# Why are the Feds cracking down on Porn? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 8, 2006, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-feds-cracking-down-on-porn/371946 "2006-09-08T17:41:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2006, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-feds-cracking-down-on-porn/371946/41 "2006-09-09T00:42:15Z")
[QUOTE=Bricker] But if you’re in this issue for honest debate, then please admit that under the law as it now stands, the determination that “Toilet Man 6” is obscene is pretty easy to make, [/quote] I completely disagree with this claim. _You_ may feel that it is “patiently offensive” and has “no reedeming social value,” but I daresay not everyone shares your views (most notably, the folks actually paying for it). [QUOTE=Bricker] and the determination that “The Clinton Chronicles” is NOT legally obscene is even easier to make. [/QUOTE] It’s got as much value as you claim “Toilet Man 6” does. At least TM6 doesn’t resort to slander to help its audience get their rocks off… ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2006, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-feds-cracking-down-on-porn/371946/42 "2006-09-09T00:51:19Z")
[QUOTE=rjung] I completely disagree with this claim. _You_ may feel that it is “patiently offensive” and has “no reedeming social value,” but I daresay not everyone shares your views (most notably, the folks actually paying for it). [/QUOTE] You think if someone buys to look at it, it must be that they find it innoffensive and/or of some redeeming social value? I don’t think “offensive” and “reediming social value” mean what you think they mean… -FrL- ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2006, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-feds-cracking-down-on-porn/371946/43 "2006-09-09T00:54:09Z")
[QUOTE=Frylock] You think if someone buys to look at it, it must be that they find it innoffensive and/or of some redeeming social value? I don’t think “offensive” and “reediming social value” mean what you think they mean… -FrL- [/QUOTE] Well, what do _you_ think they mean? I’ll start: “offensive” is far to subjective and personal to have any fixed meaning, and “redeeming social value” is meaningless to begin with. Now you. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2006, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-feds-cracking-down-on-porn/371946/44 "2006-09-09T01:33:01Z")
[QUOTE=rjung] I completely disagree with this claim. _You_ may feel that it is “patiently offensive” and has “no reedeming social value,” but I daresay not everyone shares your views (most notably, the folks actually paying for it). [/quote] The question is what the average person feels. That’s the test. That’s the law. Are you seriously contending that that average person in this country would not find as I’m suggesting? ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2006, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-feds-cracking-down-on-porn/371946/45 "2006-09-09T02:15:38Z")
[QUOTE=Bricker] I don’t agree. Well, let me be more specific. I don’t agree that any reasonable person can read the current definition of obscene, as laid out in _Miller v California_, and decide that “Toilet Man 6” does not meet that definition. (I assume for this discussion that the contents of TM6 are as laid out in the affadavit linked to at the beginning of the thread). If we’re arguing honestly here, the average person would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest. Clearly the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct AND excretory functions. And clearly the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. [/QUOTE] Given the fact that there’s tons of prurient material that lacks all of those values sold openly, and broadcast on pay per view in hotel rooms across the nation, on what basis can you justify picking and choosing a few select “prurient” films that happen to cater to certain unusual fetishes? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2006, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-feds-cracking-down-on-porn/371946/46 "2006-09-09T02:18:42Z")
[QUOTE=Bricker] The question is what the average person feels. That’s the test. That’s the law. [/QUOTE] In that case, just about everything should be banned. Besides, if you’re right, that just means the law is wrong. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2006, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-feds-cracking-down-on-porn/371946/47 "2006-09-09T02:19:33Z")
Heh… you gotta admit ol’ **Brick** ’s got a point… the ‘average person’ WILL at least claim to find it offensive and devoid of value. And let’s face it, it does seem as devoid of social value as Paris Hilton’s latest. ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2006, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-feds-cracking-down-on-porn/371946/48 "2006-09-09T03:03:10Z")
I don’t understand how one can judge that a porno video lacks “social value”. If it helps a guy crank one out while watching it, why isn’t that a social value? ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2006, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-feds-cracking-down-on-porn/371946/49 "2006-09-09T03:14:40Z")
It’s a safe target for anyone who wants to score points with middle America. It’s not like the fans of “Toilet Man 6” are going to march down Pennsylvania avenue in defense of their rights. I wouldn’t be surprised if H. Clinton made some noises against porn as she enters a presidential bid. She’s already issued boilerplate speeches against violent video games. **Bricker** is right about the law. Note that the “average person” test isn’t something that the Supremes pulled out of their hind ends when deciding _Miller_. “Average person” tests exist in many areas of the law. Negligence is defined as the lack of care the average person would exercise. (Yes I know I’m oversimplifying.) If you want obscenity (as defined by the Supreme court) legalized, you won’t be able to do it through the courts. You’ll have to elect legislators who’ll stand up for Toilet Man. Good luck. Seriously. Toilet Man isn’t my cuppa, but I think the gov’t shouldn’t be policing it. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2006, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-feds-cracking-down-on-porn/371946/50 "2006-09-09T03:47:52Z")
The problem with the “reasonable man” test is that somewhere, there’s always a “reasonable, average guy” who’ll feel that such-and-such is pure trash and should be banned. Sure, it’s easy enough to see that Toilet Man 6 is pure trash (of course, Toilet Man 3, where they guy conspires to keep the Jewish workers from being flushed … that’s Oscar material!). In fact, when the standard was first promulgated, films used to have tacked on endings and such that made them “socially redeeming” … remember those, Bricker?. The standard Bricker is promoting is outmoded. At some point we figured we didn’t need some ending where the bad guys are massacred or put in jail to make things right because they had sex … explicit sex … without being married. Of course, no telling what the current set of Supremes is gonna do. Wacky bunch. But that’s what you get when you vote Republican. (I know, we don’t vote for Supremes, but we sure as hell vote for the guy who picks them. And when that guy is a Republican, it’s off to whack-a-doodle man, most of the time.) ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2006, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-feds-cracking-down-on-porn/371946/51 "2006-09-09T04:09:25Z")
[QUOTE=Miller] Well, what do _you_ think they mean? I’ll start: “offensive” is far to subjective and personal to have any fixed meaning, and “redeeming social value” is meaningless to begin with. Now you. [/QUOTE] I think you missed my point. Here’s my post: > [@](#): > > You think if someone buys to look at it, it must be that they find it innoffensive and/or of some redeeming social value? > > I don’t think “offensive” and “reediming social value” mean what you think they mean… > > -FrL- The reason I half-jokingly (lamely paraphrasing Inigo from Princess Bride, in case you didn’t catch it) suggested these these words must mean something different for you than for me is as follows. From your previous post, it seemed, you thought that if someone is buying scat in order to view and enjoy it, it must be that they don’t find it offensive. But as far as I can tell, the very “offensiveness” of the stuff depicted therein is part of what contributes to the enjoyment of viewing it, for these kind of people. In other words, were they not offensive, they would not be fun (for these people) to look at. I don’t think a robust definition of “offensive” is needed for that point to be made, since I’m not really talking about “meaning” in the sense of “definition” but rather in the sense of “how the word gets used in general.” Alternatively, you may have thought someone would buy it because it has “redeeming social value,” but that flies in the face of the plain fact that lots of people do lots of things without a thought to their “social value,” quite often. This is so clearly the case, that rather than supposing you have missed this fact, or failed to make a clear inference from it, one might suspect instead that you are using the phrase “redeeming social value” in some idiosyncratic way. -FrL- ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2006, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-feds-cracking-down-on-porn/371946/52 "2006-09-09T04:25:43Z")
[QUOTE=Frylock] The reason I half-jokingly (lamely paraphrasing Inigo from Princess Bride, in case you didn’t catch it) suggested these these words must mean something different for you than for me is as follows. From your previous post… [/quote] I’m just interupting you here to point out that I don’t have a previous post in this thread. The one you’re responding to is the first one I’ve posted here. > [@](#): > > …it seemed, you thought that if someone is buying scat in order to view and enjoy it, it must be that they don’t find it offensive. But as far as I can tell, the very “offensiveness” of the stuff depicted therein is part of what contributes to the enjoyment of viewing it, for these kind of people. In other words, were they not offensive, they would not be fun (for these people) to look at. This is untrue. The people who buy these videos do not watch them just to be shocking or outrageous. They watch them because they have a fetish. A fetish is a deep-seated, irradicable sexual response to an object or activity not normally considered sexual. A scat fetishist is not trying to be outrageous by being turned on to defecation, any more than you’re trying to be conventional by being turned on by a breast. (Assuming you’re into breasts, that is. Substitute whatever body part is most apt to complete the analogy.) > [@](#): > > Alternatively, you may have thought someone would buy it because it has “redeeming social value,” but that flies in the face of the plain fact that lots of people do lots of things without a thought to their “social value,” quite often. This is so clearly the case, that rather than supposing you have missed this fact, or failed to make a clear inference from it, one might suspect instead that you are using the phrase “redeeming social value” in some idiosyncratic way. I wouldn’t use the phrase “redeeming social value” if you paid me. There’s no way to define that term so as to exclude porn, without also excluding a huge amount of legitimate speech. It’s a meaningless weasel term. ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2006, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-feds-cracking-down-on-porn/371946/53 "2006-09-09T04:32:55Z")
[QUOTE=Bricker] This is your vision for a governing party? “We know what the majority wants, but they’re too stupid to know what’s best. So we’ll placate them and run things how they should really be run.” [/QUOTE] Pretty much, yeah. Let me explain. We don’t live in a democracy. We live in a Democratic Republic. “The People” (with the exception of the occasional ballot measures in some states) do not get to directly decide on our laws. Rather, we entrust elected officials to use their own reasoned, presumably educated, judgement on such matters because your Average Joe has neither the time nor the inclination to look very deeply into these subjects. ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2006, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-feds-cracking-down-on-porn/371946/54 "2006-09-09T05:24:45Z")
First, a political reality check, then, a tricky legal puzzle. The biggest porn dealers in the country are hotel chains! That’s right, folks in the rooms at the Hyatt and the Hilton are paying to see skin flicks. They’re watching so many of them, that sometimes it’s the most profitable part of the business. Now, will these big-time corporate contributors to political campaigns stand still for harsher porn laws? Only if they are crafted to be ineffectual or constitutionally reversible. (Hey, we can do that!) Now, as other posters have said, the work in question must be objectionable to the average person in the community. If you get testimony from video rental stores all across the town saying more than half of their business is from sex films, it’s hard to rule that the community thinks porn is objectionable. Believe me, **Talladega Nights (the Ballad of Ricky Bobby)** may be big stuff, but it won’t hold a candle to **Butt Bangers 23 (Romp in the Supermarket)** in the vid store. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2006, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-feds-cracking-down-on-porn/371946/55 "2006-09-09T15:12:44Z")
[QUOTE=Blalron] Given the fact that there’s tons of prurient material that lacks all of those values sold openly, and broadcast on pay per view in hotel rooms across the nation, on what basis can you justify picking and choosing a few select “prurient” films that happen to cater to certain unusual fetishes? [/QUOTE] I welcome correction on this point, but my understanding of what’s shown in hotel rooms is “soft-core” porn. Such films are much … well… softer, and consequently much less likely to draw the ire of the average person in the community. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2006, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-feds-cracking-down-on-porn/371946/56 "2006-09-09T15:16:17Z")
[QUOTE=Der Trihs] In that case, just about everything should be banned. [/quote] No, as I just explained, “just about everything” would NOT fail that test. > [@](#): > > Besides, if you’re right, that just means the law is wrong. You’re welcome to advance that opinion. I’m not going to engage in that discussion, because there’s no objective measure to determine which of us is right. On the other hand, with respect to what the law is NOW… I am objectively right. ---
**Author:** ![Cluricaun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bb73d2/32.png) [@Cluricaun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cluricaun)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2006, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-feds-cracking-down-on-porn/371946/57 "2006-09-09T17:18:14Z")
[QUOTE=Bricker] I welcome correction on this point, but my understanding of what’s shown in hotel rooms is “soft-core” porn. Such films are much … well… softer, and consequently much less likely to draw the ire of the average person in the community. [/QUOTE] It’s either been a while since you’ve stayed in a hotel room, or you’re not much of a skin flick man because the stuff available at the Hyatts and Hiltons these days is full blown porno. Hell, they even had male homosexual porn the last time I stayed. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2006, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-feds-cracking-down-on-porn/371946/58 "2006-09-09T17:31:01Z")
[QUOTE=Cluricaun] It’s either been a while since you’ve stayed in a hotel room, or you’re not much of a skin flick man because the stuff available at the Hyatts and Hiltons these days is full blown porno. Hell, they even had male homosexual porn the last time I stayed. [/QUOTE] Well, as it happens, I am actually not much of a skin flick guy, so I admit my knowledge in this area is anecdotal and likely outdated. The last porn flick I watched was “Misty Beethoven.” That probably dates my experience in this area. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2006, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-feds-cracking-down-on-porn/371946/59 "2006-09-09T17:43:28Z")
[QUOTE=Bricker] If the average person, applying contemporary community standards, considered the Bible, he would NOT find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest. [/QUOTE] Of course not “as a whole.” You have to hunt down the good parts! 😉 “Nowhere is there a Protestant child who does not masturbate.” – Mark Twain, writing as Satan, in [_Letters from the Earth._](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_from_the_Earth) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2006, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-feds-cracking-down-on-porn/371946/60 "2006-09-09T17:55:14Z")
Corrected quote: > [@](#): > > Some Midianite must have repeated Onan’s act, and brought that dire disaster upon his nation. If that was not the indelicacy that outraged the feelings of the Deity, then I know what it was: some Midianite had been pissing against the wall. I am sure of it, for that was an impropriety which the Source of all Etiquette never could stand. A person could piss against a tree, he could piss on his mother, he could piss on his own breeches, and get off, but he must not piss against the wall – that would be going quite too far. The origin of the divine prejudice against this humble crime is not stated; but we know that the prejudice was very strong – so strong that nothing but a wholesale massacre of the people inhabiting the region where the wall was defiled could satisfy the Deity. > > Take the case of Jeroboam. “I will cut off from Jeroboam him that pisseth against the wall.” It was done. And not only was the man that did it cut off, but everybody else. > > The same with the house of Baasha: everybody was exterminated, kinsfolks, friends, and all, leaving “not one that pisseth against a wall.” > > In the case of Jeroboam you have a striking instance of the Deity’s custom of not limiting his punishments to the guilty; the innocent are included. Even the “remnant” of that unhappy house was removed, even “as a man taketh away dung, till it be all gone.” That includes the women, the young maids, and the little girls. All innocent, for they couldn’t piss against a wall. Nobody of that sex can. None but members of the other sex can achieve that feat. > > A curious prejudice. And it still exists. Protestant parents still keep the Bible handy in the house, so that the children can study it, and one of the first things the little boys and girls learn is to be righteous and holy and not piss against the wall. They study those passages more than they study any others, except those which incite to masturbation. Those they hunt out and study in private. No Protestant child exists who does not masturbate. That art is the earliest accomplishment his religion confers upon him. Also the earliest her religion confers upon her. – Mark Twain, [_Letters from the Earth,_](http://www.sacred-texts.com/aor/twain/letearth.htm) Letter X [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-feds-cracking-down-on-porn/371946.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-feds-cracking-down-on-porn/371946.md?page=4)