From: jsb16@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Jennifer S Broekman)
Subject: Re: Porn (was Re: Vikki's Problems With Kerry&Me)
Reply-To: jsb16@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Jennifer S Broekman)
Organization: Columbia University
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 07:57:06 GMT

In article <1gp8ufINN8rb@agate.berkeley.edu> 
mlloyd@ocf.berkeley.edu (M. Lloyd) writes:
>rsr@soda.berkeley.edu (Roy S. Rapoport) writes:
>>Mike, who I secretly adore, says:
>My agreement with Dworkin and MacKinnon is over pornography and law.

This is my most violent disagreement with the pair, as it's the only
subject on which I've had the stomach to read any of their work.

>  However, they go on to define pornography as that
>material which creates victims (primarily women) in a fairly direct and
>demonstrable way.  

According to the text of the MA pornography bill (proposed and supported
by D&M), material which features two men, both clearly consenting, is
deemed to harm women. In fact, if you tied Blair's wrists together with
soft rope, gave him a back rub, tickled him with a feather, and happened
to show a videotape of the proceedings to a friend, you'd be a porn 
distributor under that bill.

>If this is feasible (my faith has been shaken at this
>point, but not destroyed), then the idea is to allow post-mortem
>punishment of the distributors and producers of material which can be
>shown, *on balance of probabilities* (a vital technicality which would
>take too long to elucidate), to have incited or aggravated a particular
>victimization (a rape, an assault, whatever).  

Blaming rape and assault on porn is like blaming car accidents on Car&Driver.

>  (2) the law would act as deterrent in some degree, making
>purveyors responsible for the material they distribute, and for who they
>distribute it to, in much the same way that a seller of alcohol is
>responsible for selling dangerous cocktails or for serving the clearly
>enebriated (sp?).

Not really, since the text of the bill I read made it absolutely, positively
impossible to consent to *any*thing. Signing in blood was not enough to
persuade them that the people in question were not being exploited, that they
were being adequately compensated, that the material was not for general 
distribution, whatever. If you video-taped a tame play-party, in which the
participants all brought notarized consent forms (which you kept on file in a
locked safe), and this tape was seen by the prudish father of one of the 
participants by means of rumaging through that person's private apartment,
you would *still* be liable for damages according to D&M.

>This is hardly trivial material, and a discussion of the generalities is
>probably misplaced in soc.bi.  As queers we do have a substantial
>interest in the issue, but I'm not sure if we want to have a discussion
>of any specifically bi sides to this - I'm not sure what they would be.
>Such decisions are, of course, at the mercy of you, gentle reader :-)

There is a bi-angle. D&M consider *all* forms of sex to be exploitation of
women. Male-male, female topping, female-female, female masturbation, whatever.
It's all rape and exploitation and on no account should *any*body be allowed
to get jollies by watching it, not even with the express written consent of the
participants and their parents.

-jenneke, who wants to be believed when she says 'Yes', as well as when she 
	says 'No'.

   Only Boys Accepting Feminism Get Kissed Meaningfully  -- Geoff Marcy
The only unnatural sexual act is that which you cannot perform. - Alfred Kinsey
		jenneke is: jsb16@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu
Newsgroups: soc.bi