From the Washington Post, “Recruits Sought for Porn Squad”:
The FBI is joining the Bush administration’s War on Porn. And it’s looking for a few good agents.
Early last month, the bureau’s Washington Field Office began recruiting for a new anti-obscenity squad. Attached to the job posting was a July 29 Electronic Communication from FBI headquarters to all 56 field offices, describing the initiative as “one of the top priorities” of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and, by extension, of “the Director.” That would be FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III.
[…]
The new squad will divert eight agents, a supervisor and assorted support staff to gather evidence against “manufacturers and purveyors” of pornography—not the kind exploiting children, but the kind that depicts, and is marketed to, consenting adults.
“I guess this means we’ve won the war on terror,” said one exasperated FBI agent, speaking on the condition of anonymity because poking fun at headquarters is not regarded as career-enhancing. “We must not need any more resources for espionage.”
Well, I hardly think a dozen or so employees is going to make or break our national security apparatus—at least, I hope not, particularly when the kind of employees we’re talking about are inclined to be more worried about how their neighbors are using anal bead and ice dongs than are with how some Lodi terror cell is planning to use Semtex and Ricin—but what is so unconscionable about this new anti-obscenity squad (aside for the absurdly high priority Alberto Gonzales seems to be giving this matter) is that the activities in question: producing, selling, and consuming porn, are all legal activities.
Federal obscenity prosecutions, which have been out of style since Attorney General Edwin Meese III in the Reagan administration made pornography a signature issue in the 1980s, do “encounter many legal issues, including First Amendment claims,” the FBI headquarters memo noted.
Applicants for the porn squad should therefore have a stomach for the kind of material that tends to be most offensive to local juries. Community standards—along with a prurient purpose and absence of artistic merit—define criminal obscenity under current Supreme Court doctrine.
“Based on a review of past successful cases in a variety of jurisdictions,” the memo said, the best odds of conviction come with pornography that “includes bestiality, urination, defecation, as well as sadistic and masochistic behavior.”
All performed willingly and consumed second hand by grownups who are responsible for making their own choices with respect to legal products.
That the Department of Justice is looking for soft jurisdictions, pliant jury pools, and arbitrary distinctions in position and equipment used in the filming and marketing of sexual activity strikes me as a horrific waste resources—unless, as is the case with Alberto Gonzales, you are looking to rehabilitate yourself with your social conservative base:
Popular acceptance of hard-core pornography has come a long way, with some of its stars becoming mainstream celebrities and their products—once confined to seedy shops and theaters—being “purveyed” by upscale hotels and most home cable and satellite television systems. Explicit sexual entertainment is a profit center for companies including General Motors Corp. and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. (the two major owners of DirecTV), Time Warner Inc. and the Sheraton, Hilton, Marriott and Hyatt hotel chains.
But Gonzales endorses the rationale of predecessor Meese: that adult pornography is a threat to families and children. Christian conservatives, long skeptical of Gonzales, greeted the pornography initiative with what the Family Research Council called “a growing sense of confidence in our new attorney general.”
At a time when Democratic Senator Harry Reid is standing up and opposing Constitutionally-inclined SCOTUS nominees like John Roberts, it behooves them to keep in mind the kinds of nominees some on the right would rather see appointed to the courts.
Gonzales is a politician—and as a judge would likely make a slightly worse Sandra Day O’Connor.
And those who complain about the activist judges on the left should NOT be celebrating his calculating “zealotry” in going after legal businesses simply because he’s interested in boosting his social con street cred.
Especially if it’s gonna put a crimp in my ability to see a bunch of dirty former cheerleaders shitting on each other while pleasuring a donkey.
****
update: more from Ace and More than Loans
I refuse to believe that the WAPO has not been caught up in some sort of farce here. This is a parody, right?
TW: Ones, like what you put in the stripper’s garter.
Thanks for that last image. Now as I lay in my cot, huddled under the mosquito netting and wondering when the heat index will drop below 90, I will get to have that image dancing around my cranium.
They can’t be serious.
And co-workers wonder why any discussion of politics with me leads to inevitable qualifier of “yes, I generally vote for Republicans BUT….”
This is frankly stupid. Even if it’s only 10-12 agents (those are the numbers I’ve seen as estimates) it’s still a waste of resources, done for purely political reasons as a sop to social conservatives. Screw that: the FBI is less than productive as it is with regards to important things, why would we waste anyone’s time regulating legal activities between consenting adults?
Disclaimer: I don’t have any kids, so I’m not going to guess as to how that changes what people perceive as a threat towards young’ns. I’m sure it’s a factor, but let’s not get ridiculous.
Luckily I moved to this commmunity primarily because it has no standards, so I think I’m pretty safe on this one.
I read the article, nothing in it suggests that the consumers would be prosecuted for their pornographic tastes, just the manufacturers. The thing is, bestiality isn’t legal. A lot of what goes on in “gonzo” porn is probably on shakey legal ground, especially depending on where it’s shipped to. If it is your pleasure to seek the repeal of those laws, good on you, but it isn’t the FBI’s fault that they haven’t yet been repealed.
I like naked ladies as much as the next blog commenter, but a lot of the porn really is indefensible. A couple of years ago, there was a Canadian teenager who contracted HIV on the set of a porn flick. The maneuver through which she got it was a “double anal”, she was sodomized by two men at once.
No one is entitled, even under his own roof, to beat his wife, with or without her consent. It is not legally permissible. What makes a double anal sacrosanct? What speech content is there in a double anal?
I got a girl with a little rubber head
Rinse her out every night just before I go to bed
She never talk back like a lady might do
And she looks like she loves it every time I get through
And her name is P-I-N-K-Y
P-I-N no lie
K-Y me-oh-my
She’s 69 – 95, give her a try
P-I-N-K-Y
P-I-N I cry
K-Y don’t be shy
69 – 95 boy, give her a try
— Frank Zappa
SB: perform
Boy howdy, if that doesn’t call into question an almost uncountable number of federal agencies… Like ATF, for one.
TW: Does this cover foot fetish videos as well?
fwiw, add just a couple more agents and you’d have a group the same size as the one the United Nations put into Iraq to continue the WMD inspection.
And we know now, thanks to Kos, Atrios, Bill Clinton, and Howard Dean that 18 to 25 people let loose in an area the size of California would make everything just ducky.
Because when you say “United Nations Inspections” you’re really talking about a group of people that could travel in three Toyota LandCruisers to the local McDonalds for lunch without having to call ahead.
I think Jeff is seriously underestimating the efficacy these chaps could have on the US Porn Industry.
Bokonon —
The bestiality reference in my post is just a joke. By all means, whatever is illegal, fine, go after it – though I don’t see why a woman or man wanting to service a donkey should be any of my business, though I’d be against marriage between the two.
But the speech content of a double anal is that if it’s consensual, the government shouldn’t be getting involved with it. Unless we wish to make laws against it (which, some states still have, probably). But I think it’s silly.
Personally, I think there should be laws against missionary. I mean, why should I have to do any work, am I right?
I love this. Fuck the borders! Bring me the head of Ashley Blue!!!!!!
I’m pretty sure the LP would demand my membership card back (if I’d ever gotten one) on this point, but I still don’t agree. I may just be naive, but I can’t believe any three people, in the sordid history of sex, have ever come to the decision that a double anal would be a nice way to spend twenty minutes.
Leaving asside domestic violence (which is probably touchy since the bimbo explosion), I can’t consent to your beating me up. If the police show up at the bar behind which you’re thrashing me, you’ll be hauled off, notarized waiver in hand. And I think that’s the way it ought to be. There are lots of stupid people; they shouldn’t be permitted (where it can be prevented) to sell off their basic human rights to rich sadists. I’m one of those stuffy prudes who find Fear Factor obscene, too.
I don’t support anti-prostitution statutes, because no one should be told with whom he or she may sleep. But assault is different. I acknowledge that your position is the more free one. It just doesn’t seem like the best one.
Hey, when double anal is outlawed, only outlaws will…well, you get my drift.
I have to take a pragmatic view of the matter.
Is it really such a bad thing to have pornography producers looking over their shoulders and worrying about the Feds? Thinking “well, maybe I ought to make sure I’m not one of the worst producers…” Thinking “I better get my waivers and legal documents in orders, otherwise my next double anal scene will be between me, Spike and the anonymous White Power guy in my cell.” ?
It does disqualify Gonzales to be a federal judge, in my mind. Federal judges should probably NOT be thinking in street-cop “let’s put some pressure on the perverts” fashion.
Uh-oh! I hope they don’t shut down “Asian Shit Queens”! Now THERE’S some free speech for ya…
But what if a sex obsessed terrorist confused his semtex with his anal beads?
Actually, beastiality is legal in 15 states, under the “You didn’t say we couldn’t!” theory:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beastiality#Legality_by_US_State
Jeff,
You know how I feel about this, so I won’t go over the same argument. If anyone else is interested in what I had to say on this, go to Ace’s comment section.
But I do have a question.
why would Gonzales make a slightly worse Sandra Day O’Conner? I have never understood what some more moderate Republicans don’t like about him.
Gonzales doesn’t seem to have a coherent judicial philosophy, from what I know of him. That was my complaint with O’Connor. Gonzales would be worse, in my opinion, because he seems to want to please social conservatives on certain issues.
I’ve never understood what the more conservative Republicans like about Gonzales. Sure, he’s kissing your ass now, but once he became a Supreme I think it’s fifty/fifty that he might just drift left.
I’ll go ahead and open the shithouse door. IMHO what two consenting adults agree to I have absolutely no problem with. I mean WHATEVER they consent to. Any law that proscribes that behavior is a BAD law.
What slope do you want to slide down when you applaud the Government’s desire to legislate morality. The less laws we have, the more we rely on personal responsibility.
tw: why – “Why are they wasting my money on this?”
Boko,
Volenti non fit injuria – under common-law, “if one is willing, there is no injury.”
Dog (Lost),
Sure, you claim to love free speech…but where are the links, man!?
I don’t understand Al’s motives here, either; why pander to the soc. conv base? He’s not running for office, and he would be appointed by Bush or Guiliani, who didn’t need recourse to pleasing that group to get re-elected or wouldn’t need it in ‘08, respectively, to the Big Bench.
So, why waste the time and money? He’s starting to look like the Anti-Gonzo.
…and, jeez, if all that stuff is out of bounds, what’s left…Cinemax?
What happens when you take the sex out of the equation? I believe recently someone with an amputation fetish met up with a “flesh eater” online. They got their freak on, and the government got involved. I am all for personal freedom, but a line exists somewhere does it not?
Related –
Q: What has seven arms and sucks?
*
*
*
A: Def leppard
T- I’m hip; I dig it. It just doesn’t comport to reality. It’s illegal, in California, to sleep with a drunk girl. One can’t consent to assault. Prostitution is illegal nearly everywhere. Drug laws; public health inspections of street venders (haven’t I the right to buy a hotdog from anyone I like?); anti-smoking ordinances; usary laws; the FDA and FCC keeping the phony boner-pill sellers from stealing my money. . . There are things to which one cannot consent. Like I said in my first comment, fine to support the repeal of those laws, but that’s the first step, not criticizing the enforcement.
Porn gets singled out, but it isn’t nearly the only member of this genre. Just the, er, sexiest one.
I think these are the eight-to-ten least competent Feds. You know, the ones who knocked on the front door of the house where Osama was hiding, and while they were waiting for him to answer, he stole their car.
.
I disagree. Not only can one consent, consenting adults do so in those cases you cite every day. Just because those transactions are illegal does not mean that consenting adults do not engage in those activities.
If you want a “nanny state” where the Gov’t makes decisions for you that they (whoever they are) consider to be for your own benefit then these laws should suit you. Bear in mind, though, that when you accede you are abdicating your responsibility to think for yourself. When the government protects you from your own “bad” decisions, they replace your morality with theirs. They now decide those things that are “bad” for you.
Bear also in mind that legislating against certain behavior is no guarantee that people will not engqage in that behavior. The cost for trying to enforce “morality legislation” takes funds away from law enforcement agencies that could be spent on crimes against property or persons.
All the money spent for enforcement of the drug laws, and all the money spent for people in prison for violations of these laws would go a long way in paying for (insert your most favored want here).
P.S. Law is the minimum of morality that man needs to cohabit with man.
tw: addition – This is in addition to ny previous post.
A pro boxer’s sparring partner gets paid for it.
Like rls said, there is a distinction between consent and legal consent. I can consent to you killing me, it just isn’t recognized by the state.
Taking mcgehee’s comments further, and where I think he was going…
Several agents were assigned to New Orleans in August 2001 to crack down on prostitution there. Several agents that weren’t available for other things that might happen. Say in a month or so.
As long as we have an almost totally porous border to the south of us, I fail to see how this is any kind of priority. Protect us from being blown up first, then worry about us being blown.
rls- You’re right. Everything I listed, and every of the other things I didn’t think to list, are examples of nanny-state government. But I no more have to endorse each of them than you have to endorse legalizing loan-sharking. It’s an absolutist stance, one I respect, but one I don’t agree with. That it will never happen (the FDA isn’t going nowhere; assault is always going to be illegal), that the American people will not permit these protections to be repealed, may be beside the point, but far be it from me to fail to appeal to majority. 8^)
I don’t understand why you think, or why B. Moe does, pointing out that these things can be consented to, just not legally, rebuts any of my points. Aren’t we talking about law enforcement? If that wasn’t clear, I really did mean legal consent, not philosophical, metaphorical, or whatever else.
Reaffirming my killjoy bona fides: I wish President Bush would send the IRS to crack down on those tax-evading strippers. Independent contractors in a cash business? That noise you hear isn’t the opening bars to Girls, Girls, Girls; it’s malfeasance!
Matt,
I don’t see conservative Republicans liking him. He is pro-choice. That kinda ticks us off…
Boko,
I agree with you on the nany-state intrusion, but you actually can consent to assault (as well as battery)-consent is a privilege in tort law, and while, it may be illegal under statute, if you consented to, let’s say, hypothetically, a charming but strict female friend, no one would press charges, so the State itself might initiate, however, that’s unlikely.
B Moe,
Agreeing to what otherwise would be battery, e.g. a prize fight isn’t in the same class. A person, by entering the fight, consents to a certain level of harm, although, you might nr surprised to know, this consent doesn’t extend to any harm outside the customary rules of the game/fight/match. So, if someone breaks the rules of the game, they break the rules of tort, see, e.g., Hackbart v. Cinncinnati Bengals, Inc., 601 F.2d 516 (10th Cir. 1979).
Yeah! I can see the bumber stickers for the anti-porn campaign now:
I’m not a lawyer, so to the extent that I was pretending to be one, please excuse me. When I write “assault”, I’m not thinking about the fun kind. I’m thinking about broken bones and black eyes assault (is that properly rendered battery?). Thanks for the correction.
It’s my understanding (and I know this is a state by state thing) that police responding to a disturbance, in California, will incarcerate the party who did the beating. If the police aren’t ever called, if none of the agencies of the state have any way to know it’s happened, that isn’t the same as the action being legal.
Domestic violence doesn’t require a complainant, here (iirc). Our legislature has decided that the unwitting protection of battered women is sufficiently beneficial to override a philosophically legitimate consent to battery. Fine to call the women who stick with wife-beaters stupid; fine to say they should take responsibility for their lives; it’s still distastefull to most people.
That’s why I’m not willing to swear off all nanny-statism. I’m never going to get in the hole to a loan shark. I don’t eat street vender hotdogs, and I’ll never send my money to those Encite theives (again). I’m not the guy who gets screwed by cheats and sadists. The sort of people who are, are the sort who’ll never figure it out. It is in the interest of justice (if not always freedom) that they be reasonably protected.
One of the interesting things about porn marketed to men–especially over the internet–is that it is really hostile to women. And I don’t mean hostile in an I-just-got-out-of-my-consciousness-raising-group kind of way: I mean your average bisexual girl looking for a little lube will dry up when she sees how downright nasty the men are toward the women.
So the problem isn’t that women will agree to have degrading (and possibly dangerous) things done to them for the right price. The problem is that a lot of men just hate women. It seems to me that this has to do with a) the fact that they resent their mommies, and b) the fact that testosterone is a component of both aggression and the sex drive.
If more mommies were tolerable, we could cut way back on a), but that would leave b) unchanged.
Of course, if more porn producers realized that girls like dirty pictures too, they might be less likely to cater only to the “me hatem wimmin” crowd.
In other words, the Feds getting involved in this arena will do exactly no good to anyone.
You cannot, after all, pass a law that mandates men will look upon women as if they were people.
A pity.
Turing: school. Some of those schoolmarms are pretty strict.
Well, I’m a Christian Conservative, and I think the AG is just being stupid on this.
Sure, I think a case can be made that porn is bad for society, and bad for the people involved in producing it…for many of the reasons mentioned by Attila Girl and bokonon42. It’s just not as simple as guys liking to look at boobies. There’s a lot of “looking for greater titillation to replace waning satisfaction”, and the method of getting a girl to strip or do porn is well-known and straightforward: ruin her self-respect first, and then she’ll do anything for a little cash.
But the way to stop that isn’t through the AG, it’s through the courts no longer accepting porn as free speech, it’s through legislatures passing laws against porn…and so it’s about slowly altering the attitudes of our entire society. That ain’t gonna happen anytime soon, and one AG with less than 3 years left in his office ain’t gonna make any difference at all.
What a waste.
It’s not just bi-sexual women–normal, heterosexual men do not enjoy looking at pictures of double anals or the other sorts of angry, circus sex. It’s a completely niche market. Misogynism is the sociological problem, which the FBI is ill-suited to combating. The limits of what a woman can consent to have done to her, on camera, for distribution is the legal problem which may have happy sociological side effects.
Boko,
No, I agree that in cases involving domestic violence apparent “consent” does not override either statutory or policy concerns–we’re talking about different issues here, and whatever a domestic partner, questioned by police re: a domestic violence charge, may say after the fact, or when confronted by police, especially when she’s considering the consequences after the fact, to her partner, home or children, that’s not the same as what I mean by a common law tort privilege (defense)–one is civil(tort law), the other is criminal statute. CA does have a myriad of statutes dealing with everything from domestic violence to car dealership sales that supercedes common-law. And, certainly, there are areas which, for the protection of the public, should be enforced–I, remain, however, skeptical that statutory enforcement is the remedy for all of society’s ills.
E.g., Chief’s apparent “solution” of,
If, firstly, we ignore the history redolent in demands that society can be altered, and thus, improved, by legislative fiat, an assumption I think is repudiated by the history of the entire 20th Century, then we’re still left with the practical problems invloved with a pluralistic democracy deciding that, porn, in toto, violates the 1st Amendment, a charge which Chief will be hard pressed to prove given Supreme Court precedent.
Secondly, the very idea that society needs to be changed is spurious, and is at the heart of the Liberal Fallacy.
No–it doesn’t need to be changed according to your specifications.
Attilla Girl, the problem is not that,
and not just because that’s a ridiculous assertion devoid of evidence, but because a lot of porn acually denigrates men at the expense of women. Certainly, you wouldn’t argue that as desirous women, the men who purchase pictures of them are in any higher or more advantageous position? In that case, why are the men buying pictures of them and not vice versa?
Secondly, as to the “Mommie” [sic] issue, I cannot say, maybe some do, maybe they don’t, but who cares?
How would I know if a girl has only posed for porn pictures because of low-self esteem?; how do I know the girls on the O.C. don’t have low self esteem? How would I know if anyone appearing on American Idol has low self esteem, or for that matter, any female interning for Chuck Schumer?
I don’t, and I can’t–their claims and existing law will determine culpability.
If I want to purchase porn or not, it’s not the concern of Boko’s utopian fantasies or your feel-good concerns over the choices made by people you don’t even know–but in both cases, it sure in hell is not within the Federal government’s purview to tell me.
RWS – Bush sure seems to like him.
Matt:
Bush is not really a conservative Republican. I have doubts he can be labeled using either word. For instance, he spends money like there’s no tomorrow, a Republican/conservative no-no. And he keeps piling on big government stuff.
I know it’s fun to equate people who believe in G-d with being conservative and/or Republican, but not all believers fall into that mold.
In this instance, cranky-d, the “conservative republican” issue in question was the AG’s pro-choice beliefs. While you might think Bush is not very conservative on fiscal issues (you’re right), he is pro-life.
And I’m not just having “fun”, making something up by “equating” Bush with being a conservative Republican because he “believes in G-d”, I’m damn sure he self-identifies as such. If I can’t use the label that someone uses for themselves because cranky-d disagrees that the label applies then we’re really up a creek.
T- I share your skepticism over the mending of all society’s problems by statute enforcement. I only brought up domestic abuse to demonstrate that slope is already there, and hasn’t yet proved slippery. There are things to which Americans (land of the free, etc.) cannot legally consent. It’s all a matter of where the line ought to be drawn, not whether there is a line. Loan sharking, extortion, and blackmail are all on the verboten side of the line, and I think they ought to be. Pot smoking, unlicensed hotdog vending, and tobacco smoking in Californian bars and restaurants are all also on the same side, and I don’t think they ought to be. Then there are the tough ones, like crystal meth. I can see both sides, but am not outraged that it’s illegal. I feel the same way about the nastier variants of gonzo porn.
My utopia isn’t one free of porn. It’s free of the subset of gonzo porn featuring actual (not just pretend) brutality. Specifically, but not exclusively, I don’t think it should be legal to distribute images of double anals. Since the piece didn’t mention, I’m choosing to guess (hope) that this is the sort of materiel that’s run afoul of the DoJ. If Gonzales really means to jail Jeena Jameson or any other of the mainstream, Playboy Channel type pornographers, I won’t support it.
I’m not a Christian, nor am I any other flavor confessor. I’m not looking to save souls; people who choose to spend their lives indulging unsavory perversions are welcome in my utopia. Just not every unsavory perversion. Kiddy porn is, and ought to be, illegal. That it is doesn’t mean all porn should be, nor does it mean that only that sort should be.
I don’t think Attila Girl’s worries were misplaced. There is no way to enjoy truly brutal pornographic activity including women without disliking women. However the watcher came to his dilike of women, it’s almost certain to manifest itself in anti-social ways. I don’t think that’s enough to out law it (I mostly don’t think that because I think I’ve found a better back door to outlawing it), but it can hardly be dismissed. I wish there were a constitutional way to ban The Turner Diaries, but I don’t think there is one. Even in my utopia.
I don’t have a problem with pron, in general. BUt as you guys know, pornographers push the envelope, big time, especially when it comes to age of the models.
*not the kind exploiting children, but the kind that depicts, and is marketed to, consenting adults.*
Now look, thats coming from the Washington Post and I’d bet 100 bucks its completely false on its face. MANY porn companies are in to exploiting children – and many are in to exploiting minors. It is obvious to anyone who knows anything about law enforcement, the porn business or just has a little bit of common sense that there’s signficant overlap between the basic porn industry and the child porn industry.
Porns legal and I have no problem with that. I’m not sure a 10-15 person task force to keep an eye on a multi billion dollar industry is inappropriate or a waste of cash.
Matt, well Bush likes a lot of people I don’t. I don’t see conservatives liking him too much. I was just wondering why moderates wouldn’t.
You guys. Porn is evil. You want to look at? Fine. It’s your non-life, but it shouldn’t be accessible by children by a mere click of the mouse. It just shouldn’t, Period.
Four words:
Child Online Protection Act.
I’m not a lawyer, but…. the SCOTUS says that marijuana grown in your own home for medical reasons falls under the Commerce Clause since it ***could*** be sold across state lines… it doesn’t seem like such a stretch to me to argue that a sex tape made at home between two consenting adults, intended to stay only in the home, would fall under the Commerce Clause as well since it ***could*** be uploaded to a pay internet site…
Seems to me like there’s some assertions being thrown around here with little to no backup.
MANY porn companies are in to exploiting children – and many are in to exploiting minors. It is obvious to anyone who knows anything about law enforcement, the porn business or just has a little bit of common sense that there’s signficant overlap between the basic porn industry and the child porn industry.
Any proof of this? I’m neither an LEO, nor part of the porn industry, but I do have a little bit of common sense – and I’m not seeing how you got to this point. When you tell me that something is ‘obvious to anyone with a little common sense’ (and it involves something specific, like a ‘significent overlap’ in the porn industries) with nothing to buttress your statement, I’m deeply skeptical. Show me how you got to this conclusion.
Specifically, but not exclusively, I don’t think it should be legal to distribute images of double anals.
So, it’s the number of penises that’s the problem? Why is double anal worse than double vaginal? Is it an issue of the structure of the anus, or is it with the presented experiences of the woman? How about really big dildoes? Granted, the vagina and the anus have different structures and capabilities, but when does the size of the inserted object cross over into this objectionable level of brutality? Should the gov’t mandate maximum length and girth of what a women can put or have put into her vagina, on video?
TW: function; Should sex toy measurement be a function of the government?
Actually, where I was going was, if I were FBI director and I had a bunch of agents who were actually getting in the way of anti-terrorist efforts, I’d want to reassign them to something where their tendencies would be relatively harmless to society as a whole.
And maybe they’d get caught sampling the wares and I could just up and fire them, and then everybody wins.
Well, except for the agents themselves.
It’s an orgy of point-missing!
Fully three-quarters of the comments in this thread are a variation on the notion that porn, or particular subgenres of porn, are icky and therefore should be illegal.
Well, OK, that may or may not be true, but the post specifically says that the special crack team of Feds in question is planning to crack down on porn that’s legal. That’s the crazy waste of resources right there.
Don’t they know there’s a war on?
TW: People do still have property rights in their own bodies, don’t they?
OUTLAW PRISON SEX NOW!!!!!!!!!
Gotta link? You tease.
TW: sales. Ha!
Fully three-quarters of the comments in this thread are a variation on the notion that porn, or particular subgenres of porn, are icky and therefore should be illegal.
Change the word in the above sentence from “icky” to “harmful”, and you’ll have a true statement. The argument most are trying to make is that some sub-genres of pron ARE harmful, such as those that are violent.
Icky is a bug crawling up your arm; harmful is bestiality or double anal (harmful either to animals themselves, women who contract AIDS, or the kids who accidentally stumble on to such sites). The use of the word “Icky” in your comment belittles some valid arguments.
TW: open (I’m not going there)
TV (Harry)
I suggest re-naming SCOTUS to SCROTUS.
I’m not here to debate the merits of porn, it’s artistic qualifications, or whether it harms the family structure and child development however, a part of me looks at this as a small window of opportunity to legally disrupt Islamic-Jihad’s ‘Porn for Terrorism’ businesses conducted here in America. I’m hoping the Feds take it.
Jihadists believe in using our liberties against us as a weapon to defeat us. I hope we find ways to fight this Jihadist tactic while maintaining our beloved liberties otherwise, the Jihadists will continue to take advantage of our liberties and we’ll be left fighting amongst ourselves. I’ve no doubt Islamic Jihadists wish to see America implode itself while jerking off to mental masturbation porn obsession. Pun intended.
That’s odd, I read it as three-quarters of the posters (at LEAST) think that porn in general is ok. Must be your glasses.
I was looking for the bible study discussion group. Is this it?
RWS – I think you’re making a common error, that moderates are moderates because they have no strong convictions. Many moderates aren’t wishy washy, they have extreme positions, they just happen to be all over the map politically. Gonzales is a politician with no grounding principles, and that’s why I don’t like him.
As far as porn being evil, fine, you’re welcome to feel that way. But don’t try to take away my rights as an adult to view the entertainment I like so you can “protect the children.” You’ve got four words, so I’ll give you two: parental involvement. Watch what your kids do on the Internet in person, and if you can’t do that, check their browser cache, install a keystroke logger, and put up web and email filters. Government involvement is going to do nothing but step on the rights of all Americans while probably leaving children exposed.
Valid as to whether or not one or another specific act should be illegal, perhaps. But neither “ickiness” nor “harmfulness” is a valid reason for the Feds to waste time and effort persecuting the perpetrators of legal acts, which is what the post specifically says they’re planning to do.
Tell you what, if the Feds are so bored that they need something to do, how about investigating some actual federal crimes, like treason? I’m sure if they crawl up John Kerry’s or Jane Fonda’s ass with a microscope (figuratively, of course, and not on video, so all you perverts put your money away) they could find something worthy of charges.
Jim- No, the only description given of the sort of porn that is to be cracked down on is, “the kind that depicts, and is marketed to, consenting adults.” Not all sorts which meet this criteria are legal. It has to pass the Miller Test. My bet is that some of what is being churned out today, wouldn’t.
Noah D- You got me. I don’t have any idea how to write the law specifically outlawing what seems fairly clearly to be sexual barbarism for profit. It can’t just be bleeding; any “maximum capacity” by weight or volume law would be generic and so not suited to the peculiarities of each pornographic actress’s body cavities. Oh, and stupid; point taken. That doesn’t undermine my point, it just shows the difficulty of writing the legislation, which is, fortunately (and I think you’d agree that it is fortunate) not my job.
I focused on the double anal instead of the double vaginal mostly for effect, but also because the anus, generally, can’t tolerate those sorts of payloads the vagina is capable of, even if that capability oughtn’t be tested. The rule can’t be: draw no blood. But bleeding is a generally good indication of there being something amiss. I’m really not willing to commit to one standard and switch the grounds of the debate to whether my stupid law would be opperable. The general point is more interesting to me.
*Show me how you got to this conclusion.*
You can judge it by the porn spam in your inbox. “YOUNG NUDE GIRLS NOW” “BARELY LEGAL TEENS” are the titles of the emails. The market for teenage porn is huge – thus, directors/producers are always looking for the young girls that are right on that borderline. Do you not think putting 18 year old girls in porn is likely exploitative ? Do you really think the majority of porn models go out to hollywood with the idea that “hey I’ll screw on tape for money”? Pornographers are not exactly known for their compassion and if they think they can make a buck off a young girl, they’re going to. Its a predatory industry and young girls make the money so they’re the prey.
Personally, I’m not a fan of commercial porn- its a big nasty sticky industry which sucks in young girls and spits them out when its done with them. If I’m going to look at porn (which I do, admittedly, on occasion- im a guy), I’ll go to a site like Red Clouds, which only uses submissions from actual people who are volunteering to do “porn” for generally no compensation. If woman WANT to do nudes or sex pics or whatever, more power to them. Looking at commercial porn, nowadays, generally turns my stomach – its usually some young kid, trying her hardest to look like she’s not being photographed by some sleezy fat guy when she’d rather be anywhere but here.
TW “head”. I kid you not.
I suppose I’m playing devil’s advocate more than anything here, but if there are federal laws on the books limiting what can and cannot be distributed as “adult entertainment,” they need to be enforced, regardless of popular opinion.
If the laws are truly in opposition to the First-Amendment’s guarantees regarding freedom of speech and expression, they should be properly challenged, SCOTUS should deem them unconstitutional, then they go away.
Choosing to not enforce “bad” laws is not the proper way to deal with them. For Gonzales to turn a blind eye towards this would constitute a failure on his part to uphold the laws of the United States.
True, there are several “bigger” questions open for debate, but I think this issue comes down to a simple question of whether laws are being violated.
TW: “young”
Jeff, are are you creating post-specific lists?
What you tend to get with selective failure to enforce laws is a de facto system where laws only apply to one’s political rivals or the folks who refuse to buy the privilege of ignoring them. Look to First Amendment Repeal / Incumbent Protection laws – er, I mean “Campaign Finance Reform” – for a model of how selective enforcement works. No surprise that the folks who, per George Soros’ paid instructions, pitched this slop into our civic culture aren’t really bound by it.
In almost every argument you read on this comment thread you could subsitute some form or subset of alcohol to PROVE that it’s really bad and stuff so if it’s not outlawed it should be, yada, yada, yada.
I, personally, don’t like alcohol. But guess what, I’m bright enough to look at the era of alcohol prohibition and see that the real damage was caused when it was outlawed rather than the damage caused by it’s existence. Anybody with the perception of a turnip can see that drug prohibition is exactly the same. Anybody with ANY ability to generalize should be able to see that outlawing porn, per se would have the same result. The one thing I’d give you is that child porn is absolutely bad because children do not (in general) have the capacity to make a reasonably informed choice. But that can be covered by child abuse laws rather than outlawing porn. The bottom line is that people have the right to make choices when those choices don’t directly harm someone elses rights. This includes participating in and buying ANY porn, alcohol, drug, fast food, coffee, etc. product.
If there is a law on the books, it needs to be enforced. Period. The only way that “bad” laws can be taken off the books is a legal challenge to those laws. An example would be the Sodomy law in Texas that was challenged and ruled unconstitutional. That challenge evoked a review by several states of similar laws on their books.
However, that being said, selective enforcement of existing laws is just as bad as non enforcement. This certainly is not the forum for it, but there are just too damn many laws. There is not a day goes by that I do not commit some infraction of some law – and probably some I don’t even know about.
tw: State – The state knows best.
BTW, the argument about enforcing a law because it exists…piffle.
On the one hand every LEO organization has to prioritize what it will spend the most resources on, there are never enough for enforcing every law.
Now, for my own pet peeve…not every damn law on the books deserves to be enforced. Some laws, in the history of this country, have been immoral. Some have been stupid. Some have been wrong because it was none of the legislatures damn business to write a law about the subject.
It’s a sad state of affairs when the people of the “Most Free” country in the world get hoodwinked into thinking that since something is a law it’s automatically sacried. If that’s the case then I want a law imprisoning all left-handed redheads ‘cause it just pisses me off they exist. And damnit I want that no eating peanuts in church law STRICTLY enforced–it’s a law isn’t it?
tw: respect, respect a law when it really protects you from bad people.
Oh, to be in Denmark, now that hoors are subsidized:
“Danish activists for the disabled are staunchly defending a government campaign that pays sex workers to provide sex once a month for disabled people.”
http://www.canada.com/national/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=32f028fe-abf6-47d5-a5d9-9c84c0150cf2
That is a dangerous position. Who gets to decide which law needs to be enforced? You? Me? Your neighbor? There may well be laws you think should be vigorously enforced, that I think are no harm to anyone and encroach on my liberty. Or I may want the “Peanuts in church” law zealously enforced; the penalties increased, and you obviously think it should be ignored.
That is the wrong way to go about it. Obsolete or absurd laws should be brought to the public’s attention and repealed or amended. The way that happens is to challenge that particular law. Work to get rid of it, or work to get a law passed that you feel strongly about. Convince enough of your fellow citizens that you are right. If you are successful then you can eat peanuts in church as often as you like without fear of legal repercussions.
Matt,
I have done all that. But there is this little thing called EVERYONE ELSE’S KIDS and their computers. It’s like having a porn store in people’s homes. All I want is for people to have to prove they are adults before they view a site. Thats it. I may can caution my 12 yr old to never look at bad things on someone else’s computer, but that is impossible to do with a 6 or 7 yr old. Unless you want to tell them what is bad. Which they are not even ready to hear that much less SEE IT.
And if your so worried about your privacy, then get off your perverted ass and go to a porn store like your dad had to.
It’s time to stop puting our selfish desires before our kid’s needs.
There are laws against being drunk in public, RC, are they any less stupid than prohibition? I haven’t, quite, taken the position that the sort of sex acts I’ve described should be illegal to engage in, only that they should be illegal to sell pictures of. Your parallel doesn’t mesh. I’ll be impressed, though, if you find time to explain why FREEDOM dictates that loan-sharking and blackmail, even in private, must be permitted. Consenting adults and whatnot. Up for it?
bokonon: Blackmail is not consensual, that’s why it’s blackmail.
Loan-sharking is, and should be legal. (I recall reading that payroll-advance places often end up charging more than loan sharks do; they can get away with it, because they use fixed fees to avoid usury laws. A 15 dollar fixed fee on a 50 dollar advance is just as expensive as a 30% fee, but doesn’t get you in trouble…)
I’m with rls about this. Federal obscenity laws are stupid, and should be repealed. Enforcing them is probably the best way to get them repealed, in fact. But I’m not willing to say it’s wrong to try and enforce a law – especially one that the courts have found to be constitutional. Too many laws, arbitrarily enforced, is almost as bad as no laws.
(And, guys, hasn’t anyone pointed out that the FBI is doing this because, as Instapundit’s original post noted, Congress told them to? I see no evidence that Gonzales or the Director of the FBI came up with this idea and just assigned people to it. Congress told them to assign ten people and funded the project.)
RLS,
The problem is with how perverted our country has become from what it once was (and I mean this in a nonsexual was). The entire idea that “the people” have a right to legislate away the natural rights of the individual citizens would once have been thought to have been absurd. It’s so terribly bad that it’s more common for people with your attitude to think it’s okay to boss other people around for little to no reason just by passing a law. Yes, yes, much of it is well meaning. Have you heard the phrase the road to hell is paved with good intentions? Take a look at the number of shelf feet of laws at the local, county, state and federal levels and see if you can keep a straight face while saying that all those laws are necessary to provide for the simple process of humans living together in relative harmony. Your attitude about laws is reasonable when the number and intentions of passed laws have not gone beyond the critical point of making the body of law an absurd circus. I’m telling you it’s too late and the body of law has already trivialized itself.
Ultimately, in what this country was meant to be, the only good reason for any law or government agency is to protect the citizens, from whom the right for that law or government agency to exist, springs.
Boko,
Yeah, what Sigivald said, neaner, neaner, neaner
.
Sigivald,
Damn you stole my thunder.
Boko,
I’d have to say that public drunkeness laws are some of the most obscene things to exist in the legal system. It’s one of those catch-alls that the prosecutor can use to pile-on to a person that is usually arrested for fighting or assault or something else. In and of itself, in what possible way is being drunk in public harming anyone, even the person who is drunk. Talk about victimless crimes. Sheesh.
In what way is blackmail not consensual? It’s coercive, but coerced consent is still consent. The next time the cash advance folks break somebody’s knee caps for failing to pay, I’ll be willing to call the practice leaglized loan-sharking.
You are OBVIOUSLY missing the point I am making. My position is that there are TOO MANY LAWS. Laws that attempt to change societal mores by legislative fiat are doomed to fail and should. There is the thing called personal responsibility – you know, being responsibile for your own decisions, both good and bad.
I want to see all of these obsolete, absurd, redundant and unnecessary laws off the books. The way you get them off is to expose them for the absurdity they are – you challenge them and you have them legally removed. You don’t leave them on the books for someone to selectively decide that they need to be enforced against (who?)
I just don’t want you by your lonesome deciding which laws are bad. I could very well disagree with you and you with me. I want them to be taken off the same way they got on – a majority vote.
You don’t want me to start with the litany of laws I think should be removed – because I’m sure you would not agree with my list.
My position is that Law is the minimum of marality that man needs to cohabit with man. The key word being minimum.
tw: ill – It makes me ill to think you missed my point so widely.
You’re conflating two laws into one and declaring the one illegal. There are usury laws in most states controlling interest rates for various licensed lending institutions. Did you know that the USURY STATUTES do not apply for a.) Commercial loans b.) Private lending between individuals. An individual may charge whatever rate the loan recipient is willing to pay. I believe that there is a limit to the number of transactions an individual may “record” in a calendar year.
The goon coming to break your knee is not a part of the loan transaction. It is an illegal act. It is assault. That it is an attempt to collect money owed is irrelevant to the crime that it is.
Sorry, RWS, but my selfish desires come way ahead of your kids’ welfare. Now my kid, I’ll sacrifice for him.
The goon is an absolutely integral part of the loan. Who the hell would repay it but for the goon? Am I unaware of some little used connotation of loan-shark meaning usury without the threat of violence? The threat of violence, upon failure to repay, is well understood, and can be philosophically consented to. I wonder if some of you people can watch the Merchant of Venice without moral outrage over the way Shylock gets denied the pound of flesh, rightfully his..
A lot of people repay loans without the threat of violence hanging over them. Just because they got the loan from a “lower tier lender” does not mean that they are labled as a “deadbeat”. You make the assumption that a consensual transaction between two contractors is a contract born of “dire consequences”.
Is it possible that there are “strong arm” collectors for private lenders? Sure. Even probable. I am saying that the assault is an act of violence that stands on its own as a crime. The act of lending money, in most instances, in itself is NOT a crime (as I noted in the earlier post)
There really isn’t a law targeting “loan sharking”. Usury laws apply to licensed lending agencies. Unlicensed lenders in effect violate another law by being unregulated (failure to license) An individual may loan, at any agreed upon rate, to another individual. He may NOT set up a loan operation (storefront) without a license and then is subject to usury laws.
In other words and individual may loan to another individual, taking the same risk a licensed institution takes, and may take whatever legal remedies are available to collect the loan. The crime occurs when the collection remedies are illegal.
That’s right, I made it a joooo thing. How ya like me now?
I’m willing to accept RLS’s, “Law is the minimum of morality that man needs to cohabit with man.” Some of what is marketed as pornography is not human cohabitation, but animal subjegation. I’m not actually sure any two men ever had the idea to simultaneously sodomize a horse, so it’s possible that some of the treatment of women is sub-animal, it’s often mutilation.
There are women who will consent to have these things done to them. There are crazy people, and stupid people, and just hopelessly fucked-up people who will consent to have any number of awful, inhuman things done to them. You can say that FREEDOM demands they be permitted to. I’m not convinced; I’m pretty sure justice demands that the things not be done to them, but I’m back in my utopia on that point. And, I think, I’ve wasted as much of Jeff’s bandwidth as can be permissible.
RLS,
“You don’t want me to start with the litany of laws I think should be removed – because I’m sure you would not agree with my list.”
In all likelyhood the only reason I would disagree with your list is that it is too short. Your point that there are too many laws was implicit in some of what you said. I think one of the places we disagree is that I’m saying that it’s too late and “The Body Of Law” is in a disgraceful ruin because of the concept that people should be able to vote for whatever bossy rule they want to serve their own biases and discriminate against the minority that disagree with them. That an American should ever believe that this is right thinking is the tragedy that this country has become and the greatest cause to move me to weep for what we might have been.
Beyond that there is the clear concept of civil disobedience, in that if a law is immoral then it is immoral to follow that law. I submit to you that in the desire to keep “The Body Of The Law” alive and important then it is the duty of the citizen to disobey the most trivial of wrong laws and (this is where it gets difficult to go along with) it is immoral for an agent of government to enforce a wrong law and as a citizen and an adult it is up to the government agent to evaluate each law he or she is asked to enforce in light of what that persons understanding of acceptable and unacceptable laws is.
As an indication of the truth of this principle I would refer you to the training I recieved in Marine Corps boot camp dealing with lawful and unlawful orders and moral and immoral orders. I assure you that the instructors were adamant that a slick sleeved Marine Private had not only the priviledge but the responsibility to question an illegal or immoral order. BTW, orders from superiors to juniors have the force of law in the military. If you don’t think so then look up the relevant portions of the UCMJ dealing with the willful disobedience of same.
tw: saying, just saying, ya’ know
RC,
In that case I WANT you on my side. My list is uber looooong! I do agree somewhat about the “Body of Law” being bastardized by the “there oughta be a law” crowd. I do disagree with you about how to go about changing the system. I do not want those laws on the books. I don’t want individuals deciding themselves which laws to obey. Civil disobedience is a fine way to highlight those laws that should be abolished. Civil disobedience means bringing those laws into the sunshine, defending one’s disobedience in a court of law and obeying the court’s decisions.
Changing laws by convincing enough of our citizens that the laws are unjust, obsolete, absurd or whatever is the way I want to see it done.
Your USMC analogy and experience were the same as mine. (’66-’69) However in the Corps we were talking about unlawful orders, i.e. those that were in violation of existing law (UCMJ). There is a difference in your example of civil disobedience and refusal to obey an unlawful order. I hope you see the difference.
<blockquote>the only description given of the sort of porn that is to be cracked down on is, “the kind that depicts, and is marketed to, consenting adults.†Not all sorts which meet this criteria are legal. It has to pass the Miller Test. My bet is that some of what is being churned out today, wouldn’t.</blockquote>
bokonon42: With one of the tests under Miller being “community standards,” that tends to argue against involving the Feds. That said, unless or until it is prosecuted and found obscene under Miller it seems like it would have to be presumed legal.
I don’t necessarily disagree with you that the act you chose as an example certainly could be harmful to at least one of the participants. I just happen to think that if it’s not clearly illegal under federal law then it’s a waste of resources at the federal level to pursue it. What they’re proposing is setting out on fishing expeditions with the aim of hauling individuals into court just to see if they can manage to find a jury that’ll convict.
RLS,
Back in the day we were taught to also differentiate lawful but immoral orders, which you may be ordered, and required, to obey but cannot because you view them as immoral. I think you could say this is, at least partially, to kick out the Neuremberg defense.
I respect your position, but I still think your take provides too much wiggle room for people that like to run other peoples lives, let them make laws and sure enough they will. Hell, I can’t even abide a homeowners association, much less any city, county, state or federal law that says much more than I can’t touch the tip of your nose with my fist without having to make restitution for my antisocial behavior.
Anyway it’s been a great discussion but I have to move on. I’m not ignoring you.
P.S. Semper Fi, Bro!
rls, the loanshark thing. I’m not calling sub-prime lenders loansharks. I’m calling loanshakrs, loansharks. The contract, explicitly or implicitly, to which the borrower agrees is that the money he borrows will be repaid on time on pain of violence. I can’t tell if you’re having me on, because I’ve always taken for granted that this was explicitly what the word, “loanshark,” meant. Because one cannot legally consent to being battered in this way (please, let’s not go into that again) the contract is not legally valid.
I’m not talking about personal loans where repayment is on pain of having one’s credit rating ruined. I’m talking only about loans where both lender and borrower understand that late payment or non-payment will result in physical violence against the borrower. Fine to say this represents a tiny minority of what money lending is done in the U.S.; perfect actually, since I’m only arguing that a relatively small percentage of pornography is, legally, obscene. What I don’t get is why you’d insist that the violence is unrelated, as if it were a flight of whimsy on the part of an otherwise legitimate businessman. It’s unmistakably one of the terms of the agreement. That’s why he’s called a loanshark.
So much debate over laws that have at least some semblance of social significance, whilst I’m still forced to put a lid on my own cranium to ride my motorcycle.
I personally think many laws on the books are superfluous at best, injurious at worst. Still, they’re there, for whatever reason, and to allow any sworn officer at any level to selectively enforce them grants that officer vastly more power than he should ever wield.
TW: “after”
as in, “After bokonon’s ‘horse-sodomy’ comment, things got a little awkward.
What dream world do we live in that we think all laws can be enforced equally? There are thousands of laws at each of the federal, state, and local levels. Police departments do not have the funding or the manpower (nor should they) to enforce every single law. They have to pick and choose.
Argue about whether this is right and whether it gives the cop too much power all you want. It’s not going to change.
That’s why this is such an egregious decision. At the same time that we have volunteer groups of citizens taking it upon themselves to help enforce our immigration laws (laws that are very important in this age of terrorism) we have an AG who wants to devote resources to prosectuing consenting adults for their sexual behavior. It’s simply an opportunistic pander to the moralist wing of his own party, and we have more important things to be worried about right now.
Matt, I’m sure Gonzalez hasn’t done anything to prevent you from enjoying “Butt Banged Bimbos 28.”
Just because I’m curious as to the thought processes, how do you equate enforcing federal laws pertaining to the production and distribution of pornography to “prosecuting consenting adults for their sexual behavior?”
What you point to is a real problem–too many laws to be effectively enforced. But your solution–picking and choosing which ones to enforce–quite frankly makes the cure worse than the disease. Who gets to decide which laws are to be enforced? Why is it more acceptable, in your line of reasoning, for you to pick which laws shouldn’t be enforced than for someone else to pick laws that should be? There might be a majority of the population that thinks porn should be a free-for-all, not subject to any government regulations, but I doubt it. The industry has been allowed to push established guidelines for quite some time, and while there may be some debate surrounding whether the regulations are necessary or proper, there’s no valid argument why the porn industry shouldn’t be called back into line with the standards set by the law.
Your argument is essentially the same as my contention that I shouldn’t be fined for speeding if there are people running stop signs elsewhere in town.
TW: “quality”
better than quantity, particularly with laws.
People in porn consent to having sex while being videotaped. The producers consent to do the taping, production, and distribution. Those who enjoy watching consent to watching it. Who in the equation wasn’t a consenting adult?
Just to be sure we’re on the same page, you agree that our law enforcement officials (especially the political administrators, like the AG) have to choose which laws are enforced because they can’t enforce them all? If picking and choosing isn’t the solution, then what is? I don’t see any other way out of it.
As far as who does the choosing, it should be people like the AG, or the police chief, or the sheriff, or whoever. But I’m allowed to criticize them when they make the wrong choice. That’s what’s happened here. Porn should not be a priority for the FBI, at all, period. Obviously that’s my opinion, you disagree. Democracy rocks!
We can all agree that porn is offensive and unseemly to some, has horrible societal side effects, and should never be viewed by children. But making, selling, buying, and viewing porn is, at best, a victimless crime (if children are involved, then that’s abuse, and we have laws against that), and should never take precedence over fighting activities that have actual victims, like murder, fraud, theft, and terrorism.
“You can judge it by the porn spam in your inbox. “YOUNG NUDE GIRLS NOW†“BARELY LEGAL TEENS†are the titles of the emails. The market for teenage porn is huge – thus, directors/producers are always looking for the young girls that are right on that borderline.”
The whole point of the borderline is that people can go up to it but not cross it. If there weren’t people going as close to the borderline as they can manage but not crossing over it, that would be a good indication that the borderline isn’t really serving a purpose.
“Do you not think putting 18 year old girls in porn is likely exploitative ?”
Not according to the law. Do you think that the age of majority is too low? 18 year old girls are free to engage in lots of transactions. Should they be forbidden to? Why?
If not, we must conclude that the “Barely Legal” girls are no more being exploited than the “MILF’s”. And the law should apply to them (and “protect” them, whatever they may think of such “protection”) equally.
“Do you really think the majority of porn models go out to hollywood with the idea that “hey I’ll screw on tape for moneyâ€Â?”
If not, some of them change their minds really damn quickly, to judge by the offerings, unless they ran away before reaching majority.
“Pornographers are not exactly known for their compassion and if they think they can make a buck off a young girl, they’re going to. Its a predatory industry and young girls make the money so they’re the prey.”
It’s not the benevolence of the baker or the butcher or the pornographer that gets you your daily bread or hot DVD. The system works just fine without such benevolence or compassion.
“All I want is for people to have to prove they are adults before they view a site. Thats it. I may can caution my 12 yr old to never look at bad things on someone else’s computer, but that is impossible to do with a 6 or 7 yr old. Unless you want to tell them what is bad. Which they are not even ready to hear that much less SEE IT.”
Sez who? Where’s the evidence that kids desperately need the mushroom treatment?