
28. I think this is a 'revealing' sentence from the article at the link you
provided: "...All were charged by the same female deputy, according to the Sun-Sentinel...."
It almost appears that this deputy was targeting this sort of behavior.
The only times I heard of this being a punishable offense when I was a prison guard were the instances where the inmate was obviously using one of the female staff members as 'inspiration', or exposed himself (all male prisoners) to a staff member.
Suddenly sexually hostile work environments are cool.
Warren DeMontague (1000+ posts) Mon Oct-10-11 01:20 AM
Response to Reply #11
12. Oh for ****'s sake.
Look, like I said upthread.. I understand that this isn't really driven by logic, instead by an authoritarian desire to make the miserable experience that is prison even MORE miserable. And if everyone in prison was convicted solely of violent crime, I might be more sympathetic to that urge.
As it is, we've filled our prisons with non-violent drug offenders, many in for simple possession. Who, honestly, is harmed by them having some pictures of naked women to masturbate to? No one.
markpkessinger (1000+ posts) Mon Oct-10-11 03:55 AM
Response to Reply #12
13. Absolutely - Our treatment of the incarcerated has become sadistic
What many people seem to fail to realize is that when you separate a person from his or her family and friends and from everything that person holds dear in the world, confine that person in a way that he or she has no real freedom of movement, and in an environment where that person's safety is at significant risk by virtue of some of those with whom he or she is incarcerated, you have already exacted an enormous physical, emotional and psychological toll. It really isn't necessary to go out of your way to heap misery on top of that experience. And I would argue that the desire to make the prison experience as intolerable as you can possibly make it is sheer stupidity from the standpoint of society's interest. The fact is, the majority of these prisoners will one day be released. They already face enormous hurdles in trying to reintegrate themselves into productive society such that many are effectively forced back into a life of crime. But who would argue that society's interest is best served by helping, rather than hindering, that transition? Does anybody seriously think it is wise, on top of all of the hurdles such prisoners already face upon release, to add to the mix the kind of pent up anger or other psychological dysfunction that almost inevitably results from an excessively punitive incarceration experience?
LeftyMom (1000+ posts) Mon Oct-10-11 04:07 AM
Response to Original message
15. The idea that removing porn is going to improve things for female employees is stupid.
Guess who the inmates are going to think about when they jerk it, if you cut off the porn supply? The only women they see on a day to day basis. ESPECIALLY if the blame them for the lack of porn. I'd be surprised if they don't wind up with a bunch more guys leering, making a show of spanking it, exposing themselves, and otherwise making life miserable for the female guards and staff.
Warren DeMontague (1000+ posts) Mon Oct-10-11 08:04 AM
Response to Reply #17
21. "Porn is essentially degrading to women." How's that? Is SEX essentially degrading to women? Nudity?
So how are pictures of naked women (or men, for that matter) or naked women AND men having sex, "degrading to women"?
What if a prisoner has a naked picture of his wife or girlfriend that she wants him to have? Is that "degrading" to her?
Warren DeMontague (1000+ posts) Tue Oct-11-11 03:44 PM
Response to Reply #46
52. Are we talking about consenting adults?
Are adult women suddenly rendered incapable of consent when confronted with a video camera?
Why are you so determined to infantalize other people who don't make the same choices you would (and maybe, just maybe, don't have the same definition of "disgusting" that you do)?
RESPECT means letting CONSENTING ADULTS make up THEIR OWN DAMN MINDS about what they CHOOSE to do with their bodies, as well as what they CHOOSE to look at and how they CHOOSE to express their sexuality.
Whisp (1000+ posts) Tue Oct-11-11 07:07 PM
Response to Reply #21
76. masturbating isn't 'sex'. In order have sex you need at least two
consenting adults.
masturbating is a single player sport.
just like rape is not 'sex'
Warren DeMontague (1000+ posts) Tue Oct-11-11 07:30 PM
Response to Reply #76
82. Really?
Tell that to the fine people at Good Vibrations in San Francisco, who have spent years trying to educate women that it's okay for them to masturbate without feeling guilty.
So masturbation is not sex, and rape is not sex, does that mean that masturbation=rape?
Otherwise, why bring it up?
Warren DeMontague (1000+ posts) Tue Oct-11-11 03:50 PM
Response to Reply #49
57. No, it makes you someone who doesn't like
images of women having objects stuck up their vaginas.
I don't like 80s hair metal, but I don't spend my time and energy trying to eliminate it from the planet.
Warren DeMontague (1000+ posts) Mon Oct-10-11 08:59 PM
Response to Reply #27
31. Maybe they shouldn't be allowed to read books, too?
I mean, they should just imagine them.
This really seems to be bothering him on a personal level, doesn't it?
Warren DeMontague (1000+ posts) Tue Oct-11-11 02:07 AM
Response to Reply #40
41. Why are you so concerned about how other people get their jollies?
One might ask the same of you.
Yes, they should use their imagination. Why do you give a shit?
The prisoners want it, it makes a generally shitty situation apparently slightly more bearable, there is no cogent safety reason to ban it.. so really, what this is about, is control freaks wanting to make prison life suck even more for these guys, like it doesn't enough already.
And like I said upthread, if I really believed our prisons were full of only the worst of the worst of the violent among us, I might be more sympathetic to the argument. But the fact is, our prisons are full of non-violent, low level drug offenders. Sure, let's "punish" them as much as possible, eh?
Warren DeMontague (1000+ posts) Tue Oct-11-11 05:54 PM
Response to Reply #61
66. Would you expect me to not object if you were telling GLBT people how to run their sex lives?
Edited on Tue Oct-11-11 06:11 PM by Warren DeMontague
It's VERY SIMPLE. Consenting adults. If consenting adults want to **** in front of a camera, that's their business. If OTHER consenting adults want to WATCH the film of those consenting adults ****ing, that's THEIR business.
Don't like porn? Great. Don't ****ing watch it. You flail around and piss and moan because not everyone accepts the inherent 'logic' of your need to try to insert yourself into the personal choices of CONSENTING ADULTS. It's real ****ing simple. Not everything is for everyone, and sometimes people are going to make choices you or I don't like. Being able to deal with that, and the multi-faceted, pluralistic world we live in, is part of being a grown-up.
Well, then, if the prisoners want porn they can just walk down to their local...
...oh, wait.
Warren DeMontague (1000+ posts) Tue Oct-11-11 07:05 PM
Response to Reply #71
75. Actually, I've said repeatedly that things have a time & a place.
I'm usually the one arguing that, say, a smoking ban in a restaurant is not the same thing as "banning cigarettes". You can't look at porn (much less masturbate) in most restaurants as well. Which is as it should be.
But these guys in prison don't really have anywhere else to go; and like I said, the majority are poor minorities in there for low-level non-violent drug offenses- so should they not have any privacy? If they're not harassing the female employees with, say, their dirty magazine, who is harmed if they keep it under their bunk?
what the --
Warren DeMontague (1000+ posts) Mon Oct-10-11 09:13 PM
Response to Reply #32
37. And your fear is, if the prisoners have porn, it won't be unpleasant enough?
What'll we do, if the million plus non-violent drug offenders we have cramming our nation's prison cells, aren't having an unpleasant enough experience? That would be TERRIBLE!
So instead of: incarcerate the bad! We get: pr0n for all!
Warren DeMontague (1000+ posts) Mon Oct-10-11 09:11 PM
Response to Reply #34
35. "Plus it's totally addictive, as bad as any drug." Oh yeah? Got scientific data to back that up?
I mean REAL science, not something out of an American Family Institute funded think tank that just got finished documenting how the grand canyon was formed in 15 minutes during "Noah's flood"
Also, lots of men AND women enjoy erotica, as do gay men and lesbians.
ad·dic·tion noun \ə-ˈdik-shən, a-\
Definition of ADDICTION
1: the quality or state of being addicted <addiction to reading>
2:
compulsive need for and use of a habit-forming substance (as heroin, nicotine, or alcohol)
characterized by tolerance and by well-defined physiological symptoms upon withdrawal; broadly : persistent compulsive use of a substance known by the user to be harmful 
Warren DeMontague (1000+ posts) Tue Oct-11-11 01:59 AM
Response to Reply #38
39. Sorry, but 12 step dogma and hearsay doesn't constitute science.
Edited on Tue Oct-11-11 02:04 AM by Warren DeMontague
I asked for science. Sure, the people who make a LIVING treating so-called "sex addiction" are certainly going to argue vociferously that it's "real". Funny, how when there's a treatment industry involved, people can be "addicted" to just about anything, except maybe 12 step meetings.
No, I'm familiar with ACTUAL addiction, and calling every behavior -even detrimental behavior- people engage in that they or other people think they shouldn't engage in "addiction" does a MAJOR disservice to ACTUAL addicts who are dealing with REAL ADDICTION to ACUTALLY ADDICTIVE SUBSTANCES.
My "hostility" comes from being rag-ass tired of authoritarian shitheads trying to tell consenting adults how they can or cannot get their jollies in the privacy of their own home. It's VERY SIMPLE. Is everyone involved a consenting adult? Then it's not your friggin' business. There are a lot of things that you can't do at work, not just look at porn. Unless your job INVOLVES looking at porn, probably the reason your employer doesn't want you looking at porn at work is because if you're looking at porn, you're not doing your work.
Am I a "major porn consumer"? No, but like 99% of the rest of the men in this country, I've looked at it upon occasion.
(As has your guy, if you have one. If he tells you he doesn't, he's lying.)
"Consumer" generally implies paying for the thing. God bless the intertubes, that's all I can say.
Like the vast majority of heterosexual male homo sapiens, I like to look at, and am turned on by, naked women. (Gay male homo sapiens tend to like to look at naked men, and god bless 'em for that) The person with the "problem" is the one who is so ****ed up in the head that he/she thinks there's something "wrong" with that.
Warren DeMontague (1000+ posts) Tue Oct-11-11 03:41 PM
Response to Reply #42
51. I agree that they make the rules. But I think the rules should have some justification & be humane.
If there is no safety reason to keep, for instance, pictures of naked women (to be distinguished, of course, from "porn", and like fmr. SCOTUS Justice Potter Stewart, I wonder how one draws the line) out of a prison setting, I question the justification of doing it.
And like I've said repeatedly upthread; if I really believed our prisons were full of ONLY the worst, most violent among us, I might be more sympathetic to the "punishment for the mere sake of making them miserable" argument. However, we let rapists and murderers out of prison to make cell space for mandatory minimum non-violent drug offenders, who constitute most of our inmate population. Since we're cramming our prisons with folks in for stuff like drug possession, I'm a little more inclined to cut them the tiniest bit of slack.
All this time I thought prison was about punishment or rehabilitation, and its environs constructed accordingly, it was really about keeping prisoners safe.
Warren DeMontague (1000+ posts) Tue Oct-11-11 06:35 PM
Response to Reply #50
69. what's "entitled" is thinking you should be in charge of other peoples' sex lives.
If there is some safety issue or they're using it to intimidate female workers, that's one thing. If this is just a jihad to get every picture of a naked boob out of the prison, again, it serves no purpose other than to make these guys' existence that much more miserable.
Be honest, now-- this isn't about smut in prison so much as smut in general. No?
The same entitlement that let's me decide whether the convict is allowed to move freely, vote, own a gun, own property, etc etc etc.
Now ready yourselves for this next exchange.
...
...
Ready?
I don't think so.
First, the set-up.
Scout (1000+ posts) Tue Oct-11-11 06:58 PM
Response to Reply #70
72. yes, you know, all women love to have a man come all over their face,
and then they spread it around all over their breasts, and then we just love it when he slaps us in the face with his dick! oooooooh, makes me so hot.
and we really really like it when we give them head for like an hour first, and then they give us face for like 30 seconds which produces a screaming orgasm!!!
"Too often these guys have not a ****ing clue how to make love to a woman because she doesn't have staples. and treat women like a vessel for masturbation, like taking a good shit."
but you know, porn is harmless!
A-a-a-a-and...
GO!
Warren DeMontague (1000+ posts) Tue Oct-11-11 07:27 PM
Response to Reply #72
79. Maybe you guys should try to find different dudes.
Instead of blaming their shitty, unsatisfactory performance on porn.
BTW - if anyone needs a babysitter for the weekend, Warren is available.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x2087338
