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From: barry@ames.UUCP (Kenn Barry)
Newsgroups: soc.singles
Subject: Poor, persecuted porn
Message-ID: <1669@ames.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 23-Sep-86 22:09:05 EDT
Article-I.D.: ames.1669
Posted: Tue Sep 23 22:09:05 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 29-Sep-86 02:16:35 EDT
References: <1800@well.UUCP> <1566@mtx5a.UUCP>
Distribution: net
Organization: NASA-Ames Research Center, Mtn. View, CA
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From: mat@mtx5a.UUCP (m.terribile):
>	I agree that there is a sickness in society.  I am not willing to
>argue that pornography is the initial cause or even the main cause, but it
>seems to me that if you have a damaging behavior that is reinforced through
>exposure to something, one way to help cut into that reinforcement is to
>remove the exposure.  And if the damage to even a few is great enough, and if
>those few include victims who did not choose to be exposed to the material
>in question, and were not, you have a sufficient cause for restricting at
>least the most damaging material, especially if it is also of relatively
>little interest to those who are not harmed by it, and are not affected to
>harm someone else by it.

	As long as we're speculating at such an abstract level, I
have an exercise for you: imagine the subject was football
instead of pornography. Imagine the same sort of hearsay evidence
had been amassed by a government commission against football,
arguing that it promoted aggression, violence, injury and drug use.
I think it's a pretty good analogy. As with porn, a speculative
case can be made for its having harmful effects, and, also like
porn, its only real function is to provide entertainment, so it's
hard to argue about the benefits outweighing the risks.
	If, under these circumstances, you would like to see the
same kind of restrictions placed on football that you would have
us place on porn, then I guess the abstract argument you gave
quoted above) really is your reason for wanting to restrict
porn.
	Problem is, I *don't* think you'd react the same if the
subject were football, or billiards, or bridge, or junk food.
When Dan White claimed his murder rampage was brought on by
eating Twinkies, most of us laughed, and even the few who took it
seriously didn't lobby for a ban of Twinkies. But when an accused
rapist says "porn made me do it", apparently some of us take this
as evidence we should ban porn.
	What we see is a double standard for evidence, I think.
Porn comes to court in tawdry finery and cheap perfume, and some
are ready to say "she's no good" before the case is opened.
	The case against porn rests more on the assumption that
porn must prove itself, than on the strained attempts we see to
link it to harm. Behind the legalisms is just a gut feeling the
anti-porn crusaders have that it *must* be bad, and evidence is a
mere formality.
	I suspect our culture's sexual mores will be remembered
as one of the most ludicrous aspects of our society. Our
"standards" are a miasma of paradox, hypocrisy, sexism, guilt,
obsession, and low comedy. And unfortunately, some of our deepest
gut feelings reflect this atmosphere. Gut feelings are a
reasonable guide for one's personal conduct, but they are too
untrustworthy a foundation for public policy. And the very
difficulty of gathering evidence about our murky speculations on
sex should tell us that we don't know nearly enough to be giving
this guesswork the force of law.
	We need to let it alone. Study it, yes, even form
personal opinions. But as long as we give porn the benefit of the
same doubt that we give to most other useless amusements, the
verdict is clear: no grounds to indict.

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