Heh, a delayed reply to fs.New book at DPL.
Smut: A Sex-Industry Insider (and Concerned Father) Says Enough is Enough
by Gil Reavill
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1595230122/qid=1116197098/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/104-6363857-0391116
>From Publishers Weekly
Reavill says that he wrote this book because the ways that we can
access smut have multiplied "staggeringly, exponentially, absurdly."
People who don't like it are "getting it shoved in their faces." And
he admits he wants his middle school-aged daughter to grow up in a
world that's "less trashy" than the one he believes we're living in
now. In this made-for-the-choir work, the men's magazine insider
(Reavill writes for Maxim and Penthouse) offers a highly personal
account of what he finds wrong with explicit advertisements,
children's television, the video game rating system and other popular
culture mediums. "I am a staunch believer in the First Amendment," he
insists, "but there is a whole boatload of things to say about balance
and moderation." In generally restrained prose, Reavill explains what
is currently being done to censor public indecency and what he
believes needs to be done. Among his recommendations: use filtering
devices for television and the Internet, implement an "acceptable use"
policy for your family's Internet use and insist on "voluntary G-rated
display policies" for local signage companies and newsstands. Reavill
writes from an unusual perspective, which should bring attention to a
book that may have otherwise been dismissed by many.
>From Booklist
With stints at Screw, Penthouse, and Maxim on his resume, Reavill's
claim to be a sex-industry insider is as serious as his fatherly
concern about children's exposure to behavior most adults find at
least gauche. The problem with smut, he says, is that it is too
readily available. It prevails in all media, and it is virtually
impossible to listen to radio, watch TV, or log onto the Internet
without being accosted by everything from Howard Stern and lewd sitcom
badinage to gangsta-rapper snuff lyrics and mousetrap hard-core Web
sites (once a misspelling or deceptive link gets you into one of
these, exiting is nearly impossible). Still, censorship is out of the
question for First Amendment absolutist Reavill, who says that adults
who want smut should be able to get it. What, however, ever happened
to discretion, and can it be restored? Reavill is longer on private
and familial than on public and legal measures for fighting intrusive,
omnipresent porn. Easy reading and realistic thinking on a perpetually
vexing public-affairs topic. Ray Olson
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