Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbatt!ihnp4!houxm!mtuxo!mtune!mtunf!mtx5c!mtx5d!mtx5a!mat
From: mat@mtx5a.UUCP (m.terribile)
Newsgroups: soc.singles
Subject: Re: Re: porn report
Message-ID: <1595@mtx5a.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 10-Oct-86 03:05:56 EDT
Article-I.D.: mtx5a.1595
Posted: Fri Oct 10 03:05:56 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 14-Oct-86 05:59:14 EDT
References: <1800@well.UUCP> <1566@mtx5a.UUCP> <611@dg_rtp.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Information Systems, Middletown, NJ 07748-4801.
Lines: 66

> > mat@mtx5a.UUCP (m.terribile)
> > [...] 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.
> 
> But is it the best way?  Or even a good way?  This is far from obvious.

Good questions.  The simple answer -- and they are really NOT answers, are

	1)	It is something that we can do.  For a variety of reasons,
		we have an option in this area that we do not have in others.

	2)	Unless you can show greater damage from the restrictions,
		the question of it being a good way is moot.

> > 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.
> 
> Fine.  Restricting Alcohol, R-rated movies, automobile exhaust systems,
> and so on and on is an arguably reasonable thing, and widely accepted.
> *BUT*!!!!!  It is dishonest and misleading to recommend restriction of
> sexually explicit materials to a degree greater than that of violent
> materials, based on incomplete studies of the effects of violence alone.

Once again, we are faced with certain limits: for a collection of reasons
that not all agree with, we have the ability to apply certain restrictions
to certain materials whose first identifying characteristic is an obsessive
interest in sex, and no significant interest in things which are of really
prime importance to the purposes for which the First Amendment was drafted.

> Based on the objective and high-sounding criteria above, and based on
> what we now know, I would expect _Rambo_ to be restricted to adults over
> 21 (effectively rated X), and movies containing only explicit,
> nonviolent sex between consenting adults (such as _Urban_Heat_ for
> example) to be available to anyone at all.  (Well... perhaps rated
> effectively PG.)

I would rather say R than PG, since the instilling of values in minors, even
adolescent minors, is generally considered a societal function.  But even
there it might depend in part on the depictions.

I've not seen Rambo, though perhaps I should, since it's mentioned so often.
Nor have I purchased Playboy lately, though I've toyed with the idea of buying
a copy to see if the 7-11 up the street will really sell me a copy.

> The capacity of the human mind for swallowing nonsense
> and spewing it forth in violent and repressive action
> has never yet been plumbed.
>                                 --- Robert A. Heinlein

Nor has the capacity of that same mind for impuning the real gadflys of
this world.  No, I don't think that I am one ... but I seem to be practicing
these days.
-- 

	from Mole End			Mark Terribile
		(scrape .. dig )	mtx5b!mat
					(Please mail to mtx5b!mat, NOT mtx5a!
						mat, or to mtx5a!mtx5b!mat)
					(mtx5b!mole-end!mat will also reach me)
    ,..      .,,       ,,,   ..,***_*.