Porn, Pervasive Presence

National Review ^ | 11/02/2001 | William F. Buckley Jr.

[Diogenesis]

[Paul Atreides]

Wow! Until Obubba Been Laiden showed up on the cover I didn't know Esquire still existed.

[Aquinasfan]

We're swimming in the sewer and have become accustomed to the smell.

[Ferris]

All nudity is evil...

It must be eliminated...

The fact that there is no objective crime in nudity is irrelevent...

[Dems_R_Losers]

This is a wonderful article. I recently bought Vanity Fair and was simply speechless at the onslaught of pornographic ads in the magazine. Even wristwatch ads feature semi-nude models. A women's fragrance ad features an entirely naked model. It was particularly jarring because this month's "regular" issue is packaged with a beautiful and tasteful mini-issue about the heroes of September 11. I commented to my husband that if anyone wanted to see what the fundamentalist Muslims really despise about America they should just look through this magazine. Not to mention all the so-called women's mags like Glamour, Mademoiselle, etc. that now feature almost nothing but articles about sex.

The pornographication of America is no longer just wrong, it is getting us killed.

[Focault's Pendulum]

Damn!!! I read that entire article before I realized it didn't contain any hacked passwords!

[CatoRenasci]

In Tom Lehrer's words:

when correctly viewed everything is lewd.
I could tell you things about Peter Pan
Or the Wizard of Oz
There's a dirty old man!

(From Smut! on That Was the Year That Was! 1966)

[Paul C. Jesup]

If nudity is so evil, then why are we all born nude?

[Hank Kerchief]

All nudity is evil...

It must be eliminated...

The fact that there is no objective crime in nudity is irrelevent...

Wow, you must have a tough time in the shower.

[cajungirl]

I disagree with you. You are not a prude or repressed if you find this "pornographication" of American women revolting. The trivialization of sexuality, the deadening of any sense of romance or love or modesty, are both disturbing. Reminds me of ancient Rome.

[Mamzelle]

Funny you should mention Glamour and Mademoiselle (which has died just recently)...They used to be frivolous little fashion/beauty mags, something to be read in the bubble bath by eager little clothes-horses...but generally benign and harmless, puffery and amusement.

Now, those magazines are appalling, just disgusting. "How to be the crudest and most vulgar of whores" would be appropriate title for most of the articles offered.

However, there is a new little mag called "Lucky" which looks to be fun for the attire-maniac.

[CubicleGuy]

Twenty-five years ago, Malcolm Muggeridge commented on the American scene in The New York Review of Books. "Never, it is safe to say, in the history of the world, has a country been as sex-ridden as America is today."

With the exception being America, twenty-five years later.

[the808bass]

Are you asserting that morals contribute nothing to society? Of course you're not. So what are you arguing?

That decency has no place in our public? Of course not. So what are you arguing?

Are you arguing that virtue is bad? Or that we just can't know what virtue is? Or that virtue differs for each individual - i.e. - one person's virtue might involve fetishes while another involves volunteering at the local shelter? Or course not. So what are you saying?

Do you think the pornographification of America is a good thing? Do you think nude models everywhere is contributing the ascent of our culture? (Not to mention the other things the author discussed in this piece.)

[Lurking Libertarian]

think back to the Esquire of days gone by. Ernest Hemingway published "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" in Esquire. Tom Wolfe, in a renowned essay, singled out Esquire as the primary home of inventive literary journalism in his generation. It published 5,000-word pieces by Norman Mailer and Garry Wills (and this author). It was the monthly magazine of Dwight Macdonald, movie critic, and Malcolm Muggeridge, book critic. Is the Esquire given over to erotomania unique? Of course not, but it isn't just one more girlie magazine. It is a sign of the times, the day of pervasive presence. Eros is crowding at us on all sides, as the erotic and the pornographic merge.

Esquire started as a sex magazine. It published the "Vargas Girls" every issue untile Vargas moved to Playboy. It had excellent articles and fiction, but so did Playboy.

[Dems_R_Losers]

You sound like a typical Bill Clinton voter. "It's only about sex!" No, it isn't. It's about morality, modesty, and plain good taste. All qualities that seem to have gone by the wayside in Clintonian America.

[Lurking Libertarian]

If twelve-year-olds are caught looking in curiously at gangbangs at eight in the morning, why . . . spank them.

Take responsibility for raising your own kids? What a bizarre thought. Better let the government do it for you!

What WFB doesn't realize is that we no longer live in the 1950s. If the power of censorship is restored to the Government, National Review is as likely to be censored as Hustler-- more likely, in some parts of the country. This is a nation that elected Clinton twice, remember. The few prosecutors who still bring obscenity prosecutions can't get juries to convict-- even Provoo, Utah, recently had a jury acquit a defendant in an obscenity trial.