Today’s Gazette publishes a letter to the editor by Robin Maltz of Northampton. She agrees with NoPornNorthampton in that she believes “the porn industry is corrupt, sexist and exploitative.” She also “take[s] issue with the proposed location of Capital Video” at 135 King Street.
Ms. Maltz is less approving of our recent mass-mailed open letter to Barry and Annette Goldberg, the property owners of 135 King Street. She writes, “I do not appreciate being treated as if I have no sexual autonomy. We, the citizens of Northampton, do not need our desire regulated and spoken for in an attempt to keep one pornography store out of our city.”
NoPornNorthampton supports people having as much freedom of choice as possible. No one is going to censor the media Ms. Maltz can consume. However, if she is going to make choices about porn, we want it to be an informed choice. Before this summer, how many people here were aware of Capital Video’s specialty in bashing the concept of marriage, the unsafe sex occuring in their private viewing booths in Kittery, the fact that porn can coarsen a viewer’s attitudes towards women and violence, that a study found that 40% of porn workers have at least one STD, and that some porn workers can be induced to go without condoms for as little as $50 per sex act?
Since the making of porn hurts porn workers, and the consumption of porn can damage how the viewer relates to others (particularly in the case of porn addicts), the value of autonomy is not the only important value here. Compassion and concern for others are also important values. We are asking Ms. Maltz to add these to her thinking.
In the last part of her letter, Ms. Maltz asserts without evidence that there are other “big businesses in Northampton” that are “anti-woman” and that have a lot more influence than “a small adult entertainment chain”, and suggests these are at least as protest-worthy as Capital Video if not more.
The exact size of Kenneth Guarino’s various enterprises is hard to determine, due to the complex corporate structure of Capital Video and its affiliates, but small it is not. Ms. Maltz’s ideas here can easily lead to paralysis–there are so many bad things happening in the world, it’s futile to try to improve just one of them. We discuss at length our reasons for taking on pornography and Capital Video in our Frequently Asked Questions, in the left-hand column of our home page.
15 thoughts on “A Response to “Critics of the porn store don’t speak for everyone””
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“In the last part of her letter, Ms. Maltz asserts without evidence that there are other “big businesses in Northampton” that are “anti-woman” and that have a lot more influence than “a small adult entertainment chain”, and suggests these are at least as protest-worthy as Capital Video if not more.”
Uh, Wal-Mart? <http://walmartwatch.com/>
There’s tons of evidence. What’s wrong with you?
$21,000,000 of gross (not net) income is pretty small relative the income of many of the organizations NPN relies upon for its information. Who is the bully here, really?
I realize that I already commented on this one today, but I’d like to address the following passage in your response to Ms. Maltz: “Compassion and concern for others are also important values. We are asking Ms. Maltz to add these to her thinking.”
This is a perfect example of the snobby, self-righteous misdirection that pervades NPN. Read Ms. Maltz’s own words, as you have quoted them here: she says she thinks that the porn industry is “corrupt, sexist and exploitative.” She doesn’t want a porn store on King St. She is compassionate. She has concern for others. She just doesn’t think that you ought to be mass-mailing open letters in which you purport to speak for everyone in northampton. She says she feels that you’re treating her as though she has no autonomy. She’s offended because you haave attempted to speak for her. She thinks that’s wrong, and it is.
But you skip right over her complaint without comment. You just ask her to add compassion for others to her set of values, and tell her that you want her to be making *informed* choices. You imply that she has no compassion for others, and that the only reason she could oppose your mailing is because she lacks compassion. Either that, or she doesn’t know what she’s talking about and should spend some time on NPN.org getting informed.
But that just obscures her real, legitmate, point. She is against your mailing because she feels that she can speak for herself, and she thinks it’s presumptuous for you to attempt to speak for her. She thinks that people should be permitted to make their own porn-related choices, without NPN making their choices for them.
And she thinks all that while being opposed to there being a porn store on King St, and while thinking that the porn industry is exploitative. She’s not pro-porn. But your reply to her doesn’t even acknowledge her actual position. You just suggest that she’s uncompassionate and ignorant, and that if she were to add compassion to her set of values and then learn something, she’d be happy to have you speak for her. And that’s dishonest.
Yes, Wal-Mart’s treatment of its employees can be improved, but their primary line of business is not exploiting women, exposing them to STDs, or training others to abuse women. We discuss in our FAQ how Wal-Mart is considerably more responsive to public concerns than Capital Video is.
It certainly wasn’t our intention to imply that our open letter (PDF) represented the views of everyone in Northampton. I doubt that most people perceived it this way. The letter was mailed at the end of September, after nearly three months of widely publicized community debate. Obviously not everyone agrees on this issue, and the letter is signed only by Jendi Reiter and Adam Cohen.
We’re glad to have Ms. Maltz’s agreement that the porn industry is “corrupt, sexist and exploitative”. However, if she doesn’t back her compassion for others with action, it’s of little value. If Ms. Maltz disagrees with our approach to this harmful industry, we invite her to suggest an alternate approach. She should not expect credit for expressing disapproval of the industry, then turning away to focus on her personal fulfillment.
There’s some more misdirection from the NPN people. The point of my “Wal-Mart” comment was not “who is less deserving of a merit badge.” The point is this: you say that Ms. Maltz asserts *without evidence* that there are other anti-woman big businesses in Northampton. When you take pains to point out that she provides no evidence for this claim you imply that either a) there is no evidence, or b) the point is so controversial Ms. Maltz is being irresponsible for not providing any evidence.
In my comment, I attempted to point out that a) it’s unbelievably obvious that Wal-Mart is a “big” business that is anti-woman, and that b) there is a vast amount of easily available evidence in favor of this claim. I provided a link to a website, http://www.walmartwatch.com, which for some reason you deleted prior to posting my comment. (You also should consider not defending Wal-Mart, or even giving them favorable comparisons. They’re bad.)
You guys have a real knack for obscuring the issues. You post a criticism and say you’re going to show how the criticism is all wrong, but then you spend all your time talking about some other, possibly related, criticism. (For example, I couldn’t find any passage in this “critics of the porn store don’t speak for everyone” post in which you confirm or deny that you “speak for everyone.”) You don’t address the real issue, but then you act like you’ve won some major battle. Your main offensive weapon seems to be name calling: if someone disagrees with you, it must be because of a moral defect: she’s uncaring, uncompassionate, and ignorant. To hear you tell it, there would have to be something really, seriously, deeply *wrong* with a person, or else she couldn’t disagree with you about anything at all under the sun. But I think we all know that your mass-mailing is the action of a pair of snobby, arrogant, self-righteous bullies who claim to speak for all morally upstanding people in Northampton, if not the whole city. Otherwise, why would you attack the moral fiber of everyone who disagrees with you about anything?
It’s far from clear that you’re opposing the porn *industry.* You oppose a *single store* in *your neighborhood* in *small-town, rural Massachusetts.* You seem only to care about the industry when it’s less than 0.5 miles from your big Victorian house. When you moved into that big house, you guys must have noticed that there was a porn store on Route 9, just on the other side of the river. And you must have noticed that this porn store was way more sketchy than the one you found the dirty blue gloves behind. Did you make a big stink about the Route 9 store? You also must have known, prior to moving to Northampton, that there was a porn industry in the world. Did you do anything to oppose it before this past July? How can that be, if it’s impossible not to oppose the porn industry without being uncaring, uncompassionate, or ignorant? The way you guys talk, it sounds like you think it is impossible not to agree with *everything you guys do* unless you’re uncaring, uncompassionate, or ignorant. Did you suddenly become compassionate and caring in July? Or maybe you *can* be compassionate and caring without opposing the porn store when it’s 1.4 miles from your house, rather than just 0.4 miles. Maybe *that mile* is the paramount issue. I don’t think you ought to take credit for expressing your disapproval of the porn industry when you only disapprove when they get close enough to your house to affect its value.
I don’t know why the walmartwatch.com link vanished from your previous comment. When we approve comments, as we usually do, we don’t edit them.
I’m not saying there aren’t any big businesses in Northampton that merit some criticism. Ms. Maltz doesn’t go into details in her letter to the Gazette, so it’s speculation on our part that she’s thinking about Wal-Mart.
Discussing Wal-Mart at any length, as interesting as it might be, is not really relevant to the issues of adult-use zoning or the impact of porn, so I’d like to move on from this subject. By all means please work to make Wal-Mart a better corporation.
As I pointed out in a comment yesterday, the Goldberg open letter was signed just by Adam Cohen and Jendi Reiter, so it’s speaking just for us, not anyone else.
If someone disregards the evidence of secondary effects of adult uses on communities, the conditions of porn workers, or how women are portrayed in many porn films, I think “uncaring” is the right word to use. Porn is about the callous power of some people over others, and the porn merchants are the bullies.
If local residents won’t defend their own neighborhood, who else can they expect to do it for them? There are adult businesses all over the country. Obviously we can’t take them all on at once. The possibility that a large porn shop would open nearby did focus our attention on the industry.
The information on our blog can be used by people who oppose porn all over the world, and some of those people have contacted us to express their appreciation. That’s how we support communities other than our own.
Would you care to address the substance of our arguments now, instead of minor side issues?
You say: “If someone disregards the evidence of secondary effects of adult uses on communities, the conditions of porn workers, or how women are portrayed in many porn films, I think “uncaring” is the right word to use… and the porn merchants are the bullies.”
It’s not really clear that Ms. Maltz was doing that. She agrees with you about whether there should be a porn store on King St. I suspect that she’s sensitive to the same things that drive your opposition to it.
However, this statement does seem to apply to you prior to July of 2006.
Finally, there is room in the world for more than one set of bullies. The fact, if it is a fact, that they are bullies doesn’t absolve you, or imply that you aren’t bullies, or have anything to do with you. Take responsibility for your own bulliosity.
The fact that we may not have been vigorous anti-porn activists in May doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be one today. Our awareness was raised. Now we’re trying to raise the awareness of others.
I’m glad if Ms. Maltz is a sensitive person, but if that doesn’t translate into concrete action, it’s not going to be that helpful to Northampton.
We have made every effort to fight fair and stick to the facts. Many people on the other side, however, have indulged in personal attacks and even physical intimidation. Last night Anthony Nota, a representative of Capital Video, cursed at me in public. You just can’t equate the two sides.
As I mentioned in a private email communication, a quick google search revealed that Ms. Maltz appears to engage in a substantial amount of volunteer work. Perhaps none of it is directed specifically at stamping porno from the world, but so what? Whenever someone says to you that there’s something more important you could be working on, you say, so what? Importance is a judgement call and this is what we’re working on. And that’s fine, I guess, as long as other people have the same prerogative.
As for being a bully, I think it’s possible to be a bully even if you don’t swear. But these things you do where you post a map to the Goldberg’s house, or where you send an open letter to everyone in Longmeadow (where they don’t make decisions about or have any direct interest in what goes on in Northampton) in an effort to embarrass them, these are bully tactics. And it’s possible to deserve to be sworn at.
The Goldbergs’ home address is the one they have been supplying on Capital Video’s various public documents relating to 135 King Street, such as this Planning Board Application. I think it’s reasonable to infer that’s the address they want to be contacted at. If they prefer a different address, I would be happy to publicize that instead. The Goldbergs have not complained to us about our publication of their home address.
Businesspeople have no right to expect to be insulated from public comment on their commercial activities. It is completely fair to invite the public to give them feedback at the address they provide on public documents.
Our open letter describes the secondary effects that stem from adult businesses, and quotes from Capital Video’s sales copy. Again, it’s completely fair to inform the public of the nature of what the Goldbergs are helping to sell, and the risks their activities will impose on the community. We hope people who know the Goldbergs will help us appeal to their better natures.
Cursing is not going to help Northampton reach a good compromise with Capital Video, and you’re wrong for suggesting this might be acceptable.
Whatever. That’s all fine. Why did you send the letter to everyone in Longmeadow, too?
Capital Video’s plan to put a large porn shop in the middle of WMass, on I-91, with the probable intention to draw customers from a wide area, makes this a regional issue. Since it would be prohibitively expensive to mail everyone in the Pioneer Valley, the best use of our resources seemed to be to mail to voters in the affected city, Northampton, and to the town with the people who can halt Capital Video’s plans, Longmeadow.
Before the open letter, we mailed letters and information privately to the Goldbergs several times but received no response. Our hope with an open letter to the Goldbergs’ neighbors is that some of those who knew the Goldbergs would plead our case with them.