NPN’s Jendi Reiter reviews an essay by Christine Stark, “Girls to boyz: Sex radical women promoting pornography and prostitution”. This essay is published in Christine Stark & Rebecca Whisnant, eds., Not for Sale: Feminists Resisting Prostitution and Pornography (North Melbourne, Australia: Spinifex Press, 2004, pp. 278-91).This is the sixth in a series of reviews of […]
Debate on the Issues
Local Businesses Say Porn Shop Hurts Downtown Ypsilanti
If some people have a hard time applying New York City’s experience with adult businesses to Northampton, let’s consider a situation in Ypsilanti, Michigan, a college town with a population of 22,000. Don Herzog, a professor at The University of Michigan Law School, writes on the blog Left2Right, on April 14, 2005… A block and a […]
Breaking News: Northampton Planning Board Approves Adult Use Size/Location Ordinance
After a long debate with citizens making arguments for and against adult use zoning, Northampton’s Planning Board approved an ordinance to regulate the location of large adult businesses. If a business has more than 1,000 square feet of adult material on display, it must be located in Northampton’s Highway Business Zone and be at least […]
Porn: Most Consumers Are Men
Talk Back Northampton prominently quotes literature from the Feminists for Free Expression that asserts “that half the adult videos bought or rented in the US are done so by women or women in couples”. TBN seems to be suggesting that since lots of women buy porn, it’s OK that much of porn exploits and abuses women. We question both […]
Gazette’s “Northampton Porn Debate” Page Useful But Not Complete
We’re glad the Gazette has put up a convenient Northampton Porn Debate web page to consolidate news and opinion on the issue. People should be aware, however, that this page may omit certain material we feel is important, such as blog posts that describe the porn that Capital Video sells. In particular, our October 8 […]
Letter to Gazette: “Porn does not represent real people and real love”
Today’s Gazette publishers a letter to the editor by Sarah Metcalf of Northampton: …I hear people describe porn as “sex”. But porn is not sex, if we understand sex as a relationship betwen live human beings, who usually feel for each other sparks of attraction and affection. Porn is the representation of sex in words, […]
A Historical Tidbit about Those Puritans
Some people sling around the word “Puritan” as a shorthand for a prude who is anti-sex. I think the Puritans themselves would find this ironic. Finding Paradise (by Allison Lockwood, published by the Daily Hampshire Gazette, p. 12-13) tells us, Many [Northampton] Puritan couples were prolific. Elder John Strong fathered 17 children; one of his […]
Is Fred Contrada Biased Against NoPornNorthampton?
It’s fascinating to see how the same event is reported by different people. Take our August 2 public meeting. NoPornNorthampton invited members of the community to meet with us and give us feedback.At the start of the meeting, we began videotaping. Our motivations were to keep a historical record and enable us to accurately review […]
Gazette: “Proposed rules for ‘adult’ businesses find favor”
Wednesday’s Gazette reports on the 9/28 ordinance committee/planning board meeting. It notes how residents near 135 King Street expressed concern about a porn shop locating there: “It’s a neighborhood that has made halfway houses and recovery programs welcome,” Mike Kirby, of 17 Summer St., said of the area around the proposed adult video store. “It’s […]
Pro-Porn Protesters Shout Out Slander, Make Threats
A lone member of NPN decided to swing by 135 King Street late this afternoon to see if there was any activity there. We observed about eight pro-porn protesters. On seeing the member of NPN, some of these protesters began shouting “pedophile”! In this picture, the protesters appear to be interacting with a passerby in […]