From “When porn defenders challenge obscenity law enforcement, here's how to answer them”
Whenever you take a public stand against traffic in illegal hardcore pornography, pornographers
and their defenders will make cliched arguments to undermine your effort. The answers published here will help you to respond. They are adapted from Morality in Media's publication Cliches - Debunking Misinformation about Pornography and Obscenity Law, which is available from MIM ($3.00 per copy)…
"Pornography is a victimless crime."
The victims of the pornography industry are strewn from coast to coast. They include sexually abused children, corrupted teens, degraded and violated women, addicted men, broken marriages, ruined neighborhoods, AIDS victims, and ultimately, the very soul and humanity of a nation.
"Who are you to tell me what I can see or read? You are imposing your morality on me!"
A. I am not telling you what to see or to read. The people, through their elected representatives in Washington, D.C. and in over 40 state capitals, have decided that obscene materials cannot be distributed in interstate commerce or in their states. The people, with the approval of the courts, have decided to protect themselves, their families, and their communities from the harms associated with hard-core obscene pornography.
B. Pornography invades the home in the form of mail porn, dial-a-porn, video porn, cable porn, satellite-to-dish porn, and now computer porn. The reality is that the sex business is trying to impose its libertine immorality on an entire nation by appealing to the worst in individuals and exploiting human weakness.
C. In any society, someone's morality (or immorality) must prevail. The real question becomes, "Whose will prevail in America?" The pornographer's, leading to anarchy and decadence? Or the moral principles of those who honor the Judeo-Christian code -- a code which has been embraced, not imposed, as the cornerstone of Western civilization.
"If you'd let pornography flow freely, people would get bored and the problem would take care of itself."
A. This boredom or satiation theory is invalid. Many users of pornography do not get bored; they become addicted, seeking more and more bizarre materials. For many, pornography-fueled fantasies must eventually give way to action, which includes sexual abuse, rape, and sometimes even murder.
B. Because of a lack of obscenity law enforcement throughout the 1970's and most of the 1980's, pornography was allowed to flow freely. Yet, instead of pornography going away, it has lured more and more people into destructive addictions.
C. Remember also that new markets for the industry are being created every day as children and teens succumb to the allure of pornography.
"People who fight pornography are anti-sex, prudish, and sexually repressed."
Anti-sex? Surely you joke. The pornography business takes the beauty of real love and converts it into soulless, commercialized slime. The porn-fighters protect healthy sexuality with the key ingredients of love, tenderness, commitment, and the privacy of intimate moments. If "prudish" and "sexually repressed" are the labels attached to those who oppose the depictions of sadomasochism, gang rape, sexual orgies, bestiality, rubbing excrement on others, ad infinitum, then we will wear those labels proudly.
A sanctuary for supporters of sexual free expression and the adult sexual media.
"I am not telling you what to see or to read. The people, through their elected representatives in Washington, D.C. and in over 40 state capitals, have decided that obscene materials cannot be distributed in interstate commerce or in their states."
ReplyDeleteWell, there is a little thing called the First Amendment which says, no, We The People can't simply vote into law what other people can and can't read or see. Those kind of limitations to democracy are absolutely necessary for democracy itself to last, rather than just descend into tyranny of the majority or takeover by a demagouge.
And, yeah, I know the increasingly-archaic "obscenity exception" to the First Amendment still exists, and that some states like Utah still enforce this. But still, the larger principle is missed here.
I love people who only half-understand their civics lessons.
I have two favorite parts, really:
ReplyDelete"In any society, someone's morality (or immorality) must prevail. The real question becomes, "Whose will prevail in America?" The pornographer's, leading to anarchy and decadence? Or the moral principles of those who honor the Judeo-Christian code -- a code which has been embraced, not imposed, as the cornerstone of Western civilization."
Cornerstone, dammit! Cornerstone! Anarchy! Decadence!
and...
"The porn-fighters protect healthy sexuality with the key ingredients of love, tenderness, commitment, and the privacy of intimate moments. If "prudish" and "sexually repressed" are the labels attached to those who oppose the depictions of sadomasochism, gang rape, sexual orgies, bestiality, rubbing excrement on others, ad infinitum, then we will wear those labels proudly."
And if you DON'T have "love, tenderness, commitment, and the privacy of intimate moments" you are doing it wrong, you perverted scum! And lemmie tell ya..."gang rape, bestiality, rubbing excrement on others"??? Um, yeah, totally common in 90% of the porn made today, totally. Did all those things at least three times last week...utterly commonplace, happens ALL the time...
And because you do those things, somebody who just wants to spend a romantic vanilla weekend with wifey is sooo oppressed.
ReplyDeletePoor things, how will they ever measure up?
What a big bag of stupid that whole thing is.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteC. In any society, someone's morality (or immorality) must prevail. The real question becomes, "Whose will prevail in America?" The pornographer's, leading to anarchy and decadence? Or the moral principles of those who honor the Judeo-Christian code -- a code which has been embraced, not imposed, as the cornerstone of Western civilization.
ohhhh, oh oh oh OH. oh where to begin with that one.
and: fuck you, "Judeo-Christian;" haven't My People suffered enough without getting footnooted onto your craptastic God Country and Ham Sandwich shite? don't answer that.
and if the alternative is the likes of Falwell and LaHaye, you betcha, sign me up for the pornographer's anarchy. at least they don't want to, like, stone me to death.
fuckwits.
and gee, i guess nobody likes being tarred with "anti-sex," do they? no no NO, no one anti-sex, they just think it's a beautiful beautiful BEAUTIFUL THING. that you should never take pictures of and spend all your time wringing your hands about all the people who do it too much, or with the wrong people, or in the wrong way, or...
"no no NO, no one anti-sex, they just think it's a beautiful beautiful BEAUTIFUL THING. that you should never take pictures of and spend all your time wringing your hands about all the people who do it too much, or with the wrong people, or in the wrong way, or..."
ReplyDeleteBelle, sex is so WONDERFUL that no one should ever SULLY IT by being human. don't you get it? ;)
To expand on iamcuriousblue's first amendment remarks, what makes a constitutional amendment different than a regular law? Amendments are there to protect against what DeToqueville called "the tyrany of the majority". They are there to protect peoples civil rights whether or not the majority holds a prejudice against those people, has been mislead by ignorance or demagogues, or simply finds their own unenlightened self interest in conflict with those of the minority, etc. If 80% of the people in a particular jurisdiction are white, they can easily pass laws making black people actual or effective slaves, for example.
ReplyDeleteThis is one of the things, btw, that makes the attempt to pass a gay marriage ammendment even worse. The constitution exists to protect against the tyranny of the majority, not to be an instrument of that tyranny.
This is also what makes the attempt to stack the supreme court, which interprets the constitution, with right wing judges far worse than mere partisan politics. The constitution, which exists to protect civil rights, must be interpreted by civil libertarians.
The people, with the approval of the courts, have decided to protect themselves, their families, and their communities from the harms associated with hard-core obscene pornography.
ReplyDeleteThat is not what has actually happened.
Instead you have a "Chilling Effect" where those who dare to speak openly in favor of pornography risk persecution and the loss of jobs, friends, family, and potential relationship partners due to unfounded prejudice.
In that environment, where the first amendment rights of both the producers of pornography and its proponents have been violated, some restrictions have been placed on content and retail channels have been reduced. In spite of this,
the public votes by their actions in favor of pornography.
I couldn't quickly find a US nationwide survey on pornography consumption.
A Canadian study of college students (60% female), showed that 71% had used non-internet pornography and at least 69.4% had accessed internet porn.
In any society, someone's morality (or immorality) must prevail.
This is false. A civilized society allows people with a variety of different moral codes to coexist without interference from others.
Anti-porn advocates are often attempting to impose their morality on everyone. Pro-porn advocates allow each person to decide for themselves, based on their own moral code, whether or not to consume (or produce) porn.
The porn-fighters protect healthy sexuality with the key ingredients of love, tenderness, commitment, and the privacy of intimate moments.
ReplyDeleteThis is a rather dubious definition of healthy sexuality.
I like love with my sex but it is not a requirement. I like tenderness with my sex and I also like roughness. My partners have the choice of tenderness, roughness, or both; the majority choose both. Commitment is in no way a prerequisite for healthy sex anymore than a commitment to a restaurant is a prerequisite to a healthy meal. Commitment works for some of the people, some of the time. Privacy of intimate moments is important when, and only when, you want those moments to be private. However, I choose to share some of my moments with others and others choose to share some of their moments with me.
A better definition of healthy sexuality would be sexuality in which the activities are consensual, the participants understand the risks involved and have adjusted their practice so the benefits outweigh the risks, and all partners to the activity feel they have benefited from their participation.
Oh, but this is so funny I can't begin to start with all the contraditions, oversimplifications, and outright lies that this crock of crap editorial contains.
ReplyDeleteBut....a few examples will do:
A. I am not telling you what to see or to read. The people, through their elected representatives in Washington, D.C. and in over 40 state capitals, have decided that obscene materials cannot be distributed in interstate commerce or in their states. The people, with the approval of the courts, have decided to protect themselves, their families, and their communities from the harms associated with hard-core obscene pornography.
Errrrr....uhhhhhh....last time I checked, forty states does not make a complete nation; there has always been constitutional protection for "indecent" material (which the majority of "pornography" is generally protected from prosecution; and most obscenity laws are either loosely enforced (the occasional moral sex panic at election time notwithstanding) or not enforced at all. And last time I checked again, not even the United States Supreme Court had upheld most attempts at forcing censorship of most adult sexual material (even the Roberts Court was moved to drop the Child Protection Online Act oner and over again).
And also....most of the time "the people" actually get to vote on an issue of criminalizing porn, they roundly vote "NO" to attempts at high-handed censorship; from Scottsdale (AZ) voting down a strict anti-lap dance/strip club proposal to numerous referenda being defeated in numerous states. But I guess that if the people don't agree with you, just invent a new people, right??
C. In any society, someone's morality (or immorality) must prevail. The real question becomes, "Whose will prevail in America?" The pornographer's, leading to anarchy and decadence? Or the moral principles of those who honor the Judeo-Christian code -- a code which has been embraced, not imposed, as the cornerstone of Western civilization.
Oh, please....enough with this nonsense of fundamentalist wingnutters assuming they have a majority on "morality", as if it has only to do with sex. I mean, bombing whole countries to smithereens, torturing "infedels" into submission, and reducing women to sperm deposits and baby factories certainly have nothing to do with resisting "anarchy" and "decadence", right???
B. Because of a lack of obscenity law enforcement throughout the 1970's and most of the 1980's, pornography was allowed to flow freely. Yet, instead of pornography going away, it has lured more and more people into destructive addictions.
Hmm...was that taken verbatum from that old Meese Commission Report?? Must have been, since there is no mention of porn's rise since the late 80s....but I guess that that's mostly Bill Clinton's fault, ehhh?? Of course, the fact of right-wingers being some of the biggest "abusers" and "addicts" of porn, or the fact that the "industry" grew just as much under the supposedly "moral" governments of the Bushes seems to miss MIM's grasp of logic.
Anti-sex? Surely you joke. The pornography business takes the beauty of real love and converts it into soulless, commercialized slime. The porn-fighters protect healthy sexuality with the key ingredients of love, tenderness, commitment, and the privacy of intimate moments. If "prudish" and "sexually repressed" are the labels attached to those who oppose the depictions of sadomasochism, gang rape, sexual orgies, bestiality, rubbing excrement on others, ad infinitum, then we will wear those labels proudly.
Ahhh....so vanilla sex orgies and consensual BDSM is lumped with bestiality, scat/watersports play and gang rape. What...no mention of gay bathhouses or lesbian sex gangs???? Or is that covered by the "ex-gay" batallion of the Fighting Avengers for Sexual Purity??
Yeah. Pure fun. Like watching monkeys flinging their droppings at each other.
Anthony
yes well, "the people" also voted for DOMA like anti-gay marriage amendments in however many states it is. doesn't mean they're right. also doesn't mean there was, like, no money poured into making -sure- that people voted that way.
ReplyDeleteTEH SEXSHUL PREVERTS IZ CUMING ZOMG HALP
yeah, same old bullshit. fuck your "community" if there's no place for me and mine in it.