Politics and Porn

With the latest restrictions being put in place over at FetLife, I'm thinking more and more about censorship. If you're curious about the changes, I've listed them in this post: http://forum.literotica.com/showpost.php?p=83237000&postcount=86

Now, Lit and FL are both frequented by users from around the world and so this isn't just about the US (where I'm from). I am concerned about where the US and some other countries are heading when it comes to porn and what is allowable. Certainly we need boundaries (like no underage and such) but currently there's talk here about the Obscenity Prosecution Task Force and what that would mean for porn in the US. The task force was dissolved in 2011, but has potential to be organized and put back into action with the new administration. The problem with "obscenity" is that it is loosely defined and there is talk of sadomasochistic acts being prosecuted along with some other popular BDSM related activities. This also doesn't just apply to pictures and videos, but includes erotica eek: I love my non-con erotica and don't want to see it disappear).

It's not just the US talking about "the dangers of porn," but I don't feel I'm qualified to speak on that so I welcome anyone with more info to add their thoughts on politics and porn where they're from.

I'm also not of the mindset that porn is going to just suddenly disappear, but I imagine over time we could start to see things becoming harder and harder to find or talk about. Will we eventually not be able to talk about that fantastic paddling from the other night? On top of that, so many keep saying that the people won't let them mess with the porn or they won't be in office for very long, and the only thing I can think of is that many totally didn't see the new orange overlord being elected so... (¬_¬)

Discuss!

A lot of folks aren't going to like this comparison but it's truly how I feel.

As goes the Second Amendment, so go all the rest.

If we allow "them" to fiddle with and continually erode one right, "they" are going to feel like "they" have free reign to fiddle with and erode the others.

There will always be something that someone likes that others don't (paddles, scary looking style rifles, booze). And no one seems to notice the baby steps. A whole sale move to abolish the Second would be met with backlash but baby steps all seem 'reasonable'. Same thing with porn, a full scale abolition wont work, it will be baby steps.

The major stumbling block with porn is - no one wants to be outed, so no one speaks up pro-actively. Gun owners don't care about being outed so we can take an overtly-outspoken-all-for-one-and-one-for-all-fuck-you style approach to defending the Second. Whereas, with porn we have to adopt a wait and see stance before we speak up, lest anyone find out that we like *that* kind of thing.

Alll that to say: No matter which version of First They Came you subscribe to, the sentiment in Niemöller's words rings true. I don't know what's going to happen but if we don't stick up for each other then who will stick up for us?

It's a good point that the people that could speak out about it probably won't because it's not really something you want to advertise. I won't make any comments on the 2nd amendment in this thread.

I will say that even if they can't abolish something completely, we've witnessed how some industries can still be manipulated through the purse strings. FL for example, is unable to process credit cards at this time which is part of the reason they've been scrambling to delete the now restricted content.

I have thoughts on this, but still on pain meds from surgery, which means the thoughts I'm thinking aren't coherent enough to think out loud.

Will come back to it when my brain works again...

CutieMouse said:

I have thoughts on this, but still on pain meds from surgery, which means the thoughts I'm thinking aren't coherent enough to think out loud.

Will come back to it when my brain works again...

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Oh, pain meds. Hope you feel better. Looking forward to your thoughts. (^-^)

The thing about porn and banning it (or chipping away at what's "allowed" and what isn't) is that, with few exceptions, the only people who are going to stand up and speak out against it are people involved in the sex industry. And y'all can imagine how seriously that's taken.

The interesting thing about trying to regulate porn is this:

There is a certain quirk about the law. You can make any law and write it down and have it become official. But the law which everyone breaks has no power.
Point is, you can't jail 90% of people. You just can't. And at the same time you can't jail just some of them while ignoring the others when you run out of places, because this makes the first arrests illegitimate.

The law which everyone breaks is still a law, technically. But does it have power? You will often find that no. Just no.

The government can make any law for the people to follow. But if people are not following it, this means several things.
1) the government fails as the representatives of the will of the majority of people.
2) the government loses credibility
3) the government can do nothing about it.

That's why I wouldn't be too scared about porn being banned, or even BDSM being banned. Because it will just not work. It will create a negative information flow for the government - and no one wants that. Trump's administration especially, because it is already sinking in a ton of shit that press inflates around him.

Here's the thing. Right now, the times are literally the WORST about making any judgments. Why? Because US has a very deep conflict boiling about.

On one hand there's president elect, with his cardinally different views, with his attacks on press trash-talking and faking the news for views.
On the other hand we have Obama, who is still, at this very moment, a president. And who is, frankly, trying to do his best to make Trumps first months as hard as possible.

Both have very high amount of influence, and both attack each other relentlessly. This makes most of information you hear on the news highly exagerrated and full of crap, really.

Another thing is that if Trump just lets it all slide, he will be lost in the public's eye and his enemies win. The only thing he can do is shout louder than them. BOTH sides are shouting as loud as they can.

What this does is creating a lot of exaggerated and overinflated statements. Right now, it literally sounds much worse than it will ever really be happening.
The same goes with every presidential campaign. Think about it - every person knows that presidential campaign is full of empty promises which wuld be fulfilled only partially at best. Stop all wars, triple the economy, defeat hunger, raise wages - it's ALWAYS the same.
The same goes for bad and controversial promises. They are just as overstated! Because it's much more important to catch people's attention, to generate a strong image - than to generate a really good image. It's more important than to be honest and actually deliver after you are elected. At best, those controversial promises will be fulfilled partially, and many would be forgotten later to the delight of everyone.

It's just that this time the nature of the compaign is such. Trump brings controversy, that's what he does. Democrats throw in their promises of darkness and hopelessness. What it results in is a picture of future that deserves a place near the Judgment Day.

Reality? It will be much more boring than that. So relax.

Infringements of any type come in one basic flavor. The one where no one can get off his ass and say no to the PTB. No matter where you go or what is going on, the aftertaste always tastes like shit. And it lingers for decades if not forever.

Government, through legislators, infringes on the basic liberties of the citizenry. By failing to object, the citizenry authorizes the infringement. If the infringement is agreed to (voted on approvingly or vocally supported) then the government feels mandated to encroach further. And to use force if necessary to support their encroachments.

Courts uphold infringements under the self serving guise of supporting the government that pays and employs them. As more and more infringements get emplaced, liberty disappears and fear begins. What will they do next? Will they come for me? Am I a criminal now? Are you? Should I associate with you? CAN I associate with you?

Gun rights in the US are being heavily infringed now. Courts are upholding some of those infringements as being "ok' because they don't seem to do much damage. The nibble effect has been replaced by outright theft. Because they have the power to do so since no one objected before.

Privacy is another area of upcoming infringement. Where do your privacy rights begin and end when it comes to the internet? Can your ISP spy on you? Can Apple or Microsoft view your internet habits just because you use their product? Can the government mine their data to ensure your compliance? What happens if you inadvertently go to a banned website because of a trojan link? Are you guilty of violating some law even if you were tricked?

Anti-sodomy laws are infringements too. Contraception and abortion laws, pornography vs. obscenity laws and so on are ALL infringements in our right to be left alone to live our lives without fear of being punished for being human beings. Yet all of these areas are regulated and controlled and more and more laws are being enacted.

And, it's not just the weird or dangerous being regulated. Marriage/divorce in some places is governmentally controlled. The ability to freely associate is controlled and restricted in other places (mostly in Muslim nations and usually only for women). And so on.

Government infringes and gets away with it because the populace won't get off their asses and say no.

This is not to say that all infringements or regulations are bad. They are, for the most part, good things. Air, water and food regulations are all good things. They benefit society without harming any member or group.

In contrast, telling someone that they don't have a right to love someone else because both are the same gender is ridiculous. Or that what occurs in a bedroom between 2 (or more) consenting adults MUST be regulated and controlled is equally ridiculous.

Yet here we are, talking about whether the government is maybe going to come after us for being 'undesirable' based on our lifestyle or habits. It's about time to start saying no. If your legislator proposes laws which infringe, VOTE THE BASTARD OUT OF OFFICE. Even if you agree with his other political views, infringements transcend political party and belief. Too far is too far. Period.

Laws should be made which do the greatest good for the greatest number. Not just some good or which are for only those who agree. Nor should laws be made which allow the government to prosecute and require the defendant to prove innocence.

Obscenity laws are right up that boulevard. There's one US legal decision which basically says that obscenity is hard to define other than you know it when you see it. Really? Some transgender-bathroom-law legislator knows more about obscenity than I do? What happens if I don't agree with his viewpoint? Am I still a criminal? Can I use the "I don't see obscenity therefore it isn't" defense?

Infringements are infringements. Start telling your government no in the one way you peacefully can. Change the name of the person whose ass is in the ruling chair.

HisArpy said:

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Thank you! That is exactly the point I was attempting to make and you did it so much better than I.

cfuhrer said:

Thank you! That is exactly the point I was attempting to make and you did it so much better than I.

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You did all right your own self. Sharp, concise, and lucid - works for me.

Nezhul said:

The interesting thing about trying to regulate porn is this:

There is a certain quirk about the law. You can make any law and write it down and have it become official. But the law which everyone breaks has no power.
Point is, you can't jail 90% of people. You just can't. And at the same time you can't jail just some of them while ignoring the others when you run out of places, because this makes the first arrests illegitimate.

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You don't have to jail 90% of people; you don't have to jail anybody. Here's how it can go:

You pass a law that requires ISPs to block access to sites identified as "child porn", under threat of heavy fines. You also pass a law that imposes heavy penalties on any payment services that take payment for "child porn".

Who could argue with that? Everybody agrees child porn is evil and should be stopped. Let's throw in "extreme torture content" too, because what sort of sicko would want that?

Only, your law is vague enough that it's hard to determine what counts as "child porn". Nobody wants to be the test case, so ISPs and payment services play it safe by avoiding anything that could be remotely considered at risk. Badly-designed filters mean that any site that discusses under-age sex (like, say, an abuse survivors support site) is at risk of being blocked; this has happened over and over again around the world. If people get angry about it, the government can say: well, we didn't ban your support site, that was the ISP's fault! without acknowledging that they put the ISP in an impossible position.

Sites dealing with non-standard sexuality (LGBT, BDSM etc.) are especially at risk, because a lot of people work under a double standard that considers "I'm John and this is my boyfriend" to be more "sexual" than "I'm Jane and this is my boyfriend". (See recent UK filtering for some examples of this.)

Maybe the government helps out by compiling a blacklist of known "bad" sites. But some non-porn sites make it onto the list by accident... or perhaps by design, if the government is corrupt enough. (Certain nations have even been accused of deliberately planting child porn on their opponents' computers to discredit them.) People aren't notified when their site is put on the list, and filters may be designed to just time out instead of notifying users that the site is blocked, making it harder for anybody to know just how much is being censored. (See e.g. recent Australian web filtering cock-ups.)

This means the government doesn't have to go after every porn user individually; they just have to go after a few ISPs and payment providers and pressure them to block stuff. The ISPs will err on the side of caution, and they can choose to censor stuff that the US government would not be allowed to censor under the First Amendment. Mission accomplished without needing to send ANYBODY to jail.

And it won't actually do much to stop child porn, but that's another conversation...

This is along the lines of what I was thinking, Bramblethorn. Most individuals aren't going to be shipped off to jail. A financial arm twist and most sites and producers will "tidy up." I used FL as a current and easy example. Truth is, FL has been badly managed and often didn't take the necessary precautions to defend against something like this. They allowed content that pushed the boundaries and didn't do enough to clean up to begin with, so now they're faced with even more restrictions. That site is an easy target, but it's a great leading example to start the charge.

RE: pornography

In some ways the crack down on pornography is just another canary in the coal mine. The pendulum is swinging the other way, as it usually does. We've had years of "liberal politics"; conservatism is up to bat. Once enough people feel disenfranchised (gun rights/opponents to gun rights, political parties, LGBTQ/people freaked out by LGBQT, environmentalists/people who think global warming is a hoax, preppers being preppers, vax/anti-vax, etc) and the canary is gasping... something will shift. How it will shift is yet to be seen, but it WILL shift.

Ironically (given that I hang out at Fet & Lit), I am not a fan of pornography. Some of my Short Humans are teen and college age - I talk with them about how internet pornography impacts their dopamine levels, and may change neurological pathways which changes viewing habits (always looking for something "more") and that studies over the last few years are showing the damage internet porn habits does to sexual arousal, erections and interpersonal relationships. My lover and I may exchange stills of images we find interesting/arousing, but neither of us watch porn. He's actually more vehemently anti-porn than I am.

I don't know what the answer is, and I'm not sure a pornography task force is the appropriate reaction, but I am watching articles/etc and it's a subject I discuss openly with my partner and children.

RE: Fet's latest adventures

It's just round two of a similar [smaller] crackdown that happened a few years ago. All the people screaming their free speech rights are being violated, didn't pay attention in history class. The owner of Fet handled it terribly from a PR perspective (no shock; his customer service skills are zero) and rumor has it that he's never taken any suggestions to secure the site seriously (using specific cc processors, dealing with TOU violations, etc); talking with kinksters who write code, it's built on a terrible platform. Fet is an awesome place, but it was probably never meant to get as big as it has, and the opportunity to write a functional business plan (to avoid pr minimize a lot of drama) is long past.

People will either settle down and accept the new rules (like they did last time), or someone will see an opportunity to build a better [kinky] mousetrap.

Aaand on that note, energy gone bye bye again. Robotic hysterectomies are technically outpatient procedures (3.5 hours from the minute I was wheeled into the OR to the minute I left), but damn losing organs is exhausting...

MeekMe said:

This is along the lines of what I was thinking, Bramblethorn. Most individuals aren't going to be shipped off to jail. A financial arm twist and most sites and producers will "tidy up." I used FL as a current and easy example. Truth is, FL has been badly managed and often didn't take the necessary precautions to defend against something like this. They allowed content that pushed the boundaries and didn't do enough to clean up to begin with, so now they're faced with even more restrictions. That site is an easy target, but it's a great leading example to start the charge.

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And people wonder why Literotica has a "no under-age sex" policy...

CutieMouse said:

Ironically (given that I hang out at Fet & Lit), I am not a fan of pornography. Some of my Short Humans are teen and college age - I talk with them about how internet pornography impacts their dopamine levels, and may change neurological pathways which changes viewing habits (always looking for something "more") and that studies over the last few years are showing the damage internet porn habits does to sexual arousal, erections and interpersonal relationships. My lover and I may exchange stills of images we find interesting/arousing, but neither of us watch porn. He's actually more vehemently anti-porn than I am.

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I can relate to some of that. I would shed no tears if 95% of the porn industry disappeared (though I would not act to make that happen, because all the ways of achieving that strike me as worse). There's a lot of shitty stuff made by and for shitty people.

*something something complexities of enjoying BDSM stuff as fantasy while also being aware that some people enjoy it from a place of RL misogyny something something*

I would also be happy if kids didn't view porn until they were grown up and sensible (whenever that happens...) but again, no good way to achieve that. I think parenting like you describe is a better approach than just trying to prevent access, but parenting is hard and people love the idea of a quick fix that isn't their problem.

Once upon a time, the government tried to ban alcohol. We all know how that turned out. At one point, the government tried to ban assault weapons. How did that do? And for the longest time, the government has been waging a war to ban certain drugs. We all know how well that's gone. If there's one thing government doesn't do all that well, it's banning human choices and human vices. Yet, just like with those other wars on our choices, the government will keep trying. The positive side of it is that governments change. I mean, can anyone from New York tell me if Bloomberg's ban on large soft drinks survived his departure from the Mayor's Mansion?

This is a cycle, where every time there's a change of administration in Washington, the losing party foretells gloom and doom for the American people. And they try to scare the shit out of us that we are about to lose our constitutional rights. The same constitutional rights that the losing party was waging a war on when THEY were in office.

But I suspect the censorship on Fetlife is less about government and more about the cowardice of corporate America, though. I mean, have there been any actual laws that politicians are talking about instituting against porn? Or are credit card companies and Internet service providers realizing the booming nature of porn on the Internet and deciding on their own that they need to throttle it? Corporate America bowing to public opinion or the government in the absence of any real laws to justify their actions. And performing self-censorship that we then try to blame on a change of government.

dale124 said:

Once upon a time, the government tried to ban alcohol. We all know how that turned out. At one point, the government tried to ban assault weapons. How did that do? And for the longest time, the government has been waging a war to ban certain drugs. We all know how well that's gone. If there's one thing government doesn't do all that well, it's banning human choices and human vices. Yet, just like with those other wars on our choices, the government will keep trying. The positive side of it is that governments change. I mean, can anyone from New York tell me if Bloomberg's ban on large soft drinks survived his departure from the Mayor's Mansion?

This is a cycle, where every time there's a change of administration in Washington, the losing party foretells gloom and doom for the American people. And they try to scare the shit out of us that we are about to lose our constitutional rights. The same constitutional rights that the losing party was waging a war on when THEY were in office.

But I suspect the censorship on Fetlife is less about government and more about the cowardice of corporate America, though. I mean, have there been any actual laws that politicians are talking about instituting against porn? Or are credit card companies and Internet service providers realizing the booming nature of porn on the Internet and deciding on their own that they need to throttle it? Corporate America bowing to public opinion or the government in the absence of any real laws to justify their actions. And performing self-censorship that we then try to blame on a change of government.

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I would postulate that there are laws which are choking certain segments of society, porn being one of them, legalized drugs another.

For instance, marijuana dispensaries are having a hard time banking their profits because federal laws forbid banks from taking money from operations that deal in prohibited drugs. There were other attempts to do this to the firearms manufacturing industry. The reverberations from that still haven't been totally sorted out yet.

The US Federal Government also leaned on CC processors about a decade ago regarding smaller segments of the porn industry to almost eliminate the ability to distribute what is actually LEGAL porn in some nations albeit disgusting to most people. (Beastiality.) The CC processors stopped doing any transactions involving this type of porn. Whether you participate or not in that particular fetish, the fact remains that government has the ability and has shown that they will exercise it against the porn industry.

I'm not on FL so I have no idea how messed up it is or isn't. What I can say is that smart money shouldn't bet against the ingenuity of the human race to circumvent just about any restriction ever devised.

As for the current political climate, as CM said, the pendulum swings. That is reality and about the only true constant in life. Raging against it only makes you tired.

dale124 said:

This is a cycle, where every time there's a change of administration in Washington, the losing party foretells gloom and doom for the American people. And they try to scare the shit out of us that we are about to lose our constitutional rights. The same constitutional rights that the losing party was waging a war on when THEY were in office.

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"Meet the new boss, same as the old boss"

ISP blocking is a thing here in Russia. And you know what? No one cares. You just get a small plugin for your browser and forget about ISP blocks.

And porn is still being made here too - quite in the open. Why? Because you can't really fight it.

I'm not anti-porn even though I don't care to look at images or watch videos. I get that there are some negative effects but there are also some positives. Certainly there are plenty of anti-obscenity laws worldwide already enacted or on the way to being enacted that target very specific actions often associated with BDSM. This doesn't just count for images or videos but also literature in some cases. Lit offers some genres that fall under the "obscenity" umbrella and if push came to shove, would probably drop anything that threatened the ability to keep the site open. The users wouldn't be shipped off to jail, they'd just lose a platform for their stories.

Blocking ISPs can be gotten around, sure. But what do you do when you start losing the hosting platforms? If it's not there to find, what good is the ISP work around?

Gianbattista said:

Kind of both of these. Still have not seen a porn video, am not as weird about gifs as I used to be.

I think we have to consider that not all want to ban / restrict porn from a morality point of view but because there is porn made in some dubious manners and not all sex workers are happy uncoerced sex workers ( this industry is international for a start) so sometimes to get a round view it's not about restricting our rights but trying to give rights to others.

And a comparison to alcohol; yes , this is governed and rules change! Of course and in some places there is no alcohol legally.

I don't know enough to know what I think should happen, but I do see people unprepared to take a panoramic view.

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In the case of mistreatment of actors that you mention, the solution isn't to ban the material since that doesn't fix the underlying problem of the moral dubiousness in the porn industry. The material produced is irrelevant from a legal perspective, the focus should be on rectifying the lax regulation.
Unfortunately egomaniacal moral zealots in power use it as an excuse to ban content that offends their sensibilities rather than use that legislative power to actually make change for the better.

Compare with prostitutes outside of porn; in the UK it's illegal to be a sex worker so the ones that are mistreated have no union representing them, they can't go to the police to report abuse or financial exploitation, there's no regulatory body to enforce medical and hygiene standards, etc. The solution is to legalize and regulate the actions, making anything contraband generally exacerbates or ignores the underlying issues.

Gianbattista said:

Con, I believe your facts are slightly wrong.

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*Headslap*

Correction; USA.
Point still stands though.

Consilience said:

In the case of mistreatment of actors that you mention, the solution isn't to ban the material since that doesn't fix the underlying problem of the moral dubiousness in the porn industry. The material produced is irrelevant from a legal perspective, the focus should be on rectifying the lax regulation.

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Yup. Mistreatment of porn actors and other sex workers is a real thing, but it's telling that so many of the folk who argue that we need to ban sex work on those grounds are utterly silent about all the other industries that treat workers badly.