Is internet porn ruining our next generation? Is censorship the answer?

The world can go to hell in a handbasket before I advocate for censorship of a voluntary activity.I'm perfectly willing to advocate for legal protections. I'd make sure that only adults participate in porn production; I'd make sure the porn that presents male rape/sexual violence fantasies or claims those fantasies are intrinsic to women, or snuff porn, do not contain real events. In other words, I'm happy to advocate for laws that make porn a voluntary, adults-only activity, in both production and viewing.Now, as for me, I think porn has a pernicious effect on both individuals and our popular culture. It is both a reflection and a wellspring of American misogyny. The actors and actresses who provide supernormal stimuli of surgically and cinematically perfected bodies, breasts and pricks of outlandish size and heroic stamina, and malignant portrayals of human sexuality as sadistic and exploitive, all impact cultural norms and make even harder the often awkward negotiation of human sexuality.In addition, many things seem pornographic to me that elude that label in the mainstream: serial killer movies, novels and tv episodes that linger a bit too lovingly on the rape and death scenes; child beauty pageants with little girls made up like courtesans (watch Little Miss Sunshine), web videos of little girls prowling the stage like cougars in heat... In fact, I think these popular mass culture portrayals are more dangerous than a thousand adult porn movies.But censorship? That won't help.Address the cesspool of misogyny and the profit-driven hypersexualization of children, and you might do some good.Educate children about the wonderful diversity of human sexuality, and you might do some good.Work to achieve a popular culture of love and respect for the Other, and you might do some good.Indulge in censorship, and you're just jerking off.

Child porn is illegal, yes. But that's not censorship--it does not ban the expression or depiction of something that is otherwise legal. Child porn is no more legal in the U.S. than in the U.K.Banning Lolita would be censorship, although it's a tediously corrosive book.Banning a documentary of the pedophilic culture of truck-stop prostitution would be censorship; banning actual films of pedophilic sex, and prosecuting the pimps and johns, is not.