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From: gkloker@utai.UUCP (Geoff Loker)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Just a couple of thoughts on Pornography
Message-ID: <732@utai.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 27-Sep-85 11:10:49 EDT
Article-I.D.: utai.732
Posted: Fri Sep 27 11:10:49 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 27-Sep-85 11:42:58 EDT
Reply-To: gkloker@utai.UUCP (Geoff Loker)
Organization: CSRI, University of Toronto
Lines: 61

Just a couple of thoughts:

Thought 1:
=========
     There are people who are bothered by pornography, and there are people
who are not.  There are good arguments both ways for censoring or not
censoring.  It is an issue which may never be resolved because it can be an
extremely personal one.  Hence, I won't even touch it.
     This still leaves a problem:  the pervasiveness of pornography.  People
who would rather not have anything to do with pornography can very easily
wind up having the offensive (i.e. -- it offends them) material staring them
in the face at their local corner store, bookstore, etc.  Putting magazines
6 feet up (so that kids can't paw through them) has the effect (often) of
just making the magazines more visible -- essentially drawing attention to
them, whether you like them or not.
     What might be a good idea is setting up some central locations where
"dirty" magazines, movies, etc, are available.  These locations would be the
*only* places where they would be sold, and they would sell *only* such
items.  This plan has the virtue that people who are offended by pornography
would never have to go near these places, and people who like it would not
have their supply cut off.  Comments?


Thought 2:
=========
     It has been suggested about that pornographic pictures of adults are
fine because they are obviously consenting adults.
     Recently, there was a case here in Toronto where a man somehow got nude
pictures of a woman (ex-girlfriend).  He threatened to send the pictures to
one of the various magazines unless she had sex with him.  Fortunately for
her, police caught the man (and the negatives) before he could do anything
of the sort.
     In an interview some time back (I have no reference, sorry), a top
photographer for a "men's" magazine said that his "best" picture came about
at a time when he was very mad at his ex-wife.  He clipped her face out of
a picture he had of her, attached to a body shot of someone else, did
various other cutting and clipping and pasting, and wound up with a picture
which totally demeaned his ex-wife.  (Similar to an episode of "That Girl"
[remember that show?] in which the heroine was shocked to find that she
was the centerfold for some magazine that she had never posed for.  Turned
out that the photographer had done a little bit of creative cutting and
pasting.)
     Finally, on an episode of "WKRP in Cincinatti" (sorry, no "real-life"
story here), a photographer had a peephole into his models' dressing rooms
so he could take pictures of them while they changed.  Seems he had a neat
little release form which stated that *any* pictures taken on the premises
were his and could be used in any way he saw fit.
     Now, I am not saying that this sort of thing is the case for all nude
pictures.  It's just instructive to note that in some cases (with regard
to adults), it is *not* a case of consenting adults.

-- 
Geoff Loker
Department of Computer Science
University of Toronto
Toronto, ON
M5S 1A4

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