Iceland campaigns to restrict internet porn

[Warren DeMontague]

168. So how precisely does one define "degrading"?

I mean, when Catherine MacKinnon went into Canada to help them craft their anti-porn "class action harm" legislation, she came in from a 2nd Wave ideological perspective that defined a visual depiction of the sex act itself as (in fact, the act itself, ahem) inherently "degrading" to women. And furthermore, the entire premise of the legislation was that every time a man had sex with a woman in front of a camera, it was "hurtful" not just to the woman involved, but to all women, everywhere.

So forgive me if I take a jaundiced eye with that sort of proposal.

Now, I happen to think that a) consensual sex between adults is not inherently 'degrading' to either participant, even when graphically depicted, and b) although (as I've said elsewhere in the thread) I certainly don't think that everything that might be put under the banner of consenting adult 'porn' is wonderful great material -far from it-, the 1st Amendment as a principle is a damned important one, and I don't come by that philosophical position just because I'm worried that "Obama's gonna take my porn away".

He's not, but the principle of free expression and the 1st Amendment- which, by the way, is a helluva lot more unambiguous than the 2nd- is the cornerstone of the Bill of Rights. Damn right I take it seriously.