Women Uniting For War on Porn

Salt Lake Tribune ^ | Sunday, October 14, 2001 | Mark Eddington

[TexRef]

    At the same time President Bush talked about terror in a nationally televised speech Sept. 20, concerned women met in Provo to discuss what they see as another grave threat to America.
    Smut.
    Members of Women For Decency, a group founded nine months ago, huddled with Utah porn czar Paula Houston at Provo's library to draw up battle plans in their fight against porn.
    If anyone thinks taking on saucy magazines and movies and suggestive lingerie ads in magazines should take a back seat to tackling terrorists, members of the fledgling organization cropping up across Utah suggest otherwise.
    "The parallels between [smut and terror] are uncanny," says Women For Decency Director Janalyn Holt. "Pornography destroys families. It's not a one-time shot like an airplane flying into the World Trade Center. But little by little, blow by blow, it can be just as destructive. We are getting bombarded on all sides."
    As talk turns to tactics in the group's war on porn, Holt sounds positively Bushlike in describing the conflict.
    "This is going to be a long road," says Holt, steeling her "worker bees" for the struggle. "There won't be any quick results because we have waited too long to put our foot down. We are in this for the long haul and will fight this as long as we need to."
    While U.S. bombs rain on Afghanistan, this 400-member cadre of women is besieging targets with e-mail, letters and phone calls.
    But they are polite about it.
    "We don't want to come across as a screaming bunch of citizens; we want to persuade people to uphold community standards," says Lisa Pettys, chairwoman of Women For Decency's Utah County chapter.
    The group is an agreeable bunch, Houston says.
    "They are very professional, very polite and pleasant to talk to," says Utah's official obscenity and pornography ombudswoman.
    John Garfield agrees. The general manager of the Provo Marriott received a letter from one of the porn fighters asking the hotel to stop carrying pay-for-view adult movies -- something it did about two years ago.
    Hampton Inn and LaQuinta Inn also are under scrutiny by the group. So is Better Homes & Gardens magazine, which ran a Spiegel ad of a woman leaning up against a naked man. The anti-porn group also is taking part in a nationwide campaign to cover up covers of Cosmopolitan, In Style and similar magazines displayed at supermarket checkout counters.
    Moreover, group members are hyperalert about racy posters in lingerie stores such as Frederick's of Hollywood and Victoria's Secret. Adult videos carried by the Sam Goody chain are in their crosshairs as well. The women -- men need not apply -- also are joining Illinois Lt. Gov. Corrine Wood's drive to get Abercrombie & Fitch to clean up its quarterly catalog. A&F Quarterly is sold over the counter in most states and by subscription in Utah.
    "When a 200-page magazine has 125 pages of sexual photos and full nudity, you know they have another agenda," Holt says.
    Company spokesman Hampton Carney counters that customers have to show photo ID to prove they are old enough -- at least 18 -- to buy or subscribe. Fun, frolicking, smart, hip, humorous and wholesome are adjectives he uses to describe the magazine marketed to the college crowd.
    "These are beautiful images shot by Bruce Weber, world famous photographer who shoots for Vanity Fair," Carney says of the pictures that show all but the pelvic region. "There is nothing pornographic about them."
    Nonetheless, the spring issue contained an interview with porn star Ron Jeremy and the company was castigated by the Michigan attorney general's office in 1999 after allegedly selling a copy to a 10-year-old. That is why the company now cards customers.
    While putting pressure on magazines, supermarkets, stores and Web sites is an important part of Women For Decency's mission, it is not the only one.
    Members also want to teach politicians and the public about porn's perceived evils and help its victims and addicts. Chapters meet monthly. Each is developing phone and e-mail trees so members can mobilize quickly. Unlike the conservative Utah Eagle Forum, Women For Decency has no plans to lean on legislators or others who do not heed their goals.
    Unless they break the law.
    "Just because we are a nice organization doesn't mean we won't play hardball," Holt vows. "We will be a force to be reckoned with."
    Ted Wilson, director of the University of Utah Hinckley Institute of Politics, says such groups succeed because of many Utahns' inflated views of themselves and their standards.
    "It's not that we are any more moral than any other place in the country, but we think we are," Wilson says.
    His advice to Women For Decency: Stick to persuasion and shun legal wrangles. He says the U.S. Supreme Court interprets the First Amendment broadly, and that groups get into trouble when they try to get a judge to enforce their views of morality.
    Holt says her group does not want to force anyone to do anything. But, she says, the Constitution does not protect obscenity and pornography.
    "It's not an issue of First Amendment rights; it's about right and wrong and what is appropriate."

[CyberCowboy777]

As much as personally believe that Porn can hurt a marriage and young minds for various reasons. I believe the Founding Fathers knew what they were doing when they decided to leave Free Speech and Press as just that, free. Porn was just as prevalent and as real then as now. In fact, porn has been a heavier influence in some earlier societies than you can imagine. The Ancient Egyptians had porn as a way of life! Of course at porn's greatest influence, Egypt the empire crumbled, never to recover.

They knew it is not the job of the federal government to limit or forbid the type of material an individual puts into his\her mind. The consequences, if any, will provide punishment enough. If we want to limit the influence of porn in our society, we must as individuals educate others of our opinions and provide help. Frankly we must get off our butts and do something. It is your job to change society, not the governments. The problem today is that people are too lazy to do things for themselves.

You can not regulate morality. Was it WH Penn that said "Those who will not be Governed by God will be ruled by Tyrants"? He knew that Man could only rely on God for Morality - not Government. I believe he knew something about Government impose morality! This Force, this Fire we call government will turn against it's master and become master when given the power to legislate our inalienable rights.

We need to Revive, not Revise our Constitution! At that end, we will truly be free!

[CubicleGuy]

I am fortunate enough to be blessed with a wonderful wife who doesn't mind me looking at other women, and can trust me that I would never touch anybody else.

The issue, however, has to do with the fact that women in Utah (obviously, we're talking Mormon women here, for the most part) take seriously the words of Christ who stated that adultery of the heart and mind isn't any different, spiritually speaking, from actual physical adultery.

The Book of Mormon teaches that fidelity is a physical and mental thing.

[CyberCowboy777]

The Question is not whether Porn is Moral or not. It is whether Government should be telling us it is moral or not. And whether we can read it or not! Remember God himself gave man free will to chose right and wrong. And unlike Abortions, where the Child IS killed. Porn does not have a Death rate, only requiring minor regulation. Like sales to minors.

We should be very wary of giving Powers of censorship to the government no matter how moral the reason.

[longshadow]

This is the Women's Temperance Union all over again. All of society's ills are the fault of demon drink; prohibition is the only solution.

Generically, this is nothing more than ascribing malevolent characteristics to inanimate objects. The gun grabbers do exactly the same thing when they assert that "guns" are the cause of murders, the drug warriors when they claim "drugs" cause crime, and the "porn czars" when they claim smut destroys families.

Inanimate objects cannot possess such characteristics, by definition. An active perpetrator is required in every case.

Smut is additionally different from guns and drugs in that smut is a form of "information." As such, it can be digitally represented as a sequence of 0's and 1's.

Are we to believe that some sequences of 0's and 1's are "okay" while others are "dangerous"? What is the algorithm that we use to distinguish "dangerous" sequences from "safe" ones?

This entire porn-phobia farce is nothing more than the latest incarnation of the Puritanical mindset that has haunted America since its earliest days. I believe H.L. Mencken defined a Puritan as someone who was constantly upset by the fact that someone, somewhere, was having a good time.

If the modern-day Puritans have their way, we will live in an America where men can be called upon to die in defense of a country where they are forbidden by law to look at pictures of sexually-desireable women not wearing clothes. THAT is what is obscene, not the pictures.

Perhaps it was said more succinctly in the film "Apocalypse Now":

"We train young men to drop fire on people. But their commanders won't allow them to write f@ck on their airplanes because it's obscene!" -( Colonel Kurtz )

[Junior]

Why are there always busy bodies who are upset by knowing that somewhere, someone is having fun?

[Economist_MA]

What do you think you would do if she asked you to keep your vow to cleave only unto her, even in your mind. Do you think it would destroy your marriage?

It's difficult to think about this hypothetical situation, since a woman with this (unrealistic) attitude probably wouldn't have married me in the first place. I believe this demand to be totally unnatural and impossible to live up to for any full-blooded male. But that's just mho.

[Hacksaw]

When contemplating what the Founders meant, one only need read their plain words:

(And the context in which they were written)

Amendment I: "Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press…"

Which was written in a time when political speech could get one jailed or executed. Ergo, we must take that fact into consideration when making the claim on what that exactly entails. BTW, you seem to have left out a vital part of the 1st that many of the free speech absolutists tend to forget about.

That is an absolute protection. No law, not some laws. All speech, not some speech. They were intellingent enought to provide exceptions if they wanted, but they didn't. That I submit as proof of my position. The onus is upon you to prove that they didn't mean what is written in the 1st Amendment. What proof have you?

Actually, the "onus" is not on me - but another example is that of the publication of child porn, issuing death threats, calling "FIRE" in a theatre, etc. It is by no means an absolute protection.

People are always trying to redefine some part of the Constitution they don't like.

The fact is that porn is widespread precisely because the constitution was redefined by the supreme court.

Some people don't like guns, some people don't like naughty pictures, some people don't think probable cause is needed for searches. Ultimately, the logic is the same: "The Constitution doesn't mean what it says, it means what I want it to say".

As you are making it say what you want it to.

I don't think I'm being hysterical. I was insinuating that you agree with this woman, and would like to ban material you find obscene. Is this correct?

You are being hysterical. You have suggested I move to another country because I don't agree with your revision of the 1st. I agree with community standards.

Anyway, I haven't suggested that I would like to ban it, but that I agree that it does not have 1st amendment protection.

[steve-b]

We don't want to come across as a screaming bunch of citizens

Yes, and the Taliban doesn't want to come across as puppets for the most wanted man on earth. You both failed miserably.

[Economist_MA]

The Book of Mormon teaches that fidelity is a physical and mental thing.

That's obviously fine with me since I am not a Mormon and have no intention to tell Mormons how to live their lifes. It's news to me though that Utah has a state religion and now tries to enforce this religion through the power of the state. No Mormon is currently being forced to buy a Playboy or to order a Sears catalog, and if they don't like these publications they are free to stay away from them. Why are they trying to force everyone else to do the same?

[HamiltonJay]

I think Mark Twain said it best about Mormon women:

"[They are] poor, ungainly, and pathetically ‘homely’ creatures. … The man that marries one of them has done an act of Christian charity which entitles him to the kindly applause of mankind, not their harsh censure -- and the man who marries sixty of them has done a deed of openhanded generosity so sublime that the nation should stand uncovered in his presence and worship in silence!"

[CubicleGuy]

The Question is not whether Porn is Moral or not. It is whether Government should be telling us it is moral or not.

The government (and we, the people, are the government) tells us what it thinks is moral all of the time: that's why we have laws against fraud and theft and assault and slander.

The question seems to be whether or not activities engaged in by consenting adults should be illegal or not. That's what the drug war is all about. It really boils down to the idea of "local standards". If you don't want a Porn Czar, don't move to Utah.

[HamiltonJay]

It's news to me though that Utah has a state religion

Then you have never been to Utah.... its obvious to anyone that it has a state religion, that being LDS.

[Economist_MA]

Ok, let me rephrase: ".... a state religion which tries to suppress everyone else." Better?

[steve-b]

In the light of history, it is apparent that the unconditional phrasing of the First Amendment was not intended to protect every utterance...

Once you learn to read the emanations of the penumbrae, you'll realize that the words don't mean what you thought they meant. Impenetrability! That's what I say!

[alpowolf]

Pornography, as we all know, is the keystone of the 1st Amendment

Actually, it is the keystone (note: I do recognize that you're being sarcastic). You don't need to protect speech which everybody agrees with. You need to protect speech which those in power (like the lady in the story) will try to suppress with government force.

[steve-b]

I think you would be hard put to argue with the founders that they meant to include pornography as freedom of the press. The fact that it is still regulated today should clue you in on that.

By this "logic", the plethora of gun control laws which exist today prove that the Founders did not intend to allow citizens to arm themselves.

[mc5cents]

Quick. Get Registered to change that story from "College Girls Nude" to "Fat Chicks in Spandex".

That would explain her being so Peed off.

[steve-b]

About a year ago, I was spammed with pornography

Spamming, being a form of theft of services, ought to be illegal regardless of content.