Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site utai.UUCP Path: utzoo!utcsri!utai!gkloker From: gkloker@utai.UUCP (Geoff Loker) Newsgroups: net.women Subject: Just a couple of thoughts on Pornography Message-ID: <732@utai.UUCP> Date: Fri, 27-Sep-85 11:10:49 EDT Article-I.D.: utai.732 Posted: Fri Sep 27 11:10:49 1985 Date-Received: Fri, 27-Sep-85 11:42:58 EDT Reply-To: gkloker@utai.UUCP (Geoff Loker) Organization: CSRI, University of Toronto Lines: 61 Just a couple of thoughts: Thought 1: ========= There are people who are bothered by pornography, and there are people who are not. There are good arguments both ways for censoring or not censoring. It is an issue which may never be resolved because it can be an extremely personal one. Hence, I won't even touch it. This still leaves a problem: the pervasiveness of pornography. People who would rather not have anything to do with pornography can very easily wind up having the offensive (i.e. -- it offends them) material staring them in the face at their local corner store, bookstore, etc. Putting magazines 6 feet up (so that kids can't paw through them) has the effect (often) of just making the magazines more visible -- essentially drawing attention to them, whether you like them or not. What might be a good idea is setting up some central locations where "dirty" magazines, movies, etc, are available. These locations would be the *only* places where they would be sold, and they would sell *only* such items. This plan has the virtue that people who are offended by pornography would never have to go near these places, and people who like it would not have their supply cut off. Comments? Thought 2: ========= It has been suggested about that pornographic pictures of adults are fine because they are obviously consenting adults. Recently, there was a case here in Toronto where a man somehow got nude pictures of a woman (ex-girlfriend). He threatened to send the pictures to one of the various magazines unless she had sex with him. Fortunately for her, police caught the man (and the negatives) before he could do anything of the sort. In an interview some time back (I have no reference, sorry), a top photographer for a "men's" magazine said that his "best" picture came about at a time when he was very mad at his ex-wife. He clipped her face out of a picture he had of her, attached to a body shot of someone else, did various other cutting and clipping and pasting, and wound up with a picture which totally demeaned his ex-wife. (Similar to an episode of "That Girl" [remember that show?] in which the heroine was shocked to find that she was the centerfold for some magazine that she had never posed for. Turned out that the photographer had done a little bit of creative cutting and pasting.) Finally, on an episode of "WKRP in Cincinatti" (sorry, no "real-life" story here), a photographer had a peephole into his models' dressing rooms so he could take pictures of them while they changed. Seems he had a neat little release form which stated that *any* pictures taken on the premises were his and could be used in any way he saw fit. Now, I am not saying that this sort of thing is the case for all nude pictures. It's just instructive to note that in some cases (with regard to adults), it is *not* a case of consenting adults. -- Geoff Loker Department of Computer Science University of Toronto Toronto, ON M5S 1A4 USENET: {ihnp4 decwrl utzoo uw-beaver}!utcsri!utai!gkloker CSNET: gkloker@toronto ARPANET: gkloker.toronto@csnet-relay Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com