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From: amigo2@ihuxq.UUCP (John Hobson)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: pro-smut diatribe
Message-ID: <672@ihuxq.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 16-Feb-84 13:45:28 EST
Article-I.D.: ihuxq.672
Posted: Thu Feb 16 13:45:28 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 17-Feb-84 03:28:29 EST
References: <146@yeti.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL
Lines: 58

Mike Leibensperger (masscomp!leiby) says:
 
>> John Hobson (ihuxq!amigo2):
>>
>> Martin Taylor wonders why women ... are against it [pornography].
>> The reason is quite simple.  Pornography, which is almost
>> exclusively directed towards men, depicts women purely and simply as
>> sex objects. ....  Moreover, much of pornography depicts women as
>> subservient and abused by men.

> Well, John, maybe the porn *you* read depicts women as being
> subservient and abused.  Try something more respectable, like
> Penthouse.  And what, I'd like to know, is wrong with appreciating
> the sexual attractiveness of another human being (or, as they say
> at the Naperville Anti-Smut League meetings (and you thought NASL
> was the North American Soccer League!)), "depicting {wo,}men as
> sex objects"?  I wish someone would look at me as a sex object
> once in a while.  My advice to you, John, is to not feel so guilty
> about masturbating.

First of all, I resent his snide comment about not feeling guilty
about masturbating.  I don't feel guilty about masturbating (and
haven't since the age of thirteen).  I certainly do appreciate the
sexual attractiveness of other human beings, and I look forward to
summer when halter tops, shorts, and bikini swimsuits are worn. 
And I do appeciate erotica (I well remember the scene in the movie
"Lennie" when Valerie Perrine did the strip-tease.  I found it quite
arousing).  I would also like to be looked on as a sex object once
in a while by others than just my wife (as I weigh about 30 pounds
more than I should, it's not very likely), however if I were looked
upon merely as a sex object, I would deeply resent it.  My point was
that many women resent being considered just as sex objects, they
are people, with more to offer than just sexy bodies.

I tend to agree with Ariel's definition of porn: 

> Pornography is that which depicts people enjoying pain and
> mistreatment.  Also, that which celebrates violence as a valid form
> of sexuality.

I would extend it to to any kind of "perversity".  I once saw some
"kiddie porn," and was quite repelled by it.  As one old British
homosexual once said to me, "I abhore pederasts, since they tend to
give all homosexuals a bad name." 

				John Hobson
				AT&T Bell Labs
				Naperville, IL
				(312) 979-0193
				ihnp4!ihuxq!amigo2

P.S. It's spelled "philately."  And your quote from Tom Lehrer
reminds me of the old story of when anti-pornography laws were being
debated in the British House of Lords, one peer who supported the
anti-porn laws asked one of his opponents "Would you like your
daughter to read Lady Chatterley's Lover?"  The reply was "I
wouldn't mind if my daughter read it, but I'd want to keep it out of
the hands of my gamekeeper."