Porn Addiction: Causes And Effects Essay

Porn addiction is one of the current problems brought about by the advancement in the information technology sector. Like other addictions, addiction to porn exhibits some common signs and follow a similar pattern as other addiction to substances and drugs. Addiction to pornography can be seen when one spends more time engrossed with a pornographic material to a point of neglecting important people like family or friends. After these moments, the person may also exhibit â€Å"mixed feelings of well being and guilt† because they have to lie about the time they’ve spent looking at or reading the material (Help Guide). The addict may also exhibit anxiety and depression when unable to access the material or might generally be irritable when their time to find complete sexual pleasure is interrupted or shortened. At times when the addiction becomes too serious the addict may experience hardships at the work place or in school because of frustration or may start misusing money by buying more porn materials or gambling and further much worse start engaging in flings with unknown people to satisfy new sexual fantasies. (Help guide) pornography in the current age has become harder to control and hard to censure. The internet which is relied upon by millions of people for information and telecommunications has played a big role in spreading pornography to people of all ages. Given its simple accessibility and fairly liberal use in many countries, any person with the knowledge of using a computer can access pornographic material on the internet at any time. According researchers to Internet pornography is the new crack cocaine, meaning that it is a highly addictive leading to undesirable characters â€Å"such as, misogyny, pedophilia, boob jobs and erectile dysfunction†, Singel (2004). The fact that the internet allows one to access numerous sites anonymously makes it ideal for porn viewing to become a habit. To make it worse even children as young as 7 yrs old have been known to access porn from the internet. Pornography is hard to delete from the mind one an addiction sets in. compared to cocaine addicts, the porn addict has a difficult time â€Å"†¦recovering from their addiction than cocaine addict†¦ since coke users can get the drug out of their system, but pornographic images stay in the brain forever†¦Ã¢â‚¬  because the chemicals released in the body are what heroin and other substance users really aim for but never achieve; thus it is hard for anyone who is an addict to ever fully recover (Singel, 2004). The internet presents the largest challenge in the fight against porn and addictions. About 5 years ago over 1. 3 million porn sites and more than 260 million pages, making it one of the most profitable industries in the United States. In 2006 the industry raked 13. 3 billion dollars in the United States alone and more than 97 million dollars in the web. According to statistics form the internet filter review more than 72 million users accessed adult sites each month (Statistics on pornography). According to Statistics from Divorcewizards. com â€Å"At a 2003 meeting of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, two thirds of the 350 divorce lawyers who attended â€Å", had been divorced and they blamed the internet as a major cause of break in the marriage among the cases they pointed out, porn contributed to more than half of the reasons given. (Statistics on pornography). Other effects the computer had on the individual were carpal syndrome and dry eyes especially those who access porn on the internet while seated; headaches and sleep disturbance; eating irregularities among other issues. The underlying causes for the development of addiction could be mental illness relationship problems and /or substance abuse. According to experts there was a big connection between people who used substances and hard drugs and porn addiction. In other instances such as the church, many pastors admitted that they had either been tempted or had actually been accessing porn thorough the net even when they knew this was a sin. They also admitted that pornography was always an issue when it came to the congregation and the clergy alike such that a survey revealed that more than 30% of the clergy men in the past 8 years have visited the pornographic sites in and majority of them a couple of times. ( Statistics on pornography) It was also discovered according to Focus on the Family Poll carried out in October 2003, that at least 47% percent of families indicated that they hard experienced problems at home because of pornography especially with the children and adolescents. According to London school of economics, children who were aged between the ages 8 to16 were much more likely to have viewed pornography within their home setting. This was supported by figures which showed that 9 out of 10 children within the specified age bracket had accidentally viewed porn on the internet in computers they use at home together with their families. Also important is the fact that 1 out of every 7 children who frequently used the internet had been sexually solicited; a realization that sex predators had started using the internet to lure kids. Indeed, according to the journal of Adolescent health 76% of victims in the internet initiated sexual exploitation case fell between the ages 13 to 15 and mostly girls. In most of these cases the children were led into sexual encounters which were mostly forced. The coarse language and sexually overt material that the internet and other media, displayed became a matter of concern for the government in 1996 where the United states department of justice noted the â€Å"Never before in the history of telecommunications media in the United States has so much indecent (and obscene) material been so easily accessible by so many minors in so many American homes with so few restrictions†(statistics on pornography). A leading psychologist Dr. James Dobson explains that â€Å"pornography addiction causes a person to become desensitized to the material,† making one develop boredom or lack of interest in what was once appealing. This is also followed by fantastic imaginations of the victim playing different roles in different scenes; begins to treat serious relationships casually and shows solitary tendency preferring to spend a lot of time privately. Dr. Dobson demonstrates how porn addicts unable to be satisfied by their partners decide to seek their fantasies and this leads to serious problems in marriage and even divorce. Cyber sex seems to have taken the place of relational sex because in majority of the patients he was attending to, 68 % had been hooked up to cyber sex did not have relational sex. Usually, as was testified by some of his patients, the individual beginning the habit does not realize it’s an addiction until they try to stop and they can’t. The thing becomes bigger than the individual hence it alienates him from his family and friends. (Gabriel Lefrancois, 2008). Defenders of pornography have put forward arguments that pornography in itself is not harmful, and therefore Banning or regulating it is unfair. Basing their argument on the Presidential Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, 1970, they reject the apparent relationship between exposure pornographic material and the resulting behavior. However over the years many researches have conclusively shown there is a significant relationship between conditioning and human behavior. Psychologists at the Wisconsin University found that â€Å"brief exposure to violent forms of pornography can lead to anti-social attitudes and behavior. Male viewers tend to be more aggressive towards women, less responsive to pain and suffering of rape victims, and more willing to accept various myths about rape†. The psychologists showed that continued exposure to such materials made people insensitive to rape as a criminal offense thereby changing their attitude attitudes toward women in particular the way they viewed and treated women (Documented Effects of Porn). In addition, increased exposure to the materials also created an unusual desire for violent sex, conflict and suffering deviant behavior like abuse as well as molestation and pedophilias. Sociologists such as Murray Straus and Larry Baron of University of New Hampshire found out that rape increased exponentially with rates of high sales of sexually laden magazines. This was also confirmed by experiments carried out to show that exposure to violent and no violent pornography over some time yielded different results. Exposure to non- violent pornography made the subjects in the research very accommodating and understanding of women and they tended to be much gentler with them, however exposure to violent pornography gave the opposite results proving that ‘exposure to violent pornography, even after provocation , produced essentially no antiwoman aggression, fantasies, or attitudes†( American Psychological Association). A University of Texas Professor Robert Jensen in 2008, showed how attitudes expressed in porn spread from the California valley where the porn films were made â€Å"†¦to the bedrooms of real people in real places,† Jensen explained how this permeating effect of pornography was harmful due to racial undertones it carried which to a larger extent have continued to a main feature of television programs. He argued that porn expressed the desire by woman to be mistreated and the right of men to do so. He finally conclude that in order to tackle individual and societal harms produced by porn, we must acknowledge a moral quality to our relationships with one another and must come to a consensus on what the â€Å"limits of the sexual experience are. † (Kalloch Andrew, 2009) Pornography is very much in the public domain. In the US for instance, almost all theatres show x- rated films; almost every book or video store offer porn materials and most of the movies shown on box office which have sexually exploitive material rake in about 50 million dollars each year. Pamela Paul, a writer notes that â€Å"often pornography use ruins relationships, increases sexual dysfunction, and changes what men expect from women†. She reveals how a person who thinks it is harmless, found out that the moment they got used to pornography, their sex lives changed. They lost the human form of sex and adopted the computerized one. She explains how before the advent of the internet men and women alike used to see porn from time to time but the internet has made it so easy and so harmless that one cannot see when they are slipping in to addiction until it is too late. I fact most of them are usually happy and in complete denial that they are addicted until their marriages or jobs are lost (Paul Pamela, 2005) Though it is evident that the causes of porn addiction may be very few and subtle. The fact that we rely on the internet to communicate and do most of our work puts us in the direct pipeline of pornographic materials available. It is only our curiosity which separates us from clicking the button and accessing millions of materials filled with porn. Like some of the critics have shown, it might be very hard to take the experiments by the psychologists as conclusive because they do not take into account the fact that addicts seek out porn materials by themselves even before the addiction actually sets in and therefore the action by the psychologists in the experiments to give or expose the subjects to pornographic materials in order to observe change in behavior is absurd. The part which makes porn addictive is when it is sought by the person themselves. This trains and conditions the mind such that the body is always guided by the mind to imagine and seek the object of imagination as opposed to merely being given a specific material. Explaining further, there are other sexually stimulating materials which may not be considered stimulating in the general sense of the word for instance wearing boots or uniform of a certain kind. They may be appealing to some people and not elicit any feeling in others. It is therefore the responsibility of the individual to make a choice of weather to avoid visiting porn websites all together in order to have a healthy relationship or to pop in once in a while and risk getting addicted. The choice is yours. References A Help Guide: Internet porn and cyber sex addiction http://www. helpguide. org/mental/internet_cybersex_addiction. htm [Accessed 24th April 2009 Documented effects of pornography http://www. forerunner. com/forerunner/X0388_Effects_of_Pornograp. html [Accessed 24th April 2009] Kalloch Andrews (2009) Texas professor decries porn permeating media: Harvard law record http://media. www. hlrecord. org/media/storage/paper609/news/2009/04/16/News/Texas. Prof. Decries. Porns. Permeating. Effect-3712817. shtml [Accessed 24th April 2009] Lefrancois Gabriel (2008) Online porn addiction, Hitched Magazine [Online] http://www. hitchedmag. com/article. php? id=134 [Accessed 24 April 2009] Paul, Pamela (2005) How porn destroys lives, belief net 2005 http://www. beliefnet. com/News/2005/10/How-Porn-Destroys-Lives. aspx [Accessed 24th April 2009 Ryan Singel, (2004), Internet porn, worse than crack? http://www. wired. com/science/discoveries/news/2004/11/65772 [Accessed 24th April] 2009] Statistics on Pornography, sexual addiction and online perpetrators, http://www. safefamilies. org/sfStats. php [Accessed 24th April 2009] Studies on effects of pornography, Data from PsycLIT Database – American Psychological Association. http://www. netspeed. com. au/ttguy/refs2. htm [Accessed 24th April 2009]

Intercultural Competence Worksheet Essay

1. What does â€Å"intercultural† communication mean to you? Intercultural communication to me means many things. It mainly means the way that people communicate throughout the different cultures that they derive from. Intercultural communication is basically the way that one person from a particular country would communicate with someone from America. Every culture has their own set of non-verbal gestures that could mean something completely different to an opposing culture. Verbal communication differs between different cultures and ethnic groups as well. Here is an example from Chapter One’s reading that I found to be quite interesting: â€Å"Latinos make up nearly a third of the populations of California and Texas, and they constitute at least 20 percent of the people in Arizona, Florida, Nevada, and New Mexico†. I live in Florida and found this interesting because the population of the town that I live in is well over one half populated with Latinos. We are forced to communicate and understand their cultures in order to better understand them on a personal level. Intercultural Competence: Interpersonal Communication across Cultures, Sixth Edition, by Myron W. Lustig and Jolene Koester. Published by Allyn & Bacon. Copyright  © 2010 by Pearson Education, Inc. 2. Define â€Å"intracultural† communication. How is this definition both similar and different to â€Å"intercultural† communication? According to Yahoo.com,†Intracultural communication† is often a trigger for stereotypes. First a definition of â€Å"Intracultural communication† is the type of communication that takes place between members of the same dominant  culture, but with slightly different values, as opposed to â€Å"intercultural communication† which is the communication between two distinct cultures. An example of intracultural communication triggering a stereotype would be if a person in the dominant culture, let’s say of the United States, spoke Ebonics. If a non-Ebonics speaking person hears Ebonics, a dialect of English with slang,they may assume the person is of low intelligence, and is a criminal or violent in nature. Ebonics is a language that is widely spoken among many African Americans as well as those from very southern states. For example, in my town we have what we call â€Å"Rednecks† who have their own language. I understand it but I have personally come into contact with people from up North who cannot understand a word of what that person is saying. http://voices.yahoo.com/intracultural-intercultural-causes-stereotypes-13680.html 3. What are some reasons and approaches behind mastering intercultural communication? Mastering Intercultural Communication can be master by the BASIC dimensions of Intercultural Competence. Here are the skills needed in order to master Intercultural Communication: Display of Respect- The ability to show respect and positive regard for another person Orientation to Knowledge- The terms people use to explain themselves and the world around them Empathy- The capacity to behave as though you understand the world as others do Interaction Management- Skill in regulating conversations Task Role Behavior- Behaviors that involve the initiation of ideas related to group problem solving activities Relational Role Behavior- Behaviors associated with Interpersonal Harmony and Mediation Tolerance for Ambiguity- The ability to react to new and ambiguous situations with little visible discomfort Interaction Posture- The ability to respond to others in descriptive, nonevaluative, and non-judgmental ways. These BASIC descriptions of behaviors are seen as cross cultural. What that means is that no matter the culture that a person may be in, these skills are always used in one way or another. Intercultural Competence: Interpersonal Communication across Cultures, Sixth Edition, by Myron W. Lustig and Jolene Koester. Published by Allyn & Bacon. Copyright  © 2010 by Pearson Education, Inc. Part 2: Intercultural Encounters Activity Instructions: Describe and analyze a recent intercultural encounter with someone of a different age, ethnicity, race, or religion. In at least 450 words, respond and include details to the following questions: 1. Briefly describe the person and the place. 2. How were you changed by the encounter? 3. What do you wish you had known to deal better with this intercultural encounter? A recent intercultural encounter that I was a part of was at my house in a conversation that I engaged in with my father in law. Our conversation was about his religion and how it differs from my particular faith. You see, my father in law is a very wise man in his mid-fifties. He has a lot of experience about a lot of interesting things. He was raised in the Jehovah Witness faith and talks about it every chance he gets. One evening, he was over at my house to enjoy a nice dinner with the rest of our family and something in the conversation was brought up about religion. My family and I, as well as his wife practice the Pentecostal faith. My father in law does not believe in it what so ever. As a matter of fact, he says that our faith goes against his completely. Now, while discussing the different aspects of his faith, I learned about why they choose not to participate in holidays or birthday activities. Jehovah Witnesses are seen as the people who believe that heaven is here on Earth, which is not true. When someone sees a Jehovah Witness coming to the door, what is it that they typically do? They slam the door in their faces and tell them to leave. To be honest, I was guilty of  the same exact thing until I learned more about how my father in law believes. All my life, I was taught about the Pentecostal faith; I was taught to not listen to Jehovah Witnesses because they â€Å"didn’t believe that Jesus Christ died for our sins on the cross†. Something that I learned thru this encounter to be entirely not true. Honestly, there have been so many times that I have apologized to my father in law for thinking that their faith was not holy, that they did not know our one true God. Boy was I wrong! I have been changed thru this encounter and the countless others that I have had to be more understanding of other’s religions and views of Christ Our Lord. Who really knows what the right religion is anyway? There are so many things that I wish I had known before judging people like my father in law. I did not give him a chance at all. His faith combined with mine has a lot of common characteristics; something I find to be very interesting. I ask him questions that I am curious about and he answers. I have also made friends with a very nice lady that attends his segregation and she comes to our house occasionally as well. He understands and respects my faith and doesn’t try to push his on me. I highly respect and love him for that.

Managing Financial Resources and Decisions Assignment - 2

Managing Financial Resources and Decisions - Assignment Example It summarizes all of the revenue and expense items of the firm and presents the final result in term of profit and loss, for a given period of time. Financial statements are prepared to present and record information regarding the financial position of a firm at a given point in time, to show performance of the firm during the particular period, and to depict changes in performance during that period. This information is used by the different users of financial statements to make their decisions. 5. Impact of Inflation:- Financial statements do not account for the impact of inflation hence â€Å"Cannot be a true reflection of growth where the economy is infected with a high level of inflation†. [IBP 2011] 7. Measurability:- Financial statements only record the information that is measureable and do not account for qualitative characteristics and assets and efficiency, competence of workforce and goodwill etc. suitable option available to Paul and Sarah’s. Moreover another benefit of using this option according to Boyneclarke .com is that â€Å"you relinquish no control over your business.† [http://www.boyneclarke.com/ resources/entry/sources-of-business-financing] so investing personal savings will also secure control of the partners on their business and will result in avoiding many managerial and regulatory complexities. Both of the partners Paul and Sarah can invest their personal savings at any agreed ratio into the business to finance its expansion. Paul and Sarah’s. They can add new partners into their business who can provide required financing, moreover if they succeed in adding a competent business partner then it can not only provide financing but also can provide business acumen and can help in administration. it is an equity investment so entails high risk, so venture capital organizations require high expected rate of return on their investment, as

Customer Care Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Customer Care - Essay Example This is an opportunity for the business to introduce new changes in order to retain its competitive in the market (Shaw, 2011). In case the company was not the leading firm in the market, it can take this as an opportunity to make the first changes, an aspect that would attract the loyalty of the customers towards its products or services. Therefore, it can gain a competitive edge in the market by introducing new changes that aim at satisfying the needs of the target market. Complaints by the customers create an opportunity for the business to initiate a research on how to satisfy the interests of the target market. This is through coming up with innovative ideas which are recent (Shaw, 2011). Many of the companies have identified new avenues of improving the business performance while trying to look for ways to address the complaints made by the customers. Therefore, customer complaints can act as a turning point for the

The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same Assignment

The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same - Assignment Example The adults embrace a slow dancing mechanism, which is contrary to the youth preferred dancing method. The adults uphold a psychological perspective that the youth‘s dancing style entail an immoral portion where men and women dance together; thus, highlighting signs of immorality to the entire society. Evidence indicates that they view the music under such perspective in the sense that they protect the children from viewing such practices through the social media. In the second perspective, the young society embrace a character encompassed with loudness and complexity where the current music is loudly approached to attract the attention of a large popularity. Resources indicate that they engage such a platform to extend their identity, make the music cheap and incite its effect in the society. In a comparative approach, music has endured a prosperous transformation over the years where it has developed to a certain condition where the citizens appreciate it in distinct dimensions. It has divided the society into the specific groups where every group enjoys its type. In a more critical review, its exposure to the adolescent and middle age artists changes its cultural approach. Sources assert that the adolescents engaged the intense form of music in the 21st century where they embrace loudness and complexity. Critically, the genre did not exist in the 1950s when evolution and alterations in the music began (Baker and William, 286). The approach has been engaged in the argument that music does not establish its taste at adulthood. Further, the music is facilitated by the need for autonomy. Romantic songs have changed over the years where the current dancing style is distinct to the old dancing approach. In a more critical review, the approach has changed every implication of the music where it has embraced high emotions to the society and romance. The society has engaged the

BP Portfolio Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

BP Portfolio - Essay Example In the next section, the study will shed light on issues regarding types of people that are important for the organization, problems being faced by employees in British Petroleum (BP) while negotiating with other people, evaluating impact of mentioned conflict on organizational success and recommendations for addressing people driven conflict situation in BP. According to Huczynski and Buchanan (2010) and Fuller and Marler (2009), organizational effectiveness depends heavily on its ability to manage performance, work attitude and personal attributes of employees. Fuller and Marler (2009) argued that neither do people in the organization perform equally well nor are they considered as equally important, due to difference in skill and competency level. Mullins and Christy (2013) also supported the fact that personality and work attitude of individuals need to match with performance expectation and vision statement of the organization in order to classify those individuals as important. ... According to Schuster’s (2012) report [Helmut Schuster is Group HR Director in BP], human resource department of BP follows five step model to select human capital who can give important and valuable contribution to business success of the company. These five steps can be defined as, 1- attracting best global talent through stringent qualification criteria, 2- providing training and developing skill competency among recruits, 3- deploying diverse succession planning to ensure steady supply of talent pool, 4- managing the motivation of individuals through transparent performance based reward system and 5- engaging employees in knowledge sharing and inclusive organizational culture in order to enhance their contribution level. BP wants certain skill set from the hired such as, strong academic background, ability to grasp technical and cross-functional knowledge effectively, ability to make decisions in contingent and critical situation, coordinating and communicating with other members while working in team and ability to deliver performance in a consistent manner (Schuster, 2012). As per the talent requirements of BP, three types of people may be most effective for the organisation. Type 1- this set of people can be classified as aspirer or individuals, who join BP for achieving materialistic objectives (British Petroleum, 2012). These set of people are ready to follow business objectives and performance of codes of British Petroleum, in non-hesitant manner, for achieving high career growth. As motivation of these employees is driven by financial outcome and career growth, hence it becomes difficult for British Petroleum to retain engagement level of these people in sustainable manner. Type 2- this set of

Methodology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 4

Methodology - Essay Example ancement of a software called sage; the paper was also published again in 198 although it was agreed that the process did not necessarily have to follow the exact procedure as it was initially made. The putting forward of the waterfall model by Winston was as an example of a model that could not work and the term was only used when talking about software development. One of the reasons that I prefer using this model is because the time that is spent in the initial stages of making the model can lead to greater savings in time and money in future (Carlisle, Wilson, Humphries & Hadfield, 2005, p177). For instance a bug that is detected earlier during the design phase of a software will be cheap and will take less time to fix than one that will be detected at later stages in the development of the software. The main idea behind this model is that the much time spent in the first stages of development reduces efforts later. The people behind the making of this process have to make sure that they are more sure and accurate before getting to the following stage they should also assemble all the necessary requirements needed in all the processes before beginning the entire procedure (Navarro & Hoek, 2005, p27). In this model, the members have to make sure that when they start working it is advisable to work thoroughly without any stops this would prevent some of the information getting lost if left unattended, retrieving of this information may not be very easy and may cost a lot of time (Huo, Verner, Zhu & Babar, 2004, p523). If the team or the members are not familiar with the documents ¦, it is advisable to go through them first before starting the entire project. Most of the waterfall model users prefer this method because it is to use and it progresses in such a way that it is easy to understand each phase due to this reason the model has been widely used at the start of the model in writing software engineering text. Big design up and the waterfall model are most