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From: chris@pyuxc.UUCP (R. Hollenbeck)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Anti-Porn Ordinance
Message-ID: <599@pyuxc.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 11-Jan-85 10:35:51 EST
Article-I.D.: pyuxc.599
Posted: Fri Jan 11 10:35:51 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 12-Jan-85 07:57:45 EST
Organization: Bell Communications Research, Piscataway, NJ
Lines: 38

Some thoughts on pornography and the anti-porn ordinance.

I think it's clear to most people the
that the anti-pornography ordinance is unconstitutional.
I'm glad of that.

I find it hard to agree with most everyone's automatic
assumption that pornography is degrading to women, men,
or both.  How so?  Obviously, scenes of rape and violence
are degrading, 
but they do not constitute the bulk of pornography.
(To answer the comment I can hear you all making,
no I don't watch pornography often, or even occasionally,
but I've seen enough to know that there's far more porn
that deals with plain old garden variety heterosexual coupling
than there are rape films.)
As I understand it, the language of the proposed ordinance
would proscribe scenes that present women in "submissive"
postures.  To some people, that would include simple fellatio
(or cunnilingus).
How are women (or men) degraded by such images?
Why do so many assume that scenes depicting 
acts of love (or lust, what difference does it make)
are automatically degrading?

You don't have to watch pornography if you don't want to. 
you're not "subjected" to it; in fact, you have to
seek it out and pay to see it.

In short, pornography is a type of entertainment indulged in
and made by a relative minority who basically don't inflict 
themselves on anyone.  (This of course does not include the makers
of snuff films or child pornography, who are, I agree, reprehensible.)

Where is the real harm in this stuff?


An old hippie who still feels people got to be free.