From: turpin@cs.utexas.edu (Russell Turpin)
Subject: Re: Causing crazies to target women (was: ... anti-anti-porn comment)
Organization: CS Dept, University of Texas at Austin
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 20:42:02 GMT


[Moderator's note: beware potential topic drift here -- pw]
In article <1ji7gg$bhh@agate.berkeley.edu> cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese) writes:
> Similarly, when psychoses crop up cross-culturally, they are in many
> instances physically caused; there exists a biological reason for a
> person's behavior -- a chemical imbalance, a neurotransmitter
> deficiency, or something like that.  Depending on the culture, however,
> this REALIZES itself in different ways.  As an example, let's consider
> the Algonkian Windigo psychosis; references for this absolutely abound.
>
> People under the influence of this psychosis will come to the conclusion
> that everyone else is after them and they will get this overwhelming
> urge to eat people, engage in cannibalism. ...
>
> ...  Consider that in this culture, people can sometimes be
> convinced that aliens from Venus are talking to them from their shower
> heads and controlling their minds.
>
> Are these two different psychoses?  Nope.  They are caused by the same
> BIOLOGICAL problems, but realize themselves in different ways.  ...
>
> ...  Having all the porn all over to the extent that it is -- having
> CONSTANT bombardment by images of women that are dominated and like 
> it, and images eroticizing female fear -- gives people who are screwed
> up this way a big something to hang their problem on and build it
> around -- us.  Women.  We are thus targetted by these constant images
> of which porn is simply a subset (and I define porn quite strictly, I
> ain't talkin ooh-ooh-baby stuff here) that get people who are loused
> up and point them right in our direction.  

Usually I find quite a bit of substance in Janis Cortese's posts,
but I must say that the above argument against pornography
strikes me as extremely strained.  I have no doubt that what
Janis Cortese describes is a real phenomenon.  There are crazies
out there.  Some of them will fixate on porn and target women.
Some of them will fixate on the Bible and target homosexuals and
pagans.  Some of them will fixate on John Birch literature and
target those they associate with the Trilateral commission.  Some
of them will fixate on Tom and Jerry cartoons and target cats.
Some of them will fixate on the Sears catalog and target young
girls.  Some of them will fixate on a particular genre of murder
mystery and target people for some unimaginable (to us)
commonality.  

Undoubtedly how such psychoses manifest depends on the cultural
icons available to the person concerned.  There are several
reasons, though, that I fail to see how this is an argument
against pornography.  First, these psychoses will manifest, often
in ways that are harmful to people, *regardless* of what cultural
icons are available.  Changing the icons available will merely
redirect the psychotic acts in unpredictable ways.  Second, the
cultural icons that cause some of these crazies to target women
as opposed to men may have very little to do with pornography in
any common definition, including Maria Cortese's.  Remember,
these people are crazy, and reruns of the "I Love Lucy" show are
as likely to cause them to target redheaded women as Hustler
magazine is to cause them to target women fitting some other
stereotype.  Third, I suspect that such psychoses are responsible
for only a small fraction of violent crimes.  Just as only a
small portion of men are rapists, I suspect that only a small
portion of rapists are psychotic in the sense described above.
(Perhaps this, though, is relevant only with regard to the next
comment.)  Fourth, there is the issue of whether we should (even
if we could) adjust our cultural icons because of what a
relatively few crazies do.  While not diminishing the harm of
their acts, it is not clear that this is how to deal with this
problem. 

Russell


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