OFF: Cyber Sleaze

[M Holmes]

Chris Bates writes:

> Andy wrote:

> > Now, many people (including me) feel that porn, especially of the
> > hard-core kind, can do actual social harm, both to the users of porn,
> > the families of users of porn, and also to the people (usually women)
> > that are photographed for porn.
>
> I would tend to agree with this, although the argument is, like most aspects
> of human behaviour, impossible to prove one way or the other. We all KNOW
> that advertising works, who has not gone out and bought something that they
> don't need merely because an advert has created a desire. I feel that porn,
> and violence, in films/pictures works in a similar way. They are harmful
> to the majority but a minority use them to legitimise their world view and
> as an encouragement to act. Youngsters whose ideas are unformed and whose
> desires are driven by a mass of seething hormones must be particularly
> susceptible here.

It sounds plausible until you check the evidence. Even studies which
have had the political aim of proving some bad effects of porn have
failed to do so. Also when scandinavian countries liberalised their
pornography laws, both the incidence of sex crimes and of unwanted
teenage pregnancies, declined significantly.

> > (If you think that coercion
> > isn't a normal part of procuring women (or children) for the sex industry,
> > and it's just a freely undertaken transaction, then that's just naive.)
>
> As an aside, wouldn't radical Marxists argue that we're all coerced by
> the capitalist system?

They redefine "coercion" in much the same way that Smith Uni. Activists
redefine rape.

> FoFP wrote:
>
> > It really is an all or nothing thing:
> > once you give a politician the right to censor anything, you've condeded
> > the principle that they can censor everything.
>
> Oh come on Mike! Calm down and get real!! In the UK there is a ban on
> the advertising of tobacco products on TV and a code which prevents the
> tobacco barons advertising there products near schools. Is this really
> the first step on the road to a totalitarian dictatorship?

It's conceded the principle that we now only get to read or watch what
the government *permits* us to rather than deciding for ourselves. The
start of a dictatorship? Not necessarily, but it makes for a pretty
convenient setup should one happen by.

> > So it;s tough being a parent? It's not compulsory. If folks figure the
> > job is too difficult then they don't need to apply for the post.
>
> Didn't know you had to apply! For many people it just happens

Check out Biology 101. For almost everyone, it happens only after sex.

> they don't
> plan to have children and have less training and preparation than they
> do to cross the road!

If the problem is an educational one then let's tackle it by education
rather than censorship.

> Expecting the majority of people to provide
> quality parenting and perfect control AND expecting them to keep abreast
> of technological changes such as the internet is expecting too much.

They don't need to keep up with the technology, just with the products
available to help parents. That's no harder than figuring out that a
pram or a bottle sterilising kit might be useful. Kidie-ISP's will advertise.

> Someone else (sorry I deleted it) wrote about obscene materials and the
> postal service. Here in the UK it is illegal to send unsolicited
> *adult* material through the post. Change the word *internet* to
> *postal service* in FoFP's following comment:

I wouldn't mind if the *State* postal service was fussy about what it
carried *provided* that it wasn't awarded a legal monopoly and others
could take their requirements elsewhere.

> > Anyone for an internet comprising the political tolerance of the
> > chinese, the religious tolerance of the iranians, the sexual tolerance
> > of the british, and the artistic tolerance of the french?
>
> Censorship of the internet will not lead to the end of the world.

Nope. It won't even *work*
>
> Chris
> p.s. Mike: has your politics list started yet?

The folks at my site are still mounting majordomo software :-(

FoFP