Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site ut-sally.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!harpo!seismo!ut-sally!riddle From: riddle@ut-sally.UUCP (Prentiss Riddle) Newsgroups: net.women,net.politics Subject: Re: Child molestation and pornography Message-ID: <947@ut-sally.UUCP> Date: Fri, 17-Feb-84 00:44:27 EST Article-I.D.: ut-sally.947 Posted: Fri Feb 17 00:44:27 1984 Date-Received: Wed, 15-Feb-84 04:56:50 EST References: <676@dciem.UUCP> <301@tty3b.UUCP> Organization: U. of Tx. at Houston-in-the-Hills Lines: 47 I find the more extreme feminist stance against pornography rather hard to swallow. I have no argument with the assertion that much pornography is sexually exploitative, reduces women to the status of objects, and contains a great deal of (sometimes) barely-concealed hatred and violence against women. (I might add that a smaller but significant amount of pornography is equally exploitative of men, but since two wrongs don't make a right, that may be a moot point.) When it comes to arguing on the basis of the above that pornography should be outlawed, however, I couldn't disagree more. I have what some may consider to be a radical view on freedom of the press, namely that the restriction of expression is ultimately much more dangerous to society than the material which we might like to restrict. There is much that appears every day in the newspapers, magazine racks, bookstores, movie theaters and airwaves which I find unpleasant, offensive, or even dangerous; nevertheless, I would prefer to see the crap flow freely than to see any individual or group given the power to decide what is crap and what is not. This applies just as much to pornography as to anything else. The only valid exceptions I see to an absolute right to freedom of expression are slander, libel, false advertising and copyright laws. One obvious problem with the radical feminists' stance on pornography is that one person's smut is another person's beautiful erotica or educational work. When I moved away from Oklahoma six years ago, they were still jailing bookstore owners for selling "The Joy of Sex", and in some parts of the country much worse things have happened since. I don't think that many feminists would call Alex Comfort an oppressor of women, but what the anti-pornographers don't seem to realize is that the power to censor, once established, will not be used according to their criteria of what is wholesome and what is exploitative. Today "Hustler" might disappear from the newsstands; tomorrow Anais Nin and books on birth control will be banned; the next day the feminists may wake up to find their own writings being confiscated, sexual or not. I think that a much healthier response to the whole issue has been made by those feminists who have refused to retreat to a neo-puritanical stand on pornography, instead realizing that the erotic has at least as strong a capacity for beauty as it does for violence and inhumanity. Real progress will be made not by closing theaters and burning magazines but by producing works of art which appeal to the sexual impulses of women and men without pandering to hatred or turning anyone into a faceless object. --- Prentiss Riddle --- ("Aprendiz de todo, maestro de nada.") --- {ihnp4,seismo,ctvax}!ut-sally!riddle