Sex In The Public Square - pornography - Comments

How to "do something"

Elizabeth — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 17:40:14 -0700

ED, yes, on the left-hand sidebar is a "Speak out" box that has a link to Capwiz's "Contact the Media" page, where you can easily find electronic addresses to which you can send letters to the editors of your local media, and also a "Contact Congress" link where you can type in your zip code and via Congress.org (a non-profit organization, not the government itself) you can be instantly connected to your representatives in local, state and federal government.

Thank you so much for dropping by and for passing along what you find here!

Ah, the convenience of 'Living' documents

Kelly — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 20:26:44 -0700

Often held is that the Constitution is a ‘Living’ document. The same is held for the Bible. It is the ‘Living’ Word.

Let us look at that. The claim, of course, is that these writings are living in a way that allows them to have the same relevance today as when they were written. That is certainly a reasonable and defensible position. The Bible holds that …‘and the second of these is as great; to treat your neighbor as you would have them treat you.’ Or, in the Declaration of Independence, ’…that all men are created equal…’

Then where is the problem, you might ask. The problem is that in defending a writing as a ‘Living’ document it allows the defender the latitude of interpretation of the words instead of the speech.

Let me explain. The First Amendment to the Constitution does not amend by change it amends by addition. The First Amendment precludes the government, and by extension the People, from abridging the right of speech of any other citizen (and by Supreme Court decision, any other person.)

Now, the Supreme Court has decided that there is something called ‘Community Standards’. Does that mean that if a community organizes in such a way that the rule of ‘Pater Familias’ holds as the penultimate rule of law, an action that would normally be proscribed is allowable because the act took place within the domain of the household? Does it mean that if the community has determined that meat is not to be consumed on a particular day, any household that consumes meat on that day is in violation of the standard and thus prosecutable?

Those may seem ludicrous on the surface. They are not in the sense that they speak of what freedom means. In the framework of whether a ‘community standard’ should be applied to what is pornography, obscenity, or indecency, freedom has a very specific meaning. These are all forms of speech. If a ‘community standard’ is to be applied, then the freedom lies in the speech and not in the words.

That is, writing, oration, visual depiction, and other expressions are speech that is allowed by the ‘community standard’. What is proscribed by that standard is the content. The content is the words used. A community allows the production, distribution, possession, and control of a DVD of a particular production because the content of the DVD is in alignment with what is decent and proper. I cannot imagine the Virginia community banning or criminalizing the movie ‘At Dawn We Slept’, the depiction of Japanese bombers destroying the Naval Base at Pearl Harbor is iconic and somehow ‘patriotic’ in nature. Of course, this movie inspires apathetic Americans to send their children off to destroy other children and accept the Bush Doctrine of preemptive war. That seems completely Holy and Righteous to America. This content is allowable because it meets the ‘community standard’. I cannot see the Virginia community banning or criminalizing ‘The Scarlett Letter’. This book is completely innocuous because it is written in such an anachronistic form of the language that few get beyond the prose actually to understand the author’s point.

I can understand the Virginia community banning the book ‘Johnny Got His Gun’. After all, this anti-war novel has been banned in America at least three times (Prior to and during both World Wars and the Korean Conflict.) I can even understand the Virginia community banning ‘Lolita’. This book is clearly about a proscribed act in the ‘national community’. Of course, the book is about the detrimental consequences of the act and the male figure is clearly made out to be anything but a role model. In this case, the Virginia comminity bans through ignorence, a seemingly allowable component of 'community statndard'. I can understand the Virginia community banning what it fears because that community refuses to take the time to understand what challenges what it believes.

I can understand the local prosecutor pressing this case with the power of the Supreme Court ‘Community Standard’ decision as a legal theory. I can understand the minions of the Executive, the US Attorney, riding along in the trial balloon. The shift from a Blackstonian theory of law and government to a Benthamite theory of law and government is much too deeply ingrained in American society for the average American to grasp the flaw in 'community standard' (a tyranny of the majority by virtue of 'moral pressure'.) This tyranny is well played by the People (read: The State). The People have lost their ability to express their Consittutional Rights because the 'People' begin with the least defensible exercise of freedom and then spread like mold in a wall, usurping freedoms that offend those who claim the moral high ground.

This is in no way meant to demean the religious of any faction or belief. Nevertheless, this interpretation of Freedom of Speech has become Freedom of Speaking what I want to hear by the strong and vocal Religious Right. The tactic is simple. Begin by ostracizing the most indefensible. Broaden the ‘label’ to include those who would not fit under the original label. Move from that success to imply a relationship between one thing and another that does not exist. Once the first label is expanded, irrational relationships do not require linkage with something as inconsequential as proof. The ‘community’ has learned to ignore fact and accept belief. If there is one thing that is true about American society it is; It is easier to accept an untruth and keep a belief than it is to understand a truth and have to change a belief. Americans epitomize ‘tell me what I want to hear, so I don’t have to leave my comfort zone’.

The point is if there is to be Freedom of Speech, the freedom must be in the words, not in the speech. The next time you catch yourself using a label, pornographer, sex offender, Christian, or American understand that you are using a label to identify a person who may not fit the label. Understand that the label is a mold in which you must jam the person/object without regard to fit. You are applying the Virginia community standard. I agree wholly with the point Elizabeth makes. If we do not speak out, the standard will have to be renamed from ‘community standard’ to Staunton Standard.

Posting this

ED — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 21:18:02 -0700

Found this via Susie Bright's blog. Am posting it to usenet. Agree with you about both the slap to freedom that it is to prosecute for selling legal vids with a legal license etc, and also agree with what I believe you imply, that the sup court decision needs to be changed, too. And thanks for voicing something I'd thought/said before myself, what the HELL is the problem with something "prurient" in the sense of "arousing the audience sexually" So it's OK to affect the audience in 101 other ways like terrifying them, subjecting them to violence and gore,as well as make them sad, happy, joyful, hopefull, depressed, anxious, etc, etc, etc, but that one aspect of human reaction, arousal, is a no-no?? Come on folks. If we have to limit (not ban) anything it would be the violence extreme graphic de-sensitization ones that make it like "oh, they are torturing some people? Well, that's just life.." type of reactin in our citizenry

Short question/request: is there a page for action/alert/letters, etc, so I can include that next time I pass this long to others on other boards, so people can get off their butts (or stay on them, and let their keyboards to the walking) but do something? both on this case but more importantly,to take action to change the fed as well as state laws and to put pressure on prosecuters not to do this? any/all of the above..thanks!

A Few Thoughts About Staunton

Lou FCD — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 19:15:31 -0700

"Third, the prosecutors relied on assertions about causal relationship between porn and all manner of social ills without being able to prove any of them."

Not only were they unable to prove that assertion, they weren't even asked to support it. It was just accepted as a given, as far as I can tell.

"Fourth, the prosecutors relied on claims about the underage-appearance of the women in the film. Of course there are two big problems with these claims."

Allow me to posit a third. There is no possible objective standard by which to measure "looks old enough" or "looks underage". Any such assertion is merely opinion. Whose opinion holds sway? Should you be arrested because I, a complete stranger, walk into your store and decide your performers "look too young"? Last week my precalc teacher mentioned in passing that her college years and teaching career together added up to ten years. My response: "When did you start college? When you were 12?" My perception of her apparent age was quite obviously flawed, and yet classmates of mine had guessed incorrectly in the other direction. Who gets to decide if a performer "looks old enough"? What's the standard?

"Yet with 'community standards' as the guiding principle it is inevitable that some of the porn he stocks is offensive to some of his neighbors,..."

It seems salient that the offended neighbors upon whose opinion the ephemeral "community standards" are based have in all likelihood not seen the porn in question and are therefore incapable of offering an informed opinion on it. It seems rather tenuous to curtail the First Amendment rights of an individual on claims of offense by someone who could not possibly have been offended.

Dee, in the US it seems that

Elizabeth — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 03:26:15 -0700

Dee, in the US it seems that all things anti-porn are possible. One thing that is especially troubling to me is that the arbitrary nature of "community standards" put porn purveyors at special risk because they could be operating with all the proper licenses and permits, stocking porn that is produced legally, and still be prosecuted for carrying some material that is judged to be obscene based on local standards. In this case, for example, only one of the two films was judged to be obscene. If Krial had stocked only Sugar Britches-type would he have been safe from conviction?

That's absolutely appalling!

Curvaceous Dee — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 02:26:30 -0700

That's absolutely appalling! I had no idea that such charges could still be bought forward in this day and age.

You've given me something to chew on. Thank you.

xx Dee

a subtext

CelticWarrior — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 18:23:01 -0700

In reference to my last post:

The next time I get Bushed, I hope there is some K-Y Jelly at hand...

Gotta have big pictures becaus no one reads anymore

CelticWarrior — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 18:13:58 -0700

They put their mixed messages up with big pictures because they assume no one reads anymore. I don't have a billboard to post because I can't see them anymore. But I can still have my computer read to me and still remember what I have read. I wonder if any of the ROCKbrains and their ilk ever consdered this:

A recent decision of the Supreme Court leaves to each community the right to decide what is pornography. Speaking for the majority of the Court, Chief Justice Warren Burger admitted that although no link has yet been found between the consumption of pornography and anti-social behavior, any community may assume that such a connection exists if it wants to -- in other words, an outraged community may burn a witch even though, properly speaking, witches do not exist.
The Court's decision has of course alarmed and confused the peddlers of smut, who claim, disingenuously, that guidelines are now lacking. They complain that the elders of Drake, North Dakota, may object to the word "damn" in a novel while the swingers of L.A. may want to read even worse words. Must the publisher, they ask, bring out two editions, one for permissive L.A. with the word "damn" and another for hightoned Drake with the word "darn"? Or settle the matter by publishing only for Drake?
This is a deep problem which I have solved. Wanting in every way to conform with the letter as well as the spirit of the Court's decision, I have carefully eliminated from this book those words that might cause distress to any one. Since books are nothing but words, a book is pornographic if it contains "bad" or "dirty" words. Eliminate those "bad" or "dirty" words and you have made' the work "clean."
In this novel I have replaced the missing bad words with some very good words indeed: the names of the justices who concurred in the Court's majority decision. Burger, Rehnquist, Powell, Whizzer White and Blackmun fill, ,as it were, the breach; their names replace the "bad" or "dirty" words. I have also appropriated the names of Father Morton Hill S. J. and Mr. Edward Keating, two well-known warriors in the battle against smut. I believe that these substitutions are not only socially edifying and redemptive but tend to revitalize a language gone stale and inexact from too much burgering around with meaning.

Gore Vidal, Myron (opening comment to the book)

Diana Rusell's take on use of copyrighted material

Elizabeth — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 12:55:04 -0700

Anthony Kennerson at Blog for Pro-porn Activism has this post today about an article that anti-porn activist Dr. Diana Russell wrote explaining why she does not feel like it is wrong to publish, without permission, copyrighted pornography. Kennerson's post includes long excerpts from the Russell article, and both are well worth a look!

Re: Password protected?!

Iamcuriousblue — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 00:48:29 -0700

Yup – same here.

I wonder if this means our criticism actually had an effect?

They might have figured out that, whatever the ambiguous legal status of 2257, laws around exposing minors to porn are being enforced, and there's plenty of people out there who are going to damn well try to hold SPC to the same laws as anybody else who displays porn.

I think if they want to elevate the level of debate beyond legal technicalities and on to matters of substance, they ought to simply play by the rules – make due dilligiance to conform to the very laws they support and create what critical media they can within such strictures.

I Hope So

JanieBelle — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 06:40:17 -0700

It sure seems like they weren't expecting someone to look behind that curtain of righteous indignation they employ to disguise their porn show booths.

Maybe they should just stop being hypocrites if that makes them uncomfortable, and toss the curtain into the recycling bin. I'll bet James Dobson would be happy to reuse it.

Password protected?!

Elizabeth — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 06:13:01 -0700

That is a change. I did download the slideshow a few days ago. Now when I go to the SendSpace page where the file is kept I see that password box too, with this message: This file has been password protected by the uploader*

Do you think this is a result of the pressure or the arguments being applied at BPPA and here?

I Might Be Confused

Chris — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 17:12:00 -0700

Have you actually been able to download it, Elizabeth? I get a screen asking for a password when I click the "Clicking this link will...." text.

I thought so too at first, but no

Elizabeth — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 13:56:00 -0700

I had thought so too at first, but actually it isn't taken down. If you click on the Slideshow tab and follow the age-screening link then you can't get the show. Perversely, if you click on the Toolkit link (the only age screening is this statement: "(Clicking this link will re-direct you to a third-party server and by doing so you acknowledge that you are at least 18 years old.") you can get both the script and the powerpoint file.

WOW

JanieBelle — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 13:24:09 -0700

If that's what happened, that's pretty damned cool.