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From: faustus@ucbcad.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.women,net.politics,net.books
Subject: Re: Re: Beyond Marchionni and Dubuc (and Winslow) [PORNOGRAPHY]
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Date: Thu, 31-Jan-85 17:08:58 EST
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Posted: Thu Jan 31 17:08:58 1985
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> For myself, I believe that degradation of people *is* wrong.  You
> may disagree with my understanding of what is degrading, but do you
> disagree that degrading people is wrong?

Granting that degrading people is wrong, and even that depicting people
as sexual objects is degrading (which I don't agree with), who are you
to tell people that they can't degrade themselves? If somebody
published a magazine that consisted only of letters from people that
said, "I'm a worthless scumbag", would you object? If people want to
make themselves into sexual objects, why not let them?

> >                          Other than having a step closer to fascist
> >    repression:  where one particular type of work can be outlawed, why not
> >    arbitrarily outlaw some others.
> 
> Yes, one must be careful, but we do already outlaw particular types of work
> (e.g., drug dealing).  There are certainly some people who object to that,
> but "society" has decided that it is too harmful to be permitted, so it is
> outlawed (which doesn't stop it, but may retard it somewhat).  All of the
> arguments I've heard so far about why pornography should be allowed would
> also apply to drug dealing.  One might argue that one is more harmful than
> the other, but where does one draw the line?

Regulating pornography and drugs are equally worthless. If they don't
hurt you, why should you have the right to prevent people from doing
bad things to themselves.

> I disagree.  People *are* influenced by what they view (advertising,
> propaganda, and education evidence this) and people are more likely to be
> influenced one way if they are not being influenced in the opposite
> direction.

And you decide which way they should be influenced? Great...

As for the issue of pornography being degrading because it makes people
seem one-dimensional (sex objects), this is garbage. I will agree that
the people involved are portraying themselves as merely sexual, but WHY
is this degrading in the awful sense you claim? It happens all the time
in movies, etc -- certainly you wouldn't object to such one-dimensional
characters such as Superman or the Three Stooges? The fact is that YOU
PERSONALLY don't want to be thought of as one dimensional, and regard
the fact that other people don't mind it as a threat. I think this is
more your own problem than anything wrong with society.

	Wayne