Hello Mr Madden,

Indeed you did say "Your assertion that prostitution leads to heroin is just as misguided as saying porn reduces the incidence of rape." Fully conceded.

I'm glad you don't agree with the basic logic of the article.

In relation to your question concerning my statement that "It seems clear that private access to nondenigratory, nonviolent pornography, as a private custom, is no longer unacceptable": it's a number of legislatures around Australia that say it, by not banning it. Not banning it means accepting it (whether with or without reservations, whether under no, some or many conditions). The opposite is to ban it i.e. not to accept it, full stop.

In relation to your statement that you "do not suffer fools lightly, I do not have long to live so I gave up being "nice" to people, I tell it how I see it - sometimes to provoke a response, sometimes because the poster is a dill. Do I put you down as a fool or a dill?": I'm sympathetic if you do not have long to live and sorry that you've given up being "nice" to people; that seems to be an unhappy situation.

You seem to be articulate and reasonable. I guess what surprised me in the first place about your postings was the vehemence and scorn which they displayed. There are more kinds of posters in this world than just the 'fools' and 'dills' of that perspective.

Regards,
amitarian

From Catharine A. MacKinnon (In Harm's Way -- The Pornography Civil Rights Hearings, Harvard University Press, l997):

Women speak in public for the first time in history of the harms done to them through pornography in the hearings collected in this volume. Their first-person accounts stand against the pervasive sexual violation of women and children that is allowed to be done in private and is not allowed to be criticized in public. Their publication, which comes almost fifteen years after the first hearing was held, ends the exclusion from the public record of the information they contain on the way pornography works in social reality. Now ended is the censorship of these facts and voices from a debate on the social and cultural role of pornography that has gone on as if it could go on without them.

Until these hearings took place, pornography and its apologists largely set the terms of public discussion over pornography's role in social life. Public, available, effectively legal, pornography has stature: it is visible, credible, and legitimated. At the same time, its influence and damaging effects are denied as nonexistent, indeterminate, or merely academic, contrary to all the evidence. Its victims have had no stature at all....

From Susan Brownmiller (Susan Brownmiller.com):

...the feminist objection to pornography is based on our belief that pornography represents hatred of women, that pornography's intent is to humiliate, degrade and dehumanize the female body for the purpose of erotic stimulation and pleasure. We are unalterably opposed to the presentation of the female body being stripped, bound, raped, tortured, mutilated and murdered in the name of commercial entertainment and free speech.

These images, which are standard pornographic fare, hive (sic) nothing to do with the hallowed right of political dissent. They have everything to do with the creation of a cultural climate in which a rapist feels he is merely giving in to a normal urge and a woman is encouraged to believe that sexual masochism is healthy, liberated fun....

Hawaiilawyer,

"We are unalterably opposed to the presentation of the female body being stripped, bound, raped, tortured, mutilated and murdered in the name of commercial entertainment and free speech.

These images, which are standard pornographic fare,"

Is that the reality or an impression that some wish to convey? Did you read the link I posted to an earlier OLO article on this topic? http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=334

I support censorship of the kind of porn described in the comment you posted but don't share the view that they are standard pornographic fare.

I've heard of a number of studies on porn in Australia, and to the best of my knowledge one common theme has been the researchers surprise at how wrong such stereotypes are. When they look at the mainstream porn they find that women are more often than not the initiators of sexual encounters, that they come in a variety of shapes and sizes and that the individuals involved enjoy their work.

Such porn exists but I suspect that the claim that it is standard pornographic fare is at best misguided but more likely a deliberate lie.

R0bert

Here is the result of pornography in America :
A grown man goes into a schoolhouse and attacks a room full of girl children with a high powered gun. Five are dead today. Several others are in the hospital mortally wounded.
The doctors call it being in ‘critical condition’. They say the children who have been attacked by these adults are in ‘critical condition’. That’s the medical term.
What is the human term?
Charles Carl Roberts IV killed these girls — Naomi Rose Ebersole, 7; Marian Fisher, 13; Mary Liz Miller, 8; and her sister Lena Miller, 7, Anna Mae Stoltzfus, 12.
Another 6 year old girl was taken off life support so that she could be taken home to die.
Dr. D. Holmes Morton who was working with the 6 year old said, "I just think at this point mostly these families want to be left alone in their grief and we ought to respect that."
Here is a man who worked with the Amish for years and still doesn’t see what is right in front of him.
The Amish don’t want to be left alone. They want you to join them in a life of peace and harmony.
The world is a harsh place as it is but the modern world is filled with things that do not need to be that cause needless sorrow and waste a lot of time.
The handguns that killed these children wasted a lot of time and have caused much sorrow.
An Amish neighbor comforted the Roberts family hours after the shooting and extended forgiveness to them.
What courage before Christ have you shown today that could even come close to matching the compassion and love that was shown here?
What action will you take to make the world a better place? What will YOU do to make God’s world a place where girl children are safe?
It’s up to you.

Cranston36,

Those poor Amish girls died because some sick deranged man shot them.

Sick deranged men have murdered innocents since way back before pornography was more than an obscene cave painting. How do you explain those murders?

Perhaps these murders happened due to the sexual repression of a pornography free world? Why not.. it's as good a theory as yours.

Isn't about time politician's stopped such silly political games and do what they were elected to do - work?

Such anti-pornography laws do not work as was proven in Queensland during the era of Sir Joh Bjelke-Peterson. During his time in power, Queenslander's were the nations best consumers of mail order porn.

As far as I care, what people do in their own time, in their own homes is THEIR business. If pollies must control ourlives they are tell is of filth, they need to take a long kerosene bath.