Some of our opponents claim that the stigma that surrounds porn is just a result of society’s hang-ups about sex, rather than reflecting people’s aversion to the sexism, racism, exploitation, abuse, disease, crime and blight that are associated with porn and adult enterprises… I don’t support the sort of zoning ordinance you advocate. I think […]
Debate on the Issues
Chyng Sun: Rejecting Porn’s Hatred of Women Does Not Mean Embracing Government Repression of “Obscenity”
Dr. Chyng Feng Sun teaches media studies at New York University. Dr. Sun received her Ph.D. in communication at U Mass-Amherst, specializing in media literacy. In this article for CounterPunch, she argues that the misogyny of porn deserves much criticism, but that government repression of “obscenity” is not the answer… It is typical that liberal-minded […]
Certified Sex Therapist Marty Klein Wants You to Believe Porn Is Harmless
Many adult industry lawyers like Marc Randazza are not content to defend their clients on narrow constitutional grounds. They could say, for example, that yes this material is reprehensible but we must protect it so that more worthy speech will not be threatened. Instead, they apparently want you to believe that porn and the lifestyles […]
King and Queen of MoPornNorthampton Savagery Do Freelance Work for Republican, MassLive (explicit language)
[Updated on June 11, 2007] As those who have visited opposition blog MoPornNorthampton are aware, Jeff Hobbs, Jennifer Ruggieri and their associates have engaged in savage personal attacks on Northampton anti-porn citizens for months. These self-styled heroes of free speech actually suppress it by fostering an atmosphere of fear and intimidation, inducing many citizens to […]
Visitors to NoPornNorthampton Website Outnumber Those of Local Newspaper Website
[Revised and updated on May 30, 2007] For the first time, an independent web measurement service estimates that NoPornNorthampton.org receives more monthly unique US visitors than GazetteNet.com, a website of Northampton’s local newspaper, the Daily Hampshire Gazette. (The Gazette also serves some visitors as DailyHampshireGazette.com.) Quantcast estimates that NoPornNorthampton is now receiving 12,629 monthly unique […]
Penn State Law Professors Trot Out ‘Female Porn Leaders’ to Whitewash Realities of Adult Industry (explicit language)
NPN’s Jendi Reiter critiques Clay Calvert and Robert D. Richards, “Porn in Their Words: Female Leaders in the Adult Entertainment Industry Address Free Speech, Censorship, Feminism, Culture and the Mainstreaming of Adult Content” (PDF), published last year in the Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law [9 Vand. J. Ent. & Tech. L. 255 (2006)].This article […]
People on the Left and the Right Share Blame for the Sexual Miseducation of Americans
A correspondent brought to our attention this insightful interview published on the Media Education Foundation website. Jackson Katz, Ed.M. is one of America’s leading anti-sexist male activists. He is the co-founder of the Mentors In Violence Prevention (MVP) program, the leading gender violence prevention initiative in college athletics. He is the director of the first […]
US Fifth Circuit Appeals Court Affirms that Evidence of Secondary Effects of “Off-Site Consumption” Adult Enterprises Is Sufficient To Justify Zoning
Some porn merchants claim that adult bookstores (as opposed to adult theaters) only have off-site consumption of porn, that they generate no signficant secondary effects, and that they should be exempt from adult-use zoning. The US Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals disagrees (PDF), and just found that the City of Kennedale, TX has sufficiently demonstrated […]
A Review of Can’t Buy My Love
NPN’s Jendi Reiter reviews Jean Kilbourne, Can’t Buy My Love: How Advertising Changes the Way We Think and Feel. This book was published by Touchstone/Simon & Schuster, New York City (1999). Ms. Kilbourne’s documentaries are distributed by Northampton’s own Media Education Foundation. Activist filmmaker and educator Jean Kilbourne has been internationally recognized for such documentaries […]
Register Now! Conference of Academics and Activists Against Porn, March 23-25, Boston
Pornography and Pop Culture: Reframing Theory, Re-thinking Activism March 23-25 Wheelock College Boston, MA Registration is free The so-called “porn wars” that were fought over the feminist critique of contemporary mass-marketed pornography derailed important academic and activist work. It is time to move on by reframing our thinking on pornography, especially in light of the […]