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From: charliep@polaris.UUCP (Charlie Perkins)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Porn and Violence: a Social Disease
Message-ID: <281@polaris.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 16-Nov-85 02:58:53 EST
Article-I.D.: polaris.281
Posted: Sat Nov 16 02:58:53 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 26-Nov-85 21:23:38 EST
References: <13700017@orstcs.UUCP>
Reply-To: charliep@polaris.UUCP (Charlie Perkins)
Organization: IBM Research, Yorktown Heights, N.Y.
Lines: 58

-- Just in case it is not perfectly obvious, I am not involved in any
   fashion whatsoever with promulgating official IBM policies concerning
   sex or pornography, and my opinions are not likely to resemble those
   policies if they do in fact exist. --

In article <13700017@orstcs.UUCP> richardt@orstcs.UUCP (richardt) writes:
>					    Flesh has been, and will be, a
>commodity for as long as the human race exists.

I strongly disagree with this.  One day, we can hope for and strive toward,
sex will become a normal, healthy activity for responsible people instead
of the misunderstood and abused trickery it is for so many now.
I believe that before that day comes, some of our society's deeply
ingrained characteristics will have to change, for instance:
1. The idea of sex as a possessive ritual.
2. The pickup games.
3. The likelihood of being manipulated or abused.
4. The criminalization of sex between consenting adults.
5. The idea that sex is what happens between foreplay and afterplay.
6. The religious taboos surrounding sex.
7. The paranoia about homosexuality.
8. The use of fuck as a dirty word.

>Most Men (and Women, for that matter) have Submission/Domination fantasies,
>of one variety or another.

I find this somewhat difficult to believe.  Can you provide any substantiation?

>						     I do know that far
>too much of the world population is very sick.  Much of this has to do
>with population pressure trying to deal with itself.

If indeed the world population has cancerous problems regarding sex (how
this was determined I am not sure) I don't imagine that population
pressure is the underlying problem although it certainly exacerbates
things.  I think that the major problems have been ignorance and fear.
Fear, for instance, that a potential partner would be emotionally (or
physically, even) abusive.  This fear is, of course, well-grounded given
America's present culture.  Religion and other sorts of abdication of
personal responsibility are also culprits.  For example, I am disgusted
that certain rapes are defended on the grounds that the woman
involved teased the rapist beyond his ability to control himself.

--

I've said this before, but I am constantly dismayed by the frequent
attempts to cure the sexual problems of society by banning pornography
(and, inevitably with it, other erotica).  I'd like to find out what
the anti-porn forces would allow to remain legal - i.e, what kind of
erotica is OK?  When I find a erotic medium that deals with loving
healthy human sexual relationships, I will certainly purchase it.
I bet it would sell out.  Seemingly no publisher has yet understood
that such a market exists but is currently being served only by
(what I think is) primitive porn.
-- 

Charlie Perkins, IBM T.J. Watson Research	philabs!polaris!charliep,
		perk%YKTVMX.BITNET@berkeley,  perk.yktvmx.ibm@csnet-relay