Moderated What's wrong with porn?

[sugarb]

I would re-word this. There is an emotional component to wanting to protect free speech. There is an emotional component to pass laws prohibiting murder.

I've never said that fear shouldn't have any bearing. That said, perceived harm cannot be the case in chief.

"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety deserve neither Liberty nor Safety".

The police could reduce crime by taking away many of our rights. The right against illegal search and seizure. The right against self incrimination. The right to due process.

YES! Someone earlier made the point that freedom is not usually lost in one fell swoop. It starts out by getting us to give up freedoms for things we don't care about.

Yes, my wording was poor, thank you. I think, RandFan, that sometimes it would benefit us to pause and think about why we fight for things we don't care about if those things themselves are what threaten government having to intervene on what we seem to care about the most.

 

[JFrankA]

RandFan...wouldn't it be equally reasonable to say that the only reason some might care about banning VCP is because they're concerned about free speech, meaning there is also an emotional component (the fear of losing it), and isn't that also generically called "fear"?

If a person cares not a whit about VCP one way or another, but enters a debate for one side or the other (assuming one is having to choose sides, which is where this seems to have gone...to absolutes), then there is the emotional element of fear, on BOTH sides.

JFrankA talked earlier about paranoia, which, loosely, is fear. Fear of what? Losing the right to have adult pornography through banning child pornography (of all kinds). That is just as much fear, which leads to being just as irrational, as wanting something only because of fear for children.

There is, although it was mocked earlier, truth in there being many issues that our government prohibits us from exercising free speech within the context of. I used discrimination earlier, and was told that it didn't involve thought. But it does. As much as pornography involves thought. There has to be a thought before there can be an action, or no one is really defending anything to begin with. A business owner can discriminate against a woman, as an example, without actually harming a woman. He just refuses her a job. It doesn't harm her physically, it doesn't prohibit her from seeking employment elsewhere, it does nothing to hurt HER, an individual...but we have laws in place giving her the recourse to sue if she believes (more thought) that someone has discriminated against her based on gender. The burden of proof there falls on the employer who has harmed no one, for "real". Just in theory, and not in theory in a way that everyone agrees with.

Perhaps a better example: hostile work environments and sexual harassment. Group of guys in an auto mechanic shop (so cliche, I know) have a pinup calendar on the wall. Gal gets a job there, the calendar doesn't hurt her, it doesn't depict her, it doesn't threaten her directly...but she "feels" like it does...and can sue, therefore. She has recourse if she feels offended (thought, no real harm), and most people would agree that, because historically women have had to fight to gain access to traditionally male employment, the pinup calendar creates a hostile work environment.

I simply don't feel that this is a fear on one side issue. Is it rational, for example, to fear losing freedom of speech simply because we ban one entire genre (child pornography) of pornography? Is that really rational? And aren't those arguments (we start here, then they go after you, then they go after me, blah blah blah) ALSO fear based???

You're right. I am fearful but not the way you think.

Right now, I am not governed by it. There isn't a bunch of people who is looking over my shoulder at everything I do to make sure I am "in line" with what they think is the way I should be.

What I am fearful of is that that is what is going to happen.

And the people who want that to happen will use "be afraid of this or that" as a way to wedge that mentality in.

 

[JFrankA]

I would re-word this. There is an emotional component to wanting to protect free speech. There is an emotional component to pass laws prohibiting murder.

I've never said that fear shouldn't have any bearing. That said, perceived harm cannot be the case in chief.

"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety deserve neither Liberty nor Safety".

The police could reduce crime by taking away many of our rights. The right against illegal search and seizure. The right against self incrimination. The right to due process.

YES! Someone earlier made the point that freedom is not usually lost in one fell swoop. It starts out by getting us to give up freedoms for things we don't care about.

Sheesh!! I spent a long time writing and rewriting what I wanted to say in response and you do it record time and much better than I ever could've.

 

[porch]

Ideas can be powerful, but I'm not afraid of them. I'm not afraid of thoughts or imagination, and I'm not afraid of words, images or playacting. By some definitions, I engaged in a viewing of virtual child porn just a few weeks ago, along with a couple thousand other people, when I went to a GWAR concert. That poor baby (puppet) was undeniably violated in myriad ways.

An act like GWAR is, at least to me, obviously satirical. It may be over-the-top shock shlock, but I don't think the onus should ever fall on the creator of imaginative works to prove that they're art, let alone good art. Not when the penalty is criminal charges, anyhow . If you think it's inconceivable for obscenity laws to be used to arrest an artist for something that it would be difficult to classify as pornography, I invite you to look at the case from recent American history of Mike Diana. http://www.cbldf.org/casefiles/diana.shtml Part of his sentence was that for two years, police were allowed to enter and search his home at any time to ensure that he wasn't making the wrong kind of drawings. That's something I find scary.

Not too long ago, we had the whole Little Sister's v. Canada ordeal. There were two major premises at work that led to a whole lot of dumb crap. 1) That some kinds of pornography are inherently harmful, and 2) the definition of obscenity rests on somebody's subjective judgment of a work's artistic merit. What ended up happening, anti-porn laws that were supposed to protect women from the oppression of men were used to seize (and eventually burn!) lesbian BDSM books, while mainstream "hardcore" porn freely made it across the border. A health information book destined for the queer bookstore, The Joy of Gay Sex, was seized (it talked about buttsex), while The Joy of Sex (also including buttsex) was was distributed in major retail chains. Can information be obscene? It can by law, if that's what we want. If we let it, all it takes is one person with a bee up their bonnet.

 

[tesscaline]

You've not been to SA have you. A man wearing a burkha and pretending to be a woman really would not be a smart move! But plenty of women right here next door wear them (you really should see the up-market burkha boutiques here - those sequins and jewel-encrusted collars and cuffs must cost an absolute mint!). Even if I could afford one I have to say, the idea has never really crossed my mind, just like the idea of wearing a bikini by the pool instead of surfer shorts hasn't. My wife's bought one though. Takes pride of place in her wardrobe along with her ball gowns and summer frocks.

Those are Sari's not Burkhas... Totally different things from totally different cultures with totally different purposes...

 

[fuelair]

Those are Sari's not Burkhas... Totally different things from totally different cultures with totally different purposes...

Point and match for the costume competition!

 

[MontagK505]

<snip>


I don't believe that "disagree with

" is a correct reference. Perhaps you could remind where I stated so.
<snip>

Post #1810
Southwind17:

No need to re-read sugarb - I'll clarify. Yes - I strongly believe that all child pornography should be banned, but ONLY in the context of a clear definition or test of what "child pornography" comprises. Whether that makes it prior restraint, the realm of obscenity laws or whatever, frankly, I couldn't give a flying proverbial. Anybody who supports child pornography per se, and who isn't prepared to support a legitimate, workable and fair way to ban it is tantamount to endorsing it so far as I'm concerned, and hence almost as despicable as those who actually produce it - real or virtual.
You're right, disagree is not the word you used.
However, anyone who doesn't support you is unlikely to agree with you.
Most posters on this thread don't support the idea that VCP is the same as real child porn. And, the reasons have been spelled out repeatedly.

Note the last part “real or virtual”, In one mighty blow you've lumped everyone into the same group of people who would actually rape a child for entertainment purposes.

I think that's an insult and based on the tone of other posts you made, you intended it as an insult.

 

[JFrankA]

Ideas can be powerful, but I'm not afraid of them. I'm not afraid of thoughts or imagination, and I'm not afraid of words, images or playacting. By some definitions, I engaged in a viewing of virtual child porn just a few weeks ago, along with a couple thousand other people, when I went to a GWAR concert. That poor baby (puppet) was undeniably violated in myriad ways.

An act like GWAR is, at least to me, obviously satirical. It may be over-the-top shock shlock, but I don't think the onus should ever fall on the creator of imaginative works to prove that they're art, let alone good art. Not when the penalty is criminal charges, anyhow . If you think it's inconceivable for obscenity laws to be used to arrest an artist for something that it would be difficult to classify as pornography, I invite you to look at the case from recent American history of Mike Diana. http://www.cbldf.org/casefiles/diana.shtml Part of his sentence was that for two years, police were allowed to enter and search his home at any time to ensure that he wasn't making the wrong kind of drawings. That's something I find scary.

Not too long ago, we had the whole Little Sister's v. Canada ordeal. There were two major premises at work that led to a whole lot of dumb crap. 1) That some kinds of pornography are inherently harmful, and 2) the definition of obscenity rests on somebody's subjective judgment of a work's artistic merit. What ended up happening, anti-porn laws that were supposed to protect women from the oppression of men were used to seize (and eventually burn!) lesbian BDSM books, while mainstream "hardcore" porn freely made it across the border. A health information book destined for the queer bookstore, The Joy of Gay Sex, was seized (it talked about buttsex), while The Joy of Sex (also including buttsex) was was distributed in major retail chains. Can information be obscene? It can by law, if that's what we want. If we let it, all it takes is one person with a bee up their bonnet.

Once again, said much better than I could say it.

 

[MontagK505]

Ideas can be powerful, but I'm not afraid of them. I'm not afraid of thoughts or imagination, and I'm not afraid of words, images or playacting. By some definitions, I engaged in a viewing of virtual child porn just a few weeks ago, along with a couple thousand other people, when I went to a GWAR concert. That poor baby (puppet) was undeniably violated in myriad ways.

An act like GWAR is, at least to me, obviously satirical. It may be over-the-top shock shlock, but I don't think the onus should ever fall on the creator of imaginative works to prove that they're art, let alone good art. Not when the penalty is criminal charges, anyhow . If you think it's inconceivable for obscenity laws to be used to arrest an artist for something that it would be difficult to classify as pornography, I invite you to look at the case from recent American history of Mike Diana. http://www.cbldf.org/casefiles/diana.shtml Part of his sentence was that for two years, police were allowed to enter and search his home at any time to ensure that he wasn't making the wrong kind of drawings. That's something I find scary.

Not too long ago, we had the whole Little Sister's v. Canada ordeal. There were two major premises at work that led to a whole lot of dumb crap. 1) That some kinds of pornography are inherently harmful, and 2) the definition of obscenity rests on somebody's subjective judgment of a work's artistic merit. What ended up happening, anti-porn laws that were supposed to protect women from the oppression of men were used to seize (and eventually burn!) lesbian BDSM books, while mainstream "hardcore" porn freely made it across the border. A health information book destined for the queer bookstore, The Joy of Gay Sex, was seized (it talked about buttsex), while The Joy of Sex (also including buttsex) was was distributed in major retail chains. Can information be obscene? It can by law, if that's what we want. If we let it, all it takes is one person with a bee up their bonnet.

I read about this in Gauntlet magazine some time in the late 90's. I thought the guys comics were grotesque. As I recall one of the art expert witnesses for the DA stated that while the defendant was a artist, what he produced wasn't art.

Now that's grotesque.

 

[RandFan]

Ideas can be powerful, but I'm not afraid of them. I'm not afraid of thoughts or imagination, and I'm not afraid of words, images or playacting. By some definitions, I engaged in a viewing of virtual child porn just a few weeks ago, along with a couple thousand other people, when I went to a GWAR concert. That poor baby (puppet) was undeniably violated in myriad ways.

An act like GWAR is, at least to me, obviously satirical. It may be over-the-top shock shlock, but I don't think the onus should ever fall on the creator of imaginative works to prove that they're art, let alone good art. Not when the penalty is criminal charges, anyhow . If you think it's inconceivable for obscenity laws to be used to arrest an artist for something that it would be difficult to classify as pornography, I invite you to look at the case from recent American history of Mike Diana. http://www.cbldf.org/casefiles/diana.shtml Part of his sentence was that for two years, police were allowed to enter and search his home at any time to ensure that he wasn't making the wrong kind of drawings. That's something I find scary.

Not too long ago, we had the whole Little Sister's v. Canada ordeal. There were two major premises at work that led to a whole lot of dumb crap. 1) That some kinds of pornography are inherently harmful, and 2) the definition of obscenity rests on somebody's subjective judgment of a work's artistic merit. What ended up happening, anti-porn laws that were supposed to protect women from the oppression of men were used to seize (and eventually burn!) lesbian BDSM books, while mainstream "hardcore" porn freely made it across the border. A health information book destined for the queer bookstore, The Joy of Gay Sex, was seized (it talked about buttsex), while The Joy of Sex (also including buttsex) was was distributed in major retail chains. Can information be obscene? It can by law, if that's what we want. If we let it, all it takes is one person with a bee up their bonnet.

My thanks to JFrankA and MontagK505. I missed this post.

Great post. Thanks.

BTW: This reminds me of the infamous Louie Louie afair in which the FBI investigated whether or not the Kingsman version of the song was obscene (they did what?).

It was then determined that if it's not clear that words spoken or sung are obscene then there is no basis for charges (sometimes reason floats to the top).

 

[MontagK505]

My thanks to JFrankA and MontagK505. I missed this post.Great post. Thanks.

BTW: This reminds me of the infamous Louie Louie afair in which the FBI investigated whether or not the Kingsman version of the song was obscene (they did what?).

It was then determined that if it's not clear that words spoken or sung are obscene then there is no basis for charges (sometimes reason floats to the top).

Are you thanking us because you missed it?

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

"sometimes reason floats to the top"
Sometimes less desirable things float with it. The skill set is telling one from the other. Reasonable is not always the same as Reason.

 

[Southwind17]

I think you've hit on something there. So there is no freedom there for men to wear burkha's and women not to?

Have you seen many men wearing bikinis walking through your suburb lately?!

Yet western clothing catches on in many Islamic nations for non westerners but the reverse cannot be said.

Yes - it's strange how modernity seems to be tenaciously irreversible, isn't it!

You should get her one.

She doesn't want two. One is enough!

 

[Southwind17]

I honestly think you're self-imploding RandFan - I really do!

This is just rhetoric.

 

[Southwind17]

RandFan...wouldn't it be equally reasonable to say that the only reason some might care about banning VCP is because they're concerned about free speech, meaning there is also an emotional component (the fear of losing it), and isn't that also generically called "fear"?
If a person cares not a whit about VCP one way or another, but enters a debate for one side or the other (assuming one is having to choose sides, which is where this seems to have gone...to absolutes), then there is the emotional element of fear, on BOTH sides.
JFrankA talked earlier about paranoia, which, loosely, is fear. Fear of what? Losing the right to have adult pornography through banning child pornography (of all kinds). That is just as much fear, which leads to being just as irrational, as wanting something only because of fear for children.
There is, although it was mocked earlier, truth in there being many issues that our government prohibits us from exercising free speech within the context of. I used discrimination earlier, and was told that it didn't involve thought. But it does. As much as pornography involves thought. There has to be a thought before there can be an action, or no one is really defending anything to begin with. A business owner can discriminate against a woman, as an example, without actually harming a woman. He just refuses her a job. It doesn't harm her physically, it doesn't prohibit her from seeking employment elsewhere, it does nothing to hurt HER, an individual...but we have laws in place giving her the recourse to sue if she believes (more thought) that someone has discriminated against her based on gender. The burden of proof there falls on the employer who has harmed no one, for "real". Just in theory, and not in theory in a way that everyone agrees with.
Perhaps a better example: hostile work environments and sexual harassment. Group of guys in an auto mechanic shop (so cliche, I know) have a pinup calendar on the wall. Gal gets a job there, the calendar doesn't hurt her, it doesn't depict her, it doesn't threaten her directly...but she "feels" like it does...and can sue, therefore. She has recourse if she feels offended (thought, no real harm), and most people would agree that, because historically women have had to fight to gain access to traditionally male employment, the pinup calendar creates a hostile work environment.
I simply don't feel that this is a fear on one side issue. Is it rational, for example, to fear losing freedom of speech simply because we ban one entire genre (child pornography) of pornography? Is that really rational? And aren't those arguments (we start here, then they go after you, then they go after me, blah blah blah) ALSO fear based???

Great post sugarb - and much thought and effort expended, I'm sure. What a shame it's essentially only been met with "Mmm ... whatever ... moving swiftly on."! I've found the same here. The more comprehensive and thought-provoking the anti-VCP argument the more ill-considered the retorsion. I'm sure there's a message there somewhere! Possibly "What did you expect from a bunch of absolutists?!" Regardless, as I say, great post.

 

[Southwind17]

Well you know what my reasoning is. I'm desperately hoping you don't claim that you don't!

Speculation, bias and appeal to emotion.

• Children are statistically likely to be harmed by VCP (there is a perceived threat).
• VCP is disgusting and no one should defend it.
• Our concern for children should be greater than any concern of loss of freedom for perverts.

Well I suppose you didn't claim that you don't know (I wonder - is claiming to not know and not knowing one and the same? I suppose it is, if you really don't know! )

 

[Southwind17]

Bull hockey. You cited fear as an impetus for the laws. As you've mentioned in tedious repetition you are quite "precise" about what you say. The antecedent and dependent of this construct are very clear.
And just in case there is some inclination on your part to continue a pointless denial of your intent there are other statements you have made in this part of the discussion reinforcing that exact intent. For example,
Okay. I "read back". We've "read back".
Explain to me in more detail about how I'm "misguided" about what you said and what you meant.

If you cannot comprehend that what I've written and, ironically, those extracts that you've chosen to quote(!), is not intended exclusively, then I'm afraid you're appealing to the wrong person for help here. Just the words "Things like fear" [emphasis added], which you've even highlighted(!), serve as sufficient proof.
Top Tip: spectacles are invariably less expensive than English tutorage and can actually improve your looks to boot!

 

[Southwind17]

I do. And I'm sorry. It's based on fear.

No need to apologize in advance! I'd say "reasoned concern" would be more accurate.

The sexual urge is not strong enough to make someone lose control.

... said Bill just as Monica dropped to her knees!

If one believes that sexual arousal is that strong, then one can also argue that anger is too, or love, or jealousy, or sorrow, hell all the emotions would be able to do that. But no matter what emotion a person is feeling, the decision to act or not act is still that person's decision. To say that sexual arousal is so strong one can't control one's self is nothing but a cop-out of one's own responsibility.

So Bill Clinton simply decided to jeapordize his presidency, political career and marriage. That seems somewhat "irresponsible" (or is foolishness a valid defense?!)! Wake up and smell the coffee JFrankA.

I'm sorry. Both of your stances are wrong and both are based on fear.

Again - no need to apologize in advance.

 

[Southwind17]

Those are Sari's not Burkhas... Totally different things from totally different cultures with totally different purposes...

I believe you're thinking of a different shop ... maybe the one in Dana Mall. I'm referring to A'Ali Mall, level 3, just before Emirates Airlines on the left?

 

[Southwind17]

You're right, disagree is not the word you used.

Thank you.

 

[Southwind17]

Once again, said much better than I could say it.