Pornography

E! Online "The Awful Truth" columnist Ted Casablanca on Aug. 21 called the graphic depictions of sex and violence on HBO's vampire drama "True Blood" "highly ironic" and promoted the show as "great fun." Casablanca defended the show on Fox News Channel's "Geraldo at Large" in a discussion with host Geraldo Rivera and Culture and Media Institute Assistant Editor Nathan Burchfiel. The debate was…

Hugh Hefner, America's most celebrated and legendary pornographer, has less and less reason to celebrate. His Playboy magazine empire is crumbling — he may even be bought out by competitors — and his prototypical leering pose with girls young enough to be his great-granddaughters is now just plain creepy. His 2009 Christmas card featured 83-year-old Hefner standing between two 20-year-old twins…

CNN refreshingly devoted an entire segment on Wednesday's American Morning to highlighting pornography's destructive impact on society, especially Internet porn. Guest Gail Dines detailed the harmful impact of pornography on men's sexuality, and anchor John Roberts even cited a study that found that 56% of divorces "involve one party...who has an obsessive interest in pornographic websites."…

Eccentric comedian and former talk show host Roseanne Barr claimed on her blog July 8 that Republicans are avid kiddie porn viewers who like to have sex with young children. The liberal activist and comedy queen was blogging about sicko children's author K.P. Bath, who was just slapped with a six years prison term for child porn possession last week.In an item titled "typical republican child…

The Bravo cable network has a new reality show called “Work of Art,” a competition dedicated to finding the next great American artist. The half-dozen contestants, 20-something aspiring artists all, enter the famous Phillips de Pury art auction house. Mr. de Pury himself ushers them into the special room where they are presented with a collection of paintings by Andres Serrano, the man who came…

It must be difficult to offend a company that makes its money off pictures of naked women (to be fair, there are also articles ... apparently). The folks at Playboy Portugal managed to do just that.On Wednesday, news broke that the Portuguese edition of Playboy magazine published several photographs depicting Jesus Christ observing pornographic scenes.On Thursday, the parent company, which…

Marking the death of an atheist by depicting Jesus Christ in sex scenes might seem like a non-sequitur. Somehow, it made sense to the Portuguese edition of Playboy magazine. The magazine features an actor portraying Jesus in at least four pornographic photos, including the cover, where he cradles an apparently dead - and bare-breasted - woman. Another photo depicts Jesus watching a lesbian kiss…

ABC has pulled its ads from gossip blogger Perez Hilton's Web site, PerezHilton.com, after he caught legal flack for posting upskirt photos of 17-year-old Disney star Miley Cyrus. However, several big-name companies still have ads running on the snarky blogger's site. Amid speculation that Hilton may be slapped with kiddie-porn charges over the lurid photos, ABC has removed its ads for "The View…

Perez Hilton - he of Carrie Prejean bashing fame - may be staring in the face of child porn charges in the near future.  You may recall that Hilton served as judge in the 2009 Miss USA competition, and asked Prejean her view of same-sex marriage. When Prejean offered an honest answer voicing her belief that marriage should be between a man and a woman, Hilton expressed his displeasure by taking…

The Pentagon rescinded the invitation of evangelist Franklin Graham to speak at its May 6 National Day of Prayer event because of complaints about his previous comments about Islam. The Military Religious Freedom Foundation expressed its concern over Graham's involvement with the event in an April 19 letter sent to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. MRFF's complaint about Graham, the son of…

Many -- too many -- red-blooded American boys grow up on Japanese video-game systems from Sony and Nintendo. Their cultural interests can extend into Japanese cartoons ("anime") and some even discover Japanese pornographic cartoons ("hentai"). How so? Boys play games and watch cartoons like the "Dragon Ball Z" series, but can quickly surf the Web and find related cartoon titles like "Dragonball X…

March is Women's History Month, in which we acknowledge the accomplishments and contributions of women in history and in society today. But for a select group of women - conservative women - their accomplishments and contributions are rarely celebrated but often demeaned and mocked in sexist - and crassly sexual - ways. The Culture & Media Insitute looked back at what the media had to…

USA Today’s Jon Swartz reported March 1 that the porn industry is suffering financially. Swartz detailed all of the reasons that the porn industry is experiencing financial woes, as though it was just another suffering business. Swartz lamented that, “The adult-entertainment industry is in a tailspin, shattering the notion that it is one of the few recession-proof industries. The slump is…