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From: mfs@mhuxr.UUCP (SIMON)
Newsgroups: net.books,net.women
Subject: Re: Defining Pornography (reply to Dubuc)
Message-ID: <201@mhuxr.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 16-Jan-85 17:54:50 EST
Article-I.D.: mhuxr.201
Posted: Wed Jan 16 17:54:50 1985
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In the interest of BREVITY, I will not quote from your article,
for those interested, it is number 1355 in net.abortion.

How can you discuss the merits of anything that you have not defined?
I hope you don't solve work projects in the same way. Your approach is
even worse from a legal standpoint. It is of supreme importance to have
specific laws, unless we trust that its enforcers, i.e. government and the
police, to be consistently enlightened. You will agree that they don't have
a good track record in this area.

Kiddie porn is illegal, not as pornography, but as statutory rape and/or
child molestation. The visual representation of consenting adults having sex
is not illegal. If one of the adults is not consenting, the laws covering
coercion, kidnapping and rape can and do deal with that. A definition
of porn is not needed because it is irrelevant in these cases.

This net, which I take to be representative of the country (a probably bad
assumption), has seen a lively debate of erotica vs porn. This debate has
been inconclusive because every opinion has been sufficiently different from
every other. So saying that we "have a general idea of what [porn] is" is not
only insufficient, but dangerous. It invites tyranny from those vocal enough
to pressure legislators and executives into accepting *their* version of it.
Something like that has been tried. It was called Prohibition and failed.
If you are only looking to stimulate discussion and convince others of porn's
alleged harmful effects, you can do so. Your postings, however, have been
strongly tinged with the desire for legal action. I do not, BTW, expect
that a legal definition will be universally accepted. Only that one
will be accepted enough that its supporters will be able to elect
those who will codify it into law, which will withstand the
scrutiny of the courts.

You seem dangerously casual about curtailing the first amendment. By
your reasoning, it is OK to curb freedom a little to achieve a "greater"
good. But where does "a little" stop? Today DH Lawrence, tomorrow
Dan Rather (viz Jesse Helms' campaign to buy CBS), maybe? And then what?
What if I say, "you hate X, therefore you banned Y; I hate Z, so I should
be allowed to ban A", is that OK?

Yes, we have to get communities to ban cock fights, gambling, etc, because
a consensus exists that their monetary (tax, tourism) advantages are
outweighed by their handicaps: cruelty to animals, crime, traffic, etc There
is not necessarily a moral consensus, just a practical one, which can
change: casinos in Atlantic City, jai alai in Connecticut, state lotteries
etc. You are pushing are exclusively moral reasons to back your point of view.
Since morals are a subjective legal matter, hence
the need for a community consensus BEFORE legal action is taken.

The legislatures, at the state level at least, did write obscenity laws
that covered porn. These were mostly struck down by the courts, mostly for
being unconstitutionally vague. Maybe no greater efforts have been made
since because the legislature sense the lack of consensus on the issue.
This is politics, which is inextricably tied to democracy.

I have saved the great pseudo-issue of porn's effect on society for
last. WHAT effect? Where are your facts? For every study that on por
inciting to rape, there is a counter-study that shows the opposite.
I think there is a mixup between violence and pornography. The two
are often intertwined, but are *not* the same. Don't give me the
"pornography is degrading" line. There has been plenty of excellent
rebuttal of it on this net. Other than one generation always saying
that the next is taking the world to hell in a handbasket, there
is *no* visible ill effects on US society of pornography. I fail to
see much convincing information in your personhood/sexuality
point. If sexuality is so inherent in a human (you spend a lot of time
on female sexuality. Are men not sexual beings also? Or are only women
"degraded" by porn?), what's wrong with its display?

What is a "family" bookstore? A place where you can get "food" full
of chemicals, cancer causing cigarettes, contentless magazines and
books (the illustrious Silhouette Romance, for example), and other
nefarious artifacts. I once lived in abuilding next door to a "family"
food store (a pizzeria). I had to deal with teenagers playing car
radios and ghetto blasters at top volume at three AM, empty pizza
boxes in the lobby of my buiding the next morning in winter, my door
blocked by large menacing looking young people. I'll tell you, never
again. I'd rather walk or drive a distance than have that in my
neighborhood again.

So nothing is resolved, I am afraid. Since you are the concerned party,
we are still waiting for an attempt at defining porn, coupled with
some convincing data on how it harms *me and mine*, that will at least
stand up to the scrutiny of the net.

Marcel Simon