From: kadie@eff.org (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: [aus.aarnet]  Re: Aarnet should not be pornographic!
Followup-To: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,aus.aarnet
Originator: kadie@eff.org
Organization: The Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 07:48:37 GMT

[A repost - Carl]

From: dclunie@pax.tpa.com.au (David Clunie)
Newsgroups: aus.aarnet
Subject:  Re: Aarnet should not be pornographic!
Date: 7 Jan 1993 08:43:22 GMT

The following is an email reply to me, posted with the permission of Phil Ryan, who
started this thread ...

David

Go ahead, post your response to my email.

I find your views as expressed here even more repressive than those that 
were expressed in your original posting.

You seem to feel that women who work as topless barmaids would rather be 
doing that than anything else - which is total bullshit. If women and men 
had equal opportunities in this society, and the subjugation of women was 
not thought of as being OK, then there would not be topless barmaids. You 
said it yourself - that the women involved would have liked the extra cash: 
how come a topless barmaid gets paid more than a non-topless one? Because, 
like prostitution, she is selling her body. (And in any case, the topless 
women were getting exploited like crazy - no tits, no job etc. etc.)

You are living in a fairytale world where people are equal, and yet women 
_still_ prefer to be seen draping cars, being topless barmaids, being 
prostitutes, being used in pornography. It is garbage: women are doing 
these things because our society is constructed such that we don't let them 
do much else - except be mothers to ourseleves and our children.

There are two groups of women involved in the pornography debate: those 
opposed to it, and those in favour of it. Those women in favour of 
pornography are, like the 'collaborateurs' in France during WWII, like that 
because they feel that the world cannot be changed (and will not be), so 
that they may as well make the most out of their lot in the male-dominated 
world.

Now, to help to bring you back to reality: why don't you ask some women 
that you know - of any socio-economic class - if, for the same money, they 
would rather be topless barmaids or porn stars, than what they do now.

As to the question of 'evidence' of opression in the production of 
pornography: there is plenty of it. Many cases have been won, where the 
women involved have won compensation for their forced roles - usually of 
course, the men involved are then declared bankrupt, but the point is that 
there _is_ the evidence. Of course, there is also the child pornography: I 
saw an interview with a woman on television where she said that her whole 
life had been in the production of pornography, and that, when she gave 
birth at the age of 16, she was not surprised that her employer/husband 
wanted to use the baby in a new porn film. The baby was killed. The woman 
didn't know any better.

You can choose to ignore the evidence of women's oppression in our society. 
You can choose to consume pornography. You can choose to beleive that some 
women enjoy having a penis down their throat six inches. But you should 
start looking at the other side of the coin.

Phil Ryan
(feel free to use any of this material in further postings to the net. 
Interestingly, I was expecting to get many pro-porn postings, but it turned 
out that it was about 50/50 onthe question that I put in my original note.)


-- 
Carl Kadie -- I do not represent EFF; this is just me.
 =kadie@eff.org, kadie@cs.uiuc.edu =
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk