Question 3: Rules Are Meant to Be Broken
"Pornography . . . is presumably intended to arouse sexual desire and procure solitary orgasm, against which, so far as I know, there has never been any law except that of a scout master." — Anthony Burgess
Should there ever be limits placed on the production and availability of pornography? How much should children be protected from sexually explicit images? Should the use of young-looking actors or simulated violence in porn be regulated or even outlawed? How far should we go to protect the First Amendment?
Can't stay long. Got a little "photo shoot" happening in the basement with a renegade Brownie troupe. So I'll just get things started. Answer key to Question #3:
a) Yes.
b) Lots.
c) Depends.
d) We've gone far enough.
John Stagliano (#2 of 33)
You're asking if we should have censorship? My first and biggest problem with censorship is a moral one. What right does Matt or anyone else have to tell me what I can or can't look at? All censorship is is one group of people telling another group of people how to live their lives. It's about power over other people's thoughts and actions. Our government was founded by people who were acutely aware of the potential abuses of power. That's why we have a strictly limited government.
Think about the process of censorship. Who will be the censors? Who will appoint them? What will be their motivation? How easily can they be corrupted? What standards will they use to decide what to censor? The problem is we are dealing with real human beings here. They will be corrupted. Anytime the government has a program to control behavior, like the war on drugs, the consequences of the government's actions are far worse than the cause. A few people die a year from drug overdoses. Thousands die because criminals now have more money from the "job" we've created for them selling drugs. They now have the means and the motivation to buy guns. Violence ensues in the underground market and lots of innocent people are killed. You try and tell people, who are not hurting anyone (other than perhaps themselves), how they should live and you're in for lots of bad karma. You can bet on it!
As for the other part of your question, we are programmed genetically to respond to virile members of the opposite sex. Women are fertile and at their prime age to bear children when they are approximately sixteen to twenty-five years old. They make men's dicks harder when they are in this age group. I think the eighteen-year-old age of consent that we have in America works pretty well. Certainly there are individual exceptions to this but it seems to be a good age at which to let young people decide for themselves what to do with their bodies. Anyone younger than this should be prevented by law from consuming or participating in porn. Kids can be forced by unscrupulous adults to do inappropriate things. Of course this is wrong. But at some point in time they become adults, and then you have to leave them alone.
Violence in porn is a big issue today. Lots of people love rough sex, lots of people have rape fantasies. Therefore, the market will provide for them. Is this good? I think you have to be aware of all instances of real force and protect the rights of real victims. However, many people love to do this stuff willingly. And, like I said earlier, whenever you try to prescribe other people's behavior, you have more and worse problems because of your action.
Of course I cringe at the sight of violence. But the violence you see in horror movies is for me far worse that anything in porno. The knee-jerk reaction is to ban all this violence. But again you have all the problems related to censorship, i.e. who will decide what to censor, etc. I heard of a study once that made me think completely differently about movie violence. It involved showing violent, slasher-type movies to real murderers in prison. The researchers found that after watching the films, the killers were measurably less inclined to violence. The explanation proposed for this counter-intuitive result was that the fictional victims in the film were made more real to the killers. That is, through the exposition of a story, when the criminals get to know the victim, when they see the victim's emotions, when they see them as real people, not just as disembodied representations of something in the world that causes them pain or distress, then the killers feel some compassion for the victims and becomes less violent.
Matt Labash (#3 of 33)
Here, here! It's a grand ol' flag, it's a high flying flag! Sky rockets in flight, afternoon delight! Excuse me while I boot.
Nobody loves this country and those wig-wearing men in tights we call our forefathers more than me, but Bartlett was onto something when he said, "Patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels." I've never been able to prove it, but I've long suspected that if our founders had been blessed with clairvoyance, in addition to their snappy prose styles, they'd have tightened up a few loopholes to winnow the number of raincoated, finger-sniffin' jacklegs that diaper themselves in the flag (literally, in Larry Flynt's case) every time someone tries to tell them they can't plant a turd cam in the ladies' room or swap Polaroids of their nieces' slumber party.
I admit, Buttman, that it's cheating for me to try to hang child pornography on you (since you seem to disavow it), though you conveniently recast the argument to pin censorship on me. Lord, you libertarians love the c-word (censorship, not the other one). Rest easy, BM, nobody here is trying to take away your right to butter your own corn with the one-handed glossy of your choice — so long as it doesn't involve minors, sex slaves, snuff stills or household pets (I trust we agree, and if we don't, I eagerly await your comeback). But curtailing availability or discouraging consumption is not the same as censorship. It's still available, just not as readily. We do it with cigarettes. We do it with alcohol. Why can't we do it with Buttman videos?
What kills me, whenever engaging in pornography debates, is that the people who most vehemently defend it on First Amendment grounds (the ACLU) are often the same people who piss blood over firehouse nativity scenes or schoolchildren saying prayers over their cafeteria trays. This is usually done under the equally unconstitutional notion of separating church and state (an argument for another time, though I'll throw down if necessary). Meanwhile, they'll fight to the death for Annie Sprinkle's taxpayer endowment so that she can invite her audience to inspect her cervix through a speculum. You're right, John, our government was founded by people who were acutely aware of the potential abuses of power. Too bad they were powerless to safeguard against the potential abuses of privilege.
Jerry Stahl (#4 of 33)
Here's a fun notion — Tom Jefferson, Big Jim Madison, et al, hunkered over their computers, debating whether the jumbo spank-fest streaming in real time in front of them is simulated, authentic, packed with wanton fourteen-year-old Pakistani urchins, or good clean fun that they should, like, think about when drawing up the laws of the land. Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness-wise, one man's bondage video is another man's nightmare.
Maybe Congress should pass a law that every member of the Supreme Court involved in ruling on a First Amendment Smut Case should be forced to slip out of those saucy robes — and let's not even get into the whole cross-dressing thing right now, except to say that Anthony Scalia is hot hot hot — and plunge into a night of naked frolic with a partner or partners of their choice. Trick them out in little leather skimpies, put 'em on leashes and make them go native in the Washington D.C. equivalent of the Hellfire for an evening or two. With Bob "give me one of the big blue ones" Dole acting as tour guide, who knows? Let the dance begin.
Then let 'em decide if they're gonna decide. I don't know about you, but I think Larry Flynt and Sandra Day O'Connor just might be the couple of the decade.
Ian Gittler (#5 of 33)
200,000 HOOKED ON SEX ON INTERNET, STUDY FINDS
Did anyone else catch the short article in yesterday's NY Times with this headline?
The article defined cybersex compulsives as those spending more than eleven hours a week at X-rated sites. With all due respect to Stanford University and its esteemed affiliates, anyone who has seen the houses in which John Stagliano or Patrick Collins or any number of their peers in the X-rated industry live knows that the 200,000 number must be way, way, way . . . WAY low. The researchers do point out that this is a "hidden public health hazard exploding, in part, because very few are recognizing it as such or taking it seriously."
Their language isn't dead on, but I like the prospect of a world where individuals are encouraged to treat their use of pornography with the same type of inner scale they use in gauging their use of drugs and alcohol. I see strong parallels between the addictive components of all three.
Regarding further legislation: until the raging epidemic of childhood sexual abuse that fuels the X-rated industry with eighteen-year-old children — sons and daughters — is addressed in our country in a greatly more effective way, the idea of hanging the burden on the sex industry, asking them to turn their backs on huge pockets of legal market demand, seems totally ludicrous. Anyway, they'd be swimming against the tide. We live in a society with a shocking investment — on many, many levels — in letting children of "legal age" martyr themselves for the purposes of our entertainment. Porn is just a mirror.
Regarding children's access to sexual images: the definition of sexual abuse has evolved enormously since the singular idea of incest with intercourse or sodomy became a recognized social problem. Recent studies are proving that kids are vulnerable far sooner and to a far wider, grayer range of stimuli and circumstance than ever before presumed. Hopefully new standards for safe parenting will continue to seep into the mainstream.
It's too bad that conservative, freedom-smashing assholes with hidden religious, political and economic agendas have given the very notion of the "measured" lifestyle (whatever that ends up meaning for each of us) such a horrible reputation — especially since these fuckers so often end up being the most heinous perps.
Rufus Griscom (#6 of 33)
Wow, I get distracted for a few days and in Question 2 Matt gets contrite and mushy (with facetious veneer intact, thank goodness), Jerry makes a case for an intelligence-free-zone around shaved clams (which already exists in my case — I can only manage to pontificate around unshaved ones), and Tricia tells it like it is (Tricia, I like your boys club–crashing style).
On to Question 3: Ian, wow, sex abuse produces sex workers? I leave that one for John and Tricia. I think we have to distinguish between policies restricting the depiction of acts and policies restricting the acts themselves (increasingly important given advances in digital technology). It doesn't seem reasonable to deny Matt the right to distribute his Bonking Brownies in the Basement home video (if the Brownies are figments of his imagination, or high-resolution digital special effects) in the same breath that we let movies circulate that show graphic images of limb-severing, skull-smashing and so on. In fact, if Matt wants to create a Brownie Bonking video game, that strikes me as no more pernicious than Doom and its many spawns (highly violent video games played by tens of thousands of American seven-year-olds who run drilling each other with lead, rewarded for their accuracy with visions of spraying blood and flesh chunks). That said, I believe the production of these violent video games and sex games (if they emerge) should be restricted. Most anything short of that, I think, is game (assuming no laws are broken in the making) — if people want to watch images of other people porking porky (the pig) or performing Nabokov's Lolita with a live twelve-year-old (appropriately protected), power to 'em.
Ian Gittler (#7 of 33)
I've always argued that Sony Playstation should create the porn of the future; despite the vulgarity of video game violence, and its arguably negative repercussions, not one eighteen-year-old daughter or son is brutalized in the name of creating that entertainment.
And Rufus, I stand by my statement:
SEXUAL ABUSE ABSOLUTELY FUELS THE CONSTANT FLOW OF YOUNG PEOPLE INTO SEX WORK.
That idea was tough for me to bear, too, but 99 percent of the 150-plus sex workers I spent time with were able to, over time, kind of help me to see things a little more clearly.
Matt Labash (#8 of 33)
For the record, I haven't tried to bonk a Brownie since third grade and even then, I wasn't quite sure what bonking meant and I was called out while sliding into second. (At the risk of being the village explainer, though I'd rather explain to you than the federales — I was jiving about the Brownies, though even joking about such a thing is morally repugnant. Besides, the Girl Scouts have so much more to offer with those coconut Samoas and delicious Thin Mints). As for Rufus, I'm a little unclear as to your bacon-slaking policy. I don't know what kind of laws you have on the books up there in New York, but down here in D.C., it is against the law to violate anything you can eat for breakfast. Forgive me for being touchy. But you see, I'm your basic bacon-lover. I like all kinds of bacon, any kind of bacon: I like it Virginia cured and apple smoked — but mostly I like it thick and fatty as a baby's leg. (Hey, I'm starting to talk like Tricia!) And if I thought for one minute that when I stared down at my plate, the white center of my bacon strip wasn't fat, but the result of some barnyard pig-digger getting there first, and you're condoning this act being photographed, then watch your back, Rufus. I'm dropping a dime on you to PETA.
Tricia Devereaux (#9 of 33)
For the most part, I agree with John, Ian and even Rufus on this one.
My emotions get split as to where I stand on the First Amendment (as an absolute). In my mind, it should be obvious to everyone that child pornography and nonconsensual violence in porn should be illegal. Believe it or not, I'm also in support of drug regulation. Of course it's not simple. What about gray areas, like taking still photos of a thin non-curvy twenty-year-old because she is reminiscent of a fifteen-year-old? Does this fuel the desire of pedophiles, or does it give them a substitute to look at? There isn't an easy way to say where the lines should be drawn for the acceptability of anything. All too often, agendas get confused, and things start getting changed or regulated for all the wrong reasons.
I love Ian's theory about sexual abuse. It's actually probably pretty true. I do know quite a few porn stars who, if not sexually abused, had less than perfect childhoods. Sorry to disappoint the group members though. My first sexual encounter of any sort was at age eighteen, and although my mother was incredibly strict, I don't consider myself a victim of my environment. I do think I became an exhibitionist partly because I was originally very shy, nerdy (a straight A-student) and plain. And I can tell you that John has never related to me a single story about sexual abuse in his childhood either.
Lately my maternal instincts have been creeping to the surface, and I wonder about what I will teach any children John and I might someday have. I don't want to shelter them from the fact that sex exists, but I don't want them to see it at a young age. What's appropriate? I don't know, maybe R-rated gratuitous nudity is okay for an early teen to see, if explained. But hardcore sex? Eighteen sounds reasonable.
Why should the amount of pornography be regulated? Supply and demand is what regulates everything else. Ian's right. There's a whole lot of people who consume porno out there. Some of them probably too much, and I know a lot of those people personally. But only a very small percentage of the consumers are the sickos that people cite when they say porn is a negative product. There are a lot of well adjusted people who watch porn. If there isn't a demand for a particular type of porn, companies will have to stop manufacturing it, or else go bankrupt. Try this: if you don't like something, don't watch it.
Finally, if I actually do sound anything like Matt, will someone please tell me?
Matt Labash (#10 of 33)
Question for Tricia: Once you succumb to those maternal instincts, what are you gonna tell little Buttman Jr. that his parents do for a living?
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