From - Tue Jul 9 10:42:09 1996 Path: taco.cc.ncsu.edu!news From: Mary Pat Campbell Newsgroups: ncsu.soc Subject: smut! Date: Tue, 09 Jul 1996 10:38:48 -0400 Organization: North Carolina State University Lines: 97 Message-ID: <31E26EF8.41C6@quiin.physics.ncsu.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: tick.physics.ncsu.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.01 (X11; I; AIX 2) Today's issue is pornagraphy. To illustrate various points, I will present excerpts from Tom Lehrer's song "Smut", which can be found on his album _That Was The Year That Was_, released 1965. Smut! Give me smut and nothing but! A dirty novel I can't shut, If it's uncut, and unsubt- le. Ah, the wonderful world of smut! I enticingly read the Reeve's tale and the Miller's tale in _The Canterbury Tales_. I frolic in Walt Whitman's _Leaves of Grass_. I enjoy the good old Genesis tale of Lot offering his two young virgin daughters to the Sodomites, so that they can gang rape them. Ah, good old unsubtle sex & bawdiness. How I love it so. What? You mean it's literature? How shocking. How inappropriate for children. How inappropriate for the Internet; children shouldn't see this on people's web pages. How dare the Gutenberg project offer them all. I've never quibbled If it was ribald, I would devour where others merely nibbled. As the judge remarked the day that he acquitted my Aunt Hortense, "To be smut It must be ut- Terly without redeeming social importance." So the Communications Decency Act has been shot down momentarily, and we're waiting for a decision from the Supreme Court that just can't determine what "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedon of speech, or of the press" means. You see, there are all of these invisible qualifying clauses to this phrase -- can't you see them? Obviously, someone does. One can publish smut as long as it has "redeeming social importance". Let's not even consider what qualifies as indecent. I wonder what the redeeming value of _The Canterbury Tales_ is. The Reeve's & Miller's tale are just bawdy little stories -- is its saving grace that it is written well? So one can be involved in porn as long as it's good porn? All books can be indecent books Though recent books are bolder, For filth (I'm glad to say) is in the mind of the beholder. When correctly viewed, Everything is lewd. (I could tell you things about Peter Pan, And the Wizard of Oz, there's a dirty old man!) I saw this lovely little 30's Fred & Ginger movie called _Top Hat_, no profanity (well, there might have been a "damn" in there somewhere), no sex, no violence (well, a guy got a black eye (you don't see that happening) and Fred got slapped twice.) Innocent little film, right? Ha. The strange implied sexual relationships and the gay subtext makes this a strictly adult movie. How could people put such smut on the screen? I swear. (sorry, I don't swear). My point is this: I don't think speech can be restricted at all on the basis of content. Sure, one can be prosecuted for slander, libel, or yelling "Fire" in a room w/o one, but protecting speech has nothing to do with the protecting one from the responsibility of what one says. As for other issues, such as that pornagraphy promotes rape -- I suppose. Maybe. I have a feeling that some people would rape no matter if they had access to hard-core porn or not. Just as some people would commit suicide whether or not they listened to "demon rock". Such music & magazines aren't forced on anyone, one must go and buy it. I put all responsibility on those who commit the crimes. Not the people who run the dumb pictures. Stories of tortures Used by debauchers, Lurid, licentious, and vile, Make me smile. Novels that pander To my taste for candor Give me a pleasure sublime. (Let's face it, I love slime.) In any case, I enjoy some good porn now and then. I'm tired of adults being ruled by children. Let's just lock kids up until they're 18 so that they are protected from that nasty, nasty world. We'll release them once they can vote and let them be confused and corrupted and debauched. mp -- I am woman; open the door. Mary Pat Campbell campbell@quinn.physics.ncsu.edu http://www4.ncsu.edu/~mpcampbe/