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From: mcewan@uiucdcs.CS.UIUC.EDU
Newsgroups: net.legal
Subject: Proposed pornography ordinance
Message-ID: <39400010@uiucdcs>
Date: Mon, 11-Nov-85 17:14:00 EST
Article-I.D.: uiucdcs.39400010
Posted: Mon Nov 11 17:14:00 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 13-Nov-85 07:24:43 EST
Lines: 46
Nf-ID: #N:uiucdcs:39400010:000:2342
Nf-From: uiucdcs.CS.UIUC.EDU!mcewan    Nov 11 16:14:00 1985


The following is a definition of pornography taken from a proposed
anti-pornography ordinance (see the article titled "Re: At Last: Sojourner
on Dworkin-MacKinnon" in net.women for more details):
> 
>      "Pornography is the graphic sexually explicit  subordination
> of  women through pictures and/or words that also includes one or
> (i) women  are  presented  dehumanized  as
> sexual  objects,  things,  or  commodities;  or  
> (ii)  women  are
> presented as sexual objects who enjoy  pain  or  humiliation;  or
> (iii) women are presented as sexual objects who experience sexual
> pleasure in being raped; or 
> (iv) women are  presented  as  sexual objects tied up or cut
> up or mutilated or bruised or physically hurt; or
> (v) women are presented in postures  of  sexual  submis-
> sion,  servility,  or  display;  or  
> (vi)  women's  body  parts--
> including but not limited to vagina,  breasts,  or  buttocks--are
> exhibited  such  that  women are reduced to those parts; or 
> (vii) women are presented as whores by  nature;  or  
> (viii)  women  are
> presented as being penetrated by objects or animals; or
> (ix) women are presented in scenarios of  degradation,  injury,  
> torture, shown  as filthy or inferior, bleeding, bruised or hurt in
> a context that makes these conditions sexual.

My objection is that the definition is so vague that it is not
clear what is and is not covered by it. Does the phrase "sexually explicit"
have a precise legal definition? If
I get turned on by leather coats in a Sears circular, does that make it
"sexually explicit"? I'm not being facetious here - I've seen many things
that I thought were perfectly unoffensive and had no sexual content denounced
as "pornography". The sections of the definition are sufficiently broad to
cover anything that passes the "sexually explicit" part - for instance,
section vi could be applied to any picture of a woman.

My impression is that this law is designed to give its supporters a cannon
they can point at anyone publishing anything they don't like.

			Scott McEwan
			{ihnp4,pur-ee}!uiucdcs!mcewan

"A flash in front of my eyes ... I blink ... open my eyes to ... discover I am
 a dog in a pickup truck full of garbage ... no one but me sees the lid blow
 off the can ... it's 14 miles to the dump ... this is ... at last ... heaven."