Massachusetts legislators heard testimony about peoples’ encounters with porn at a hearing on March 16, 1992. This account appears in In Harm’s Way: The Pornography Civil Rights Hearings (p.370-371). Testimony of Pat Haas My name is Pat Haas. I live in Brookline. I experienced from 1987 to 1989 in a two-year relationship with my batterer–from […]
Firestorm Rages Over Issue of Civility in the Blogosphere
Escalating hostility has led prominent bloggers to consider voluntary codes of civility. When unrestrained vitriol and personal attacks poison debates, how free is speech? The New York Times considers the issues in “A Call for Manners in the World of Nasty Blogs”: Chief among the recommendations is that bloggers consider banning anonymous comments left by […]
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The Imus Affair: Criticizing Speech is Not Censorship
Besides being wedded to the fallacy that porn is exclusively about consenting adults, many of our opponents try to equate citizen activism and criticism of another’s speech with state censorship that violates the First Amendment. Nadine Strossen is one of the more prominent employers of this approach. One commenter claims that asking businesses to avoid […]
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Testimony in Los Angeles: Pornographers Place Recruitment Ads for “Models” in Newspapers
Our opponents chant ‘consenting adults’ like a magic formula to ward off all criticism, yet time and again we see pornographers making a mockery of the idea of informed consent, let alone informed consent from people unpressured by money troubles. Members of the Los Angeles County Commission for Women heard this testimony about peoples’ encounters […]
Salon: Porn Isolates its Users, Erodes Civility and Love
Cary Tennis is Salon’s advice columnist. The key harm of porn, he argues, is that it saps users of their motivation to build human connections. Cary’s critique is also relevant to “sex work” in general. Even if it’s entirely consensual, it’s still problematic to have your sexual needs met by ‘vendors’ instead of a true […]
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Election Season Approaches for Northampton City Council
Candidates for Northampton City Council may now pick up the necessary forms from the Clerk at City Hall, 210 Main Street. The key dates and deadlines are: July 24, 2007Last day to submit nomination papers to the Registrar of Voters. You will need at least 50 voters from your ward to sign a petition to […]
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Writer’s Digest…What Erotica Is
Many of our opponents suggest that because the boundary between porn and erotica cannot be perfectly defined, that it’s hopeless to try. Many pornographers would like to fudge the issue to make their products seem more acceptable. Nevertheless, useful distinctions can be made. Writer’s Digest explores the issues in “On The Edge: The Power of […]
“Sex-Positive” Debate-Killing Tactics Stretch into Their Fifth Decade
Our opponents profess extreme devotion to free speech, yet in reality many of them freely employ debate-killing tactics such as disrespect, ridicule, misrepresentation and intimidation. Tactics like these have a history in this debate that stretches back for nearly half a century. They have been effective at skewing the public dialogue over issues of love, […]
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The Pornified Life: “Tonight, we will fake love”
From Tonight, we will fake love, by Steve Turner (Charisma Books, 1974)… Tonight we will fake love together. You my love, possess all the essential qualities as listed by Playboy. You will last me for as long as two weeks or until such a time as your face and figure go out of fashion… I […]
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Anne Lamott…What Love Is
Anne Lamott recounts a miracle of love in “Knocking on Heaven’s Door”… It took place at my church, where one of our newer members is dying of AIDS, literally wasting away before our very eyes… This man has a totally lopsided face, deformed, ravaged, emaciated, and when he smiles, he is radiant… He said that […]