MsKitka.com

With the popularity of XXXChurch’s anti-porn film Missionary Positions, it seems other Christian groups are getting involved and trying to cash in on the same message:

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Anti-pornography groups are pushing a DVD that is intended to help families recognize the trappings of pornography.

The DVD, “Pornography — The Great Lie: A Guide for Latter-day Saint Families,” was presented Thursday at a roundtable discussion hosted by the Utah Coalition Against Pornography and Bishop George H. Niederauer of the Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City.

The 22-minute video was produced over a one-year period at a cost of $125,000. Citizens Against Pornography underwrote the production. It is available at Deseret Book, and a nondenominational version is to be released.

At this point, however, I’m much more concerned with this film than XXXChurch’s. While XXXChurch takes a much more personal and identifiable approach, this new film sounds like it takes on the persona of old 1950s Catholic Church rhetoric.

Before I was born, my family used to go to church at Christmas. However, every time they would show up they would be sent on a guilt trip for not coming more frequently. They eventually stopped going because they were sick of the Priest’s annual harassment.

I have not seen this film, nor do I really want to, but from the description and the people involved in its production frighten me:

“The insidious evil of pornography no longer lurks in the shadows. It’s coming after you,” the voice-over on the video warns.

About 15 concerned citizens gathered for the roundtable discussion, all of them interested in how to protect families and children.

A teacher worried about sex abuse. Representatives of the Utah Council for Crime Prevention said that where there are drug busts, there is pornography. The chairman of The Lighted Candle Society, John Harmer, spoke of his $3 million dream project to find “the scientific evidence that can be presented in any court of law” to prove pornography damages the brain.

Jack Sunderlage, president and CEO of Content Watch, a software provider that filters Internet material, helped produce the new video.

He also worked with Rep. John Dougall, R-Highland, who sponsored House Bill 260, passed by the 2005 Legislature. The bill, among other things, forces Internet service providers to filter “harmful” material from minors, if requested, and requires the Division of Consumer Protection to make public service announcements.

Communities for Decency will benefit from sales of the newly released DVD.

Wow… where do I start?

I can understand these “citizens’” concerns with sex abuse, but most mainstream pornography does not condone such abuse… that is something produced in the minds of troubled individuals, not from regular Joes watching a porn flick.

The teacher who comments about how pornography is always present when there are drug busts is providing a redundancy. If I broke into a regular Joe’s house, there would probably be pornography as well. Hell, even my dear sweet father had a whole box of Playboys stashed in the basement when I was growing up (thanks Dad)… but there was never any drugs in our house! This teacher is sadly deluded.

My suggestion to John Harmer: go ahead and take out a $3 million bank loan to fund your research to find “the scientific evidence that can be presented in any court of law” to prove pornography damages the brain. Just don’t come crying to me on the street begging for money when your research fails miserably.

Now, probably the worst part of the release of this video is that the organization that benefits from it is Communities for Decency. After checking out their web site, I am appalled at the things they have accomplished in the past:

• Sponsored and passed the Utah Library bill which requires filtering on all library computers. (ie. Denied First Amendment rights)
• Tightened local ordinances at city levels regarding decency laws. (ie. Forced people to abide by their own constrictive religious beliefs)
• Successfully asked for the removal of suggestive and provacative advertisements and billboards from several large companies. (ie. Censored the human body… that which their own God apparently created)
• Thanked and recognized many businesses for their family friendly standards. (ie. Given praise, perhaps even money, to Christian business owners)

Just when you thought National Porn Sunday was over… it seems that it was just the beginning. You have been warned.

Well, it looks like it’s not only an American thing anymore… Canada’s The Globe and Mail reported today that small towns in British Columbia are choosing to evict sex offenders as well:

Kamloops — A convicted sex offender doesn’t seem welcome anywhere in the B.C. Interior.

Public pressure forced David Caza out of Merritt after he moved there when he was released from jail last week.

He relocated to Kamloops, but local Conservative MP Betty Hinton says Kamloops residents may want to follow Merritt’s lead in evicting him.

She says she believes the people of Kamloops do not want a high-risk sex offender in their midst.

So, what’s a sex offender supposed to do?

The problem that people think about, but don’t seem to care about, is that not all of these sex offenders have done something horrible. Dallas criminal lawyer, David Finn, defines a sex offender as follows:

Now, that said, it looks to me as if not all sex offenders are monsters. Sure there’s the odd priest person who indulges in the non-consensual molestation of children, but it doesn’t mean that every person who is a convicted sex offender is automatically going to be a danger to society.

A few months ago, the infamous Montreal-based serial sex killer Carla Homolka was released from prison. Although Carla and her husband abducted, tortured, raped and murdered two teenage girls back in the early 90s, I wasn’t at all afraid due to her release. When it comes to high profile sex offenders like this, the media almost enjoys reporting on it.

I guess it’s kind of like the old saying “The Russians are coming… the Russians are coming!” The truth is, no matter who is coming, the world will keep on turning and our anxiety will subside once we realize that the threat was just media hype. While in prison, these people receive a lot of counceling, and after their release they are well monitored and the location of their residence is public knowledge.

If all countries start evicting sex offenders, where will they go? If sending them to prison is simply a formality, why not just banish them all to an island from the beginning? It seems ridiculous to send them to prison to pay for their rehabilitation and then banish them once they are considered rehabilitated.

Oh well, it doesn’t surprise me that it’s a Conservative MP trying to evict the sex offender in British Columbia…

Everyone’s writing this week about the introduction of the brand new video-iPod. Hell, I’ve been excited about having a portable TV since I was about 12 years old riding the bus to school. I always imagined having a TV-watch… I was even convinced that they existed back then (but, then again, I’m always convinced that things must already exist somewhere…).

This week, the excitement of the iPod brings with it the excitement of more portable porn. The Japanese have been walking around town in public with hentai for decades, but for some reason us North Americans tend to hide our sexual fantasies.

Today, This is London published an article about the emerging market for iPorn (as I like to call it). The article discusses two web sites that have already been set up to help individuals put porn on their iPods. One of the sites simply offers step by step instructions for transferring porn to your iPod and the other site goes on to offer free video footage from a man’s point of view:

It offers three videos free, apparently to tempt people to sign up for a soon-tobelaunched subscription service.

‘Isn’t it funny how Smut Peddlers seem to be the first to develop new uses for technology?’ reads the website.

‘Well just when you thought there were enough ways to furtively enjoy pornography, a newcomer emerges.’ Offering ‘porn-to-go’, the site suggests users view the porn by holding the iPod at crotch level. ‘Combined with the portable and discrete nature of the iPod this is the best mobile porn experience ever,’ the website states.

The article also goes on to address Christian concerns, but thankfully the author uses sarcasm to brush away the ‘moral implications’. He says that Christians are concerned that the new video-iPod, and the porn sites catering to creating videos adapted for the iPod, since it may facilitate children to get their hands on porn at an early age and will allow people to walk around viewing porn in public. But, like I said earlier… the Japanese have been walking around town in public with hentai for decades…

A couple of 18-year-olds ran up a $2460 USD bill at an Albuquerque strip club. Little did these boys know, $30/dance actually means $30/song:

The two teens kicked off the night by sitting near the stage as the dancers “danced.” Then Everett and Wakji were invited by dancers Orchard and Carmela to adjourn to the VIP Room for private lap dances. By the time the strip club closed at 2 a.m., Everett and Wakji had, according to the club manager, been the recipients of 82 lap dances - 41 each.

Now… that’s a lot of lap dances. You would have thought that the dancers or the manager would have been a little suspicious of the two boys. Hell, shop clerks tend to get nervous of me when I’m walking through an expensive store because I have such a baby face! If I was a dancer at the club I would have asked if he wanted another dance after the song finished in order to make it clear that for every new song the customer is paying for a new dance.

In fact, Zod had this problem the other night at Club Downtown where he bought a private lesbian show. Since the girls started their show in the middle of a song and then didn’t say anything when the second song started (I guess their tongues were a little busy) he just figured that he would be paying the $30 for the song and a half since he didn’t get his money’s worth by them starting early. He was wrong. After the second song, he was charged $60.

Perhaps it’s sly moves like this that help give strip clubs a dodgy reputation.

Well, it turns out the two boys were charged… and later released:

“We decided to close the case because both were young men and both said they’d never been in a place like that,” said Hanes, of the DA’s office. “They said they didn’t understand the rules, that each dance costs $30 or whatever, and that a new dance started when a song started.

“We just didn’t see any criminal intent. I mean, you wouldn’t think anyone would sit through 41 lap dances and run up a $2,460 tab on purpose with the intent of not paying. If nothing else, you think you’d be afraid of the bouncers.”

Oh great… I now foresee a whole slew of 18-year-olds doing the same. Strip club managers and bouncers had better be on the lookout for young men looking for (pardon the pun) free rides…

Canada has a well-developed reputation for being a nation of bleeding hearts. We proudly helped smuggle black slaves past our borders when slavery was still active in the US and now it seems we can also be proud of the fine job we are doing to liberate the masses of Americans affected in the appalling war on porn. This week, the Toronto Sun published an article about Canada’s newest porn refugee.

Scott Michael Austin (aka. Kid Vegas) has fled to Canada to avoid being persecuted for a possible sexual assault. Although the courts say that the incident has nothing to do with work, he is actually being accused by one of his porno co-stars. In addition to this, his mother doesn’t believe that he has the chance of a fair trial because of the following factors:

…the only two defence attorneys in Beatty worth their salt dropped the case because one knew the accuser as well as her mother, and the other knew the accuser’s entire family.

As for the judges, she said, one has a niece who is a witness for the prosecution, and the other supposedly has the accuser’s mother on the county’s payroll.

Needless to say, this is a very small town!

So, what will Canada do with their new porn refugee? For the past few months, Kid Vegas has been held in detention centers in Ontario and has been marked “removal ready” by the border service. We’ll just have to wait and see whether he is sent back to Nevada…

This is not the first time Americans have attempted to escape their home country to the Great White North. Attempts of this kind have been made by soldiers trying to escape deployment abroad and homosexuals trying to move to a more gay-friendly environment where same-sex marriage is now legal.

Well, all I can say is “I’m proud to be an American Canadian where at least I know I’m free!“