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From: art@ucla-cs.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.books,net.women
Subject: Re: Pornography doesn't degrade women ...
Message-ID: <3328@ucla-cs.ARPA>
Date: Sat, 19-Jan-85 16:09:45 EST
Article-I.D.: ucla-cs.3328
Posted: Sat Jan 19 16:09:45 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 22-Jan-85 06:29:10 EST
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Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department
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I strongly feel that pornographic images of women degrade everybody 
involved, the women that pose and the men that look at the pictures.
It degrades the woman by depicting her as body to jump on top of,
or a body to harm.  It degrades the men who look at the pictures
(and this point is made much less often) by having them futiley
lust to have their way with naked women.  The only winner is
the slimeball pornographer who uses everybody involved and pockets
the bucks.   The pornographer isn't degraded because they have
no values to harm, or they have turned porn into a personal
philosophy like Mr. Flynt or Mr. Hefner.

Porn is mainly about making money.  But underneath the profit motive
it points to unsatisfied needs of the people involved.   I venture
that some women pose because they want to be considered attractive
and beautiful.   Our society does place tremendous and excessive
emphasis emphasis on women's appearance.  (Even MEN try to make
themselves look like beautiful women.)  Society also places
a great value on men's ability to attract beautiful women.  
Posing for porn certainly is not a good outlet for women that want to
show that they are attractive.

Porn points to men's unfulfilled needs for human and sexual contact.
In fact, I think that the main need is human contact.   It also
points to unfulfilled needs for control and power.   But looking at
pictures doesn't satisfy the needs at all.  It simply leaves men
frustrated and angry.   Rather than banning porn, we should be
looking for ways to address these legitimate needs.  The real
social revolution will be to find better ways to satisfy the needs
that porn indicates, hopefully without joining Rev. Falwell.   
Arthur Goldberg
art@ucla-cs