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From: js2j@mhuxt.UUCP (sonntag)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: Anti-Porn Ordinance
Message-ID: <529@mhuxt.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 17-Jan-85 13:50:55 EST
Article-I.D.: mhuxt.529
Posted: Thu Jan 17 13:50:55 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 18-Jan-85 02:43:21 EST
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Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill
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Mark Terrible started by talking about pornography, but now he switches to
talking about forced prostitution:
> You think that slavery has been abolished?  You think that people are WILLING
> to sell their bodies on streetcorners? Many of these women have been taken in
> by pimps and then raped, beaten, and ``broken'' ... not much unlike a horse
> in a ``stable''.  What about the runaways who come to the big city (and not
> just NY) and discover the only thing they can market is their bodies?  There
> are buyers.  And New York, with its collection of ``latchkey'' kids, has now
> got kiddie whores (male and female) who commute to Manhattan for the day and
> return before momma gets home.  And get mixed up in the deadly world of pimps
> and hard,superaddictive drugs.  There's nothing new there - pimps and madames
> have used drugs for generations to hold their ``staffs'' hostage.
> 
> Do you really think that these people are not being damaged?  

    Of course those people have been damaged.  But how you end up blaming this
on pornography is totally unclear.  Why is prostitution called the 'oldest
profession' if it's been caused by pornography?

> Unfortunately,
> in our society right here and now, neither law enforcement nor sociologists
> seem to be able to seperate out the couple that wants to have a little fun
> with some videotapes from the people who are sick and who allow that sickness
> to damage kids.  And adolescents.  And other adults.

     And they can't seperate those who like to have a little fun with a frisbee
from the sickos without catching them in the act either.  Maybe we should
ban frisbees?  What I'm saying is that you have neither established nor even 
attempted to establish a connection between pornography and the type of     
violent, anti-social behavior you seem to be blaming on it.

> Even genuinely artistic, mild erotica can mess up someone who's not quite
> secure on a given day.  We're talking about the most powerful and pervasive
> feelings that a human being can experience, bought, sold, traded, and used as
> bait for suckers. A goddam commodity whose value becomes the price set by the
> marketplace.  How's that for damage?

    I thought we were talking about pornography.  Just what ARE you talking 
about, Mark?

> Look, I'm not suggesting that we should ban ``Lady Chatterly's Lover''.
> (It's more an artisticly ugly book than an erotic one anyway.)  But I am
> suggesting that there are some things, like dynamite and firearms, that
> should be handled with care and not sold on the open streetcorner.  Sex
> can be a very great thing because it is so powerful, but it has a very
> great potential for harm as well.

     Why do I get the feeling that you're not talking from experience here,
Mark?  Sex has a great potential for harm?  I've been wounded by love, but
never by sex.  If you have, then maybe you aren't doing it right. B-)
-- 
Jeff Sonntag
ihnp4!mhuxt!js2j
    "Know thou, O rash and foolish mortal, that this is none other than the
     infamous subterranean abode of Zazamanc the Archmage.  Abandon hope,
     all ye who linger here."