MacDworkin Redux

A piece of legislation that has largely flown under the radar of the free speech and pro-sex advocates passed through the Minnesota Senate this week. The legislation proposes a ban on MN government business travelers from staying in hotels that offer premium porn channels, at least those offering what the legislators are defining as "violent" pornography. Note that this has nothing to do with MN State workers purchasing porn viewing on the state's dime, which is presumably already prohibited, but represents a state-mandated boycott of lodging that does not meet the "clean hotels" designation. (There is an exception in the legislation for state business travelers who cannot find a "clean hotel" in the area they are traveling in, however, they are also required to provide written proof to that effect.)

Clearly out to win some kind of Orwell award, the bill's sponsor, Democratic State Senator Tarryl Clark stated, "This bill is not about policing personal choices. The bill is about taking another step in reducing sexual violence in our society."

Also, proof that the usual suspects from the Stop Porn Culture crowd have had an influence here, Minnesota Coalition Against Sexual Assault executive director Donna Dunn notes that the legislation is meant to target material that "show[s] degrading and body-punishing sex".

Further details here, here, here, and here. Text of the legislation here.

What stands out about this legislation is that it has not come from the usual suspects on the religious right (though the "clean hotel" list in the US is maintained by these groups) nor is it justified on "decency" grounds. Rather, the bill was sponsored by a Democrat, lobbied for by a coalition of feminist anti-sexual violence groups (specifically, the Mens' Action Network (who maintain a page on the subject here), the Minnesota Coalition Against Sexual Assault, and, notably, the Minnesota Department of Health Injury and Violence Prevention Unit), and specifically touted as prevention of sexual violence. More chillingly, a document by the MDH Injury and Violence Prevention Unit, "The Promise of Primary Prevention of Sexual Violence: A Five-Year Plan To Prevent Sexual Violence and Exploitation in Minnesota" specifically highlights porn and "sexual objectification" as a causal agent in sexual violence and recommends legislative and other state-sponsored strategies against it.

If this kind of thing coming out of the great state of Minnesota sounds familiar, one needs to go back some 25 years to the heyday of the Dworkin/MacKinnon Ordinance, which was first passed by the Minneapolis City Council in 1983 (though vetoed by the mayor, who recognized the legislation would clearly lose on constitutional grounds). The language of the present legislation comes right out of the earlier Dworkin/MacKinnon legislation. While the authors claim that legislation does not target all sexually explicit material shown at hotels, it broadly defines the targeted material as follows:

"pornographic image or performance" means a sexually explicit image or performance that objectifies or exploits its subjects by eroticizing domination, degradation, or violence.

(Also, as is typical of the hypocrisy of such legislation, while it broadly defines a wide range of pornographic content as "violent" by definition, violent non-porn movies shown on hotel movie channels, such as Saw or Captivity, get a free pass.)

Unfortunately, there seems to be little sustained opposition to this legislation (other than from the hotel lobby), and the Minnesota ACLU website doesn't see fit to mention it. The legislation has a good chance of passing, though how it will stand up if challenged in court is less clear – the bill uses the same ideologically-loaded language struck down in Booksellers v. Hudnut. I urge readers in Minnesota to write their legislators and raise awareness of this issue.

Meanwhile, in Texas, a bill passed last year charging a $5 per head "pole tax" on strip-club patrons is scheduled to go before the Texas State Supreme Court this week. What is notable about this legislation is that it too was passed on grounds of "preventing sexual violence", mandating that the tax be used to fund anti-sexual violence groups. While this may seem non-problematic on the surface, it once again, mandates a direct link between the sex industry and violence against women, and proposes a sin tax as a partial solution.

Like the Minnesota legislation, the Texas bill was sponsored by a Democratic legislator, State Representative Ellen Cohen, and backed by a coalition of anti-sexual violence groups. It should also come as no surprise that Robert Jensen was one of the consultants on this piece of legislation and that a women's center at Jensen's institution, University of Texas, is one of the proposed recipients of the largess of this tax.

More here, here, and here.

While these pieces of anti-porn legislation are a great deal less far-reaching than many earlier anti-porn legislative efforts in the US, or current ones in some European and Commonwealth countries, such legislation is clearly meant to set a precedent. Laws specifically linking pornography to violence against women that might stand up to constitutional challenges may be used as justification for more far-reaching legislation in the future.

Prohibitionism marches on

More bad news from the legal front – the long-running Extreme Associates obscenity case is drawing to a close, with EA owners Robert and Janet Zicari (aka Rob Black and Lizzy Borden) copping guilty pleas. Story here, here, and here. Reason magazine provides further background here.

Black and Borden face up to five years in prison for the "crime" of producing extreme porn that included violent imagery. (Though at least they're not facing a potential 50 years each, as they were under their original counts.) And unlike the earlier Max Hardcore conviction, this is entirely about the content of their videos – to the best of my knowledge, in this case there are no rumors of non-consensual incidents on the production end which some people offered up as a round-about justification for Hardcore's obscenity prosecution.

Whether or not this round of obscenity prosecutions is just a bad hangover from the Bush years remains to be seen. As the Reason article points out, Mary Beth Buchanan, the right-wing moral crusader who's leading the EA prosecution, is asking to keep her job under the current administration. And the dual choices of Eric Holder and David Ogden for the number 1 and number 2 spots in the Justice Department show no clear indication of what federal obscenity policy will look like for the next 4-8 years, though hopefully the fact that the nation is facing much bigger issues will reaveal moral crusades like this for the waste of resources that they are.

In other news, Iceland is poised to become the first country in the world to impose a blanket ban on the entire sex industry. Pornography is already completely illegal there (at least in theory), and the new Left government there is about to put in place Swedish-style laws against buying sex, and goes one further by also banning strip clubs. Thus, in one country at least, achieving the anti-sex industry trifecta that prohibitionists have been shooting for. All, as usual, justified by rhetoric claiming that all sex work drives human trafficking. Further background here. It is interesting to note that in the story I just linked to, Iceland is considered a desirable enough place to work that strippers were coming to Iceland of their own volition from places like the Netherlands and Puerto Rico. However, the fine upstanding social democrats now in charge of the country have decided that this is all exploitation without bothering to ask anybody who actually works in that industry whether they are being exploited.

sex workers- once again, what's best for us:

As you may or not may be aware, under the auspices of a woman named Jacqui Smith, the UK is considering a law that will criminalize the purchase of sexual services, namely, men who participate in, as they call it in the UK, “kerb crawling” (street based work). As usual, the evidence Smith is basing her proposal off of is questionable, but the proposed law is there none the less.

A blogger and ally Caroline, who is in the UK, has written extensively about the downsides of this law, and what very real consequences and potential consequences it has on sex workers of all kinds within the UK, she was even given quest posts at the UK based the F-Word and a US blog, Feministe!

The responses to her posts were, how shall I say, typical, and the reaction to her stance on the matter, equally so. Both Caroline and sex workers who bothered to participate were bogged down by generally radical leaning feminists with countless issues not necessarily germane to the legal issue at hand, shouted down as “unthinking”, “idiots”, or “happy hookers”…

I have to ask, to those of you who have met me and what not, do I generally come across as Teeheeeheee I can by Prada woo-hoo happy? Do most sex workers? Umm, no. Yet this is, consistently, how any who disagree with the pervading theme of repression of sex workers are written off and thusly discounted.

But as usual, those of us who oppose Swedish-like models, even considering the troublesome evidence that has shown such models to be far from perfect and the words of actual sex workers, as is typical, we are a tiny minority who truly know nothing about our business and do not care about all the poor trafficked women and girls. Which is bullshit, and I note, these people so concerned, from feminist anti sex work people to world governments, find it far more easy to criminalize the people who buy sex and attempt to play (often unwanted) savior to the people who sell it than to actually go after criminal organizations that deal in trafficking or take on the underlying causes, such as lack of education, poverty, drug abused, and lack of other job opportunities that face people who are unwillingly involved in prostitution…but apparently that is too hard and too messy…it’s easier to play Capitan save a ho.

I’ve also noted, in this particular latest round and in countless others, the apparent need of these people to demonize any and all sex worker outreach/activist programs which do not tout a 100% exit / prohibition stance. Currently, the English Collective of Prostitutes (ECP) and International Union of Sexworkers (IUSW) are under attack by supporters of the proposed UK law. The same sorts of tactics have been used against SWOP, COYOTE, the Scarlet Alliance, and countless other Sex Worker Organizations in the past.

And while all the smoke and mud about happy hookers and how sex worker orgs don’t really care about sex workers and what about the poor trafficked women and girls (no mention of the transwomen, men and boys, for that matter) rages on one simple thing remains fact: a law which will affect countless sex workers adversely is poised to go on the books in the UK, with, best as I can tell, no input from any sex workers and no real ear to the objections of any sex workers…So once again, we have people building law and political prestige on our backs.

Now, I am not in the UK, nor are most of you, but that doesn’t mean this should not matter to us. Sex Workers in the UK are sex workers, just like us, and just as the UK looked to Sweden for inspiration, there is no guarantee where ever you are might not look to the UK for the same thing…

So yes, if you find this as annoying and patronizing and seriously ill advised as I do?

Say something, because if we don’t, nobody else will.

I’ve already said a few things…

And why yes, please feel free to redistribute at will...

His Vorpal Sword Rakes New 2257 Rules

In case you haven't heard (and you probably haven't due to all the fire being thrown over those OTHER set of regulations that the Bushies just released concerning the "conscience" rights of fundie health care workers to deny reproductive and sexual health services based upon their religious "objections"), the Bushies have also managed to release finally their revisions of the 2257 regulations regarding age notification of persons performing in sexually oriented media.

Needless to say, from a sexually progressive standpoint, these new rules are, if anything, worse than the original....and serve the basic purpose of essentually using paperwork to drive the porn industry out of existence.

I'm sure that there will be more info out on the reaction to these new rules (and I'm guessing that Ernest will have a word or ten thousand to say on this, too....but I discovered this morning an online essay posted to a blog called his vorpal sword that pretty much nails the motivations behind both the 2257 and the "medical conscience" regulations to the point: as the latest bomb in the antisex/morality wars.

It's such an awesome essay that to merely quote snippets would do it no justice...so I'll just offer the link and ask you to go there and read it for yourself.

his vorpal sword: Death-O-Rama, or, Porn Free

The essayist even mines the recent passing of the original "Deep Throat", the Linda Lovelace movie of the same name, Traci Lords, and the passing of Bettie Page, and some history of the Sex Wars. All in all, a complete and thorough dissection of the antisex morality.

Court Upholds "Porn is Not Prostitution" Principle

Via The Legal Satyricon, The Volokh Conspiracy, Polymorphous Perversity, and the Concord Monitor comes news of one of the few triumphs for the much-beseiged right of sexual expression. In this case, the legal principle distinguishing porn production from prostitution has once again been upheld in, of all places, New Hampshire. This legal principle is enshrined in the case of California v. Freeman and, although this case is not binding in any state other than California, the distinction it makes between paying somebody to have sex with you versus paying for a sexual performance has been largely upheld elsewhere in the US. It was most recently challenged in New Hampshire in the case of State v. Theriault, with the final result that New Hampshire Supreme Court upheld the Freeman principle.

Who the hell makes porn in New Hampshire you might ask? In this case the old maxim about "hard cases make bad law" seems to have been reversed, with some good law being harvested out of a dodgy case. Apparently, the defendent, Robert Theriault, was a county court baliff who approached a couple (while still in uniform, apparently) who had just paid a traffic ticket and offered them money to make a "fuck flick". According to an earlier article, this was accompanied by a story about how he was "an investigator" testing different kinds of condoms, as well as the ability of different electric blankets to increase sperm count. (You can't make this stuff up.) The couple actually went through with a sexual performance for this guy, but later had a change of heart about the whole thing. Eventually, the incident was reported to the police and the fool was quite rightly releived of his job as baliff. However, he was also arrested and charged with soliciting prostitution, something he was successfully convicted of in lower courts.

Ultimately, the State Supreme Court did what it was supposed to do, and didn't allow the urge to punish one person's sketchy activities to impinge on everybody's rights. Its unfortunate the court in the Max Hardcore case wasn't operating on the same principle.

Ahem

The first amendment is not a goddamn suggestion!

Yet another bad law

In yet more censorship news, Indiana recently passed a law that, as of July 1, requires all newly licensed businesses in that state to register with the state if they sell sexually explicit material. To make matters worse, "sexually explicit material" is being defined by the notoriously broad/vague "harmful to minors" standard.

Coverage from the Indianapolis Star here, here, and here.

Thankfully, the law's sheer breadth has rapidly gotten everyone from the ACLU, to the Indianapolis Museum of Art, to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and American Bookseller's Association up against it. The flip side is that for some in the "great middle", the law's overbreadth is the only problem they have with it, with a recent Indianapolis Star editorial opposing the law conceding that it is in "a good cause". -- Sigh --

More analysis here from usual suspect Violet Blue, sex-poz blog Gloria's Oversexed Mind (this blog is new to me, but looks quite good), and from Indiana liberal political blogger Michael Wallack.

UK/US "wars on porn"

rather than repost the whole thing, I'll use the power of linkage...

China bans Porn

Yes, indeed...

New Federal anti-sex work legislation passes House

A new version of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TPRVA 2007/11) just passed the House (as H.R. 3887) and is now on its way to the Senate. While it contains some laudable legislation combatting forced labor and child soldiering, it also, once again, targets voluntary sexual labor by conflating it with forced prostitution and sex trafficking. It contains a very sweeping section outlawing "sex tourism" (the section in question can be found on pages 69–72 of the text of the bill), which it basically defines as any movement over into or out of the United States for purposes of performing or purchasing "illicit sexual acts", which includes any and all commercial sexual services. Existing legislation prohibits traveling abroad to purchase sex with minors; the new legislation expands this to include sex with consenting adults, even in countries where this is legal. (For example, an American who buys sex in an Amsterdam brothel would be subject to Federal prosecution back in the US.) Notably, it also criminalizes travel to or from the US to sell sexual services as well. (For example, a Montreal escort who travels to an American city to sell sex would be further criminalized under Federal law, in addition to existing local law.) Basically, it resurrects the Mann Act and internationalizes it.

Maxine Doogan of the Erotic Service Providers Union posted about the legislation over Bay Area Indymedia. Lisa Roellig, also of ESPU, has this to say over at Bound, Not Gagged:

TVPRA 2007/11 passed the house Tuesday. Below is the link for anyone who has the time to read it in in its entirety. The sections relating to the sex industry clearly conflate all sex work with sex trafficking and the consequences for all workers in our industry I believe could be quite horrific. I believe the passage of the TVPRA 2007/11 through the house should be considered an emergency and all workers and allies should mobilize before the legislation gets to the Senate for a vote.

I want to know if the porn industry has had any concerns with this legislation. In reading the legislation, I believe sex workers who work on camera have every reason to be as concerned as the sex workers who work “off camera.”

The most troubling aspect of this legislation is that not only does it conflate all sex work with sex trafficking but also that for the way our industry operates, where workers are frequently crossing borders to work, be it national or international, the potential for massive arrests and long periods of prison time are very distressing. Note, up to 10 years for the worker and up to 30 years for the support staff.

Anybody else feeling this?

Roellig raises an interesting question about how this affects the porn industry and porn industry workers, since porn models often travel internationally for the purpose of having sex on camera. Under present American legal interpretation, hiring somebody to act in a porn movie is considered distinct from prostitution under the legal precedent established by California v. Freeman; however, this decision is not binding outside of California (even though porn is shot in quite a few other US States) and is not binding on the Federal government. Hence, the Federal government could very well use this legislation to come down on porn production involving an international cast. (I've also heard some suggestions about attempting to apply Lawrence v. Texas to commercial sexual encounters, but as of yet, this is an entirely untested approach.)

The area of international anti-trafficking legislation is an area where "porn lobby" groups like the Free Speech Coalition have been really asleep at the wheel and needs to be more on top of.

Writing one's Senators and asking them to remove the "sex tourism" section and similar sections of the bill as harmful toward sex workers and criminalizing legal, consensual behavior might be worthwhile, though considering the sexual conservatism of most politicians and the overwrought rhetoric of prostitution abolitionists, changing politicians minds on the subject is a long shot. But then again, hearing more "I support sex workers, oppose the criminalization of consensual adult behaviors, and, BTW, I vote" messages from their constituency might just plant a seed.

Oh, and one other thing struck me about this legislation – about a month ago, I was listening to a story about problems in Iraq with Blackwater mercenaries, about how they were guilty of outright war crimes, but nobody in the US government can figure out their legal status, that is, whether they're under jurisdiction of Iraqi or US military or civilian law. Yet, when it comes to the simple act of buying sex, something that's legal in much of the world, suddenly sweeping international jurisdiction is real easy to come up with!

More APR/BushCON/Religious Right Collusion: Donna [Rice] Hughes, and TVPRA

[UPDATE (8-22-07): Jill offers an even more in-depth breakdown of the Donna Hughes/TVPRA/Radfem/ReligiousRight alliance as a response to an antipornradfem male critic over here at Bound and Gagged; it's worth a visit.]

Ahhhh...lookee here...some more evidence of the collusion between radical antipornradicalfeminists and the anti-feminist Bush Administration when it comes to sexual fascism (cloaked under the name of fighting "sex-trafficking").

This courtesy of Jill Brenneman's MySpace blog:

From http://www.nationalreview.com/interrogatory/hughes200601260824.asp

"Lopez: How important has the president been in this fight? (Against
trafficking via TVPRA)

Hughes: President Bush has been the crucial factor. He has created a political climate in which all of us, from local activists to high-ranking political appointees, could do this work. Mainstream feminists like to say he's anti-woman, but by supporting the abolitionist work against the global sex trade, he has done more for women and girls than any one other president I can think of. And he seems to have done it because it's the right thing to do, not because of pressure or favoritism. The new law and policy will literally initiate change for millions of women and girls around the world. Years from now, when the anti-Bush hysteria has died away, I believe he will be recognized as a true advocate for women's freedom and human rights.

The mainstream media has ignored this story. Most of the coverage has come
from the conservative press as a result of faith-based groups' involvement in coalition efforts to support the new law and policy. I believe it is a result of the liberal media dislike of the Bush administration and the lack of mainstream feminist groups' acknowledgement of Bush's efforts to fight sex trafficking. Most mainstream journalists don't search out the facts, and instead accept the stereotypes and anti-Bush propaganda. When I speak favorably of what the Bush administration has done to support the anti-trafficking movement, people are often shocked because it isn't consistent with their view of President Bush or the Bush administration. Hopefully, history will set the record straight.

[Emphasis added by me.]

So...I guess that according to the former Donna Rice, it is now perfectly OK to defend an administration bent on overturning fundamental women's rights such as the right to reproductive freedom and autonomy, who wants to eavesdrop and wiretap everyone without a warrant, and who believes that permanent war is good for business but universal health care and public infrastructure is evil "socialism"??? And that feminists should just pipe down and just support him because he's really for children and women when he goes after "sex-trafficking"???


I wonder how Nikki Craft and the rest of the "antiporn left" posse will react to that.

Please Help Stop This Law...

I beg of you, seriously.

Like porn or not, these additions won't stop child porn, but they will make the private information of people working in porn accesable to anyone who wants it...which can lead to anything and everything from stalking to identity theft.

I've sent in my letter of protest, you can do the same by writing toAdmin.ceos@usdoj.gov

Include in the subject line: Docket No.Crm104

You must do so by Sept. 10th....

I don't ask for much out of people...favors, money, support, whatever...this, this I am asking you to do...

What I said?

As a US citizen with a computer, I am writing you just to let you know that I do not like the revisions being proposed for 2257. Yes, it is important to know that the performs in pornography are over the age of 18, and that proof of age is documented and on file. 2257 already does this. The proposed additions to this law demand that a porn performer give up more personal information than most other people working in the US have to give up (as many eomployers require only legal name, proof of age, and SSN), and then makes that information easily accessed by anyone, with good intent or not, who wishes to have it. There is no national data base for other professions containing maiden names, every stage name ever used, and full legal name. This makes performers in porn far more likely to be subject to everything from identity theft to stalking and harassment.

The people you are after, the child pornographers, will never comply with any form of 2257, so why go after and punish those pornographers who already comply with your law? This law will not even truly effect the larger porn companies, but it will be devistating to smaller businesses, it will intimidate performers and put them at risk, it invades their privacy, and these are all people, from Vivid to the budding "woman friendly net pornographer" who already willingly comply with and support 2257. It will not deter illegal (child) pornographers in the least, and it is terribly unfair to the people who legally perform in porn and honestly puts them at severe risk by effectively outting any and all of their personal information to anyone who wants it.

I understand wanting to keep children out of pornography. I do not understand trying to drive pornographers out of business and threatening the privacy and people who perform in porn legally, which is what this law, moral panic aside, will do. Time, money and effort is better spent going after real child pornographers who have never and never will comply with any form of 2257 than those who already follow the laws currently in place.

Psst...it's illegal...

There is an interesting topic being discussed over on Jill B's blog, and as it is a peeve subject of mine, I thought I'd bring it up here...

Why yes, it would be the use of pornographic images on anti-porn blogs, and the fact that unlike pornographers, the anti-porn folks, along with utterly ignoring the performers whose images they use, are also not at all in compliance with 2257...

Nikki Craft, Melissa Farley, so on, so forth? I seriously doubt they have the legal documentation required to be on file for the images used in their anti-porn arguments....

Curious, no?

Legislation

Verte recently posted an excellent article to Let Them Eat Pro-SM Feminist Safe Spaces, here, discussing proposed legislation to ban violent porn in the UK:

On 26th June, the UK Government finally published the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill 2007 (CJB). Sections 64-66 lay out plans to criminalise possession of "extreme pornography" - in terms even more sweeping than those of the original Home Office consultation document. Rather than actions, the proposed law is aimed specifically against pictures. Regardless of what is actually shown, what "appears to be" shown will determine the legality of an image. As well as necrophilia and bestiality, this includes acts which "threaten or appear to threaten a person's life" or "result in or appear to result (or be likely to result) in a serious injury to a person's anus, breasts or genitals".

Coupled with the stricture that images must be "pornographic" in order to qualify as illegal, this means that you can watch all the gruesome cop show murders you like, but if you like pornography of consensual fisting - which could cause serious injury if not done with due care - you risk a three-year jail sentence.

BBFC classification of your favourite porn may or may not help you. You are safe watching sexual violence on an 18-certificate DVD, for example the ball-busting scene in James Bond: Casino Royale. However, if "the image was extracted" - i.e. you have made a screen grab or a clip - then you could be guilty of possessing extreme pornography.

This is demonstrably ludicrous, and the Government actually admits in the notes on the CJB that it "constitutes an interference" with the European Convention of Human Rights. However, it is necessary, we are told, "for the protection of morals".

Part of this "protection of morals" is a blatant attempt to clamp down on the BDSM community. In spite of bland assurances during the consultation process that the proposals were not intended to target anyone in particular, the actual bill drops this pretence, and explicitly refers to the Spanner trial (R v. Brown and Others) as an example of activities that are illegal in themselves and will now become illegal to film or photograph.

As I commented over at the other blog, this is why I personally don't believe it's cogent to be pro-BDSM but anti-porn. I don't see a practical way to end porn that won't involve crackdowns on people with BDSM interests, and I don't see how BDSM people can remain neutral with respect to things like this.

I know there are anti-porn BDSMers out there (does anyone know if Faith ever posted on why she is both? I know that about the time she and I had our scuffle she was thinking of doing it.) I can easily imagine a position like theirs: porn is exploitation. Do BDSM, but don't film it for any kind of profit.

Or possibly "never film it," though giving smart people the benefit of the doubt I'd assume that they'd allow for images made for private use by lovers, for example. There is that ever-thorny "porn vs. erotica" issue, and what "porn" is may hinge on who is paying.

I actually used to have serious reservations about mainstream porn. But when I look at crackdowns or hear about crackdowns, the burden tends not to fall on the back of the industry but on us. Websites with ageplay-related stories get bullied into being taken down -- not some mogul making millions selling DVD's of BARELY LEGAL LOLITAS GETTING SPANKED but regular people's erotic stories.

And the mere mention of BDSM makes it worse, according to my government, or at least what my government said a while ago.

The witch hunts target us. In the US, the UK, wherever. It doesn't matter if you're a quiet little feminist sub -- or a quiet little Christian D/ser -- within the walls of your own home or not. These people hate you. Or at the very least consider you utterly disposable in their quest for a few more votes or a few better numbers on an opinion poll in the heart of right-wing wherever.

Sure, they'll be distinctly less likely to come for you if you never film yourself fucking. But these crackdowns are never about feminism. They are about calling you and what you do obscene and a threat to others.

In college, I had a website for my art and stories. None were hardcore pornographic, but most dealt with SM as a theme and had what a vice hound might call a tasteful veneer of SM eroticism. I wanted the webspace the college would give me, but I wasn't sure if even my rather softcore sadomasochistic art was obscenity and if putting it on the university's server was a bad plan.

So I looked up the college's policy, which basically said state obscenity law applies. And so:

The word "obscene" where it appears in this article shall mean that which, considered as a whole, has as its dominant theme or purpose an appeal to the prurient interest in sex, that is, a shameful or morbid interest in nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement, excretory functions or products thereof or sadomasochistic abuse, and which goes substantially beyond customary limits of candor in description or representation of such matters and which, taken as a whole, does not have serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.

Was my stuff safe as art (which I considered it to be), or was it unsafe as SM? And was there any difference between consensual and sweet SM and SM as "abuse"? I pondered this quite a while.

And yeah, went with art, and put my stuff up... but what does this really say? It says, as near as I can figure, that SM is abuse. Maybe some juries can, and maybe some do, find that some references/depictions of SM don't count as "abuse" and there's a loophole. Probably.

But in the end what this says is that "sadomasochism" and "abuse" go together.

Now, sure, many anti-porners are not for obscenity law. It's not community standards the feminist APs care about, for example.

Still, a big part of the hostility toward SM people -- including you if you are an anti-porn SMer -- is expressed in these very laws, moves, propositions. SM is linked with porn, linked with obscenity, to the public mind.

If you have some way to get them unlinked and are actually doing the necessary activism on that score, fine. I'll disagree with you but I'll at least consider your position comprehensible.

But I don't really hear about APs who like consensual beatings or role-playing or whatever who are doing that. So I really don't see how the two can converge, realistically.

In a world of theory, perhaps. But I don't live in that. I don't make art in that. I don't write smut in that. Porn actors and actresses don't make films in that.