{"id":40,"date":"2008-06-04T00:01:30","date_gmt":"2008-06-04T07:01:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/?p=40"},"modified":"2008-06-04T10:51:25","modified_gmt":"2008-06-04T17:51:25","slug":"the-internet-is-for-porn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/?p=40","title":{"rendered":"The Internet is for Porn"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com\/2008\/05\/21\/would-a-porn-tax-hurt-sales\/\" target=\"else\">This article<\/a> is making the rounds on the net:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>A California state assemblyman has proposed dealing with the state\u2019s huge budget shortfall by taxing pornography, including the production and sale of pornographic videos \u2014 by 25 percent.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><!--more--><br \/>\nYes, in case you haven&#8217;t noticed (like you&#8217;re my mom or someone else who doesn&#8217;t prowl the Internet for nekkid pictures), the Internet is for porn. Indeed, it joins a long tradition. I&#8217;ve heard that every major media invented by man was quickly taken over by pornography:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>There is a room in the ruins of Pompeii (I&#8217;ve been there) with dirty wall paintings.<\/li>\n<li>After Gutenberg printed his bible, literally the next thing off the press was porn. (It actually increased the motivation for people to learn to read.)<\/li>\n<li>Photography was invented and then immediately dirty pictures were taken.<\/li>\n<li>Same thing with film.<\/li>\n<li>Nothing helped accelerate the introduction of the VCR into the home like pornographic video tapes.<\/li>\n<li>Once the Web got up to speed: Internet Porn.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Of these, the Internet has been the most successful. Hugely successful. Obnoxiously successful. Given the speed of the Internet, it&#8217;s massive storage capacity and huge world-wide audience, porn has found its home.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, have you heard of Rule 34? Here&#8217;s the definition from the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.urbandictionary.com\" target=\"ud\">Urban Dictionary<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Rule 34.<\/strong> Generally accepted Internet rule that states that pornography or sexually related material exists for any conceivable subject. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Here are some statistics from the <a href=\"http:\/\/internet-filter-review.toptenreviews.com\/internet-pornography-statistics.html\" target=\"news\">Internet Pornography Statistics<\/a> web site:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Every second &#8211; $3,075.64 is being spent on pornography<br \/>\nEvery second &#8211; 28,258 Internet users are viewing pornography<br \/>\nEvery second &#8211; 372 Internet users are typing adult search terms into search engines<br \/>\nEvery 39 minutes: a new pornographic video is being created in the United States<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>It gets even uglier. Porn is so pervasive that I do not let my kids use a computer outside of my presence. If you&#8217;re bold enough, try this experiment: go to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\/imghp?hl=en&#038;tab=wi&#038;q=\" target=\"google\">Google Image Search<\/a> and type in any girl&#8217;s name. Odds are that the first screen, if not the first image match you see, will contain hard core pornography. (It&#8217;s possible to configure the Google Image Search to suppress such images; use the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences?hl=en\" target=\"google\">Google Safe Search<\/a> option.)<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps the best summary of the situation comes from a song. The Broadway show <em>Avenue Q<\/em> is a send-up of Sesame Street. The <a href=\"http:\/\/cabbage.vox.com\/library\/audio\/6a00c2251d9162549d00d4143292ef685e.html\" target=\"else\"><em>The Internet is for Porn<\/em> song<\/a> from the show puts it well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This article is making the rounds on the net: A California state assemblyman has proposed dealing with the state\u2019s huge budget shortfall by taxing pornography, including the production and sale of pornographic videos \u2014 by 25 percent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-main"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}