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From: robert@fear.UUCP (Robert Plamondon)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: At Last: Sojourner on Dworkin-MacKinnon
Message-ID: <289@fear.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 30-Oct-85 12:29:29 EST
Article-I.D.: fear.289
Posted: Wed Oct 30 12:29:29 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 3-Nov-85 09:01:58 EST
References: <3766@dartvax.UUCP>
Organization: Weitek Corp. Sunnyvale Ca.
Lines: 43
Summary: Newspeak and paternalism

In article <3766@dartvax.UUCP>, dnc@dartvax.UUCP (David Crespo) writes:
> Dear posters:
>      As promised here is  [excerpts  from]  a  Sojourner  article
> (Sept.   '85)   on the Dworkin-MacKinnon Referendum in Cambridge.
> I have taken liberties with capitals and italics.
>       The article consisted of a For and an Against Open  Letter,
> and a box on the referendum (ordinance) itself.
> 
> --For the Ordinance--
> 
> [...]. Dworkin and MacKinnon's legal initiative carefully
> defines pornography as the graphic sexually  explicit  subordina-
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^                                    ^^^^^^^^^
> tion  of women through pictures or words that also includes women
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

> presented dehumanized as sexual objects who enjoy pain,  humilia-
> tion,  or  rape;...women  bound,  mutilated, dismembered, or tor-
> tured; women in postures of servility or submission  or  display;
			      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> [...]

Good use of Newspeak! To confuse the public, take a word in common
use and redefine it.  By the definition presented there, most "hard
core" pornography (showing couples in sex acts) isn't pornography at
all, but most "soft core" pornography (showing indivuduals) is.

"Postures of servility"???? A picture of a women in a maid's
uniform taking the hat and coat from her employer is pornography???

"Postures of display"???? Health spa ads are pornography then, I
guess, since they usually include people showing off their attractive
health-spa bodies.


There's always a paternalist Dudley Do-Right screaming "I'll save
you, Nell!"  Don't you feel good knowing that some of your
legislators think that women are so weak and defenseless and
vulnerable that censorship is necessary to protect them?
-- 

		Robert Plamondon
		{turtlevax, resonex, cae780}!weitek!robert