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From: wfi@rti-sel.UUCP (William Ingogly)
Newsgroups: net.women,net.politics
Subject: Re: A suggestion for a ground rule etc.
Message-ID: <421@rti-sel.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 24-Sep-85 09:59:39 EDT
Article-I.D.: rti-sel.421
Posted: Tue Sep 24 09:59:39 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 27-Sep-85 04:14:52 EDT
References: <5660@tekecs.UUCP> <1873@reed.UUCP> <10285@ucbvax.ARPA> <2061@mnetor.UUCP> <1151@ames.UUCP>
Reply-To: wfi@rti-sel.UUCP (William Ingogly)
Distribution: net
Organization: Research Triangle Institute, NC
Lines: 42
Xref: watmath net.women:7519 net.politics:11197
Summary: 

In article <1151@ames.UUCP> barry@ames.UUCP (Kenn Barry) writes:

>Proscription of things not known to be harmful is an intolerant act.
> ...  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.

Two reasons why I am against ALL censorship:

1. In the 1950s, Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita was not allowed into
   the U.S.A. for some time because it was considered "pornographic."
   Many people believe today that Lolita is one of the masterpieces of
   post-WW2 literature (myself included). James Joyce's Ulysses, also
   an influential and many say important piece of art, was similarly 
   banned (there was a famous court trial over Ulysses, as I recall).

2. I grew up in the Corn Belt, and our next-door neighbor was a farm
   woman from Minnesota. One day she called my mother and complained
   that the local high school had her son reading pornography. My
   mother asked her what she meant, and the neighbor said he had been
   assigned a book to read that dealt with extramarital sex and
   illegitimacy as its major themes. She wanted my mother to join her
   in a 'crusade' to rid the high school of such filth and thereby
   preserve the minds of our youth. The book was, of course, Hawthorne's
   The Scarlet Letter.

Who is to say what is pornography and what is not? Like it or not, we
live in a pluralistic society. I will NOT tolerate anyone: fundamentalist 
Christian, black activist, feminist, Republican, Democrat, telling me 
what I can or cannot read. First, the obvious targets go: hard porn
that most would agree has no redeeming social value. Then, someone
will claim that books like Ulysses and Lolita are pornography, since
"filth" like this obviously can't be art. Unless you live under a rock
you surely realize that there's a hell of a lot of people out there
who won't want to stop once the adult book stores are closed down.
I find the agenda of radical feminists like Dworkin as threatening to
my freedom as the agenda of certain radical fundamentalists of the
right. Stay OUT of my bedroom and keep your hands OFF my bookshelf!

                               -- Cheers, Bill Ingogly


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