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From: chris@pyuxc.UUCP (R. Hollenbeck)
Newsgroups: net.women,net.singles
Subject: Re: Pornography
Message-ID: <606@pyuxc.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 22-Jan-85 10:16:14 EST
Article-I.D.: pyuxc.606
Posted: Tue Jan 22 10:16:14 1985
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So far I've been called a jerk and had my submission called silly,
but I have yet to see a good explanation of why.

Why all this bile?  I simply suggested a possibility based on
a few bits of information that came my way, including one
from a woman (why, if one of the key bits of information comes
from a woman, does Sophie tell me to ask a woman?)

What I suggested may be true or false; it doesn't really matter,
as long as we keep trying to get to the truth.  But I don't
think knee-jerk feminist reaction gets any of us anywhere in
this or any other discussion.

Let me offer another defense of pornography;  one of the ideas
that was at the basis of our society and our constitution was
the free marketplace of ideas (I believe the author of the
notion was John Stuart Mill, but I'm not sure, and I sure don't
need millions of bits of flame heaped on me if I'm wrong).
Anyway, this idea basically said that the best way to get at the
truth was to give all ideas a chance to be expressed, so that the
best ideas would survive.  Sort of a Darwinian approach - survival
of the best ideas.  

To the extent that pornography represents ideas, the point is not
that those ideas are necessarily good, but that suppressing them
would create far greater harm. Opposing ideas would have nothing
to oppose and therefore might not be subjected to the testing
they would otherwise receive. Furthermore, a precedent would be set for
limiting thought within certain "acceptable" boundaries.

Put another way, we can't require all forms of expression to
conform to our (your, whosever) standards of ideological
correctness.  To do so would be to limit our freedom and to
limit society's search for truth.

Or, we can just get to the meat of it and say that it's
nobody's goddamn business what other people read or see;
if you don't like it, don't read it.