Dear Dickie,

Oral sex can spread disease. So can kissing, eating tainted food or doing many unhealthy things. That is not a reason to censor material showing oral sex, kissing or eating.

It is a reason to have education in hygienic practices including sex education showing the risks of disease.

Many years ago when I was a teenager my girlfriend and I found about all oral sex all by ourselves without a manual or guidebook. I'm sure teenagers today are as enterprising and adventurous.

Yes, Q&A, I can see how enviro scientists are struggling to get their scary stories in the media. Bollocks, to use your word. It is climate rationalists who are fighting censorship. And on denial, if someone tells me the aliens are invading tomorrow, am I in denial if I don't believe it and am not frightened? It is not denial to 'reality test' the source of one's fear.

dickie clearly has a profound fear of dirty germs and nasties, such that he has not explored the delights of cunnilingus. Touched your keyboard, dickie? Better go wash your hands again.

I liked this: "The yearning "for something more" is exactly the impulse that will one day lead people to want to step up, take responsibility and run things themselves."

I think one of the greatest gifts of the smart rationalists of previous generations who have fought for better health, wealth and freedom, is to give younger people the space to explore things for themselves. The first generation labours to give their children education, the educated work to give their children creativity. This brings its own challenges, but there exists a wisdom among the current generation who have been given the gift of freedom too explore and create and learn that material things can't ultimately fulfil - but that doesn't mean they should be taken for granted. It is not indulgent to seek to know thyself or explore and create, and it is a gift for those who keep the faith of their forefathers, instead of dissing the efforts of previous generations who fought for it.

I have actually read some well-argued cases for censorship (eg. Theodore Dalrymple) who believes broadly that creativity doesn't have to suffer through imposed limits. Nature imposes them anyway, eg the painter has to work within the limits of the height and breadth of her canvas, sculptors with the quality of their clay. Jerry Seinfeld avoids swearing (self-imposed censorship) as he believes it forces him to work harder and find the funnier joke. He is funnier than Rove. And if pushing the envelope is the measure of creativity, are we saying art is better now than, say, during the Renaissance. Bill Henson's certainly isn't, and the left fight for it. It is not a matter to be taken lightly but great artists understand the power of working within limits, and sometimes playing with them.
Simply smashing them just produces shallow spectacle and BS, which is what most porn is, and ultimately unsatisfying. But I am glad to have the freedom and responsibility to find this out for myself.

I see censorship (esp. of outdoor media) as a matter of negotiation and planning, like architecture, urban planning, our environment and other collective goods, as we don't have the freedom, which is often argued for other media, to simply "switch if off". Hey, just don't drive down that freeway! Or close your eyes! I find many ads offensive for reasons other than the sexual.

But censorship in our private lives is a different matter. Let the law prevail on child porn etc but free us from your missionary position.

Dickie,

All these studies run along the line:

those teens watching porn have sexual intimacy earlier etc.

It could also read

Sexually active teens are more likely to seek out porn.

Lies, damn lies and statistics.

Until I see a broad survey that isn't self fulfilling I will take it with a pinch of salt.

This is of course ignoring the fact that it won't work, and will stuff up the net for the 99.9% of people not doing anything illegal.

As with anything non-trivial this is a cost-benefit issue.
Prohibition/Censorship is too risky as the power *always* corrupts.
I can't believe we are seriouosly having this discussion in this day and age. The internet scares conservatives because freedom is for the select few: not the ignorant, unwashed masses.
There may well be some bad sides to porn, but these must be balanced against the imposition of a censorship elite.
The extremists cannot be allowed to gain illegal control over our lives in the name of "save the children!", nor "save your souls!"

pelican: "Hamilton's paper on the sexualisation of children has many valid points"

Perhaps pelican, but it has no relevance here. The paper you refer to was about the sexualisation of kids in the mainstream media - TV ads and the like. No one is (I hope) talking about filtering stuff that is currently allowed on the mainstream media. Unlike porn on the internet, the mainstream media is thrust down your throat - it's hard to avoid. Striking porn on the internet by accident is unusual, you have to actively seek it out. If accidentally coming across porn does worry you, install a filter on your PC at home. They are provided by the government, free of charge.

What Clive wants to stop is people who actively seek pornography on the Internet from seeing it. Seeing that sentiment expressed here is almost expected. But seeing it come from a Professor of Ethics at a major Australian University is a surprise. Porn has little correlation with sexual attacks on women. Most studies show a negative one - the more porn the safer women and kids are. Most posters here either don't know that, or more probably conveniently brush it aside. A Professor of Ethics must do neither of those things.

More seriously, Clive was recently on the panel of Radio National's "Australia Talks Back" show dealing with ISP filtering. Naturally, the expansion of the filter to euthanasia, anorexia and hate sites came up. Clive said he wasn't pro-censorship, and he would never support the censorship of anorexia and hate sites. So here is our Professor of Ethics actively seeking to have pictures of a healthy activity most of us will participate in for the bulk of our lives banned, while at the same supporting the rights of self mutilation and hate sites. If I were running Sturt Uni I'd dump him. He is bringing the entire field of Ethics into disrepute.

A number of you here have expressed dismay at finding porn on internet. You can find the free government filters here:
http://www.netalert.gov.au/
I trust you will install one pronto.