# The porn czar cometh?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-porn-czar-cometh/54052
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [February 11, 2001, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-porn-czar-cometh/54052 "2001-02-11T19:11:26Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Brian\_Bunnyhurt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brian_Bunnyhurt)
#### Post date: [February 11, 2001, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-porn-czar-cometh/54052/1 "2001-02-11T19:11:26Z")
[http://www.sltrib.com/02112001/nation\_w/70356.htm](http://www.sltrib.com/02112001/nation_w/70356.htm)
The nation’s first state porn czar ever (Utah) is a 40 year-old female virgin who, as a devout Mormon, is not even supposed to watch R-rated movies. Is this the beginning of a national trend? Is a subjective local standard the ultimate danger to an information-based society? Can this porn czar physically filter the entire internet in Utah? How difficult would it be to do so?
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### Author:  [@vanilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vanilla)
#### Post date: [February 11, 2001, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-porn-czar-cometh/54052/2 "2001-02-11T20:31:29Z")
Hmmm. I think most Utahns would welcome that…
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### Author:  [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)
#### Post date: [February 11, 2001, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-porn-czar-cometh/54052/3 "2001-02-11T20:36:58Z")
Give me strength. I will be very interested to see how she deals with her job. Her job is stupid, in my opinion, but it will be much to her credit if she manages it do it without outlawing adult entertainment of every stripe within the first 6 months of her tenure.
stoid
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### Author:  [@vanilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vanilla)
#### Post date: [February 11, 2001, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-porn-czar-cometh/54052/4 "2001-02-11T20:37:56Z")
Hi Stoid!
Love ya,
Now go to Utah and take off your clothes.😉
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### Author:  [@rockstar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rockstar)
#### Post date: [February 11, 2001, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-porn-czar-cometh/54052/5 "2001-02-11T21:43:24Z")
The only question I have is about this:
> [@](#):
>
> \*\*Wait and See: Raised without TV on ranches in Montana and Idaho, Houston promises to wage war on all types of pornography “for as long as it takes” – unless she finds herself immersed daily in a cesspool of sleaze.
> “I won’t last very long in this job if I have to look at this stuff every single day for eight hours,” Houston told The Salt Lake Tribune last week. “If it’s like that, then someone else can do the job.” \*\*
Isn’t that her job to be immersed daily in porn or what else would her job include?
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### Author:  [@Sterra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sterra)
#### Post date: [February 11, 2001, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-porn-czar-cometh/54052/6 "2001-02-11T22:17:29Z")
She vows to fail:)
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### Author:  [@capacitor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/capacitor)
#### Post date: [February 12, 2001, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-porn-czar-cometh/54052/7 "2001-02-12T00:23:40Z")
Her job is to make sure that pornography is not used to exploit children, or be made freely available to children. I think that she, unlike Guiliani, recognizes what obscene porn is and how it is and is not to be distributed. That was probably why she was picked. Give her a chance.
That being said, I think that the child porn industry is slowing down a lot, thanks to vigilant police enforement. The police will have to be careful not to overreact and do something stupid like arresting somone for having pictures of Michelangelo’s _David_ or something like that.
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### Author:  [@Brian\_Bunnyhurt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brian_Bunnyhurt)
#### Post date: [February 12, 2001, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-porn-czar-cometh/54052/8 "2001-02-12T01:03:45Z")
Capacitor,
Her job is to eliminate any depiction of “penetrating” intercourse, not child porn specifically. That child stuff in the article was a smokescreen by her supporters who know they are treading thin legal ice. Provo, in Utah, just voted to buy and utilitize all telecommunications, opposing the free-market and specifically AT&T, who many Utah ultra-conservatives branded as purveyors of sleaze and porn by association.
I’m still curious as to how easy or difficult it would be to filter the entire state. Anyone?
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### Author:  [@SPOOFE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SPOOFE)
#### Post date: [February 12, 2001, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-porn-czar-cometh/54052/9 "2001-02-12T02:00:16Z")
I thought Larry Flynt was the “Porn Czar”.
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### Author:  [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)
#### Post date: [February 12, 2001, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-porn-czar-cometh/54052/10 "2001-02-12T02:28:36Z")
There are some very disturbing things in that article.
For one, I’m concerned about the “hours” Utah’s czarette of porn (a very striking hunk of womanflesh, by the way) is spending “playing catch with her nieces and nephews”. One reels from the mental images.
stoidela, they’re a comin’ fer ye…
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### Author:  [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)
#### Post date: [February 12, 2001, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-porn-czar-cometh/54052/11 "2001-02-12T03:24:27Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Jackmannii \*
> \*\*
> stoidela, they’re a comin’ fer ye… \*\*
:eek:
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### Author:  [@VarlosZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VarlosZ)
#### Post date: [February 12, 2001, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-porn-czar-cometh/54052/12 "2001-02-12T14:32:43Z")
Our Porn Czarette, from the article, referring to her virginity:
> [@](#):
>
> “You don’t have to partake of evil to fight evil. To say somebody who has lived a morally clean life is not fit to fight porn is ridiculous,” she said.
Does it bother anyone else that she equates sexual intercourse with “evil”?
And, if I might make I an uninformed snap judgement: _(cough)latent homosexual(cough)(cough)_.
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### Author:  [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)
#### Post date: [February 12, 2001, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-porn-czar-cometh/54052/13 "2001-02-12T20:29:44Z")
I don’t see that evil and porn were equated there. There was a comparison, not an equivocation.
You don’t need to practice _x_ to know _x_ when you see it.
You don’t need to study math to know an equation when you see it, right?
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### Author:  [@RoboDude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RoboDude)
#### Post date: [February 13, 2001, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-porn-czar-cometh/54052/14 "2001-02-13T02:29:03Z")
No, but it helps.
> [@](#):
>
> I don’t see that evil and porn were equated there. There was a comparison, not an equivocation
Oh, really? maybe you should take a closer look at the article…
> [@](#):
>
> “Porn tears families apart,” Houston says. “It is so important; the family structure is the basis of our society.”
> [@](#):
>
> “It is foul sleaze that makes its exploiters wealthy, its victims impoverished,” Hinckley told a gathering of all-male priesthood holders in October. “It will become an obsession. It will destroy your home life. It will destroy your marriage.”
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### Author:  [@VarlosZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VarlosZ)
#### Post date: [February 13, 2001, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-porn-czar-cometh/54052/15 "2001-02-13T03:10:17Z")
> [@](#):
>
> I don’t see that evil and porn were equated there. There was a comparison, not an equivocation.
Evil and porn weren’t equated directly (in that particular quote); evil and sexual intercourse were.
She is responding to those who say, in effect, that because she does not partake of sexual intercourse she is unqualified to fight pornography. That response is “You don’t need to partake of evil to fight evil.” There is absolutely no reason to believe that “evil” here is merely an analogy. She is characterizing intercourse as pornography and both of them as evil. Her following statement that she is “morally clean” because of her virginity necessarily implies that were she not a virgin, she would not be morally clean. Even if we give her the benefit of the doubt and assume that she is referring only to sex out of wedlock as “evil,” that is still a very intolerant and inflexible outlook for someone whose job it is to judge for others what is appropriate (a job which is inherently odious to begin with).
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### Author:  [@DoctorJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DoctorJ)
#### Post date: [February 13, 2001, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-porn-czar-cometh/54052/16 "2001-02-13T04:48:25Z")
> [@](#):
>
> “I won’t last very long in this job if I have to look at this stuff every single day for eight hours,” Houston told The Salt Lake Tribune last week. “If it’s like that, then someone else can do the job.”
\
“Hey, Betty, it’s going to take me a little longer than I thought to evaluate this month’s issue of Big 'Uns. Cancel my 3:00, and send in a six-pack and another bottle of Jergens, would ya?”
Dr. J
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### Author:  [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)
#### Post date: [February 13, 2001, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-porn-czar-cometh/54052/17 "2001-02-13T10:33:43Z")
> [@](#):
>
> “Others say moral judgments are best made by those who are above reproach.”
I hope her ‘above reproach’ status is based on more than her virginity. One _could_ argue(not me, mind you) that her virginity is based not on high morals, but on a hysterical fear of physical intimacy.
I have no opinion on whether or not she can do the job, though.
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### Author:  [@SPOOFE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SPOOFE)
#### Post date: [February 13, 2001, 10:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-porn-czar-cometh/54052/18 "2001-02-13T10:49:20Z")
The second she tries to stop my constant intake of Hentai, I’m TP-ing her house.
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### Author:  [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)
#### Post date: [February 13, 2001, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-porn-czar-cometh/54052/19 "2001-02-13T12:00:19Z")
FROM: Celestial Throne, God Almighty, etc.
TO: Porn Czarette, Utah
SUBJECT: FYI
You appear to be laboring under delusions.
The urge to reproduce is built-in to all species, from paramecium on up. It was not necessary to build enormous pleasure into sex in order to make it happen, the imperative to reproduce works equally well for species that utterly lack any nervous system with which to percieve pleasure.
So why did I make sex so much fun for people?
Because I love you. Go get some. If it ain’t perfectly kosher, I’ll forgive you. It’s what I do.
PS: all that stuff about the Archangel Moroni is a crock.
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### Author:  [@RoboDude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RoboDude)
#### Post date: [February 13, 2001, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-porn-czar-cometh/54052/20 "2001-02-13T13:18:50Z")
In Utah they came for the polygamists, and I did not speak out because I was not a polygamist.
Then they came for the gays, and I did not speak out because I was not gay.
Then they came for the pornographers, and I did not speak out because I was not a pornographer.
Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me.
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