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From: mmar@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (Mitchell Marks)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Possible Ban on '... DO IT ...' Bumper Stickers
Message-ID: <1128@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 13-Sep-85 04:23:09 EDT
Article-I.D.: sphinx.1128
Posted: Fri Sep 13 04:23:09 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 14-Sep-85 05:48:21 EDT
Organization: U Chicago -- Linguistics Dept
Lines: 53

[Naw, I don't really believe there's a line-eater.]             really believe there's a line-eater.                                    

Don't ban pornography, ban all those bumper stickers that
say "...'s DO IT { with --- / at --- time / in --- way}".  You
know the ones I mean: "Astronomers do it at night" (how kinky!),
"Sailors do it on sailboats", "Bowlers do it in the alley".

Oh, did I forget to :-) ?  No, of course, I don't want to ban anything.

Mostly I want to check in and cast my vote with the anti-ban
contingent; I won't summarize the arguments on that side, as they're
being very well presented, and one thing the net doesn't need
is more triplification.  But we should acknowledge the justice of a
point being made on the other side.  Our culture's saturation with
sex (and violence) may indeed be the cause of dangerous and violent
behavior by some individuals.

But while acknowledging the validity of that point, I would insist that
it is cast much too narrowly if all it picks out is pornography.  If
hard-core pornography, and mild stuff like Playboy, promote an atmosphere
in which men come to think (on some level) that women are always ready
for sex, that they're abnormal if they don't want it (with you, here, now),
that `no' means `yes' if you just persist, etc -- and such thinking does
seem to be encouraged, to some extent, in some way -- if pornography encourages
that, so too do television commercials, cover art for otherwise serious
books, beauty pageants, the fashion industry, etcetera etcetera.

[Note that this is not quite just the "Under censorship we'd lose Joyce
and Lawrence" argument.  I would really feel bad without Joyce, but wouldn't
at all miss the rest of that last list.  --Wouldn't want to ban them,
though.]

Even with that widening, the point is still too narrow when it mentions only
the cultural attitude toward women's sexual availability.  What about men's
sexual availability?  Or more generally, the atmosphere in which sexual
identity has become such a huge part of personal identity.  For all sorts
of reasons this is probably unfortunate (albeit there are some good things
about it too, e.g. decreased prejudice about preferences).  And in particular,
the link to rape and other sexual violence is still there.  It's a thin link,
but the same one that links pornography to violence.  Just as much as
viewing pornography may in individual cases trigger sexual violence, so
too may the hundredth repetition of "Hey Joe -- gettin' any lately?".  Or
............... or bumper stickers that seem to say that what's _really_
neat about some occupation or hobby is that its practitioners 'do it' in
some notable way.

So a counterpoise to banning pornography: Let's Ban Yet Another Bumper Sticker.


-- 

            -- Mitch Marks @ UChicago 
               ...ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!mmar