From: rberlin@birdland.Eng.Sun.COM (Rich Berlin)
Subject: Re: Archetypical anti-anti-porn comment
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Organization: SunPics -- A Sun Microsystems Business
Date: 23 Jan 93 21:03:01 GMT
	<1j47dk$b25@agate.berkeley.edu> <1993Jan18.200547.3659@fuug.fi>
	<robert.727559504@labyrinth>

Yow. I read through most of the abstracts and it does certainly seem
to me that the linkage of violence and sex is a very important factor.
It was sort of interesting to look at which researchers separated out
violent porngraphy vs those who made no such distinction.  And I was
relieved to see that there were several research teams which
identified violence as a key element; it seemed for a couple of pages
there that it was all the same team of authors.

I am not generally in favor of censorship, and I think it's especially
stupid to prevent people from seeing things merely because they are
sexually explicit.  (I personally would like to see the MPAA be more
liberal about allowing depictions of real-looking, nonviolent sex in
mainstream film, where it's presented in context as one of many parts
of life; I would hope that would be more interesting to people than
watching sex over and over again in a movie where it is the entire
raison d'etre of the characters, and where the inspiration for the
film is how many different ways you can do it with how many different
people in how many different situations.  Bleah.)

I wonder if perhaps, by thinking about violence and sex as separate
elements of pornography, that more of us could agree: widespread
depictions of violence, and especially of sexual violence, are making
the world a less hospitable place!  I would gladly trade my right and
my hypothetical children's right to view violence at every turn, in
exchange for an opportunity to live in a world where they're
relatively safe from being harmed by their friends, neighbors and the
occasional crazy stranger.  Unfortunately, I recognize that I have no
right to make that decision on behalf of those friends, neighbors or
the occasional crazy stranger.  Sigh.  On the other hand, perhaps by
the same token I do have grounds for insisting that there be enough
widely available positive, nonviolent depictions, even nonviolent,
sexually explicit depictions, to balance out the ugly stuff and set it
back into perspective...kind of like the policy when I was in college
that all party-givers had to supply "Equally Attractive Non-Alcoholic
Beverages" for those of us who didn't equate fun = drunk.  What do
others think?

Of course, my idea of sexual violence may be broader than some
people's.  The most striking memory I have of a pornographic scene was
one of Marilyn Chambers lying across a pool table while being verbally
abused by a man who, for emphasis, was slapping her in the face with
his penis!  I think the violence was somewhat subtle compared to, say,
images of women being raped or mutilated, but to me it was the epitome
of the violent and destructive undercurrent in most of the pornography
I've seen.

(My sincere apologies to anyone who would have preferred not to be
exposed to that image!)

-- Rich
--
===============================================================================
Richard.Berlin@Eng.Sun.COM 	    SunPics engineering		 (415) 336-5126

       If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost;
       that is where they should be.   Now build foundations under them.
						 -- Henry David Thoreau

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