Definition 0f Pornography
Dr. Jacqueline Thomason
Radical feminist Diana Russell distinguishes between pornography and
erotica this way:
"I define pornography as material that combines sex and/or the exposure
ofgenitals with abuse or degradation in a manner that appears to
endorse,condone, or encourage such behavior"
"Erotica refers to sexually suggestive or arousing material that is free
of sexism,racism, and homophobia, and respectful of all human beings and
animals portrayed."
These distinctions do not lead to the problems that some newsgroup
writers have mentioned. Their use allows Dr. Russell to isolate
pornographic material and to anaylze the impacts on women and men. She
argues that pornography, as she defines it, is harmful to women and to
men.
See her book Pornography: The Evidence of Harm for a discussion of the
causal role of pornography (as she defines it) in rape and other abuse
of women.
Her home page is at http://www.mills.edu/ACAD_INFO/emeritus_russell.html
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Daniel B. Holzman
In article <33CD4E...@sirius.com>,
Dr. Jacqueline Thomason <jac...@sirius.com> wrote:
>Radical feminist Diana Russell distinguishes between pornography and
>erotica this way:
>
>"I define pornography as material that combines sex and/or the exposure
>ofgenitals with abuse or degradation in a manner that appears to
>endorse,condone, or encourage such behavior"
>
>"Erotica refers to sexually suggestive or arousing material that is free
>of sexism,racism, and homophobia, and respectful of all human beings and
>animals portrayed."
>
>These distinctions do not lead to the problems that some newsgroup
>writers have mentioned.
They most certainly do.
Just to review, this is Russel's formulation of "I like erotica, you like
pornography." That aside, "abuse or degradation" is a largely subjective
evaluation. It doesn't address the fact that different people find
different things degrading, that different people will not find the same
thing degradng. Let alone that different people enjoy what they percieve
as degradation to different extents -- or not.
It's an excellent tool for Russel to talk about her personal experience
with pornography, but useless as an objective tool.
--
Daniel B. Holzman -- Love does not subtract, it multiplies. -- All acts of love
and pleasure are Her rituals. -- An it Harm none, do what you Will. -- They
took my name and stole my heritage, but they didn't get my goat. -- The
word is all of us. -- Remember the Twelth Commandment and keep it Wholly.
Edward A. Falk
In article <33CD4E...@sirius.com>,
Dr. Jacqueline Thomason <jac...@sirius.com> wrote:
>Radical feminist Diana Russell distinguishes between pornography and
>erotica this way:
>
>"I define pornography as material that combines sex and/or the exposure
>ofgenitals with abuse or degradation in a manner that appears to
>endorse,condone, or encourage such behavior"
>
I read her web page. She includes Playboy in her list of pornographic
magazines. If Playboy is pornographic, then I have to wonder what
*isn't*.
This is a common ploy of pro-censorship advocates. They claim that
they only want to censor the most obscene/degrading/unholy/whatever
kind of images, but if you can manage to get specifics out of them,
it turns out that they want to censor everything.
There is a very famous photograph of noted anti-porn feminists
standing on stage and publicly shredding a copy of Madonna's book
"Sex". Catherine MacKinnon once had a feminist-produced documentary
on prostitutes labeled as pornography and banned from a symposium
on prostitution. Andrea Dworkin had "A Woman's Book Of Choices"
censored because she felt that one chapter would be harmful to
women.
Always look beyond the definitions of pornography offerred by
pro-censorship advocates and look at what would really get censored
in real life if they had their way.
--
-ed falk, sun microsystems -- fa...@sun.com ***************
If there's ever a nuclear holocaust, the only things *****#*********
left alive afterward will be cockroaches and spammers **#*#*********
-- Dan Gillmor, Mercury News ***F******!***
--
P. Werner
falc...@best.com (Edward A. Falk) writes:
>I read her web page. She includes Playboy in her list of pornographic
>magazines. If Playboy is pornographic, then I have to wonder what
>*isn't*.
I hardly think that you need to be anti-porn to say that the photo layouts
in Playboy are pornographic; its just softcore rather than hardcore porn,
but its stroke material just as much as any Dark Brothers video.
That said, I agree with you that the whole pornography/erotica distinction
is a subjective and rather useless one. IMO, "erotic" and "pornographic"
are just adjectives for describing different qualities of sexually
oriented materials; the degree that something is pornographic has to do
with the physicality and amount of explicitness of the presentation, while
eroticism has to do with the mental and emotional aspects of sex. Good sex
is stimulating to both the body and the mind and good sexual materials
should do likewise; unfortunately, by creating the ossified categories of
"pornography" and "erotica", we end up with material that only focuses on
one side of sex. Hence, there's plenty of erotica which is all about
feelings and metaphors, but steers clear of the actual physical act (and
often steers clear of the body entirely) and plenty of pornography that
shows the act in copious detail, but the sex has a very fake unfeeling
quality to it. In both cases, what you end up with is pretty boring.
Pornography, erotica, or whatever you want to call it, doesn't have to be
this way, but that's what were stuck with as long as we take "erotica" and
"pornography" to be two mutually exclusive categories, and Steinem,
Russell, etc. are doing a real disservice in trying to keep this division
going. I think that Anais Nin in "Delta of Venus" did a good job of
breaking down this barrier, but that was a good 50 years ago, and good
pornerotica is still hard to find.
Peter
--
The academic left is neither.
Elisabeth Anne Riba
DEFINITION OF PORN:
Dr. Jacqueline Thomason (jac...@sirius.com) wrote:
: Radical feminist Diana Russell distinguishes between pornography and
: erotica this way:
: "I define pornography as material that combines sex and/or the exposure
: endorse, condone, or encourage such behavior"
: "Erotica refers to sexually suggestive or arousing material that is free
: animals portrayed."
: These distinctions do not lead to the problems that some newsgroup
: writers have mentioned.
I've read the excerpts from Dr. Russell's web pages (the local
library did not have her book in stock) and I still see the same
problems with her definitions.
Dr. Russell's distinctions allow no exceptions for artistic or
educational merit. The Supreme Court's three-pronged test for
obscenity allows exceptions for items of "literary, artistic,
political or scientific value."
Therefore, most sex manuals will now be classified as pornography,
if they provide any information on emotional and physical safety in
consensual BDSM.
Likewise, the determination of what is sexist, racist, etc. is
extremely subjective. Dr. Russell includes in her definition of
sexism: "The definition's requirement of non-sexism means that the
following types of material qualify as pornography rather than
erotica: sexually arousing images in which women are consistently
shown naked while men are clothed."
That means that Manet's painting "Luncheon on the Grass" or "The
Judgment of Paris" qualify as pornography.
You may say that these are nitpicky exceptions, but if we can't
clearly define what is and is not pornography, then how can we draw
any conclusions, or write legislation? Dr. Russell belittles this
idea, by saying "the difficulty of defining pornography is a strategy
employed by its apologists in their efforts to derail their opponents
by making their work appear futile."
To see the wrongs that a vague definition can inflict, look at the
mixed applications of Canada's anti-pornography law. Canadian customs
barred the Kama Sutra but allowed Madonna's Sex; they've blocked
Hothead Paisan, but permitted American Psycho. Books with powerful
backers (popular titles, or ones by the larger, mainstream publishing
houses) can get through. Books that go against the mainstream
(i.e. feminist, gay and lesbian literature) are blocked.
A longer list of banned works is available at
http://insight.mcmaster.ca/org/efc/pages/chronicle/customs.html)
CAUSALITY OF PORN:
: She argues that pornography, as she defines it, is harmful to
: women and to men. See her book Pornography: The Evidence of Harm
: for a discussion of the causal role of pornography (as she defines
: it) in rape and other abuse of women.
I've been reading her web pages carefully. She theorizes that
pornography causes rape, but in her web page she carefully
prevaricates on the definition of "cause" I'll try to paraphrase her
arguments, but I recommend you read the full text to get all the
details.
On http://www.mills.edu/ACAD_INFO/emeritus_russell.excerpt08.html,
Dr. Russell defines simple causation. In brief, something is a simple
cause if X always precedes and results in Y. If X occurs, Y always
follows and Y will never happen without X.
Dr. Russell says: "By this definition, pornography clearly does not
cause rape, as it seems safe to assume that some pornography consumers
do not rape women, and that many rapes are unrelated to pornography."
THIS IS AN EXTREMELY IMPORTANT STATEMENT. Not all readers of
pornography rape, and not all rapists read pornography. Therefore,
pornography does not cause rape. Then, after this admission,
Dr. Russell brings in the concept of multiple causation (same page):
"With the conception of MULTIPLE CAUSATION, various possible causes
may be seen for a given event, any one of which may be a sufficient
but not necessary condition for the occurrence of the effect, or a
necessary but not sufficient condition. In the case of multiple
causation, then, the given effect may occur in the absence of all but
one of the possible sufficient but not necessary causes; and,
conversely, the given effect would not follow the occurrence of some
but not all of the various necessary but not sufficient causes."
Therefore, because SOME rapists read pornography, pornography is a
cause of rape. This is not causation, it's correlation. In fact, she
admits as much on
http://www.mills.edu/ACAD_INFO/emeritus_russell.excerpt13.html:
"While correlation does not prove causation, and it therefore cannot
be concluded from these studies that it was the consumption of the
pornography that was responsible for the males' higher acceptance of
violence against women, their findings are consistent with a theory
that a causal connection exists."
CAUSALITY OF OTHER MATERIAL:
Even if there were proof of causality (rather than just
correlation), that is insufficient reason for censorship. In 1979,
The British Committee on Obscenity and Film Censorship wrote "For
those who are susceptible to them, the stimuli to aggressive behavior
are all around us." Criminals have blamed their misdeeds on
everything from Twinkies to Taxi Driver; is it any wonder they'd
rather claim porn "made them do it" rather than accept responsibility?
In her book, Defending Pornography, Nadine Strossen states:
"Were we to ban words or images on the grounds that they had incited
some susceptible individuals to commit crimes, the Bible would be in
great jeopardy. No other work has more often been blamed for more
heinous crimes by the perpetrators of such crimes. The Bible has been
named as the instigating or justifying factor for many individual and
mass crimes, ranging from the religious wars, inquisitions, witch
burnings, and pogroms of earlier eras to systematic child abuse and
ritual murders today."
Most people who read the Bible don't commit violence, but by
Dr. Russell's definition of multiple causation, we could say that the
Bible causes violence.
In fact, Dr. Russell's definition of pornography as "material that
combines sex ... with abuse or degradation in a manner that appears to
endorse, condone, or encourage such behavior" could be applied to
certain portions of the Bible.
Likewise, although most of my family was killed in the Holocaust, I
do not favor banning anti-Semitic material, as they do in Germany.
Some readers of Mein Kampf are inspired to commit horrific acts, but
many other people read the same material to research anti-Semitism and
prevent future genocides.
There ARE good uses of pornography, even the most hardcore. As you
may have gathered from other posts, I am into BDSM and, like many
gays, have been aware of these desires since I was a small child. I
always thought there was something sick and wrong about me. When in
college, I discovered BDSM porn (Anne Rice's "Beauty" novels) This
ended my feeling of alone-ness, and helped me come to terms with who I
am, rather than who I thought I "should" be (I had a lot of trouble
reconciling BDSM with my feminism).
ON PROTECTING WOMEN:
Regarding Dr. Russell's desire to protect women, on
http://www.mills.edu/ACAD_INFO/emeritus_russell.excerpt05.html she
says:
"When addressing the question of whether or not pornography causes
rape, as well as other forms of sexual assault and violence, many
people fail to acknowledge that the actual making of pornography
sometimes involves, or even requires, violence and sexual assault."
Right now, actors and models who are mistreated -- even in the porn
industry -- have legal recourses. They have contracts and a minimum
wage; labor laws mandate safe conditions. A woman sexually harassed
in the workplace can always hire a lawyer or file complaints with the
EEOC -- even if that workplace is Hustler Magazine.
If pornography is illegal, it will still be produced under the
table. And then how will the participants protect themselves? If
merely acknowledging that they helped produce pornography puts them in
trouble, how can they seek help when they're abused?
CONCLUSION:
I had major problems with Dr. Russell's work. I found her
definition of pornography too vague, and her definition of causality
seemed to describe mere correlation. Therefore, I could not accept
her conclusions because her postulates were so flawed. Pornography may
have some relation to violence against women, but her research did not
prove it caused such violence.
The problem isn't in the ideas portrayed in pornography (or other
sources) but how some people respond to these ideas. You can't stop
ideas with censorship. The best way to counter speech you dislike is
to talk louder and counter the arguments. Let's try to change
attitudes in this country. If you can't eliminate the supply of
pornography because too many people want it, try to reduce the demand.
Attitudes and mores change; we look askance at things that were the
norm only a few decades ago.
We need to give people the ability to question assumptions. We need
to teach ourselves and our children to be less accepting and look
critically at information they are given. With the new internet-given
ability for almost everyone to publish their own sides of issues, we
gain a method of seeing all sides of a story and an ability to judge
for ourselves, rather than merely accepting what magazines and TV
feeds us. By questioning the media's motives, we can take ownership
for our actions, rather than blaming things on third parties. This
applies to pornography, advertising, the recent anorexia discussion,
and other talk of censorship or media power.
- Pornography is trying to arouse you; that's why it portrays all
women as available.
- Women's magazines are trying to sell you cosmetics, household goods
and diet aids; that's why they try to make you feel inadequate.
- TV news is trying to garner ratings; that's why they turn every
mild scandal into a crisis and hype sensationalistic crimes.
All of these show a side of the truth, but none of them provide the
full truth -- that's an exercise left for each of us to discover.
To close, I'd like to quote Peter McWilliams, from his book Ain't
Nobody's Business If You Do:
"As long as we keep censoring, we are lost in the symptoms of our
society's problems, thus ignoring the problems themselves.
Pornography, for example, doesn't degrade women; women are degraded by
our culture, and certain forms of pornography reflect that. Yes, we
have a serious problem with the way women are treated in our culture,
and pornography is a symptom, but let's not kill the messenger. Let's
get the message and do something about it."
- http://www.mcwilliams.com/books/aint/307.htm
Some books with more information:
+ Defending Pornography by Nadine Strossen
+ XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography by Wendy McElroy
+ Sex, Sin and Blasphemy by Marjorie Heins
+ Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do by Peter McWilliams
(the full text is available at www.mcwilliams.com)
--
-------------------> Elisabeth Anne Riba * l...@netcom.com <-------------------
"Love wouldn't be blind if the braille weren't so damned much fun."
- Armistead Maupin, "Maybe the Moon"
Antid Oto
I read or heard somewhere that the roots of the word "pornography" is
"violence against women." In any case, this is my position.
In essence there is no difference between "erotica" and "pornography."
It is not a matter of opinion, and it is not a question of degrees. It
is a question of social reality.
This is not an abstract question. Women in today's world are finding
fewer employment opportunities, exposed as they are to the same
dwindling job market as everyone. Extra income is required to provide
for families. Thus the pressure on women to become involved in
prostitution or the many related fields has consequently intensified.
The sex industry- and that is its right name- is part and parcel of the
exploitation of women, whether women are required to expose their
sexuality "tastefully" or "tastelessly" for money. The sex industry is a
multi-billion-dollar industry for the personal enrichment (as with all
industrial production) of the (pimp) owners, not even the "providing of
a service," however massive the demand. They are invited by the military
to set up brothels at every military base around the world, they
facilitate international prostitution, and, yes, they organize "erotica"
as well. And they profit tidily.
Women do not become involved in selling their sexuality because they are
beautiful or want to please, but because they require the money. Perhaps
the "soft porn" of "erotica" is available for the middle class women-
while the working and lower classes end up in "hard pornography-" but
the social conditions are the same: women do not fulfill their humanity
through either form of the "profession."
Women are not free agents in the present social relations. They were
*denied* the Equal Rights Amendment. Still one in four suffer rape.
Still the discrimination. Thus even if in a truly equal society women
were to demonstrate an interest in maintaining the sex industry "on
their own terms" (yeah, right,) the 6 billion of us on the planet do
*not* live in such circumstances but in ones pervaded and laced (like
poison) with the denigration of the oppressed sex. No participation in
the sex industry is free of this social reality. To believe otherwise is
utopic and morally callous.
Should it be banned? This might salve the hypocrite's flimsy conscience,
but in effect it would simply rip away yet another source of income for
women. We live under the auspices of a government which would all too
readily pounce on our other "freedoms" if we were to demand them to ban
erotica. Thus we are forced to tolerate the mass prostitution of women
in order to be able to place "Rosie the Riveter" on the wall of our
workstations without the bosses ordering it taken down.
We ought to all put "Rosie the Riveter" up- demand equal rights, demand
the complete reordering of society for women's social equality, raise
the social standard. But prostitution cannot be defeated with a law
while the market is still free and women are not. It is a social
problem. Women are quite simply in a reprehensible, aggregious social
position however one approaches it- face it. Then get on the politically
correct side of the issue.
Prostitution- behavior forced from women through the compulsion of the
social power of capital- emerges from the capitalist system. Unless one
is for eliminating capitalist social relations, one is not for the
elimination of the exploitation of women.
The idle-brained, socially-unconscious partaker of women's prostitution-
even of the most austere "erotica-" degrades her/himself and steps a
rung lower on the evolutionary ladder. It is an anti-social, anti-woman
act, however "common" it may appear in our daily lives (*especially*
because of how "common" it is.) The question asserts itself: Have you
anything better to do with your life?
Equality only in socialism!
Antid Oto
Daniel B. Holzman
In article <lisEE1...@netcom.com>,
Elisabeth Anne Riba <l...@netcom.com> wrote:
>
> You may say that these are nitpicky exceptions, but if we can't
>
>CAUSALITY OF PORN:
>: She argues that pornography, as she defines it, is harmful to
>: women and to men. See her book Pornography: The Evidence of Harm
>: for a discussion of the causal role of pornography (as she defines
>: it) in rape and other abuse of women.
>
> I've been reading her web pages carefully. She theorizes that
>pornography causes rape, but in her web page she carefully
>prevaricates on the definition of "cause" I'll try to paraphrase her
>arguments, but I recommend you read the full text to get all the
>details.
> "With the conception of MULTIPLE CAUSATION, various possible causes
>may be seen for a given event, any one of which may be a sufficient
>but not necessary condition for the occurrence of the effect, or a
>necessary but not sufficient condition. In the case of multiple
>causation, then, the given effect may occur in the absence of all but
>one of the possible sufficient but not necessary causes; and,
>conversely, the given effect would not follow the occurrence of some
>but not all of the various necessary but not sufficient causes."
>
> Therefore, because SOME rapists read pornography, pornography is a
>cause of rape. This is not causation, it's correlation. In fact, she
>admits as much on
>http://www.mills.edu/ACAD_INFO/emeritus_russell.excerpt13.html:
> "While correlation does not prove causation, and it therefore cannot
>be concluded from these studies that it was the consumption of the
>pornography that was responsible for the males' higher acceptance of
>violence against women, their findings are consistent with a theory
>that a causal connection exists."
I think the bears restating clearly and explicitly:
Contrary to her own claims and the claims of the original poster, Dr.
Russel DOES NOT show a casual relation between pornography and rape. She
fails to rule it out.
The two are not the same, are not even close, and it is dishonest to try
to pretend that they are.
--
Daniel B. Holzman -- Love does not subtract, it multiplies. -- All acts of love
and pleasure are Her rituals. -- An it Harm none, do what you Will. -- They
took my name and stole my heritage, but they didn't get my goat. -- The
word is all of us. -- Remember the Twelth Commandment and keep it Wholly.
Post articles to soc.feminism, or send email to femi...@ncar.ucar.edu.
Antid Oto
Dr. Jacqueline Thomason wrote:
>
> Radical feminist Diana Russell distinguishes between pornography and
> erotica this way:
>
> "I define pornography as material that combines sex and/or the exposure
> endorse,condone, or encourage such behavior"
>
> "Erotica refers to sexually suggestive or arousing material that is free
> animals portrayed."
>
> These distinctions do not lead to the problems that some newsgroup
> argues that pornography, as she defines it, is harmful to women and to
> men.
>
> See her book Pornography: The Evidence of Harm for a discussion of the
> causal role of pornography (as she defines it) in rape and other abuse
> of women.
>
Ms. Russell's renunciation of pornography provides a clearly convincing
presentation of evidence and information for use as weaponry by those
who fight against violence against women. It was for such purpose,
indeed, that the work would seem to have been written, not to merely
defend "erotica" as contraposed to pornography. The distinction is
irrelevant to the point she took pains to research and document, and
actually appears an unnecessary capitulation to the sex industry (which
includes "erotica,") providing an escape hatch for pornographers to
sleazily slime their way to the ambiguous camp of "art." Dr. Thomason's
framing of the question here as such is untrue to Russell's important
work and even suspect.
Nevertheless Russell's work is also limited to an academic middle-class
perspective which does leave prone to misuse her discussion of the
question of pornography. It abstracts violence from pornography by
failing to examine the institution in its social context, thus allowing
Thomason sneakiness to seem to be able (at least in an abstract world)
to pluck out the "non-violent" pornography, name it "erotica," and in
utopic ignorance hold it up as a standard.
Violence against women is a serious dilemma for human civilization in
this the most developed stage of society ever attained. *Today* (and
getting worse) 1 in 4 women suffer rape; 80% of all murders of women are
committed by people they know; shelter for "battered" wives is one of
the casualties of the Clinton-reaction austerity drive as well as
welfare which mostly protected women and children facing the barbarism
of the streets; high-ranking military officers and officials are being
administered mere hand-slaps for rape and sexual harrassment ("Justice"
Thomas presiding;) etc., etc.
Under these circumstances, there is no politically "neutral" public
display of sexuality- especially not of the pornographic form. There can
be no "safe," "non-exploitative" use of women as prostitutes before a
camera lens. To use women so is to take the wrong side of the struggle
for women's emancipation, "taking back the night," equality, and so
forth. To "prove" her brief distinction of "eroticism," Dr. Russell
merely states a clinical behaviorist view:
> Canadian psychologists Charlene Senn and Lorraine Radtke found the
> distinction between pornography and erotica to be significant and
> meaningful to female subjects in an experiment which they
> conducted. After slides had been categorized (!) as violent
> pornography, non-violent pornography (sexist and dehumanizing), or
> erotica (non-sexist and non-violent), these researchers found that
> the violent and non-violent images had a negative (?) effect on the
> mood states of their women subjects, whereas the erotic images
> had a positive (?) effect (1986, pp. 15-16; also see Senn, 1993).
> Furthermore, the violent images had a greater negative impact than
> the non-violent pornographic images [2]. This shows that a
> conceptual (?) distinction between pornography and erotica is both
> meaningful and operational.
How many women experience sexuality "positively" in a researcher's study
room watching "categorized" "erotica?" Face it, Russell and Thomason
(and Senn and Radtke:) women en masse constantly face psychologically
demoralizing and compromising- not to mention violent and sexist-
displays of their sex's sexuality; the oppression of women is
systemmatic and pervasive even unto the very bedroom (much less the
workplace, schools, etc.) The "conceptual [arbitrarily abstract]
distinction" is only "meaningful and operational" to the sex industry-
in the determination of to which market to cater their exploitation of
the oppressed sex.
How many women find themselves every year (day) compelled by their
economic circumstances to submit to the sex industry? Hundreds of
millions? Why are the numbers lacking from public knowledge? How about,
what percentage of the planet's female human beings at some point in
their lives become involved in the sex industry?
These statistics- were they actually to be found- would reveal that the
social context of the artificial debate about "erotica" ("good"
prostitution) entails a predominance of the social layers complicit with
the oppression of women. This glaring reality of modern social relations
not only makes scerilous and insulting the very debate about "erotica"
(why advocate a "kindler, gentler" form of prostitution?,) but also
shows that this particular work by Dr. Russell in all its assails on the
conditions of the sex industry to have missed the point about
pornography- i.e., its fundamentally compulsory social (and political)
nature. No wonder its comparison with rape.
Russell's argument contends that pornography has a causal relationship
with incidents of rape because it is overwhelmingly accompanied with
depictions (staged and real) of violence against women (and she goes on
to demonstrate that relation.) Any social scientific analysis would have
recognized such a causal sequence as predetermined by a system founded
and nourished upon the promulgation of violence against women.
Pornography is organized misogynist propaganda. Whence the need to prove
as violent the relation of pornography to the overall process of women's
oppression unless one is ignorant to the centuries of brutal class
oppression? During the entire history of class rule systemmatic mass
rape has been employed as a method of social control- most obvious
during periods of war but by no means exclusive to such periods.
Neither is the systemmatic attack against the masses of women directed
in its ultimate aims exclusively against women. As Friedrich Engels put
it in "The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State:"
"But the more the hetaerism ["high society" prostitution] of the past is
changed in our time by capitalist commodity production and brought into
comformity with it, the more, that is to say, it is transformed into
undisguised prostitution, the more demoralizing are its effects. And it
demoralizes men far more than women. Among women, prostitution degrades
only the unfortunate ones who become its victims, and even these by no
means to the extent commonly believed. But it degrades the character of
the whole male world."
Although pornography may *demoralize* men "far more," and *degrade* the
very spirit and "character of the whole male world," nevertheless, with
the advent of advanced media of mass communication and of the sex
industry, the "extent" of women's "victimization" has become so
"undisguised" and prevalent that women as a social layer are more
immediately confronted by prostitution and embittered by it than even
during Engels' time could be "commonly believed." (Russell described a
woman who was made to sit "spreadeagled" in front of a water tower for
days before the actual photographs were taken- views of her humiliated,
crying face then immediately prepared for mass distribution.) Yet the
consequences are clear: divide and conquer- women constitute half of the
world's population; pitting men against women cuts us down the middle.
It is dangerous that the ruling capitalist class has in its modern
advanced technological arsenal the medium of pornographic movies, video,
and photography to carry out its class oppression. The oppression of
women should elicit at the very least a protective response by men
against the exploitation of their sisters, wives/friends, mothers, and
daughters by sex industry corporations. Yet the pervasiveness and
intrusiveness of the medium into the lives of the working masses has
inflamed an otherwise benign socially diseased state of demoralization.
The social strife for women, particularly in the underdeveloped regions
of the world, is a practical concern for all humanity as a social front
vulnerable to attack. As sisters, wives/friends, mothers, and daughters,
the quality of life for women is a *subjective* condition to the human
billions which any of us with a shred of spiritual backbone would
defend.
The capitalists, however, recognize the masses of (potentially
revolutionary) women as a direct threat to their oppressive class rule-
i.e., they assess women *objectively*. They are approached by the sex
industry as material required for the maintenance of their profits- as
instruments of money generation. Thus pornography derives from and is
politically oriented toward the class interests of the wealthy who are
chiefly responsible for the faciliation of its dissemination- not the
class interests of the great body of humanity. Capitaist endeavor is
opposed to human interests as a whole, which it must forcibly
subordinate to its own in order to perpetuate its rule.
A word in closing: in all fairness to Dr. Russell, one must recognize
the context of her book in a life also accompanied by her own practical
political work against women's oppression. Despite that her
"credentials" are mere scholarship (Dan Quayle has such notoriety, as
well as "Justice" Thomas) she has also, according to a bio:
> Arrested in South Africa, England, and USA, for her political
> activities in 1963, 1974, and 1991, respectively.
> Participated in the African Resistance Movement--an
> underground revolutionary anti-apartheid organization in 1968.
> One of the primary organizers of the International Tribunal on
> Crimes Against Women in Brussels in 1976.
> A founder of Women Against Violence in Pornography and Media
> in 1976--the first feminist anti-pornography organization in the
> United States.
These accomplishments- distinguished from her purely academic work-
established her capacity to actually lead organized political struggle-
even the A.R.M. at that!- rather than merely establish a current in
academic feminism. These are far more worthy of mention (although her
"political activities" are left unmentioned) than the brief artificial
comparison of pornography and "erotica" inserted only into the
introduction of one of her several books concerning primarily violence
against women.
Unfortunately she has also participated in the Victorian "white man's
burden" self-righteousness of preaching to the poor, uneducated
"darkies" of South Africa about their sexual problems (while the fight
against apartheid was still raging in full force and Nelson Mandela was
still behind bars):
> Founder of Women Against Incest (an action group) in Cape
> Town, South Africa, 1993.
Antid Oto
Daniel B. Holzman
In article <33DE85...@earthlink.net>,
Antid Oto <anti...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>> Canadian psychologists Charlene Senn and Lorraine Radtke found the
>> distinction between pornography and erotica to be significant and
>> meaningful to female subjects in an experiment which they
>> conducted. After slides had been categorized (!) as violent
>> pornography, non-violent pornography (sexist and dehumanizing), or
>> erotica (non-sexist and non-violent), these researchers found that
>> the violent and non-violent images had a negative (?) effect on the
>> mood states of their women subjects, whereas the erotic images
>> had a positive (?) effect (1986, pp. 15-16; also see Senn, 1993).
>> Furthermore, the violent images had a greater negative impact than
>> the non-violent pornographic images [2]. This shows that a
>> conceptual (?) distinction between pornography and erotica is both
>> meaningful and operational.
>
>How many women experience sexuality "positively" in a researcher's study
>room watching "categorized" "erotica?"
The quotation of Senn and Radtke seems to imply that number would be
non-zero, though that begs the question of how they are defining a
"positive" and "negative" reaction.
>How many women find themselves every year (day) compelled by their
>economic circumstances to submit to the sex industry? Hundreds of
>millions? Why are the numbers lacking from public knowledge?
This, at least, is a rather simple question to answer.
The numbers are lacking because a large segment of the primary reporters
are strongly motivated not to report. Face it, throwing prostitutes in
jail does not encourage them to raise their hand and say, "I'm a
prostitute!"
On the other hand, porn magazines are now required to keep their model's
release forms on file, and someone wantint to tabulate that portion of
the figure probably could, since the raw data is public record.
>The oppression of
>women should elicit at the very least a protective response by men
>against the exploitation of their sisters, wives/friends, mothers, and
>daughters by sex industry corporations.
Does anyone else find this "protective response" stuff sexist?
--
Daniel B. Holzman -- Love does not subtract, it multiplies. -- All acts of love
and pleasure are Her rituals. -- An it Harm none, do what you Will. -- They
took my name and stole my heritage, but they didn't get my goat. -- The
word is all of us. -- Remember the Twelth Commandment and keep it Wholly.
Post articles to soc.feminism, or send email to femi...@ncar.ucar.edu.
David J. Loftus
James Margaris (js...@cornell.edu) wrote:
: directly causes violence. The plight of women may bring a tear to the
: eye but it does not justify lashing out against something just because
: it bothers some women. In short, violence against women does not belong
: in a debate on porn unless you can show that it does, that somehow all
: porn is violent (and not just be definition, which is a cheap trick) or
: that porn greatly contributes to violence. I fail to see how a gay sex
: film can lead to 80% of murdered women being done in by
: aquaintances...is it just me?
It isn't just you. A lot of women agree with you: Avedon Carol and
Lynne Segal and Cherie Matrix and Pat Califia and Camille Paglia and
Alison Assiter and Linda Williams and Anne McClintock and Nadine Strossen
and ... the list goes on and on.
David Loftus
Jonathan
David J. Loftus wrote:
> It isn't just you. A lot of women agree with you: Avedon Carol and
> Lynne Segal and Cherie Matrix and Pat Califia and Camille Paglia and
> Alison Assiter and Linda Williams and Anne McClintock and Nadine Strossen
> and ... the list goes on and on.
I have read Defending Pornography by Nadine Strossen and thought it a
great book. But weeks after posting my opinion I received an email
stating that Defending Pornography has long been discredited. The
author of the email stated that he was sorry to be the first to tell me
this and that Nadine Strossen "has been found to have the journalistic
skills of a tabloid reporter and the legal ethics of a child
pornographer's attorney."
I repsonded expressing my appreciation that he had thought to email me
this opinion, but I wondered if he could send me any facts, or direct me
to where his statements were supported. It has been over 10 days, which
isn't necessarily a long time to respond considering the amount of time
it took him to respond to the post. But at hearing her name again, I
was wondering if anyone else had anything negative(what I consider
negative, I thought the book very well written thought out and
documented, though I didn't check on my own. Also her credentials did
not seem lacking.) to say along the same terms, and if so, where did the
get their information, or could they direct me to the source.
Thanks for your time.
Jonathan
Allen Adler
David J. Loftus writes:
> It isn't just you. A lot of women agree with you: Avedon Carol and
> Lynne Segal and Cherie Matrix and Pat Califia and Camille Paglia and
> Alison Assiter and Linda Williams and Anne McClintock and Nadine Strossen
> and ... the list goes on and on.
About 14 years ago, I was in a discussion with a female colleague who
started yelling at me because I felt that one should not stomp on
the first amendment guarantees of freedom of the press in order to
attack pornography. A few days later, I picked up a copy of the
local newspaper and read an article about a local feminist group.
Apparently, the group had voted to *oppose* making pornography
illegal. I don't recall first amendment considerations playing
any role in the decision. Instead, a representative of the group
was quoted as saying that they decided that if pornography were
illegal, it would merely go underground. They preferred to have
it legal and tangible so that they could fight it more effectively.
Allan Adler
ad...@pulsar.cs.wku.edu
Antid Oto
Daniel B. Holzman wrote:
>
> In article <33DE85...@earthlink.net>,
> Antid Oto <anti...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> >women should elicit at the very least a protective response by men
> >against the exploitation of their sisters, wives/friends, mothers, and
> >daughters by sex industry corporations.
>
That is, of course, why I qualified the statement with "at the very
least." That is, men have defended women quite often only in the
pathetic chivalry context of "protection of property," but *at the very
least* the *chivalry* impulse should impel men to defend their sisters,
wives/friends, mothers, and daughters (aunts, grandmothers, neighbors,
women co-workers, so forth, for those who believe the list too "nuclear
family" sounding) against the conversion of the oppressed sex into a
mass organ of the sex industry.
What the attack against so many billions of women by pornography and the
violence with which it is involved in a "causal relationship," as Dr.
Russell would say, SHOULD ELICIT in men is *revolutionary alliance* with
women against the ruling capitalist class which gives the go-ahead to
any fellow capitalist regardless of the social destructiveness of their
"product or service." Both women AND men should fight to overthrow the
capitalist class for having as "brothers" in its "fraternity" profiteers
of nuclear technology (they insist on forcing plutonium onto spacecraft
to keep their industry going- despite the great risks to life on earth,)
profiteers of massive military programs (readying women and men to kill
and/or die for various corporate interests- oil in the Persian Gulf, for
instance,) and profiteers of pornography (inducting not only women, but
also children into the rape industry.) Face it, on some ground men have
to stop tolerating the anti-social, anti-women demoralization and
degradation of pornography and actively oppose the system which not only
accepts it but encourages the promulgation of it, or else they condone
the systemmatic exloitation and oppression of all who look in their
faces with human female (and children's) eyes.
Presumably, however, Mr. Holzman feels no "protective response" at all,
but prefers instead to attack on minor points the fighters for women's
rights to equality, freedom, and human dignity. It is not an effective
method for leadership of the oppressed masses.
Antid Oto
--
Jonathan
Daniel B. Holzman wrote:
>
> In article <33DE85...@earthlink.net>,
> Antid Oto <anti...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> >women should elicit at the very least a protective response by men
> >against the exploitation of their sisters, wives/friends, mothers, and
> >daughters by sex industry corporations.
>
Very. My sistes, wives/friends, mothers, and daughters all have the
CHOICE to do what they want. If they choose to spend their time in the
"pornography" industry that is their right to happiness.
By saying that the sex industry corporations exploits females, you are
implying that females have no choice in the matter. And their is always
a choice.
Jonathan
--
David J. Loftus
Jonathan (gt0...@prism.gatech.edu) wrote:
: I have read Defending Pornography by Nadine Strossen and thought it a
: great book. But weeks after posting my opinion I received an email
: stating that Defending Pornography has long been discredited. The
: author of the email stated that he was sorry to be the first to tell me
: this and that Nadine Strossen "has been found to have the journalistic
: skills of a tabloid reporter and the legal ethics of a child
: pornographer's attorney."
I have heard nothing of the kind. I thought the book was pretty good,
and I have seen Strossen speak in person (at the Willamette University
Law School) as well as heard a recording of one of her speeches on
affirmative action on public radio. Seems like one or two feminist
enemies of porn take a stab at her as a way of noticing that her book
appeared on their radar, but no frontal attacks. MacKinnon, of course,
absolutely refuses to debate her.
David Loftus
David J. Loftus
Antid Oto (anti...@earthlink.net) wrote:
: also children into the rape industry.) Face it, on some ground men have
: to stop tolerating the anti-social, anti-women demoralization and
: degradation of pornography and actively oppose the system which not only
: accepts it but encourages the promulgation of it, or else they condone
: the systemmatic exloitation and oppression of all who look in their
: faces with human female (and children's) eyes.
One question: Why does the anti-social, anti-woman capitalist system
spend so much energy trying to control and prosecute the makers and
sellers of "anti-social, anti-woman ... pornography"?
: Presumably, however, Mr. Holzman feels no "protective response" at all,
: but prefers instead to attack on minor points the fighters for women's
: rights to equality, freedom, and human dignity. It is not an effective
: method for leadership of the oppressed masses.
Don't forget that "the oppressed masses" include many folks who enjoy the
use of pornography and who even contribute (through the making of their
own, at-home amateur videos) to its creation....
David Loftus
--
Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters
Jonathan <gt0...@prism.gatech.edu> wrote previously:
*}I have read Defending Pornography by Nadine Strossen and thought it a
*}great book. But weeks after posting my opinion I received an email
*}stating that Defending Pornography has long been discredited. The
*}author of the email stated that he was sorry to be the first to tell me
*}this and that Nadine Strossen "has been found to have the journalistic
*}skills of a tabloid reporter and the legal ethics of a child
*}pornographer's attorney."
I think the remark you quoted suffices to decide how much weight (i.e.
VERY little) to put in your respondent's remarks. I assume that your
respondent is just an average right-wing pro-censorship nut who wants to
make random nasty remarks about ACLU executives (perhaps a right-wing
pro-censorship nut who also wishes--strangely--to call his/herself
"feminist"... or perhaps not).
Anyway, just look at the quoted remark. The two accusations are,
(1) Strossen lacks journalistic skill; and (2) Strossen lacks legal
ethics. Neither of these, at least as phrased in the quote, even
ADDRESS Strossen's merit relative to _Defending Pornography. On (1),
_DP_ is simply not a journalistic book, so an accusation of Strossen's
lack of journalistic skill, even were it true, would apparently have
little to do with the quality of _DP_.
Accusation (2) might serve to discredit Strossen (were it true) insofar
as she serves at a legal rights organization. Still, even that
accusation kinda misses the point of Strossen's merits as author of
_DP_. All things being equal, I guess I'd rather read a book by a GOOD
person than a bad one... but frankly, being of bad ethical character
does not actually prevent one from writing a good book. In any event,
there is no actual reason to question Strossen's legal ethics.
Aside from the falseness of your respondents accusation of (2), it is
worthwhile to look at its form. The enthymeme underneath your
respondents accusation is that only a lawyer of poor ethics would
represent a (accused) child-pornographer. Quite independent of
Strossen's own ethics (which I have no reason to believe anything but
impeccable), the respondent's underlying supposition is reactionary,
totalitarian and false. People charged with crimes should have lawyers.
If Strossen, for example, chose to represent an alleged child-
pornographer in a case she felt had 1st amendment implications, I would
find that not just ethical, but HEROIC and HONORABLE. If she (or
someone else) represented such a client just for the pay, it would be
less enobling, but in no respect unethical or wrong. Attornies, very
properly, even often represent guilty clients who deserve (and are
Constitutionally entitled to) representation.
Of course, apart from the general failure to seperate the issues of the
moral quality of acts which defendents *may* have committed from that of
the lawyers who represent them, it is worth noting just what a "child
pornographer" *IS* under current US law. Under some of the worst law
ever written in the USA, "child pornographers" include (and have been
prosecuted as such): people who take pictures of their own children
playing at a nude beach; people who take pictures of women and men OVER
18 in styles as to be "suggestive" of models under 18 (e.g.
young-looking models); cartoonists who DRAW pictures of children in
sexual activity (w/o the use of live models); computer graphics artist
who purely electronically transpose images of children with those of
adults in sexual situations; a 17 year-old boy who takes a nude picture
of his 17 year-old girlfriend (with whom he may legally ENGAGE in sex,
but by photographing it he risks LONG prison sentence). All in all,
being a child pornographer nowadays need not be something which is
MORALLY objectionable in the slightest degree... although it, of course,
risks EXTREME legal sanctions. It's also not something which one can
reasonably know in advance that one is "committing".
Yours, Lulu...
_/_/_/ THIS MESSAGE WAS BROUGHT TO YOU BY: Postmodern Enterprises _/_/_/
_/_/ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~[qui...@philos.umass.edu]~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ _/_/
_/_/ The opinions expressed here must be those of my employer... _/_/
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ Surely you don't think that *I* believe them! _/_/
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PGP 2.6 key: http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~quilty/lulu-pgp.html
--
ChubbAC
>But at hearing her name again, I
terms, and if so, where did the
>get their information, or could they direct me to the source.
Yes, Ms. Strossen's _Defending Pornography_ left me underwhelmed.
For example, Strossen wrote that MacKinnon maintains that pornography's
"mere existence hurts women, even if it cannot be shown to cause some
tangible harm" [p. 13 of DP]. Strossen provides citations for this
statement, but they don't add up. MacKinnon has consistently argued that
a civil (*not* a criminal) remedy is appropriate only upon a showing of
legal harm. For example, in 1995 at a packed panel discussion at the U.
of Michigan Law School, MacKinnon stated that speech and material on the
Internet "should be protected, unless there is some sort of showing of
harm." Later, after repeated misrepresentation by an ACLU panelist that
evening, she corrected him, stating, "My position is not that speech which
puts women in positions of display should be criminally prosecutable. My
position is, first of all, that there should be civil remedies, resonating
in sex equality, when harm through pornography can be proven." [Panel
discussion, "Jake Baker and the Internet," U. of Michigan Law School,
March 9, 1995. Transcript available previously and possibly at present at
the MTTLR sub-site of the U. of Michigan Law School web site.]
Most fair-minded journalists get this right. See, for example, the NY
Times article "Furor on Exhibit at Law School Splits Feminists," by T.
Lewin, November 13, 1992. Lewin reports that MacKinnon supports
"legislation that would allow women who could show that they had been
harmed by pornography to sue the producers and distributors of the
material." Other capsule summaries that rebut Strossen's contention also
appear in the _1994 Current Biography Yearbook_ (under MacKinnon, page
365) and the New York Times Magazine, March 13, 1994, page 57.
Strossen continues on page 13 and elsewhere of DP to argue that MacKinnon
is pro-censorship. Ms. Strossen is entitled to her opinion, but she seems
to be tilting at windmills. In fact, MacKinnon argues in her works that
censorship is an unreasoned response to pornography. If pornography meets
certain criteria *and* can be shown shown to have caused harm, she argues,
then the appropriate remedy for this harm is a *civil* action.
Ms. Strossen does address civil actions against pornography on p. 63-69,
but she was unable or unwilling to distinguish between this approach and
censorship. Might she have a real need to have MacKinnon appear
censorious? Perhaps, else Strossen's argument falls apart. Its undoing
is the "harm" factor, and this is an important aspect of MacKinnon's
argument: Isn't "harm" the crux of the First Amendment exceptions we
have to date, many of which the ACLU supports (e.g. sexual harassment's
hostile environment consisting of sexually demeaning words and pictures in
the workplace)?
Strossen states on p. 196 that "MacKinnon analogize[s] all heterosexual
intercourse to rape." MacKinnon provided at least one response to those
who chose to come to this conclusion in her piece in the Winter 1995
Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review. On p. 144, she writes
"To say that I -- and others who analyze sexual abuse as part of gender
inequality -- say all sex is rape is a political libel, a false statement
of fact that destroys repute in a community in which sex is the secular
religion." (Several other paragraphs elaborating further on this and
meticulously documenting the history of this contention are excerpted at
this bulletin board under the subject heading "'All Sex Is Rape'
citation?")
I don't see _Defending Pornography_ to be a rebuttal to MacKinnon's
arguments, since Strossen provides her own view of what MacKinnon says and
largely rebuts that instead.
Kevin S Douglas
ChubbAC wrote:
> MacKinnon has consistently argued that
> a civil (*not* a criminal) remedy is appropriate only upon a showing of
> legal harm. For example, in 1995 at a packed panel discussion at the U.
> of Michigan Law School, MacKinnon stated that speech and material on the
> Internet "should be protected, unless there is some sort of showing of
> harm." Later, after repeated misrepresentation by an ACLU panelist that
> evening, she corrected him, stating, "My position is not that speech which
> puts women in positions of display should be criminally prosecutable. My
> position is, first of all, that there should be civil remedies, resonating
> in sex equality, when harm through pornography can be proven."
This is much less than meets the eye. Far from arguing for definite
standards Ms. MacKinnon offers the vaguest definition for pornography
of all: it's when a jury returns a finding of harm in a civil action.
What does harm mean? She doesn't say. If I remember the Minneapolis
statute that's for the jury to decide (but it doesn't depend upon a
physical harm being inflicted upon the plaintiff). And as the world
knows after the OJ Simpson case, such harm doesn't have to be proven
beyond a shadow of a doubt, a jury need only decide that there's a
perponderance of evidence, someone who is accused has no right to
fifth amendment protections, etc. etc.
What is Ms. MacKinnon's purpose in making this a civil rather than
criminal offense? It's not hard to see. Pornography is a business,
all one has to do to shut the whole thing down is devise a system
whereby the producers of such won't know where the lines are and will
face massive penalties if they guess wrong. In short, it's a Trojan
horse law which attempts to chill speech in a manner which is more
thorough then if she proposed law which set up a board of censors
(because then pornographers could go to the board and say, "what
can we do?" not so here, the magazine publisher in New York is
subject to the same penalties should his magazine ever find its
way to Oklahoma and he's hauled before a puritannical jury).
More on point, it's impossible for me to imagine that Ms. MacKinnon
doesn't know that this would be the effect of her law. That she
refuses to defend this part of it puts her in the company of
cynical corporate attorneys who also try to do end runs around the
constitition (get someone to sign away some aspect of their first
amendment rights, sue when the person then tries to exercise that
right, if the person prevails it will only come after much money and
time has been spent defending against the lawsuit, the practical
consequence is people later won't make the same "mistake").
Fortunately, the Supreme Court is pretty good at striking down
these end runs. Have little doubt it would do the same if
MacKinnon's law was ever implemented. If you dispute the
above, though, quote the part of MacKinnon's law which defines
"harm", in short the standard any lawsuit would have to meet
for it to get its day in court (ie. not get thrown out). My
understanding is it's a very loose standard, there are no
concrete definitions, and there lies the problem.
David F. Austin
In article <19970801212...@ladder02.news.aol.com>,
chu...@aol.com (ChubbAC) wrote:
<stuff deleted>
> Yes, Ms. Strossen's _Defending Pornography_ left me underwhelmed.
<stuff deleted>
> Ms. Strossen does address civil actions against pornography on p. 63-69,
> but she was unable or unwilling to distinguish between this approach and
> censorship.
She does distinguish between civil and criminal sanctions, and
points out that the courts have correctly recognized that the
chilling effect on speech of threatened civil action can be as
profound as the chilling effect on speech of threatened
criminal prosecution. And that seems to be fully recognized
by MacKinnon, as well.
>Might she have a real need to have MacKinnon appear
>censorious? Perhaps, else Strossen's argument falls apart. Its undoing
> is the "harm" factor, and this is an important aspect of MacKinnon's
> argument: Isn't "harm" the crux of the First Amendment exceptions we
> have to date, many of which the ACLU supports (e.g. sexual harassment's
> hostile environment consisting of sexually demeaning words and pictures in
> the workplace)?
The ACLU position, described by Strossen in _Defending Pornography_,
is to treat with considerable caution the notion of 'hostile environment',
as reflected in its stand on _Robinson v. Jacksonville Shipyards Inc._
Strossen writes that sufficiently severe and pervasive nontargeted
words and pictures in a work environment can be as harmful as speech acts
targeted on a particular individual. But she (and the ACLU) are also
concerned about potential effects of hostile environment law on political
speech that's been regarded as protected. For example: (i) Should a woman
who puts up a pro-choice, "Never again" 'coat-hanger' poster above her desk
or in her locker be subject to legal sanctions when a religiously-inspired,
pro-life co-worker sees it and complains? (ii) Should a woman who puts up a
lesbian- (or bisexual- or transvestite- or transsexual- ...) themed calendar
above her desk or in her locker be subject to legal sanctions when co-workers
see it and complain? Although (i) does not pertain to sexual harassment,
the laws against religiously-based harassment are essentially the same
laws (and similarly for harassment based on age, national or ethnic origin,
race and disability status), and the notion of hostile environment is taken
by the courts and relevant agencies to be applicable across these categories.
Two helpful (and quite critical) reviews of _Defending Pornography_
are Cass Sunstein's in _The New Republic_ and Louise Antony's
in the TLS.
--
David F. Austin
david_...@ncsu.edu
--
ChubbAC
>MacKinnon, of course, absolutely refuses to debate her.
The New York Times reported on what I think is the source of this on
November 5, 1993. Ms. Strossen was uninvited to speak before the National
Association of Women Judges. Strossen speculated on why, but provided no
solid evidence.
According to the article, two organizers of this event said that Dr.
MacKinnon set no conditions on her appearance. In an interview with the
Times, MacKinnon stated that no one said "a word about debating Ms.
Strossen, and if they had, she probably would not have objected." [This
quote is from the Times article, which evidently paraphrased MacKinnon.]
The article mentions that one of the organizer's sons claimed MacKinnon
refused to take questions from men when she spoke at her son's college.
MacKinnon called this assertion "completely false."
Consistent with this, I saw Professor MacKinnon at a five-person panel
discussion in 1995 at the University of Michigan. Barry Steinhardt was
there for the ACLU. A University expert who spoke the University line
about *not* controlling access in any way to the Internet was also there,
as was another anti-internet censorship person from the Center for
Democracy and Technology. MacKinnon responded to their points eloquently
and persuasively. She took questions from the audience (as did the
others). After two hours, the discussion was still so lively, and all
panelists and the audience still so engaged, that all agreed to continue
for another half hour. At 9:30, the formal debate ended.
For at least another hour, MacKinnon remained seated with a long line of
people waiting to speak to her. She turned away no one, arguing points
with the youngest novices and oldest "veterans," most of whom were men,
and occasionally accepting praise from admirers. By 10:30 some of the
other panelists had left, but people were still waiting to speak to
MacKinnon. It must have been a very long day, but she nonetheless remained
unflappable, superhumanly cogent, and completely unwilling to abandon her
post before all who might take her to task had had their chance.
ChubbAC
>This is much less than meets the eye. Far from arguing for > definite
all: it's when a jury returns a finding of harm > in a civil action.
I think I am being too trusting here in hoping people have actually read
either one of MacKinnon's proposed laws, one of her papers or books, or a
detailed interview. Every law she has written on civil rights and
pornography provides an exacting definition of the type of pornography the
law would cover. When she says or writes "pornography," she means that
which her proposed laws (and often interviews) define in detail. Nude
pictures by themselves may very well not qualify under her definition; it
depends. See site
http://www.mit.edu/activities/safe/writings/mackinnon/mackinnon-porn-law2
for one example of the law MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin propose.
>What does harm mean? She doesn't say. If I remember the
> Minneapolis statute that's for the jury to decide (but it doesn't
> depend upon a physical harm being inflicted upon the plaintiff).
"Harm" is a legal term. I write this hoping that no layperson feels
intimidated -- the legal meaning of "harm" really is as anyone would
expect. "Harm" or "injury" appears in any law dictionary (though the
definitions are not too different from any dictionary's definition).
"Harm" has never implied exclusively physical damage. A person can be
harmed financially or reputation-wise, for example.
A showing of harm is required for any tort or civil rights complaint to be
successful. (Some legal references call civil rights law a sub-category
of tort law. Others say that they are two different categories of law.
But what is important here is that they have the same requirement to show
harm, and both are civil, as opposed to criminal, law).
>knows after the OJ Simpson case, such harm doesn't have to be > proven
beyond a shadow of a doubt,
I think you mean "beyond a reasonable doubt." That is the criminal
standard of proof.
>What is Ms. MacKinnon's purpose in making this a civil rather than
>criminal offense? It's not hard to see. Pornography is a business,
>all one has to do to shut the whole thing down is devise a system
>whereby the producers of such won't know where the lines are and will
>face massive penalties if they guess wrong.
The line is not perfectly drawn in much law, from libel and slander to
whether a boss's words implied the only way for a subordinate to get a
promotion was to sleep with him/er. This is why we have juries: To draw
the line.
Your appeal on behalf of the pornography industry doesn't wrench my heart.
God forbid anyone shown to have harmed another has to pay for it.
> In short, it's a Trojan
>horse law which attempts to chill speech in a manner which is more
>thorough then if she proposed law which set up a board of censors
>(because then pornographers could go to the board and say, "what
>can we do?" not so here, the magazine publisher in New York is
>subject to the same penalties should his magazine ever find its
>way to Oklahoma and he's hauled before a puritannical jury).
There have always been restrictions on speech. You claim a slippery slope
theory. I claim U.S. society has not gone to ruin because a professor or
employer can no longer fondle, sexually demean, or offer quid pro quo
deals for sex to a subordinate. On the contrary, in my opinion, things
are much better for all since sexual harassment, with its very real
restrictions on speech, was recognized as discrimination under the Civil
Rights Act of 1964. I note that, with the rise of open homosexuality,
more men may have an increasing appreciation for sexual harassment and
rape law.
> My understanding is [harm is] a very loose standard, there are > no
concrete definitions, and there lies the problem.
On the contrary, in my opinion therein lies the solution and the saving
grace of the American legal system: A jury of one's peers will decide
when harm is done, not some despot or elected official.
See above for the legal meaning of "harm."
I get the impression that some are afraid to allow an individual to even
*try* to show specific harm by pornography, lest this person be
successful. Does denying an individual this chance really go towards
promoting a better society? Are you so sure that *no* harm is done by
pornography (as the MacKinnon/ Dworkin law defines it) in *all* instances?
Do the drawbacks of MacKinnon and Dworkin's proposed legislation
overwhelmingly outweigh the benefits? At a minimum, I see no danger in
putting such a law on the books for a trial period to see if all these
dire predictions many make about its consequences come true.
I urge people to read the law at the site I reference above and also
possibly a MacKinnon paper or two on the subject before responding
further.
Allen Adler
What I read in Antid Oto's postings I have seen before. It is the
appeal to women to subordinate their legitimate struggles as women
to the more fundamental (in Antid Oto's view) struggle for socialism.
I don't consider it a friendly attitude towards women, despite the
feminist sounding rhetoric used in support of it. I believe the
attitude of the catholic church towards feminism is similar in spirit:
that women should realize that their goals are subsumed under the
more fundamental mission of the church and that they are already
liberated enough by virtue of having the mother of god be a female.
(Apologies if I have misunderstood the church's official position).
Allan Adler
ad...@pulsar.cs.wku.edu
Brian Delaney
On 3 Aug 1997 15:41:15 -0400, chu...@aol.com (ChubbAC) wrote:
>I think I am being too trusting here in hoping people have actually read
>either one of MacKinnon's proposed laws, one of her papers or books, or a
>detailed interview. Every law she has written on civil rights and
>pornography provides an exacting definition of the type of pornography the
>law would cover. When she says or writes "pornography," she means that
>which her proposed laws (and often interviews) define in detail. Nude
>pictures by themselves may very well not qualify under her definition; it
>depends. See site
>http://www.mit.edu/activities/safe/writings/mackinnon/mackinnon-porn-law2
>for one example of the law MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin propose.
Yes, indeed. Read this law. And be very afraid.
And remember that a law needs to be examined from the standpoint of
evils it will create when misapplied at least as much as the good it
will create when "properly" applied.
Conside the "exacting" definitions which the law provides for
pornography
>(a) as dehumanized sexual objects, things or commodities;
Who decides what it means to be "human"? There are at least 5 billion
ways to be human. Are a loving lesbian couple depicted in the act of
explict sex being "dehumanized". Depends on who is doing the
watching, doesn't it?
>(b) as sexual objects who enjoy humiliation or pain;
Guess what, folks. Some people do enjoy such things. Have we now
decided that an honest portrayal of some people's sexual lives should
be illegal? And who decides what "humiliation" is? Suppose that at
one point in a sexual encounter, the woman in kneeling and the man is
standing. Is this "humiliation"? What if the genders are reversed?
>(c) as sexual objects experiencing sexual pleasure in rape, incest
>or other sexual assault;
>
>(d) as sexual objects tied up or cut up or mutilated, bruised or
>physically hurt;
The law here has some interesting "sales tricks" going on. Guilt by
association. When you include "cut up" and "mutilated", with
"tied-up", you have tarred a number of vastly different activities
with the same brush. You exploit the strong emotion that some of
these items have to gloss over the fact that some of the things on
this list may not belong here. If someone tries to defend a happy and
consensual bondage scene photo-shoot, they are likely to be accused of
trying to defend sexual mutilation.
>(e) in postures or positions of sexual submission, servility or
>display;
Guess what, folks. There are 10^N relationships two people can have.
Only one of them is "equality". Sometimes she is dominant and he is
submissive. Other times it goes the other way. And sometimes they
take turns. Partners sometimes take turns "serving" one another. And
now depicting this aspect to sexuality should be illegal? What
exactly is the state-approved flavour of sexuality this month?
And could someone please tell me what erotic photography does NOT
include "positions of sexual display"? Isn't that the whole point to
the genre?
>(f) being penetrated by objects or animals; or
Somehow, I think that lumping dildos and vibrators into the same
clause as beastiality shows still more of the "guilt by association"
game going on in this law.
>(g) in scenarios of degradation, humiliation, injury, torture,
>shown as filthy or inferior, bleeding, bruised or hurt in context
>that makes these conditions sexual.
Some more odd lumping. "Bleeding, bruised or hurt" is probably fairly
clear. But degradation? Humiliation? Some people find fellatio or
cunnilingus humiliating or degrading. Now what? Some people find sex
with the lights on humiliating. Now what?
You could drive a freight train through any one of these 'loopholes".
MacKinnon, as a lawyer, must know this. This is her version of an
"exacting" definition of pornography?
>>What does harm mean? She doesn't say. If I remember the
>> Minneapolis statute that's for the jury to decide (but it doesn't
>> depend upon a physical harm being inflicted upon the plaintiff).
>"Harm" is a legal term. I write this hoping that no layperson feels
>intimidated -- the legal meaning of "harm" really is as anyone would
>expect. "Harm" or "injury" appears in any law dictionary (though the
>definitions are not too different from any dictionary's definition).
>"Harm" has never implied exclusively physical damage. A person can be
>harmed financially or reputation-wise, for example.
Yes, indeed. And here is the interesting thing: such "harm" is in
the eye of the beholder. I've seen pictures of men in positions of
servility toward women. I never realized I'd been "harmed" by this.
If this law was passed, I am suddenly liable to view such photos in a
different light.
Making something illegal changes the social meaning of that thing. If
you tell people that pictures showing women using dildos are so
shameful, we have to make them illegal, we have told people that they
*should* feel ashamed when they see them. And perhaps when we use
those same dildos in our own sex lives. The very act of making
something illegal can make that act suddenly shameful, and thereby
creating the "psychic harm" that the law pretends to be trying to
reduce.
>The line is not perfectly drawn in much law, from libel and slander to
>whether a boss's words implied the only way for a subordinate to get a
>promotion was to sleep with him/er. This is why we have juries: To draw
>the line.
Yes. But if the popular opinion of the average person on the street
were all that were needed to create justice, we wouldn't need laws.
Juries are fine things, but people can be swept up by the emotionalism
of the day. Juries need to be guided by well written laws. I have
seen nothign in the legal offereings from MacKinnon that would qualify
as well written law.
Pornography laws are not content neutral. They say that on the topic
of sexuality, there are politically and legally correct positions,
depictions, and philosophies. It basically says that sexual
literature is not for the purposes of entertainment, but rather for
ones of social engineering.
This law casts it's definition so wide that nearly anything could be
caught by it. And then the rights of the individual rely, not on the
protections of the law, but merely what a "jury of one's peers" decide
they are willing to tolerate this week. Specificity and objectivity
are part of the requirements of the rule of law, and are part of the
difference between living with a government and living with your Mom.
>On the contrary, in my opinion therein lies the solution and the saving
>grace of the American legal system: A jury of one's peers will decide
>when harm is done, not some despot or elected official.
And one's "peers" cannot be just as despotic as any tyrant? You and I
read history differently.
The Majorities, to be Rightful, must also be Reasonable. --
ThomasJefferson
Few things are as oppressive as living in someone else's Utopia
>I get the impression that some are afraid to allow an individual to even
>*try* to show specific harm by pornography, lest this person be
>successful. Does denying an individual this chance really go towards
>promoting a better society?
Better for what? The question is not value neutral. The way this law
is written defines harm in a fashion which it cannot fail to find.
It's conclusions are buried in it's axioms. Like Pooh and Piglet
finding their woen tracks, and being convinced thereby of the
existence of Heffalumps.
I submit that there is no statement that a human being can make which
cannot be shown to have "harmed" someone else. We can either try to
silence all speech, or we can try to produce people with thicker
skins.
>Are you so sure that *no* harm is done by
>pornography (as the MacKinnon/ Dworkin law defines it) in *all* instances?
> Do the drawbacks of MacKinnon and Dworkin's proposed legislation
>overwhelmingly outweigh the benefits?
Ay, yes. The "consequentialist" view of rights.
You can tell just how committed a person is to the whole concept of
Fundamental Civil Rights by the conditions under which they defend
them. It is no trick to be a defender of free speech when that person
is saying something we like. That's not a committment to principle,
that's just a matter of convenience.
"You can talk, as long as we like what you have to say."
In what sense is this a right?
Daniel B. Holzman
In article <19970802183...@ladder02.news.aol.com>,
ChubbAC <chu...@aol.com> wrote:
>>This is much less than meets the eye. Far from arguing for > definite
>standards Ms. MacKinnon offers the vaguest definition > for pornograph of
>all: it's when a jury returns a finding of harm > in a civil action.
>
>I think I am being too trusting here in hoping people have actually read
>either one of MacKinnon's proposed laws, one of her papers or books, or a
>detailed interview. Every law she has written on civil rights and
>pornography provides an exacting definition of the type of pornography the
>law would cover.
*sigh* I've read it. If you search deju news, you will find me quoting
from it in critiquing it, both in this newsgroup and in talk.rape.
Shortly stated, the definition of "pornography" MacKinnon provides in her
model ordinances are unconstitutionally vague and overbroad.
>When she says or writes "pornography," she means that
>which her proposed laws (and often interviews) define in detail. Nude
>pictures by themselves may very well not qualify under her definition; it
>depends. See site
>http://www.mit.edu/activities/safe/writings/mackinnon/mackinnon-porn-law2
>for one example of the law MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin propose.
That's right, it may not. As long as there isn't a single person who
personally finds a picture of a naked woman to be one of "sexual
display," it's fine. However, all it takes is one person to feel that it
is. Too bad she didn't define "sexual display."
>Your appeal on behalf of the pornography industry doesn't wrench my heart.
I wonder if you're capable of conceiving of someone who doesn't take your
side of this controversy without their acting "on behalf" of anyone but
their own interests.
> God forbid anyone shown to have harmed another has to pay for it.
Ah, but the MacKinnon law goes well beyond making people who harm someone
pay for it. If a publisher produces a piece of "pornography", and in doing
so harms no one; and sells it to a distributor who sells it to retail
book stores, and in doing so harms no one; and that retailer sells it to
an indivudial, and in doing so harms no one; and that individual later
rapes someone and says "the porn made me do it" because a defense
attorney said that he could maybe get a lesser sentence if he staged a
religious conversion; MacKinnon's law holds the publisher, distributor,
and retailer responsible for the actions of this fourth person.
No matter how much you try to weasel out of it, the simple fact is that
the purpose of the MacKinnon law is to create a climate where no one
would dare sell what might be considered pornography for fear that
someone fill sue them over a harm they did not perpetrate.
You can't sue Smith & Wesson for making the gun that you were mugged
with, either. Nor should you be able to.
>I get the impression that some are afraid to allow an individual to even
>*try* to show specific harm by pornography, lest this person be
>successful.
If someone could show specific harm by pornography, they already possess
the means for legal redress. They would not need MacKinnon's law to
create by fiat the liability.
>Does denying an individual this chance really go towards
>promoting a better society? Are you so sure that *no* harm is done by
>pornography (as the MacKinnon/ Dworkin law defines it) in *all* instances?
> Do the drawbacks of MacKinnon and Dworkin's proposed legislation
>overwhelmingly outweigh the benefits? At a minimum, I see no danger in
>putting such a law on the books for a trial period to see if all these
>dire predictions many make about its consequences come true.
The law has been put on the books. It was promptly struck back off the
books as Unconstitutional.
>I urge people to read the law at the site I reference above and also
>possibly a MacKinnon paper or two on the subject before responding
>further.
Been there, done that, wrote the rebuttal enough times to consider making
it a FAQ.
--
Daniel B. Holzman -- Love does not subtract, it multiplies. -- All acts of love
and pleasure are Her rituals. -- An it Harm none, do what you Will. -- They
took my name and stole my heritage, but they didn't get my goat. -- The
word is all of us. -- Remember the Twelth Commandment and keep it Wholly.
Post articles to soc.feminism, or send email to femi...@ncar.ucar.edu.
David J. Loftus
ChubbAC (chu...@aol.com) wrote:
: I urge people to read the law at the site I reference above and also
: possibly a MacKinnon paper or two on the subject before responding
: further.
Okay. From p. 176 of _Feminism Unbound_, the most ready copy I have of
MacKinnon's description of her own legislative proposal: "We define
pornography as the graphic sexually explicit subordination of women
through pictures or words [note that fiction is entirely actionable,
which means Ann Rice is in trouble] that also includes women dehumanized
as sexual objects, things, or commodities [which happens all the time in
women's magazines]; ... being tied up ... [which means consensual S/M and
all its female and males fans are in danger] ... in postures of sexual
submission or servility [some people would attack fellatio for this,
whether or not women enjoy it] or display [which seems to me to cover
just about anything in Playboy or even Cosmo, since she doesn't specify
that they be entirely nude or shown with anyone else]...."
I don't see all this subjective description as being somehow cleared up
when she adds "Erotica, defined by distinction as not this, might be
sexually explicit materials premised on equality."
Then there's the odd extra proviso: "We also provide that the use of
men, children, or transsexuals in the place of women is pornography,"
whatever that means.
David Loftus
David J. Loftus
ChubbAC (chu...@aol.com) wrote:
: For example, Strossen wrote that MacKinnon maintains that pornography's
: "mere existence hurts women, even if it cannot be shown to cause some
: tangible harm" [p. 13 of DP]. Strossen provides citations for this
: statement, but they don't add up. MacKinnon has consistently argued that
: a civil (*not* a criminal) remedy is appropriate only upon a showing of
: legal harm.
It is my suspicion that MacKinnon has taken this tack only because
criminal remedies haven't worked in court. If courts found them
acceptable, she would use them. MacKinnon is looking for anything that
will suppress pornography, in my opinion.
: I don't see _Defending Pornography_ to be a rebuttal to MacKinnon's
: arguments, since Strossen provides her own view of what MacKinnon says and
: largely rebuts that instead.
However, Strossen also says it is a mistake for feminists like MacKinnon
to put greater tools for control in the hands of the old law enforcement
and court system, because it will harm the feminist cause. And the fact
that after the Canadian Supreme Court's _Butler_ decision accepted the
reasoning of Dworkin and MacKinnon's proposed legislation as suitable for
the law of the land of Canada, law enforcement went after lesbian and gay
bookstores and publications, suggests that she was right.
Elisabeth Anne Riba
I read the proposed law on
http://www.mit.edu/activities/safe/writings/mackinnon/mackinnon-porn-law2.
As a resident of Massachusetts, I am extremely grateful that this was
never passed.
Brian Delaney wrote an excellent post demonstrating the loopholes in this
definition of pornography. I noticed some other excerpts from this law
that are equally troubling:
According to Section 1, the word pornography...
"shall further include the presentation of women's body
parts, including but not limited to, vaginas, breasts or buttocks,
such that women are reduced to such part"
Translated, a picture of a woman's breasts or genitals without showing the
rest of the body is pornography. That condemns "Our Bodies, Ourselves",
"Changing Bodies, Changing Lives", any written material teaching breast
self exams, self-help for pre-orgasmic women, tampon and birth control
instruction sheets, and most medical textbooks and sex manuals. By this
definition, all these are pornography and subject to the penalties this
law seeks to impose. Is that really what you want? If you could stop all
pornography at the cost of losing all these books, would you?
Another excerpt:
"Section 2.(a) It shall be sex discrimination to coerce, intimidate
or fraudulently induce any person into performing for pornography.
. . . For purposes of this subsection proof
of the following facts shall not, singly or in combination, disprove
coercion:
(1) the person is a woman or a girl;
(9) the person knew that the purpose of the acts or events in
question was to make pornography;
(10) the person showed no resistance or appeared to cooperate
actively in the photographic sessions or events that produced the
pornography;
(11) the person signed a contract, or made statements affirming a
willingness to cooperate in the production
(12) no physical force, threats, or weapons were used in the making
of the pornography; or
(13) the person was paid or otherwise compensated.
In other words, a woman who knowingly and willingly performs for
pornography, with a signed contract and paycheck, is still a victim of
coercion and sex discrimination. I find such denial of women to make
their own choices even worse than the anti-woman drivel spouted by Phyllis
Schafely, Rush Limbaugh and other anti-feminists. If legal contracts to
pose for pornography can be invalidated by later saying I was coerced, why
can't I invalidate other contracts in the same manner?
I find it absolutely horrifying to find my autonomy so trivialized,
especially by someone who calls herself a feminist. It feels like
something out of "Handmaid's Tale" where women are given no more choice
or control than children.
According to the bill's authors, pornography "undermine(s) women's equal
exercise of rights to speech and action guaranteed to all citizens under
the laws and constitution of the commonwealth." Even if that were true,
denying me the ability to enter into legal contracts undermines my rights
in a far worse manner.
--
-------------------> Elisabeth Anne Riba * l...@netcom.com <-------------------
"Love wouldn't be blind if the braille weren't so damned much fun."
- Armistead Maupin, "Maybe the Moon"
Post articles to soc.feminism, or send email to femi...@ncar.ucar.edu.
Kevin S Douglas
ChubbAC wrote:
> I think I am being too trusting here in hoping people have actually read
> either one of MacKinnon's proposed laws, one of her papers or books, or a
> detailed interview. Every law she has written on civil rights and
> pornography provides an exacting definition of the type of pornography the
> law would cover. When she says or writes "pornography," she means that
> which her proposed laws (and often interviews) define in detail. Nude
> pictures by themselves may very well not qualify under her definition; it
> depends. See site
> http://www.mit.edu/activities/safe/writings/mackinnon/mackinnon-porn-law2
> for one example of the law MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin propose.
I was astonished when I read this web page. By all means, people should check
it out. You're right, I was wrong on an important point: I used to think
Catherine MacKinnon was well-intentioned activist who didn't understand how her
law might be applied. Now I think she's a crackpot who understands all too well
what she's trying to do; which is out of business anyone who publishes
sexual material which includes women. This law would get stuck down by
federal courts so fast I'm not even sure what to debate, so I'll just include
a few challenges:
1) You don't think magazines such as Playboy are covered by the definition
for pornography contained in this proposal? Why? Please define
submissiveness and commodity, or more on point show me how jurors will
supply definitions for those words which excludes a magazine like
Playboy from being found pornographic. Not only doesn't the proposed
law draw that line but it seems not to draw any line (eg. a picture doesn't
have to include genetalia for it to be found pornographic).
2) Why does the proposed law only apply to women? Is that to protect
gay men? Would you agree that many of the Mapplethorpe photographs, for
instance, would be clearly actionable under the proposed law if that
restriction wasn't applied (ie, that's not interpretation, the definitions
are clear, there are no exemptions for artistic content, that jury in
Cincinnati, if given these definitions, would have been forced to
convict Mapplethorpe and award damages).
3) The proposed law makes no exemption for people who thought in good
faith that they weren't making pornography (that's the part which
chills free speech, a person can't know if what he or she is doing
is legal until a jury decides each case). Curiously, though, there's
an exemption for publicly funded libraries, colleges, etc, who can't
be found guilty under any circumstances. What is this all about?
It's pretty obvious to me, the backers of the law know they're
casting a broad net and don't want to drag the afforementioned
people into the courtroom all the time. Why not just go with a
tighter definition so that librarians, professors, anyone, can
know in advance if they can be sued for creating pornographic
material or not?
4) The article on sex workers suing for damages might as well
have been written in this way: "Any woman who participates in
the making of material which is found to be pornographic can
sue for damages even if she signed a contract of her own free
will, was paid, and swears on a stack of Bibles that it was the
best experience of her life. In short she cannot consent even
if she thinks she did". How is that not a fair reading? In
all honesty I laughed when I got to that part of the proposed
law, the rest was straight forward but this was disingenous.
5) Will you agree that laws such as the one proposed will
effectively regulate what people read in other parts of the
country, because ALL material published in the United States
would be subject to such damages? On the one hand I might
care less what people do in Massachusetts, I don't live there,
if they want to ban dirty pictures it means nothing to me.
It makes a big difference, though, if juries in that
commonwealth get to decide what I read in California.
Do you agree that this is the intent of the proposed law,
to make publishers everywhere censor their materials so
they won't get hauled into court in Massachusetts and
face damages?
Thought of a common sense compromise, the proposed law
could allow publishers in other parts of the country to
stamp their materials with, "Not Meant To Be Read In The
Commonwealth of Massachusetts" and choose not to publish
there, publishers who met this restriction wouldn't be
held liable if someone brought their material into the
state. Not only doesn't the proposed law contain this
sort of exception, though, my sense of the whole objective
is to make sure that the law has an effect outside of
its jurisdiction. Am I missing something? What is
your response to that?
Could go on but I'll stop there. Can't imagine how
federal courts wouldn't knock down this law in two
seconds if it was ever passed by some locality (in the
same way codes on "hate speech" are now history).
Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters
chu...@aol.com (ChubbAC) wrote previously:
*}That so many attack the MacKinnon and Dworkin effort to codify their civil
*}rights law is striking in view of the far more severe threat already in
*}place at 18 USC 1460-1469 ("Obscenity"), federally criminalizing various
*}aspects of pornography. For example, section 1461 states "Every obscene,
*}lewd, lascivious, indecent, filthy or vile article, matter, thing, device,
*}or substance; and -[more]... Is declared to be nonmailable matter and
*}shall not be conveyed in the mails or delivered from any post office or by
*}any letter carrier." (Violation of this section is punishable by fine or
*}imprisonment of up to five years, or both, for the first offense; more for
*}the second.) One can only speculate as to why so many people opposed to
*}censorship spend so little time mobilizing their efforts to strike this
*}outrageous law down, instead setting their sights on a couple of (only
*}coincidentally female?
ChubbAC is here being OUTRAGEOUSLY dissimulative. "Obscenity" in 18 USC
1460-1469 is a TINY, TINY fraction of what would be effectively banned
in the MacKinnon/Dworkin ordinances. I doubt even so much as one
thousandth of the existing material which would be censored (through
overbroad civil torts) by MacKinnon/Dworkin is covered under existing
obscenity precedent. As a free speech advocate, I frankly find existing
obscenity law pernicous and censorious. But given a choice of something
which bans something fairly specific, or something which bans virtually
every form of even vaguely sexual printed material (and much
non-sexual), I would prefer the obscenity laws.
McKinnon and Dworkin want extremely broad government censorship on a
scale unlike anything every existing in the US, or other western
democracies! To pretend otherwise is just a bald-faced lie. To compare
the few bad existing restrictions on speech and the press to those much
broader ones McKinnon/Dworkin propose is dishonest and dangerous.
Yours, Lulu...
quilty@ | The specter of free information is haunting the `Net! All the
philos. | powers of IP- and crypto-tyrrany have entered into an unholy
umass. | alliance...ideas have nothing to lose but their chains. Unite
edu | against "intellectual property" and anti-privacy regimes!
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Patricia Shanahan
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> Without the revolution, however, women face more defeats of their goals
> in the interests of capitalist profiteering and more detractors from
> feminist militancy on this or that social front- in this case
> anti-pornography.
...
Just a moment. I'm a woman. I have my own goals. I expect some of
them coincide with yours, and some you wouldn't care about either
way, but one of them is to live in a reasonably stable society. I
don't want a revolution. I want better education for all, upwards
mobility, a strong middle class etc. - all the things that make
for a stable, low crime rate, society.
I am a feminist in the sense of believing that EVERYONE should be
free to choose their own goals and course in life, without being
pushed into particular tracks because of their sex.
When you talk as though I should want a revolution because I'm a
woman you are offending against my view of feminism just as much
as anyone who thinks I should cook and sew and do housework and
be afraid of computers because I'm a woman.
Patricia
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