Instigator / Pro
14
1565
rating
6
debates
83.33%
won
Topic
#2547

The United States Would Benefit from a Pornography Ban

Status
Finished

The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.

Winner & statistics
Better arguments
6
0
Better sources
4
0
Better legibility
2
2
Better conduct
2
2

After 2 votes and with 10 points ahead, the winner is...

bmdrocks21
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
3
Time for argument
Two weeks
Max argument characters
20,000
Voting period
One month
Point system
Multiple criterions
Voting system
Open
Contender / Con
4
1417
rating
158
debates
32.59%
won
Description

This argument is mainly based on the merits of banning pornography. There is an equal burden of proof: I must prove that the effects of pornography have led to harm in the country, while my opponent must argue that pornography has had a net positive effect on our country and/or that banning it would have more negative consequences than positive ones.

Round 1: Arguments
Round 2: Rebuttals
Round 3: Rebuttals and Closing Remarks

It has been a while since I have debated. Let's have some fun!! :D

Criterion
Pro
Tie
Con
Points
Better arguments
3 point(s)
Better sources
2 point(s)
Better legibility
1 point(s)
Better conduct
1 point(s)
Reason:

Having a clear definition of pornography in the description would have done a lot to reduce much of the “what is pornography anyway” sidebar of the debate, though I do think Pro could have done that in R1 without any major issues. I understand the definition provided, but while it does clearly delineate between different kinds of nudity in media to some extent, the point at which media becomes “too graphic” isn’t all that clear aside from saying it gets a rating above R (the rating system and its application have changed over time) and may have appeared on PornHub (can’t tell if that’s casting too wide or too narrow a net). Regardless, I do feel like it was clear early on that Pro was arguing against obscene pornography, despite Con’s protestations. There’s room to argue, as Con did, that leaving some of what’s deemed “not pornography” on the table could allow many of the problems created by pornography to persist, but that’s only mitigation. Unless you can show that a dramatic reduction in the sheer volume of pornography will have no effect, the argument doesn’t do enough by itself.

Similarly, while Con goes very hard in R2 on the subject of links between criminality and pornography, the trouble is that almost all his sources (with one exception – the Hawaii paper) only claim a non-significant correlation. That’s all mitigation, and it’s only going to reduce the link to Pro’s impacts, not remove it entirely; there’s simply too much evidence coming from Pro to be ignored because you presented a few pieces of research. The Hawaii paper is the one example that shows a potential link to decreasing sex crimes, which would be great if Con had chosen to dig down into the reasons why it could have decreased sex crimes. But he didn’t and given the opportunity in his final round to respond to Pro’s rebuttals, he chose not to do so.

So that doesn’t leave me with a lot to weigh for Con because he gave me two choices: either partially mitigate Pro’s case by allowing that some pornography would survive the purge (the option that makes the most sense to me and which Pro seems to buy into anyway, which only results in mitigation of Pro’s impacts), or have Pro remove some media that is not pornography in an effort to get it all. Assuming I go with the latter, I’m not sure what that means. Con gives me a couple of vague answers, arguing that we’ll lose something very important in getting rid of these works of art, but I have two problems with that. One, Pro basically says we can just censor those elements (e.g. sex scenes in movies) without getting rid of anything substantial. Con provides no response. Two, simply saying we’re destroying large swaths of art and leaving it at that doesn’t give me an impact. What do we lose by getting rid of these works? Why is it so terrible to get rid of this creativity, specifically? Con just says that it’s “a potential slippery slope for also censoring violence”, which might be a decent argument if I knew what the harm of censoring violence was and had a good link to that slope. Lost creativity is a linear impact, and I don’t know what harm it causes. I need to see a clear set of harms from the loss. I can think of many, but Con doesn’t tell me any of them, so I can’t do much with this argument. All of this just leaves Con’s arguments regarding education, which are clearly not mutually exclusive (both sides could educate, though Con does at one point does state that movies can be educational, which implies that porn could be educational… though he just got done saying earlier that it’s doing a poor job of educating… so I can’t do anything with that) and Pro basically permutes that argument into his case later in the debate.

That leaves me with a lack of offense for Con. Meanwhile, all of Pro’s arguments are still on the table. Objectification is never addressed. Pro’s point about abuse to actors gets a half-hearted “but we can fix that with regulations” response that’s never fleshed out. Con drops that it’s bad for relationships, even buying into this a bit in his R2, and fails to address the links to crime and health. He drops sex trade, drops gray matter, and drops access for children. Even if I’m wholly dismissing Pro’s direct benefits for crime, there’s too much left on his side of the flow afterwards to leave alone. That’s not to mention that he has a mountain of sources that Con never addresses, while Pro carefully picked apart each source Con provided. That leaves me awarding Pro both arguments and sources.

Criterion
Pro
Tie
Con
Points
Better arguments
3 point(s)
Better sources
2 point(s)
Better legibility
1 point(s)
Better conduct
1 point(s)
Reason:

This debate could have benefited from more details in the description.

Bad for Porn Stars:
Pro shows that it harms future job prospects (side note: a girl I knew working at a bikini coffee shop suffered discrimination for her other job... which to me is very ironic).
The lifestyle can be hard and lead to abuse within it, highlighted with a suicide, and moral questions of consent when you need to work to eat (this could however be said of any job).
Pro further highlights how this isn't some underground crime thing, these are licensed businesses.

Bad for Users:
Pro immediately uses how children are exposed to this way too young...
Porn viewing is positively correlated with infidelity with a strong confidence.
Possible harm to the brain from over engaging the pleasure.

Bad for Our Country At Large: (the big one given the resolution)
Divorce, which pro remembers to build up in terms of harm to children, in particular them taking to crime.
It's closely connected to increased domestic abuse in teens.
Child abuse as well (this one was odd: owners of child porn are more likely to abuse children... Both symptoms of being pedos)

Semantics:
Con complains that pro did not get into the different types of porn enough, and does a valid criticism that if porn were more regulated to have only romantic porn then the problem of connected violence would go away.
Con continues to build a case around such a ban would also ban the written word... I do not see in the resolution or description or even in pro's case a qualifier that anything vaguely sexual be banned, which makes this point seem to be without merit. ... On this one pro does a good defense that if someone were to buy it, that harms of too much of a ban were not shown to be greater than the benefit.

When either side has words like this in the conclusion (at least in debates without extreme qualifiers of absolute certainty), it's pretty obvious the other side won "he has not proven with 100% certainty"

Sources: This was a true landslide. Con tried to counter with a study from India, which made no conclusions, but disagreed with a study that seemed to have more information done on the US population (this being a US policy debate, not international). To be fair, pro also used international studies, such as a Swedish one on aggression, which seems more transferable than one simply throwing their hands up and shrugging.

Arguments: Obviously pro took this. He showed many harms that were left unchallenged, and the benefits in place even if buying the slippery slope were clear and not challenged with worse harms of said ban.

Personally, I both agree and disagree with pro. There are likely better ways to regulate it than outright banning it, but the current harms make said ban seem preferable to the status quo.