From: dwelch@devnull.mpd.tandem.com (Dan Welch)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Is the Constitution the Bible?
Date: 14 Dec 1992 20:30:23 GMT
Organization: Tandem Computers (MPD) Austin, TX
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: remarque.berkeley.edu
Originator: muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu

> 
> 
In article <1g842eINN1um@agate.berkeley.edu> cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese) writes:
>In article <1g80etINN1a5@agate.berkeley.edu> pooh@Apple.COM (Pooh) writes:
>>Janis, on the subject of pornography, you sound pretty fundie
>>yourself to me.  Instant argument: don't tell me any counterarguments,
>>I don't want to hear it.  You're pathetic if you like porn and
>>that's that.  (See below.)
>
>I have just heard about all the defenses for it, and I have not heard an
>ORIGINAL one is years.  None of the ones I've heard so far make any
>sense.
 
Why should pornography have to be defended, anyway?  Why is there this
unspoken assumption that it *is* bad, and must be proved worthwhile?  We
don't see this with other "vices", television, alcohol, etc.  Why is it
just pornography that is treated so unfairly?

My position is to assume that it is a good thing; let's hear some arguments
>from you about why you think it isn't.  Real ones, not just what you feel.
I have yet to hear an anti-pornography argument that doesn't, implicitly
or otherwise, begin with, "Well, personally, I find it offensive because..."
Tell me why it is bad in an *objective* sense.
 
Besides, even if the arguments for pornography don't make sense to you,
why is it any skin off your nose?  Can't you just take it for granted that
there are things in the world with different meanings to different people?
 
>Besides, I have male FRIENDS who read the stuff.  I simply will not get
>in a romantic/sexual relationship with a man who does.
...
>If
>this is fundie-sounding, well, I am within my rights to pick and choose
>who I sleep with.  I am not required to be available to every man, and
>put up with the desires and opinions of every man on the street in my
>bedroom.  
 
No one wants to require you to do anything.  But a lot of people, including
myself, think that it is bad to put judgements on people before you even
meet them.  If you do it for pornography, you might do it for anything.
It's really no different than someone saying, "I would never date a Christian
person, since the Bible is such a piece of trash!"  (Not that I don't know
people who have said that very thing.)
 
In fact, the above sentence is very revealing.  You see relationships as
*you* picking and choosing who shares your bed.  Don't forget that when
you "pick" someone to share your bed, he is also picking you to share *his*.
In my experience, the best people in the world, the ones you would want
to be involved with, are the ones who don't tolerate the prejudging of
others.  Your standards for choosing a mate very well may preclude *him*
>from choosing you.  (How terrible of him, too, to make that decision before
he knows what a wonderful person you really are . . . :^) )

>In my
>experience, however, the men I've met who consume it regularly and
>arrogant, sexist, and sexually callous.
 
Of course they're arrogant, sexist, and sexually callous!  They consume
pornography!

Daniel Welch
----
I watch porno by day, I read porno at night;
I'm a terminal case and I love my plight.
Some say I'm sick -- I say I'm alright,
All I do is 'fess up while they keep it out of sight.

     -- Limbomaniacs


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