I am not a member of your newsgroup, but Diane has let me read in on the
pornography discussion.   Especially since Diane has signed off on the topic,
I felt compelled to clarify some issues that I think the discussion has
confused.

I think the word "ban" was used a lot, when that term does not represent
accurately Dworkin's law.  Andrea Dworkin, who Diane mainly cites for
anti-porn legislation, does not advocate state censorship of pornography and
in fact opposes obscenity laws.  Dworkin's proposes civil rights legislation
to allow people to sue pornographers.  Women who had been coerced into
pornography could sue pornographers.  Women who had been victims of a physical
assault or rape in which pornography was a cause could sue the pornographers
for damages.  These survivors would also have to prove that the pornography
depicted the subordination of women.  Dworkin advocates  a checkoff list of
activities that constitute the subordination of women, which mostly but not
wholly consists of violent acts--although I do not know all the items.  One of
the items is whether the subject of the pornography has been coerced, which
Margaret commented on & I discuss below.  A similar law in Indianapolis
defined the subordination only as violent acts against women in pornography,
which I agree with.

Margaret brought up the problem of women giving consent to be involved in
pornography and that advocates like Dworkin point out that true consent is
impossible in our culture.  Therefore, Dworkin considers all pornography to
involve coercion.  However, Dworkin does not advocate that definition of
consent for the Federal civil rights legislation she proposed.  Clearly that
would be suicide to add such a provision to a law that must be signed by the
President (at that time Reagan) and passed by the US Congress.

Calling Dworkin's law a ban on pornography also seems inaccurate when compared
to other restrictions on free speech.  Laws against defamation allow someone
who's business or community standing has been affected by speech to sue for
damages.  Tobacco companies add non-disclosure agreement to employee
contracts, thereby insuring that current and former employees could face
multi-million dollar law suits for discussing unethical, immoral, or even
illegal activities by the company. 

There is clearly a concern in the group for defending constitutional rights,
as Ross illustrates in his response to Diane's comment on a PR campaign:
>>Once again proving that free
>>speech means free market access to media by the highest bidder.
>Free speech means that. It *also*, thankfully, means that you and I can
>have this discussion. It means that Krapper Keeper can record a
>million-selling hit song called "Chewbacca is Gay" and be protected from
>censorship or legal action. I like that. I'm willing to go to great
>lengths to preserve that right.

But, as Ross response indicates, there seems to be a lack of appreciation of
the importance of distinguishing freedom of speech and freedom to access to
the media, only one of which is protected by the federal government.  Access
to the media is not protected by the government but instead is protected by
the free market, which means it protects those with wealth and power.  For
those not familiar with this idea, Noam Chomsky has done analysis on how free
market forces lead to biased media coverage in foreign policy and economics. 
Some of the more obvious examples of how this distorts journalism are
economics discussed from mainly from the CEO's perspective (e.g., why there
are business sections in newspapers and not labor sections?), and in foreign
policy the discrepancy in coverage of two similar genocides--the one in
Cambodia and the one in East Timor.

As part of her campaign to recognize pornography as a civil rights issue,
Dworkin points out that, as women have been kept from fully participating in
the economy, they have also been denied access to the media.  In the case of
the pornography industry, a media which teaches how men and women should
express themselves sexually.  Especially in our age, media, both mainstream
and pornography, is probably the primary source of sex "education."  Because
women face sexual violence and sexual harassment in numbers astronomically
higher than men and because of a history of discrimination--such as being
denied access to the media-- women's civil rights are being violated.  The
same principle applies for civil rights protection to minorities because of a
history of oppression and present discrimination.

I think the examples of defamation and non-disclosure agreement also indicates
how the government selectively chooses to protect from free speech.  When a
business is under attack, or someone with community stature is attacked, or a
corporation is attacked then there is protection.  But when women are attacked
in pornography, there is not protection because--as there is selective access
to the media--there is also selective access to the courts.

I also thought there was some confusion among the group about the proper
tactics to debate.  Margaret, like Ross, undermined the importance of access
to the media, but to make a valid point--the character of the source  of
information, for example a PR firm hired by the Tobacco Industry, does not
necessarily reflect on the accuracy of the information:
> This is the nature of propaganda--if you have money, you can usually get
your message out.
>It says nothing about the truth or falsity of your message.

Bob, however, fell into this trap by asking Diane where Dworkin got her
funding.  Ironically, he asked this right after making a blanket endorsement
of Margaret's letter:
>I actually think everythign Margaret wrote makes pretty
>good sense and I knw there's nothing she would vouch for in public that
>she couldn't back up - she is the consumate 'netperson' and knows her
>stuff.  Try to take a few more scans over your responses before you hit
>the send button.
>Just as an extra barb, why don't you call Dworkin and ask her how she pays
>her bills?

Jeffrey also ignored this principle of distinguishing an argument's value from
the character of someone who makes the argument.  Here Jeffrey is ostensibly
defending Margaret but is really unjustly attacking Diane when she critiques
ad hominem arguments.
Diane wrote:
>You use the same reasoning as
>my staunch conservative brother-in-law uses who tries to discredit the civil
>rights movement because he thinks that Louis Farrakhan is an idiot. 

And Jeffrey responded:
>I'm under the impression that Margaret is clear on the different
>factions in the movement, whereas your brother (the idiot) is not. If
>Margaret is doing something in the same way as an idiot, would this not be a
>comparison?

By the way, Diane does not have a brother.  Jeffrey was also a little
overzealous in his response to Diane's assertion that whistling could be a
form of sexual harassment:
>if I get thrown in jail for whistling
>at a female because some asshole tried to assault you, it would be a
>terrible injustice.

This is confusing since Diane never stated that sexual harassment should be a
criminal offense.  I wish Jeffrey could clarify why he felt so threatened by
Diane's argument about sexual harassment that he'd rather imagine himself as
the attacker than a victim. Is Jeffrey suggesting that it is not in fact a
woman by herself at night that should be frightened when a stranger whistles
at her, but in fact the *whistler* who should be afraid?  I'm wondering why,
instead of offering support or suggestions about how to stop a real
problem--women being the victims of harassment and attacks by strangers in
public--he fantasizes himself the victim of some grotesque distortion of
Diane's argument.  By the way Jeffrey , unlike you, I am not just mocking you
but your issue too.

Most forms of sexual harassment are not criminal offenses.  Harassment are
acts that make an environment hostile for someone.  No one can be arrested for
making a woman feel like she is mainly an object for sexual gratification, but
in the work environment, people who face a pattern of unjustified harassment
have legal means to redress that hostility.  Imagine yourself at a job where
people of color were referred to with racial epithets and what type of
workplace that would be.  Would they have equal opportunity there? Racial
epithets, like whistles, are not always a hostile act.  It has to do with the
relationship, so that a racial epithet from a stranger is just as unwelcome as
a whistle.  Racial epithets and whistles also work similarly--there are a
reminder to someone that they are not a person but only a member of a devalued
group.

I am not part of the newsgroup, but I can find out about responses from
Diane's account.  Individual responses can be sent to me at:
matt_devries@unctv.org

-Matt


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