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From: shebs@bcsaic.UUCP (stan shebs)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: Possible Ban on Pornography
Message-ID: <266@bcsaic.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 5-Sep-85 13:03:30 EDT
Article-I.D.: bcsaic.266
Posted: Thu Sep  5 13:03:30 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 9-Sep-85 00:42:50 EDT
References: <369@scirtp.UUCP> <1870@reed.UUCP>
Reply-To: shebs@bcsaic.UUCP (stan shebs)
Distribution: net
Organization: Boeing Computer Services AI Center, Seattle
Lines: 52
Summary: 

In article <1870@reed.UUCP> ellen@reed.UUCP (Ellen Eades) writes:

>Secondly, the "Who will decide?" argument refuses categorically
>to accept that certain materials can be easily defined as
>obscene by at least 99.95% of the population; Todd seems to feel
>that child porn is obscene, and I know no one who would argue
>with that; I feel that snuff films are obscene, and know no one
>who would argue with me.  The point I wish to make is that *some*
>material is *so* outrageously offensive that there can be hardly
>any argument that it damages our humanity and is appealing only
>to sick people.

If I put all this together, I get the assertion that .05% of the
population is sick and presumably should be cured, or locked up,
or executed, or *something*.  Saying "child porn is obscene" is
probably missing the issue; I would say something like "child porn
is wrong, because children are incapable of informed consent in
sexual matters".  Personally, I find fundamentalist religion obscene,
but there's little hope that it will be banned (sigh).

>Thirdly, the argument that "Nothing is worth losing freedom of
>the press" does not seem valid to me.  To me, the fact that the
>institution of pornography maims the lives of women and children
>daily, promotes violent thoughts and violent actions against
>weaker persons, and flaunts degradation to satisfy prurient
>interests, far outweighs the ideal of freedom of the press,
>which is in any case often ignored in cases of less controversy
>(any number of examples of violation of freedom of the press can
>be found in the last thirty years) than pornography.

Do you *really* want to be "weighing ideals" against each other?
According to the Soviets, the "good of the state" outweighs the
freedom of the individual...

>And finally, a personal response, which should not be discounted
>for its subjectivity.  Were I to find that an otherwise kind,
>intelligent, sensitive male of my acquaintance read pornography
>or watched pornographic films, my immediate response, as a woman
>and a person of color, is to wonder whether he sees my face on
>those trussed-up, whipscarred, burned, mutilated, impaled,
>spermsmeared bodies; whether he would like to see me tied up and
>whipped and burned; and most of all, whether he believes, in his
>deepest convictions, that I would enjoy it when he beats me to
>death.  And I would be terribly, terribly angry, and afraid, and
>ashamed, for him.

This is "hard" pornography, which is quite different from "soft"
pornography (Playboy).  What do you think about women who read "Playgirl"?

>Ellen Eades

							stan shebs