>> What's your take on those, Jenny? Agree? Disagree?
>
> Compelling though it is to debate with you on the stoning of 'fornicators,' I
> think I'll pass. See, I don't view maillists as an opportunity to bludgeon
> the opposition, nor do I view political argument as sport.
I have offered *as an example* one potential (and historically popular) solution to the "problem" of sexual immorality, of which pornography is one type. This is meant to provoke discussion: good? bad? too much, too little, just right? It is also to provide to some who may not have heard it the original term for "person who engages in sexual contact outside of marriage" - "fornicator" - and its proper usage. (I have a bit of a thing for precise vocabulary, so sue me.) That you do not like this term does not erase it from the dictionary or change its meaning.
There is an underlying assumption apparently held by many here, that pornography constitutes a "problem" that must be "solved". (Problem: shadowy, indistinct, undefinable "exploitation of women" by "men"/"the patriarchy"/"the owners and exploiting class"/etc.) However, all "solutions" to the porn "problem" that invoke the use of State power or criminal activity to "punish the pimps", "prevent exploitation of women", or whatever other noble goals advanced, are intrinsically isomorphic to the practice of stoning the sexually immoral. (Howzzat go in Snitspeak? "Upon examination, the gestalt of any sex-negative movement, whether rooted in a humanistic dialectic or not, is identical in its effects to any reactionary religious oppression of sexual expression?") I appear to have made myself wildly unpopular by drawing parallels to other methods of achieving the same goal that are taboo. Oh well, that's me; wandering around like a starving leper in a post-nuclear landscape, driven off by peasants terrified of my "cooties".
Of course, on the other hand, failing to implement the democratically- expressed will of the people is, well, undemocratic. (Not that that's ever stopped anybody before, of course.) If the people *want* to have a death penalty for unauthorized exposure of a sexual organ, why, that's just a matter of "Majority Rules", right? Whatever shall we do about that, I wonder? Why, it's enough to make a man pine for the concept of "inalienable rights".
Let me guess, you blind-spotted my post(s) into the "FundyChristian troll saving souls for Jesus" category, right? (I'm not, of course.) Mental blind-spots are a real pain, aren't they?
3/o.
--
(c) 2005 Unscathed Haze via Central Plexus <hasted at tent.heads>
I am Chaos. I am alive, and I tell you that you are Free. -Eris
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