Grrrr....
Avedon Carol
February 9, 2000
N2H2, makers of BESS blocking software, announce in a press release
that 18% of their revenue now comes from advertisements that are
displayed when BESS blocks a page. A student attempting to access
the Feminists Against Censorship site, for example, is re-directed to
one of N2H2's sponsors, such as the Chevron Cars Site for Kids.
(Note: Right now there actually _is_ a "bad word" on our site, but
BESS was blocking us before that page was put up.)
Theresa Wojtasiewicz
Trying to work this one out... either "Feminists" was a bad word
according to BESS or "Against Censorship" was a combo bad word, and the
two bits taken together was a compound bad word, compounding the badness
of the whole thing and therefore...
I'm all in favour of keeping rug slugs off of certain sites, but this is
a little - erm - much. Your Grrrr.... is entirely justified.
The redirect simply adds insult to injury.
Avram Grumer
<tw...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
> Avedon Carol wrote:
> >
> > From Peacefire:
> >
> > February 9, 2000
> > N2H2, makers of BESS blocking software, announce in a press release
> > that 18% of their revenue now comes from advertisements that are
> > displayed when BESS blocks a page. A student attempting to access
> > the Feminists Against Censorship site, for example, is re-directed to
> > one of N2H2's sponsors, such as the Chevron Cars Site for Kids.
> >
> > (Note: Right now there actually _is_ a "bad word" on our site, but
> > BESS was blocking us before that page was put up.)
>
> Trying to work this one out... either "Feminists" was a bad word
> according to BESS or "Against Censorship" was a combo bad word, and the
> two bits taken together was a compound bad word, compounding the badness
> of the whole thing and therefore...
Or someone had manually put the Feminists Against Censorship site into a
list of forbidden sites.
--
Avram Grumer | av...@grumer.org | http://www.PigsAndFishes.org
"Some people need to learn that the Internet changes everything.
And some people need to learn that it doesn't." -- Patrick Nielsen Hayden
Alison Scott
>I'm all in favour of keeping rug slugs off of certain sites, but this is
>a little - erm - much. Your Grrrr.... is entirely justified.
It always is, of course. My view is that at present, the blocking
software is so bad (in two ways; it doesn't stop the bright and
determined child in any case, and it blocks loads of perfectly
ordinary sites) that it's about as constructive as blocking access to
adult library cards was when we were kids. Yup, there's a whole world
of information for adults out there, and we want to keep you ignorant.
I hope we have some constructive solution to this by the time my rug
slugs are old enough to start wondering what Live Anal Asian Bondage
Pics!!! are like, though. Which at the rate she's going, will be about
18 months, so I'd better start worrying.
--
Alison Scott ali...@kittywompus.com & www.kittywompus.com
Kittywompus Tracks Fanzines -- at www.kittywompus.com/fanzines/reviews/
Avram Grumer
ali...@kittywompus.com wrote:
> It always is, of course. My view is that at present, the blocking
> software is so bad (in two ways; it doesn't stop the bright and
> determined child in any case, and it blocks loads of perfectly
> ordinary sites) that it's about as constructive as blocking access to
> adult library cards was when we were kids. Yup, there's a whole world
> of information for adults out there, and we want to keep you ignorant.
>
> I hope we have some constructive solution to this by the time my rug
> slugs are old enough to start wondering what Live Anal Asian Bondage
> Pics!!! are like, though. Which at the rate she's going, will be about
> 18 months, so I'd better start worrying.
I don't know what you'd consider a constructive solution. I think the
basic task that filtering attempts -- blocking access to all offensive
sites while denying access to no non-offensive sites -- is impossible. I
think even just describing the boundary between offensive and
non-offensive material in a way that could theoretically be acted upon is
impossible. So don't count on technological solutions.
The best solution, in my opinion, is to have the sort of relationship with
one's children that, when they see something that disturbs them, they come
to one to talk about it rather than hiding for fear that one will be upset
at them for wandering outside the boundaries of allowed viewing.
Lucy Kemnitzer
<ali...@kittywompus.com> wrote:
>Theresa Wojtasiewicz <tw...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
>
>>I'm all in favour of keeping rug slugs off of certain sites, but this is
>>a little - erm - much. Your Grrrr.... is entirely justified.
>
>It always is, of course. My view is that at present, the blocking
>software is so bad (in two ways; it doesn't stop the bright and
>determined child in any case, and it blocks loads of perfectly
>ordinary sites) that it's about as constructive as blocking access to
>adult library cards was when we were kids. Yup, there's a whole world
>of information for adults out there, and we want to keep you ignorant.
>
>I hope we have some constructive solution to this by the time my rug
>slugs are old enough to start wondering what Live Anal Asian Bondage
>Pics!!! are like, though. Which at the rate she's going, will be about
>18 months, so I'd better start worrying.
Oh, don't worry. Raise your kids right, and nurture their
interests in things you approve of, and it really won't matter if
they read a bunch of appalling stuff.
Besides, you might just luck out like I did, and your kids' erotic
needs might be satisfied by erotic anime fanfiction. Which tends
to the definitely weird, but sweet.
Lucy Kemnitzer
Damien Neil
Lucy Kemnitzer <rit...@cruzio.com> wrote:
>Oh, don't worry. Raise your kids right, and nurture their
>interests in things you approve of, and it really won't matter if
>they read a bunch of appalling stuff.
Absolutely. Why, look at me...I read all kinds of appalling stuff,
and I turned out...err, well, um, look! A three-headed monkey!
More seriously, I think Lucy is right.
>Besides, you might just luck out like I did, and your kids' erotic
>needs might be satisfied by erotic anime fanfiction. Which tends
>to the definitely weird, but sweet.
And leads to Japanese classes, which lead to Kanji, and nobody
learning Kanji has time to get involved in anything unpleasant
anyway. Just look at Japan's declining birth rate! It's all
the fault of the writing system, I tell you.
- Damien
Alison Scott
>The best solution, in my opinion, is to have the sort of relationship with
>one's children that, when they see something that disturbs them, they come
>to one to talk about it rather than hiding for fear that one will be upset
>at them for wandering outside the boundaries of allowed viewing.
I think this worked well for the sort of stuff I was likely to come
across as a child; I'd rather find a way, with Marianne, to sell the
message that there are some websites out there that would give *me*
nightmares (have done, in fact) and that, curious though she may be,
she'll probably be happier if she doesn't explore the Internet's wider
limits.
Alison Scott
>Oh, don't worry. Raise your kids right, and nurture their
>interests in things you approve of, and it really won't matter if
>they read a bunch of appalling stuff.
>
>Besides, you might just luck out like I did, and your kids' erotic
>needs might be satisfied by erotic anime fanfiction. Which tends
>to the definitely weird, but sweet.
Oh, I'm not remotely worried about M seeking out websites because they
satisfy her erotic needs; in fact, that seems like a pretty positive
use of the web on the whole. It's all the sites that satisfy *other*
people's erotic needs, especially if you encounter them before you've
really absorbed the message that people are turned on by the weirdest
things and it's all very personal. Plus I think you have to go through
a stage of working out exactly what it is that you, personally are
attracted to, and while the web probably helps a lot with that
process, I'm not convinced that early teens is the best time to work
it out.
In fact, the sites that squick me the most are the nazi hate sites
rather than the 'adult' ones.
Avedon Carol
<tw...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
>I'm all in favour of keeping rug slugs off of certain sites, but this is
>a little - erm - much. Your Grrrr.... is entirely justified.
I'm wondering why you are in favor of keeping kids off certain sites.
I mean, you live in a society where you can see every rotten thing
human beings do portrayed on television. What are "certain sites"
showing that's worse than what's on TV?
(Of course, our site doesn't even have any pictures, so I find it
amazing that anyone would think small children have to be prevented
from reading blocks of text.)
>The redirect simply adds insult to injury.
I just can't help the feeling that we should get _paid_ for that.
Avedon Carol
<ali...@kittywompus.com> wrote:
>rit...@cruzio.com (Lucy Kemnitzer) wrote:
>
>>Oh, don't worry. Raise your kids right, and nurture their
>>interests in things you approve of, and it really won't matter if
>>they read a bunch of appalling stuff.
>>
>>Besides, you might just luck out like I did, and your kids' erotic
>>needs might be satisfied by erotic anime fanfiction. Which tends
>>to the definitely weird, but sweet.
>
>Oh, I'm not remotely worried about M seeking out websites because they
>satisfy her erotic needs; in fact, that seems like a pretty positive
>use of the web on the whole. It's all the sites that satisfy *other*
>people's erotic needs, especially if you encounter them before you've
>really absorbed the message that people are turned on by the weirdest
>things and it's all very personal. Plus I think you have to go through
>a stage of working out exactly what it is that you, personally are
>attracted to, and while the web probably helps a lot with that
>process, I'm not convinced that early teens is the best time to work
>it out.
I was completely perverted by the time I was six, without ever seeing
any pornography at all. Exposure to "normal" sexual culture only
confused me.
>In fact, the sites that squick me the most are the nazi hate sites
>rather than the 'adult' ones.
I find actual history more disgusting than anything I have ever seen.
I was told about the camps and about the massacres when I was a child,
and of course about crucifixion, and I'm still waiting to see anything
worse.
Avedon Carol
wrote:
>The best solution, in my opinion, is to have the sort of relationship with
>one's children that, when they see something that disturbs them, they come
>to one to talk about it rather than hiding for fear that one will be upset
>at them for wandering outside the boundaries of allowed viewing.
I think this is what actually bothers most pro-blocking parents - the
idea of having to answer their kids' questions.
Lucy Kemnitzer
>On Fri, 25 Aug 2000 09:34:59 +0100,
>Alison Scott <ali...@kittywompus.com> scripsit:
>>av...@bigfoot.com (Avram Grumer) wrote:
>>>The best solution, in my opinion, is to have the sort of relationship with
>>>one's children that, when they see something that disturbs them, they come
>>>to one to talk about it rather than hiding for fear that one will be upset
>>>at them for wandering outside the boundaries of allowed viewing.
>>
>>I think this worked well for the sort of stuff I was likely to come
>>across as a child; I'd rather find a way, with Marianne, to sell the
>>message that there are some websites out there that would give *me*
>>nightmares (have done, in fact) and that, curious though she may be,
>>she'll probably be happier if she doesn't explore the Internet's wider
>>limits.
>
>Won't work; constraining children's curiousity by what you yourself
>are afraid of will fail, generally in unhelpful ways, unless the fear
>rests on some harm which is emotionally real to them.
>
>Asking a kid to respect an _unspecific_ fear of yours is just
>hopeless.
>
>I would say that it works better to recognize the child's objective --
>which is something like 'my brain is not full! must fix!' -- and make
>darn sure her access to interesting information exceeds her desire.
Well, actually, I found that gently disparaging things and
describing them as icky was as much of a deterrent as I needed
until the kids got old enough that it wasn't my responsibility any
more, by which time they already had enough of an inkling as to
what was what that they gravitated towards stuff I don't mind.
They saw lots of stuff I thought was disturbing -- in the
mainstream media, mostly tv -- but I couldn't prevent that, since
it was sprinkled through and through the stuff that was GRAW
(generally recognized as wholesome) by the regular world.
Lucy Kemnitzer
Nancy Lebovitz
Graydon <gra...@dsl.ca> wrote:
>On Fri, 25 Aug 2000 09:34:59 +0100,
>Alison Scott <ali...@kittywompus.com> scripsit:
>>av...@bigfoot.com (Avram Grumer) wrote:
>>>The best solution, in my opinion, is to have the sort of relationship with
>>>one's children that, when they see something that disturbs them, they come
>>>to one to talk about it rather than hiding for fear that one will be upset
>>>at them for wandering outside the boundaries of allowed viewing.
>>
>>I think this worked well for the sort of stuff I was likely to come
>>across as a child; I'd rather find a way, with Marianne, to sell the
>>message that there are some websites out there that would give *me*
>>nightmares (have done, in fact) and that, curious though she may be,
>>she'll probably be happier if she doesn't explore the Internet's wider
>>limits.
>
>Won't work; constraining children's curiousity by what you yourself
>are afraid of will fail, generally in unhelpful ways, unless the fear
>rests on some harm which is emotionally real to them.
>
>Asking a kid to respect an _unspecific_ fear of yours is just
>hopeless.
>
>I would say that it works better to recognize the child's objective --
>which is something like 'my brain is not full! must fix!' -- and make
>darn sure her access to interesting information exceeds her desire.
>
stuff (for some value of 'likes' which may well include nightmares) and
is going to grow up to be a fabulously wealthy horror writer.
--
Nancy Lebovitz na...@netaxs.com www.nancybuttons.com
My buttons and I will be at Chicon
Kate Schaefer
>describing them as icky was as much of a deterrent as I needed
>until the kids got old enough that it wasn't my responsibility any
>more, by which time they already had enough of an inkling as to
>what was what that they gravitated towards stuff I don't mind.
>
>They saw lots of stuff I thought was disturbing -- in the
>mainstream media, mostly tv -- but I couldn't prevent that, since
>it was sprinkled through and through the stuff that was GRAW
>(generally recognized as wholesome) by the regular world.
And the fact that Alison and Steven a) tell Marianne lots of interesting and
true things and b) do not tell her untrue things lays a solid foundation for
her to believe them when they say something is icky.
Avram Grumer
> And the fact that Alison and Steven a) tell Marianne lots of interesting
> and true things and b) do not tell her untrue things lays a solid
> foundation for her to believe them when they say something is icky.
Um, aren't you assuming that there's an objective measure of ickyness?
There's stuff my parents consider icky that I don't, and perhaps even
vice-versa.
Kate Schaefer
>In article <8o69h3$q47$0...@216.39.130.201>, "Kate Schaefer" <ka...@oz.net>
wrote:
>
>> And the fact that Alison and Steven a) tell Marianne lots of interesting
>> and true things and b) do not tell her untrue things lays a solid
>> foundation for her to believe them when they say something is icky.
>
>Um, aren't you assuming that there's an objective measure of ickyness?
>There's stuff my parents consider icky that I don't, and perhaps even
>vice-versa.
No. I assume that Steven and Alison will adjust the standard of ickiness
that they apply as Marianne gets older, and that there will be tension and
yet more adjustment as Marianne develops her own ickiness scale, and that
the terms used will change as time goes by (we use "No, thank you, I don't
care for that," rather than icky or yuck in our household).
I doubt that your parents consider it necessary to shelter you from much at
this point, and I think you're probably old enough that you no longer
consider it necessary to shelter them from much yourself.
Theresa Wojtasiewicz
>
> On Thu, 24 Aug 2000 13:38:56 GMT, Theresa Wojtasiewicz
> <tw...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
>
> >I'm all in favour of keeping rug slugs off of certain sites, but this is
> >a little - erm - much. Your Grrrr.... is entirely justified.
>
> I'm wondering why you are in favor of keeping kids off certain sites.
> I mean, you live in a society where you can see every rotten thing
> human beings do portrayed on television. What are "certain sites"
> showing that's worse than what's on TV?
I believe I'm going to be a coward and not answer that directly - since
I don't know what young ones are likely to get into and I honestly don't
know first hand what's out there that isn't suitable (other than what I
see reported in the paper, such as explicit sex sites, child
pornography, hate sites, how to build a bomb with hairpins and horse
manure, etc.). I had imagined that the blocker software was to prevent
young enquiring minds from finding things on the 'net that would
influence and disturb and would not likely turn up as a subject at the
supper table.
>
> (Of course, our site doesn't even have any pictures, so I find it
> amazing that anyone would think small children have to be prevented
> from reading blocks of text.)
Some of the little darlings are quite clever really; terrifyingly so, in
some cases. Being able to read and then parsing what they've read may
not be that wide a gulf. Again, supper table conversation? Hard to say.
Lucy Kemnitzer
Grumer) wrote:
>In article <8o69h3$q47$0...@216.39.130.201>, "Kate Schaefer" <ka...@oz.net> wrote:
>
>> And the fact that Alison and Steven a) tell Marianne lots of interesting
>> and true things and b) do not tell her untrue things lays a solid
>> foundation for her to believe them when they say something is icky.
Yepyepyep. It makes a big big difference, being as honest and
true as you know how. My kids, though quite capable of independent
thinking (they've demonstrated it, is how I know), also take my
worldview as a starting point in developing theirs -- and I have
never demanded ideologically loyalty from them.
>
>Um, aren't you assuming that there's an objective measure of ickyness?
>There's stuff my parents consider icky that I don't, and perhaps even
>vice-versa.
Yes, but that's not the thing we're concerned with here, I don't
think. My daughter likes movies that go boom and I don't. But if
I tell her, when I see her googling around -- "Oh, see the title
on that one: it's implying some very grisly stuff, I don't think
it will make you happy," her curiosity isn't piqued, because she
knows I won't say that about stuff that's merely outre. And
because when she goes off and reads about Ryoga and Ranma making
out my only remark is "that's odd." Since I do think that judge
was right when he said "No book ever hurt a girl," when I steer
Emma away from things it's because I don't think she should have
to put up with the assaultive ugliness of them, and not because I
think she'll be ruined by them, see? And so if it's not something
assaultively ugly, mean, and vicious, it's not my problem.
The middling stuff, I am concerned with, but in a different way: I
want the environment my child grows up in to be rich with the
things I think will help her to build a decent set of values from
and a strong sense of self (I speak of my daughter because my son
is all grown up now, but we still talk about stuff)and all those
other good things she needs. But this is more a matter of what
you put in to the environment than what you take out.
I do think that there are kinds of art that can have a cumulative
bad effect on a growing child, but that's when they dominate or
monopolize the environment and the child doesn't have the chance
to compare and critique and respond.
As for blocking software, I think it will work only when stuff
that's really inappropriate for the very young contains voluntary
markers which are excluded by tailored software, not when the
software tries to exclude things by subject or keyword.
Lucy Kemnitzer
Alison Hopkins
Lucy Kemnitzer wrote in message <39a6d4ff...@enews.newsguy.com>...
<snipped sensible stuff>
>As for blocking software, I think it will work only when stuff
>that's really inappropriate for the very young contains voluntary
>markers which are excluded by tailored software, not when the
>software tries to exclude things by subject or keyword.
>
And the best software is still the involved, caring parent, yes? Which seems
to me to be what you and Alison are being.
Ali
John Kensmark
> Besides, you might just luck out like I did, and your kids'
> erotic needs might be satisfied by erotic anime fanfiction.
> Which tends to the definitely weird, but sweet.
For some values of "tends" and "sweet". Most of it is probably
pretty sweet, but lard knows there's a lot of variation out there.
If you search the net, you can find violent Family Circus bdsm
fanfic. Probably "Crossfire" rape fanfic. And I'm living proof
that you don't have to look for this kind of thing on purpose to
stumble across it.
--
John Kensmark kensmark#hotmail.com
No man knows how bad he is until he has tried to be good.
There is a silly idea about that good people don't know
what temptation means.
-- C.S. Lewis
Loren Joseph MacGregor
I learned a lot of very good parenting lessons from someone (and I don't
know if she would want to be named in the context, so until I ask and am
told one way or the other, we'll keep it off list), much of which was
startling to me -at the time-, but quite good common sense when the
immediate case was over. One involved (for example) a young child who was
having a wonderful time riding on my back during bouncy-bouncy, until mom
said, "Now, that's enough; go on back to your room now and sleep." She'd
signalled me enough in advance that I didn't react too obviously, because
it was clear that -she- wasn't doing so. In retrospect, her youngest was
likely to remember only that he got to spend a little time with mom and
almost-dad when he wanted to, and the "event" was memorable only for that
-- whereas it would have been a -lot- more memorable as a "forbidden
thing" if I'd reacted to my first impulse.
Okay, cool. Something learned and stored away.
Another was when the older boy was taking a bath with another boy his age,
and the other boy's parent stepped in and began weeping and wailing and
loudly declaiming that her own son would -never- do anything like -that-
on his own, and that the poor innocent lad was being corrupted and on and
on and ON, until both boys were terrified. In this case, after mother and
son were packed off and on their way home, I was told, "You go on and say,
'You boys need to stop horsing around and finish up. I'll give you five
minutes to finish your bath and get out.' That way, they know they've
been misbehaving, but it's because they were 'horsing around,' not because
they were doing something 'nasty'. Make it forbidden and you make it more
interesting."
There were a lot of interesting things to learn about parenting. I'm just
glad my parents didn't know what I was doing with that cousin of John F.
Kennedy's, back in 1961.
-- LJM
Alison Scott
>And the fact that Alison and Steven a) tell Marianne lots of interesting and
>true things
This is true...
>and b) do not tell her untrue things
This is, um, not true. Steven has recently told her that it's good to
collect pine cones because we can use them to make pine cone jelly
(and she's asked to do so on an almost daily basis ever since). And,
while watching tractors making haystacks, he told her that the big
green rolls of grass were tractor eggs, and would hatch into little
baby tractors.
And I was the one who told her that tiny tangle fairies came in the
night and sat on her pillow and tied her hair into knots. This was
probably an error of judgement on my part.
Lucy Kemnitzer
<tw...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
>Avedon Carol wrote:
>>
>> On Thu, 24 Aug 2000 13:38:56 GMT, Theresa Wojtasiewicz
>> <tw...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
>>
>> >I'm all in favour of keeping rug slugs off of certain sites, but this is
>> >a little - erm - much. Your Grrrr.... is entirely justified.
>>
>> I'm wondering why you are in favor of keeping kids off certain sites.
>> I mean, you live in a society where you can see every rotten thing
>> human beings do portrayed on television. What are "certain sites"
>> showing that's worse than what's on TV?
>
>I believe I'm going to be a coward and not answer that directly - since
>I don't know what young ones are likely to get into and I honestly don't
>know first hand what's out there that isn't suitable (other than what I
>see reported in the paper, such as explicit sex sites, child
>pornography, hate sites, how to build a bomb with hairpins and horse
>manure, etc.).
I'll answer it directly. It is not appropriate for truly young
children to see visual depictions of people bound, or pretending
to force, injury,or wreaking discomfort on each other, for play,
for pleasure, or for allied purposes: and while I definitely agree
that there's too much of this on television, there are more
extreme depictions available even so, on the net: I'm not against
censoring the viewing habits of the entire world to defend the
experiences of very young children (or to refrain from feeding the
imaginations of dangerously ill people,either), but it takes
little effort to divert small children from these anyway. And if
they do slip the leash once in a while, well, sometimes they eat
an unripe apple or a rotten peanut, too.
But I am not going to say that all materials are appropriate for
children. Nuh-uh. A person needs some experience in the world
before they're able to weigh some of this stuff and put it in
perspective: a person needs to know this is not how we expect the
world to be. Eight year-olds need to learn to play nicely and to
respect boundaries, and they need to learn what respectful
language sounds like, and how to behave gently, and so on. They
don't need to learn how to say "bitch" and tie one another up and
put clothespins on each other.
> I had imagined that the blocker software was to prevent
>young enquiring minds from finding things on the 'net that would
>influence and disturb and would not likely turn up as a subject at the
>supper table.
It doesn't work this way though. It generates lists of things
that won't be viewed -- and uses keywords. So "breast," eh?
"cum," which can just as well be short for "cumulative file" or
latin for "with."
I want something developed to prevent the situation my students
were in the year I taught teenaged mothers, when they kept looking
for other teenaged mothers to chat with, and kept being
embarrassed by porn sites listings: not a thing that will keep
people from seeing nude pregnant eighteen year-old lesbians in cum
shots if they want to (though I'm willing to go out on a limb and
say that's a little bit weird), but a thing that will allow the
kids to search for what they want and get it, and not page after
page of listings of the pix!pix! I don't think it's too much to
ask.
Lucy Kemnitzer
>>
>> (Of course, our site doesn't even have any pictures, so I find it
>> amazing that anyone would think small children have to be prevented
>> from reading blocks of text.)
>
>Some of the little darlings are quite clever really; terrifyingly so, in
>some cases. Being able to read and then parsing what they've read may
>not be that wide a gulf. Again, supper table conversation? Hard to say.
>>
>> >The redirect simply adds insult to injury.
>>
>> I just can't help the feeling that we should get _paid_ for that.
Avram Grumer
Kemnitzer) wrote:
> On Fri, 25 Aug 2000 14:52:58 -0400, av...@bigfoot.com (Avram
> Grumer) wrote:
>
> >In article <8o69h3$q47$0...@216.39.130.201>, "Kate Schaefer" <ka...@oz.net>
wrote:
> >
> >Um, aren't you assuming that there's an objective measure of ickyness?
> >There's stuff my parents consider icky that I don't, and perhaps even
> >vice-versa.
>
> Yes, but that's not the thing we're concerned with here, I don't
> think. My daughter likes movies that go boom and I don't. But if
> I tell her, when I see her googling around -- "Oh, see the title
> on that one: it's implying some very grisly stuff, I don't think
> it will make you happy," her curiosity isn't piqued, because she
> knows I won't say that about stuff that's merely outre.
Ah, reviewing instead of proscribing. No problem.
> And because when she goes off and reads about Ryoga and Ranma
> making out my only remark is "that's odd."
Those two making out _is_ odd. Even if it's Ranma-chan.
> As for blocking software, I think it will work only when stuff
> that's really inappropriate for the very young contains voluntary
> markers which are excluded by tailored software, not when the
> software tries to exclude things by subject or keyword.
Yes, but I don't think that's ever likely to happen. Not for all of it.
Avram Grumer
ali...@kittywompus.com wrote:
> And I was the one who told her that tiny tangle fairies came in the
> night and sat on her pillow and tied her hair into knots. This was
> probably an error of judgement on my part.
I could almost believe in the tangle fairies.
Avram Grumer
Kemnitzer) wrote:
> I want something developed to prevent the situation my students
> were in the year I taught teenaged mothers, when they kept looking
> for other teenaged mothers to chat with, and kept being
> embarrassed by porn sites listings: not a thing that will keep
> people from seeing nude pregnant eighteen year-old lesbians in cum
> shots if they want to (though I'm willing to go out on a limb and
> say that's a little bit weird), but a thing that will allow the
> kids to search for what they want and get it, and not page after
> page of listings of the pix!pix! I don't think it's too much to
> ask.
How were they searching? I agree that ill-chosen search terms can turn up
all sorts of odd results, often porn-related, and "teen" is one of those
trouble-making words, but I just googled for "teenage mothers chat" (with
safe mode off) and the first page of results didn't include anything that
looked obviously pornish. (Based on the two lines of quoted text
displayed; I didn't bother actually following the link.) Maybe we just
need better search engines (Google is nice, but I'd like it there to be
alternatives of equal or better quality), and for people to learn how to
use them.
Rachael Lininger
Alison Scott <ali...@kittywompus.com> wrote:
>And I was the one who told her that tiny tangle fairies came in the
>night and sat on her pillow and tied her hair into knots. This was
>probably an error of judgement on my part.
I have a tangle fairy. Reallio trulio. Her name's Mistral. She sleeps by
my face at night and reaches out and swats at it my hair, when she's not
curled up around the top of my head.
And she still likes to nibble my goddamned ears!
What are the odds of getting two kittens in a row with an ear fetish, I
ask? It's _no_fair,_ and Mistral is much harder to put off than Chinook
was.
Rachael
--
Rachael Lininger | "Am I a fool--a Romantic, a quixot--
rac...@dd-b.net | Or is there a constitutional defect in the
| American mind?" --Alexander Hamilton
Doug Wickstrom
>how to build a bomb with hairpins and horse
>manure, etc.)
I don't think there are any web sites that cover this specific
instance, but I think it can be done, provided we don't stipulate
that those are the _only_ materials.
--
Doug Wickstrom
"Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new."
--Albert Einstein
Doug Wickstrom
<ali...@kittywompus.com> excited the ether to say:
>And I was the one who told her that tiny tangle fairies came in the
>night and sat on her pillow and tied her hair into knots. This was
>probably an error of judgement on my part.
So how _does_ hair get tangled into knots at night if it isn't
the tangle fairies? _Something's_ been at my hair.
--
Doug Wickstrom
"Man will never reach the moon regardless of all future scientific advances."
--Lee DeForest
Theresa Wojtasiewicz
>
> On Fri, 25 Aug 2000 21:13:08 GMT, Theresa Wojtasiewicz
Thank you. Yes. And very eloquently said.
>
> > I had imagined that the blocker software was to prevent
> >young enquiring minds from finding things on the 'net that would
> >influence and disturb and would not likely turn up as a subject at the
> >supper table.
>
> It doesn't work this way though. It generates lists of things
> that won't be viewed -- and uses keywords. So "breast," eh?
> "cum," which can just as well be short for "cumulative file" or
> latin for "with."
I wasn't sure how this worked, being childless. Isn't there something
similar for TV?
>
> I want something developed to prevent the situation my students
> were in the year I taught teenaged mothers, when they kept looking
> for other teenaged mothers to chat with, and kept being
> embarrassed by porn sites listings: not a thing that will keep
> people from seeing nude pregnant eighteen year-old lesbians in cum
> shots if they want to (though I'm willing to go out on a limb and
> say that's a little bit weird), but a thing that will allow the
> kids to search for what they want and get it, and not page after
> page of listings of the pix!pix! I don't think it's too much to
> ask.
It is not too much to ask. I recently signed up with ICQ for the purpose
of exchanging large files with a business colleague, and I ended up
turfing the account and the software because of all the invitations to
sex chat rooms and to have a look at pix! pix! pix! everytime I signed
on. It was utterly disgusting.
The trouble with words like "breast" is that it is impossible to
determine the context of the search just by the word itself (alas). One
wonders, though: if your students had searched for "women's health"
would the same sites have been blocked?
>
<rest snipped>
Theresa Wojtasiewicz
> > night and sat on her pillow and tied her hair into knots. This was
> > probably an error of judgement on my part.
>
I do believe in the tangle fairies <still trying to pull comb through
hair>. And the clutter monster. The dish fairy, alas, comes no more. And
the SuperGargantuan Dust Rhinoceros Vanquisher has sucked in his last
breath.
Kate Schaefer
>"Kate Schaefer" <ka...@oz.net> wrote:
>
>
>>And the fact that Alison and Steven a) tell Marianne lots of interesting
and
>>true things
>
>This is true...
>
>>and b) do not tell her untrue things
>
>This is, um, not true. Steven has recently told her that it's good to
>collect pine cones because we can use them to make pine cone jelly
>(and she's asked to do so on an almost daily basis ever since). And,
>while watching tractors making haystacks, he told her that the big
>green rolls of grass were tractor eggs, and would hatch into little
>baby tractors.
>
>night and sat on her pillow and tied her hair into knots. This was
>probably an error of judgement on my part.
Ah, well, that's been one of those damn learning experiences for you, then.
Lucy Kemnitzer
Grumer) wrote:
>In article <39a6f4a6...@enews.newsguy.com>, rit...@cruzio.com (Lucy
>Kemnitzer) wrote:
>
>> I want something developed to prevent the situation my students
>> were in the year I taught teenaged mothers, when they kept looking
>> for other teenaged mothers to chat with, and kept being
>> embarrassed by porn sites listings: not a thing that will keep
>> people from seeing nude pregnant eighteen year-old lesbians in cum
>> shots if they want to (though I'm willing to go out on a limb and
>> say that's a little bit weird), but a thing that will allow the
>> kids to search for what they want and get it, and not page after
>> page of listings of the pix!pix! I don't think it's too much to
>> ask.
>
>How were they searching? I agree that ill-chosen search terms can turn up
>all sorts of odd results, often porn-related, and "teen" is one of those
>trouble-making words, but I just googled for "teenage mothers chat" (with
>safe mode off) and the first page of results didn't include anything that
>looked obviously pornish. (Based on the two lines of quoted text
>displayed; I didn't bother actually following the link.) Maybe we just
>need better search engines (Google is nice, but I'd like it there to be
>alternatives of equal or better quality), and for people to learn how to
>use them.
This was Alta Vista, not google: there was no google then that I
knew of. I have had close to no trouble with google: you almost
have to be looking for porn to get it. Only time I had real
trouble with it was looking up "What is to be done?" -- no
intelligible results at all.
Lucy Kemnitzer
Lucy Kemnitzer
<kens...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>Lucy Kemnitzer wrote:
>
>> Besides, you might just luck out like I did, and your kids'
>> erotic needs might be satisfied by erotic anime fanfiction.
>> Which tends to the definitely weird, but sweet.
>
>For some values of "tends" and "sweet". Most of it is probably
>pretty sweet, but lard knows there's a lot of variation out there.
>If you search the net, you can find violent Family Circus bdsm
>fanfic. Probably "Crossfire" rape fanfic. And I'm living proof
>that you don't have to look for this kind of thing on purpose to
>stumble across it.
Right, but my darlings are looking for particular things, and
those things don't go nasty.
I think.
They do go weird.
Lucy Kemnitzer
mike weber
typed
>It doesn't work this way though. It generates lists of things
>that won't be viewed -- and uses keywords. So "breast," eh?
>"cum," which can just as well be short for "cumulative file" or
>latin for "with."
>
Which results in the Forsyth County Georgia website being blocked,
'cos the county seat is Cumming.
Or, of course, it would block access to sites that discussed the
program "Love That Bob", 'cos bob was always Cumming every week...
--
"Life's a game where they're bound to beat you, and time's a
trick they can turn to cheat you -- and we only waste it
anyway, that's the hell of it..." -- Paul Williams
<mike weber> kras...@mindspring.com>
Ambitious Incomplete web site: http://weberworld.virtualave.net
Theresa Wojtasiewicz
>
> On Fri, 25 Aug 2000 22:48:25 GMT, rit...@cruzio.com (Lucy Kemnitzer)
> typed
>
> >It doesn't work this way though. It generates lists of things
> >that won't be viewed -- and uses keywords. So "breast," eh?
> >"cum," which can just as well be short for "cumulative file" or
> >latin for "with."
> >
> Which results in the Forsyth County Georgia website being blocked,
> 'cos the county seat is Cumming.
>
> Or, of course, it would block access to sites that discussed the
> program "Love That Bob", 'cos bob was always Cumming every week...
You are a *bad* man. LOL!
mike weber
<tw...@sympatico.ca> typed
>mike weber wrote:
>> Which results in the Forsyth County Georgia website being blocked,
>> 'cos the county seat is Cumming.
>>
>> Or, of course, it would block access to sites that discussed the
>> program "Love That Bob", 'cos bob was always Cumming every week...
>
>You are a *bad* man. LOL!
Well, the *first* example above is absolutely true.
The second is a mere extrapolation.
Assuming anybody would want to discuss "Love That Bob".
Which in turn involves an assumption that anyone *remembers* it.
(I looked on Google. Apparently people *do.)
Ray Radlein
>
> Theresa Wojtasiewicz <tw...@sympatico.ca>:
>
> >how to build a bomb with hairpins and horse manure, etc.)
>
> I don't think there are any web sites that cover this specific
> instance, but I think it can be done, provided we don't stipulate
> that those are the _only_ materials.
For instance, you can make a very powerful bomb indeed using three
hairpins, five pounds of *dried* horse manure, and a hydrogen bomb.
- Ray R.
--
**********************************************************************
"LOS ANGELES: A city of millions; thousands more are born each day.
Some in maternity wards, some in creche incubators. The Artificial
ones don't have civil rights, but they still need the law. That's
why they turn to me. My name is Friday. I carry a badge."
-- Robert A. Heinlein's "Dragnet"
Ray Radlein - r...@learnlink.emory.edu
homepage coming soon! wooo, wooo.
**********************************************************************
mike weber
<nims...@worldnet.att.net> typed
>On Fri, 25 Aug 2000 21:13:08 GMT, Theresa Wojtasiewicz
><tw...@sympatico.ca> excited the ether to say:
>
>>how to build a bomb with hairpins and horse
>>manure, etc.)
>
>I don't think there are any web sites that cover this specific
>instance, but I think it can be done, provided we don't stipulate
>that those are the _only_ materials.
>
The horse manure woule be included, of course, primarily for an area
anti-personnel effect...
Alia
Mine was telling my three year old daughter that the baby factory was
closed when she asked for a little brother or sister. Three years
later, I'm trying to explain the joke to a six year old who really,
really wants to visit the baby factory.
--
Alia / Copyright fno...@earthlink.net
Ed Dravecky III
<snip>
> In fact, the sites that squick me the most are the nazi hate
> sites rather than the 'adult' ones.
Yeah, that http://www.buchananreform.com/ site *is* kinda creepy.
--
Ed Dravecky III
(ed3 at panix.com)
Ed Dravecky III
> For some values of "tends" and "sweet". Most of it is probably
> pretty sweet, but lard knows there's a lot of variation out there.
> If you search the net, you can find violent Family Circus bdsm
> fanfic. Probably "Crossfire" rape fanfic. And I'm living proof
> that you don't have to look for this kind of thing on purpose to
> stumble across it.
Reich: "On the left, wearing swim flippers, I'm Robert Reich."
Novak: "And on the right, wearing a sombrero, I'm Robert Novak."
Reich: "Tonight in the Crossfire, Secretary of State Madeline
Albright wearing a short vinyl skirt and five-inch heels."
<shudder>
Kip Williams
>
> On Fri, 25 Aug 2000 23:46:16 +0100, Alison Scott
>
> >And I was the one who told her that tiny tangle fairies came in the
> >night and sat on her pillow and tied her hair into knots. This was
> >probably an error of judgement on my part.
>
> the tangle fairies? _Something's_ been at my hair.
It's just that at night, the -untangle- fairies take off work.
Union.
--
--Kip (Williams)
amusing the world at http://members.home.net/kipw/
Kip Williams
I thought the rule was never wear a vinyl skirt around gentlemen
wearing flippers and sombrero.
Damn perverts.
Kip Williams
>
> On Sat, 26 Aug 2000 04:19:39 GMT, Theresa Wojtasiewicz
> <tw...@sympatico.ca> typed
>
> >mike weber wrote:
>
> >> Which results in the Forsyth County Georgia website being blocked,
> >> 'cos the county seat is Cumming.
> >>
> >> Or, of course, it would block access to sites that discussed the
> >> program "Love That Bob", 'cos bob was always Cumming every week...
> >
> >You are a *bad* man. LOL!
>
> Well, the *first* example above is absolutely true.
>
> The second is a mere extrapolation.
>
> Assuming anybody would want to discuss "Love That Bob".
>
> Which in turn involves an assumption that anyone *remembers* it.
>
> (I looked on Google. Apparently people *do.)
There you have it. Every sick perversion you can think of is out
there.
Kip Williams
>
> On Fri, 25 Aug 2000 23:37:43 -0500, Doug Wickstrom
> <nims...@worldnet.att.net> typed
>
> >On Fri, 25 Aug 2000 21:13:08 GMT, Theresa Wojtasiewicz
> ><tw...@sympatico.ca> excited the ether to say:
> >
> >>how to build a bomb with hairpins and horse
> >>manure, etc.)
> >
> >I don't think there are any web sites that cover this specific
> >instance, but I think it can be done, provided we don't stipulate
> >that those are the _only_ materials.
> >
> The horse manure woule be included, of course, primarily for an area
> anti-personnel effect...
It's so that optimistic foes will linger awhile at the scene of
devastation, looking for the pony.
John Hasler
> So how _does_ hair get tangled into knots at night if it isn't the tangle
> fairies? _Something's_ been at my hair.
The same elves that ride my horses at night and "braid" their manes.
--
John Hasler
jo...@dhh.gt.org
Dancing Horse Hill
Elmwood, Wisconsin
David G. Bell
<ljkdqsc5ajc22krdo...@4ax.com>
ali...@kittywompus.com "Alison Scott" wrote:
> "Kate Schaefer" <ka...@oz.net> wrote:
>
>
> >And the fact that Alison and Steven a) tell Marianne lots of interesting and
> >true things
>
> This is true...
>
> >and b) do not tell her untrue things
>
> This is, um, not true. Steven has recently told her that it's good to
> collect pine cones because we can use them to make pine cone jelly
> (and she's asked to do so on an almost daily basis ever since). And,
> while watching tractors making haystacks, he told her that the big
> green rolls of grass were tractor eggs, and would hatch into little
> baby tractors.
This doesn't work for Massey Ferguson and Case. John Deere and, I
think, Fendt, do use that method.
> And I was the one who told her that tiny tangle fairies came in the
> night and sat on her pillow and tied her hair into knots. This was
> probably an error of judgement on my part.
The Tooth Fairy now wants danger money.
--
David G. Bell -- Farmer, SF Fan, Filker, and Punslinger.
Copyright 2000 David G. Bell
The right to insert advertising material in the above text is reserved
to the author. The author did not use any form of HTML in the above text.
Any text following this line was added without the author's permission.
David G. Bell
<avram-25080...@manhattan.crossover.com>
av...@bigfoot.com "Avram Grumer" wrote:
> In article <39a6d4ff...@enews.newsguy.com>, rit...@cruzio.com (Lucy
> Kemnitzer) wrote:
>
> > As for blocking software, I think it will work only when stuff
> > that's really inappropriate for the very young contains voluntary
> > markers which are excluded by tailored software, not when the
> > software tries to exclude things by subject or keyword.
>
> Yes, but I don't think that's ever likely to happen. Not for all of it.
The technology exists, and there was a move to impose its use here in
the UK a few years back. Did anything but Internet Explorer ever try to
support the PICS system?
Anyway, the classification scheme was run by an American outfit,
originated in computer _games_ publishing. and was loaded with
assumptions as a consequence.
It would, for instance, have been good to distinguish between sex-for-
entertainment and sex-for-information. Computer games are all for
entertainment. And then we allow all adults to drink alcohol, instead
of only adults over the age of 21.
David G. Bell
rit...@cruzio.com "Lucy Kemnitzer" wrote:
I think the intriguing thing in this useful distinction is where one
puts the boundary. And that boundary certainly has to shift with age.
For myself, I'd consider bondage-for-restraint to be borderline-nasty.
It certainly needs to be considered carefully, and there are good
reasons to block it on age grounds. But bondage-for-pain is beyond the
other side of the boundary. And there's some bondage-images out there
which use the symbolism as decoration, with only a potential for
restraint or pain.
I remember, at an Eastercon a few years ago, a moderately notorious fan
of the time walking around in a leopard(?)-print swimsuit/leotard,
rather draped in glittering chains. I think that was more
decoration/weird than anything worse.
But in another context?
Anyway, a lot of pictures lack context. Which is why I'd be thinking of
the concept of something weird which can easily turn nasty. And that
applies just as much to vanilla sex anyway.
David G. Bell
<jcieqskmaenr6m4h0...@4ax.com>
nims...@worldnet.att.net "Doug Wickstrom" wrote:
> On Fri, 25 Aug 2000 21:13:08 GMT, Theresa Wojtasiewicz
> <tw...@sympatico.ca> excited the ether to say:
>
> >how to build a bomb with hairpins and horse
> >manure, etc.)
>
> I don't think there are any web sites that cover this specific
> instance, but I think it can be done, provided we don't stipulate
> that those are the _only_ materials.
Nitrates, right?
Though horse manure isn't so good as a fertiliser, so it might be a sub-
optimal source.
Vicki Rosenzweig
21:13:08 GMT:
>Avedon Carol wrote:
>>
>> On Thu, 24 Aug 2000 13:38:56 GMT, Theresa Wojtasiewicz
>> <tw...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
>>
>> >I'm all in favour of keeping rug slugs off of certain sites, but this is
>> >a little - erm - much. Your Grrrr.... is entirely justified.
>>
>> I'm wondering why you are in favor of keeping kids off certain sites.
>> I mean, you live in a society where you can see every rotten thing
>> human beings do portrayed on television. What are "certain sites"
>> showing that's worse than what's on TV?
>
>I believe I'm going to be a coward and not answer that directly - since
>I don't know what young ones are likely to get into and I honestly don't
>know first hand what's out there that isn't suitable (other than what I
>see reported in the paper, such as explicit sex sites, child
>pornography, hate sites, how to build a bomb with hairpins and horse
>manure, etc.). I had imagined that the blocker software was to prevent
>young enquiring minds from finding things on the 'net that would
>influence and disturb and would not likely turn up as a subject at the
>supper table.
A nice theory. In practice, though, the typical filter assumes
that breast cancer and gay rights are inappropriate subjects for
the dinner table.
See www.peacefire.org for some examples of sites that one or more
of the censorware programs block. The White House Web site was so
obvious a mistake that they had to change it, but since they don't
publish the lists of blocked sites, it can take a while to figure
out why you can't get to a perfectly ordinary site that some piece
of poor coding, or some programmer's odd politics, are keeping you
out of. http://www.aclu.org was probably blocked deliberately--don't
want the kids to know that there are people who object to censorship,
after all--but this antiques shop is almost certainly just an example
of poor coding: http://a-antiques.com/
--
Copyright 2000 Vicki Rosenzweig. Permission to insert links when
displaying is available for $100 per link. Use in this fashion
constitutes acceptance of these terms. v...@redbird.org
r.a.sf.f faq at http://www.redbird.org/rassef-faq.html
Heather Anne Nicoll
> See www.peacefire.org for some examples of sites that one or more
> of the censorware programs block.
In addition to Peacefire itself, of course, a favored blocking target.
- Darkhawk, cynical
--
Heather Nicoll - Darkhawk - http://aelfhame.net/~darkhawk/
Tomorrow and after you tell me what am I to do
I stand here believing that in the dark there is a clue.
- Savatage, "Alone You Breathe"
Lucy Kemnitzer
db...@zhochaka.demon.co.uk ("David G. Bell") wrote:
<speaking of weird vs nasty, and I had said my kids' taste was for
weird, not nasty>
>I think the intriguing thing in this useful distinction is where one
>puts the boundary. And that boundary certainly has to shift with age.
>For myself, I'd consider bondage-for-restraint to be borderline-nasty.
>It certainly needs to be considered carefully, and there are good
>reasons to block it on age grounds. But bondage-for-pain is beyond the
>other side of the boundary. And there's some bondage-images out there
>which use the symbolism as decoration, with only a potential for
>restraint or pain.
>
>I remember, at an Eastercon a few years ago, a moderately notorious fan
>of the time walking around in a leopard(?)-print swimsuit/leotard,
>rather draped in glittering chains. I think that was more
>decoration/weird than anything worse.
>
>But in another context?
>
>Anyway, a lot of pictures lack context. Which is why I'd be thinking of
>the concept of something weird which can easily turn nasty. And that
>applies just as much to vanilla sex anyway.
>
Yeah, but Sailor Moon and Slayers and Ranma fanfiction has a
context, and the context is weird, not nasty (well, Slayers could
be nasty, but it just doesn't happen to be). Well, there's stuff
my son is too weird and he says I don't want to know, but I think
that's because it involves the cats.
Lucy Kemnitzer
Doug Wickstrom
db...@zhochaka.demon.co.uk ("David G. Bell") excited the ether to
say:
>On Friday, in article
> <jcieqskmaenr6m4h0...@4ax.com>
> nims...@worldnet.att.net "Doug Wickstrom" wrote:
>
>> On Fri, 25 Aug 2000 21:13:08 GMT, Theresa Wojtasiewicz
>> <tw...@sympatico.ca> excited the ether to say:
>>
>> >how to build a bomb with hairpins and horse
>> >manure, etc.)
>>
>> I don't think there are any web sites that cover this specific
>> instance, but I think it can be done, provided we don't stipulate
>> that those are the _only_ materials.
>
>Nitrates, right?
Yup.
>Though horse manure isn't so good as a fertiliser, so it might be a sub-
>optimal source.
It's good enough, especially well watered with horse urine.
--
Doug Wickstrom
"Any girl can be glamorous. All she has to do is stand still and look
stupid." --Hedy Lamarr
Avedon Carol
>> I'm wondering why you are in favor of keeping kids off certain sites.
>> I mean, you live in a society where you can see every rotten thing
>> human beings do portrayed on television. What are "certain sites"
>> showing that's worse than what's on TV?
>
>I believe I'm going to be a coward and not answer that directly - since
>I don't know what young ones are likely to get into and I honestly don't
>know first hand what's out there that isn't suitable (other than what I
>see reported in the paper, such as explicit sex sites,
Well, there's no evidence that any child (or anyone else) has ever
been harmed by looking at pornography, so that doesn't scare me much.
>child pornography, hate sites, how to build a bomb with hairpins and horse
>manure, etc.).
I learned how to build blow things up in high school chemistry class.
I don't remember it that well, but I can walk to the public library
from here.
>I had imagined that the blocker software was to prevent
>young enquiring minds from finding things on the 'net that would
>influence and disturb and would not likely turn up as a subject at the
>supper table.
Apparently so. Why else would our site be banned?
>> (Of course, our site doesn't even have any pictures, so I find it
>> amazing that anyone would think small children have to be prevented
>> from reading blocks of text.)
>
>Some of the little darlings are quite clever really; terrifyingly so, in
>some cases. Being able to read and then parsing what they've read may
>not be that wide a gulf. Again, supper table conversation? Hard to say.
Personally, if my actual child-aged child came to the dinner table
discussing the dangers of censorship of sexual material, I think I'd
be more pleased than worried. And far less bored than having to
listen a discussion of pokemon and extremely old jokes and fart
noises.
Avedon Carol
>>> On Thu, 24 Aug 2000 13:38:56 GMT, Theresa Wojtasiewicz
>>> <tw...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
>>> I'm wondering why you are in favor of keeping kids off certain sites.
>>> I mean, you live in a society where you can see every rotten thing
>>> human beings do portrayed on television. What are "certain sites"
>>> showing that's worse than what's on TV?
>>
>>I believe I'm going to be a coward and not answer that directly - since
>>I don't know what young ones are likely to get into and I honestly don't
>>know first hand what's out there that isn't suitable (other than what I
>>see reported in the paper, such as explicit sex sites, child
>>pornography, hate sites, how to build a bomb with hairpins and horse
>>manure, etc.).
>
>I'll answer it directly. It is not appropriate for truly young
>children to see visual depictions of people bound, or pretending
>to force, injury,or wreaking discomfort on each other, for play,
>for pleasure, or for allied purposes:
I'm not sure we this is any worse than what they already see - and
experience, for that matter.
> and while I definitely agree
>that there's too much of this on television, there are more
>extreme depictions available even so, on the net: I'm not against
>censoring the viewing habits of the entire world to defend the
>experiences of very young children (or to refrain from feeding the
>imaginations of dangerously ill people,either),
<shudder> I am!
>but it takes
>little effort to divert small children from these anyway. And if
>they do slip the leash once in a while, well, sometimes they eat
>an unripe apple or a rotten peanut, too.
Sometimes they get bullied in school and abused by their families,
too. Childhood is frequently a far more rotten experience than most
of what you can find on the net.
>But I am not going to say that all materials are appropriate for
>children. Nuh-uh. A person needs some experience in the world
>before they're able to weigh some of this stuff and put it in
>perspective:
Little children probably get more "perspective" on violence than
adults remember, though. After all, it's considered normal behavior
to get in fights in school.
>a person needs to know this is not how we expect the
>world to be. Eight year-olds need to learn to play nicely and to
>respect boundaries, and they need to learn what respectful
>language sounds like, and how to behave gently, and so on. They
>don't need to learn how to say "bitch" and tie one another up and
>put clothespins on each other.
No, they definitely learn all that stuff in on the playground.
>> I had imagined that the blocker software was to prevent
>>young enquiring minds from finding things on the 'net that would
>>influence and disturb and would not likely turn up as a subject at the
>>supper table.
>
>It doesn't work this way though. It generates lists of things
>that won't be viewed -- and uses keywords. So "breast," eh?
>"cum," which can just as well be short for "cumulative file" or
>latin for "with."
And misses a whole lot of other sites that just don't happen to have
those particular words or have been noticed by the compilers of the
software. And in the meantime, it blocks all sorts of innocuous
sites.
>I want something developed to prevent the situation my students
>were in the year I taught teenaged mothers, when they kept looking
>for other teenaged mothers to chat with, and kept being
>embarrassed by porn sites listings: not a thing that will keep
>people from seeing nude pregnant eighteen year-old lesbians in cum
>shots if they want to (though I'm willing to go out on a limb and
>say that's a little bit weird), but a thing that will allow the
>kids to search for what they want and get it, and not page after
>page of listings of the pix!pix! I don't think it's too much to
>ask.
I want a search engine that retains its virtues when it goes through
changes. It seems like lately, every time I use a familiar search
engine, they have re-designed it so that I have to hunt around for the
facility I use - again.
Theresa Wojtasiewicz
The time has come for me to retreat from this discussion. I regret
participating in it at all. I withdraw all of my comments, and apologize
for sharing my thoughts.
Loren MacGregor
>
> The time has come for me to retreat from this discussion. I regret
> participating in it at all. I withdraw all of my comments, and apologize
> for sharing my thoughts.
Um. Don't take disagreement as condemnation. Please.
-- LJM
Kip Williams
>
> > On Fri, 25 Aug 2000 21:13:08 GMT, Theresa Wojtasiewicz
> >
> > >how to build a bomb with hairpins and horse
> >
> > I don't think there are any web sites that cover this specific
> > instance, but I think it can be done, provided we don't stipulate
> > that those are the _only_ materials.
>
> Nitrates, right?
>
> optimal source.
The horse is the source of force, of course, and no one outpowers
the force of horse. Unless, of course, the power source is methane
from Mister Ed.
Lucy Kemnitzer
Carol) wrote:
>On Fri, 25 Aug 2000 22:48:25 GMT, rit...@cruzio.com (Lucy Kemnitzer)
>wrote:
>> and while I definitely agree
>>that there's too much of this on television, there are more
>>extreme depictions available even so, on the net: I'm not against
>>censoring the viewing habits of the entire world to defend the
>>experiences of very young children (or to refrain from feeding the
>>imaginations of dangerously ill people,either),
>
><shudder> I am!
Sorry: that was supposerd to be either "I'm not for" or "I'm
against" -- I have no idea how that paragraph came out saying
exactly the opposite of what it was supposed to say.
Lucy Kemnitzer
Theresa Wojtasiewicz
I don't. It's my own limitations here. I felt suddenly sick at the
thought of having a discussion with someone who doesn't think
pornography is harmful to children. I'm sorry; I have not got the
strength of character to go on with this discussion.
I am really very, very sorry. In fact, I am in tears as I write this,
that is the depth of my horror.
P Nielsen Hayden
Theresa Wojtasiewicz <tw...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
>Loren MacGregor wrote:
>>
>> Theresa Wojtasiewicz wrote:
>> >
>> > The time has come for me to retreat from this discussion. I regret
>> > participating in it at all. I withdraw all of my comments, and apologize
>> > for sharing my thoughts.
>>
>> Um. Don't take disagreement as condemnation. Please.
>
>I don't. It's my own limitations here. I felt suddenly sick at the
>thought of having a discussion with someone who doesn't think
>pornography is harmful to children. I'm sorry; I have not got the
>strength of character to go on with this discussion.
Well, you can add me to the list of people you feel morally horrified at.
I'm pretty morally horrified by your position, too, as it happens.
>I am really very, very sorry. In fact, I am in tears as I write this,
>that is the depth of my horror.
You're in tears. Some other people, who never hurt anyone, are in jail,
because of attitudes like the one you're articulating.
I'm sorry you're in tears, but I'd be happy to have you in more tears if it
would get those people out of jail.
--
Patrick Nielsen Hayden : p...@panix.com : http://www.panix.com/~pnh
John Kensmark
>
> On Fri, 25 Aug 2000 22:17:14 GMT, John Kensmark
> <kens...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>
>> Lucy Kemnitzer wrote:
>>
>>> Besides, you might just luck out like I did, and your kids'
>>> erotic needs might be satisfied by erotic anime fanfiction.
>>> Which tends to the definitely weird, but sweet.
>>
>> For some values of "tends" and "sweet". Most of it is probably
>> pretty sweet, but lard knows there's a lot of variation out
>> there. If you search the net, you can find violent Family
>> Circus bdsm fanfic. Probably "Crossfire" rape fanfic. And I'm
>> living proof that you don't have to look for this kind of thing
>> on purpose to stumble across it.
>
> Right, but my darlings are looking for particular things, and
> those things don't go nasty.
>
> I think.
>
> They do go weird.
I'm sure they'll be fine.
I didn't really mean "I'm living proof", above; that wasn't quite
the phrase I was looking for. I mean, watashi wa H, sure, but . . .
well, never mind.
--
John Kensmark kensmark#hotmail.com
Perversity makes strange bedfellows.
Bedfellows make strange politics.
Politics makes strange bedbugs.
John Kensmark
> Well, there's no evidence that any child (or anyone else) has
> ever been harmed by looking at pornography, so that doesn't
> scare me much.
I've known people (two of them) who, in my opinion, were quite
arguably harmed by pornography--not in any esoteric way, but rather
intellectually captivated by certain forms. The memes got 'em.
Porn (as a genre) contains some mighty powerful memes, and some
folks are especially susceptible.
Of these two, one agrees that porn did him a world of hurt. The
other doesn't think he has a problem.
I'm not anti-porn, and I'm certainly not pro-censorship. But I do
think porn can hurt people. So can _The Catcher in the Rye_. I
swear by Satan's fuzzy belly, there are days where I can't get the
late 1970's Sergio Valente jingle out of my head, and if it's not
hurting me, it's nonetheless certainly painful.
Point only being that ideas can be dangerous, in and of themselves,
and this includes images and classes of images. Porn is definitely
a powerful class of images, although not all porn is particularly
powerful. Some folks don't hold up well against that kind of
power. Porn is nothing like the only class of images or ideas that
can do this, but even so.
--
John Kensmark kensmark#hotmail.com
Jeremy, for those not willing to admit they know who he is, has
been in more porn films than anyone else. His popularity is
easily explained: Every man alive believes that any woman would
prefer him to Ron Jeremy.
--Roger Ebert
David G. Bell
tw...@sympatico.ca "Theresa Wojtasiewicz" wrote:
I really have to ask this, to try and get a useful context for your
reaction, since so many pro-censorship types play fast and loose with
the definition, and by doing so diminish their own arguments.
What do _you_ mean by "children" and "pornography"?
And, just to put the debate into some context, the "harm to children"
line is a hot issue here in the UK, and Avedon is closely involved in
the debate here. It's being claimed as a reason for the censorship of
material which may only be sold to adults. And this is despite a rather
sweeping lack of evidence for harm, even when "harm to children" was
recently claimed in the British Courts.
David G. Bell
<avcgqsc8m28fqhetv...@4ax.com>
nims...@uswest.not "Doug Wickstrom" wrote:
> On Sat, 26 Aug 2000 17:51:20 +0100 (BST),
> db...@zhochaka.demon.co.uk ("David G. Bell") excited the ether to
> say:
>
> >On Friday, in article
> > <jcieqskmaenr6m4h0...@4ax.com>
> > nims...@worldnet.att.net "Doug Wickstrom" wrote:
> >
> >> On Fri, 25 Aug 2000 21:13:08 GMT, Theresa Wojtasiewicz
> >> <tw...@sympatico.ca> excited the ether to say:
> >>
> >> >how to build a bomb with hairpins and horse
> >> >manure, etc.)
> >>
> >> I don't think there are any web sites that cover this specific
> >> instance, but I think it can be done, provided we don't stipulate
> >> that those are the _only_ materials.
> >
> >Nitrates, right?
>
> Yup.
>
> >Though horse manure isn't so good as a fertiliser, so it might be a sub-
> >optimal source.
>
> It's good enough, especially well watered with horse urine.
Would Budweiser be an acceptable substitute?
LAFF
kras...@mindspring.com (mike weber) wrote:
>On Sat, 26 Aug 2000 04:19:39 GMT, Theresa Wojtasiewicz
><tw...@sympatico.ca> typed
>
>>mike weber wrote:
>
>>> Which results in the Forsyth County Georgia website being blocked,
>>> 'cos the county seat is Cumming.
>>>
>>> Or, of course, it would block access to sites that discussed the
>>> program "Love That Bob", 'cos bob was always Cumming every week...
>>
>>You are a *bad* man. LOL!
Actually, he was Cummings.
>
>Assuming anybody would want to discuss "Love That Bob".
>
>Which in turn involves an assumption that anyone *remembers* it.
Well, I do.
--
Lois Fundis lfu...@weir.net
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Cockpit/9377/handy-dandy.html
I always like to know what subject it is I'm straying away from.
-- Terry Pratchett
http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/SF-Archives/Ansible/a50.html#pratchett
Rob Hansen
<tw...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
>I felt suddenly sick at the
>thought of having a discussion with someone who doesn't think
>pornography is harmful to children.
There's no reputable evidence that it is, only propaganda from those
who say "of course it is". And there are all manner of things
"everyone knows" that turn out not to be so. I remember seeing
pornography as a child - some reasonably hardcore Scandinavian stuff
that someone had gotten hold of and brought along to the school
playground. Needless to say, we all gathered around to look, and there
was the laughter you might expect, the thrill of looking at something
that was forbidden, but that was all. Didn't damage me in any way I'm
aware of.
--
Rob Hansen
=============================================
Home Page: http://www.fiawol.demon.co.uk/rob/
mike weber
<r...@fiawol.demon.co.uk> typed
>
>Didn't damage me in any way I'm aware of.
Sure it did.
It made you believe that pornography is not harmful to children.
See how insidious it is?
--
"Life's a game where they're bound to beat you, and time's a
trick they can turn to cheat you -- and we only waste it
anyway, that's the hell of it..." -- Paul Williams
<mike weber> kras...@mindspring.com>
Ambitious Incomplete web site: http://weberworld.virtualave.net
mike weber
("David G. Bell") typed
>On Saturday, in article
> <avcgqsc8m28fqhetv...@4ax.com>
> nims...@uswest.not "Doug Wickstrom" wrote:
>
>> On Sat, 26 Aug 2000 17:51:20 +0100 (BST),
>> db...@zhochaka.demon.co.uk ("David G. Bell") excited the ether to
>> say:
>>
>> >On Friday, in article
>> > <jcieqskmaenr6m4h0...@4ax.com>
>> > nims...@worldnet.att.net "Doug Wickstrom" wrote:
>> >
>> >> On Fri, 25 Aug 2000 21:13:08 GMT, Theresa Wojtasiewicz
>> >> <tw...@sympatico.ca> excited the ether to say:
>> >>
>> >> >how to build a bomb with hairpins and horse
>> >> >manure, etc.)
>> >>
>> >> I don't think there are any web sites that cover this specific
>> >> instance, but I think it can be done, provided we don't stipulate
>> >> that those are the _only_ materials.
>> >
>> >Nitrates, right?
>>
>> Yup.
>>
>> >Though horse manure isn't so good as a fertiliser, so it might be a sub-
>> >optimal source.
>>
>> It's good enough, especially well watered with horse urine.
>
>Would Budweiser be an acceptable substitute?
>
No. Under current labelling laws, Budweiser has to be labelled
"Imitation Horse Piss Beverage Substutiute."
Erik V. Olson
No. Later actions determined that "Beverage" was false advertising, and it
was struck.
--
Erik V. Olson: er...@mo.net : http://walden.mo.net/~eriko/
P Nielsen Hayden
David G. Bell <db...@zhochaka.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>On Sunday, in article <39A8A6C8...@sympatico.ca>
> tw...@sympatico.ca "Theresa Wojtasiewicz" wrote:
>
>reaction, since so many pro-censorship types play fast and loose with
>the definition, and by doing so diminish their own arguments.
>
>What do _you_ mean by "children" and "pornography"?
>
>
>And, just to put the debate into some context, the "harm to children"
>line is a hot issue here in the UK, and Avedon is closely involved in
>the debate here. It's being claimed as a reason for the censorship of
>material which may only be sold to adults. And this is despite a rather
>sweeping lack of evidence for harm, even when "harm to children" was
>recently claimed in the British Courts.
Theresa Wojtasiewicz might also be illuminated were she to be aware of just
how sinister some of the "protect the children" activity has been in the UK
in recent weeks; we are talking about something not far removed from lynch
mobs, complete with all the capacity for nuanced judgement usually
associated with lynch mobs. The nominal issue roiling the mobs hasn't so far
been pornography, but that could easily come next.
It's also worth noting that most of what is _legally_ sold as "hardcore"
pornography in most of the US is absolutely illegal in the UK, and has been
for decades if not longer. Britain has the most draconian antipornography
restrictions in, I think, the First World. And these laws are enforced, and
people are in jail over them.
John Kensmark is correct that pornography can cause distress to young
people; so can opera, geology, fanzine fandom, or football. But the moral
distance between "can" and "does" is the distance between wearing a bicycle
helmet and banning bicycles. If porn were as reliably associated with
damage to young psyches as Theresa Wojtasiewicz asserts -- to the point of
weeping at the discovery that some people disagree -- then scientific
studies should have demonstrated this. No such study has; many have
suggested quite the opposite. Every attempt to wrap the anti-porn case in
science has proved on even cursory examination to be based in fundamentally
bad methodology. This has been demonstrated over and over, and will no
doubt have to be demonstrated over and over and over some more, by us and
our children and our children's children. Our descendants will think we
were incomprehensible fruitcakes on this subject. If we're lucky.
Theresa Wojtasiewicz
>
> On Sun, 27 Aug 2000 05:29:42 GMT,
> Theresa Wojtasiewicz <tw...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
> >Loren MacGregor wrote:
> >>
> >> Theresa Wojtasiewicz wrote:
> >> >
> >> > The time has come for me to retreat from this discussion. I regret
> >> > participating in it at all. I withdraw all of my comments, and apologize
> >> > for sharing my thoughts.
> >>
> >> Um. Don't take disagreement as condemnation. Please.
> >
> >I don't. It's my own limitations here. I felt suddenly sick at the
> >thought of having a discussion with someone who doesn't think
> >pornography is harmful to children. I'm sorry; I have not got the
> >strength of character to go on with this discussion.
>
> Well, you can add me to the list of people you feel morally horrified at.
>
> I'm pretty morally horrified by your position, too, as it happens.
I did not say I was morally horrified, Patrick. Please don't put words
in my mouth. I said it was my own limitation in being unable to continue
the discourse, to which I freely admitted. Please do not attack me for
being honest about my own limitations. And please, make no assumptions
about my moral stance until you know something about me.
>
> >I am really very, very sorry. In fact, I am in tears as I write this,
> >that is the depth of my horror.
>
> You're in tears. Some other people, who never hurt anyone, are in jail,
> because of attitudes like the one you're articulating.
Excuse me? Where is this coming from, please? How did we get from my
admission of my own limitations to putting people in jail?
>
> I'm sorry you're in tears, but I'd be happy to have you in more tears if it
> would get those people out of jail.
This is the first time I have ever been personally attacked on this
newsgroup, or any other. I am not sure what to make of this. I think I
had better go before this gets any worse. I do not want to offend or
upset anyone, and obviously, I have. I apologize again.
Rachael Lininger
P Nielsen Hayden <p...@panix.com> wrote:
>John Kensmark is correct that pornography can cause distress to young
>people; so can opera, geology, fanzine fandom, or football.
I took more damage from reading Heinlein too early than pornography. (I
mean I read the late Heinlein early, not the juvies. I still haven't read
all the juvies.) I would generally steer te-year-olds away from _Time
Enough for Love,_ in a "Hey, why not try _Podkayne_ instead" sort of way.
Rachael
--
Rachael Lininger | "Am I a fool--a Romantic, a quixot--
rac...@dd-b.net | Or is there a constitutional defect in the
| American mind?" --Alexander Hamilton
P Nielsen Hayden
Theresa Wojtasiewicz <tw...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
>P Nielsen Hayden wrote:
>>
>> On Sun, 27 Aug 2000 05:29:42 GMT,
>> Theresa Wojtasiewicz <tw...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
>> >Loren MacGregor wrote:
>> >>
>> >> Theresa Wojtasiewicz wrote:
>> >> >
>> >> > The time has come for me to retreat from this discussion. I regret
>> >> > participating in it at all. I withdraw all of my comments, and apologize
>> >> > for sharing my thoughts.
>> >>
>> >> Um. Don't take disagreement as condemnation. Please.
>> >
>> >I don't. It's my own limitations here. I felt suddenly sick at the
>> >thought of having a discussion with someone who doesn't think
>> >pornography is harmful to children. I'm sorry; I have not got the
>> >strength of character to go on with this discussion.
>>
>> Well, you can add me to the list of people you feel morally horrified at.
>>
>> I'm pretty morally horrified by your position, too, as it happens.
>
>in my mouth. I said it was my own limitation in being unable to continue
>the discourse, to which I freely admitted. Please do not attack me for
>being honest about my own limitations. And please, make no assumptions
>about my moral stance until you know something about me.
>>
>> >that is the depth of my horror.
>>
>> You're in tears. Some other people, who never hurt anyone, are in jail,
>> because of attitudes like the one you're articulating.
>
>admission of my own limitations to putting people in jail?
>>
>> would get those people out of jail.
>
>newsgroup, or any other. I am not sure what to make of this. I think I
>had better go before this gets any worse. I do not want to offend or
>upset anyone, and obviously, I have. I apologize again.
Saying you "feel suddenly sick at the thought of having a discussion with
someone who" disagrees with you isn't a personal attack? I think that's a
pretty potent personal attack, however you dress it up.
No, I don't buy the idea that you were primarily setting out to admit or
discuss your limitations. Not when you put it like that.
You may call me a hardass if you like, but the merciless and uncompassionate
position in this discussion is yours. Nobody is in jail for being horrified
and weepy at the existence of pornography. The guns and truncheons are on
your side.
Lucy Kemnitzer
>On Sun, 27 Aug 2000 05:29:42 GMT, Theresa Wojtasiewicz
><tw...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
>
>>I felt suddenly sick at the
>>thought of having a discussion with someone who doesn't think
>>pornography is harmful to children.
>
>There's no reputable evidence that it is, only propaganda from those
>who say "of course it is". And there are all manner of things
>"everyone knows" that turn out not to be so. I remember seeing
>pornography as a child - some reasonably hardcore Scandinavian stuff
>that someone had gotten hold of and brought along to the school
>playground. Needless to say, we all gathered around to look, and there
>was the laughter you might expect, the thrill of looking at something
>that was forbidden, but that was all. Didn't damage me in any way I'm
>aware of.
I'm always impatient with this discussion because it's about a
couple of wildly different topics, and people who want to talk
about one of them -- "what's good for children --" never can
engage properly with the people who want to talk about the other
one -- "what sexually explicit stuff is and does--" and vice
versa.
I want to come right out and say, so we know where this is, that
seeing a picture of a spread-legged woman or an erect penis
entering a person isn't going to hurt anybody. Little kids'
response is more likely to be jolted than aroused -- entirely
other material is likely to engage the sexual interest of small
children -- but that's not what's harmful.
And right this second I don't even want to talk about what's
harmful: I want to talk about what this sheltering impulse is
about and why it is good for children.
It is good for children to be treated separately from adults: to
have the ritual of guidance going on about them: to be told "this
is how you do:" to be told "that's for when you grow up:" it's
what assures children they are important, that somebody's looking
out for them, that they're not in the world on their own, and they
need that, because they are, and know they are, more vulnerable in
every way than adults.
Parents know this instinctively and that's why they shelter their
kids in visible ways.
Not always the right ones, okay, let me admit this up front.
In addition, kids do have different entertainment and educational
and philosophical needs from adults -- there is such a thing as
appropriate and inappropriate material -- but it's easier to see
that in mass than in specific. And, as somebody here said, we
often conflate all the stages of childhood and adolescence when we
talk about this, or sometimes we do a micro-gradation of childhood
and adolescence ("at five a child can understand this, but that is
not appropriate till seven --") which ends up not being true
either.
Now, having said all this about children being different and
needing some sheltering in amongst the other kinds of nurturing we
give them, I have to say again -- as I botched saying before,
because I got an extra not or a wrong word in there somehow --
that I agree that general censorship is not the way to go. I
don't even like the blocking software they sell for individual
families to use, though it's less troublesome to me. The thing I
think is appropriate to do is to present to children the things
they want and need and the things we think they ought to want and
need (which overlap more than people sometimes give them credit
for) and for adults to show this other stuff to each other.
(following degenerates into a parent's complaint)
I was pretty pissed off when my son was three and some idiot
promoting Fakir Musafar had put a bunch of flyers with gruesome
pictures of the asshole with multiple huge iro hooks through his
skin all over telephone poles and stuff in great blocks, so that
many of the picutres were below an adult's waist height and they
were staring little kids in the face. What the hell for? Why
does a little kid need to see a picture like that?
And I am incensed at the obligatory violence and disrespect in
mainstream media. What's it for? It makes a tremendous amount of
work for parents to do, to counter the anti-social, vicious,
racist, mysoginist, horrible bad values there. How do people even
find that crap entertaining? I understand kids enjoying it --
it's a lot of noise and light, and it's all they see. And that's
the danger, there, if it's all they see. And for a lot of kids I
meet, it is.
(returning, somewhat, to topic)
I think I do see that free-speech advocates are talking themselves
into a corner when they keep insisiting that what kids see and
hear has no effect on them at all -- it's simply not true. And
it's not the issue. You can support utterly free speech and still
support the relative sheltering of children -- it becomes a matter
of logistics and management, and not a matter of coercion and
prohibition.
Lucy Kemnitzer
Nancy Lebovitz
> Theresa Wojtasiewicz <tw...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
>>P Nielsen Hayden wrote:
>>>
>>> On Sun, 27 Aug 2000 05:29:42 GMT,
>>> Theresa Wojtasiewicz <tw...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
>>> >Loren MacGregor wrote:
>>> >>
>>> >> Theresa Wojtasiewicz wrote:
>>> >> >
>>> >> > The time has come for me to retreat from this discussion. I regret
>>> >> > participating in it at all. I withdraw all of my comments, and apologize
>>> >> > for sharing my thoughts.
>>> >>
>>> >> Um. Don't take disagreement as condemnation. Please.
>>> >
>>> >I don't. It's my own limitations here. I felt suddenly sick at the
>>> >thought of having a discussion with someone who doesn't think
>>> >pornography is harmful to children. I'm sorry; I have not got the
>>> >strength of character to go on with this discussion.
>>>
>>> Well, you can add me to the list of people you feel morally horrified at.
>>>
>>> I'm pretty morally horrified by your position, too, as it happens.
>>
>>in my mouth. I said it was my own limitation in being unable to continue
>>the discourse, to which I freely admitted. Please do not attack me for
>>being honest about my own limitations. And please, make no assumptions
>>about my moral stance until you know something about me.
>>>
>>> >that is the depth of my horror.
>>>
>>> You're in tears. Some other people, who never hurt anyone, are in jail,
>>> because of attitudes like the one you're articulating.
>>
>>admission of my own limitations to putting people in jail?
>>>
>>> would get those people out of jail.
>>
>>newsgroup, or any other. I am not sure what to make of this. I think I
>>had better go before this gets any worse. I do not want to offend or
>>upset anyone, and obviously, I have. I apologize again.
>
>Saying you "feel suddenly sick at the thought of having a discussion with
>someone who" disagrees with you isn't a personal attack? I think that's a
>pretty potent personal attack, however you dress it up.
It might also be an accurate description of her internal state.
Actually mentioning that such an internal state is a response to someone's
behavior is frequently shorthand for implying that they're a bad person
and should stop being so upsetting, but I think Graydon's got a point
about not imputing motivations.
You are not obligated to accomodate her reactions, and she is not
obligated to keep silent about them.
>
>No, I don't buy the idea that you were primarily setting out to admit or
>discuss your limitations. Not when you put it like that.
>
>You may call me a hardass if you like, but the merciless and uncompassionate
>position in this discussion is yours. Nobody is in jail for being horrified
Well, no. Theresa has said that she really doesn't like your point of view
and doesn't like being outnumbered and yelled at. It can be a remarkably
shocking experience the first time it happens on line.
However, I don't remember her as demanding government action, or even
suggesting it.
>and weepy at the existence of pornography. The guns and truncheons are on
>your side.
--
Nancy Lebovitz na...@netaxs.com www.nancybuttons.com
My buttons and I will be at Chicon
John Boston
news:8obbsa$fkh$1...@gw.dd-b.net...
> In article <slrn8qi5l...@panix2.panix.com>,
> >people; so can opera, geology, fanzine fandom, or football.
>
> I took more damage from reading Heinlein too early than pornography. (I
> mean I read the late Heinlein early, not the juvies. I still haven't read
> all the juvies.) I would generally steer te-year-olds away from _Time
> Enough for Love,_ in a "Hey, why not try _Podkayne_ instead" sort of way.
Time to revise Mayor Jimmy Walker: "No girl was ever ruined by
a book, except maybe ATLAS SHRUGGED."
John Boston
Nancy Lebovitz
P Nielsen Hayden <p...@panix.com> wrote:
>
>John Kensmark is correct that pornography can cause distress to young
And astronomy--when I was a kid, I found out that the sun was going to
expand and engulf the earth, and was very upset about it.
>distance between "can" and "does" is the distance between wearing a bicycle
>helmet and banning bicycles. If porn were as reliably associated with
>damage to young psyches as Theresa Wojtasiewicz asserts -- to the point of
>weeping at the discovery that some people disagree -- then scientific
>studies should have demonstrated this. No such study has; many have
>suggested quite the opposite. Every attempt to wrap the anti-porn case in
>science has proved on even cursory examination to be based in fundamentally
>bad methodology. This has been demonstrated over and over, and will no
>doubt have to be demonstrated over and over and over some more, by us and
>our children and our children's children. Our descendants will think we
>were incomprehensible fruitcakes on this subject. If we're lucky.
--
Nancy Lebovitz
Graydon <gra...@dsl.ca> wrote:
>This is -- the single image question -- an argument for making _lots
>more_ sexual imagery available, and for making it widely available to
>children. ('available' = 'they can get at it when they're curious, if
>they're curious') It's also an argument for making it something other
>than crazy -- most sexual imagery available today does wierd things
>around issues of power, consent, enthusiasm, and consequence.
And, iirc, emotion. I get the impression that relatively little pornography
is about sex between people who seem to be fond of each other.
Is this a good place to mention endearments as the last taboo?
Loren MacGregor
>
> You may call me a hardass if you like, but the merciless and uncompassionate
> position in this discussion is yours. Nobody is in jail for being horrified
> your side.
You're a hardass. She was discussing her subjective feelings, and
you seem to me as if you're trying to claim these as an objective
statement of censorship.
Far from trying to shut you up, it seems to me that she was trying
to explain her feelings. -You-, it seems to me, are trying to shut
her up, and that strikes me as a remarkably unpleasant tactic to
take, and pretty much guaranteed to ensure that you get the last
word. Which doesn't make you any more right. I agree with your
viewpoints. I disagree strongly with your tactics.
-- LJM
David Dyer-Bennet
> However, I don't remember her as demanding government action, or even
> suggesting it.
The government is *already* acting on her position, and has been for
years. And it is her degree of unthinking horror at the concept of
pornography that lets them keep doing so.
--
Photos: http://dd-b.lighthunters.net/ Minicon: http://www.mnstf.org/minicon
Bookworms: http://ouroboros.demesne.com/ SF: http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b
David Dyer-Bennet / Welcome to the future! / dd...@dd-b.net
Mitch Wagner
<pprcqs0f852tnlm3n...@4ax.com>:
>I find actual history more disgusting than anything I have ever seen.
>I was told about the camps and about the massacres when I was a child,
>and of course about crucifixion, and I'm still waiting to see anything
>worse.
You bet. When I was about 10 years old and attending classes in Jewish
religious instruction, the teachers pooled all the classes together every
year for a showing of "Let My People Go," a documentary about the
Holocaust, featuring genuine! Nazi! archive footage! of the death camps,
with cadaverous prisoners being hustled off to the showers, and actual
cadavers by the dozens being shoveled into mass graves by bulldozers.
It was narrated by Richard Basehart of "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea."
--
Mitch Wagner
Mitch Wagner
>In article <slrn8qi5l...@panix2.panix.com>,
>P Nielsen Hayden <p...@panix.com> wrote:
>>
>>John Kensmark is correct that pornography can cause distress to young
>>people; so can opera, geology, fanzine fandom, or football. But the
>>moral
>
>And astronomy--when I was a kid, I found out that the sun was going to
>expand and engulf the earth, and was very upset about it.
When I was a kid, I saw a documentary on PBS about funeral practices and
was very upset by it. That was when I came to the realization that
EVERYBODY DIES.
Of course, children do get over these traumas. I'll let you know as soon as
I do.
--
Mitch Wagner
Mitch Wagner
<39a9305c...@enews.newsguy.com>:
>I think I do see that free-speech advocates are talking themselves
>into a corner when they keep insisiting that what kids see and
>hear has no effect on them at all ...
But that's not what free speech advocates say - what free speech advocates
say is that pornography does no more harm than ten thousand other things
that kids see and hear - many of them being things that society thinks are
perfectly wholesome, such as some of the scary parts of "The Wizard of Oz."
I mentioned earlier in this thread having been deeply traumatized by a
documentary about funeral practices I saw on PBS as a child, but of course
it wasn't the documentary which traumatized me, it was the realization of
my own mortality and the mortality of everything I loved.
--
Mitch Wagner
P Nielsen Hayden
Loren MacGregor <churn...@home.com> wrote:
>Far from trying to shut you up, it seems to me that she was trying
>to explain her feelings. -You-, it seems to me, are trying to shut
>her up
You have no basis on which to make this claim, of course.
For the record, you're mistaken. I don't want anybody to "shut up."
Theresa Wojtasiewicz
>
> na...@unix3.netaxs.com (Nancy Lebovitz) writes:
>
> > However, I don't remember her as demanding government action, or even
> > suggesting it.
>
> The government is *already* acting on her position, and has been for
> years. And it is her degree of unthinking horror at the concept of
> pornography that lets them keep doing so.
All right; enough already. I don't mind people taking issue with *what I
say* - it's when people start making things up and interpreting what
they *think* I have said that is bothering me more than anything at this
point.
What I said was:
-----
"The time has come for me to retreat from this discussion. I regret
participating in it at all. I withdraw all of my comments, and apologize
for sharing my thoughts."
And later:
"I don't [take disagreement as condemnation]. It's my own limitations
here. I felt suddenly sick at the thought of having a discussion with
someone who doesn't think pornography is harmful to children. I'm sorry;
I have not got the strength of character to go on with this discussion.
"I am really very, very sorry. In fact, I am in tears as I write this,
that is the depth of my horror."
-----
Until this topic came up I had no idea what I thought about censorship,
pornography, and whether pornography is harmful to children.
I felt sick because I could not continue the discussion given the turn
it had taken. I was limited in my ability to discuss the topic any
further because something extremely personal and personally horrifying
came back to haunt me. I was sickened by that limitation and my
inability to get past it. I apologized; I was horrified that I felt this
way - about my own limitations, not about the subject.
Now I am being skewered by you and Patrick for something *I never said*.
Somehow, my honest admission about my limitations suddenly got turned
into fodder for a diatribe about government action against pornography
or censorship or whatever it was and how I personally was at the root of
this evil.
I never said one word about government action regarding censorship. I
did express my surprise at filterware that excluded innocuous sites from
those less innocuous. I am concerned about protecting children - and I
define child as pre-teen - from things they may see that they cannot
possibly understand at so young an age. In a perfect world, a parent
would have the ability to discuss such things with their children in a
frank and open manner. I, alas, did not grow up in such a world. I would
not inflict the world I was forced to live in on anyone else for all the
tea in China.
On this subject I am happy to agree to disagree with anyone who has been
involved in this discussion. I would only ask that you grant me the same
courtesy.
I apologized for being limited in proceding with the discussion and
thought I made as graceful an exit as I could under the circumstances.
I hope that I have made matters clearer. If I have offended anyone,
again, I apologize. It is not nor ever has been my intention to offend
by sharing my thoughts.
P Nielsen Hayden
Nancy Lebovitz <na...@unix3.netaxs.com> wrote:
>>You may call me a hardass if you like, but the merciless and uncompassionate
>>position in this discussion is yours. Nobody is in jail for being horrified
>
>Well, no. Theresa has said that she really doesn't like your point of view
>and doesn't like being outnumbered and yelled at. It can be a remarkably
>shocking experience the first time it happens on line.
The really shocking experience, of course, is when you figure out that some
people get to play the My Hurt Feelings card, and some don't. And how
effective it is for those allowed to play it.
Next time I want to argue something truly odious, I'll remember to tell
everyone that I'm in tears while I'm doing so. The more so if what I'm
arguing is that the avocation and livelihood of particular friends and
intimates of some folks on this group is inherently damaging to children.
When that happens, I trust you'll be leaping to my defense.
P Nielsen Hayden
Lucy Kemnitzer <rit...@cruzio.com> wrote:
>I think I do see that free-speech advocates are talking themselves
>into a corner when they keep insisiting that what kids see and
>hear has no effect on them at all -- it's simply not true. And
>it's not the issue. You can support utterly free speech and still
>support the relative sheltering of children -- it becomes a matter
>of logistics and management, and not a matter of coercion and
>prohibition.
Yup.
I trust you won't think I'm gainsaying you if I say that I also see value in
remarks like the one Rob made about exposure to porn in his childhood -- or
Loren's comments on even more sensitive issues in a long-ago discussion on
this newsgroup that touched on certain events in his. I think it's entirely
reasonable for parents to take care of their kids -- that's their job. And
I think we need to also remember that kids can be surprisingly resilient and
sensible. Not as an excuse for not taking care of them -- but as a caution
against pathologizing everything.
P Nielsen Hayden
>In article <slrn8qi98q....@localhost.localdomain>,
>Graydon <gra...@dsl.ca> wrote:
>
>>This is -- the single image question -- an argument for making _lots
>>more_ sexual imagery available, and for making it widely available to
>>children. ('available' = 'they can get at it when they're curious, if
>>they're curious') It's also an argument for making it something other
>>than crazy -- most sexual imagery available today does wierd things
>>around issues of power, consent, enthusiasm, and consequence.
>
>And, iirc, emotion. I get the impression that relatively little pornography
>is about sex between people who seem to be fond of each other.
I think that _very_ much depends on what kind of pornography you're
discussing.
>Is this a good place to mention endearments as the last taboo?
More knowledgeable people than I can address this, but my impression is
that porn in which people are evidently fond of one another -- much of it
pitched to women, or mixed-gender audiences -- forms one of the
fastest-growing parts of the industry.
Avram Grumer
db...@zhochaka.org.uk wrote:
> On Friday, in article
> <avram-25080...@manhattan.crossover.com>
> av...@bigfoot.com "Avram Grumer" wrote:
>
> > In article <39a6d4ff...@enews.newsguy.com>, rit...@cruzio.com (Lucy
> > Kemnitzer) wrote:
> >
> > > As for blocking software, I think it will work only when stuff
> > > that's really inappropriate for the very young contains voluntary
> > > markers which are excluded by tailored software, not when the
> > > software tries to exclude things by subject or keyword.
> >
> > Yes, but I don't think that's ever likely to happen. Not for all of it.
>
> The technology exists, and there was a move to impose its use here in
> the UK a few years back. Did anything but Internet Explorer ever try to
> support the PICS system?
But is there a means to insure that everyone complies with it, and rates
their own work honestly?
--
Avram Grumer | av...@grumer.org | www.PigsAndFishes.org
If music be the food of love, then some of it be the Twinkies of
dysfunctional relationships.
Avram Grumer
Kemnitzer) wrote:
> On Sun, 27 Aug 2000 00:54:46 +0100, ave...@thirdworld.uk (Avedon
> Carol) wrote:
>
> >On Fri, 25 Aug 2000 22:48:25 GMT, rit...@cruzio.com (Lucy Kemnitzer)
> >wrote:
>
> >>...I'm not against censoring the viewing habits of the entire
> >>world to defend the experiences of very young children (or to
> >>refrain from feeding the imaginations of dangerously ill people,
> >>either),...
> >
> ><shudder> I am!
>
> Sorry: that was supposerd to be either "I'm not for" or "I'm
> against" -- I have no idea how that paragraph came out saying
> exactly the opposite of what it was supposed to say.
Somehow I read your intended meaning when I first read that post on
Friday, and didn't notice the "not" till Avedon quoted it. You must have
set the X-DWIM header.
Avram Grumer
<kens...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> I've known people (two of them) who, in my opinion, were quite
> arguably harmed by pornography--not in any esoteric way, but rather
> intellectually captivated by certain forms. The memes got 'em.
> Porn (as a genre) contains some mighty powerful memes, and some
> folks are especially susceptible.
What do you mean by "intellectually captivated"? A guy I was talking with
online a few weeks back told me that marijuana is harmful because he knows
a couple of people who smoked a lot of it and then converted to Hinduism.
The horror, the horror!
I know people who put a lot of work into their sex lives, far more than I
do. I know people who put a lot of work into their wardrobes, far more
than I do.
> Of these two, one agrees that porn did him a world of hurt. The
> other doesn't think he has a problem.
Was it the porn that did him the hurt, or was reactiing to the porn as he
did a symptom of some earlier damage?
> Point only being that ideas can be dangerous, in and of themselves,
> and this includes images and classes of images. Porn is definitely
> a powerful class of images, although not all porn is particularly
> powerful. Some folks don't hold up well against that kind of
> power. Porn is nothing like the only class of images or ideas that
> can do this, but even so.
Ideas don't exist in and of themselves, they only exist in people's
heads. Some people's heads are susceptible to reacting badly to certain
ideas, but I see this as a problem with the heads, not with the ideas.
And it seems possible to me that exposing people to as wide a range of
ideas as they can handle, as early as they can handle them, might be a way
to prevent this kind of damage.
Allan Beatty
> This was Alta Vista, not google: there was no google then that I
> knew of. I have had close to no trouble with google: you almost
> have to be looking for porn to get it. Only time I had real
> trouble with it was looking up "What is to be done?" -- no
> intelligible results at all.
Is that a quote whose source you were trying to find, or just a
generic question? If the latter, try askjeeves -- it gave me good
results for "Why is there anything?"
--
Allan Beatty
Too much to click on? http://listen.to/whitenoise
Rachael Lininger
Mitch Wagner <mit...@sff.net> wrote:
>rit...@cruzio.com (Lucy Kemnitzer) wrote in
><39a9305c...@enews.newsguy.com>:
>
>>into a corner when they keep insisiting that what kids see and
>
>But that's not what free speech advocates say - what free speech advocates
>say is that pornography does no more harm than ten thousand other things
>that kids see and hear - many of them being things that society thinks are
>perfectly wholesome, such as some of the scary parts of "The Wizard of Oz."
And always remember that it's often the looney fringe that gets the
quotes. I'm pretty sure some free-speech advocates _have_ said that.
Rachael Lininger
> Nancy Lebovitz <na...@unix3.netaxs.com> wrote:
>>In article <slrn8qi98q....@localhost.localdomain>,
>>Graydon <gra...@dsl.ca> wrote:
>>
>>>This is -- the single image question -- an argument for making _lots
>>>more_ sexual imagery available, and for making it widely available to
>>>children. ('available' = 'they can get at it when they're curious, if
>>>they're curious') It's also an argument for making it something other
>>>than crazy -- most sexual imagery available today does wierd things
>>>around issues of power, consent, enthusiasm, and consequence.
>>
>>And, iirc, emotion. I get the impression that relatively little pornography
>>is about sex between people who seem to be fond of each other.
>
>I think that _very_ much depends on what kind of pornography you're
>discussing.
And there are some people who _define_ pornography as without
caring; if they care, it's erotica. I've seen this particularly in the
stuff marketed to women.
>>Is this a good place to mention endearments as the last taboo?
>
>More knowledgeable people than I can address this, but my impression is
>that porn in which people are evidently fond of one another -- much of it
>pitched to women, or mixed-gender audiences -- forms one of the
>fastest-growing parts of the industry.
That's my understanding, too.
Mitch Wagner
<39A96923...@home.com>:
>P Nielsen Hayden wrote:
>>
>> You may call me a hardass if you like, but the merciless and
>> uncompassionate position in this discussion is yours. Nobody is in
>> jail for being horrified and weepy at the existence of pornography.
>> The guns and truncheons are on your side.
>
>You're a hardass. She was discussing her subjective feelings, and
>you seem to me as if you're trying to claim these as an objective
>statement of censorship.
>
>Far from trying to shut you up, it seems to me that she was trying
>to explain her feelings. -You-, it seems to me, are trying to shut
>her up, and that strikes me as a remarkably unpleasant tactic to
>take, and pretty much guaranteed to ensure that you get the last
>word. Which doesn't make you any more right. I agree with your
>viewpoints. I disagree strongly with your tactics.
I have to side with Patrick on this one.
To be particpating in a discussion of the political issues of the day, as
we frequently do here in rasff, and to be told that one's views have driven
someone to tears - that seems to me to be a personal attack of the deepest
sort, far, far more personal than any name-calling between Voyager fans and
rasfferians.
NOTHING Avedon Carol said was deserving of that kind of reaction. And
Theresa Wojtasiewicz is now engaging in passive-aggressive nonsense, saying
she's rilly rilly sorry but that's honestly how she feels, and it all
brings back some Horrible Horrible childhood memories she has from her
childhood.
Well, gee, whiz, maybe Avedon Carol has her own childhood memories too. I
don't know Avedon, but I suspect she might. Many people in fandom do.
The reminds me of one of the more unpleasant exchanges I've been involved
in in online fandom. This was a few years ago, but not too long ago: it was
a discussion about the O.J. Simpson trial. Someone remarked that he thought
the American people were terribly, terribly shallow for their interest in
the O.J. trial.
And I responded, well, I don't know, the O.J. trial deals with race,
interracial marriage, the criminal justice system, domestic abuse, whether
a rich man can be given a fair trial, the family, sex, violence, and the
American cult of the celebrity. All of these things seem to me, I said, to
be extremely important issues.
And the response I received was a multi-screen screed of flameage about how
DARE I lecture this other person about domestic abuse? Didn't I *know*
about all the time he's held his wife weeping in his arms because of the
terrors of previous abusive relationships?
Being a sensible person, I simply killfiled the whole discussion. But maybe
I shouldn't have: maybe I should have responded that no, I had no idea
about him and his wife and that's not what I was talking about. And maybe I
have my own personal experiences with domestic abuse and how dare HE claim
the moral high ground based on personal experience?
This is how political oppresson works in the United States: on some issues,
the powers that be control the discussion. And on other issues - such as
pornography and drug abuse - the powers that be say that there CAN BE no
discussion - that anyone who disagrees with them is quite simply a monster.
--
Mitch Wagner