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From: barry@ames.UUCP (Kenn Barry)
Newsgroups: net.women,net.politics
Subject: Re: A suggestion for a ground rule in any pornography debate
Message-ID: <1151@ames.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 22-Sep-85 01:51:56 EDT
Article-I.D.: ames.1151
Posted: Sun Sep 22 01:51:56 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 24-Sep-85 03:32:10 EDT
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Organization: NASA-Ames Research Center, Mtn. View, CA
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From Sophie Quigley (mnetor!sophie):
>A responsible society should be able to censor itself when not
>doing so endangers the life of some of its members.  Pornography
>does pause a real threat to women, and the solution to this threat
>might just include some amount of censorship.

	Haven't you skipped the step where you show that pornography endangers
the life of some women? Without concrete evidence of that, there is no link
between censoring of pornography and protection by society of its members.

>>What Ellen may not realize is that she objects to people
>>whose sexual preferences are different from her own.
>>She realizes that there are people who are sexually 
>>entertained by something she finds offensive and disgusting,
>>and this upsets her.  The mentality here is the same as
>>that of people who object to homosexuals, on the basis
>>that homosexuality is inherently disgusting.  This is
>>narrow mindedness, pure and simple. [Stephen Pope] 
>
>And I think the above is a cheap shot.  Who are you to decide
>exactly what is in Ellen's mind?  It is one thing to object
>to things one might consider disgusting even though it poses
>no threat to oneself (such as homosexuality). It is another
>to object to things that one considers pauses a personal threat.
>I object to pornography for this reason.  It scares the hell out
>of me to know that some person might read some of that crap and
>decide to act out his fantasies on me against my will.  That
>has NOTHING to do with what other people do in the privacy of their
>own bedroom, it has to do with MY safety.

	Sorry, but you don't get the right to outlaw something just because it
scares you; you have to demonstrate the danger. The distinction you make
between your fear of pornography and someone else's fear of homosexuals is no
doubt clear to you, but it isn't to me. Don't you think homophobes consider
gays a threat to society and their families? Many of them will say things
like, "I don't care what they do to each other in their bedrooms, but don't
let 'em near my kids!" There is a considerable body of mythology about the
threat to children presented by gays, and homophobes are as anxious to
convince us that gays are a "real threat", as you are to convince us of the
threat of pornography. But, what is your evidence?

>>     It's probably part of human nature that any given
>>individual is unlikely to accept, at a personal level,
>>all forms of sexual expression.  But it takes a heluva
>>lot of nerve to claim that your preferred form of sexuality
>>should be protected by law, and somebody else's should be 
>>banned.
>
>Oh give us a break!  we all know that.  Nobody's objecting to
>people's sexual preferences here, they're objecting to hate
>litterature which endangers their safety.

	Fine; I understand your reasoning. But I question your premise. Show
me the danger of pornography.

>>     I believe that this sexual intolerance is the real
>>motivation behind the pro-censorship movement.  The
>>other justifications -- linkage to criminal violence,
>>association with illegal activities such as child
>>pornography, and so on -- are pretty much rationalizations.
>
>And I believe that your article is pretty much a rationalisation
>to support the fact that you have a lifetime suscription to
>Playboy, Penthouse and all sorts of other magazines showing little
>children and women being cut up into little pieces while enjoying 
>it all, and YOU enjoy it all and you don't want anybody to spoil
>your fun.  So there!
>See, anybody can psychoanalyse anybody else if they want to and
>dismiss their arguments without listening to them.  You are not
>immune to it.  So if you don't want to be subject to this kind of
>abuse why don't you practice what you preach and be a little
>more tolerant of those you dismiss as intoleranty simply because
>you don't want to bother listening to what they are saying.

	Proscription of things not known to be harmful is an intolerant act.
Whether or not Mr. Pope is right in his conclusions about the motives of those
who want to ban porn, he has reason to be suspicious. There is no more
evidence of porn causing attacks on women or children than there is of
homosexuality being harmful to society. If it's not the evidence that has
convinced the anti-porn lobbies of the evil of porn, we have every right to
suspect some hidden agenda.

-  From the Crow's Nest  -                      Kenn Barry
                                                NASA-Ames Research Center
                                                Moffett Field, CA
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