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XXX!!: Sex and Free Speech
For years, it's been impossible to conduct anything like a rational public -policy discussion about the dissemination of sexual information in the United States, a country which constantly proclaims itself the cradle of liberty while being censorious, prudish and hypocritical when it comes to sex.
Sex, in fact, is our national taboo, and the Internet has taken this national phobia to meltdown levels.
America Online loves to position itself as the Main Street of the Internet, but company officials have never been willing to discuss how much of its revenue comes from sex-related chat rooms (in l996, Rolling Stone Magazine "conservatively" estimated AOL's monthly sex chat take at $7 million). If you want to take a guess, just type in a few keywords and consider your options.
That's not a bad thing. Politicians and journalists like to call all sexuality "pornography"or "smut," but services like AOL have permitted the open discussion of sexual issues, preferences and orientations for the first time in American history, even if they'd rather not brag about it. Hapless Americans no longer have to risk arrest or humiliation by hanging around peep shows or porn parlors. They can go online.
This has sent our many moral guardians into hyper-drive, invoking the safety of children as an excuse to beat back the sexual revolution made possible by the digital one.
And it's brought entrenched notions of free speech directly into conflict with emerging sexuality, and the dramatic increase in the availability of sexual imagery. Talk about the unintended consequences of technology.
There's no question sexual predators exist, online and off. Or that the Net has given them a powerful new venue in which to operate. But sex crimes against children are rare online, or as the result of going online. Law enforcement officials, perhaps seeking to expand their jurisdictions and bureaucracies, are continuously sounding alarms about online predators. But federal agencies like the FBI, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and private researchers like author Don Tapscott report that children are many times more likely to be abused by someone they know at home than as the result of sexual encounters online.
Surprisingly, there are no broadly agreed -upon estimates of how many children are victimized by online predators. There appear to be few, especially when considered in proportion to online use. In preparing a book about children and online safety and culture several years ago, several researchers and I were able to project that kids were much more likely to have an airplane fall out of the sky onto their heads than to be harmed as a result of going online.
Estimates range from a handful to a few hundred each year, and the great bulk of those involve older adolescents and teenagers drawn into obsessive or unhealthy relationships.
But it's striking, in the hysteria over kids and sexual imagery online, that there is no reliable data about the number of victims.
This doesn't slow down the media, which continuously sensationalizes the rare instances in which children are lured into real-world encounters by criminals operating online, and panics parents and educators into seeing the dangers as much greater than anyone has proven them to be.
Both journalists and politicians not only confuse sexual imagery with pornography, they also equate any exposure to sexual imagery with danger. This makes anything like a sane public policy discussion of sexuality and the Net impossible, either in Congress, at local school boards or private homes.
Schools, libraries and parents, caught in the middle of this confusing debate, have increasingly washed their hands of this explosive issue, and turned to blocking and filtering programs as a response. Politicians have weight in with blatantly unconstitutional responses like the Communications Decency Acts or equally unconstitutional and unenforceable state statutes like one overturned this week in California.
Monday, Contra Costa Superior Court Judge John Minney declared unconstitutional a penal code section that made it illegal to send sexual material over the Internet if the sender knew the recipient was a minor. Constitutional lawyers called this ruling reasonable and necessary -- as did a staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation -- since the First Amendment protects the right of citizens to distribute sexually explicit material.
In this case, a former middle school teacher was arrested in April after he was caught allegedly attempting to seduce a 14-year-old boy by chatting online and sending explicit photographs. The "victim" was actually a police officer posing as a minor, the latest in a series of cases in which undercover officers "police the Net" by seeking to snare adults who approach children in sexually explicit ways. Predators who seek to assault children or exploit their bodies commercially are already law-breakers, subject to numerous statutes in local, state and federal law.
The Judge ruled that the law prosecutors relied on was simply too vague to be constitutional, and that free speech needed to be protected as well as children's safety. In fact, judges have repeatedly ruled that "decency" acts and statutes prohibit all discussion of certain kids of subjects are against the law.
Critics of the ruling argued that this wasn't a free speech issue, merely an encouragement to pedophiles. But like it or not, restrictions on discussion of sexuality does relate to freedom of speech.
The Contra Costa ruling is a reminder that this is yet another technological issue in urgent need of some coherent discussion, as opposed to the posturing and sensationalizing.
Freedom on the Net is not only constitutionally protected, it is also, by technological evolution and practice, a free culture that almost defies policing. There aren't enough cops on the earth to patrol AOL's chat rooms, let along mailing lists, websites, and global messaging and chat arenas all over the world.
Without question, kids do need to be educated in online safety. The rules are almost shockingly simple: give nobody your phone, numbers, full name or address. Small children ought not be left alone with the Net any more than they're allowed to wander around the mall by themselves.
Instead of banning games and filtering sexual imagery, teachers and parents need to show small children how to be safe online, how to respond to the violent or sexual imagery they may encounter, how to find sites that educational, entertaining and safe.
Is all exposure to sexual imagery dangerous to all kids at all ages? Is some exposure to sexual imagery and discussion safe, even healthy? This society has never figured such questions out, or even addressed them in any sustained way. The explosive growth of the Net practically forces an unconscious civilization to come to terms with reality.
In an era when the Net instantly connects people to all of the archived information in the world, how can reasonable laws be written that protect both children and free speech on the Net? How, for example, are adults interested in sexuality supposed to know the ages of the people they're speaking with in chat rooms? Is discussing sexuality with a teenager a crime? Or does the adult have to harm or intend to harm a minor in some demonstrable way?
From shock radio to cable to movies, magazines and Net chat rooms, American children are growing up with more exposure to sophisticated sexual and other kinds of imagery than any generation that has preceded them.
Is this harming them, and if so, in precisely what kind of ways? If this culture is so dangerous, why is the crime rate among kids dropping so sharply?
America is one of the world's most sexually obsessed and repressed nations, one reason sex sites are among the most visited on the Net, after business, entertainment and sports. Obviously, the sexual interests of U.S. citizens conflict with the puritanical impulses of their elected leaders and religious and moral guides.
Yet like it or not, the Net is breaking down these and other ingrained taboos. The Net has killed off sexual censorship as effectively as it has killed off many other kinds, though many of the country's most powerful institutions are slow to grasp the implications.
The very notion of pornography is a relatively new concept in human history. It came about in Victorian England when researchers from the British Museum dug up the ruins of Pompeii and were stunned to find artworks of all kinds - carvings, vases, paintings - in the ancient Italian city that featured shockingly explicit sexual activity, from oral sex to bestiality. The researchers were amazed to learn that these drawings were displayed all over the homes of Pompeii.
The British decided that women and children were too vulnerable and wanton to see these things, and hid them away in the museum's basement for generations. The idea that sexual imagery is dangerous was born, and soon took root in puritan-settled America.
These ideas need some re-consideration in the Digital Age. Vague laws about decency aren't holding up to the scrutiny of the courts, so children who need education and protection aren't getting any, while the Net-spawned right of access to sexual material for citizens who want it is directly threatened.
If even a fraction of the hysteria about kids, sexuality and the online culture were true, there would be no ambiguity about the dangers to children. There would be clear statistical support for the ongoing hysteria. There isn't.
With the 21st century come some inescapable new realities about freedom and sex. Freedom isn't going to vanish online. Sex is never going back into the closet. And thanks mostly to the federal judiciary rather than legislators sworn to uphold and protect the Constitution, the First Amendment isn't going to be disassembled every time an intractable social challenge involving free speech crops up. If the judges don't see to that, the Internet will.
The biggest issue relating to sex and free speech is out how the two impulses can co-exist with one another in a country that doesn't seem sure if it wants either.
People with children need to raise those children with the values that they believe are best. The government needs to let parents decide what children should be able to see and what they can not.
If as a parent you do not want your children to see pornography you need to get involved and learn the technology. If your informed then you can protect your children from whatever you fear will harm them.
If you think that violent video games are harmful don't buy them. If you don't want your children to see pornography then get involved.
Not all churches are like this. I know of a few that do have a lay ministry (all ministry is volunteer), and all of the money goes back to support the congregations. Stereotyping religion doesn't work
The more taboo you make something, the more daring , and hence exciting it is to see the otherwise taboo object.
Remember we are all born naked!
What is up with Kim Basinger? People (or perhaps just you) have been saying that all mourning. Is there a real reason why you are saying that? I know some of the earlier posts said something about 9 1/2 weeks which is supposed to be drenched with basinger sex scenes but what is your motivation? Why not make one of those fan web sites where you can talk about her ass all you want or do it somewhere else because there is not need for it on here.
-- Ender, Duke_of_URL
Let's face it, the majority of sex on the net is to satisfy the whims of perverts. It's not to help those with dysfunctional problems. Therefore, any sex or pornographic material on the net should be taxed. This includes all homosexual materials, because at its very root homosexuality is all about having sex. If there were no sex, there'd be no homosexuality. In short, if all sex on the net was taxed, there be no need to tax any thing else.
"The United States loves to see itself ..." Isn't that called narcissism?
Trollin', Trollin', Trollin', Trollin', Trollin', Trollin'
Trollin', Trollin', Trollin' , Trollin', Trollin', Trollin'
Slashdaaahhht!
Trollin', Trollin', Trollin', Though the Karmas swollen
Keep them Post's a Trollin'
Slashdaaahhht
Firsts and grits and daily, Hellbent for Natalie, Wishin' my gal was by my side
All the things I'm missin', flames, naked and petrified'
Are waiting at the end of my ride
CHORUS
Post 'em on, Mod 'em up, Mod 'em up, move 'em on
Move 'em on, Mod 'em up, Slashdaaahhht
Karma out, Trollin' in, First postins'in , Signal 11's out
Mod 'em up, trollin's in , Slashdaaahhht
Keep trollin', trollin', trollin', Though they're disapprovin'
Keep them doggies trollin', Slashdaaahhht
Don't try to understand 'em, Just cheer 'em, post and feed 'em
Soon we'll be postin' high and wide
My hearts calculatin', My first post will be waitin',
Be waitin' at the end of my rant
Hyaa!
CHORUS
Trollin', Trollin', Trollin', Trollin', Trollin', Trollin'
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And you read this article... why?
Sex is used to sell everything from cars to shampoo, trailer trash are breeding like rabbits, and you think there's not enough sex in our pop culture? How much of it do you need? You need help, Jon. You really are a wanker.
The working class are farmed like battery chickens by the ruling capital owners, and if you don't believe this, you are in serious denial. The sexual exploitation of workers under capitalism exactly mirrors the sexual exploitation of animals under agriculture (and the yet worse sexual exploitation of animals under capitalist agriculture).
We are, almost literally, used in the same way as brood mares for the inhuman market system. In times when capital needs labour (such as the 1960s), free love reigns in the corporate media. When the capitalists fear revolution, censorship comes down. The message that capital wants to send in modern America is to desexualise the culture, promote contraception (hence the release of AIDS into the population by capitalism's stooges, the pharmaceutical industry) and to make sex and reproduction seem shameful. They may not be as obvious as the state capitalists of China and their coerced abortions, but they are just as sure, and just as evil.
This is why the working class of the world needs to stand up to the censors and the battery-chicken-sex deniers alike -- because they are both intimate representations of the system that keeps us all down.
And yet, you still find time to post.
You are treating people as objects when you get off on pornography!
Yep. Sure am. Don't deny it for a second.
Just like I'm treated as an object -- a "resource" -- by the company I work for. Just like I'm treated as an object -- one that's in the way -- while driving on the highway. Just like I'm treated as an object -- one called a "customer" -- by any salesperson whenever I buy anything.
I am treated as an object by almost every human being I interact with in any way every single day, with the exception of my intimate friends and family. Indeed, the very definition of friends and family is that they *don't* treat me as an object.
I do the same in return to almost every human being I interact with on a daily basis. Is there any other way to get through the day?
These are human beings I am dealing with face to face (except for on the highway; even then we're close to each other). The porn, however, I'm not dealing with a person face to face. There is no other person there. There's just a PICTURE of a person. Of course I'm treating it like an object -- that's what it is. I'm not treating the *person* in the picture any less well than I treat the person in line behind me at the fast food place. If I had a conversation with a person from a porn video/picture I would accord them the same amount of human respect I show anyone else I have a conversation with. Heck, perhaps half the people around me have made porn for all I know... not that it matters.
The point is: please stop confusing the way the porn is treated, with the way the people performing the porn are treated. They are two different things; a picture is not a person. The menu is not the meal.
the 1800's was the beginning of the current trend
of pornography-as-evil-tool-of-satan.
Obviously, pr0n has existed as soon as people
learned to paint on cave walls; the Puritans
simply used natural urges and curiosities as a way
to make people feel guilty and hopefully that
would cause them to submit to the church's will
and political control.
Let me take away the *Big Words* for you.
If the rulers say "sex is bad, sex is icky, dont
do it", and the people belive, then the general
population goes down, to an easily managable state
-kalor
HEY! I'm a skinny, pasty-white geek, and damn proud of it!
I admit it, I don't like porn... but if others really want to see that stuff well go ahead and let them. But what really irritates me is the American uptighness about nudity... it's just downright stupid. God created the body, and it is a wonderful thing. What kind of message does it send kids to tell them there's something dirty about the naked body and that it should be hidden. The Euopeans are WAY ahead of us there. Understandably, some people (including myself) don't care to watch other people engaged in sexually explicit acts (I'd rather be doing it myself
A town called Dildo exists in Newfoundland, Canada. Check out their website here.
Same in Dallas, TX. I guess the gals there just use bull horns.
it seems to me that the last thing this country has a problem with is repressed sexuality. when was the last time you did not hear 50 sex jokes in your favorite sitcom, on howard stern or mtv or in the movies or in any of those silly women's mags?
It's because in this society that sexuality is repressed, that the jokes are funny. It's because of the repression that the breaking of the taboo through humor interests us -- thus making it attractive to use in sitcoms or radio shows or advertising, to get our attention.
Here's a joke/offhand comment: I met this woman at the gym the other day... boy, did she breathe DEEP! (canned laughter) Not funny, right? Because the physical act of breathing is not subject to the repression that the physical act of sex IS subject to.
Without the repression, sex wouldn't be as interesting to most people, and this society wouldn't be so hung up on it.
It's not just for AC's anymore!
Wow....I need to buy some more stock in Andover.net
.org to .com
With JK posting stuff like this, the ad revenue for slashdot.com^h^h^horg is going to go through
the roof.
Way to generate the ad revenue guys! Now, I want to know when you're going to come clean and change the name from
Laughed my butt off when I read this in the original post... hehehehehehe... DOH!
Jon needs an editor, desperately.
Once again Frank, you have hit it right on the head. If we were taught to be open and unafraid about sex, like say mathematics, then we wouldn't have as much repression. IMHO this would also lead to fewer sexual related crimes.
Much like the whole political correctness that you allude to. We are doing more harm than good by forcing people to pretend they re happy little campers, saying the *right* words and smiling on cue.
A very insightfull post Frank, even if the clueless moderators don't have the ability to comprehend.
A couple years ago, AOL banned the word 'breast', even in chat rooms about motherhood and child care, because it was deemed a 'bad word'.
What he's saying is that at the time there were no other democracies in the world. Not that there hadn't been some in the past, which no longer existed.
I don't know if his argument is historically accurate or not, though...
the United States of America was, is, and remains, the world's oldest democracy
:^)
Nice try, but I do think the Netherlands was first. Not a true democracy, but still something along the lines of a republic.
oh well.. this of course being completely off topic
Given the ancient greek origin of the word (Prostitute-writing), presumably not.
i coulda sworn this was on katzdot.. or mabey that was 'the post columbine future of open source sex and linux'. i saw the title and knew exactly who was the author.. hehe
however i don't see how this is news for nerds. or how any of these publicity seeking rants are.. but i guess it's not up to me to decide what is what. i'm just an end user trapped in a media blown funnel cloud.
Great movie. Truly, the last great American Musical.
In my experience people have kids because their friends do. Monkey see, monkey do.
Legal marriage of 13 year olds, however, reminds again of the Middle Ages.
Really? It reminds me of Jerry Lee Lewis.
"Great Balls of Fire!"
- It allows capitalists to treat women as property, using them as productive units in accordance with bourgeois property rights. This mirrors the capitalist's exploitation of workers, the environment etc. There are no sexual relations under capitalism which are not, when correctly understood, coercive.
- It turns sexual material into a scarce commodity, allowing the capitalist to exploit and commodify sex.
- By stigmatising sex, it reduces the birthrate of the working class disproportionately, meaning that workers will only reproduce at a rate which is compatible with the capitalist's desired rate of accumulation of capital. After all, those excess working class bastards (meant literally in this case!) would only hang around for lack of capital to work with, fermenting revolution.
- It supports the capitalist control of all cultural artifacts, as do mergers between (pornographers and woman-exploiters) AOL and Time-Warner
Capitalism is sexually coercive, and fundamentally needs (literal and metaphorical) rape of women and children to exist as fundamentally as it requires the systematic genocide of native populations. it is a fundamentally racist and sexist system. Pornography is the industrial pollution of the sick society which created the Internet.\/\/|-|3r3 15 ur PR0n, u l4m3r5?? /. !!!
1 dl'd 7h3 147357 h4xx0r k17 & w4r3z fr0m |\/|y 1u53r acc7 on a01, & h4xx0r3d 70 7h15 l1nk...
7h15 j0N k472 15 n0 d00d... h0w c4n 1 B 31337 on 1rC w17h0ut g00d pr0n to 5w4p ??? 4nd \/\/|-|3r3 15 n474l13 pr07m4|\| |\|4k3d 4|\|d p37r1f13d ???
j0N k472 h45 ru1n3d my l1f3... 7h3r3 15 n0 pr0n on
Free speech is a load of balls. Taken to it's logical conclusion you get "freedom of expression". Who is too say what constitutes a valid form of expression? It's obvious that murder isn't. So the whole raison d'etre of these two catchy phrases is undermined before you go anywhere. The whole reason that these two absurdities are touted by so many mindless morons is because of the problem oF "who are you to judge, God or something?". But the problem has been solved for centuries by democracy. We get the right to say anything we like in an arena in which what we say can be easily laughed at, ie. a debate. The alternative is hitler and marx all over again. A more philosophical approach to my complaint is that freedom of expression gives equal rights to both truth and error, which is plainly and obviously absurd. An error, ie a lie, is a form that describes something that isn't. You can't give it a right to exist because it has absolutely no substance. Greg
I haven't studied the history (so I could be talking out my arse) but from what I've read over the years, Victorian England rigorously suppressed sexuality in public, and had a huge underground distribution network of bizarre, gross and otherwise way out porn. It's a data point in favour of the idea that the more you suppress public acknowledgement of sexuality, the more likely people are to seek out a more extreme compensation.
Worse, children who are wrestling with their sexuality and are looking for answers and support are told that they can't look for others who are grappling with the same issues, because there's no open discussion of sexuality. I know what that can be like; I am glad that I was able to find newsgroups and other place to discuss the problems I was having when I was in high school (6 or 7 years ago). I think I'm a much more stable and sane individual because of it.
The problem I see with closing down the discussion of sexuality is that anyone who hasn't been fitted with the societal default sexuality package has to pretty much reinvent the wheel to get themselves started. (Hey, let's Open Source sexuality! :-) I've got an 'unusual' sexual orientation, and I didn't get to find out anything beyond media scare stories until I got onto the net at age 20. When I first contacted others like me, I was seriously screwed up. After getting to see how my sexuality could be fitted into a normal life, I straightened out a lot. Now, of course, the Oz govt is doing it's best to cut me off again. *sigh*
Please, parents, speaking as someone who has grappled with some pretty tough and disturbing sexual issues, make sure your kids know they can talk to you about sex, and make sure you are ready to be supportive if they have a nonstandard sexual identity/orientation.
As a parent, now, my wife has told me that I will be the one to explain sexuality to our kids. I've got the experience in being different, in knowing how you can magnify the differences you have from other kids. One of the things I'm going to have to explain to them as they get older is porn, and somehow I'm going to have to explain the whole hypocritical hype-fest that goes along with it. The kind of fanatical banning that keeps making the headlines is going to make my job harder, not easier. Despite the idea that somehow it's supposed to protect my kids, all I see is that it gives me a whole new area of human activity to try and explain when I'm trying to teach them how to evaluate the world for themselves.
repression of sex + Lot's of violence + Someone keeping an eye on you + Suppresion of free speach = 1984.
Every patriot should think about that.
Its not like that either.
Free speech is the right to say anything you like. Not the obligation to represent all sides of the argument.
The right to be heard - that doesn't exist. But I believe that the right to hear is implied by the right to free speech.
Ohh, ahh, you have such a big dignity! Gimme a break. You clearly have no idea what turns on men or women. I've met your kind before, and your desires are every bit as hot 'n nasty as anyone's, often more so.
You are treating people as objects when you get off on pornography!
You are also showing an extremely over-dramatized view of human behavior, a sign of your narcissism. What do you think people are watching a football game? Raw animal power. Ever been to a hockey game? "Kill him!" I suppose the first amendment shouldn't cover sporting events either. I'm not saying such attitudes are admirable, but we humans like that raw animal stuff. We aren't made of fairy dust; but real humans live with these facts without harming others.
I am of the opinion that porn should not be considered free speech.
You are certainly entitled to that opinion. But your opinion mandates restricting my freedom, whereas I am placing no restrictions on your freedom. What I do in the privacy of my home is my business. So I am of the opinion that you are a snivelling shit not worthy of living in a free country.
...don't mention that directory, idjit, AOL-bred Merkins don't know...
This sums up everything Jon said:
"Is adult entertainment killing our children, or is killing our children entertaining adults?" - Marilyn Manson
dear mr. katz,
i find your choice of essay topics to be highly offensive. slashdot is not the time or place for such discussion. how this article managed to pass through any form of slashdot censorship is completely and utterly beyond any hope of comprehension.
you have obviously completely neglected any sense of journalistic responsibility in posting today's article. this sort of abomination against all that is right is just the sort of thing our great president speaks of when he points out the proliferation of filth in the media. because of your article, mr. katz - YES YOUR ARTICLE - thousands of young children WORLDWIDE will have serious problems in their sexual development. they will either end up in one chaotic, abusive relationship after another, or will become twisted individuals who do nothing more than lock themselves in their apartments and write one disturbing natalie portman troll after the next in... response to your articles - YES YOUR ARTICLES.
and while i'm on the subject, what is your problem with natalie portman anyway? for months now - MONTHS - i've been posting updates about my copyrighted undistributable open source natalie portman and open source drew barrymore project. have you written a "voices from natalie's pants" article?! i thought not. perhaps it's time to take the pulse of your readership and find out what sort of articles you should really be writing.
i hope your happy when you lay in your large, jewel encrusted bed at night without so much as an acknowledgement of the rampant teen pregnancy this article is sure to cause.
thank you.
the fat-time charlie online serial!! more disturbing than jon katz writing about teen sex!!
What, no mention of former US Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders on this subject?
I ask this question, because to much open sexuality CAN breed social discord. Evolution has bred into the human creature thing like jealousy.
It's not at all clear to me that jealousy is evolutionary. Indeed, jealousy in males is counterproductive to evolution -- the male's evolutionary goal is to spread his seed as far and wide as possible. It is more likely to arise from our cultural tendency to treat women as possessions.
I mean, I'm very happy for you that you went to a swingers' party and saw a lot of people acting like assholes, but it doesn't follow that jealousy is an inborn trait of man, only that you met a bunch of "swingers" who are also assholes.
Laws against adultery originally arose because of the need to know without question the father of a child.
That's an interesting example. Because modern science can confirm a father's identity with near-exact precision, does that mean we should conclude that there is no reason for a law against adultery?
(By the way, I think the answer is "yes," so this is not really intended to be a trick question, but I am curious as to how you reconcile the answer.
I don't know if you're married or even have a girlfriend, but would you be totally unphased if you learn that she's been sleeping around behind your back?
Probably; deceit is definitely a very big problem. So we have full disclosure instead. She sleeps around in front of me (so to speak), and we don't really have a problem.
wtf is "online liberation of sexuality".
/. into the trollfest it is today.
Who gets liberated by pr0n?
The fact that the US has the highest percentqage of perverts in the world should be evidence enough that one gets what one deserves.
This behaviour of moderation and repression is what makes
When will you people understand?
Finally, a subject upon which Katz can speak authoritatively, based on his countless hours of experience: download pr0n from the net!
The moderation of the above post is another example of the hypocrit American view of sex. I think it's better to live in peace and everyone have sex all over the place. Or is it better to shut someone's mouth who's talking about sex and be able to buy guns to shoot each others' brains out? Is that what you call freedom? The constant fear because of the knowledge anyone can own a gun and shoot at will? We don't do guns. We in Europe do sex and we're having a good time. We're doing what you Americans can only dream about. A world where sex is free, where condoms are provided in magazines (our cool Dutch magazine Webber). We're having sex all the time, sometimes masturbation, sometimes with a cool chick, sometimes two at a time. It's not strange to have sex at age 8, as long as both people are 8. Het is gewoon lekker! DREAM ON! Moderate the post above UP! (unless you're jealous)
OK I'm a lurker, but I had to post...
Although a lot of this obsession w/ pornography does indeed have a lot to do with an overdriven exploitave capitalist state, it is also derived from a far more older source; namely, the pagan religious cultures which dominated the worlds tribal culture well into the so-called "civilized" age, which consisted of the worship of the goddess, and before that we might look into the archetypes that have been present since humans first began establishing a collective unconcious amongst themselves. The desire to worship the female figure especially has dominated cultures all over the world. Sexuality of the goddess as a divine procreative force was represented as not only beautiful, but necessary to the continued functioning of life...
Now our various restrictive masculine dominated religions (Judaism,Christianity,Islam, or the "big 3" according to Joseph Campbell) have repressed these very natural urges while at the same time demeaning a woman's place in the society. Capitalism, while not being entirely bound by these restrictions nevertheless splits the imagery up into two parts: that of the use of the goddess image (or sexual beauty) in order to sell more products to make more money (there are an inexhaustible number of examples of this, especially now), and pornography, the graphic representation of sexuality, which is in itself motivated by a capitalist ethic (since these magazines must make money to stay in business)caters to the unconcious need to experience the goddess on every level imaginable, except that of the truly spiritual or religious. Communism and socialism, though very intriguing on the surface, promise an essentially non-religious or non-spiritual attitude toward fixing these eploitave problems (the only spirit they seem to believe is the human spirit, and generally it only consists of making life better on a purely material basis.)referring to sexuality when in fact the problem is with our division of beauty and sexuality.
Ever notice how little of the front-page blurb you have to read (without looking at the author's name) before you know it's by Katz? One sentence typically does it for me, and then I can skip on to another story. How handy!
In Japan, schoolgirls are obligated to wear sexy short skirts, so everyone can see the beautiful legs and cute underpants. I think they should apply such a rule in the US. A lot of young people have trouble in learning sex. They do it wrong and don't use condoms. I think 12 year olds should have sexual lessons in school, where they learn and enjoy sex. First they learn basic things like forplay and when they get good grades, they may learn things like all sorts of styles and intercourse. This is not another stupid joke, but a serious subject to think about. There's nothing wrong when two people do something they both like. It's just an oldfashioned taboo, which should be broken soon. Hundreds of years ago, it was forbidden to show the lines of your body. Today it's fashion, like the push-up bra. People need to break taboo's. We should be free to do what we want, as long as we don't hurt anobody. But talking to people who are totally brainwashed with sexual taboo is not easy.
Yeah, it'd be horrible if you could be exposed to ideas you didn't agree with.
You could spend all day chatting, downloading sexually orineted pictures, reading web sites, storeies, etc. No doubt many people do.
Instead of thinking about eliminating sex, think of it as zoning. Many people who may beleive that pornography should not be outright eliminated, nevertheless are not going to accept it accross the street from their house, or church, or schools. You want to compare the US's supposedly prudish attitudes toward sex to Europe, but I imagine you will find the same situation there.
There are numerous people who classify themselves as sex addicts (I know a number of people who qualify). You will find that controls are placed on almost all addictive things, be it alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, gambling, etc.
I give the public more credit than you.
Don't try to prove your point on freedom of speech by stating hpow safe the net is for kids. I volunteer for Safety Ed International an online child safety org. we have no care what people do in their lives online or otherwise so long as being a predator to kids isn't one of those things. And YOU are spreading myths about how safe children may or maynot be online. Here is a hint, CHECK YOUR FACTS for this day not back in the day, some point in your history when you and so n so did some research. RESEACH TODAY! You quote the FBI as a source for some of your informaiton...the FBI won't look at ANY online case unless damages of $50,000 or more is at stake! How can they have accurate states of how safe a child is online if they do not have a clue. MR. KATZ, I have only read two of your articles and they both SERIOUSLY lack research , facts, or even logical thinking. You have plenty of emotion but no logic or facts to back up what you claim. Please go back to college and learn how to write for a professional org. and to those in 'power' at /. look for a someone to hold Mr. Katz's poisition while he learns, he has good potential and may mack a good reporter one day, don't give up on him yet.
"By stigmatising sex, it reduces the birthrate of the working class disproportionately"
Explain how this works, Mr. Marx.
I say you just shorten it to McR. (or mcr90761, depending on how many ppl have already tried that)
-----nuff said
I was wondering what the /. thinks the biggest internet slutpupy of all time is. My vote goes to Pamela Anderson. Just as a sidebar, do you think that Kim Basinger has a yummy ass?
nt
I don't want free speech banned, but I feel that there should be
I would hate for a young child to have to write something about farm animals and type that into a search engine. do you really want your 12 year old to see someone having sex with animals?
to sum up: No we should not have censorship, Yes, we should have a way to filter content from minors. Please remember that the web is different then ANY other media. You can have sex entertainment magazines at some store, and have them out of the reach of children.
In the article I defined censorship as the complete removal of any material about anything, not as placeing material 'out of the reach' of children.
p.s. would be next to each other if there was no q.r.
Oh, dumbass, shashdot is not for Linux-news only.
Can you get that through your thick skull yet?
I thought not.
*sigh*
Sorry about being off-topic, but does anyone else find Jon Katz's frequent and flagrant grammatical mistakes highly distracting? I can understand and accept grammatical errors in hastily written replies, comments, and messages. In a treatise expressing one's deeply held convictions, however, one would think that the author would take the time to have someone proof-read it. Writing style is a matter of personal taste, but such poor grammar always seems to destroy credibility to me. Perhaps that's why I read so few of his "articles" all the way through. ahh well.. moderate away..
Right or wrong, there's enough (too much?) for everyone to hear what they want. It's what you choose to listen to I suppose...
In the town I live in, which is about halfway between New York City and Toronto, there is a spot where it is understood by the community that people can swim naked. It is illegal for anyone at all to swim at this spot, but it draws as many as 100 patrons (about 80 or 90 percent of which are wearing swimsuits) on hot summer days. (Europeans may be shocked to learn that temperatures of 32 or 33 degrees Celsius can be found regularly this far north). So, we shouldn't generalize too much about the United States- some of our communities are pretty open.
however i don't see how this is news for nerds.
/. Try that once and see if it don't help :)
It has the word sex and mentions the "net" in it, what else? I would reccomend getting a login, even if you only post AC, and usng the homepage preferences to exclude Katz stories. I only stopped in for this one to see if he's been any less windy lately, and b/c I logged into a new machine at work I was able to see it before logging on
Sorry to hurt your patriotism, but democracy was founded in ancient Greece in the BC era ...
Don't buy into newspeak.
Depictions of Nudity/Sex != Pornography
-- Ender, Duke_of_URL
Since when has fucking Slashdot been about Linux? ...
Isn't it news for nerds? Stuff that matters? Hot grits in pants? And by the way
I take exception to a few key aspects of the Linux community's contrivances. I assume you already know that a common thread runs through most of the Linux community's policies, a thread so insolent that it disgusts me nearly to the point of physical illness, but I have something more important to tell you. There's something wrong with this picture. Think of the Linux community's ideologies as being the sum of two components: an unrealistic component that consists of the Linux community's desire to advertise "magical" diets and bogus weight-loss pills and an infernal component that consists of everything else. We are concerned primarily with the former.
In many ways, there's always been suffering in the world, and wrongs have been and will continue to be committed. There's a lot of talk nowadays about the Linux community's revolting witticisms, but not much action. The Linux community's virtue and brains are inversely proportionate to its vices and the size of its mouth. Many lives have been lost to fascism. The recent outrage at the Linux community's litanies may point to a brighter future. For now, however, I must leave you knowing that due to circumstances that I have encountered in my research, I find that I must stop the Linux community's encroachments on our heritage.
Thank you, good night.
...aside from Katz's usual prattle, is that this story is posted on a site whose readers get laid less often than Hilary Clinton.
Fat, pasty-white geeks having hot, sticky sex. Appetizing thought, eh? This would be like asking Khoury League players to comment intelligently on NFL strategies.
Nerds and sex? Geez Katz, what bizarre parallel will you try to draw next time? How about a story on fuckwit writers that don't know shit about technology but write for a site that caters specifically to people that deal in the tech fields. I think people would like that...
Talisman
P.S. Eating a donkey taco in Tihajuana doesn't qualify as getting a piece of ass.
"Study your math, kids. Key to the universe." -The Archangel Gabriel
Much as I hate to give trolls the rise they want.
This was just too funny, made me laugh for the first time today, and I was in a miserable mood before.
So just a little personal thanks.
EZ
-'Press Ctrl-Alt-Del to log in..'
"Oops, I always forget the purpose of competition is to divide people into winners and losers." - Hobbes
Its an absolute shame that stuff like this gets front page status on /.
/. all about "emerging sexuality"? What does this have to do with Linux? Is Linux all about "emerging sexuality"? Is /. turning into some sort of political statement?
I mean is
Give me a break.
I'm still working on a clever footer.
Well finally, Katz the ol blowhard hits on something. WE ARE JUST A BUNCH OF FUCKING REPRESSED HYPOCRITES(sp). Yeah, I know I know, your thinking that ol Frank just loves to stir the pot. Well let me tell you somthing, FRANK RIZZO IS ONE MENTALLY HEALTH MOTHRFUCKER. You know why... penis...vagina...that's why. I'll saya it again.. PENIS AND VAGINA.
We shame our little children into thinking that penis and vagina are bad. "Don't say penis or I'll wash your mouth out with soap" NOW WHAT KINDA MESSAGE DOES THAT SEND TO LITTLE BILLY.... Maybe if we weren't so goddam afraid to talk about sex we wouldn't have this pent up repression, and all of this political correctness. Maybe we wouldn't have this explosion of sex on the internet. Maybe we wouldn't have so many completely fucked up adults wandering around..... Maybe we need to question the old way of thinking... maybe we shouldn't be afraid to FUCK THE STATUS QUO..
WELL FRANK RIZZO IS HERE TO TELL YOU THAT HE'S NOT REPRESSED. I LOVE BALCK WOMEN AND I LOVE HAVING SEX WITH BLACK WOMEN. Huh... now what do all of you little fucked up fidgets think about that..??? Does that threaten you????? Do you immediatly think that I'm trolling.....I wonder....
A genius writes code an idiot can understand, while an idiot writes code the compiler can't understand.
The law was ruled to be unconstitutional because the way it was written, not only would emailing porn to preteens be illegal, but providing AIDS prevention information to 17 year olds would *also* have been illegal. The law was so broad that (IMO) it could have been argued that giving your own children a version of "birds and bees" talk would have been illegal if you did it using the net.
So things that were legal outside the net, like providing birth control information to teens, would have been illegal under this law to do on the net. It was the law being struck down that treated the net as something different than the rest of the world, not the courts. The courts struck it down because they were holding the net to the SAME standard as the rest of the world.
It's still illegal to provide porn to kids, regardless of whether you give it to them in dark alleys, through the snail mail, or via email.
Interesting post. I don't dare to speculate about if you are correct or not (not being American), but I have a slight nitpick:
:-)
>Americans are down-right freaky about personal
>hygiene for example. No where in Europe are
>people so obsessed with cleanliness. Sure, a
>bidet is common, but people frequently do not
>bother to shower everyday. Here, people skip
>showers, but won't ever admit it. Deodorants and
>shaved armpits on European women?? Nah!
Most people I know here in Sweden are pretty freaky about personal hygiene (me, for instance). And I believe shaved armpits for women are pretty common in most parts of northern Europe. My british friend told me how he almost lost his lunch when he attended a stag party for his german friends and saw the big bushes on the stripper, while the germans went "Yeah! Wow! Mein Gott!"
I don't mind hairy armpits, but then, I'm gay.
all sorts of things that are stupid and a waste of time. but the other half of liberty is law. why is it that people want the *right* to pornography but want to deny others the right to smoke or bear arms? most of you need to do some research into the justifications for and conditions under which the right to free speech was guaranteed in this country. it is != to a lap dance, although your frivolous imaginations will use it to justify any behaviour.
it seems to me that the last thing this country has a problem with is repressed sexuality. when was the last time you did not hear 50 sex jokes in your favorite sitcom, on howard stern or mtv or in the movies or in any of those silly women's mags?
breathe in me holy spirit that my thoughts may all be holy. act in me holy spirit that my works may be holy. draw my heart holy spirit that i love but what is holy. strentgthen me holy spirit to defend what is holy. guard me, that i may be holy. -st. augustine.
Agreed... but there is a better comparison made in the article:
But federal agencies like the FBI, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and private researchers like author Don Tapscott report that children are many times more likely to be abused by someone they know at home than as the result of sexual encounters online.
And this doesn't even go far enough... children are many times more likely to be abused by someone they know, than by someone they don't know, period. (The fact that the "stranger" may be on-line has pretty much nothing to do with it.)
Would censorship of the internet have helped Katie Beers, or Mindy Tran?
I don't think so either.
Jon, if you were a cool guy, you would have looked up the archives of CyberWire Dispatch and found that Brock Meeks beat you to this by at least 2 and a half years. Like always, you're a day late and a dollar short.
Go write for Ziff-Davis.
>The United States loves to see itself as the
;) :) You're not just
>cradle of liberty...
>Are free speech and the online liberation of sexuality incompatible?
Of course! I can talk about my kinks all I
want... oh, you mean free speech, sexual
liberation, *and* protecting our youths, right?
>There's no question sexual predators exist,
>online and off. Or that the Net has given them a
>powerful new venue in which to operate. But sex
>crimes against children are rare online, or as
>the result of going online. Law enforcement
>officials, perhaps seeking to expand their
>jurisdictions and bureaucracies,
or to catch pedophiles before they have their
way with children... not all cops are power-
tripping bullies looking to stick it to the
people...
>are continuously sounding alarms about online
>predators. But federal agencies like the FBI,
>the National Center for Missing and Exploited
>Children, and private researchers like author
>Don Tapscott report that children are many times
>more likely to be abused by someone they know at
>home than as the result of sexual encounters
>online.
Which means we shouldn't worry about pedophiles
on-line, or in the streets, getting them since
their daddies and mommies are probability
already abusing them, right?
>Surprisingly, there are no broadly agreed -upon
>estimates of how many children are victimized by
>online predators. There appear to be few,
>especially when considered in proportion to
>online use. In preparing a book about children
>and online safety and culture several years ago,
>several researchers and I were able to project
>that kids were much more likely to have an
>airplane fall out of the sky onto their heads
>than to be harmed as a result of going online.
Of course, the number of people on the 'net
hasn't increased exponentally since then, and
what do we care about on-line pedophiles, anyhow?
(see above comment)
>But it's striking, in the hysteria over kids and
>sexual imagery online, that there is no reliable
>data about the number of victims.
Except those reports you cite, right?
(What was those URLs again?)
>In this case, a former middle school teacher was
>arrested in April after he was caught allegedly
>attempting to seduce a 14-year-old boy by
>chatting online and sending explicit
>photographs. The "victim" was actually a police
>officer posing as a minor, the latest in a
>series of cases in which undercover
>officers "police the Net" by seeking to snare
>adults who approach children in sexually
>explicit ways. Predators who seek to assault
>children or exploit their bodies commercially
>are already law-breakers, subject to numerous
>statutes in local, state and federal law.
The law seems to be an extension of "contributing
to the delinquency of a minor" laws that most
states have... you can't just give some
14 year-old kid on the street a porn mag,
can you? (Legally, that is. I'm sure he's
not going to report you.) It's one thing if
this teacher didn't know the kid was
14, but he was *trying* to seduce him. C'mon,
you're waving *this* case as a banner for free
speech?
>Without question, kids do need to be educated in
>online safety. The rules are almost shockingly
>simple: give nobody your phone, numbers, full
>name or address. Small children ought not be
>left alone with the Net any more than they're
>allowed to wander around the mall by themselves.
Sounds good, but how many parents know more about
computers than their kids to be able to keep
them from running amok on the 'net. Face it:
those magizines under kids beds have been replaced
by print-outs and floppies.
>Instead of banning games and filtering sexual
>imagery, teachers and parents need to show small
>children how to be safe online, how to respond
>to the violent or sexual imagery they may
>encounter, how to find sites that educational,
>entertaining and safe.
WOW! A very good point.
flaming out of your ass.
>Is this harming them, and if so, in precisely
>what kind of ways? If this culture is so
>dangerous, why is the crime rate among kids
>dropping so sharply?
Because it's hard to rob grocery stores with
one hand on a Playboy and one down your pants.
What does the crime rate have to do with
kids looking at nekkid people?
(Wouldn't it be nice if Jon stopped trolling and
actually worked on slashdot's IPO?);)
How does porn exploit people? Everyone involved is there of their own free will, and it must be pointed out that the women involved are usually getting payed a whole lot of money. As for "reinforcing gender/sex stereotypes", so what? That is covered by Amendment 1.
Also, how does porn keep voices from being heard? Unless we are trying to share a single 56k line, my downloading or broadcasting hardcore sex does not prevent you from saying or hearing anything you like.
The idea here is this: The Bible is considered by most Christians to condem homosexuality. It also condemns a lot of other things. This does not mean that we Christians are to condemn these people. They are sinners, just as we all are. In fact, the very act of judging another person and condemning them (kicking them out of church, etc) is a sin, according to the Bible. Christians should be the most tolerant of all people, but sadly, this is most often not the case. The Bible says that we are to love and accept all people, even those who are living sinful lives. After all, if no one who sinned was allowed into church, there wouldn't be anyone there... The Bible is very often used to persecute people, which is really quite sad. The Bible is really all about forgiveness and acceptance, not hatred and bigotry. All people should be accepted by Christians, including people of every race, sexual preference, etc, etc. Thank you all for taking the time to read this.
As a part owner in a pornographic site, and, legally, a minor, I, perhaps, see the need for clear laws that allow sites like mine to exist. Our false aspirations of 'protecting' children are completely unfounded on any basis of reality. Our laws are so contradictory... we can have free speach, except for eroticism. This next bit pertains to the matter at hand, I promise: In the case of Paul Robert Cohen v.s. the State of California, Cohen was arrested for wearing a jacket bearing the simple words "Fuck the draft" in a California State House... He was brought to trial and convicted of endangering public safety with disruptive behavior(?). But Cohen appealed saying that his first ammendment rights had been violated. His appeals reached the Supreme Courts, and the decision of the prior courts was rendered null. In short Judge Harlan and other Justices of the Supreme Court found that his behavior was legal in the sense that in order to preserve our first ammendment rights, "permissable prohibition on the substantitive message it conveys," must not be allowed. In other words the message being set forth cannot be censored based on the contents of the message. This sets forth a few interesting thoughts in my mind: This finding implies that that "offensive" messages cannot be censored, since offensive is an arbitrary term. So now how can we justify censoring any sort of pornography, any violence in movies and on tv, any swear words from airing on national airwaves. What basis to they have for doing this? I would like to thank you for reading this through, and I am going to take the chance to promote my site... it is free, located at: http://www.triple-eggs.cx (or if that doesnt work try http://sumar.ne.mediaone.net ) over 3 gigs of content including movies. -Dave
I don't get this Natalie Portman naked/petrified joke. Could someone please tell me where the humor lies in having a naked statue of a newly-crowned cult-film goddess?
I think what Katz means is that the puritan view - porn==evil - is a new concept to humanity.
haa, cool.
~
So often on slashdot two people argue to find they are on opposite sides. It is better when they find that they are on the same side, really, but are using different words and concentrating on different focuses within a viewpoint.
Yeah, you are right in pointing out how one should (how I should) show how it is good as well as bad. A wise person once said, "Teaching [the principles of the matter] always leads to better conduct than training with rules and guidelines."
The principles of sex are good, and should be expressed as such, as to not drag people down with boundaries. If they understood the principles well enough, then they would understand and be stronger in the correct use of it.
Its good to end this in agreement. I've liked your postings on many different subjects in the past.
^~~^~^^~~^~^~^~^^~^^~^~^~~^^^~^^~~^~~~^~~^
First of all I morn the ruling Katz used in the article. I suppose it will still be contested and we'll have to see what happens.
^ ~
But lets look at, once again, the main mistake Katz makes --always.
Freedom != the right to do whatever you want with something.
Those who have found the GPL as an expression of freedom understand this naturaly, as the GPL restricts someone from proprietarily using code. If the GPL is freedom then freedom is not the right to do whatever you want with something.
Free Speech, as many point out is not the right to make people hear you. There are constitutional restrictions to Free Speech, as in you are restricted from yelling "fire" in public places, distributing porn on high school, Junior High, and Elementary campuses. Everyone is restricted from graffitiing other peoples property.
So why is Katz so confused about thinking Free Speech means someone is allowed to distribute Sex material to anyone? Hasn't he matured in life enough to realize such a basic concept?
I don't know. What I understand is the 20% (unscientific) or so of Slashdot that actualy by into it. They still see life as text book concepts, without understanding the human drama behind them. They still see the keyboard and monitor, text and screen names instead of what is driving people. In thier simplified view of the world they might even think they already know it all, like a Bob Ueker sitting high in the bleachers commenting on the distant game below.
Its not their fault, it is very difficult to explain to people who don't have kids (that would be a cool slashdot poll, btw) the immediate realization of sensitive issues that you want to take full responsibility for your child learning. And also the fear of not knowing how to do it that sometimes grips parents when they try.
I realize that the net is a dangerous playground and I am forced to teach my children earlier about sex. Unfortunately without a great understanding of the world at their age it will have to come across as "Don't let anyone show, touch, or talk about anything like that." Which is exactly the Taboo that Katz is making fun of. They just don't have the capacity to learn Sex's intricacies, and will wind up confused at this point. Yet they are still bombarded by it and need to know what to do about it still. It think its the best advice I can give them at this point.
Later on I would hope to explain to them it is good, and like nuclear power is safe when used properly, and like chocolate Syrup is better on Ice Cream than taken by itself, etc...(haha, what analogies, actualy I have heard many good talks about morality that I hope to pass on down, that don't use such ambiguous analogy but I think for slashdot purposes its plain enough.)
Katz I liked your articles on your troubles learning Linux. But you are still coming across as a person more "telling" people what they want to hear, and taking advantage of seeming contradictions (you call it hypocrisy) that come from such a simplified understanding, more than what you know is right.
^~~^~^^~~^~^~^~^^~^^~^~^~~^^^~^^~~^~~~^~~
Yeah, but can you log the session and replay it later :-)
"Flame away, I wear asbestos underwear"
We must support the rights of those that use cliche arguments to support their beliefs or else their beliefs would be totally unsupported! :)
The waving fist / nose thing is a mundane and overused illustration.
Is there a right to ignorance? I suppose to an extent, but the US education system requires some education, but apparently they can't force anyone to learn basic stuff needed to live in society, such as literacy.
People shouldn't force their opinions on others, but in no way is stating your arguments to someone forcing. The listener doesn't have to listen.
Summary:
1: Right to free speach
2: Right to ignore what others are saying
Flip side:
1: No right to force anyone to listen or agree
2: No right to force anyone to shut up
These are my opinions, I can't say I've made a good argument or an argument at all. And I haven't discussed the sex thing, possibly the subject of another post.
Katz mentions that a law restricting the distribution of pornography to known minors was struck down by a California Court. Now, I don't know what made the law so vague as to be unconstitutional, but does it make sense that if selling pornography to minors is illegal, why wouldn't e-mail pornography over the internet also be allowed to be illegal? It would seem that this is more or less the same thing, only using different means of delivering the porn to others.
So why is the internet held to a different standard?
-Dean
Regards to Robin Williams whose quote I just badly mangled.
The Doctor What (KF6VNC)
It's been impossible for years to have anything like a rational public-policy discussion about anything, much less anything controversial, which you have eloquently pointed out in prior essays. The sex-repression crap is just the worst example of a serious problem. We do not talk to each other anymore.
You know, the closest thing I've seen to a public policy discussion lately is probably Slashdot. I'm both mildly amazed and mildly appalled. This is the best it gets???
Here, we are libertarian geeks preaching to the converted. I wonder how much of an effect these discussions can have on a wider world?
Does anyone but geeks really read these forums?
And when was the last time you changed your mind about a political view based on a discussion you had online?
/me goes into shameless advancement of personal political agenda mode...
Liberals love to censor. Anything the gov't can do to "improve" our lives, they wanna do it. Look at Al Gore. Yikes.
Conservatives aren't as rampant, but they'll do it if it's in their interests. What with how many Republicans LIVE in the pocket of the Religious Right, it's amazing they're not MORE prone to censor than they are...
Do you support free speech in all its forms? Do you recognize that the gov't (of ANY body politic) has no right to regulate the Internet? You should be a Libertarian. There's only one party that supports YOUR rights:
http://www.lp.org
http://www.self-gov.org
MoNsTeR
I could be wrong here, but doesn't the Icelandic parliament pre-date the States by about 700 years? And wouldn't UK's House of Commons count as a body of parliamentary representatives (which sorta kinda implies democratic rule to some extent)?
(What do UK /.'ers think? Does 18th-century England qualify as a democracy in the strictest sense, particularly wrt representation? Any Icelandic /.'ers care to comment? )
-----
".sig,
- the adults are all naked, especially so in the sexual-display areas wich are usually not even furred
- the adults actively display and behave sexually, in the open and well within the sense range of the young
- the adults have sex without thought for "modesty"
and, most importantly:Question for the non-stupid: what besides the prudishness brainwashed into you by society makes you think that exposing our kids to an environment containing these things will do them any harm?
Hey Jon, logon to the nearest IRC server with the nick "40tluvgrrl" and then come back and tell me there isn't free sex online.
If one is okay for the children, why not the other?
-- ----------------------------------------------
Vive le logiciel... Libre!!!
(Dunno what's wrong with /. today. The URL is http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/6/0,5716 ,62436+1,00.html )
-- ----------------------------------------------
Vive le logiciel... Libre!!!
How ironic is it that we now have an article to which discussion about having sex with statues of Natalie Portman would actually be on-topic?
:-)
Pornography is all about objectification and exploitation. Little if any pornography focuses in the pleasures -- the focus is all on the sexual act itself.
You mean unlike e.g. action movies? Comedies? Or are the actors there, too, "exploited"? Are expressions of violence, crimes and other forms of exploitation more acceptable than expressions of sex? Porn shows women with an active sexual life, as opposed to "traditional" and "accepable" media where women are there for the purpose of the men to rescue, then to swoon and end up underneath the man in bed. Are you aware that there is much porn that is made by women, for women?
If you really wanted to fight gender stereotypes, there are several areas where it would do more food than attack an "outside-ish" industry - try looking at general wages where women often are paid remerkably less than men for the same job. Look at the people in company administrations - not many women there. The list goes on - and is more important that someone having sex for others to watch.
I'm very surprised that no-one has pulled Katz up on this yet.
...
The very notion of pornography is a relatively new concept in human history. It came about in Victorian England when researchers from the British Museum
This betrays rather gross ignorance.
Medieval English churches still bear images of "sheila-ni-gags" (sp?): pagan fertility charms; chubby women holding open their vaginas with their hands. While there was some effort to deface these in the 16th and 17th centuries, the real target of defacers was religious images (in a very literal interpretation of the Second Commandment).
The "no sex please, we're British" stereotype *is* recent, and was never accurate. The English are as raunchy as the rest of the world. Bowdlerism did reach its extremes there last century, messing up Shakespeare and the British Museum temporarily, but sexual repression is a battle which has been fought, and lost, in most countries at one time or another. My impression is that Victorian prudishness can be traced largely to the practices of single-sex boarding schools where *homosexuality* was both commonplace and brutally punished, leading to warped sexuality in most educated males and the families they raised. America had much the same problem for much the same reasons; the association of repression with religious morality is a consequence of the fact that religion is the place to turn to for moral injunctions of every kind, especially unjustifiable ones.
Pornography is an *ancient* Greek word which has been in use for a couple of thousands of years. The pornes were the lowest class of prostitutes; slave women who were available in brothels for free men to use for a price.
Slavery is not just use, it is licence to abuse. Women in prostitution have always been abused horifically. Despite the in-principle abolition of slavery, the emotional, chemical and physical abuse of prostitutes by pimps, clients and even the general public enslaves the majority of them. The pornes in old Athens were abused for entertainment. Pornography, in this context, is the graphic depiction of the abuse of women.
Modern use of the word extends it to all erotica. This is a pity, as there is plenty of erotica which is not related to abuse of people. Sex is, after all, fun. There is a real place for non-pornographic erotica in the lives of almost everyone.
But finding "porn" on the Internet or anywhere else is as likely to turn up images of the abuse of women as it is images of keen, free sex-workers or amateurs.
The smiles are often forced. The models are often drugged to their eyeballs. Thick makeup obscures sallow complexions, deep shadows and the bruises of physical abuse. It is not rare for pornographic material to be made at gunpoint, whether or not the gun is actually in the picture.
The ropes, the knives, the whips, the pegs and the candles are not just for show. The photographs and films of abuse are an actual record of actual abuse of actual people.
In particular the pictures of bound and gagged Asian women are usually actual photographs of actual sex-slaves in countries where such acts may be committed with impunity; teenagers are kidnapped or trapped with drugs and debt in brothels where Western and Japanese tourists may abuse them and photographs are taken to titillate potential customers only a click and an air-ticket away.
Abuse of women (and children, and men) is *real*. The photographs are *real*.
Pornography, in the proper sense of the word, is the record of the violation of human beings. As much as 50% of Internet "porn" is pornography in this sense. Often you can tell from the images that this is the case.
Please, JonKatz and all other freedom-loving wankers, remember that real people are suffering and enslaved *today* in the sex trade.
Jonathan
Wow! 585 comments and counting...
I guess this has something to do with the word "sex" appearing in the article?
Even I am guilty, having read only a few paragraphs before getting bored and posting what I wanted to post.
GCS/MU d- s+: a- C++$ USH++$ P- L+> E W++$ N o-- K- W++@ O-- M- !V PS Y+ PGP- t+ 5(+) X- R tv? b++++ y++(+++)
>>I don't know about it being mandatory. Myself, I trust my wife, and, luckily, my kids look like me 8*) (of course, that doesn't rule out my brothers. Damn, there you go making me think...)
I too trust my wife, but as former President Reagan said "Trust, but verify."
>>If the mother isn't asking for public money, I don't care who the father is. It's when you start asking for me to help pay to raise the child that I want to know who it was that got to dance on my dime.
When mothers use state agencies to extort child support from men, we should make 99.99995% sure that it's the right guy who's paying.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
>>I would go a step further. If the accused father contest it, we should use the same standard that we use for a criminal trial, innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury of his peers. Of course, DNA testing by a couple independant labs will remove all reasonable doubt from most people.
I don't have any type of philosophical problem with your idea, however mine eliminates any doubt from DAY ONE. I realize that Oprah, Ricki Lake, and Jenny Jones will have to find another staple in their lineups, but that's not my concern.
>>A woman in this situation would recieve aid until the outcome of the trial. If the man is acquitted, her and her child are SOL.
I don't think that it's an aquittal/conviction type of situation. I think that any real man would be happy to provide for his child, I just don't like it when some poor schlub takes care f a kid for 20 years before he finds out that his girlfriend/wife had been lying to him.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Several years ago I used AOL, and I used to trade in adult pictures. I preferred to see pictures of youg WOMEN, and people would send me picture of young girls. I mean 4-10 year old girls.
Because of the laws regarding kiddie porn I was afraid that I'd get in trouble if I didn't immediately delete them, so I got rid of them. Then I was without any evidence to forward to AOLs administration or police.
Something needs to be done about this.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
>>Why isn't the 'man' who fathered the child paying his fair share?
Because many of these women who've become baby factories can't name a father with any degree of certainty.
>>(My personal belief is that a woman should be required to name the father before receiving welfare. Funds could then be recouped appropriately.)
Since you bring it up, I think that genetic testing on ALL births should be mandatory, leaving NO QUESTION about who the father is.
"Sure honey, *I* trust you, but it's the law."
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
One thing about your comment doesn't quite add up. How can "thirty-one percent" of the American public be "extremists"? Apparently, then, another 31% must be extremists on the opposite end of the spectrum, leaving us with only 38% of the country that range from "moderate" to "strongly opinionated." I don't see how a rational estimation of extremism can include a majority of the population. People throw about the word "extremist" far too easily these days.
Reminds me of Logan's Run. I forget the exact details, but once you reach a certain age, you are killed.
Q.
Dave Barry is quite popular, based almost entirely on the popularity of booger jokes with all walks of life. Just watch and see how funny they are:
Two boogers walk into a bar... Ha ha, I can't even finish typing! The mirth.. it's painful..
"Violence on TV only affects children whose parents act like TV personalities"
This is a rediculous statement. We are influenced by the things that we see on TV, and everywhere in our culture.
The idea that information has no impact on the people who hear it is an example of the "big lie" that is propaganda. The biggest success that those promoting propaganda can have is for us to believe that information does not affect us?
If you don't believe that the media has impact, ask yourself this question: Can you complete the statement "Drop the _______!" from a recent advertising campaign? How about "My baloney has a first name, it's _ _ _ _ _, my bloney has a second name it's _ _ _ _ _"
Information affects all of us. It shapes the way that we think about things, and there is always an impact. This does not excuse me from behaviour . I can't say:"I'm not to blame - it's the TV"
Each of us is responsible for what we take in and the choices we make.
This is a different issue from whether children should see certain kinds of information. Chilren are NOT little adults. They are developmentally different from full grown humans, and they are impacted differently than we are.
This, however, is an entirely different issue than the sociological impact of pornography, or sexualy-explicit images, sounds, etc. There's tremendous impact of that, too. On those who view it, as well as those who produce it, and those who participate in it.
Lots of area for discussion.
Bring on the flamethrowers.
Regards,
Tom Cooper
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
I suppose if THAT's what katz was saying -- that degrading images of sexuality/pornograhy is new -- then he'd be *less* wrong.
We'd be pushing even later into the 19th century when people started creating truly demeaning works (not simply nudes/eroticism). before that it simply wasn't acceptable to do that kind of work. By that time you had relatively cheap printers and could make postcards/novelty porn with prostitutes. before that you couldn't call anything really "pornography" in the degrading/submissive/objective sense.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Sometimes I think the best way to get rid of porn w/o infringing on free speech rights would be to make it illegal to charge for or otherwise profit from it.
There. No speech infringment -- people could talk about whatever they wanted, and still even produce the stuff -- but those who wanted to profit from this exploitation would miss out (or really, probably just go underground...). Of course, those of you that wanted to be exploited (yes, I'm talking about viewers of porn as well as those featured in it) would still lose out, unless it was produced for the hell of it by some people... as I suppose it is.
Tweet, tweet.
If it did, its original meaning may have been warped to suit whomever found sexually explicit material objectionable.
AOL have permitted the open discussion of sexual issues, preferences and orientations for the first time in American history
Jon, ever heard of Usenet's alt.sex.* and the good ol' days? That was wa-a-ay before AOL became an issue.
Hapless Americans no longer have to risk arrest or humiliation by hanging around peep shows or porn parlors. They can go online.
Yeah, right! While before they could just pay cash and go home (unless their name was Gary Hart), now their credit company or USPS (or both) will know who buys what and how much FOREVER.
So, Senator, didn't you frequent BDSM sites 10 years ago? *Plunk*
Look, this is not a spelling flame, okay? Really, it isn't. Because I just have to say that I think the fact that you can't spell Oscar Mayer properly actually lends more weight to your argument!
Just because you hear something over and over again doesn't mean you'll even remember it properly, neveer mind that it will affect your behavior in any predictable way. (May the advertisers despair.)
Kai MacTane: Web developer for hire in San Francisco
Well, having only skimmed the comments at the 2 setting, I hope I'm not repeating.
Only one person hit the nail on the head. This isn't about sex. This isn't about freedom of speech (directly). This is about responsibility .
No one in America wants to be responsible. We instinctively search for someone to pass the buck to. (Hence hesitance to accept Linux in the business community. No one to sue, you have to take responsibility yourself.) We need someone to blame, someone to sue, someone to take our fall for us.
So, when we don't take the time to raise our children, when we don't teach them useful from harmful, we look for something to blame. The easiest scapegoat is that which has no spokesperson. The Internet is to heterogenous to have any spokesperson, making it an ideal scapegoat. The computer gaming industry has too many different companies to have an effective spokesperson, making it an ideal target.
The problem central to this issue is that too many parents are not teaching their children to be responsible for their own actions. They see how their parents and others in society can blame everyone but themselves and adopt that way of life.
Freedom of speech is the constitutional issue, but the sociological issue is responsibility.
Curiosity?!? My ass! He stole shit! -T. Carpenter
I can confirm what other posters wrote: sex/moral and US society is hard to understand for a European. Let me tell my, totally subjective, impressions:
I was in Europe for most of the spring of 1998, during which time there were occasional news stories about the just-then-new Lewinsky scandal.
None of my European friends could believe that this was actually a serious issue. Of course men have affairs, the attitude seemed to be, and it's between him and his wife, and should be nobody else's business.
Estimates range from a handful to a few hundred each year...
Just where can I read about these hundreds of children being injured by falling aircraft?
It's pretty poor rhetorical form to accuse others of hysteria while relying on such ludicrous hyperbole. Did a deadline catch you by surprise?
Note to Slashdot editors: Editing means if an article is crap, you don't have to publish it.
too much open sexuality CAN breed social discord
Examples? Remember that increase in, say, spousal abuse statistics, does not constitute social discord.
Laws against adultery originally arose because of the need to know without question the father of a child.
Bullshit. Laws against adultery arose because men tended to treat their wives as property and wanted legal protection for their property. Besides, what's that "need to know without question"? Is it a social need or just personal desire?
If you're married or even have a girlfriend, but would you be totally unphased if you learn that she's been sleeping around behind your back?
And a law is going to help me with that??? Er, man, I'd like some of that stuff you are smoking...
But what happens to the children born out of wedlock? How many end up on the welfare roles?
If you look at born-out-of-wedlock children of upper-middle class people, you'll find that almost none ends up on welfare. If you look at born-to-married-parents children of people who live in inner-city ghettoes, a lot of them will end up on welfare. And your point is?
Some of the ancient laws actually have a purpose.
Sure they do. It's just that this purpose is not relevant any more, or looks really silly.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
You mean to tell me that you've never seen a bar fight resulting from the interaction of a female and two males?
That's not social discord. That's a testosterone-triggered mating ritual. The effect of laws on preventing such behaviour will be zilch. Besides, that not really a society's problem.
The 'need to know' was both social and personal. Society as a whole has no wish to pay to raise someone else's children, especially in times past when it was so much more difficult to do so.
In time past society did NOT pay to raise anybody's children, illegitimate or not.
Perhaps the law can relieve you of the responsibility of children produced from such an occurance?
It already does. This is called a paternity suit. If you belive a child is not yours, and you can prove it (easy nowadays with DNA testing) no sane judge will force child support on you.
A law against adultery will not eliminate it entirely. But it WILL have a chilling effect.
No, it will not. AFAIK until recently a bunch of US states did have laws against adultery (New York comes to mind) and the effect of those was, again, zilch. All these laws did was undermine (whatever left) respect for law.
Besides, you would want to consider whether government is justified in regulating private affairs of its citizens. It is generally held that just because there is a perceived (by somebody) public good, it does not follow that the government can or should legislate it.
That it takes two to make a baby, and statistically at least, the baby has a much better chance of growing out of welfare with two parents.
I'll believe it when I see data fully adjusted for socioeconomic status.
My personal wish is for men to have responsibility for children they foster
That would be a good thing, along with peace on earth, eradication of world hunger, and what not. I still see no reason to get additional legislation involved. In the current system it is perfectly possible to force an unmarried male to pay child support.
As to deciding whether government should regulate sexuality, the question is not whether certain sexual behaviour is more beneficial to society than some other one. The question is whether the government can and should regulate it at all.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
I agree that Jon messed that comparison up. Journalists love comparing the likelyhood of something to the likelyhood of things coming from the sky and killing you (airplanes, lightning, MIR, meteors). The point is supposed to be that we don't worry about things falling from the sky and we shouldn't worry about this other thing. The comparison that Katz should be playing up is the number of kids molested by people that contacted them online vs. the number of kids molested by parents or step-parents.
-Barry
Yes, that's right - you have the right not to listen to people who want to publish porn. They have no right to force it upon you - or on your kids.
Which is what makes the internet such a great medium. If someone wants to put porn on their site, they can. And if you want to avoid it, you simply don't surf there. That way, you are both free: he is free to publish, you are free not to see it.
I don't see anybody forcing porn on anybody on the internet. Even the spam I keep getting only invites me with a URL, not a picture.
Internet is uniquely suited to preserving both your freedom and the freedom of porn lovers.
Often it is the unconventional, unpopular ideas that open new vistas in human development, and internet lets all views, popular and unpopular, thrive.
Let's keep it that way.
Duct tape + WD40 => DevOps
Skinwalker sez: "I dispute your claim that pornography is a "relatively new concept in human history". "
I think you missed his meaning -- he meant 'pornography' as a pejorative, legal term, not in the sense of just being sexually explicit. The cultures that produced these artifacts didn't interpret or experience them as 'pornography' in that sense.
dook, dook, dook!
...but 'fucker.com' has been issued:
Go, go, Chank Diesel!
Registrant:
CAKE Publications, Inc. (FUCKER-DOM)
2401 University Ave. NE
Minneapolis, MN 55418
US
Domain Name: FUCKER.COM
Administrative Contact:
Anderson, Charles (CA189) chank@FUCKER.COM
(612)781-9178 (FAX) +90 0232 331 31 31
Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
Koppelman, Michael (MK138) lolife@BITSTREAM.NET
(612)321-9290 (FAX) (612)321-9100
Billing Contact:
Anderson, Charles (CA189) chank@FUCKER.COM
(612)781-9178 (FAX) +90 0232 331 31 31
Record last updated on 28-Jul-1999.
Record created on 11-Sep-1995.
Database last updated on 9-Jan-2000 12:57:51 EST.
Domain servers in listed order:
NS.BITSTREAM.NET 204.73.77.77
NS.MR.NET 137.192.240.5
dook, dook, dook!
As far as I know, nobody has ever managed to find any evidence at all that the viewing of pornography by minors is harmful to them.
In several countries, you have to be 21 to watch a porn-movie, but only 18 to participate.
Personally I don't think other people should dictate what other people are allowed to, as long as it doesn't really affect them.
In some European countries and social groups, porn, prostitution, etc.. is a social taboo, but not banned. "You can do what you want, but you have to accept people looking at you as a pervert." This might not be "better" in all respects than the US, but I find it a step in the right direction. In other societies porn is looked at as something private. It is totally ok to watch porn-movies as long as you don't push it on others. This is my favourite. But please don't generalize Europe in this debate. Each country has it's own unique laws. My country, Norway, is very strict. Denmark, our neighbours, whose culture is strongly related to ours, has very free and relaxed laws.
checking again I found that the salon article is about a year old, therefore obviously a little outdated.
So theres still hope... (for female orgasm in Alabama, at least).
Legal marriage of 13 year olds, however, reminds again of the Middle Ages. Well, perhaps Im nitpicking...
The Kama Sutra is a good reason why there are over a billions Indians.
+&x
And Why should it be illegal to post pictures of illegal sexual acts? Is it OK in your opinion to distribute pictures of non sexual illegal acts?
Several things. First, it is not "my" society. It is a society of which I am but a part. Second, my statement, "It should be illegal to distribute pictures of sexual activities that are illegal" is not exclusive. I was only talking about illegal sexual activities. Sexual activity is different in nature than everything else, and therefore there is a different prescribed way of handling it. All catagories have differences. I do not need to give my opinion on each and every type of thing in order to make an assertion about one single thing; that would be absurd.How, for example, are adults interested in sexuality supposed to know the ages of the people they're speaking with in chat rooms? Is discussing sexuality with a teenager a crime?"
Well John, he thought the person was 14. That's the whole point. Attempting to seduce what you think is a 14 year old is, and should be, a crime. You then say this:
Is all exposure to sexual imagery dangerous to all kids at all ages? Is some exposure to sexual imagery and discussion safe, even healthy? This society has never figured such questions out, or even addressed them in any sustained way.
Well John, it seems to me that society has figured this out, but that you refuse to recognize that fact because it's opinion differs from yours. Also, most would say that many of the images available on the net, things such as beastiality, S&M, etc., are inappropriate at any age. It should be illegal to distribute pictures of sexual activities that are illegal. Simple.
I'm on the other extreme from you, some would say, because of what I'm about to say. The first amendment protects speech, not porn. The writers wanted to protect the right of the citizens to speak against the government. Simple. They very easily could have said "freedom of expression," but they did not. The word did in fact exist back then. It was not used.
All I can say I guess Jon is that you perhaps need to start hitting the "preview" button. Read what you say, so that you can see the crazy stuff you say before you post it. Figure out that you are an extremist (which you are, if you are going to attempt to excuse all porn that is online). Don't treat people like they are stubborn and ignorant if they don't agree with you. I am one of the "2001=new millenium" people, but I don't go around telling people they haven't decided when the millenium starts simply because they don't agree with me. That would be silly.
That's because children are a natural "hot Button". When you become a parent, the urge to protect your children at almost any cost is very strong. Of course, some people can see that the so called protection will hurt their children in the long run. Some one once said (and I agree) that if a person says "It's for the children" watch your wallets and your rights, because one or the other (or both) are under attack
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
It is only our culture, the western philosophy of life and human interaction, that demonizes pleasures of the body in such an imperialistic manner.
Wait a minute...am I arguing in favor of pornography and the cultures and lifestyles that surround it? I don't think so. I'm just asking folks to recognize the difference between a belief held by a particular culture versus a belief held by All Humanity.
The UK may have strict laws but the public TV stations show nudity freely after 10pm...check a few of those movie listings. Also cable p0rn is readily available with less restrictions than the US.
I expect that places like France have a different definition of "pornography", where just showing a naked body is not "porn", whereas in the US it seems that even an exposed nipple could be called porn.
"Why should I be content to simply live in this world, when I, as a human being, can CREATE it?" - Oertel
And not only is it good for liberty, its good for natural selection too. Smart kill the stupid, strong kill the weak, it leads to a better society.
TypoDaemon
Societies were male dominated long before "the big 3" came along. If your going to bitch, at least get your facts straight. Oh I forgot, lying is a central part of Marxist Ideology. Any means justifies the ends.
The problems in Alambama and other southern states is the lawmakers are more afraid of the Clergy than the people who voted for them. Preachers and the few extremist who support them, regularily go on rampages and threaten to cause trouble for people if they don't co-operate. I wish that were an unfounded stereo-type, but it's not. One of the reasons I moved away.
Politically, it is reactionary crusaders and some feminists who make an issue of porn, and these people have been notably comfortable with the idea of diminished Liberty if it would lead to the elimination of porn. However, it is true that these people will often start speeches with, "I'm a first amendment absolutist but we still need to ban porn" or words to that effect. However, I haven't been brainwashed enough to accept such doublethink yet. I'm sorry, but if people want to show a commitment to the US Bill of Rights, they don't do it by passing unconstitutional laws like the CDA. Porn as a moral issue may have nothing to do with free speech, but Jon Katz is talking about a political issue. As a political issue, pornography is all about freedom of speech, so I agree with Jon's perspective here.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
A true diatribe about the ignorance and general wrong-thinkingness of todays population would probably cause an overload of
One summary statement and question is all that is necessary:
You think exposure to sexuality is dangerous.
Why does a country like Holland, where everything the conservative fights is flaunted on the street, not disolve into anarchy if what you say is true?
Kill a supermarket clerk today and improve the human gene pool.
This post encoded with ROT26. If you can read it, you've violated the DMCA. Handcuffs please, sergeant.
When an "adult establishment" wanted to set up shop in my locality, there was quite a ruckous (sp, I know) about it. A very loud one. A local (but distant enough, I suppose, not to be a real problem) strip-club went out of buisiness because of this.
There is a state (I think) of Illinois statute prohibiting an adult establishment within 1000 feet of several other buildings, including a "house of worship".
This is the letter I wrote to a newspaper supporting the store:
Where's the love?
There is overwhelming opposition to the adult bookstore. And such outrage makes me curious. I wonder why. Why are people against porn? I've waited a few weeks after the initial outbreaks of paranoia by the public. I've read your letters, overheard conversations, thought about your opinions, and weighed your fears.
The pedophiles are not going to be drawn into our town because of a sex store. They are going to come because of children. Your children. The sex store is irrelevant, because of their perversion. It is illegal to sell child pornography, so why would they visit the store? They wouldn't.
There is concern about "perverts" being attracted to the establishment and the community. This is especially a worry to the neighbors. But the "perverts" are your neighbors. They are your ministers, siblings, deacons, bosses, spouse, employees, psychologists, and people sitting next to you in church. These are your "perverts." And we cannot even define perversion. A higher percentage of Christians engage in sado-masochistic activities than non-Christians. Is that perverted? Regardless of my feelings, it is defined as such. Do I even need to mention the sex-crime registration list? Is there any surprise that there is a market for such a store, given our community?
Children will only have access to the porn if a legal adult buys it for them. If you want them to not get porn, imbed your children your feelings on pornography. Tell them that it is a personal judgement. And please watch them. Most children are more able to get porn from their father's stash than going and buying the things.
There is a law that states that an adult establishment cannot be within 1000 feet of several places, including a "house of worship." I am going to ignore the possible First Amendment violations, and go right to history. I feel obligated to inform you that the more famous house of prostitution in the middle ages were nunneries.
But the store is not a brothel. It does not sell sex. It sells symbols of sex.
Sex is the creation of life. Sex is the connection of two people. Sex is many things to many people, and pornography symbolizes this. The censure of pornography is the condemnation of sex; and the condemnation of sex is an objection to life, love, and many things held sacred.
And I did sign my name, and I got a nice response from my co-workers, who I responded to as well, but that's neither here nor there.
Thanks for your time.
Dan
What I absolutely DISAGREE with, however, is Katz' assertion that someone who speaks out against "pornography" is somehow diluting free speech. Free speech is free if and only if BOTH sides of the issue are heard.
The trouble with this is that among those speaking out against "pornography" are politicians, who -as you stated correctly- might have a different reason when speaking out.
These politicians will try to push legislation to pull "pornographic" and, for that matter, other offending content off the net, bust people for talking about sex in chatrooms and whatnot. This is opposing free speech!
--
two-thousand-zero-zero
party over, it's out of time
What do you mean taboo? Pick up any magazine in the supermarket checkout and you'll find a frank and earnest discussion about sexual technique.
Take a close look at, say, Victoria's Secret catalog. There are usually several pictures of women wearing transparent bras or tops, etc. Look carefully. You don't see a NIPPLE! It must be seen, the thing is practically transparent. But you don't see it, there is no circle of darker skin, everything is rosy.
What do you call this? They retouche the pictures in order to eliminate a NIPPLE! This is just SO ridiculous, it's beyong my comprehension.
I'm not even starting on oral sex being illegal in half of the states...
The problem with this dialog is that it is based on the assumption that the United States is a society which values individual liberty and responsibility. While this appears to have once been true, and while vestiges of the belief remain in the society, the belief itself has passed long ago. We are now a society in which a third of the people believe that the government should control money and property, while a third of the people believe that government should control personal behavior and moral choice. Then there's the third that keeps voting for the lizard so that the wrong lizard won't win. Frankly, I have a hard time seeing how the US today is any different from the Europe of the 1500s-1700s in terms of liberties. It is about time for another geographical separation, where the best 2% of the population runs off to a remote and difficult place and builds something wonderful, much as was done with the US. Mars, anyone?
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
Actually, the United States was a republic until 1913 or so (direct election of senators), since when it has been a representative democracy.
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
No, democracy does NOT equal liberty. But it gives liberty a fighting chance.
-- "Of course the meek shall inherit the earth. They're welcome to it. As for the rest of us - Pavonis Mons, here we c
Think about it. Maybe 100 kids hurt on the internet in a year and maybe one airlane falling out of the sky and killing a kid. Especially when you consider that all kids always risk falling airplanes, but only some percentage of kids go on the internet.
hmmmm....
I think that some people are missing the point a bit.
Sex is not what we are talking about as an issue. It's really comes down to a few questions?
1. At what time (if any) should people be taught to understand sexuality, and the issues that relate to it.
2. If it is taught, what is the best way to be taught this topic?
Sexuality is more than just sex. It involves a lot of the human interaction we do as people in a 'normal' world.
A lot of times, I Liken the sexuality debate to the alcoholic debate, in that the people that are most victimised are frequently the ones that have had the least access to knowledge about it.
"the difference between myself and a madman is that I am not mad" -Salvadore Dali
Of course information has an effect on people.
But guess what.
i've never eaten a chalupa, and there is no
balogna in my house, oscar meyer or otherwise.
The idea that TV is a _cause_ of violence or even
balogna consumption is utter bullshit.
If i happened to like balogna, and i was
shopping for balogna, and the oscar meyer
song happened to stick in my head, i might
get oscar's balogna.
Guess what, i play quake too. If i ALREADY
had it in my mind to go nuts one day and
kill a bunch of people, i might think hey,
let's use a shotgun, like in quake.
But neither the oscar meyer song, nor quake
were _causes_ of what i was doing. They
might concievably influence my method, but
even thats unlikey because a prefer capacola,
and unreal.
Movies, Television, and Radio do not put ideas
in peoples heads, they only influence what people
were already going to do. The assertion that
playing quake (or anything else) makes people
violent is just as true as wthe assertion that
watching richy rich makes people wealthy.
I, for one, do both, and alas, am neither.
Yeesh.
-Tilde
Old truckers never die, they just get a new peterbilt
how can a picture of pornograpdy be dangerous? if it's just showing 2 people having sex, maybe in "detail," it is (in my opinion) NOT dangerous and cannor be in any way. Obviously the person under 18 will have sex at some time and probly see and do the same thing. So, how is it dangerous to an age group? (no, not a person. This stuff seems to apply for ANYONE - no matter who they are - under 18.) What's also disturbing is that most states don't even have the age of consent at 18.. it's 13 in michigan (or 16 unconditionally. At least where I read about it.)
For crying out loud! We're talking about CENSORING the INTERNET! Are you going to stand there and tell me that CENSORING the INTERNET isn't a topic of interest to slashdot readers?
I can tell where you're coming from, anyway, by the way you use the word "liberal," as though it were some kind of derogatory epithet. You're the one playing politics. You knee-jerk anti-liberals are such complete suckers, anybody can sell you any idea no matter how stupid or vicious, just by claiming that their idea is in opposition to some chimerical notion allegedly subscribed to by those awful "liberals."
Hmmf, WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net
William Blake--I don't know the date--early in the printing press days had to hide his porn in pictures of the Garden of Eden when everyone was naked. Otherwise his works would have been censored. The censorshilp was much more ingrained in the society.
I'd say it started because Jesus freaked about a prostitute selling her goods in the temple. This was a common practice in the religions of the time. Aphrodite's temples were almost like a chain of high class brothels. Many religions of the time connected, logically, the fertility of the land with the fertility of the woman. And therefor the act which shows that--sex.
I think, therefor I am not.
Spitzig
None whatsoever. I don't have any problem with anyone doing anything sexual in private. But the production and distribution of hardcore porn is hardly a private arena.
The reason I made the "bold" statement that porn silences voices is because it perpetuates negative stereotypes which aren't in fact generally true. For example, rape porn reinforces masculinity through assault -- hardly a healthy concept.
of course, you're probably going to argue that not all porn is rape porn or bondage porn, or kiddie porn. I guess part of the problem is how you define porn. I have a pretty restrictive definition; I don't by any means want to eliminate any and all "erotic" or "explicit" content online or anywhere else. I'm really not a prude. I just don't think cultural objects (be they pictures, movies, stories) which perpetuate assault and degradation are O.K.
More to the point, I think these negative things are in a very different category from "open discussions of sexuality [online]."
It always strikes me as real funny that here in
America they tout sex from toot-paste to cars.
But when I buy a Playboy in Germany I can see
nipples on the front cover but not on a Playboy
made in America. I always LOL since 1974.
I think if you live in Alabama, you get what you're paying for.
its a function of the server, not the client.
Nope. Dictionaries, grammar books and a decent education in the English language. I'm merely trying to educate - see what I get in return? Lead a horse to water and all that...
Thank you for upholding my point of many people holding the "Americans are idiots because they're not us" attitude.
Thank you for upholding mine that by and large that you are... Proof... It is sadly true that Americans suffer a sever irony deficiency... And the scary thing is they let people like you breed... Bring on the gene mods, Prof Zarkoff!!!
Notice how another one of your post falls in line with your snotty superior attitude:
See, there you go again!!! Incorrect words in place again.... Surely you meant to say :
school teachers may not like it, but everyone I converse with on a daily basis knows exactly what I mean.
Hmmm, much the way marmosets communicate with screams and grunts, I'm sure... Ug see, Ug kill, Ug eat...
Now, this also AIN'T the UK, so take your 'quality choice of words" and "true English fashion" and fuck off, you English-centric snothead.
Mmmm, best cut down on the tartrazine, old chap. Or the nurse will have to be called. Go get some education, lardboy. And some manners. The reason I flamed you first off was because you were arrogant and rude - two recognisably American traits. The word "fuck" is generally considered quite rude, and "Europe" is more than one country. And now you're whining about being picked on. Typical American - "I demand freedom, but I'm not prepared to accept the consequences of having it.
Grow up, you fumbduck.
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
For the people claiming that Europe is so great because they do this and that. Fuck-off. :Fuck right off, or I'll see you outside.
Well, I've just read the whole thread, and I'm damned if I saw a "Europe is so great" post. And quit referring to disparate European countries as Europe. Would you like it if I referred to the USA, Canada, Mexico etc as the Americas, implying every landmass attached to your country? And by your post, you are no better than those you are slamming. I would return your comment in the true English fashion
This ain't Europe. Whoah!!! The genius speaks!!! And judging by your poor quality choice of words, you sure don't have English as your first language, either...
We'll decide to do things our way
Yeah, and see how your legislative system has fared! I'm not even going to _bother_ starting in on what is wrong with your country, and not so I can make mine seem "better", chiefly because the tone of your post signifies that arguing with you would make kicking a spaniel puppy seem moral. You are a useless waste of bandwidth.
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
"Sex in the White House: Monica Speaks!" :)
I believe she was quoted as saying "mmmmpf! Mmmmpft! Huck-ptui!!!"
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
I'm sorry, but this article is just a waste of bandwidth. ugh, enough already.
Boycot Katz.....
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
What I absolutely DISAGREE with, however, is Katz' assertion that someone who speaks out against "pornography" is somehow diluting free speech. Free speech is free if and only if BOTH sides of the issue are heard.
This is somewhat true, however, not entirely.
In other words, if you only hear speech about how good sex is, how wonderful pornography is, how liberating it is, THAT IS NOT FREE SPEECH. If you only hear speech about how terrible sex is, how horrible pornography is, how exploitative it is, THAT IS NOT FREE SPEECH EITHER. Katz is confusing his particular moral stance (sexuality on the net is liberating) with free speech (which is an open exchange of ALL ideas, be they right or wrong).
You are so off-base on this it's shameful you got moderated a 5!
Free speech is the right to voice your opinions, views, and beliefs without fear of governmental or civil repercussions. It has nothing to do with presenting both sides of your opinion, view, or belief. To propose that is a requirement is ludicrous.
The point that Jon Katz raises, is that the people who are against pornography have--in fact, mind you--used influence to institute un-Constitutional laws that restrict pornographers from posting what they believe is useful content. If you have noticed, it's not the pornographers who have fought these laws in the courts (in most cases), but rather the American Civil Liberties Union--who is pro-freedom, not pornography.
These laws, under the guise of protecting children, inherently restrict the freedoms of adults. And as anyone who has even read the Constitution knows, the rights of one person, or group of persons, does not out-weigh the right of another person, or group of persons.
Should a law as sloppily written as the two "Internet Censorship Laws" that Congress has passed ever be deemed Constitutional? No. Quite frankly, giving the politicians this type of power could breed misuse. What if my powerful lobbying group decides that the collective works of Michael Angelo are inappropriate for children to view, and my group gets a majority of Congress to pass a bill banning his works on the internet. Or better yet, what if this new found power finds its way off of the internet. We could just as easily have every commercial and television show banned except shows like Sesame Street.
Granted, this may sound extreme, but, the reason our fore fathers wrote the Constitution in this way, was to ensure that the people (not the state) control the country, to avoid the possibility of a totalitarian government rising to power.
I don't like the fact that people see this topic as something that the government need to take control of. The fact of the matter is, if you don't want to view pornography (or you don't want you children to view it) there are plenty of preventive means to do so without passing laws. Whole ISPs offer filtered service, if there isn't one near you, you could always get a filtering program. There are packages that take screenshots of your computer so you can monitor what you child has been doing on your computer. So, unless these people who are "afraid" their childrens' morals will be compromised have tried using these means first (and have failed), I see no need for government intervention.
If anything, you would think these anti-pornography people would be addressing the filtering package providers and manufacturers for more advanced and reliable products. But, instead they wish to ask my government to tell me how to live!
Even though it was overturned, it shows what the lawmakers think of people having the right to do what they want when it isn't hurting anybody else.
You might be interested in reading David Friedman's Machinery of Freedom, or Vernor Vinge's Peacewar science fiction stories for an illustration of why anarchy != chaos. You can have a stable society without a government.
(Don't really want to argue it, just wanted to provide pointers to the arguments).
It is also interesting to compare the attitudes of sex in the U.S. and Europe. The commercials on TV are especially enlighting. European TV commercials have much more implied sexual content than the U.S. does. Are they more perverted than we are? I think they are more comfortable with their sexuality than most of the world.
Just my opinion.
It's not that explicit sexual imagery is new, it's the classification of it as "pornography" (implicitly evil and dirty) that was new with the Victorians who were, at the same time, publishing stories involving incest, rape, and serious discipline at the same time.
Of course, I and many of my friends call it "porn" and are quite happy to rent or buy it, because it's a convenient shorthand for the nudie and sexually explicit materials that are "normal" and easily accessible.
I'm quite astonished that at this point, this side of the issue has not been discussed.
United States is pretty damn close to UK in one aspect. When it comes to talking about sex, should it be to one's children or just in general way, both nations have severe difficulties. They shun from the mere subject.
I'm not the forst one to take note that both in UK and U.S. the teen pregnancy rates are just horribly high. Sex is considered something you don't talk about - and you sure as hell don't teach anything about it to your kids. As a result teens don't know what to do and hence don't know much about contraception. Right here (Nordic Countries) comdoms are openly advertised and sold. Their use is discussed even during late grade school. Prevention of unwanted pregnancy and/or veneral deceases is more a norm than an exception.
And much to this, we have the lowest teen pregnancy rates in the world. Sexual education is not only good, it should be mandatory. No matter what the fundamentalist puritans claim or wish to, education in sexual matters helps teens. When they know better, they are less prone to making irrevocable mistakes. (No, abortion is not birth control!)
I'm not trying to say this is the only reason but the correlation between the lack sexual education and teen pregnancies is quite clear.
There is no such thing as good luck. There is only misfortune and its occasional absence.
By accident (hey, using a condom is a really hard thing to remember, ya know)?
Hey, both of my kids were conceived despite the pill for one, and a condom for the other. Those things aren't 100% effective you know.
Actually, the most effective contraceptive I've found thus far is having small children in the house. :-) YMMV.
Geez. Have we ever got a topic with this many karmas awarded?
--
WorldServe Consulting
I concur. Your words remind me of one of the most profound statements I've ever heard about freedom: "Your rights end where someone else's rights begin"
Being that I am a christian, I do believe that pornography is wrong, and would not mind seeing it, (as well as murder, prostitution, lying stealing, etc) disapear from the planet forever. However, I would rather that all of those things disappear, because the people involved in them see the truth, and turn from their wrong doing, rather than because Billy Graham overthrows the nations of the earth, and sets up a totalitarian regime in the name of God. (Note: don't flame me because I call my religion truth. Instead mock me if I do not live as though that which I call truth is really the truth.). Besides, last time christiandom tried to run the world, people died....
But as someone else has already said, "it cuts both ways".
Pornography (not to mention every other form of expressions -including my own expression of faith) should contain itself to its appropriate setting. IE do not make pornography available to children, do not wear a white pointy hat in an all black neighborhood, do not use explitives at your grandma's house... -you get the point.
should the government regulate free speech? NO! (else they'd start taxing by the word...) rather, people should take responsibillity for their freedom. The religious sect shouldn't force their views down everyone's throat. Parents should protect their children from harmful things. Pornographic publishers should take responsibility for who can view their material. white pointy hats should be -re-educated....
BTW, I think that pornographic publishers are beginning to go in the right direction, with the development of age check verification systems (Now if only parents would be parents and do their part...)
Fish
go visit this australian gov site , post all the smut you see on the web ( I hope they can handle it :-) http://www.aba.gov.au/what/online/complaints/index .html
Whoever controls the present controls the past, whoever controls the past controls the future
divine right of kings I'd rule out Iceland because till early in the 20th century, it was a colony of Denmark, which had a king. I'd rule out England because it had a powerful King (George III at the time of the American Revolution).
suffrage The landowner "quibble" is a good one, but by the standards I'm talking about, I don't think it would be completely "undemocratic" to require landownership. Though "democracy" sounds like a black and white, it's really a gray issue with details like that. For example, In the US, the voting age is 18. Not too long ago, it was 21. Did that mean we did not used to be a democracy, or that we are not one now (kidz should be allowed to vote! :)? I don't think so: IHMO (and I didn't make this up, others think it too) the salient feature is the rejection of the divine right of kings, and of its might makes right counterpart, "power comes from the end of a gun."
That is what contemporary civilized people found so jawdropping at the time: this was a new thing in the modern world. Then, once the "American Experiment" started, I believe it was a straight line to the abolition of slavery and women's suffrage, two other reasonable objections to a claim of democracy. This is the salient point: deciding who is a voter is a small accounting problem once you establish that (a) there is a right to vote and (b) the voters control everything, not just what the king doesn't. That's what a democracy is, and how much liberty the democracy provides, and who gets to vote are finer points left up to the voters.
even if there had been another democracy at the time, if it ceased since then, then the US would be also be the oldest. There wasn't any other at the time, so it's just a quibble.
and my scholarship was being attacked, not my patriotism. As we see in the case of China and Cuba today, patriotism has nothing to do with democracy. Of course, my scholarship and patriotism are unimpeachable, so once again, it's just a quibble.
He didn't say that sexually explicit material, artwork and books were new. He said that pornagraphy was a new concept. The people who have had these works of art and these books, etc. as a part of their cultures for centuries do not consider them "pornagraphy" but as art, or as educational. It's only recently that openness about sex began to be considered a Bad Thing.
Why do people have kids in the first place, when they're so often not capable of the emotional investment that's so important in the upbringing of the kids? Are the just enamoured with the idea of having children, but absolutely clueless when it comes to how to raise them? Or, could it be that they do have an idea of what's needed, but either don't want to exert the effort, or expect somebody/something else to fill in for them?
My personal opinion (and regard it as such) is that (here we go again) the parents lack the responsibility more than anything else. Really, how many parents these days do you think spend a considerable amount of time seeking advice from others (not necessarily their own parents, but friends that may be successful parents), reading about parenting (after having screened the literature, of course; there's plenty of bad advice out there), talking to their children, etc etc... I dare say that the parents who take the time to do these, and other, things are in the minority.
So, I honestly wonder: What's the driving force behind people having kids only to ignore their upbringing? Family pressure? That babies are cute? The need for some form of immortality? By accident (hey, using a condom is a really hard thing to remember, ya know)? Because society demands it?
What do you think? -pf
Make affiliate bucks
Hey dammit, let me be delusional if I choose to! ;-) I know they aren't 100% effective, but I suspect quite a few kids are conceived because people don't take the proper precautions, that's all. :-) I've been lucky so far. ;-)
-pf
Make affiliate bucks
This whole porno/censorship thing seems to be a hangup in the whole English speaking world!
The USA's puritan obsession is well known.
The UK has the strictest censorship laws (as pertaining to dirty pictures) outside the muslim fundamentalist world.
Australia leads the way in internet censorship.
Here in continental Europe no one really cares what pictures some sad act beats his meat to, as long as no one gets hurt.
This seems a sane an sensible attitude which leaves people with a lot more time for more contructive pursuits like DRINKING! (Oops I forgot thats illeagle in some state too!). God bless the land of the free. (Free as in free mineral water!)
Old COBOL programmers never die. They just code in C.
I agree with the points of this article. One thing it didn't really explore is why is there a perception of such extensive problems? Pretty simple I think. We are simply living much closer together, and long range information dissemination has improved dramatically. Thus we hear about every little incident no matter where it is. Things that would have remained behind closed doors in Missisipi that noone would ever hear of, now can be read about in Johannesburg mere minutes after the abused child calls the police or child welfare for the first time. While something should be done to protect children, we must not panic. The problem is no bigger than its ever been, we simply can see how bad it really is. This can enable us to effectively kill the problem if we keep a clear head. Knee jerk reactions like those that seem so common, however well meaning, will only create more problems than they solve.
-Eldurbarn
Well, I agree that a father should be obliged help support his children. But, what about when the father himself or his whereabouts are unknown? A rule or scheme as you propose obviously would not reduce to zero the number of such cases. As a consequence, your opinion must be interpreted as it is your will, intent, and wish that a significant number of single mothers should be cut off from welfare benefits. How do you envison them providing for their kids, if they cannot get a job? A well known last resort for destitute women is prostitution, is that what you whish?
For the people claiming that Europe is so great because they do this and that. Fuck-off. This ain't Europe.
I'd say this is the Net and a forum for the exchange of ideas and opinions - not America or Europe or Africa or whatever. Or do you think only Americans (i.e. US citizens) should have access to /. ? And, by the way, why the use of offensive language? Flamebate?
We'll decide to do things our way.
I sincerely hope so, that's the idea of democracy, but isn't democracy all about the free exchange of ideas and opinons before deciding what to do? Does it matter from where ideas and opinons originate? I think not.
Besides, wasn't it Sweden that wouldn't allow Donald Duck to appear on TV because he wasn't wearing pants?
Naw, I don't think so, he has been around on TV (at least on christmas eve) for some 30+ years (i.e. as long as I can remember). Mayhap there can have been some debate originally, but that would then have been in the late fifties or early sixties ...
A question though, is it really a problem that mothers refuse to identify the father even if they know who he is? Isn't stuff like that registered at birth?
If it is a problem, have you reflected as to the reason for it? It seems to me that anyone passing up a chance of getting fincial help in bringing up their child must have a pretty compelling reason for acting in that way. Could it perhaps be that these women are afraid of being beaten and abused by the man if they disclose who he is? In such case you would be contering one threat ("If you tell I beat you") with another ("If you don't tell you don't get welfare"). In between you have an human being ...
I don't wish the government to tax me in order to give away cars to people who could otherwise afford their own. Would my opinion then be interpreted as wishing that poor old ladies be cut off from a way to go to church on Sundays?
I'm afraid I don't understand the analogy. Do you imply that single mothers on welfare as a rule would not be in need of welfare if they named the father? Or did you mean to write "... who could otherwise not afford ..."? In any case, I fail to see what you are getting at. My, amittedly pointed, point was that by requiring a single mother, in need of welfare (in order to buy food and pay for roof over her head) to a name the father in cases when she could not would perhaps result in her effectively being thrown onto the street. There's a difference between not being able to go church because you don't have a car and between not having food and housing. One might perhaps argue that an exception should be made when the father is truly unknown, but how can that be proved by lesser means than the father is identified? Or do you mean that someone that has a breif sexual encounter with a man that is gone the next morning and in addition has the bad luck of becoming pregnant and moral values (or legislation) that prevents an abortion, is a somehow a person that by her behaviour at one time shall be disqualified from welfare as long as she is supporting her child? I hope not.
[...], because (and the reason is important) we do it better.
It's not clear to whom you are referring when you write "we". Nevertheless, I agree that such generalizations are just plain silly. It's all in the eye of the beholder -- and there exists no absolute truth as to what is "best". It is rellay sad when people take to the "We're better than you" attitude because it shows that they are unwilling to listen to what "the other side" has to say.
Human rights in Italy are a farce. I mean, forget about repression of students and unions. There, it's that extra cholesterol that is a crime. As you may have guessed, feminism is not very strong in Italy.
You're confusing two different problems and assuming one has to do with the other. Pornography is not setting up an explicit website and then registering www.whitehouse.com. It isn't setting up a website and then ordering a CD of 2 million email addresses to spam to. Those are problems, but they are more related to business decisions independant of pornography itself, tactics which more than just the adult industry engages in.
I do agree that it would be nice to penalize sites that engage in deception or spam, but I also think it's a mistake to blame pornography in general for the shady tactics of some owners.
A democracy excluding women and allowing slavery is none. Only after the Civil war the US can be called a democracy.
In my household sex has always been a thing of pleasure, and never something that was perverted or wrong. Everything was always open and taught from a young age. This left us with more respect for it and i think a better understanding of what it contributed to our lives.
When you throw in pornography it simply ties in another aspect of sex. It is appropriate sometimes, and other times it is not. This of course depends on mutual consent and sharing. Some if of course for personal use. Lets not get out of focus though. Most of the common complaints about sex i have heard have been either that it is against god (as a sin) or that it teaches our young ones something too personal about our deepest secrets.
There are no real secrects when it will not hurt anyone. This of course can be changed by some respect and knowlege about the subject. If you yourself are afraid of something don't you usually try to overcome it? It would seem folly not to. If this is your fear then step past it. Nothing is that personal or your obviously taking yourself, your sexuality, and your life entirely to seriously.
Why would you ever try to limit something as simple as this: Don't have the pornography in your home and your children won't get it. If you enjoy it and keep it in your home then teach them about it (not by showing but explaining) what and why it is there. Perhaps i am thrown off by the fact that this was always a truth when i grew up. But, i don't think it too hard.
The first argument about God i cannot comment on that is up to you. There is too much fire under religion to make a dent with some.
I never saw a problem with sex, online or otherwise (mags, video, etc...) I think i lead a healthy life and never have felt criminal buying any of the sources mentioned. I do find it a bother when i can't afford them. A little price regulation would be really nice.
How does freedom reign in? I think it appears when i step though the door of the seedy p0rn shop to buy something that interests me, or when i think that most of the reason the VHS beat out beta was the avalibility of video's on VHS and not the other. These simple things that allow me to do what i like with my money without having to bribe the police or be browbeaten by my peers, or even move to do what i like. That is my version of freedom.
Oh well time to pop in that new dvd(good luck in the trial maybe it will be on a linux system next time)
off and out
I think the reference was to Porn as a derogatory term rather than the actual existence of material which might be considered sexual.
I always thought people looked at pictures of naked people to get a 'rise', is that not what porn is for? Can anyone enlighten me as to what else you would do with the all the billions of .gif's, .jpgs, .mpg's, etc. the contain 'sexual imagery' on the internet?
Background thoughts:
1) Most of these pictures and text files we call smut were avaiable many years ago on BBS. No one cared except some raise/promotion happy local police.
2) Sexual preditors were out stalking back then too. Hardly anyone care about that or believed it.
So my random thought is this, its all about votes and donations to campains. Its a joke. Will it ever change? Probably not.
Scott
Uhhm, sorry sport, but we're not a Democracy. According to the Constitution and the CIA we are a Republic {the CIA lists us as a "Federal Republic with strong democratic traditions" in the World Factbook at www.cia.gov}. As we don't have a complete set of the 'strong traditions' itemized in writing they don't stand up too well in court and they are always subject to the prevailing social winds. In form and function we are a Republic. This is why puritanical, close minded, zenophobes constantly get away with dictating what we can and cannot do and see.
This of course begs the question: What is a Republic? The term "Republic" is a marketing buzzword for the term "Oligarchy" {rule by a few}. If/when they declassify "The Big Boy Handbook" you'll be able to read the definition of a Republic for yourself: Oligarchy + Ruling Myth == Legitimized Republic.
Oligarchy is self explanatory but what is a Ruling Myth? Ruling Myths describe an origin and reason for why the current 'smoke screen' power structure is legitimate and outline a 'path to succession' so that power structure can be maintained as long as possible. The modern American ruling myth is based loosely on the original Greek ruling myth {propertied males select their councel rulers} and it reads as follows --> "Following our liberation from England our glorious founding fathers formed a Republic in which we citizens will live under the law; because we are far too stupid and unqualified to make laws for ourselves we will periodically elect people who will make laws for us". It is easy to see that this pretence is a ruling myth because all ruling myths have a built in logical fallacy. In the case of the American ruling myth the logical fallacy is --> If we're too stupid to rule ourselves then how can we possibly be smart enough to pick good rulers?
But I suppose that the ruling myth is a good thing because it masks planet earth's one and only ruling FACT: --> About 10,000 years ago a few Big Boys climbed up on the back of religion and grabbed a critical mass of power. Today the seat of this power mass is pan national and it moves as needed across any and all of societies institutions - from religion, to state, to corporation, to ???. To date there has never been a succesful challenge to this ruling fact...
Anyone of you seen the southpark film? I guess it's just a matter of time until america declares war on some "sexually-explicit" country like the Netherlands.... Ok, just a joke, but as a german, i really wonder about the americans. I read an article, that most of the porn-videos are produced (and maybe consumed) in the US of A. Can anybody of you remember the Clinton-Lewinsky stuff that happened a long time ago ... :-) I wonder why the sexlife of the (maybe) mightiest man in the universe is "open-source" .... As I saw this shit on teeveee me and my friends just laughed about those dumb americans. In europe (and maybe the rest of the world) noone would be intersted about the sexlife of politicians. I can't understand what so interesting about who sucks whose dick 'n stuff. (In case it would have been very ugly thinking about the sexlife of our now gone chancellor Helmut Kohl ... geeeee!) Like (i hope) most of the people i think sex is really great !!!!!!!! Why should it be banned? Is sex really bad for our children ? NO! Because that's how they are being made! (The last time i checked ;-) In germany children learn in school about sex, i learned in first class (when i was six). In "Sexualkunde" that's what it is called in school, i always had a grade one (i guess it's an A in America). I was very interested in sex and also did play "doctor" with the girl upstairs when i was 8. As my her mum came in she wasn't angry, no, she talked to us about where the babys come from (i already knew from school). As i read the story about a boy being thrown out of the states for just the same thing i thought it could have been me! By the way, i just hate the american double-morale (i don't know if this word exist in english, but surely you understand). Well that's all i have to say ... ... for now!!!!!!!!!
- Non Serviam ! I'm neither a soldier nor a dog, so i won't serve anyone -
Can pornography in some instances be harmful and/or addictive? Yes, studies seem to show that.
Can alcohol, guns, cars, cigarettes, TV-viewing, food, be harmful and/or addictive in some instances? Yes.
One person's normalcy is another person's outrage. Live and let live, my friend.
OK, true and not true. The problem here, as I see it, is that we have the "pro-porn"/"free-speech" folks on one side - and, generally, they are "right". They want to promote free speech, and therefor feel porn should be allowed. Ok. And we have the "anti-porn"/"anti-free-speech" side - which is what Katz was talking about. This side says porn is bad - and therefore should not be available online (or at all). This is the problem - not that they dislike porn, but that they want to stop everyone from getting at it. That - and not the anti-porn stance - is anti-free-speech.
In other words, if you only hear speech about how good sex is, how wonderful pornography is, how liberating it is, THAT IS NOT FREE SPEECH. If you only hear speech about how terrible sex is, how horrible pornography is, how exploitative it is, THAT IS NOT FREE SPEECH EITHER. Katz is confusing his particular moral stance (sexuality on the net is liberating) with free speech (which is an open exchange of ALL ideas, be they right or wrong).
I agree with your consensus - if you can only ever hear one side, then that's not free speech. However, when one side wants the other to shut up and go away, that's anti-free-speech, regardless of the main topic of the argument. Just my thoughts. -\rgb{00ffff,Strauss}
Trifle not with Dragons, for you are crunchy - and go well with catsup.
Other people in this thread have pointed out Mr Katz meant pornography in a negative sense started with the Victorians. Though prurience reached a peak in the late 19th century I'm uneasy about saying it started then. The West has a long history of getting hung up on naughty pictures. The most obvious mark of this is the historical record. Simply, where's all the porn? We have to deal with a much older repressive beast than just a hundred years or so.
Yes its true. Most americans are afraid of there own body parts! Its amazing really. So many people think its bad to see a body part EVERYONE else has. I mean if youd been raised being told that ears were just the most evil things and a males genetalia is not. Which would you think is bad? Its so annoying that folks think like that. Whats the big DEAL? You afraid to go without pants or a shirt because someone might see something every person on the planet has? Its like.. freaking sad. I recently went to Austrailia to visit my aunt. I can tell you this aussies have no inhibitions about displaying nudity on TV. As long as its in good taste its cool. (Mostly Educational stuff but..) That just sorta took me back a lil. Not much sense I have always had this philosophy. Whats the big deal? Unless you have penis Envy or you were raised to think your own body parts are something to hide. You dont mind it. Really.. pr0n does very little for me due to my up bringing. Its no big deal just another body part. Not something to get all excited about. Okay so you use your mouth to eat and your unit to reproduce. Ahem whats the big deal? Anyone care to comment?
Jeremy Allen jallen@idminc.com
p.s. I was born nekkid
I think Jon Katz is just as guilty in this article as the media. This blurb is trying to fight hearsay with hearsay. If you did studies, where are your numbers?
Look, I don't want to say you're wrong, because I happen to agree with you, but ranting doesn't do anything about it...
Instead, why don't you publish some of those 'planes falling on your heads' statistics?
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
Lets examine this scene... You've just gotten your brand new DSL line, and you go to www.nasa.com to download pictures of naked asian chicks engaged in lewd behavior. When you pop up that jpg in your browser, what do you think? Do you see the human dignity of the subjects? Do you see their personalities and their struggles? NO! You see the picture and drool over the breast and/or gential area of the women in the picture while engaging in self-stimulation. You are treating people as objects when you get off on pornography! These people aren't people to you, but objects - a pair of breasts or what not. You afford them no human dignity. To me, thats pretty sick. I agree with rkent --- its a shame that people use the first ammendment to justify this sort of behavior. I am of the opinion that porn should not be considered free speech.
It's a hard wired biological urge.
Fundamentally religious people would tell you that "God designed us that way", people who believe in evolution of some kind will tell you that natural selection has brought it about. People who want to have kids have more kids and hence leave more offspring, i.e. natural selection favours life's "randy buggers". ;-)
there should be a mandatory, enforcable way to determine the age of the user, and the content of material.
there should be a xxx domain, or mandated ADULT tag in the html, plus a cookie from the client.
kids need a chance to be kids, and most internet smut is loaded with references to "teen (fill in the blanks)". there are currently no (even halfway) effective methodologies in place to split out pR0n between adults and kids.
i know these solutions aren't 100% effective, but at least the pR0n site can protect itself in court by saying "Look at my logs -- the connection from the kid's 'pute had a ADULT cookie!" and the fuzz can raid ISPs serving adult content without the mandatory "Adult" html tag.
a loss of freedom? take it away--all this "loss" does is keep predators away from kids. adults can see what they wish, parents can lock out adult material. most western countries have a obsession with youth anyway, going all the way back to the greeks, i suppose. this part of the "wild west internet" needs to be fixed.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
>I'd rule out Iceland because till early in the >20th century, it was a colony of Denmark, which >had a king. Yes, but before that in the year 1000 the viking settlers of Iceland established Alingi (Althingi) which is probably the oldest parlament in the world.
Remove the "die.spam.die". to mail me.
I don't think this actually has any bearing whatsoever on your argument, but my right to wave my fist does not end at the tip of your nose; it ends at the point where you can reasonably expect that I am trying to wave my fist on such a trajectory that it will come into contact with your nose. The tip of your nose is the boundary between the charge of assault, and the charge of assault-and-battery.
I refuse, on principle, to have a
And interestingly enough the poster seems to believe that STD's, broken homes, AIDS, single parent households, and neurotic societies did not exist before the mid 1970's. I will belabor the obvious by pointing out that all of these except for AIDS have been documented problems throughout all of human history (Leviticus was almost certainly written pre 1970 and large portions of it deal with STD's; broken homes, neuroses, and single parent households have been documented realities since before the time of Christ), and AIDS originated in a country that did not participate in the sexual revolution. While the morality of your message is admirable, keep in mind that it is not necessarily the morality of your neighbor.
"there is eloquence in screaming" - Patrick Jones
It's funny to see how anything that Katz writes, be it correct or not, just intices Slashdotters to call a new Katz Bashfest. Has any one of you ever considered the fact that Katz may be right? Why should it be up to Katz to show us both sides, when we get the conservative "ban everything" side shoved in our faces each and every day? If Katz did, all of you would be posting messages like "boring, we know that" or "Katz, wake up" etc. But, as he only portrayed the other side (i.e. the side most of us are on), you're all going at him almost accusing him of distorting the facts! Wake up people! Even if you don't like Katz, which is very clear, just listen to him once in a while, ok?
~remove my opinion on spam to mail me~
The history of the US is laden with Puritanism. The rest of the world was reminded of this with the "Clinton Sex Scandal" this past year...I can still imagine reports entitled "The Scandal: Day 146", or "Sex in the White House: Monica Speaks!". Sheesh! While the US puts up this Puritan exterior, people here are just as interested in sex as anyone else in the world.
Chatting on AOL, anonymously as you would never talk in person, is quite liberating for people here. It will certainly continue, and AOL will defend it as a "freedom" issue until the cows come home. Still, disgusting chat rooms about child pornography and such exist in abundance. Of course, AOL has had issues with other kinds of chats...specificially, those relating to AOL security issues. As the son of an AOLer, it's interesting to see that guides will kick people out of rooms for using "bad words", while other more hardcore things are going on unabated. Talk about hypocrisy.
For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love. - Carl Sagan
I think that people in general just hate to really say what they mean. When we're in a room with a bunch of other people, we don't want to be judged as immoral or deviant or anything, and so people tend to adopt a more conservative viewpoint than they might really believe. This also leads to people voting conservatively...I think there are more people with liberal views out there than are represented, but republicans always seem to win when they take tough stances on drugs and porn and abortion. As others have said, the people who vote tend to be the ones who are fighting for something....there are a lot more ultra conservatives out there than fringe voters, so they tend to win. Another thing that contributes is MONEY! We had a proposal last year to legalize assisted suicide in Michigan. If I recall correctly, polls showed that the public slightly supported it being legalized...but there were two sides. The group in favor of it which had little funding, and the coalition of churches and religious groups which have dumptrucks of cash....the bill was crushed, severely. There was more "VOTE NO ON B" advertising than I imagined was even possible. Religious groups have the money to campaign against this kind of thing, and they are a powerful tool for politicians, so they're glad to put in the same bill that just got declared unconstitutional just to please the religious groups. I wonder what it will be like a generation from now. I'm a college student, and I notice that there is a -LOT- of sex going on in my age group, and its much more open. Will we all grow up to be hypocritical prudes? I sure hope not....
Go to www.fufme.com i can bet all of you really really want this...
funny http://www.cnn.com/2000/books/news/01/07/bc.oddsan dends.ap/index.html
it's unfortunate that accuracy and resolution to an argument seem to be "quibbles" to you. generalized historical notions have more breadth then your abridged point form explanations. democracy is obviously not representation for the elite by the elite. that's just a theatrical form of aristocracy. Similarly, the act of voting is not the salient feature of democracy, it's who is represented by this novel form of social organization(demos: the people kratein: to rule) but then again your scholarship is unimpeachable :)
A minor correction.. There are only 2 countries in Europe that have a mandatory voting system.
hmm.. if you want to include women, and I think you do.. only after women's suffredge and the right to vote for women.. so aroung 1920 somewhere (don't remember exactly)
well.. I'm not going to go into the divine right's thing. However, it is vertainly not true that 'democracy' is defined by the term you give, (voting and voter control). these are actually more or less the defining caracteristics of a Republic. (and yes, the US is a Republic, and has been for quite a while) In the category of Republics, the US is far superceeded by the Athens of socrates, where the abovementioned conditions certainly applied. For a Democracy however, it is necessary for all those who are considered sound of mind, and responsible for their actions, (i.e. sane adults) to participate in the political process.. be it voting or standing for office. (the fact that law requires a President to be 35 already makes this untrue, and in practice, no man or woman in the US without very substantial holdings can ever become president. Therefor , The US is a Republic, wherein those who are rich can stand for office, (and if over 35 also for president), while all those registered to vote (i.e. not everybody!!!) can vote. (in most countries in Europe, no registering is necessary, upon reaching the age of 18, you are automatically eligable to vote)
How many sexual predators did they catch per year before the advent of the internet? Since? I'm betting that if law enforcement looked at this realistically, they would discover that the internet is the best tool for catching these kinds of offenders than anything else that has ever been invented.
Previously, the only way to catch someone who wanted to have sex with children was to locate their stash of child pornography, or arrest them after they had already commited a heinous act. The new way is to draw them into discussing their desires with an undercover cop and then arrest them before they actually molest a minor. Entrapment issues aside (not that they aren't vitally important), this is a considerable improvement. Especially for the people who would previously have been victimized first.
To take the devil's advocate position however, I think it is fascinating that people are being arrested and convicted of commiting a crime that explicitly did not happen! I don't understand how they can arrest you and charge you with attempting to have sex with a minor when the person that you had all of the discussions with was not a minor! Apparently it is illegal to make a sexual date with someone you believe is a minor, whether or not they actually are.
-- Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy music. The music will make you happy.
I don't think that porn is bad. I like nude women. Sue me
-This was brought to you by THE MAC
Jon, A common misconseption is that all the people in Antequity are rampaging hormonal sex fiends, willing to do anything to anything (or anybody). This is understandable because of the historical records given about Caligula and Tiberius (written by Senators that resented the control of the Emperors, and their willingness to let the Senators know that), and the friezes of the governors residences. But, it must be stated, that this was not common among the yeoman farmers of Italy, Gaul, and the other provences.. While sex was not scorned or ridiculed, it was often stressed that sex outside of marriage was taboo, and at one point against the law (Augustus made such morality laws). He even convicted is own daughter for adultery. True, these laws were made to help increase the birthrate of Roman Citizens, but it also had to do with the Pagan (no, not Anti-Christian, but referring to rural Italy in antequity) values he endorsed. This is evidenced in the poets of the time, such as Virgil. Not only Rome, but Athens, also seen as the seat of freedom and the diamond among the coal of Greece, had also enforced some control with the distribution of sexually explicit material. Comedies in ancient Greece were often too sexually explicit (much like our own sit-coms today. Hmmm..) for children and women, so they were prohibited to go see these plays. The plays were so sexually explicit, that they cannot be translated correctly today. A university (I forget which) had done so, sent the play in the mail, and the postal service tried to bring the playwrite to court for distributing pornography through the mail. Imagine the suprise they recieved when they found out he had been dead for 2200 years. So, why am I bringing this up? Well, it is merely to say that the idea of sexual restraints and censorship to a selected group of people is as old as civilization itself. This is not because of religious reasons, political prestege or the peoples oppression, but rather for the protection of society from something that has been seen as a social ailment for thousands of years. Should we continue it? That is another issue by itself. I think that if we do not take a critical look at history and it's development, we will be doomed to make mistakes that many others have, since the dawn of recorded history.
PAX VNIVERSVM CVM DOMINATVS
What has "sexual liberation" given us so far? A plague of STD's, broken homes, single parents, AIDS and a society that has become neurotically obessessed with sex to the point of worshipping thier orgasms. There are REASONS why so many of the old major religions have injunctions against unbridled sexuality and promiscuity. Any dog or lizard can give into instinct and screw whatever comes along, but only a human can leash thier instinct to the service of intellect and say "NO". By fighting the urge to unzip our pants we are proving ourselves to be rational creatures and not just a herd of hairless monkeys. Modern 'sexuality' is so tragic because it discards all restraint in the name of momentary gratification. The emotional and ritualistic aspects found in many religions are discarded so someone can get a quick thrill. Thus sex, a sacred and awesome thing that presages the creation of life is reduced to the status of candy bar..to be quickly and mindlessly enjoyed then forgotten. Unfortunately, people grow jaded over time with thier sexual pleasures, and need to try ever more exotic forms to get the same thrill..rather like a drug. The result is a whole society of people who are sexually frustrated and unfulfilled all the while proclaiming how much they are getting it. If sex is worth it, truly worth it, then it is worth waiting for. .
I completely agree that the threat of online sexual predators is overblown, and I also know that there *are* some predators out there. However, the reason that the "threat" of the online predator is so overblown is due to another problem that plagues this country-- even more than sexual prudishness: our obsession with *children*.
Maybe I've read a little bit too much of the Misanthropic Bitch (http://bitch.shutdown.com), but I'm sick and tired of *every* *single* freedom being called into question, "for the good of the CHILDREN". Free speech is a completely out the window, as are free enterprise, right to bear arms, the fifth amendment (escrowed encryption standard, anybody?), and the right to the pursuit of happiness. Why? Because it might hurt the children in some indirect way.
Not to bring up Columbine again, but it's only gotten worse. Those bastards only served to add fuel to the "Save the Children" fire. Now politicians can link anything they want to Harris and Klebold, and use it as an example. Anything from online porno (tired and pointless) to bomb-making recipes can be connected to the killers, and in the public's eye, it constitutes absolute causation-- and therefore warrants banning.
Save the children, ban DOOM-- had Klebold and Harris not played it, more people would be alive today!
Save the children, sue firearms manufacturers for the acts of criminals-- because children are *dying*!
Save the children, pump them full of happy pills-- whether they're depressed or not, they can't get angry if they're too doped up to feel any pain!
Save the children, kill yourself...
Now, there are parents that can't be there all the time-- I understand that. But if a parent is that *goddamned* worried about sexual predators online, he or she needs to surf with the child-- not ask the government to restrict the net. But most the parents I know are too busy working-- and that's not just to get by. They drive BMW's or Mercedes. They have great sound systems. But they can't figure out what the *hell* little Timmy is doing on the PC all the time. They also can't figure out why all those porno pics keep on showing up in the c:\netscape\cache directory... hmmm...
Save the children, be responsible parents, for chrissakes!
I do agree that our laws need to be looked at, but I disagree that we need to throw them out willy-nilly. We can have laws on the books that aren't actively enforced, but if you show up in court with at problem that arises from the breaking of said law you'll get smacked.
This *invariably* creates an opportunity for people in positions of power to abuse those who aren't. The "problem" that gets you smacked isn't inconvenience you cause society, but something you won't do that the person in power wants you to do. We've seen this against blacks in the pre-Civil Rights days, we see it in the War on Drugs, and so on.
You might at least try to create a scenario where those old laws would help. You've vaguely linked adultery with kids born out of wedlock, but that's a foolish link -- the kids born out of wedlock are almost invariably born to people who aren't married at all.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
I don't want censorship, but I -DO- want to rely on something more than vigorous spell-checking of every link I type in, every link I click on, every IP address I go to (in the case of ambushed pages), the "good will" of banner advert companies to be honest about what's behind an ad, the "good will" of banner advert companies to place adverts on appropriate sites, the "good will" of crackers to not add a redirector to someone's web-page, the "good will" of prawn merchants to not add redirectors to unprotected guest-books that allow HTML, etc, etc, blah blah blah.
Frankly, I'm sick of trying to be perfect in my typing, 24/7, and relying on the good-will of a bunch of drunks who are out for a quick buck.
I imagine John Katz might think differently about Prawn sites if he found his website ambushed in one of the many ways frequently done, or if some young kid in his care clicked on what SHOULD have been a play-school site and most definitely -wasn't-.
I don't believe in censorship. I don't believe it's necessary to resolve the issue. But I also don't believe that rejecting one extreme bunch of rabid psychos means you should accept another, just as extreme bunch on the other wing. If you're facing a rabid dog, you don't CARE if it's on the left or the right of the road. Caring about the sides, rather than the issues, is stupid and a good way to get bitten.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I can't do that. No one can. If it were possible, things would be so much simpler. No single person, group, or entity has the right to create a truly universal definition of pornography. The reason: it deals with sexuality, a very personal subject which is somewhat different for everybody.
Hate speech is more easily defined. How does the following definition sound to you...
Honest question: how does that definition sound?
Why is it possible to define hate speech and not pornography? Like I said, pornography deals with sexuality, which is not a constant. Hate speech by its nature deals with violence, which is constant; when a person is killed, it's rather difficult to argue that he's not dead.
First, it's incoherent: how can "physical or mental prowess" not be an example of "objective, individual merit"?
Apply it to any one of numerous physical or mental handicaps, and there you go.
Second, it relies upon undefined terms: if you think "harassment" is a well-defined concept then you haven't been paying attention to the state of sexual harassment law.
I appear to have made a poor word choice. "Intimidation" might be a better term to use, however it has its own problems, which I'll adress later.
Third, it is an affront to freedom of association: by your definition, a desire to separate oneself from bores and louts (which I certainly regard as inferior, but which cannot be defined in objective terms) is "hate speech".
Not quite. I say nothing about your desire to separate yourself from bores and louts. Now, if you go out and say that bores and louts should be thrown out of society, that's another matter entirely.
Fourth, exactly how does one engage in "harassment" against "places", "things", or "concepts"?
Point taken, although vandalism and slander could fall under this category. However, I'm not so sure there's a word in this language which accurately desctibes the point I'm trying to get across, and at the same time can apply to all those things and people equally well. Perhaps "thing" should be replaced by "object" also; "thing" isn't very well-defined.
Say what?!
I hope you can justify your bold statement. Personally, I think you're drinking the "victimization" Kool-Ade. Please, please, explain what the hell you mean when you say this? Having know people in the "adult-entertainment industry", I'd have to say your premises are fatally flawed.
Besides which, what business is it of yours what people choose to say or do or watch or make in private?
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
It doesn't help that the parents got exactly the same talk from *their* parents, and thus have absolutely NO CLUE how to approach the situation. Kids reaching puberty are not exactly big on symbolic logic, so for parents to pull the "birds and the bees" crap (designed to cover the fact that the adult really hasn't grown up) only confuses them more.
~ radiographite: art by john shepard
Why not, in this case?
I think he means pornography in it's negative/purjorative connotation.
**>>BELCH
This is a big issue and other posters have adequately covered its most common angles I think, but there are other contributing factors as well.
One of the reasons why the US is so hung up over these issues is that (in a very chicken-and-egg sort of way) it does not allow naturism or nudism on public ground, no matter how remote and inaccessible the place.
This has the unfortunate effect of reinforcing the view that nudity *AND EVERYTHING RELATED TO IT* is bad. In contrast, in countries where naturism is accepted, it rapidly becomes obvious to all (including those that wouldn't be seen dead joining in) that public nudity is no big deal at all, and this leads to a general relaxation in all other areas where nudity plays a part.
By denying this freedom even to the traditional minority group of naturists, the US effectively isn't giving the rest of its social groups a chance to lose their general hangup.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Perhaps there is also a "free speech anti-porn" contingency? Perhaps they're against porn but not to the extent that they're willing to do anything to curtail civil liberties?
Perhaps there's also a pro-porn, anti-free speech contingency? You'd be suprised. What I object to is the dilution of two separate stances -- free speech and pornography. One can say "I believe pornography is exploitative and immoral" without wanting to pass a law banning it. And one can work to convince people to abandon the porn industry without trying to change the laws to reflect this.
There are too many positions in this debate to have Katz draw a line in the sand and say "everyone standing over HERE is right and everyone standing over THERE is wrong." That is the tactic of all those politicians that Katz claims to dislike so much...
Eviscerati.Org: All Hail the Eviscerati
Katz is making the following points:
1. Free speech is absolutely necessary
2. Pornography is absolutely necessary to further free speech because it promotes the awareness of sexuality
#2 has nothing to do with #1! Katz is trying to justify a moral or sociological stance (porn is good for society) by disguising it as a blow for free speech, and is painting people who disagree with that view as ENEMIES of free speech.
Luckily for him, it's easy to think of a few people who fit the role of the "bad guys." Just look for the people who are really interested in curtailing free speech, and you'll invariably find people who are against porn -- because it's an easy target. But the TRUTH of the matter is that his argument is a STRAW MAN... one has nothing to do with the other.
I agree that people are using anti-porn legislation to take away our civil liberties, and I agree that is WRONG. I OPPOSED the CDA and will OPPOSE any variants of the CDA. But that's not the point. I don't like people wrapping themselves up in the Bill of Rights to make a moral argument any more than I like people wrappign themsleves up in the Flag to make a moral argument.
I agree with you that people who say "I support free speech but we need to ban porn" are commiting doublespeak. I do think it's possible for someone to be for free speech and against porn, so long as they don't oppose it with legal means... I also think it's possible for people to like pornography and be right-wing fascist bastards.
And, for the record, it's quite possible for someone to be one of those repressed puritians that Katz likes to rag on and still be very active in defending someone else's civil liberties. Katz uses religious and moral belief as his whipping boy, and it's annoying. It's more annoying when he tries to pretend that it's all in the name of freedom of speech.
Eviscerati.Org: All Hail the Eviscerati
Next week it was the same thing, he stood by the shoes and tried to hide behind a towel as he changed (and by trying to be invisible he made everyone stare of course), but eventually he overcome his bashfulness and started stripping like the rest of us.
I'm not trying to belittle Americans, say that our ways are better or anything, I just thought it was interesting.
Still, I wonder what he would have said about the sauna at my ju-jutsu club, where both men and women go at the same time, but with a towel over the naughty parts of course.
************************************************ ***
Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
You are confusing the availability of sexual information and imagery with sexual activity. There is, in fact, a strong inverse correlation between the availability of sexual information and the rates of STDs, unwanted pregnancies, etc. Ignorance is the problem, not pornography.
(And your conjecture that jealousy is somehow genetic is pure speculation. It's at least as likely -- probably more likely -- that jealousy is a learned behavior. Certainly at least the ways in which jealousy is expressed or otherwise dealt with is learned behavior, as evidenced by the existence of many people who are not subject to jealousy, or who are able to deal with jealousy without the extreme reactions some people mistakenly think are "normal".)
Agreed. But it's not my conjecture. Something I picked up from watching the Discovery Channel,
I strongly suspect that you misunderstood what they were saying. Or perhaps the Discovery Channel's standards are lower than I thought.
And as I said, there are many people who do not experience jealousy, and even more for whom it doesn't have any real effect. Obviously this is no more proof that jealousy isn't genetic than your example proves that it is, but I note that anecdotal evidence contrary to your belief doesn't seem to have the same impact that supportive anecdotal evidence has.
In any case, your anecdotal evidence isn't even all that supportive. Whatever the prevelance of jealousy in the context of swinging -- which is not at all the same thing as "free love", and is not a context that anyone could reasonably expect to be somehow magically free of cultural influences -- it has no real implications for the theory that jealousy is genetically based.
In any case, you did not phrase it as a conjecture, you phrased it as a fact:
Evolution has bred into the human creature thing like jealousy.
Furthermore, you rephrased your "original premise" in such a way as to change it -- or perhaps you did not understand the thrust of Katz's essay, which was not about "public sexuality" and sexual activity, but about the availability of sexual information and imagery.
I've always found it interesting that the U.S. is the most Puritanical nation in the world. Sure, the Brits have some pretty stringent social norms, but their punks out 'punk' out punks any day of the week and twice on Sunday.
I've always thought it a bit amusing that the people who founded the U.S. (historically and culturally if not politically)were Puritans, but the nation's most valued prize are the Freedoms Of Speach and Expression. Our (your, whatever) forefathers left Europe to establish a place where they could be free to practice their religion, and be free to be intolerant of basal human functions.
Americans are down-right freaky about personal hygiene for example. No where in Europe are people so obsessed with cleanliness. Sure, a bidet is common, but people frequently do not bother to shower everyday. Here, people skip showers, but won't ever admit it. Deodorants and shaved armpits on European women?? Nah!
So we come back to the most basal of human factors, sex. Americans are prudish, easily embarassed and completely unskilled in sex, romance and flirtation. How many of you had parents who would spell out S E X, rather than say the word in front of you? But everyone gets giddy and titilated by the concept of sex. If this wasn't so, day-time soaps would not be 50% love scenes, and Rikki Lake would be selling jeans at Lane Bryant. Oooh!! Sex. Sex! SEX!!! Big freaking whoop.
Personally, I think that this overfixation with sexual topics comes from not having any 'native' cultural artifacts depicting the human form. No Venus de Milo, no Statue of Adonis. No Greek urns or Italian frescoes. No Bolero.
In Europe, and Asia for that matter, sex is part of the culture, whereas here it's percieved as dirty. It is outside of the normal, it's secret and hidden and taboo. Parents don't have sex, and kids don't have the necessary equipment. This feeds much into the whole idea of molestation. "Private parts", good thouch vs bad touch... By keeping kids in the dark about sex, their American parents make them ill-equiped to talk about, confront, refuse or even identify inappropriate behavior. They are made ignorant and so vulnerable, by parents who try to 'spare them' from the 'dirty' "S" word. Why do you think they jump in the sack at 13?? Curious of the forbidden fruit, simple as that. Same dynamic with alcohol.
Through cultural deprivation of natural instincts, Americans set themselves up to a higher than global rate of perversion. Sort of a binge and purge, denial and gluttony system. Sexual denial leads to frustration, and this frustration manifests itself in a variety of ways...
Road rage. If everyone was a little less frustrated, it wouldn't happen as much. Sure there's other causes too, but maybe those stressors wouldn't be as stressful either.
Office interactions between genders shouldn't cause a person to worry about sexual harassment. You're just working with another person. Their gender matters not, and if it does then maybe you're too pent up.
Columbine. A kid with hormones running at full speed, but forced to not act, talk or even think in terms of sex... Douse that fire with gas, go ahead.
Seems that my arguments suggest that the lack of sex, or the ability to even acknowledge it as an integral part of life, results in violent behavior. What is it that is glorified in the US? What is in every movie there is?
Violence is considered an acceptable outlet for human energy, in place of sexuality, here in the US. From playing cowboys and indians in our early youth, to watching the Cowboys and the Indians duke it out on the tube, to seeing John Wayne and Clint Eastwood blasting away Running Bear. These are American heroes. Not Don Juan, not Cassanova. Not even the faithful husband. A 60% divorce rate? Why? Unfulfilment. Why? DON'T KNOW HOW.
Me, I blame Canada.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
I guess part of the problem is how you define porn. I have a pretty restrictive definition; I don't by any means want to eliminate any and all "erotic" or "explicit" content online or anywhere else.
You are inventing your own terminology. Unfortunately, you're using words that already have other, accepted meanings, and pretending that they have the meanings you want them to have.
This is a recipe for confusion at best, and for bait-and-switch rabble-rousing at worst.
I defined "pornography" as any artistic piece designed to stimulate a sexual response. I think the vast majority of people on both sides of this issue have a similar definition. Changing the definition of pornography to further your own beliefs is dishonest.
Back to the porn/free-speech issues.... If I understand you correctly, you believe it would be appropriate to censor certain types of works -- namely, those which depect rape, assault or derogatory treatment of certain people. Here, I must also disagree.
You can't categorize sexuality, and you can't categorize art. Art which stimulates you sexually may not do a damned thing for me, and vice versa. Moreover, art which some people believe promotes "degradation" may not invoke a similar response from others -- the latter group may think it's satire.
This is the reason why freedom of speech and freedom of the press are essential. It's impossible to create any objective "measuring stick" for art to divide the "pornography" from the "non-pornographic" art, or to divide the "degrading" art from the "non-degrading" art. By its very nature, art challenges us to discard these artificial boundaries within our minds, and to treat each piece on its own merits (or lack thereof).
While I respect the goodness of your intentions, I'm sure you know what they say about the road to Hell.
Sometimes I think the best way to get rid of porn w/o infringing on free speech rights would be to make it illegal to charge for or otherwise profit from it.
This is not compatible with freedom of speech. Not only does it require an objective "measuring stick" to determine what is or is not pornography (which I believe is impossible -- see my previous post in this thread), but it also requires labeling of all content. This labeling imposes a burden on the speaker, and many speakers will choose not to speak. This is self-censorship, and any law which promotes self-censorship is unconstitutional.
(Sorry, I can't remember the actual legal terminology. It was mentioned in the Bernstein case though, for those of you who feel like digging through /. archives or legal documents.)
There. No speech infringment -- people could talk about whatever they wanted, and still even produce the stuff
But you've created (in your hypothesis) a situation in which the state imposes its morality upon the public. While this may or may not directly qualify as an abridgement of the freedom of speech/press, it most certainly qualifies as an infringement of rights.
All speech is protected, unless that speech constitutes a clear and present danger (i.e., shouting "Fire! in a crowded theater). The burden of proof lies with you, to demonstrate that pornography is a clear and present danger to human life.
Of course, those of you that wanted to be exploited (yes, I'm talking about viewers of porn as well as those featured in it) would still lose out
This is a pretty tacit admission that you're willing to violate some people's rights just because you don't like what they choose to do with their freedom.
Are we, or are we not, adults? If we are adults, then we bear the responsibilities as well as the privileges of that status. One of those responsibilities is making up our own minds about issues (like pornography). If we choose to watch pornography, or to help produce it, or distribute it -- then that is our choice. If you think we're allowing ourselves to be "exploited", that's your opinion, and you're entitled to it. But you have no right to choose for us, or to ask the government to choose for us.
Freedom means you get hurt sometimes, by making bad choices. That's how you learn. If someone makes all your choices for you, you don't learn, and you don't grow -- you become a slave.
Sexually explicit artwork is not new by any means. Treating sexually explicit artwork as a distinct, separate category from other types of artwork may be. At least, I think that's the point he was trying to make.
Weblogging Considered Harmful:
Imagine a case of an evangelist preaches at the same corner, shouting their religious beliefs at the top of their voice. If you don't agree with their beliefs, you can choose to ignore them, go a different route, or listen and think. The point is, you have a choice.
You don't have a choice if you live there - you have to hear the shouting all the time, or move elsewhere. That's why there are things like noise ordinances. It shouldn't matter whether they're screaming obscenities or "praise the lord". If they're disturbing the peace, they can be legally stopped, or asked to take their message elsewhere. If they're being silenced because of what they're shouting, rather than where and when and how loud they're shouting it, then it's time to cry censorship.
The only way to "win" is for both sides to accept each other, and provide the means for both to co-exist, peacefully.
Dream on. That will never happen. And the only thing stopping it from happening is human nature (humans are such bastards).
What's so ironic is that the people who claim the moral high ground are usually the ones who refuse to coexist peacefully. The porn merchants seldom claim to be acting for some higher purpose (there are a few who claim to be promoting freedom fo expression, but I suspect that's largely a figurative flag of convenience). They usually admit they're just trying to make a (n honest?) buck. But neither do they force what they're selling on those who don't want any. But the self-described moral guardians are more than happy to force what they are selling on all who come near, whether they want it or not. Some even proudly say they won't stop their crusade until the filth is cleansed.
I was merely contending with the parent posters statement that the bible does not condemn sex apart from homosexuality in the most "indirect" fashion.
Unless of course the person I was replying to is a fluent ancient Hebrew/Aramaic/Greek/Latin Middle English speaker. In which case I concede the point.
Or more likely their exposure to the Bible is from a root pretty common to mine, in which case, turn to Leviticus and find plenty of pretty explicit condemnation of sexual behaviour.
-- Oh Well
from www.salon.com:
2 5feature.html)
In April 1998, Alabama passed an addition to the obscenity statute of the state law that "makes it unlawful to produce, distribute or otherwise sell sexual devices that are marketed primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs." Part of a bigger bill restricting licenses for strip clubs, the law argues that these sex toys are obscene and appeal to a "prurient interest."
and even more interesting:
There is, the Alabama officials wrote, "no fundamental right to purchase a product to use in pursuit of having an orgasm." What they should have written is that women have no fundamental right to purchase a product to use in pursuit of having an orgasm. Because while those veined, flesh-colored pseudo-penises are not legal, those displays of crotchless panties -- not to mention Viagra -- are perfectly OK.
(http://www.salon.com/urge/feature/1999/02/cov_
I really feel sorry for all sensible Americans for living in a country that repeatedly makes a complete fool of itself.
On the other hand, the Australians suffer a lot, too lately...
You are confusing the availability of sexual information and imagery with sexual activity. There is, in fact, a strong inverse correlation between the availability of sexual information and the rates of STDs, unwanted pregnancies, etc. Ignorance is the problem, not pornography.
/., but it doesn't change my original premise, which, stated concisely, is "We (enter country affiliation here) need to carefully decide which if any of our laws concerning sexuality are relevant, with a realization that there may have been good reasons for implementing those laws in the first place. Furthermore, what people are doing in (enter any other country) may serve as an example but does not necessarily have any bearing on what we should be doing."
Now here is information worthy of
And your conjecture that jealousy is somehow genetic is pure speculation.
Agreed. But it's not my conjecture. Something I picked up from watching the Discovery Channel, reinforced by my own personal experience (for those who must know, went to a swinger's party once. You know, people who believe in free sex, wife swapping and such. Jealousy was as rampant there as anywhere else I've seen. There was even a fight over one particular female.) It just seems to make sense (which doesn't make it fact) that a jealous male is more likely to produce more offspring, and thus produce jealous offspring. The mate of a non-jealous male may be producing offspring for jealous male, but the reverse isn't as likely.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
too much open sexuality CAN breed social discord
Examples? Remember that increase in, say, spousal abuse statistics, does not constitute social discord.
You mean to tell me that you've never seen a bar fight resulting from the interaction of a female and two males? I'm not saying a law will curb everything. I'm not even claiming that it will make things better. I am saying that problems exist, and as a society we must consider them.
Laws against adultery originally arose because of the need to know without question the father of a child.
Bullshit. Laws against adultery arose because men tended to treat their wives as property and wanted legal protection for their property. Besides, what's that "need to know without question"? Is it a social need or just personal desire?
The term 'bastard' has lost much of it's deragatory(sp?) nature in recent times, but the stigma at one time carried the weight of being a pariah on society. The 'need to know' was both social and personal. Society as a whole has no wish to pay to raise someone else's children, especially in times past when it was so much more difficult to do so. The individual male feels the same.
If you're married or even have a girlfriend, but would you be totally unphased if you learn that she's been sleeping around behind your back?
And a law is going to help me with that??? Er, man, I'd like some of that stuff you are smoking...
Maybe. Maybe not. Perhaps the law can relieve you of the responsibility of children produced from such an occurance? Perhaps the law can release you from the contractual restraint of marriage in such situations? Perhaps if the laws were taken seriously, such a thing might not have happened at all (and to beat the naysayers to the punch, No. A law against adultery will not eliminate it entirely. But it WILL have a chilling effect.)
But what happens to the children born out of wedlock? How many end up on the welfare roles?
If you look at born-out-of-wedlock children of upper-middle class people, you'll find that almost none ends up on welfare. If you look at born-to-married-parents children of people who live in inner-city ghettoes, a lot of them will end up on welfare. And your point is?
That it takes two to make a baby, and statistically at least, the baby has a much better chance of growing out of welfare with two parents. The current situation involves a removal of responsibility from bang 'em and leave 'em men. My personal wish is for men to have responsibility for children they foster. Yes, there are exceptions, but most women know the father of their baby. If that man won't accept at least financial responsibility, I believe it to be a function of government to extract what is necessary. If the woman is going to ask me to support the child through welfare, I do not believe it beyond the pale for me to expect her to reveal the name of the father.
Some of the ancient laws actually have a purpose.
Sure they do. It's just that this purpose is not relevant any more, or looks really silly.
I would (and did in the original posting) agree that many are potentially outdated. My point is that deciding which are must be done with more care than:
for(i=0; i NUM_LAWS; i++){
if(involves_sex(law[i]))
discard(law[i]);
}
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
As a consequence, your opinion must be interpreted as it is your will, intent, and wish that a significant number of single mothers should be cut off from welfare benefits.
/. ? And, by the way, why the use of offensive language? Flamebate?
I don't wish the government to tax me in order to give away cars to people who could otherwise afford their own. Would my opinion then be interpreted as wishing that poor old ladies be cut off from a way to go to church on Sundays? Fathers who owe child support go missing every day. There was recently an effort to round them up and make them support thier children and it saved millions of American dollars from the welfare roles in North Carolina. (also created a very substantial discussion about father's rights in divorce cases)
In the situation you mention, the woman names the man, when/if he shows up he owes the government the money it paid to raise his child. If he is never found, we lost that one, but at least we caught some of them.
I'd say this is the Net and a forum for the exchange of ideas and opinions - not America or Europe or Africa or whatever. Or do you think only Americans (i.e. US citizens) should have access to
Agreed. I was responding to several post that referred to Americans as idiots and American law as pathetic, because (and the reason is important) we do it better. The offensive language adequately conveyed my feelings (ie, I am offended).
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Since you bring it up, I think that genetic testing on ALL births should be mandatory, leaving NO QUESTION about who the father is.
I don't know about it being mandatory. Myself, I trust my wife, and, luckily, my kids look like me 8*) (of course, that doesn't rule out my brothers. Damn, there you go making me think...)
My position is that people who are asking society to take responsibility for there actions should be required to mitigate their reliance upon society as much as possible. If the mother isn't asking for public money, I don't care who the father is. It's when you start asking for me to help pay to raise the child that I want to know who it was that got to dance on my dime.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
When mothers use state agencies to extort child support from men, we should make 99.99995% sure that it's the right guy who's paying.
I would go a step further. If the accused father contest it, we should use the same standard that we use for a criminal trial, innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury of his peers. Of course, DNA testing by a couple independant labs will remove all reasonable doubt from most people.
A woman in this situation would recieve aid until the outcome of the trial. If the man is acquitted, her and her child are SOL. Yes, I am advocating letting a child starve. But just try it and see how many women let their child starve before telling one simple fact. As with being confident about being able to prove paternal lineage, I am confident that human nature will forestall an epidemic of starving bastards(term used with original meaning).
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Well, I've just read the whole thread, and I'm damned if I saw a "Europe is so great" post. And quit referring to disparate European countries as Europe.
... The solution that applies in any or all of the above does not necessarily apply here.
I started the thread, so of course you didn't see any "Europe is so great" post in the thread. I was replying to other post. A quote from the third (I think) post.
I'm sure most Europeans consider the North American fear of all things naked in public pathetic.
I reiterate. America is not Europe, England, France, Japan, Sweden, Canada,
Whoah!!! The genius speaks!!! And judging by your poor quality choice of words, you sure don't have English as your first language, either...
And who decides that it is poor choice? You? Thank you for upholding my point of many people holding the "Americans are idiots because they're not us" attitude. Notice how another one of your post falls in line with your snotty superior attitude:
Yeah, and see how your legislative system has fared! I'm not even going to _bother_ starting in on what is wrong with your country...
Maybe the part you think is wrong is the part that I think is right. For instance, "ain't" is perfectly proper English where I come from. The school teachers may not like it, but everyone I converse with on a daily basis knows exactly what I mean. What's more it is often used in a situation where emphasis is desired. I purposely chose that word because I wanted to emphasize that "THIS AIN'T EUROPE!"
Now, this also AIN'T the UK, so take your 'quality choice of words" and "true English fashion" and fuck off, you English-centric snothead. (Pardons to all netizens with a clue.)
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Most coins have two sides, as does this one. Mr. Katz, how much public sexuality is appropriate?
I ask this question, because to much open sexuality CAN breed social discord. Evolution has bred into the human creature thing like jealousy. There are things like STDs (which condoms are NOT a panacea, no matter what you've heard on MTV). Laws against adultery originally arose because of the need to know without question the father of a child.
It's easy to sit back and say that law which are based in 100's or 1000's of years of history are ridiculous, but have we really evolved out of the need for them. I don't know if you're married or even have a girlfriend, but would you be totally unphased if you learn that she's been sleeping around behind your back?
There are laws against extra-marital sex, and these are mostly ignored nowadays. I would hazard to say that most here agree with this state of affairs. But what happens to the children born out of wedlock? How many end up on the welfare roles? In other words, how many am I helping to raise with my tax dollars? Why isn't the 'man' who fathered the child paying his fair share? (My personal belief is that a woman should be required to name the father before receiving welfare. Funds could then be recouped appropriately.)
I do agree that our laws need to be looked at, but I disagree that we need to throw them out willy-nilly. We can have laws on the books that aren't actively enforced, but if you show up in court with at problem that arises from the breaking of said law you'll get smacked. Some of the ancient laws actually have a purpose.
For the people claiming that Europe is so great because they do this and that. Fuck-off. This ain't Europe. We'll decide to do things our way. Besides, wasn't it Sweden that wouldn't allow Donald Duck to appear on TV because he wasn't wearing pants?
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
The very notion of pornography is a relatively new concept in human history. It came about in Victorian England when researchers from the British Museum dug up the ruins of Pompeii and were stunned to find artworks of all kinds - carvings, vases, paintings - in the ancient Italian city that featured shockingly explicit sexual activity, from oral sex to bestiality. The researchers were amazed to learn that these drawings were displayed all over the homes of Pompeii.
Doesn't this mean that pornography - "the depiction of erotic behavior (as in pictures or writing) intended to cause sexual excitement" - is a significantly ancient notion?
I don't know exactly what Jon is talking about when he is saying that the roots of pornography were in Victorian England; I know there was sexually explicit literature long before the late 1800s. The Marquis De Sade's books were from before the French Revolution I think.
The Puritanical, fanatical repression of sex and sexuality in American culture only serves to make sex all that more scandalous and enticing. That's the ironic part about all this. It's like the kids and the cookie jar. If you tell them its "bad" and they shouldn't look at it, it only makes them want to look at it even more. Worse, children who are wrestling with their sexuality and are looking for answers and support are told that they can't look for others who are grappling with the same issues, because there's no open discussion of sexuality. I know what that can be like; I am glad that I was able to find newsgroups and other place to discuss the problems I was having when I was in high school (6 or 7 years ago). I think I'm a much more stable and sane individual because of it.
Young kids, who have had decent family lives, before they reach puberty, aren't going to be looking for porn; hell, most of them think the opposite sex is "gross" and aren't even thinking about it. Once they hit puberty, parents should be talking to them and helping them find the RIGHT places to learn about sex. If they want to look at porn after that, there's nothing you're going to do that will stop them and they probably aren't going to be horribly affected by it either. On the other hand, if you tell them sex is bad and they should never talk about it, they're going to go to the wrong places and get some pretty screwed up ideas about what sex and relationships are all about.
Please, parents, speaking as someone who has grappled with some pretty tough and disturbing sexual issues, make sure your kids know they can talk to you about sex, and make sure you are ready to be supportive if they have a nonstandard sexual identity/orientation.
Jon... did you get the idea for this one from that post?
LouZiffer
LouZiffer
What's more, even though Jon Katz is likely preaching to the converted with this piece, there may be some value to that as well. Consider this anecdote: I once had the opportunity to see a well-known advocate of creation science (Duane Gish, I believe was his name) debate the dean of Arts and Sciences at the university I attended in those days over the question of Creation Science versus the standard theory of evolution. Despite having truth on his side, and despite being a very competent and knowledgable biologist, the dean got his clock cleaned in that debate. Why? Because Gish had a whole catalog of specious arguments and bogus examples of the "failings" of the standard theory to draw upon in his arguments. Without having the relevant refutations close at hand, the dean was lost. The application to the case at hand is simply this; if you find yourself trying to convince someone that censorship is ultimately harmful, it helps a lot to have heard recently the case argued intelligently so that you don't get tripped up by the opposition's smoke and mirrors.
That's not to say, however, that some of the article's historical errors regarding the history of the pornography taboo are not regrettable. A feature article like this really should be better researched. But let's bear in mind that whether pornography per se was or was not a Victorian invention really isn't important to the point the article is trying to make. Indeed, those claims could be deleted entirely; they scarcely contribute at all to Katz's thesis, which is that censorship is generally harmful to a society like ours that thrives upon the free exchange of ideas. That, at least, is some "old news" that could well stand to be repeated more often.
-r
Belief in the Bible != Being religious. Your comments here are grossly disrespectful to billions of people.
you see clearly stated in numerous places throuought the Bible that sexual promiscuity is against the will of the Almighty
Even if we set aside the previous point and concentrate on the Bible, we find it to be rather inconsistent on this issue; I can't seem to find the passage which condemns Solomon for having seven hundred wives and three hundred porcupines.
My specific religion states that sexual promiscuity is a crime above that even of murder.
I'll refrain from stating an opinion on this relative valuation, and simply note that it would be lunacy to base civil law on a standard that would release a murderer onto the streets to free a prison cell for an adulterer.
Your biggest fears may be the possibility of government officials poking their nose where it doesn't belong.
Damn straight. If you think that there is something to be feared more, then show me the evidence that your allegedly more fearsome force has racked up a higher death toll over the past century than out-of-control governments. (Hint: You'll need to reach nine-digit territory.)
you'll be damned if anyone is going to take away your rights
Precisely. To permit rights to be taken away is to acquiesce to the triumph of evil -- which many religious people consider to be, quite literally, grounds for damnation.
The vast majority of sex offenders, murderers, etc are known to have frequented pornagraphy.
Has education really degenerated to the point that people don't recognize the post hoc, ergo propter hoc (after this, therefore because of this) fallacy?
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
There is a classic Sidney Harris cartoon showing a blackboard with one set of equations on the left, a different set on the right, and in between is written: "THEN, A MIRACLE HAPPENS".
Sorry, but you'll have to show your work, with proof that the definition is immune to politically-based targeting by government.
Of course, this does nothing for the other big problem in the Net (hate speech) but a similar plan could be used.
The "hate speech" label is routinely used as a political club. No, I'm afraid that your plan simply can't work (at least, not for your stated goals; it would work just fine as a tool for the government to ghettoize the opposition).
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
Free speech requires only that everyone is free to speak; it does not require anyone else to listen. The fact that the flat-earth side of the geophysical debate goes unheard simply means that they've lost the argument, not that their free speech rights have somehow been infringed.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
First, it's incoherent: how can "physical or mental prowess" not be an example of "objective, individual merit"?
Second, it relies upon undefined terms: if you think "harassment" is a well-defined concept then you haven't been paying attention to the state of sexual-harassment law.
Third, it is an affront to freedom of association: by your definition, a desire to separate oneself from bores and louts (which I certainly regard as inferior, but which cannot be defined in objective terms) is "hate speech".
Fourth, exactly how does one engage in "harassment" against "places", "things", or "concepts"?
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
I warn you now that this is quite lengthy, and sites court cases.
As a religious man, as a citizen of a normal community, and as an all-around human being, I am forced to make my own comment on the issue. Will I be flamed? Probably. Do I care? Doubtful. Fortunately, I have some research behind me to substantiate my claim that advocators of pornagraphy merely hide behind the First Amendment
and use the word "art" as an excuse for their tendencies, perversions, addictions, or however one might want to describe the situations of those who would choose to frequent such medium (be it on the Internet or otherwise).
If you're religious, the ultimate judge of all people is God. Whatever He says, goes. So, you pick up the Bible, and you see clearly stated in numerous places throuought the Bible that sexual promiscuity is against the will of the Almighty. My specific religion states that sexual romiscuity is a crime above that even of murder. Pornography, to you, promotes such promiscuity and harms the spirit inside all humans. It should be cast off as sin and fought against for the good of all people.
If you're not religious, simply saying "God doesn't approve" is not an explanation that is good enough. Your biggest fears may be the possibility of government officials poking their nose where it doesn't belong. You must turn to the worldly judges to decide what is and isn't acceptable -- and you'll be damned if anyone is going to take away your rights. And to a certain
extent, I agree with you.
To go back to the courts?
On Obscenity-
In the 1973 case of Miller v. California, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that "obscenity" is not protected by the Constitution and may be made illegal by the states or federal government if it meets three tests:
1.The average person, applying contemporary community standards finds the material as a
whole is directed toward an unhealthy, abnormal, obsessive, morbid or shameful interest in
sex; and
2.The material depicts sexual conduct (ultimate sex acts, masturbation, torture, bondage, sex with animals, excretory functions or lewd exhibition of the genitals) in a patently offensive manner substantially throughout the material. ("Patently" means plainly or obviously.)
3.The material, as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.
On Child Pornography-
The legal status of child pornography is straightforward - visual depictions of children under 18 engaged in sexual conduct are illegal. Congress and all states have passed laws dealing with child pornography, and the Supreme Court upheld them in New York v. Ferber, (1982) and Osborne v. Ohio (1990).
Pornography that is not illegal for sale to adults may be illegal when sold to minors (children under 18). This is called "material harmful to minors" or "variable obscenity."
Indecency-
In Ginsberg v. New York, (1988) the U.S. Supreme Court modified its three-part obscenity test to apply to minors.
1.The average person applying contemporary community standards would find that it has a predominate tendency to appeal to the unhealthy or shameful interest of minors in sex.
2.The average person applying contemporary standards would find it patently offensive to adults to make this sexually explicit material available for minors.
3.It lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value for minors.
Similar in effect to harmful to minors laws, indecency laws aim to protect children from the harmful effects of pornography. Indecency involves the use of the telephone, radio or broadcast TV to transmit materials inappropriate for children over the airwaves. Indecency has been defined by the U.S. Supreme Court as "any language or material that depicts or describes in terms patently offensive as measured by [national] contemporary community standards for the [telephone or] broadcast medium, sexual or excretory activities or organs." F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation (1978).
While my last example targets specifically radio and TV, I believe it still has merit because porn is even more accessable via the Internet.
I can go on and on citing studies and display much research as to why pornography in any of its forms is bad -- even for the non-religious person. But I figure if you've read this far in my post you're probably bored beyond belief. Perhaps I'll save
that for a rebuttal for any flames I might receive . I will say this, however: there have many studies performed, and much reserch put in to the effects of pornagraphy. The vast majority of sex offenders, murderers, etc are known to have frequented pornagraphy. Other studies have shown (which I can site by name upon request) that there is a direct coorilation between pornagraphy and violent crime.
The original message concerning this thread accuses anyone who doesn't want pornagraphy as being uneducated (at least, that is how his point came across to me - be my perception accurate or inaccurate). On the contrary, those of us who would like to see pornography done away with have our reasons. And those reasons are not always easily described. It may be as simple as being against our religion, simply offensive to us, or it might be a little more complex and difficult to talk about. Perhaps one who is an advocate of anti-porn is against it because they once harbored an addiction of porn, and it ultimately destroyed
their family (I've known numerous counselors who have described more than one such situation that stemmed *directly* from pornagraphy). The advocacy of sex is more than just taboo -- pornagraphy, promiscuity, and other sexually-explicit monacres
are downright offensive to most people. Is the Internet changing that? Probably. Is that bad? I think so.
Why is it I get the feeling that The Rolling Stone is Katz's #1 news source?
;)
1. protection against child abusers and
2. sexual content on the Internet
Without being a psychologist, I dare to say that no kid has ever been screwed up by seeing pictures of naked men or women. Even pictures of the erotic kind I would consider harmless.
Now pronography as in S&M, child abuse, sodomy, etc. is another thing. A child seeing this will not understand it, might get it wrong (e.g. a wrong mental image of what sex is about). So, a child needs guidance when getting first in contact with these topics (which it sometime in its life will).
I grew up in Europe (and live here). I also lived for one year in the States. I can confirm what other posters wrote: sex/moral and US society is hard to understand for a European. Let me tell my, totally subjective, impressions:
As you all probably have experienced, sometime in your life as a teenager, you enter what I call the snigger-phase. You tell each other jokes about sex without knowing what you talk about. You look at the first pictures of naked women/men, everyone is a little bit nervous, it's a secret thing and you don't quite know yet how to handle the issues. Puberty.
Now, when I was in the States (midwest, probably the worst area for this kind of topic), it felt like a time machine. Collegues', thirty years of age, beer-inspired bar behaviour pretty much reminded me of my teenage years! How strange
And those were good friends of mine, very nice people - don't get me wrong. I felt as if they never learned how to handle the topic. They were insecure about it.
I could now try to analyze American society seen as a spinoff from 18th/19th European moral standards. But that really takes me out of my field, so I better don't go that way.
PS. I liked my stay in the US very much, not least because of the friends I made there.
What's weird is that Jon Katz doesn't see it that way. Now, if he had started his article with, "The United States is the cradle of liberty, and yet..." then I might have some respect for his position, but it just bleeds through that he has a chip on his shoulder, so I stop listening.
Katz's article, while touching on a lot of valid issues, ultimately falls into a type of geek-chauvinism that afflicts the thinking of a lot of net-savvy types. The First Amendment and its relation to pornography has a history of robust case law that stretches back at least 50 years. The issues Katz raises, such as the line between socially valuable information relating to sexuality versus pornography, or the rights of children to access sexual information at school, have been hashed out pretty thoroughly in the Supreme Court and lower courts. Absolutely *nothing* about the Internet impacts the line the Supreme Court has drawn separating protected speech under the 1st Amendment vs. unprotected speech. Of course the Internet presents new problems for the law and law enforcement. The Internet treats censorship as a routing problem, right? But the core legal issue -- what is protected and what is off-limits -- is not affected by the Internet. Too often, net-savvy (or net-centric?) types are quick to cry: "the Internet has changed everything, our old laws no longer apply!" On a topic so heavily debated by lawyers, politicians, and professors of all kinds for so many decades, it is geek-chauvinism to think that what's come before should be junked, and that only people with an intimate understanding of technology should write the new rules. Sorry, Katz -- a whole lot of smart people have spent a lot of time thinking about the First Amendment and porn. The fact that the dirty pictures are now transmitted by IP packet rather than brown paper bag doesn't alter the fundamental issue.
Defining the distiction between "Porn" and healthy sexual imagery is the trick we definatley haven't mastered yet, as a whole. I think there is nothing wrong with porn in a healthy, high self esteemed person who sees it as something to stimulate an already healthy drive and desire. However, IMHO the majority is not in this group and the use of porn can be more harmful to any age without the aforementioned characteristics. Porn can act similiar to a drug, a quick thrill, and push what healthy sexuality is further away from that person. With this view however there is even more reason to maintain free and open communication about such matters as communication is a grand tool for education.
How can you be certain, nothing is certain?
Unfortunately, with more parents getting highly involved in their work place, the computer, as the TV once/still is, is becoming a primary babysitter for the kids.
Imagine a case of an evangelist preaches at the same corner, shouting their religious beliefs at the top of their voice. If you don't agree with their beliefs, you can choose to ignore them, go a different route, or listen and think. The point is, you have a choice.
Now, let's take that same evangelist, and say that he will set up shops, disguised as a store manager or a friendly baker, only leaping out of the disguise at the last second, screaming into your ear. Your choice has been taken away. Your ability to say "hey, that's cool for you, but it's not for me" has been removed. In short, you have created a dynamic where the evangelist can deny you what I perceive to be a basic freedom - a freedom to choose no.
This is the crux of the matter, for me. If there is no freedom to choose no, and have that accepted, then there can be no freedom to choose yes. And vice versa. Only one option is never a choice, even if that option is a "yes". It is control and domination.
It is my belief that, wherever society goes with it's freedoms, people will remain as enslaved as ever, if they can't choose the option they want, whatever that option is.
It's like religious tolerence, in that it can't be one way. If it is, then it's not tolerence. It's subservience. Tolerence, freedom, acceptence - these make demands of ALL involved, not just one side or another.
IMHO, what you do in your room is your business. Go surfing all the prawnography you like. Do what you like. But the moment I feel my liberty to do likewise is under threat, in the name of someone else's "freedom", sorry, but that goes one step too far. You don't need to threaten my liberty and concepts of what I enjoy, to protect and expand your own.
No man is an island, and anything you do WILL affect others. It's up to you as to whether it's reinforcing both YOUR freedom AND theirs, or bolstering yours at the expense of theirs. THAT is the one real choice. Every other argument over rights boils down to that.
I see all too many "anti-censorship" doing little more than the "cowboys" of the Wild West, or the settlers of Australia or New Zealand, slaughtering the hapless natives because they were "different" and didn't act the same. The "anti-censorship" people can't win, that way. That way lies the destruction of rights, which is the very thing the "anti-censorship" crowd claim to be defending. The only way to "win" is for both sides to accept each other, and provide the means for both to co-exist, peacefully.
If you don't want to co-exist, fine. That's your choice. But don't blame me if the fighting goes beyond nasty words on a web page. We've both seen similar intolerence of either side boil over into terrorism, on issues not a million miles away. I -know- that net folk are sensible, intelligent and mature, by and large. It doesn't have to degenerate into thuggery, but it's perilously close. Every time someone pronounces the "TRUTH" as if God came down on a charriot and handed the writer a full transcript of the Almighty's Verdict, I want to throw up. Especially if they go on about "freedom" and "rights". Where's the room for others to have their own thoughts or feelings? Where's the room for others to know what's confortable for them, or what's right for them?
No room, no liberty. No liberty, no life. It's just a vacant shell, going through the motions. If someone, in "your best interests", makes decisions for you, without your consent, even if "well-intentioned", are abusing you. I don't want to live life as a robot, seeing only what Jon Katz deems "acceptable" and a part of "free speech", deprived of any meaningful life or liberty. I don't want to be a mere statistic, with no independent existance, free to have the life of my choice. I don't want porn sites masquerading as stores, or sci-fi sites. I don't want banners hi-jacked and explicit photos or messages substituted. I don't want my browser ambushed, and re-directed without my consent or ability to stop. (It's trivial to block a close command.)
To quote Terry Pratchett (Feet of Clay), "Freedom without Responsibility is Meaningless". How true that is.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I don't advocate censorship, so put those flamethrowers down. I -DO- advocate that the absolute, inalienable right to say what you like MUST be counter-balanced with the EQUALLY absolute, inalienable right to choose what to hear. To have one right without the other is to walk down the road of having one group or another in absolute power. It's this road that has caused all the censorship grief in the first place. Why advocate or promote yet more grief? Surely it would be better to promote sanity than vengence. Because that's all you get when you deny others a freedom, for reasons of maintaining power and control.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Worse, it seems that both sides operate off of a logical fallacy. The pro-censorship peole believe that an adult can only handle seeing that which is fit for a child. The anti-censorship people seem to believe that everything is fit for a child.
I propose a compromise. Government-mandated censorship is simply wrong (in fact, it's more immoral than any amount of pornography could ever be). Parental censorship (and self-censorship) is another matter entirely. Therefore, enact laws which make it easier for parents to block out material, while never mandating such blocking by anybody.
I've always been intrigued by the ".xxx TLD plan" Under that rule, all porn sites (the definition would have to be decided upon, of course) must go into this TLD. This makes content-filtering absurdly simply for parents; simply disallow connnections to or from those domains. I would add a clause which allows a site to petition to be allowed to "escape" that domain, since invariably some non-pornographic sites will fall under any definition of pornography that the lawmakers care to make.
Of course, this does nothing for the other big problem in the Net (hate speech) but a similar plan could be used.
I agree that free speech is important. I agree that the only truly effective methods of keeping a child away from sotes parents don't want them to see is for the parents to do their damn job and spend time with their children on the Net. But let's face it; many parents will pick the easy way out and use filtering software (and then of course there's the issue of schools and libraries, whose computers are meant for research and really shouldn't be used for picking up pr0n anyway). So you might as well make the filtering easier.
"The United States loves to see itself as the cradle of liberty"...
Yeah, and Jon Katz loves to see himself as an exposer of hypocrisy and warrior against The Man. Neither of which is a perfect self-image, but I think the U.S. is a little closer.
Haven't you made this "liberty == total lack of judgement" mistake before, Jon? I seem to remember some previous article where most of the replies were patiently explaining to you the difference between "freedom of speech" and "freedom to make people listen to you".
Liberty doesn't mean that everybody has to be a mindless proponent of whatever stupid opinion, annoying behavior, or questionable pornography that their neighbor puts online. Liberty just means that those things are allowed, whether most people like them or not.
And if you'll do a search for "xxx" (or many more interesting keywords) sometime you'll find that these things are, most definitely, allowed. En masse.
Even in the prudish, hypocritical USA. Imagine that.
The very notion of pornography is a relatively new concept in human history
now this isn't even remotely accurate. The entire field of fine arts was considered "gentleman's pornigraphy" for centuries because the soft-porn nudes were acceptable to be viewed under the auspice of art.
That is some of the cynicism that the more modern artists rebelled against -- Manet got in trouble and caused such a scandal in high society not because he wasn't a fantastic painter (he was always regarded as a decent craftsman) but because he painted nudes in a way that did not "apologize" or cover them up with mythological overtones ("you see, gentlemen, this nude is Europa, and Zeus is raping her, so it's a mythological illustration, not a soft-porn image").
It was simply unacceptable to a society that had embraced nudes as something "artistic" only in their disconnection from reality, and refused to state the genuine sexual content of the images they had been consuming and displaying for centuries.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
What drives me nuts is this line of thought.
(1) Given: Sex is a natural and good human behavior.
If (1), then why is it bad for children to know about sex? Because if they do, adult sexual perverts can take advantage of them.
What is a sexual pervert? A person who seeks out sex in ways that are against society standards.
If these people found it easier to have sex with people their own age, would they seek out children? Probably not for the most part.
So if everyone accepted (1) there probably would be very few child molesters? yea.
So if everyone accepted (1), people could have more sex, not be afraid of having or asking for sex, and we wouldn't (for the most part) have to worry about our children being victimized? Um, yea.
So how can we make this happen? Well, we could make information about sex more widely known so that everyone can realize that it isn't evil.
But you will have to tell the children this stuff also in order for this to work, right? um, yea...
But in the current state, that is considered dangerous, so how do we move from here to there? Oh, dammit, I don't know!
------------------------------
Or try this one:
If (1), then why is it bad for children to know about sex? Because the easiest and most common way to be exposed to sex is pornography, and most pornography promotes a negitive view of women and/or encourages unsafe sexual behavior.
But the reason that they portray women this way is because porn is a half-way underground industry and needs to protray them this way in order to survive. If they didn't, they wouldn't appear as exciting, right? I guess so.
So if there was nothing really covert and exciting about pictures of naked people, they could be shown just like pictures of everything else, and not as "see the dirty whores" and whatnot. In other words, if porn weren't hidden, it wouldn't need to be dirty? Yea, I think so.
So if we make porn readily avalaible, it will not only cease to be demeaning and dangerous, but it will probably become higher quality too (I don't want to see dirty, I want to see beautiful, you know)? Yea!
Alright! How do we bring this about? Well... If we make all porn easily avalaible now, it will still be mostly the dirty stuff, so that isn't good, so if we find the good stuff and show that to people... but those people will still assume it is dirty because "porn" and "dirty" are synonomous to most people... and we would have to hire lots of people to find the good stuff in any case, but there'd be no one who'd pay people to do this and --- dammit again!
---------------------------------
Now, I have made one very large assumption here (that child molesters exist because of sexual repression) and ignored a few other things, but the discussion could easily be expanded to include these and still come to the same conclusion of "I don't know how to change the system!" Even if everyone agrees to (1), it can't change, because according to the rules, you can't tell people (that you don't know really well) that you agree to (1), and you have to act in many situations as tho you don't. The anonimity (pardon spelling) on the Internet has helped a little, but so many people aren't Internet capable or have had the "sex is dirty" idea driven so deeply into them that they actually believe it, rather than just pretending to, as many of us do.
I don't suppose I have actually given any information here that people didn't already know (and if fact much of what I have said may have been incoherant), but I felt a need to say this, thanks for listening.
Okay. I think the politicos are not the only ones guilty of this mistake. Katz does point out that they constantly confuse porn with open discussion of sexuality, but so do a lot of other people!
I'm all for an open discussion of sexuality in almost any venue, be it internet chat or "meatspace" coffee shops... whatever. But I don't approve of porn, because I think it's just a method of exploiting all involved and reinforcing negative gender/sex stereotypes which are responsible for *lots* of the problems in our society.
Now, hopefully we're still in agreement here. But probably not, because I've heard so much discussion about how not allowing access to porn "restricts rights." Personally, I don't think people necessarily should have the right to participate in such victimization, and I actually view it as unfortunate that this is covered by the first amendment. It's really too bad that Katz had to associate XXX with free speech in his headline. Hardcore porn keeps a lot of voices from being heard; it's not a liberation thing for the viewer or the viewed.
Let's keep the debate focused on the important aspects Katz brings out, like the opportunity to use AOL (for example) as a venue for anonymous, important discussion of "taboo" sexuality. This is not the same as "Asain closeup pix plz msg me."
Democracy != Liberty
Does "mob rule" bring a pleasant image to mind? Was it a totalitarian state that convicted Socrates of corrupting the youth?
Democracy just means that there are more people telling you how to live your life.
Liberty is being left alone to live your life as you see fit.
California voters approved a law (prop 187) which would essentially require presenting an ID card for *anything*. Signing up for school? Bring your papers. I really don't like being governed by people who have no understanding of economics, but that's what democracy means.
I'm not advocating monarchy, or dictatorship, or anything like that. I'm advocating stripping the government of power so that there is very little there to be abused.
--kevin
I dispute your claim that pornography is a "relatively new concept in human history". Hindu has had a long tradition of artwork that would be considered sexually explicit by western terms, going back far before even the Roman Empire. Also, the Japanese have, for centuries, traditionally distributed pillow books (basically a how-to picture book for newlyweds) amongst their young adults. Western culture came into contact with these phenomena, and others, long before Victorian archaeologists dug up Pompeii. However, if you want to talk about sexual dysfunction and Victorians... well, I haven't got all day :P...
For years, it's been impossible to conduct anything like a rational public -policy discussion about the dissemination of sexual information in the United States, a country which constantly proclaims itself the cradle of liberty while being censorious, prudish and hypocritical when it comes to sex.
What do you mean taboo? Pick up any magazine in the supermarket checkout and you'll find a frank and earnest discussion about sexual technique. If anything people are simply sick of the media hype over sex (sex sells; discussion of sex apparently sells media). I like to eat and cook food, but sometimes the foodies get on my nerves.
And as far as discourse is concerned, I could walk up to any of my brothers, sisters, or in-laws or neighbors and have a rational discussion about sex education, and they'd probably have a lot of well thought out opinions, although they wouldn't all agree.
People may have different sexual mores but that's a different thing from being a prude or a hypocrite. Many people with children would prefer if advertisers didn't push a viewpoint that equates consumption with sexual attractiveness. Some people would prefer sex be a spiritual (e.g. personal and transcendant) rather than a media experience. After all, we call them "media" because they "mediate" for us -- they put themselves between us and the thing being considered.
We can't all have our way; dealing with divergent points of view is part of the give and take of living an a dynamic and civilized socity. It's hard work and it does no good to stand up and declare the ill-will or hypocrisy of people you don't agree with and probably don't understand very well. People like Mr. Katz who aspire to the role of media need to get the chip off their shoulder and do the hard work of getting to understand people they don't agree with.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Katz claims that politicians are prudish, don't like sex, fear sex, consider sex immoral, whatever. I disagree: history has shown that politicians are some of the most sexually active people on the planet. The peccadillos of politicians are the stuff of legend.
The real issue here is that politicians take a sampling of social mores and exploit those mores as a way to stay elected. Most politicians don't give a damn about pornography on the internet -- unless they feel it'll get them elected. It has nothing to do with morality or prudishness, it has _everything_ to do with the accumulation of power.
Politicians will exploit the "sex card" in order to whip up hysteria and get themselves elected. They will exploit the "fear of terrorism card" in order to whip up hysteria, get themselves elected, and whittle away at our rights in order to increase the strength of their position.
None of this is particularly new.
What I absolutely DISAGREE with, however, is Katz' assertion that someone who speaks out against "pornography" is somehow diluting free speech. Free speech is free if and only if BOTH sides of the issue are heard.
In other words, if you only hear speech about how good sex is, how wonderful pornography is, how liberating it is, THAT IS NOT FREE SPEECH. If you only hear speech about how terrible sex is, how horrible pornography is, how exploitative it is, THAT IS NOT FREE SPEECH EITHER. Katz is confusing his particular moral stance (sexuality on the net is liberating) with free speech (which is an open exchange of ALL ideas, be they right or wrong).
I would hope Mr. Katz would use a bit more caution in the future. He has a tendency to paint everyone on the other side of his fence as reactionary idiots. Certainly many of them are, but such strong language tends to discourage a reasoned response from opponents -- thus discouraging free speech.
Eviscerati.Org: All Hail the Eviscerati
The United States loves to see itself as the cradle of liberty, but when it comes to sex, America mostly demonstrates its prudishness and hypocrisy. Sex is our national taboo.
Actually, the United States runs about in the middle of the world when it comes to sexual prudishness. Of course when we discuss sexual openness, we tend to look towards Italy (where just about every sexual fetish has it's own magazine at the local corner), and away from Saudi Arabia, where we find their "repression of women" less a sexual issue and more a human rights issue. Of course if Italy were to interpret our dress codes in the same way we interpret Islamic dress codes, they'd blame us for human rights violations because we don't allow our women to run topless on the beach instead of just calling us sexually repressed.
This has sent our many moral guardians into hyper-drive, invoking the safety of children as an excuse to beat back the sexual revolution made possible by the digital one.
Do you know why prostitution is illegal in most jurisdictions in the United States? It wasn't always that way, you know.
But back at the turn of the last century, a bunch of articles appeared which talked about the evils of "white slavery." The concern back then was that white women were being abducted and transported across the nation or across the world to serve as sexual slaves in brothels, and prostitution simply fed the world's hunger for white slave women. This of course appeared in the British press, and was picked up by other English-speaking nations rather quickly. So the drive to eliminate prostitution in order to save "our fair damsels" caused most of the english-speaking world to outlaw prostitution.
Nowadays we don't cry "in the name of our fair women and children", as since WWII, the women's movement has woken us up to the realization that women are not sexual toys and wives, but men's equals. So we now have turned towards "protecting the children" instead.
But this is old political hat, and anyone with any sense of history would know that we've been using "saving our children" as an excuse to pass legislation since before Romulus and Remus founded a nation amongst seven hills in central Italy.
But federal agencies like the FBI, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and private researchers like author Don Tapscott report that children are many times more likely to be abused by someone they know at home than as the result of sexual encounters online.
And this is news how?
I'm sorry, but the downfall of any democracy is that we tend to have lopsided enforcement of the laws depending on the "public outrage du joir." There is a history of this going back since pretty much the start of democracy. It's not supprising that there is lopsided enforcment against "on-line child pornography" to the point where laws have been passed (and since rejected) that outlaw photographs of young women who appear to be under 18 years of age. As soon as the outrage against child pornography on the net passes in another 5 years or so, we'll move on to something else, and the true child pedaphiles (all five of them) will be safe to troll AOL again.
But it's striking, in the hysteria over kids and sexual imagery online, that there is no reliable data about the number of victims.
Which is very common in this era of "hype-induced legislation." Very old news to anyone who follows this sort of stuff. What is more troubling is the fact that when data does arrive, it's ignored in favor of the public hype.
For example, there is very reliable data that shows that "three strikes" doesn't work. First, it causes criminals who find themselves on their third strike to "raise the stakes", so to speak, when it comes to their defense on the third strike. (As "three strikes" gives them little recourse but to go to jail for life, they have nothing to lose in putting on the most expensive defense they can.) This contributes to an already overburdened court system. Couple this with the fact that a lot of third strikes are going towards folks who do as little as steal a slice of pizza, and you have a law which Just Doesn't Work.
But with this data, does anyone do jack to solve the problem? No; "three strikes" is a very popular piece of legislation, even if it doesn't work.
I fear the same thing will happen with on-line pornography--no matter what sorts of evidence people discover about on-line sexual discussions and forums, it will be ignored in the name of "if we can just save one child, it will be worth it." (Ignoring of course that "it" == trashing the first amendment.)
The very notion of pornography is a relatively new concept in human history. It came about in Victorian England when researchers from the British Museum dug up the ruins of Pompeii and were stunned to find artworks of all kinds...
Not even close. But thank you for playing.
Turns out anyone who has even bothered to spend a half-hour taking a lecture tour of their local museum knows better than this.
For example, ever wonder why there were so many nude Christs and nude angels being painted in the 14th and 15th century? Because it was a way to get around the church's edict forbidding pornography. By disguising these images as religious paintings, 15th century artists were able to get away with painting what was otherwise forbidden subjects. British Victorian prudishness was only interesting in that the British managed to invent a reason for prudishness which did not involve the Roman Catholic Church.
The biggest issue relating to sex and free speech is out how the two impulses can co-exist with one another in a country that doesn't seem sure if it wants either.
The best way to resolve these issues is an educated public who gets involved with the political process. Unfortunately, I rarely find either of these two qualities within a country mile of eachother.
And I find little evidence here of either as well.
Frankly I could go on for another 100K on the problems, nits and other serious problems with this little essay which negate both the thesis and the conclusions as nothing more than popular reactionism to popularized tripe, but what's the point? I'll just say that (a) it ain't just "us prudish Americans", (b) that pornography was not a "British Victorian invention", that (c) hype about saving our children is not just restricted to the 'net or to pornography, that (d) the 'net didn't invent the downfall of sexual prudishness but only placed a spotlight on an issue that is at least a century old, and (e) it ain't going to be solved by empty little position pieces which can't be bothered to research the issues involved.
What's the real issue here? Sex? Free speech? Or the fact that far too many parents want the government to do the job of parenting for them?
Security through obscurity doesn't work in the tech world, and it sure as hell doesn't work in parenting. Yet it's the most popular mode of operation for many parents: try to hide the existence of sex from the kids, while at the same time put off figuring out how to explain it to the kids when the time comes. And just like in the tech world, when the obscurity is dispelled, there's as often as not no real "security plan" left. In the case of parents, what often happens is the kid comes home and wants to know something about sex; the parents haven't planned The Talk out, and hem and haw uncomfortably. Kid decides to do some independent research, the parents find out, and they start screaming about the filth polluting America's youth. Government hears the screams and decides to do something about it. But where was the real point of failure here?
Many kids want to listen to their parents. But for the parents to fill that role, they have to open their eyes and realise that simply hiding uncomfortable truths (and the way a lot of people are brought up, things like sex are uncomfortable truths) isn't the way to go. Controlled, supervised exposure is what's needed. But that's just too much involvement, it seems, for many parents these days.
We can believe in you for 3 minutes, but beyond that, even the King of All Cosmos can't be expected to wait.
This means that the only people who bother showing up to the polls on election day are the ones who really have feel strongly on the issues. The accuracy of telephone and other "random" polls are often questioned based on this very fact (that the only people who bother to respond are already several standard deviations towards the edges of the bell curve in their opinions), but nobody questions the accuracy of the polling booths. Taking these two together, you get this:
Most politicians know they can't afford to upset or alienate these voters, and so they act in accordance with what those who got them elected (not necessarily their consituents) want.
Basically, we have a political body that feels the need to cater to the whim of an extremist minority viewpoint and has a stronger desire to get re-elected than it does to do the right thing in office. We can't make intelligent laws about topics that these people don't want discussed, and sex is one of them. There are some states that outlaw oral sex.
Example: The Defense of Marriage Act passed in the Senate 84-16, with similar percentages in the House, two years before the possibility of a same-sex marriage ever existed, as an insurance plan against Hawai'i legalizing such things. President Clinton actively signed the bill into law, despite the fact that he actively campaigned in support of the gay community, and that their support contributed to his election in the first place. Why? His spokespeople came forward, after he signed, and said that they felt it would've been political suicide for him to veto, and just as bad for him to let it become law without his signature, because he couldn't afford to alienate the religious voters. Four percent of the population is gay, and less than half of them are registered to vote. Thirty-one percent of Americans describe themselves as "devoutly Christian", and I suspect well over half of them are registered voters. You tell me who has more political power.
There are some states that outlaw oral sex. Twenty-six states (at my last counting) still ban homosexual sex between consenting adults above the age of consent despite their admitted inability to enforce such laws. Montana tried recently (1995) to make homosexuals register on their "published state sex offenders" list, the registry that lets the public find out if a convicted rapist or pedophile has moved in next door. Adultery is a crime in some states, though not in all. Prostitution is legal in only one state, Nevada, and even then only outside of city limits. The laws regarding sex are such a painful mish-mash of misinformation and religious interference that it's a wonder some state hasn't yet mistakenly outlawed procreation.
Getting the internet involved only makes the matter worse. We couldn't get rational laws before the internet. This just adds one more level of insecurity and paranoia. The two big laws created so far to "protect decency online" were made, not after careful consideration, but as knee-jerk responses to the fears of a vocal minority that happens to be a large voting bloc.