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.406-407). Testimony of S I live in Northampton, Massachusetts. The first incident I’d like to talk about is representative of many incidents that I experienced by the […]
Media Ethics
Realities of Teen Prostitution Mock Notions of ‘Sex Work’, ‘Sex-Positive’, ‘Freedom’ and ‘Empowerment’; Media Glamorizes Pimps
Advocates for ‘sex work’ say it is or should be about free choice and the empowerment of women. They claim that if prostitutes have troubled lives, this stems from the fact that many (unenlightened) people find prostitution offensive and the government doesn’t care enough about prostitutes’ working conditions, rather than anything inherent in exchanging sex […]
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 […]
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 […]
“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, […]
Testimony in Los Angeles: Peter Bogdanovich on Porn and Hollywood
Members of the Los Angeles County Commission for Women heard testimony about peoples’ encounters with porn at a hearing on April 22, 1985. This account appears in In Harm’s Way: The Pornography Civil Rights Hearings (p.351-352). Testimony of Peter BogdanovichSince Dorothy [Stratten] was killed, a lot of women have written to me or told me […]
George Will: “Anger Is All The Rage”
Back in March we discussed the bile and vitriol on offer at MoPornNorthampton, and the consequences for the quality of public debate. Peter Brooks of TalkBackNorthampton considered the matter, then issued a defense of “trash talk”. George Will discusses this phenomenon in “Anger Is All The Rage”, published March 25 by The Washington Post: …today’s […]
How the People Reclaimed Oklahoma City from a Major Eruption of Adult Businesses and Crime
Publicity campaigns and pressure on city officials helped Oklahoma City recover from a proliferation of adult enterprises in the 1980s. Jon Stephen Gustin, Retired Sergeant, Oklahoma City Police Department, tells the story in QUALITY OF LIFE: A Look At Successful Abatement of Adult Oriented Business Nuisances in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (1984-1989) (PDF). Some excerpts: Traditionally […]
The Republican: “Web serves as great resource for activists”
The March 15 Republican reports on the growth of blogs and websites for local activism. Daryl LaFleur posts public documents at Paradise City Forum so people can review them and “come to their own conclusions,” without having to troop down to City Hall. Granby resident Mark Bail hosts Granby01033, a blog to bring more attention […]
Interview with Ex-Porn Star Traci Lords: Abused as a Child; High on the Set; Power, Not Arousal; Bad Pay
Larry King interviewed Traci Lords on CNN in 2003. Lords was born in 1968 under the name Nora Louise Kuzma. According to Wikipedia, Lords “achieved notoriety for her underage appearances in pornographic films and Penthouse magazine (she was 16 years old in her first film).” LORDS: …I started going by Traci Lords in 1984, and […]