Slashdot Mirror
EU To Vote On Proposal That Could Ban All Online Pornography
An anonymous reader writes "The European Union is voting on a proposal next week that could lead to a blanket ban on porn in member states, and it seems the measure may well be approved. The proposal, called 'Eliminating gender stereotypes in the EU,' mentions issues such as women carrying a 'disproportionate share of the burden' when raising a family, violence against women as 'an infringement of human rights,' and gender stereotypes that develop early in life. From the proposal: "Calls on the EU and its Member States to take concrete action on its resolution of 16 September 1997 on discrimination against women in advertising, which called for a ban on all forms of pornography in the media and on the advertising of sex tourism." Update: 03/07 19:05 GMT by T : Pirate MEP Christian Engström writes on his blog that citizens writing to the European Parliament about the proposal are not necessarily being heard: "Before noon, some 350 emails [on this topic] had arrived in my office. But around noon, these mails suddenly stopped arriving. When we started investigating why this happened so suddenly, we soon found out: The IT department of the European Parliament is blocking the delivery of the emails on this issue, after some members of the parliament complained about getting emails from citizens."
this will end well..
Up next: EU proposes new law that says all sex is rape.
then gay male porn is all good, yeah?
And yet the EU is still committed to moving backwards as a society. Why do governments seem to be oblivious to the concept of using scientific findings to make decisions?
I doubt that it is erotic imagery or copy that they are banning.
has to do with topless women peddling orange juice in adverts on television.. not "porn" in general.
Why is it that so few leaders are willing to ignore violence against men, one form of which is the forced circumcision and genital mutilation of boys which remains legal in many countries that protect girls from similar. Can't violence just be opposed in all it's forms without regard to sex?
Next on the lawmakers' agenda: requiring all politicians to be honest, and banning all people from eating junk food.
Ezekiel 23:20
What is this, British tabloid journalism?
What about Male porn and Animal porn?
I'm quickly downloading the Internet before it becomes contraband here.
Porn is a release, not an inspiration.
What makes you think this is America's doing? Sure, they're pretty prudish as a culture but as this ban wouldn't affect business with the EU in any way (and in fact, would harm the porn industry, which is fairly lucrative) I'm not seeing how this is an American interest.
Banning sex trade advertisement does not equal banning porn.
I travel in Europe occasionally and some of the commercial billboards I have seen in airports would be considered pornography in the US...
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
And speaking of women's rights, are they going to ban Berlesconi too? I mean, I'm in favor of banning him, but not for that reason.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
I'm getting tired of "Violence against women" being portrayed as a special case worthy of special laws at the expense of everyone else.
Violence in general is the problem. All violence has victims. Violence typically occurs where society needs new rules and new norms. Right now there is lots of violence against against women, more in some cultures than others. It's ugly.
Still, when we start getting laws designed to combat violence against group X that end up doing violence to the rights and freedoms of people outsideof group X, we're doing it wrong.
By all means, let's make rules that discourage violence against everyone - childredn, the elderly, women, men, pets, gingers, neckbeards. Short of widespread deployment of G-23 Paxilon Hydrochlorate, though, humans will keep bashing each other. There's a limit to prevention.
Xena reruns only go so far.
This is exactly why consolidation and centralization of power is so dangerous: it leverages the injustice that inevitably results from coercive authority. Whatever flavor of injustice is currently in fashion will be extended and compounded by orders of magnitude. Instead of the isolated cases of injustice that result from small independent states, what you get with consolidation of political power is a nuclear explosion of injustice.
Of course, for the elite few at the top of the pyramid, consolidation of power is the road to riches.
17. Calls on the EU and its Member States to take concrete action on its resolution of 16 September 1997 on discrimination against women in advertising, which called for a ban on all forms of pornography in the media and on the advertising of sex tourism
I'm not sure anything at all will change even if this passes.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Rick Falkvinge of the Swedish Pirate Party has a good summary of the attempt to ban porn as well as a call to action. Apparently getting e-mail through to the parliamentarians is not as straight forward as one might wish. Christian EngstrÃm, MEP, also of the Swedish Pirate Party has a good analysis of the attempted ban. Basically it's a grab at control and censorship under another guise.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
I suppose they won't be happy until you can't tell the difference between men and women.
I guess I am too old to adjust to these new ideals. :(
YEa, lot's of America's porn comes from overseas.
Plus we've already given up on the rest of the world as some heathen Atheist haven, why would we care if they make porn for us to jack off to after church?
Dear European representatives, please vote for the Sun not to continue radiating heat after 25ÂC, I'm quite sure it will be at least 5 times easier to implement than banning porn, thank you
Hey Hatta, is this also not "real" Feminism?
Because "Eliminating gender stereotypes" sure sounds like the feminist newspeak I've been subjected to since birth.
Whatever. You signed up for this when you submitted to these euro-statists. Enjoy getting criminalized.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
Two words only are needed to show why any attempt to ban anything on the Internet is doomed to fail. Both words are proper nouns. The first is "Tor", an onion routing system that means it can be virtually impossible to connect an end user with a particular server. Moreover, there are "hidden" services that do not even show on the main web. The second is "Freenet", the distributed peer-to-peer encrypted network (with built in darknet for those who want or need it). A third word, "Bitcoin", allows a thriving marketplace, and when proper laundries are in place, an effectively anonymous marketplace.
The mere fact of countries like the USA, where pornography cannot be banned, means that any attempt to ban it in another freeish place will be quite difficult.
But that's technical stuff.
While I can understand the desire to eliminate gender stereotypes, and it is something I fully support, I don't see how banning pornography in the media can help. I also think that it's a wrong-headed move from a free speech point of view.
Pornography is not just men fucking women for the pleasure of other men. Human sexuality is so broad and varied, and porn is, as a consequence, broad and varied. Personally, I see porn as a positive thing in society, allowing people to experience their sexuality in the privacy of their own bedroom. A young teenage boy wondering whether it is really wrong, as his class mates, teachers, parents, and community say, for boys to like other boys, can find solace in the Internet. And jack-off to gay porn. And that's a good thing. Maybe a young teenage girl is wondering if her feelings towards some of her friends are normal. She can find lesbian, bisexual, and varied other porn on the Internet to help her confront her feelings. And that's a good thing. And the stories can be much broader than those as well.
I do object to a lot of porn out there. The degrading humiliating porn. The stuff where it looks like the female actor is actually not enjoying herself at all. But that does not mean the answer is to ban all porn.
HELP MY ACCOUNT HAS BEEN HACKED BY AN ILLIBERAL ART STUDENT SET TO DESTROY THE INTERWEBZ!
No need to monitor the internet, just monitor the users. Apparently Kinect can now detect a clenched fist.
Anybody want a peanut?
The proposal is not calling for porn to be banned. It is saying that mainstream newspapers should not contain porn, like the Sun in the UK does. For those that don't know the Sun, Britain's most popular newspaper, has a picture of a topless women on page 3 of every edition.
Porn is also used extensively in marketing, even of children's products and during daytime TV viewing hours. Banning ads for sex tourism should be a no-brainier I would hope.
Internet porn will not be banned. That is absolutely not what this is about. It is merely trying to remove negative stereotypes from everyday media. The media has been given countless opportunities to clean up, to stop using stick figure models and heavy photoshopping, to stop using porn to sell things, but it has largely failed to do so. If anything it has become more mainstream now.
It isn't about being puritanical, it is about protecting people from well understood psychological harm.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
The EU should first hold a public contest with a large monetary reward to develop an algorithm that can reliably and objectively distinguish between porn and not-porn. Good luck, though.
How does gay porn discriminate against women? (Or, if it does, then how does straight porn discriminate against women?)
It seems to me that you can have it both ways (not that these idiots wouldn't try).
It doesn't only depict gender discrimination; it even glorifies it, presenting it as law, albeit an antiquated one. You can call it history, or art, or fiction, or material for cultural studies, but it's no less "discriminating" than pornography.
I want some of what you're smoking.
ending this blatent exploitation of men has to be a good this. the freeing up of productive time, bandwidth and money for more productive use would be a social and economic boon.
"the dark night of fascism is always descending in the United States and yet lands only in Europe." - Tom Wolfe
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
Easier to fight against men's innate desires than to fight for the rights of woman who NEED the help.
Oh well. They'll probably wonder why prostitution and sexual abuse will rise after this, and try to pin it all on the men again.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Decency_Act
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
So I can turn on the TV at any time of day and see someone brutally murder someone on CSI, and there is nothing wrong with that, but some woman taking a picture of herself in a mirror and posting it to the internet is a criminal act? What. The. Fuck.
Children in our ancestors natural environment saw everything, the internet just makes it possible again after a brief x00 years of privacy.
I have seen far too many problems lately from people ignoring the reality of things. The reality that the internet is what it is in part, because of p0rn. I don't like it. I don't want women disrespected. Private things should be private, not a picture for all to see. But the reality is, it isn't. And a law saying what you can put on your machine, and what I can put on mine, because we choose to connect to the internet, will not fly. It will work because it is not real. Better to put a a "clean" site where the actors are paid well and know what they are doing and are legal age, etc, and then shame everyone who goes anywhere else. Keep the reality of the internet part of the internet. Who do they think they are to even make laws effecting the net? Be real.
Just from TFS, the headline of the proposal is "Eliminating Gender Stereotypes in the EU." I am not sure that is even a goal that is worthy of support. Are they trying to say that the gender roles that developed over the last 2500 years of European history are without value and need to be expunged from 21st century civilization?
I'm all in favor of correcting historical inequities like giving women equal pay and practical equality before the law. I also will go so far as to admit it's possible that women as a population might benefit from certain changes in workplace culture or other aspects of society.
What I don't accept is that everyone is supposed to pretend women are indistinguishable from men. I embrace my role as the bug-squasher and fix-it man, and my wife embraces her role as the cook. Social equality is not the same as mathematical equality. The language of "eliminating stereotypes" is worrisome for that reason. What we need is not a world without differences, but a world where the norms are inclusive of differences.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
Those silly Americans and their prudish- wait, wat?
I guess all the other problems facing EU have been solved?
Most porn is aimed at men and their wired in responses to the stimulus incited by images and such of the naked female form. Women who are hired to produce porn, with few exceptions, know what hey are getting into and are paid for their services, in order to exploit the male response. So, it's the male audience that's actually exploited.
But if gender neutrality is the goal then we can combine several movements into one, neuter or spay human babies as we do our pets. Do it right and that will eliminate the differentiation that occurs at puberty and we'll have a gender neutral population of androgynous individuals who would have no sex drive to exploit and who cannot reproduce if they wanted to. Which, of course, they won't want to because the other force at work would be the Agenda 21 program to create a sustainable planet but needs to shed billions of population to achieve.
Indoctrinate the current youth to believe that the world doesn't need people, they'll spay or neuter their children and that will be pretty much the last generation of man on the planet except for a few stone age type tribes which, of course, are already living in a sustainable way within their environment.
Occasionally, in the future, as they migrate around they may come across an old stainless steel sink that's survived the decay of the rest of our material world and wonder what gods could have made such a thing.
Wow... Someone down-modded this. I guess history isn't one of his strong suits.
hhuhh huhhh he said "member" hhhh all "member states"... hhuh hey Beavis, check out the state of my member.. hhuhuhuhh
".. a ban on all forms of pornography in the media and on the advertising of sex tourism."
The language in the explanation is broad enough to suggest that all pornography could be banned, unless you can deliver it through something other than, "the media."
1. Define 'pornography' in a non-vague way. Just sex acts? What about nudity? Suggestive clothing? Suggestive language? Numerous countries have been down this road at one point or another and have failed. The line between what is 'art' and what is 'pornography' will always be 100% subjective.
2. You can't legislate what people want. There will always be people who want pornography in one form or another, and where there is a demand there will be someone supplying it.
3. You can't legislate morality, either, which is in essense what this will do.
4. And how do they think this will be enforced? Existing profitable porn sites will just switch their hosting to a non-EU member country. Are they going to try blocking access in EU member countries (aka censorship)? Good luck with that. See #2, above to cover how that subject will be handled.
Really, this sounds like just another case of politicians being woefully ignorant when it comes to matters of science and technology.
Finally, this one last blast:
So, EU, you've stabilized the economies of all your member states, unemployment is 100% under control, crime and terrorism is 100% under control, etc etc etc therefore you can spend time, money, and energy on something like this? And here I thought that only politicians here in the U.S. acted retarded.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Yeah, women having sex is such a stereotype. Actually, I think women not wanting sex is the stereotype; therefore everyone must view porn at every opportunity.
The Sun's page 3 contains no porn, only partial nudity.
Nudity and porn are entirely different things. Nudity is not porn (I doubt you engage in porn every time you shower and undress for bed), and porn is not nudity (you can engage in porn while fully clothed). What's more, topless and nudist beaches are very common in Europe, not at all contentious, and there is no sexual activity in evidence, let alone porn. So whatever you're talking about, it's something completely different to the subject matter here.
In fact, I have no idea what you're talking about, and I'm totally certain that nor do you.
Because it sure doesn't read that way to me.
(If at first you don't succeed, do it different next time!)
I forgot; this is Slashdot.
Maybe the members of the committee that proposed this can all just stick their fingers in the holes in the dike. That'll stop the problem, right?
Embarrassingly, that actually sounds like a porno flick.
It may look like I'm doing nothing, but I'm actively waiting for my problems to go away.
--Scott Adams
Then let's build enough prisons (concentration camps?) to put those scumbags in.
"Calls on the Member States to establish independent regulation bodies with the aim of controlling the media and advertising industry and a mandate to impose effective sanctions on companies and individuals promoting the sexualisation of girls;"
Thank God. I was worried because we hadn't had a strong government control over the media since the 1930s in Europe. I look at this as positive signs of a strengthening EU, and the champion of this should be Germany, what with them having the only sound economic basis.
I wasted time reading the whole "proposal". I'm not sure why they couldn't have just used the word "citizens" or "people" instead of micromanaging it to "girls" and "women". Next you'll need every other damn subgroup there is. Why the hell can't they just say "We seek to limit discrimination and sterotyping of citizens based on religion , national original, gender, whatever"...why do they always have to divide and conquer? Other than the obvious reasons.
This proposal sucks. Not the least of which they keep spelling it "Labour". They sound like a bunch of damn Canadians.
I'm a satanic clam.
Instead of directly using porn to advertise they'll use innuendo, subliminal messages, and clever word play to put the thoughts of sex in peoples heads.
The point? There is nothing you can do to censor sexuality which won't make it worse. Corporations are going to program the masses using sex and advertising one way or another. Sexual metaphors will program the subconscious masses into desiring stuff without even understanding consciously why.
They've tried it more than once... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropic_of_Cancer_(novel)
If anything could possibly bring down the EU, not that it would take much at all, its a ban on porn.
And Tor wouldn't even be needed. The porn will simply go underground and subliminal. How do you enforce a ban on subliminal messages in ads? You can't.
And gratuitous sex in advertising.
Have you actually read the proposal? It is not a law, it is just more political BS. There is no actual ban in the proposal, just "calls for". The last sentence in the linked article points this out.
"Falkvinge added that the EU proposal is not legislation at this stage. Instead, it is a request for draft legislation. It's a first step in the process for measures to become EU law."
So calm down. This is just more hot air from politicians that have perfected the generation of hot air.
Scanned the report. No pictures.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Great that means that if men are allowed to walk around topless, so are women, so its tits for all!
Even if violence against women were the most important issue today, this resolution is lacking some sort of reference to actual SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE that pornography is the cause. For years, people have been blaming games, movies, and TV for everything with no actual reasoning behind it.
So even if they ban overt pornography it doesn't change the fact that covert subliminal pornography will exist. You watch TV and ads selling inanimate objects shaped like a phallus? Why aren't feminists angry at the shake weight? That is what they'll end up with if this passes.
Actually, people came to America because they couldn't properly oppress the people back in Europe that did not have quite their exact brand of puritanism...
That is what will happen if porn is banned. The sexual energy will be expressed everywhere else in a sexually orgasmic explosion of erotic potential.
If a woman falsely accuses a man of rape, is that violence against men?
is the answer to asymptomatic schizophrenic unchasity.
We in the US tried to warn you -- we have experience with states creating a federal government, giving it limited, well-defined powers, and no others, and seeing it grow, expanding its power over the centuries, until it fancies itself the one and only government, with the states being historical curiosities.
If that can happen with an "iron clad" Constitution, how much moreso without one?
"Long stream of words", and it grabs more power it didn't use to have. Repeat ad collapse.
You were warned. God help you, you were warmed.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
This reminds me of the chicken phenomenon, where a chicken caught in an intolerable situation where every possible choice involves risk and/or loss, will instead perform an act that is entirely separate from the issue at hand -- preening her feathers. This is feather preening. Because dealing with the important issues is too hard.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
What could be more important than to finally gain complete control over your thoughts? That is the easiest way to gain control of your brain.
How about a bill to ban on all online grammar fuck ups?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Adolescents will have to look into the bottom of their dad's dresser drawers, or under the bed, to find a ten year old laptop with porn still on it.
>The IT department of the European Parliament is blocking the delivery of the emails on this issue, after some members of the parliament complained about getting emails from citizens.
You know what? Fuck it. I've had enough.
Declare me an enemy of the state or the equivilent now.
Is it a fact that all women in porn don't actually want to be there? I'm sure every woman in porn would rather be independently wealthy by some magical means as much as I (an educated, software developer who's job does not suck by any stretch of the imagination) would. But the reality is there is no magical means for us all to become independently wealthy so we all have to earn a living.
I chose to get an education and become a tech worker. Others opt out of education and instead build houses, dig ditches and lay asphalt to earn their income.
Is it really inconceivable that a woman can enjoy meaningless sex so much that she would actually like to get paid to do it? Or is it inconceivable that a woman, who likes acting and doesn't have hangups about sex can willing act and have sex in a film? Why should such a women, who opted out of education, have to flip burgers for a living when she can make a much better living doing something she enjoys... or like some of us, at least doesn't hate.
But no. The EU would rather keep such a woman down, earning minimum wage in a shit job that will never take her anywhere.
Excuse me? Hello!? How they bloody dare to complain about getting emails from their employers?
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
...we will have a huge excess of network bandwidth. What could we do with it ?!?
If you ban porn, you ban potential "pressure" outlet for some men, which instead of masturbating in their home, might simply fall down on the side of rapping what they find outside. I do see that as a real risk, and sadly those idiot might actually generate violence with their political shenanigan.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
The EU will declare every day sunny and warm to the end of time.
blocking the delivery of the emails on this issue, after some members of the parliament complained about getting emails from citizens.
Good leaders run toward problems, bad leaders hide from them.
EOM
The story just gets funnier as you read it:
"...The IT department of the European Parliament is blocking the delivery of the emails on this issue, after some members of the parliament complained about getting emails from citizens."
EU Parliament is a triumph of democracy, clearly.
Really, the moment I start to think that nothing could be more ridiculous than the US Congress, there I go, proved wrong again.
-Styopa
... movies or pictures depicting consensual sexual activities between grownups. Of any gender combination, that is. I really see NO overlap between that and the laws discussed here.
Well, OK I did not read the whole thing, but all I saw (including the summary above) is all *not* about porn, but about equal rights for both genders.
May be some males get it wrong because the suddenly understand that the kind of porn they watch might just be something depicting NOT equal rights for both genders, but that's not a matter of sexual intercourse, but of how the people interact.
Stop whining, male, our time at the head of the table - alone - is over.
The exact statement is: "Calls on the EU and its Member States to take concrete action on its resolution of 16 September 1997 on discrimination against women in advertising, which called for a ban on all forms of pornography in the media and on the advertising of sex tourism"
This means that it wants to ban the use of sexualization in advertisement.
Has nobody ever wondered why there is a naked top-model to sell everything from orange juice, to towels, to perfume, to vacations, etc.?
"Government control of your moist private property"
Fixed it for you.
I'm a satanic clam.
EU council votes to disconnect EU from the entire internet...
What exactly is 'porn', I mean, how can you define it? And why would someone want to attempt to ban pixels arranged in certain configurations? How could you even define those configurations?
Once I was a four stone apology. Now I am two separate gorillas.
I should have to pay for all porn, never free.
As a friend of mine said, "When you become a parent, you will welcome any help at keeping your kids safe".
Help eliminate stupid speeding tickets.
http://www.edri.org/porn_ban
Thankfully, if adopted, the draft resolution would not be legally binding. It is also extremely badly drafted and almost certainly too absurd to be taken seriously. However, it is still important for the European Parliament not to undermine its own credibility with such proposals. It is also important not to give any support to privatisation of the regulation of our freedom of speech.
The vote takes place next Tuesday (12 March).
Will your MEP be supporting this absurdity?
Well, I guess I'll just email my MEP and ask . . .
"Use the Fax, Luke. Use the Phone, Luke."
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
I don't believe that the intention is to ban all pornography because it is all viewed as sexist and discriminatory to women. Rather, I believe that the true intention is to reduce or, if possible, eliminate its commercialization.
The real problem isn’t homegrown vids of what I’m going to call “real people”. The discriminatory and socially harmful issue is what we’re being fed by production companies. The women and men involved in these have been waxed, bleached, fasted, surgically enhanced, lit, filtered, and made up to such extremes that no “real person” (including the actors themselves outside of production) could live up to these standards. (abs and penis size, ahem) That, on top of the fact that the actresses usually need to be drugged to be able to take the pain, the men need fluffers, and everything in between is so scripted and fake that it no longer resembles anything close to a real sexual situation. This can be very harmful for the sexual development of young people as pornography is the first and most abundant sexual experience they have as they are discovering themselves and their interests. The overwhelming amount of “overdone” pornography do lead some to not only believe that they are lacking in some way but can also lead to future dissatisfaction in their partners who cannot live up to the unrealistic standards that these fantasy films have created... leading them to revert back to their easily accessible film fetish instead of working on their issues and expectations with personal intimacy.
Like it or not, everything you experience shapes your views and behavior. Just like chick flicks can cause girls to expect unrealistic romance from their partners and get all uppity when you don't do it well or often enough, redtube may be turning you into a creepy sex-fiend that acts out.
We need someone to find out which MEPs requested the block...
So we can send them e-mails telling them that they're a discrace and resign with immediate effect.
...North Korea called.
They want their moral high ground back.
The US created a real nation. All the states joined, subservient to the federal government, and for all time (the civil war was over the issue of if you cold leave, answer is you can't). The states gave up their rights to act as independent actors in terms of diplomacy, war, and so on.
The EU is nothing of the sort. It is kinda a union, but the countries still retail independence. This can lead to problems simply in things like the Greece situation where a country can set economic policy, but not currency policy. There is some unification, but it is far short of a nation.
I could very well see the idea of the European nations unifying in to a larger country, but that isn't what the EU is or where it is going.
Asking IT to filter email from their constituents is sinking pretty low.
The bad news: North Korea has scrapped an armistace between it and the USA, and threatened to start nuclear war.
The worse news: The EU have proposed a blanket ban on all forms of pornography on all forms of media.
The bright side: We may all be dead before the EU passes its legislation.
If you gave me a choice between a printer and a giraffe with explosive diarrhoea, i'll get my ladder and my raincoat
Among other things Islam believes in: wife beating, female genital mutilation, polygamy, punishing female victims of rape, honor killings, alq divorce, and child marriages.
And EU is claiming to defend rights of women?
Welcome to bizaro world.
Any sufficiently left-wing policy is indistinguishable from a right-wing policy. The reverse is also true.
If you live in Europe, then I'd urge you to write to your MEP:
http://www.writetothem.com/
Possibly that's being blocked, so also search our their Facebook/Twitter/G+ accounts and post to there too. We've only got a limited amount of democratic process left, so I'm perplexed as to how they think that blocking their email server would serve the purpose for which they were elected... to represent us in Parliament.
When a woman is paid to wear little to advertise some people of crap, it is for exploiting men into buying shit they don't need.
> The exact statement is: "Calls on the EU and its Member States to take concrete action on its resolution of 16 September 1997 on discrimination against women in advertising, which called for a ban on all forms of pornography in the media and on the advertising of sex tourism"
Repeat: " which called for a ban on all forms of pornography in the media "
This would include advertising, but not be exclusive to advertising.
And Berlusconi wants Italy out of EU.
Porn in EU: You cannot live with it, and you cannot live without it.
Why would they do such a stupid thing? Fairly good chunk of internet traffic comes from that, probably somewhere between 5-10%, though nobody can claim really say exactly how much. At the same time, prostitution is legal in some EU countries, which is also OK. And all of this is really silly because even if they block porn sites from around the world, people will just bypass that by VPN service.
Read the interesting section
17. Calls on the EU and its Member States to take concrete action on its resolution of 16 September 1997 on discrimination against women in advertising, which called for a ban on all forms of pornography in the media and on the advertising of sex tourism
It calls on the EU to do something, which means more talk and talk :)
This, sounds like a call for concrete action, not an actual concrete action. There's a huge difference... Calls for action usually leads to discussion..
Whilst, I wouldn't be surprised if "the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality" wanted to take action against to ban porn, at least partially or in public spaces.
I seriously doubt European countries such as Denmark, the first country to legalize porn is going to ban it...
(One of the few things I can take "pride" in as a Danish citizen).
and do some serious downloading, just in case the bill gets passed.
(btw. it's not gonna pass; it would be more likely for Berlusconi to realy
see a jail from the inside)
There's an interesting documentary film about the porn industry called "9 to 5 Days in Porn". One lucrative career path for a female porn star is to make a few films to get name recognition and then become an expensive prostitute. Seems like there are a lot of guys out there who will pay a lot of money for the privilege of having sex with a "movie star".
It made me feel terrible about how exploited they were. Working a few hours per week and taking home solid 6-figure salaries. I'm sure many of them are just miserable and desperately waiting for their big opportunity to work behind the counter at Starbucks.
tsia
It's very backwards indeed, since apparently women in porn make far more then men. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pornographic_film_actor#Pay_rates
I see the rape statistics going through the roof after this.
All the sad lonely men, who can't get a girlfriend and have been satisfying their needs online, will start to satisfy their needs offline.
That will really help the femalekind.
In other posts, you refer to yourself as a gay man. In this post, you imply that you are actually a woman in the body of a man, but can't have the transgender surgery.
So, which is it? You can't be both. Or are you pretending to be one or the other, whenever it suits your argument?
I mean, seriously, good luck with that. I think they need to work on DEFINING it before considering banning it. That aught to take a while.
This law is not for PORNOGRAPHY , is for advertising and in TV spots , TV entertainment where lots of "bimbos" with "some tits" are all over the screen and some adverts on street. Is not about Internet Porn , it is about not putting stigma of sexuality on women. The same law apply for male that go nude on TV for "fun".
Is a end of things that you don`t see in "New York Times" , go google some european media sites and you will see 99% pornography and 1% information. Check the music videos 99% pornography 1% music and i don`t say about GAGA.
This law is needed.
Silence, peasant! Your laughable fantasies about your "rights" and how the elite class is meant to "represent" you are blasphemy. Obey and be a productive worker, and may be your masters will let you be for a while.
The thought of all of Europe having to masturbate to furry porn in a few months brings a smile to my face. We'll see how long that lasts...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I think the real problem with this kind of divisive feminism, is that really it not only suppresses things like free speech, but also eliminates -- very clearly -- the freedom of the individual. Which REDUCES women's rights, because last time I checked individuals were women too.
If you're a woman who is IN porn, or a woman who LIKES porn, or a woman who SHARES porn with their partner or any thing along those lines, how is this even remotely an expansion or protection of women's rights and freedoms?
Its not. Its a kind of intellectual fascism that eliminates the individual, hijacking their loss of freedom for a political party line. And this is not what a progressive society is about.
Pornography is unhealthy and, among other evils, makes men stop desiring their wives (because they are not willing to do the bizarre fantasies of their husbands).
Alcohol prohibition is impossible.
The tobacco industry falsified scientific data.
The solution found to both problems is explicit warnings very visible on every ads or products.
But they are imperative public health issues.
The link between porn's surrogated abuse and real violence is not scientifically provable
but it explicitely counter illustrate the facts of articles 2 3 4 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
It is about values so the problem for the EU parliament is to set up a propaganda at wide scale
- since the EU parliament is divided and the core idea of an achieved EU is fading in european population
- and since propaganda is easier for extremists than for an union for greater good
- and since in europe most efficient propagandas were for WWI and WWII, and not for civil rights mouvements for ex.
Voting warnings and advertise against porn abuses would affirm core european values worth fighting for
but everybody's short term interest is to let it be even for us geeks on slashdot thinking women not wanting sex is the main stereotype.
The IT department of the European Parliament is blocking the delivery of the emails on this issue, after some members of the parliament complained about getting emails from citizens."
How about making complaints about the improper behavior of the IT department, then. Send snail mail complaints as well.
And ask that the IT department be investigated for criminal wrongdoing (attempts to manipulate the outcome by illegally intercepting and destroying communications from constituents).
Because science instruction belongs in school and religious instruction does not.
The issue isn't whether religious instruction belongs in school. It's whether religious indoctrination belongs in PUBLIC school, where public funds are spent on it and attendance is mandatory (enforced by truancy laws) unless a government-approved substitute schooling is provided.
This violates the First Amendment, both by spending government money promoting one religion over another (which includes promoting religion over atheism or vice versa) and by mandating exposure.
Unfortunately, those trying stretch this into keeping the inmates of public schools from voluntarily performing non-disruptive rituals of their religion, or even talking about it, are ignoring the second part of the Constitutional prescription:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;
Please stop pretending these things are equal
Dead on!
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I bet that internet porn started this whole sexism thing in the first place.
There is, however, one major advantage of being a well off white male: cops are afraid of you. This country still battles racism, and will continue to do so as long as 1) the police and court systems treat the poor, blacks, and Hispanics unequally ...
Note, by the way, that one of the ways they are treated unequally is that a white person who is actually tried and convicted of murder is substantially more likely to receive the death penalty than those of other ethnicities with the circumstances of the crime otherwise similar. This is true even (especially) if the judge and jury are all or predominantly white. (Perhaps white males are held - including especially by other white males, to a higher standard when it comes to murder, or perhaps only the real scumbags get convicted.)
The disproportionately high death penalty rate, per population, for people of other ethnicities, is the result of dominance of other stages of the process: Commission, successful investigation, accusation, arrest, plea bargaining, successful prosecution, etc.
(Note that I make no comment on how much of this may be the result of differential crime commission rates among people of different cultures and how much is the result of bias by the operators of the processes.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
"blocking the delivery of the emails on this issue, after some members of the parliament complained about getting emails from citizens"
Oh no! our constituents are trying to contact us! Make them stop!
I hate Barbie for personal reasons not germane to this discussion but this
is unwarranted.
My sister grew up with Barbie. She's exactly the age that was the target demo when the doll was introduced. She loved Barbie because Barbie could do anything. Barbie was a pilot and a flight attendant. Barbie was a businesswoman and a housewife. Barbie was an astronaut, fer chrissakes. And at whatever she did, Barbie was successful, earning enough scratch to afford her own dream house and Corvette.
So the lesson my sis learned was that you could look like a bimbo but still succeed in life on whatever terms you dictated, whether you chose to go head to head with the men or not. Genetically, she didn't have the looks but she darn well knew ('cuz Barbie has set such a good example) that she could do anything a man could do. After she outgrew dolls, she majored in mathmatics when she went off to her university, wound up with a job in federal law enforcement, rose to the executive suites, and ended her career doing very high-level research on legal compliance trends before she retired.
To this day, she credits Barbie with teaching her that women can achieve whatever they want.
Of course, I used to steal her dolls and shoot off their heads with a pellet rifle...but that's another story.
They are basically attempting to do what the extremely conservative Islamists are doing already - eradicating women from public view. No women used for advertising and no women in the news.
It will only be a matter of time before they want women to be Photoshopped from news pictures as well. Or they will have to wear burkas or similar. There are actually places where they'll even remove a female head of state in pictures from an official visit. I remember a picture with the White House staff following the Seal Team Six killing Osama Bin Laden. There were two female in the original picture, including Hilary Clinton, and they were both removed from both the picture and the caption.
Some might say that they just want the women to be more conservatively dressed but that's a slippery slope ending in burkas.
Oh, and double standards are rampant in that community - an ad featuring the silhouette of a naked woman behind a semi-opaque glass wall caused an uproar but a similar ad featuring a naked man caused absolutely nothing. The two ads are here (NSFW): http://www.denstoredanske.dk/@api/deki/files/25654/=463791.501.jpg?size=webview - it's only a naked women that's pornography... despite both pictures featuring full frontal nudity, including genitals.
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
Who the hell do they think they are to decide what you or I can or can't see. What somes after that?
And who defines it?
Now comes the fun part of defining "porn"
1 Modeling videos/pictures ...
2 tv shows in hot climates
3 store catalogs where they have people modeling the clothes
4 Dance Art (and related Art)
5
and how do you handle things like the model/artist AGE (does something become Porn if the model is under say 21/11??)
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
If it was rape it was a good rape.
I wonder if a "good rape" is a legitimate rape?
"which includes promoting religion over atheism or vice versa"
Atheism it not a religion, it is what you have left without a religion. Teaching science is not promoting atheism. It is teaching a functional model that successfully predicts outcomes in genetics.
And yet America has some of the strongest traditions of individual freedoms in the world, that's just uncanny...
I don't know the law in question, but I don't know if it would be a good idea to outright ban pornography (Streissand effect). I could be better to regulate and restrict it, so that people who really want it would get it all the same, but undecided people would not be enticed to fall for it.
For example, pornographic books should be required to be shrink-wrapped, have boring covers (black letters on a white background, no images, and a technical description of the content such as "features sadomasochism"), be sold in stores away from schools, in the back of the store in a section clearly labeled "pornography".
"7. Calls on the Member States to recognise the urgent need to consider the introduction of a regulatory framework which prohibits the way girls and women are displayed as sexual objects by the alcohol industry;"
HMMMM hey Maybe we should make em' wear Burkas.
What ever happened to my body my choice or dose that only count is that only for things that feminist's agree with ?
I actually have some insider knowledge and porn is dead, long live niche porn. Running a successful porn company is about finding a niche to serve where customers WANT to pay you, WANT to be part of your club. And this can be anything from the playboy logo to a porn site so niche even rule 34 doesn't apply, except it does because you are making it.
It is all about community after all it seems. Generic porn is sold for cents per gigabyte, you can easily setup your own site buying content in bulk if you so wish. And then you will be competing against the countless free sources, legal and non-legal. The "problem" porn faces is staying power, the simply fact is that the average person consuming porn for the most obvious reason, doesn't need a lot of it, nor needs it in high quality. You can jack off to a scrambled porn channel... never mind how I know.
Movie trailers work by teasing you to see the whole movie, A 3 minute porn trailer is... well three times longer then I need... eh... some guys need. I heard.
So running a successful porn site is NOT about jack off time but about time before and afterwards, getting the user to buy into your vision/salespitch/lifestyle/whatever. The simplest is the playboy logo, you may snigger about it, but Playboy sells merchandise and they can do that because some people buy into the idea that the bunny logo represents something they want to be associated with.
For playboy, the worsed customer is the one who just uses the magazine to whank. They want the customer who buys into the playboy idea. It is the reason Playboy still hangs on. Even Hustler does it, they are far more then just whank mags, that is why all these pages with words on them are between the pictures of naked women. Subscribe to Hustler and you are broadcasting to the world who you are... a whanker.
It is this idea of a community, this is part of who I am, that is hard to pirate and that people are willing to pay for. Big bucks even. Porn site subscriptions ain't cheap by any means, many cost more then HBO.
It is the sites that manage to sell an idea, that do well... of course that is still relative. Porn pays but the days you could get filthy rich for little work are over. There are just to many people fishing in the same pond. Part of the problem is the industry itself, it produces to much. ONE playboy mag per month has a certain exclusivity, but they have got a dozen versions per month. It sells but it removes the club feeling. Porn users always want something new but you should keep people hungry. The internet and the porn industry have worked together that the users are no longer hungry, there is always porn out there. Except in niches, there you still got to wait for a new release... and for that people still pay.
It is very interesting to watch because porn is a fast moving industry so what happens there, will happen elsewhere... HBO anyone? A channel only producing high quality, slowly with programs you got to wait for? And people WANT to pay for it, beg to pay for it (watch its adoption rate in Europe as it finally is becoming available).
Who knew that customers want to pay for exclusive quality... oh wait... Anyone who sells exclusive quality.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
And slavery allowed western Europe to get filthy rich and build the US. So why end it?
The world changes, you want to keep an open Internet, you need to come up with a good reason why it should continue to do so.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
In the post above, replace "atheists" with "sexual permissive".
"open-minded" has become an euphemism for "slut", which it shouldn't be.
You know very well I corrected the "atheism" part. When I wrote that, I was thinking of those arrogant atheists who call themselves "freethinkers" or "brights".
Then 5 seconds later I realized I had expressed myself poorly, because, the way I wrote, it looked as if there were no non-"freethinking" atheists. (I don't object to the word "freethinker" per se, I object to the arrogant Dawkins worldview that atheists are "more rational" or "think more freely" than theists). And this is precisely that sort of judgmental arrogance that I criticize on "freethinkers". This is what corrections are for, and you chose to completely ignore my correction.
And regarding euphemism: intellectual honesty compels you to use the expression "sexually permissive" and not "open minded". By using the term "open-minded", you imply that chaste people are "closed minded", and you have zero arguments for that.
"Open minded" is not supposed to mean "a person who strictly adheres to Open Minded(TM) beliefs". And this is, unfortunately, what the word is used for most of the time.
The Republican Party went from being about strong defense and lower taxes (*) to being hijacked by the extreme right.
Now they appear to stand for racism and for utterly destroying any social safety net in this country for the less fortunate or for seniors, and for eliminating government except for prisons and weapons.
In general, as an organization gets more extreme, moderates leave, which makes it more extreme, etc, etc.
When people refer to the President of the United States as "that black guy in the White House" (over 2 MILLION hits on Google for that phrase as of now!) or even by the N-word (bordering on treason), you know things have gotten bad.
(*) And Obama, unlike many of those before him, has actually accomplished those 2 items.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
Ban porn? I'm sorry good ladies and lords of the EU, but that's not how the internet works. Porn is actually a sophisticated data packet format that is used to efficiently encode messages that travel through the global tube network. The side effect however is that if you run the encoded packets through a video processor, you get hot teen girl-on-girl action or horny milfs. Without porn, there would be no internet.