Question of the Day

askphilosophers.com has a question of the day thing:

When we say that porn is not appropriate for children aren't we implicitly or covertly saying that porn is not appropriate for anyone?

To be fair, this is way too difficult of a question for me to answer, and my answer would easily go through ten pages of writing which I wouldn't have time for anyways.  But within this question there are two main assumptions we must look into.

1.  Difference between adults and children
2.  What is and isn't appropriate

So what makes a child and an adult different?  Physically it can be the time before and after puberty.  Legally it can be 18 or 21.  But what about mentally?  Ignoring the fact that mental illnesses exist and contribute to a whole variety of problems in itself, I know that we all know that one child that has the mind of a 40 year old and that one adult that is stuck in his or her adolescent stage.  So what really makes a difference between that of a child and an adult, and why do certain restrictions apply to one and not the other should be the real question here.

So what is and isn't appropriate and who defines them?  We can go back into history and see that certain religions and cultures had more influence over another which affected the laws that were formed at the time.  Because of the large Christian influence that was held over the government when many of our laws were written, the morality in the United States tends to follow that of Christians (although they have been slowly changing over the years).  But if Christianity wasn't the major influence, what would have been?  Would porn have been deemed appropriate?  There are no strict standards in this world, even among a specific religious group.  So who gets to decide what is and isn't appropriate, and for what ages and why?  I think that is the larger question.